A surveil and control deck that focuses on repeatedly using surveil to add +1/+1 counters to Thoughtbound Phantasm and Dimir Spybug, the Phantasm having defender until it has 3 +1/+1 counters on it making it good as a blocker early game until it is usable as a 5/5 attacker if needed. The Spybug has menance and flying, making it awkward to block early game, and with multiple of them stacked with counters they can be very dangerous mid and late game if they're not dealth with by opponents.
It also has Thing in the Ice
as a board reset and it bounces all non horror creatures back to everyones hands when it transforms. It starts with 4 ice counters, that are removed per sorcery and instant cast until when all are removed it transforms into a 7/8. You're best casting this midgame if you feel like you're going to need a boardstate reset if opponents creatures are starting to become an issue, as Thing in the ices tranformation effect affects any non horror creature you might have on your field so it stays on the board giving you a board reset, bouncing all an opponents creatures back into their hand forcing them to recast them, and maybe discard if they already had 5 or 6 cards in hand before having 6 creatures bounced back into their hand.
Disinformation Campaign ability to bounce back to your hand by surveiling is great with the multiple ways you can surveil repeatedly with the creatures and a few of the spells in this deck. Forcing each opponent to discard a card while simultaniously allowing you to draw a card, allowing you to gain card advantage over multiple opponents at once in multiplayer games while still being effective in 1v1s. This discard effect also helps make Drown in the Loch more effective as a counter or a destroy card, as each card in an opponents graveyard increases the converted mana cost of spells able to be countered or creatures able to be destroyed, by Drown in the Loch, by one for each card in their respective graveyard(s).
Enhanced Surveillance does what is says on the tin. It allows you to surveil 2 more cards ontop of whatever the original surveil value is. It's great for sorting out your cards for the next couple of turns and lets you plan ahead a lot more. Great when used with Disinformation Campaign to draw into needed cards. Also has the ability to shuffle your graveyard back into your library for the cost of exiling this enchantment. Good for a reset if you're putting a lot of cards into the graveyard with surveil in order to get to cards you need to keep advantage during a tough game.
Lazav, the Multifarious has surveil 1 on entering the field and it's X cost mana ability allows you to make it into a copy of target creature in your graveyard whilst retaining it's Copy ability, helping mitigate any disadvantage caused by creature cards lost through surveil or through opponents removal.
There are a lot of cards their either allow you to surveil repeatedly like Nightveil Sprite when you declare it as an attacker, Sinister Starfish is great for simply tapping to surveil, Master of Death as it allows you to surveil 2 on entering the battlefield, and is able to be returned to your hand from the graveyard on upkeep for 1 life, letting you recast it and surveil again. So you have an offensive way of repeated surveiling with the Sprite, and 2 passive ways with the Starfish and Master giving you options depending on the board state on how you can surveil.
Thought erasure also allows you to surveil 1 alongside it's selective discard ability, and is good for bouncing Disinformation Campaign back to you hand in a pinch or adding counters to the Spybug or phantasm, it also helps by removing ice counters from Thing in the Ice
if you're needing that board reset.
Each of the counterspells in this deck have one thing in common, they're relatively cheap, letting you cast creatures ect and keep a couple lands up to pay for them since most of them are 2 cmc cost, as well as each having various secondary effects that try to vary the options you have at dealing with different decks.
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Drown in the Loch is incredibly flexible, provided you can fill up an opponents graveyard, which isn't too difficult if you're constantly bouncing Disinfo Campaign forcing your opponent to discard ontop of the cheap counterspells that you have available that'll help you along with that. With it's cheap 2 mana cost, effectiveness against either creature or non creature spells based off cmc value that scales with the number of cards in an opponents graveyard, this card scales well into late game whilst being cheap enough to allow you to play multiple creatures or sorceries in a turn and still have the 2 mana left for responses during opponents turns.
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Soul Manipulation is a unique one, giving you the option of choosing to do one or both of these options of countering target creature spell or bringing target creature card from your gravyard to your hand. Very effective counter ontop of being graveyard retrieval for 3 mana is fantastic, good for pulling cards like Thing in the ice back if he's been removed or Lazav, the Multifarious since he can become a copy any other creature still in the graveyard.
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Test of Talents is fantastic instant and sorcery counter for 2 mana, whilst also removing cards with the same name from an opponents hands and library, making it very effective against particularly powerful or annoying spells you opponents have and remove them from the game as it exiles all these cards. Your opponent gets to draw cards to replace any copies that are removed from their hand but that is fine as this caveat is probably the reason this card is only 2 mana.
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Continuing this trend is Unmoored Ego, which allows you to choose a card name and search your opponents hand, library and graveyard for any cards with that name and exile them. Very similar to Test of Talents but it is a sorcery not an instant, 3 mana cmc cost not 2, and lets you actively remove a card from the game unlike Test of Talents only allowing you to do it reactively. Unmoored ego is also not limited to instants and sorceries so is good for getting rid of key cards in an opponents deck they need, such as cards required for their decks win conditions, or anything you find particularly hard to counter in their deck.
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Both these cards, Test of Talents and Unmoored Ego can't effect cards already out on the field however, so keep that in mind.
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Cryptic Command is in there for it's versatility. It allows you the choice of 2 different options from a list of good choices. Such as heavy countering someone by countering a spell and bouncing a permanent back to their hand, or as a finisher by tapping all creatures target opponent controls, oh and the option of drawing 1 card. The last one isn't optimal for the card cost overall since there is the draw power of Disinfo Campaign at your disposal but good in a pinch if you're stuck and need a hail mary card draw or simply don't need one of the other more useful effects.
