Well, first, a big thank you for your detailed account of playtesting; very helpful.

Next, you might want to check RisingRogue 's deck Blue Beats, it is similar to your deck. I made my own list around this idea with the deck Budget blue metagame killer (which you have checked) but I feel it would not resist my LGS decks, especially the recurrent winners, Mardu Control and Abzan Midrange. I have mentioned in a long comment in RisingRogue's thread as well as in my own monoblue deck descriptions that imho mixing blue aggro with Ensoul Artifacts (ie including Ensoul Artifact in a blue deck without it being the center of the deck) yields inconsistent decks. However, Ensoul Artifact is so powerful and especially so fast, it yields a fair number of games.

As for your queries, and overall build, I find 20 targets for a full playset of Ensoul Artifact might be too much; I would consider freeing 2 slots if you need to include other cards, like Military Intelligence.

Keep in mind that you need a lot of creatures to run efficiently Military Intelligence. You might need to sacrifice some control or countermagic to ensure you are activating the Intelligence enough to grant a sustained card advantage to race your deck. You just have to declare the attack, so a couple of ornithopters would grant you a card, but Quickling is not a "true" creature as it is replacing another one which will have to be recast. Unless it is a free creature (only the thopter) you have a nombo there. I have tested Military Intelligence in many different decks across different formats, the best place for it is a lot of early creatures; not to swarm the board, as you only need 2 creatures to participate in the attack, but instead you need as often as possible two creatures safely attacking. That means them surviving after the attack, or more creatures replacing them. Quickling could be nice in the survival part, but having to recast the bounced creature will diminish the Military Intelligence efficiency.

I would keep Stubborn Denial as it is easy to control a 4/4 or higher. Against 1st turn Thoughtseize the answer is probably redundance aside of Stubborn Denial, ie not packing many different strategies with reduced playsets of the key cards...

Perhaps the 4th Quickling and the 4th Vaporkin could be 2x Triton Shorestalker for more aggro, so you can be casting and activating the Military Intelligence on more occasions overall.

As I said, I know Ensoul Artifact is very powerful, but I keep being more and more confident its competitive place is not an aggro deck with critters and some artifacts, but a dedicated deck, either monoblue, like Japanese Robots (see my rendition Doom Engineer), or Izzet (or maybe Simic or Temur??), lest you are dilluting its strength and mixing archetypes...

I will think about Sideboarding (as I am doing for my decks) and revert.

The reason I use Shorestalker is he is steady damage and adding a Ghostfire to him is even better.

He's not a must, but for my Blue version, I like it.

This deck looks fun. How is the turn 3 consistency with Illusionary Angel?

Abubroki, thank you for the detailed comment. I plan on keeping the Ensoul Artifact in the deck because so far, it has been pretty consistent for me in the sense that it yields, on average, 5 or more damage per game. And like you said, it is extremely powerful. Usually, I win with two or three creatures on the field, which is why I am stumbling over Military Intelligence. I definitely lose hard to Mardu Control, but I have remained mostly competitive with Abzan Midrange because they typically try to kill my creatures. I leave 2 mana open for Negate on most plays which gives me a turn or two extra to win. I will think about the substitution of Triton Shorestalker for one of each Vaporkin and Quickling, though I must say that Quickling has won a few games for me, so I'm a bit reluctant.

RisingRogue, it doesn't happen every game on turn 3 because I don't always draw Illusory Angel, but I can typically cast one without a problem thanks to a number of 0 cast spells and a multitude of one-drops.

Do y'all think I should go to 20 mana and drop a Springleaf Drum? First of all, the card is almost $1 a piece for a card that's kind of meh, and I don't really like tapping creatures for mana in this deck too much unless I'm casting Quickling.

I'd go three Drums. It still has the chance of a Land-Drum-Ornithopter-Siren opening hand. Its useful, however I dont even think you need it. You have plenty of artifacts already, for Ensoul. Try dropping it, add 1-2 land and 2 more or something. Might prove better.

Agree. Some drums are useful, but the full playset is arguably necessary only to tap Daring Thief; go for extra land instead.

My opinion, worth testing; add 2 lands, bringing it to 21, and 2 more Void Snare. Slows opponent, which is what you can do with Purse. Takes away a vital flying blocker or even returns your Ensoul that created a ground creature so you can recast it to a new Ornithopter played.

