the ever-classic mono blue martyr frost that was made famous by gregory hatch. I made a few modifications for my personal taste.
Pretty janky, but a fun deck that actually takes a decent bit of skill to pilot. I chose this over X/Y/Z delver partially because it's more esoteric and fun to play, but also because I really like the concept of soft locks on a stick. Having to decide between a conditional counterspell and a creature to hit in for some damage, ninjitsu with ninja, or draw with sky hussar seems like a really interesting and interactive game of magic.
Upped the land count for consistency by dropping the 2 aether vials and switched 2 wastelands to all islands. Mana denial with wasteland / conditional counterspells is pretty strong, but in probably the only blue deck without cantrips / searching, I had difficulty justifying colorless lands.
Dropped a Chain of Vapor for a Ninja. An important thing is that most of the counterspells make you lose card advantage (Shoal / FoW / Snapback), so I decided to not be as combo-y and go for a more long-term plan.
Spellstutter is interesting because you will almost guaranteed only be able to counter CMC 1 or less. I expect this will be used very often to counter cantrips, which is not as versatile as I wish it would be. However, it's good because it provides an unconditional counter for low CMC, which cursecatcher / martyr / familiar can't really provide. I think it's my weakest creature. Stifle may replace it, but by dropping spellstutter for stifle, it means that I have to hold up mana without any outlet EOT (as I don't have any more flash creatures and my counterspells are mostly paid through their alternative costs).
I once played against a guy who used the UW bounceland with cloud of faeries to both net mana and lead well into Spellstutter Sprite, but I'm not a big fan of that because you get blown out by a single wasteland. It was U/W in case he ever wanted to cast Hussar, but I don't think I really ever want to be hard-casting a Hussar.
Sideboard is just a meta-choice. Surgical for the universal ANT/TES player, Back to Basics for 4C Delver/Spykids and MUD. Pithing Needle for both Esper Stoneblade (JTMS / Liliana) and Countertop (Sensei's Divining Top). Submerge versus Jund and Infect. Ivory Tower versus burn. Jitte versus the mirror-match (yeah right lol), most decks with creatures, and DDFT. Skaab Ruinator versus grindy matchups.
