Anticipate Stick

Commander / EDH Control Mono-Blue Stax

Deathstroke2791

Instant (24)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Archmage's Charm
• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Discontinuity
• 1x Engulf the Shore
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Strix Serenade
• 1x Summary Dismissal
• 1x Three Steps Ahead
• 1x Trickbind
• 1x Ugin's Binding

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Dissipation Field
• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Omniscience
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 16x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Urza's Saga

Creature (8)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
• 1x Tishana's Tidebinder
• 1x Torrential Gearhulk

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Knowledge Pool
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mycosynth Lattice
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Day's Undoing
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Extract
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Solve the Equation
• 1x Time Reversal
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Timetwister

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Telepathy

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Consuming Tide

Artifact (1)

• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box

Instant (1)

• 1x Narset's Reversal

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Man. This deck has come a long way. Arcanis the Omnipotent was the original commander of this deck. Because people hate mono-blue counters, I decided to switch to a more fluid control aided by group hug. Then, I made the decision to make Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar the commander to take advantage of this group hug. In it's near final iteration, I've decided to fall back from the group hug and embrace the hate mono-blue control gets. Tomorrow is good enough to handle it now. It's been 5 years since I first made Tomorrow my commander. I took the primer down a couple of years ago because I found out I 1) had no clue what I was talking about and 2) was making large edits to the deck. The time has come for me to put the primer back up, better than ever. First will be a list of pros and cons of playing this deck. Second will be a card by card breakdown of the decklist. Why certain cards are there, why certain cards are not, what cards might have been considered, etc. Lastly, and this primer will be updated regularly because of it, I will include archetype match-ups: the good the bad, the ugly. If you see certain archetypes, how should this deck approach it? Do certain commanders within that archetype change your strategy? I want to provide a complete deck experience for you to be inspired by this deck, and to possibly make it your own.

Pros and Cons

Pros

This is very easily and outrageously my most fun deck. (I wouldn't be putting the effort to put a primer in if it wasn't right?) So, the pros are as follows.

• The deck is super resilient. It has answers to EVERYTHING (insert disclaimer about emblems here).

• It is EXTREMELY forgiving of misplays. As long as your misplay isn't lethal, you always have a chance to come back and win. ALWAYS.

• You're hardly ever mana-starved. Because of adequate ramp, as long as you get Tomorrow out, it is very unlikely you will miss a land drop. If you need a land, you can just pick a land from among your top three.

• It's easy to overlook Tomorrow. She's not a high-key commander, so oftentimes, you will not be perceived as the threat, when you most certainly are.

• You will be able to sculpt the perfect hand for every situation with this deck, and your spells, because of the nature of the deck, aren't one-offs. You will cast your favorite spells again and again.

• If you enjoy playing reactive magic, you will enjoy this deck. The deck will only ever do something pro-active when it's ramping out Tomorrow in the beginning, or when it's going for the win. Everything else is just meant to keep you alive.

• While the commander is a part of one of the decks win-cons, the deck, while less potent, is definitely functional without the commander. Commander reliance can be hurtful, that's why we don't do it.

Cons

• If you enjoy a deck with linear or proactive strategies, this is not the deck for you.

• If you want to be casting your commander early and often, this is not the deck for you. You might cast Tomorrow twice. On a good day three times.

• After a while in a playgroup, this deck will start to draw a little hate. So in order to avoid a lot of that hate, sometimes you probably won't play it as much to avoid salt at the table.

• The deck has very few win-cons. So if you're someone that likes to win in "multiple ways," then this isn't the best deck. In the deck's defense though I will say the variance comes in the moment's leading up to the win. This control deck isn't some "counter everything then win" deck. Finding all the different ways a problem can be solved in each different game and finding the different ways to get there is where the variance comes in. It just so happens that once all that is over, your last two to three cards cast tend to be the same.

How to Win

So, due to the nature of everything that's not ramp or draw in this deck having the sole purpose of keeping you alive, there aren't a lot of win conditions. In fact, we really only have 3.

