Freezing Point: 3/32 - Blue
Hello everyone, and welcome to the third installment of Freezing Point! In this series I'm going to brew a 75% EDH deck of each color combination from the ground up. The intended meta for these will be a casual meta, though while not built competitively they will be spiked as hard as possible. You may be confused seeing some pricier cards in here like Imperial Seal and Mishra's Workshop but if those help the particular deck they're in then so be it. Really expensive cards supporting really bad strategies. It's like designing a house with your significant other over months meticulously planning out every detail and then taking a piss on the schematics and walls.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
Just like with white, selecting a commander and then a theme for them was difficult to settle upon. Braids would have been 'Upkeep large dudes into play' with Paradox Haze and Quicksilver Amulet and other ramp to hard-cast my guys. Empress Galina would use Leyline of Singularity to take anything she wanted and probably use Paradox Engine to use her more often. Patron of the Moon would have used a land-bounce theme to slow other people down and break parity with its own taxing effects, eventually using Meloku and Amulet of Vigor to have all the fliers. Thassa would have played hard control and large dudes that I would make unblockable and smack people hopefully only once with to kill off people.
We want to be able to burn through our deck for card advantage's sake or something so I've put in some stuff that goes well here and in general when playing blue. Bident of Thassa and Coastal Piracy both go really well with Thada and our islandwalkers. The usual small cantrips are here with Ponder, Preordain, and Brainstorm for cheap yet powerful drawing. The wheels are included because we hope to empty our hand either of our own mana rocks and then refill or of our more expensive things after taking our opponent's stuff. Plus if our hand is ever bad then we don't mind casting a wheel and pitching our crap to get a new hand full of things to do. They also tend to mess with people's tutors, whether they go to their hand or the top of their deck.
These things are here just because they're good. Paradox Engine makes a comeback because of all the rocks we have (thank you for your generosity, opponents!) We could play something like Temple Bell but Engine here is less of a combo piece and more of a value engine, although including Isochron Scepter doesn't really help my case. We play High Tide since we're playing only islands though we're not running Candelabra because we're not really a High Tide deck. Strionic Resonator goes very well with Thada, Engine, and maybe even some stuff we can find from our opponents.
Depending on what you gauge as the speed and/or skill level of your pod is you can vary your opening hands based on that information. You don't need to play Thada on turn 1 or 2 every game, but should you? Did you get some disruption that you know will slow down an aggro player or a control player and you'd rather get that out than slam Thada? Be very aware of who you are playing against, both the commanders and the people.
The top-end cards in the deck as far as price goes aren't all that necessary. Stax and other hate should always be tailored to your meta so if you don't think you'll need a Back to Basics then don't feel compelled to go out and get one. Fetches are useful but of course not really necessary. Some of the control and mana rocks again while very good aren't a necessity so you can replace them with (monetarily) cheaper ones. As usual, if you are going to replace a card then try to keep the effect that it brings to the deck if possible especially if it is the only source of that effect in the deck. And of course tailor things to how you think the deck would function best. If you need that Expedition Map or that Power Conduit (for Fountain [how spicy, right?]) then feel free to include it. I usually always keep the cards that were cut in the sideboard listed to give people options and to show other directions I was considering.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
Overview
Just like with white, selecting a commander and then a theme for them was difficult to settle upon. Braids would have been 'Upkeep large dudes into play' with Paradox Haze and Quicksilver Amulet and other ramp to hard-cast my guys. Empress Galina would use Leyline of Singularity to take anything she wanted and probably use Paradox Engine to use her more often. Patron of the Moon would have used a land-bounce theme to slow other people down and break parity with its own taxing effects, eventually using Meloku and Amulet of Vigor to have all the fliers. Thassa would have played hard control and large dudes that I would make unblockable and smack people hopefully only once with to kill off people.
Full disclosure: if I were to build a paper mono-blue deck I'd probably actually play Azami Wizards. Since I'm staying away from decks that are already good (and this tribal is actually kind of good) I chose to go with Thada Adel, Acquisitor. The game plan is to utilize Thada's thieving ability to ramp up and/or take away important things from opponents. To help her get through we flood lands in one of the most hilarious ways: Quicksilver Fountain! There's other ways too, but this is the funniest. I brainstormed about this card a while back but I never developed it any further. Now is a great time for it to shine (in foil)! The overall goal is to acquire card advantage via other people's cards and ramp to eventual large unblockable creatures.
We'll go through the deck section by section, breaking down what's in the deck and what it does for the deck.
Flooding the land
One of the most important parts of this deck is to hit with Thada early. If ramping her out on turn two, or one, and then smacking people a few times doesn't work, just aim for the blue player (though you probably want to do that regardless). If there doesn't seem to be a blue player in your pod, which would be very unusual, then we need to moisten up the land a bit. The aforementioned Quicksilver Fountain will give a continuous stream of islands for our merfolk folk. We have a couple permanent options in Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas and a few never-ending options like Magical Hack and Aquitect's Will. These help to get our dudes through unhindered as well as actively hinder our opponents who don't want to play blue.