The land for this deck is set out as such that there's a bit more even a split in mana colour comapared to the ratio of actual mana colour values on the cards for better conistency drawing as most cards are 2 cmc, 1 Black one Blue. You'll notice there's more of an emphasis on getting a blue mana producing land on turn one to get Thoughtbound Phantasm the best chance of being played turn 1 with the hope of playing Dimir Spybug on turn 2, and going from there.
As for the particular lands themselves:
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The dual fetchland Polluted Delta for cheap manafix.
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Dual shock land Watery Grave.
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I ended up adding Drowned Catacomb in as well just so I had dual lands that could come in untapped without paying life. As all the Polluted Deltas life payments totaled with all the Watery graves is a total of 10 life needed to pay for them all, assuming you need to play all the shock lands uptapped. Adding these Drowned Catacombs in spreads the potential life payments out as there is the same chance of pulling them as the Shock lands and since all they require is you have an island or swamp already in play, which either the 2 types of basics or shock lands in this deck can fill that requirement, making them very likely to come in untapped.
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Final note is just on the basic lands ratios to one another and the other dual/fetch lands. There are 6 islands and 4 swamps making it a third more likely to pull an island than a swamp. This is for Thoughtbound phantasm, to try and get him out on turn one as a optimal first turn, as well as due to some of the instants and sorceries requiring specific mana payments of either 2 or 3 blue mana, while most other spells only require one black mana for them to be cast. The fetchlands are tied with the basic swamps with 4 of them in the deck. This is due to it's versitility in being able to grab either one of the basic land types or even one of the shock lands if it's really needed, making it well worth the one life payment. Tied together at 3 are Watery Grave, Drowned Catacombs making 6 dual lands in total. Since you have the fetchlands and 10 basics, totaling at 14 cards, you're more likely to have a basic card in play early game with the dual lands more likely to come in later.
The sideboard of this deck as you might notice is all mill cards, the idea being you can swap out the control element of this deck and make the deck into a surveil and mill deck. For when your control isn't effective, especially in multiplayer games against multiple decks your deck might find hard to counter. Or just to get back at your friends if they all gang up on you, and knock you out early in your first round of multiplayer games of the night with this deck.
What cards you sub out and how much you can lean into mill is flexible, with what counterspell cards you keep being situational. For a full sub in you'd replace all instants, sorceries and enchantments apart from Drown in the Loch, Thought Erasure and Disinformation Campaign.
You'll give up a lot of counterspell but having Drown in the Loch is great with a mill set up since it really maxes out it's scaling converted mana cost counter and destroy. Jace, the Perfected Mind is a sub that's more suitable for multiplayer, it's +1 loyalty ability can be used on opponents creatures if you think they're going to attack you with them after your turn, or on your turn to debuff one of their bigger creatures you know they're going to block with. It's -X ability is better than the mainboard Jace in the context of dishing out mill over multiple opponents, rather than than the -12 of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, that is more effective I find, for finishing a single opponent.
Maddening Cacophony, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Mind Grind and Fractured Sanity all can target multiple opponents.
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Maddening Carcocphony has an insane kicker that mills half each opponents deck, and can be used as an early game mill card if needed.
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Tasha's Hideous Laughter mills multiple oppoents, but only for a set total converted mana amount, however lands are 0 cost, so lands are still exiled but don't add to the count, nasty due to the potential damage to low average CMC decks ontop of the exile denying dredge or graveyard decks.
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Mind Grind is scaleable and is good for potentially finishing multiple opponents after using the other two cards mentioned here, and lastly...
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Fractured sanity which for 3 blue mana can make each opponent mill 14 cards, or you can cycle it for 1 blue and 1 colourless and draw a card and still mill everyone for 4, very usefull with that flexibility.
Glimpse the Unthinkable and Mind Funeral are target opponent mill cards.
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Glimpse being a 2 mana mill ten which is nasty as a finisher or midgame to pressure a certain opponent. Useful in conjunction with Drown in the Loch to pump a persons graveyard if you cast it last so it happens first in the stack before Drown in the Loch resolves if you're using it as a counter, or using Glimpse before you use Loch as a destroy on a creature.
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Mind funeral is a solid mill until 4 lands which can be punishing simply for it's land removal let alone the cards milled in between.
Note: This is my first proper blue deck I've made, so any suggestions on cards would be greatly appreciated. If anyone has feedback from playtesting I'd be really interested on how you feel the deck plays and if there was anything that jumps out at you that could be improved, especially with the counterspell cards in this deck. I've messed around a lot with the instants/sprceries in this deck and still a bit undecided in how I feel about a few of them, especially Soul Manipulation, Tyrant's Scorn, Test of Talents and Unmoored Ego. With regards to the number of copies and their ratio to each other, or if there is any alternatives I've missed that would be a better fit for this deck. Thanks in advance.
Playtest Notes: Sinister star fish was subbed in, originally there was 4 Thoughtbound phantasms and 3 Nightveil Sprites but the sprites having to attack led to issues with them being blocked by opponents with multiple flyers, just to hamper my ability to surveil repeatedly. The starfish is great for it's ability to tap to surveil, and with enhanced surveil up, being able to sort through 3 cards without risking it as an attacker is great.
The mill sideboard was interesting to say the least. I was in a 3 man free for all game with 2 friends and by turn 5 they had 16 and 15 cards left in their libraries respectively. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is a very effective card since lands count as 0 mana towards it's cmc total so it can mill a lot of cards if the deck is low average cmc. Fractured Sanity is also a very effective card since it's a set card number but unaffected by cmc value unlike Tasha's Hideous Laughter, so it covers both bases having these two cards in the sideboard.