• The first one is a soft lock, and the one that makes the deck unique among others. The two-piece lock combo of Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar and Possessed Portal will lock your opponents from drawing any new cards for the rest of the game, as long as you have a card in hand to discard. And seeing as Tomorrow gets around Possessed Portal's "skip draw" clause since Tomorrow replaces the draw, so Portal doesn't make you skip something that never happened, you'll always have a card to discard to slowly choke your opponents out of the game. While this wincon is slow in can be sped up in one or both of these two fashions. Use this after a timely board-wipe; it can be cast by you, but it doesn't have to be. And soon after dropping the the combo, cast one of your many wheel effects to empty out their hand they'll never get back. While most will concede at this stage, if someone wants you to make it official, you have a few creatures in the deck that finish up the job. I've even won a game with commander damage before. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, also combos with Possessed Portal under the conditions that your opponents haven't gained "no maximum hand size" from a Reliquary Tower or similar card and you have enough permanents and cards in hand to outlast your opponents.

• The second is another soft lock; Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Knowledge Pool. This combo is pretty well known, so if you know about it, skip ahead. But for those that don't I'll explain. Teferi stops opponents from playing spells at instant speed. When an opponent casts a spell, it will get exiled under Knowledge Pool, but the cast of the different spell isn't allowed by Teferi because that cast happens at instant speed, essentially locking your opponents out of the game. The only issue you run into with this lock is if your opponent often casts from areas other than their hand.

• My third lock is Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice. Lattice makes everything artifacts. Karn makes those artifacts useless. This is best played after a board wipe or with a Propaganda in play, so opponents are unable to pay the mana required to attack you. This lock doesn't straight up win you the game, but it puts you in the driver's seat to play what creatures you do have and swing. If your playgroup allows wish boards for Karn, find some artifact combo that ACTUALLY wins you the game, so you and your friends can move on to the next game.

• Fourth win condition is Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. Most opponents, towards the end of the game where this will be played, will not be able to handle a Kozilek. And even if they do have an answer, Kozilek draws me four cards on the cast, which is essentially protecting itself the way this deck plays, and even if somehow they answer it, it will be back in 2 turns with how fast the deck can dig through itself. After a few swings with a 10/10 and annihilator 4 at the end of a game, it's pretty much over.

Now I will mention a couple of other win conditions that I don't use because they're infinite combos. While I personally have nothing against them, I just don't like playing with infinite combos, the win doesn't feel as good. But I will mention them for your sake and for the sake of the primer.

• Temple Bell and Mind Over Matter. This is a infinite combo, that would fit right into this deck perfectly. Temple Bell was in here while this was a group hug deck, but since the group hug package left, so did it. Mind Over Matter would just generally work as some nice control in this deck as well, but without it being a combo piece, I couldn't justify what it did for it's mana cost. But your hand is always full, so having some fodder to toss to Mind Over Matter is plentiful.

• The other one is Pulse of the Grid with Dream Halls. Obviously, Dream Halls is still in the list; it's a good card. Pulse of the Grid isn't so great by itself, and the combo itself doesn't even really win you the game, it is just an infinite draw combo to get you to one of your other win-cons.

Card Choice Explanations

Card Draw

Considering this is probably one of the more unique card draw packages amongst mono-blue decks, and what really makes this deck hum, I'm going to start here. This is that gas that makes the deck go, and it goes so overlooked by opponents.

• Archmage Emeritus - A third of my deck is instants and sorceries. Especially considering the ability to guarantee I get instants and sorceries with my commander plus shuffling all my spells back in later, this card will put in a lot of work.

• Commit / Memory - We'll focus on the analysis of just Memory here. Aftermath is so good here. After already getting use out of Commit, we get a wheel attached to it. It's essentially like having a 101st card in my deck. Which is exactly why Lutri was banned, so if we're comparing ourselves to Lutri, we know we're at least doing something right.

• Consecrated Sphinx - It's good. Good enough to take up one of my prized creature slots. If it can last a turn around a table, that's 6 cards and a blocker (sometimes attacker, but probably not) in the air. For 6 mana. I know this is a well-known card, but I cater to audiences of all experience levels, so this includes the newbies that might not know about the sphinx.

• Day's Undoing - While ending the turn involuntarily is not ideal, three mana for this affect is great, and you can essentially just hold up the rest of your mana with your new hand to make sure you're safe until your next turn.

• Echo of Eons - This one is special out of the bunch. Out of all these wheel style effects, this one doesn't exile itself. That is POWERFUL. It is 6 mana, so that can be hurtful sometimes, but having the ability to shuffle this back in with another of these style wheels or your Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and then cast it again is unreal. And if you're ever truly in a pinch, you can cast it for its very cost-efficient flashback cost.

• Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - This is a great late game control piece. It really helps accelerate my wins. It empties opponents hands and lets me look through 21 cards at my end-step, helping me find answers to any loose ends or getting me to my finisher more quickly.

• Mystic Remora - Great to drop early or midgame when a bunch of ramp spells are being cast or people might exchange removal spells or card draw. It will stick around for 3 turns max, then it's probably outlived its usefulness. Let it die, and when I wheel, it will eventually come back to have fun again.

• Rhystic Study - The only time I don't want to see this is late game, when everyone has mana to pay for this, but if this comes down early-mid game, it makes such an impact, which is multiplied three-fold because of my commander.

• Time Reversal - First off, that is AWESOME art. This is the standard that we compare all other similar cards to. If it's not at least this good, we probably don't want it in our deck. If a card is more expensive CMC wise, it better have a plus side. If the card has a downside, it better have less CMC than this.

• Time Spiral - It exiles itself, but untapping 6 lands to be able to cast the new stuff we've drawn with it is bonkers good. One of the MVPs of the deck.

• Timetwister - I was going in alphabetical order, but it looks like the alphabet wanted me to save the best for last. The only piece of power that is legal in commander. For all the reasons that Echo of Eons was good, not getting exiled upon resolution and such, this card is too. Except it's half the mana. It's three mana for this wheel effect.

Ok. Now that the draw package has been laid out, let me explain why we want the kinds of wheels we do. This deck has at least one answer to everything. But that's the problem. We're limited to 100 cards, so we can't have multiple answers to everything. However, being able to get those answers to repetitive or similar problems back is a game changer. And not just one as one off recursion, but again, and again, and again. Having two wheels that don't exile themselves helps keep this process frequent and consistent.

Cards that have been thoughtfully considered and rejected: Teferi's Puzzle Box and Windfall. Puzzlebox is too chaotic. With Tomorrow, you sculpt your hand to perfection, and you don't want to get messed up by some bad luck or timing. Although powerful, it's not what this deck is looking for. Windfall discards cards. I don't want to discard cards, I always want to be reusing them.

Ramp

You can't play big spells fast without ramp, so lets cover what we have. Most of these things are going to be two or less mana. The ones that aren't double our land mana output, so it's acceptable.

• Arcane Signet - because screw Contamination.

• Caged Sun - Small buff to blue creatures, but we really care about double blue mana. Cool beans.

• Chrome Mox - We need to make sure we don't exile something too important when it enters, but good rock is good rock.

• Extraplanar Lens - We're running Snow-Covered Islands, so only we benefit. We just have to be prepared to counter a Break the Ice now that those exist. Like always. Never be prepared to not have to deal with that, particularly if you know your group is going to run it.

• Mana Crypt - Might deal 3 to us each turn, but who cares, good rock is good rock.

• Mana Vault - This will be used to force out Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar or Omniscience really quickly, and will never be untapped afterwards unless we know we can do literally nothing else with that 4 mana.

• Mox Diamond - Good rock is good rock. There's the tiniest chance we wiff on not having a blue source, but that's doubtful.

• Sapphire Medallion - Cost reduction is better for long term value and well over most of the deck will benefit. Good card.

• Sol Ring - Good rock is good.

• Thought Vessel - Nice two mana rock with some upside for whenever we play draw to more than 7 from our incidentals.

• High Tide - Nice one mana investment to be able to pump out something important like Dream Halls, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, or our commander.

Control

Counterspells

The counterspells have been chosen with utmost care. Whether it's because of alternate casting cost or because of synergy with other stuff in the deck, or because of utility, every counterspell in here is special.

• Arcane Denial - Counters a spell, but it also draws us a card which is potentially replaced by Tomorrow's effect.

• Commit / Memory - This counter acts as spot removal as well, but one of the nice things about this is it gets around "can't be countered" clauses on cards.

• Cryptic Command - Most mode choices will always be "counter target spell" and "draw a card," but "bounce a permanent" will be used periodically. "Tap all creatures" will probably only be used defensively if we know we can't survive an alpha strike from an opponent.

Spot Removal

Board Wipes

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 8 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	5 months
Exclude colors	WBRG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	26 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.34
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Construct 0/0 C, Copy Clone, Frog Lizard 3/3 G
Folders	EDH (Funny themed), Commander Deck, Cool Decks, sweet, Ideas, Decks to beat, spec, Favorites, Decks that I like and I want to look at again sometime, Interesting decks