Ultimately, Blue Moon is a control deck, and we're going to have to grind out matches to win. Land destruction and manipulation has always been an intriguing concept to me, and I enjoy controlling the board much more than charging straight ahead with an aggro deck. I like to think of it as an elegant deck for a more civilized age.
Blood Moon - Well, you knew it'd be in here. It's certainly a divisive card, but it's just such a game-changer in modern. Virtually every Tier 1 deck in the format relies heavily on non-basic land for something, and
Blood Moon can single-handedly win you the game in some matchups. It slows down Tron (and most other decks) and shuts down Titanshift and some U/W, Esper, and Jeskai builds where man-lands are the main threat. Fetch for some basic islands early, stick Blood Moon on Turn 3, and we're going to be in good shape. And in a matchup where Blood Moon isn't a great card, it's easy to side out for more counters/wipes/removal. Lastly, great flavor text!
Cryptic Command - Probably my favorite card in all of MTG. Opponent casts their main win condition? Counter, draw. Opponent sticks a dangerous enchantment or plainswalker? Bounce, counter or bounce, draw. Opponent going wide and attacking with a whole mess of tokens? Tap all creatures, draw a card. Hell, you can even bounce your own Snapcaster Mage, counter/draw/tap creatures, then play Cryptic again with Snap's enter the battlefield effect (or
Torrential Gearhulk). We want to fetch for islands so we can play Cryptic after Blood Moon is on the board and freeze our opponent out of the game.
Mana Leak - I don't love Mana Leak, but I don't have a great replacement for it either. It seems like a card I'm always drawing late game when it's lost most of its value. However, it's great if you draw it early, as it can hit any spell, which is why it's in here over something like
Negate or
Dispel (both are sideboard cards, however) and it's a permanent counter unlike
Remand. It's also a good card if your opponent is playing expensive threats that they have to (or usually) tap out for.
Logic Knot could be a good option over Mana Leak, but with Snap and
Torrential Gearhulk in my deck, I don't want to drain my graveyard too much or too often.
Spell Snare - Excellent counter in modern. Virtually every deck relies heavily on some type of two-drop, making Spell Snare useful in tons of matchups. It slows down a lot of creature-based decks and does a great job of protecting your own spells that would often be targeted by Negate, Mana Leak, or Remand. Spell Snare is obviously limited by
only hitting two-drops, which is why I usually stick to two of them in this deck.
Izzet CharmI'm probably in the minority, but I love Izzet Charm as a one-of in this deck. It offers great utility and stays useful at every stage of the match. It's the poor man's Mana Leak early in the game, it can be used for creature removal in a pinch, and the cycling ability has saved me numerous times when I start flooding or drawing dead cards late in the game. A lot of people raise an eyebrow when they see this card in my deck, but it's almost always a useful card. Great one-of.
Lightning Bolt,
Electrolyze,
Anger of the Gods - Some removal/burn to control the board and chip away at our opponent. We aren't going to win by burning our opponent, but it can help us get there or finish them off. The only flashback combo in our deck better than Snap/Bolt is Gearhulk/Cryptic (the Gearhulk/Cryptic combo is often a turning point that will win us the game).
Electrolyze is a great card for your opponent's end step when you can destroy a creature (or two) or just hit your opponent with the added bonus of drawing a card.
Anger of the Gods is your board wipe and insurance against any sort of deck that's trying to go wide. Anger is also sneaky good at removing hexproof creatures you can't hit with Bolt or Electrolyze. All of these cards are also great targets for Snap's flashback, and the instants synergize well with Gearhulk too.