Okay, sounds good. I'm going to run a few play tests with that as an edit. I'll save Military Intelligence for a later playtest series. Expect another long sequence of playtest updates with the changes, and we'll see where it is from there. Thanks, guys.

I got it! Try this!

Bring land to 20. You only need 3 land max to run at top speed. That opens one slot. Now, take out 1 Ghostfire Blade. 3 is just fine.

Now, add 2 Military Intelligence. And there you go!

That could work. Give me about 10 more tests with 20 land, and I'll see. The one reason I like 21 land is AEtherspouts and Into the Void in the sideboard. I will not delete comments until after I try that, though. Thanks, RisingRogue.

Just thought this. If you want 21 land, simply go down to 3 Void Snare :)

Haha! I'm not used to this much feedback. Will do. I will keep testing editing with y'all's thoughts. Look for this to be re-deck-cycled in the next week, RisingRogue and Abubroki.

RisingRogue and Abubroki:

How do y'all feel about me removing Hall of Triumph for Military Intelligence? I feel like I always sided out Triumph, so I didn't find it too useful. Sure, it won one game for me, but is that enough reason to included it?

I brought mine down to just 1. If I draw It, cool. If not, I dont miss It

I needed room to add a couple Taigams Scheming, about to switch Scheming with Dig Through Time. Its def useful with getting counters or Ensoul, Aqueous, etc.

I am beating W Heroic, RWU and others in Cockatrice. I think the meta is now being challenged by blue aggro. Its really good.

Dont look down on Quickling. Its perfect against removal. And Thief. I Tactic-Thiefed a buffed up Hoplite to win the gane in my declare blocjers step. And I untapped the Hoplite I stole so It could block.

Another thing I noticed is that I now pack 3 Nullify instead of Negate. I sideboard Negate now. Slowing opponents offense is securing, not to mention getting rid of a big flyer. Its worth testing.

RisingRogue, I do notice that I sub in Nullify frequently, but I usually trade out Void Snare, or some combination of Void Snare and Negate because Negate allows me to avoid tomfoolery like End Hostilities and the other evil forces of removal, which is important when I'm relying on 2 or 3 flyers to do most of the damage in the game.

After looking over my more recent playtests, what are your thoughts on that? It seems to be working.

I am now using just Void Snare. I realized something. If you want to go aggro, you need some way to get through their defenses. Blue has Nullify, to get rid of the flying blocker, it has Void Snare, to do the same thing or dampens oppositions damage output if in a race.

Blue can cause a lot of confusion because it has so many choices. I have Nullify in side now for Hornet Queen or Butcher of the Horde, etc.

I use Aqueous Form to penetrate defenses to win the race, with Void Snare.

There are many choices.

Briber's Purse is my go to for getting through defenses. It's been pretty effective so far (as seen in playtests). I'm thinking about taking out 1 Negate and 1 Nullify from the sideboard for 2 Disdainful Stroke. I think that could work well for Abzan and Mardu Midrange.

Still don't know what to do against Temur hyper aggro and Jeskai.

Jeskai is hurt with counters and bounce, though its a difficult fight. The Thief can be effective, too. Aetherspouts as well.

For your style blue, I would counter and bounce Temur, like with Void Snare and Into the Void. I don't have much practice against them.

Seems it would be a damage race, so bouncing one or two of their heavy hitters will give you an edge.

If you're still worried about ways to save your Ensoul Artifact equipped Ornithopter, have you considered Hubris?

Hmm. I have not. That could be a very useful sideboard card.

" but I am a blue mage at heart"

I hate you, personally. I really do.But this is a great deck and it doesn't get enough attention and it's awesome that you update everything with your latest games.

The only thing I would change is 2 more Polluted Deltas in exchange for two Islands. But that's just me.

Haha! Hatred taken kindly. Thank you very much. If I had the money for two more Delta, believe me, I would. Thanks for the comment, EpicFreddi.

Congrats on your success :)

I am so vomitingly sick of Jeskai jerkoffs and Mardu copycats. But, with 5 sets in standard, there's not much these uncreative players can do.

Well done on persistence of creativity.

This decks really solid man. Playing in Cockatrice, a good player complimented it big time. I beat 3 different decks of his. He finally owned me with UB Control.

Sideboard ideas:

• Disdainful Stroke, taking out Void Snare vs. Control.

• Icy Blast vs Midrange, not sure what to replace but keep Snare in.

I'm going to make this deck, as I too love Blue.