Consider replacing one set of sorcery, probably Void Snare, with Vampire Hexmage. For BB you can transform Thing in the Ice and board wipe or take out a planeswalker. Just a really solid card all around and it makes Thing in the Ice more viable

I had the thought to do so but found that I could not warrent adding Vampire Hexmage as it requires me to have Thing in the Ice to be useful and thus trends toward dead weight which Void Snare does not do. Besides it is hard to give up a turn 1 return as this deck runs on having relative advantage so loseing a turns worth of removal because I lacked enough 1 drops to have one in my starting hand will often ensure that I fight an uphill battle.

Also, Thing in the Ice won't flip by removing all counters from it with Vampire Hexmage. You still have to play an instant or sorcery spell afterwards, which kinda reduces the utility of Vampire Hexmage alot.

This is, because it only checks for zero counters when you play an instant or sorcery spell. It's not like Dark Depths, for example (which would create a token immediately).

I LOVE control. Consider Cyclonic Rift. Great use of Warped Devotion. +1 for me

Ah yeah I didn't consider that Telerik. I really don't think Thing in the Ice is that good. Realistically, you'd need 2-4 turns after playing it for it to flip. It's easily removed and higher target for removal than most other walls. I wouldn't over emphasize it or rely on it too much in a control deck

Did you switch out Waste Not for Liliana's Caress yet?

It's way crazy

I find that the choice between Waste Not and Liliana's Caress is not a parallel one, in that waste not offers me greater deck consistency as compared to caress which offers me a more aggressive deck (which at its core is a concept that this deck does not align to).

No not parallel. They are very different.

You run the risk of milling yourself before the opponent if you don't get a Thing in the Ice to transform or a Warped Devotion on the board early enough.

You are trading one of your cards for 1 of theirs provided Warped Devotion is in play, plus depending on what they chose to discard, forcing you to draw with Waste Not. So that's 2 into your deck for one of theirs. And while, normally card advantage is a good thing provided you have the ability to find something that can bring the game to a close. Putting all your hopes on Thing in the Ice leaves you open to spot removal. And if you do end up transforming Thing in the Ice, all the zombie tokens you've collected disappear, which isn't actually helping your board position if you have four or more out, which can happen against creature heavy decks. You go from 8/8 in 4 creatures to 7/8 in 1 creature, easy to chump for reanimator, flash, or manlands.

I think if you are going down this route, you should main deck some of those Surgical Extraction to even out the trade off when Waste Not and Jace's Archivist are on the board together.

Or one of the many something else's to recycle your graveyard into your library.

As I said they are not parallel :/ but yes I have weighed and evaluated what you have said and I am aware of the synergies and dis-synergies in this deck. The idea of this deck is control and so you must understand the value of every card to evaluate and modified your strategy to the situation. I'm not going to mindlessly mill myself out with Jace's Archivist and Waste Not that would be insane. I utilize my opponents relative card advantage against them as archivist redraws based on the largest of two hand sizes so throwing away a large hand is not bad as if it is played carefully you can match your own discard to theirs and even force them to deck out faster than yourself. This deck is not as straightforward as it seems on paper hmgiven that it is at heart a control deck which means it reacts to the situation not acts by itself. It is a meta level skill that separates newer players from older players in how they operate the deck. I appreciate your comments but I find that you haven't seen the full picture yet, just a large piece.

oh yes, whoops. Meant to say "you're right. They are not parallel."

I'm totally not suggesting you "mindlessly mill". I don't think you should "mindlessly" anything in this game. I just wanted to bring up a weird situation I found when play testing this against a low land count, heavy artifact deck.

So, let's say you have Warped Devotion and Waste Not out on the board.

They have Academy Ruins and Aether Spellbomb on the board.

What would be the play here?

If you play Thing in the Ice, they can sac spellbomb and recycle it indefinitely, unless you hit their mana base hard enough and consistently enough force them to discard the ruins. Eventually you may get to a point where you can transform it the same turn it is played, but then assuming something else is in the opponent's hand for them to discard, they just play/sac the spellbomb their next turn and you've just spent a bunch of mana and cards for no reason.

If you bounce the spell bomb, they can choose to discard it forcing you to draw from Waste Not. They can then recycle the spellbomb back into their hand on the next draw. Net result is they have lost nothing, while you have spent a bounce and drawn a card from your deck. Not good.

Bouncing the ruins seems to be the best option here, but provided they have more non creature cards in hand, it is not really changing the situation. They just play it on their next turn, recycle the artifact they were forced to discard, and you would be "out" 2 cards again to their 0, just a turn slower.

If you try to prevent this from happening by bouncing your own Warped Devotion, it still puts you at a 1 to 0.

Activating the archivist after you bounce the ruins getting it into their graveyard seems to be the best way of dealing with it, considering what you have in stock in your mainboard, but this is assuming you can get one to stick before they bounce him too. Haste could fix that but that would be an awkward addition to this deck.

Those sideboarded Surgical Extraction are the only way I see that you have out of this war of attrition, without adding some protection against mill.

I just wanted to bring this up because I found it interesting and while I understand that Waste Not is more useful than not against most matchups, as it provides you with more cards/more mana/more threats, there are these outliers that while not obviously formidable, do put you in a very uncomfortable position without some non-creature based win condition.

Just a heads up.

ps what do you think of Lone Revenant?

Necrogen Mists??

In regards to the tail-end of the now archived comment: I find that Lone Revenant is a bit slow and I have 4 Surgical Extraction and 3 Extirpate so it's pretty easy for me to just remove the recursive maneuvers you've stated. I keep them in sideboard as they tend to slow down my primary strategy while reducing my defensive. Also Necrogen Mists is nice but kind of slow in execution.

Something like Creeping Tar Pit might help this deck win through extraction effects, and give it a little more diversity in its threats.

Love the deck, +1 from me.

Hunted Horror is a great threat for this deck to have, it has amazing synergy with all the blue bounce spells, and even more with the thing in the ice. I would remove some number of snap back and void snare to make room.

why Eye of Nowhere over Boomerang?

I second the Hunted Horror sentiment. This deck needs more threats

@CheeseBro I utilize both main board for consistency in removal. As for Hunted Horror while it is thematic to the deck, the current meta game often has many quick and effective removals for a card like this which would more often result in me giving them more threats than I can handle early and mid game. As for my capacity to field threats, this deck does lack a large supply however this works for deck by forcing my opponent to make the hard choice of holding onto only removal or their returned combo pieces as they have to discard which ultimately results in stagnation of a lack of defense which fuels my progression.

Great Deck!

Any thoughts on Call to the Netherworld in the sideboard just in case they counter/kill all your Thing in the Ice?

Uhg need comment editor

better suited for the Hunted Horror idea

Why the Flooded Strand? there's no white spells. I like the idea though. I printed out a proxy version and had some fun with it with a friend. It seems like a deck that people would quit out of while playing online. That always happens with my land destruction deck.

I have 8 fetch lands in order to help deck thin and ensure correct mana. It's a bit overkill but with such a low deck CMC everything that helps to prevent mana flooding is pretty useful.