Islandwalkers
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| Attack restriction? No problem. |
We're flooding the land with water. We may as well push some big islandwalkers through in Thada's wake. While none of these dudes are particularly impressive, Stormtide Leviathan does give me a sort of Moat effect as well as turning on all islandwalking and Mana Web. Colossal Whale acts as continuous Journey to Nowheres. Chasm Skulker can get out of hand too if left alone for too long and make tons of dudes for us. Inkwell Leviathan also hits for a decent chunk. While the islandwalking isn't super impressive by itself, we're also drawing cards off of Coastal Piracy (more theft themes) and hopefully taking our opponents off their own colors.
Theft
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| You like dah shiny? |
Keeping with the pirate theme, there's other ways to steal things from people. Memnarch takes things that are out already whether it's an artifact or not, thereby converting things to our way in two different ways simultaneously. Like a commander someone else is playing? Empress Galina would like to have a word. Like a spell someone else is casting? Aethersnatch that punk. Did you see a juicy creature in someone's deck after Thada paid them a visit? Bribery that guy to our side. Want to make someone feel bad for killing your creature? Keiga's got your back.
Draw
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| Go go gadget incidental card draw! |
Value
These things are here just because they're good. Paradox Engine makes a comeback because of all the rocks we have (thank you for your generosity, opponents!) We could play something like Temple Bell but Engine here is less of a combo piece and more of a value engine, although including Isochron Scepter doesn't really help my case. We play High Tide since we're playing only islands though we're not running Candelabra because we're not really a High Tide deck. Strionic Resonator goes very well with Thada, Engine, and maybe even some stuff we can find from our opponents.Control and Stax
Our control suite is small yet still very important. There's a couple counterspells to help protect us from getting put out of the game as well as prevent people from winning (how political). Of course if you're playing blue in EDH then you're playing Cyclonic Rift. The last addition as well as a strange choice is Scourge of Fleets. It's thematic here and it's almost another Cyclonic Rift.
For stax, we always like to try to find things that are symmetrical but don't actually affect us (or as little as possible) which basically breaks the symmetry, like control decks playing board wipes; it seems like it's fair and even but if none of its caster's creatures die then they get way more out of it than everyone else. Anyway, stax pieces. Overburdern was going to be a mainstay in Patron and it helps here as we won't be casting creatures very often. Back to Basics nearly doesn't hit us at all, and a well-timed one can completely take people out. While Urborg didn't make the final cut Mana Web still remains as it can nullify large chunks of people's mana base almost regardless of what colors they're playing, especially since we're also trying to turn their lands into islands!
Ramp and Land
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| Where my homies at? |
We're not playing anything too special when it comes to our ramp. Caged Sun is one-sided and very useful here acting as both an anthem and a mana-doubler. Mox Opal should always be active. The other usual suspects of cheap mana rocks are here. Achievement: have 4 Sol Rings with different sleeves out in one game!
Inventors' Fair should always gain you life and always be ready to tutor things that you need. Since we're still in the world of colors we can play a full fetch suite (though of course it's not really necessary). Academy Ruins pulls back some of our stuff that our opponents may have gotten rid of and can probably justify including Expedition Map.
Construction and play considerations
While incredibly difficult to goldfish (no pun intended) this deck does take some thought. Since you will be islandwalking whether your opponents like it or not should you get in to the people who don't have them yet and only hit the blue players until you can come back to them later? Did you cast Thada on turn 2 (turn 1?) and do you have a few free swings on people? What artifacts do I know my opponents have or absolutely need for their deck? Is someone going to combo off with an artifact? Do I want to exile someone's artifact just so they can't play it? What do I need to grab in order to play what's in my hand and who do I think has it? This deck is much more interactive than it may seem.
Depending on what you gauge as the speed and/or skill level of your pod is you can vary your opening hands based on that information. You don't need to play Thada on turn 1 or 2 every game, but should you? Did you get some disruption that you know will slow down an aggro player or a control player and you'd rather get that out than slam Thada? Be very aware of who you are playing against, both the commanders and the people.
The top-end cards in the deck as far as price goes aren't all that necessary. Stax and other hate should always be tailored to your meta so if you don't think you'll need a Back to Basics then don't feel compelled to go out and get one. Fetches are useful but of course not really necessary. Some of the control and mana rocks again while very good aren't a necessity so you can replace them with (monetarily) cheaper ones. As usual, if you are going to replace a card then try to keep the effect that it brings to the deck if possible especially if it is the only source of that effect in the deck. And of course tailor things to how you think the deck would function best. If you need that Expedition Map or that Power Conduit (for Fountain [how spicy, right?]) then feel free to include it. I usually always keep the cards that were cut in the sideboard listed to give people options and to show other directions I was considering.
Wrap-up
There's the deck and another small Magic lesson for you all! Here is the complete list to peruse and hopefully get proxied to test. As I said before, it's very difficult to solitaire. You can solitaire it and assume that people will have a Sol Ring, you could even play another physical deck while playtesting this on your computer, or you could see if you can either proxy it or play it on the computer while they play paper cards. Check in with the sideboard too for more options in nearly every category. Thanks for taking the time to read this! I hope you got something useful out of this. Be sure to check in next time for the next installment of Freezing Point!
All cards owned and all rights reserved by Wizards of the Coast. I'm just some nerd who spent too much time staring at them.
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