@ maioflw -- Long story short - I haven't gotten my hands on M15 yet and Cockatrice is being weird so my playtesting has been very limited. Trading Post is among the cards that may get cut soon.

Hall of Triumph can colourless be chosen as the colour? might help the Ornithopter 's if it does, or any of the artifacts.

love the deck. gonna play around with one myself now. +1

I have a similar deck to this, but I have gone with a more burn/counter method combined with the Scuttling Doom Engine , Ornithopter s, and Shrapnel Blast s. I like your build though, as it definately the more extreme of what I would go for if I went whole hog. Now ginko2580, colorless is not a color, so that would not work. Nice idea though. Better to have a buff that hits all your creatures, however I do not think one exists in Standard in these color combinations.

@ ginko2580 -- See post #18 for a response. Thanks for the upvote too!

@ DrLitebur -- I think I will be dropping the Trading Post s for something more aggressive. I think I want to go a more aggro route with this deck, and I have yet to effectively use the Post in a game. About to do more testing though. I'd like to see a mono blue deck with all of the squid tokens and Obelisk of Urd (while we're on the anthem discussion). Or a hornet deck.

ducttapedeckbox Haunted Plate Mail same CMC as Trading Post and is more aggro? Kinda like a Mutavault

I'll tell you ducttapedeckbox I love the utility of Trading Post . The card does so much all for so little. I understand wanting to go more aggro though. A couple of suggestions might be Hoarding Dragon , Master of Predicaments , Military Intelligence , and maybe Polymorphist's Jest as a sub for Hour of Need , if you are using it defensively. If not, then ignore that one.

Here me out on this one guys: this deck is designed to be pretty quick; but when we start getting to turn 3-4 and Polukranos, World Eater , Desecration Demon , etc. start coming out, I have problems. Problems that need to be dealt with or else I lose. Rapid Hybridization is ok, because I can deal with the token. However, the tokens I get from Hour of Need are very, very hard to deal with. It's a great combat trick for me, but that's not the focus of this deck. The focus is to stop threats and put pressure with beefy, annoyingly hard to remove creatures. With that said, I propose the following changes:

Cut:

1. 2x Trading Post - DrLitebur is correct that the utility is amazing, but it's far too slow. It takes 4+1 mana to do anything, and by then I almost always have huge threats to deal with.
2. 3x Hour of Need - If I had a way to deal with the tokens if I exile my opponent's creatures, it would easily stay. Maybe it'll find a spot once Rapid Hybridization goes.
3. 1x Hammer of Purphoros - It will be replaced with more powerful and relevant 3-drop
4. 3x Shock - As many previously noted, it can't really kill much

Add:

1. 2x Thassa, God of the Sea - I can't afford to have a bad draw. Also gets SDE through for 2.
2. 3x Springleaf Drum - Helps ramp into my non-artifact spells.
3. 2x Master of Predicaments - Good body, effective ability, two devotion.
4. 2x Haunted Plate Mail - Helps me comeback after boardwipes and can make my other creatures bigger.

Another option I was considering was Wall of Frost . Worst case, it's two devotion for Thassa. Best case, it's two devotion and a wall that blocks most threats.

I think these changes will make the deck run more smoothly and present a more aggressive approach, especially once Thassa comes online. Let me know what you think!

I agree that Wall of Frost is a great idea, and POSSIBLY 2x Wall of Fire. If you plan on keeping shock, you may as well substitute it for magma spray. It's basically the same thing with a little more insurance against decks that have graveyard interaction. Haunted Plate Mail is definitely a good replacement for Trading Post, as it fills the same exact spot mana-wise. Also if you want to remove more, maybe a Lightning Strike? I also think that a perfect spell to protect you from those creatures you're having problems with would be a few Polymorphist's Jest. Lemme know what you think!

ducttapedeckbox: I do like the addition of the Haunted Plate Mail , and if I could lay my hands on a few, I'd think about adding a few to my own deck. The Springleaf Drum s are not bad, but I see them more useful in a deck that utilizes Insipred triggers, and this deck doesn't. That is not to say it can't use the mana-ramping, but I am not sure losing board presence is the right move with this deck. Thassa, God of the Sea I am a big fan of, so I like the addition, even if she never gets turned on. The final puzzle piece is Master of Predicaments , and I love this card. Playing mental poker with your opponent each every turn is great, and you can learn a lot about them in doing so. It is a game within a game, and right up my alley.

But anyways, that is my opinion, and I hope it has helped you some with your deck-making.

Hour of Need is an offensive spell, using it for defense is almost always bad. I mean, the card gains a lot for having that option but it's a last resort. I think what you want is Curse of the Swine . Test it, it's a sometimes better, sometimes worse Rapid Hybridization . Well, the exile vs destroy makes it awesome :p

I agree with the Haunted Plate Mail , it can be really good. A 10/10 Scuttles is frightning. A 9/9 scissors as well xDPerilous Vault is also good since you can convoke it for board clearing in an emergency. Well, just having the option to open it is gonna keep your opponents on their toes, since all non-land permanents are exiled. A shame it's rather expensive.

Wall of Frost is mostly sideboard, i actually prefer the Wall of Fire because the firebreathing makes combat tricks easier to answer to and your opponents have to be more careful. but as always, time to test ;)

The only reason I liked Trading Post was to create an army of goats and create flying goats with Hour of Need . If you take it off then I agree that the Trading Post is too clunky for this deck :p

Have you thought about putting Jace, the Living Guildpact here? He is a nice tempo play with a +1 that allows you to go try and hit priorities. Think of it as a scry 2 in which you have to send something to the bot of the library :)

While we still can, I would take out the Shock s and put the Izzet Charm s. That spell can also burn for 2 and it has 2 more possibilities. Lightning Strike is better if you just wanna burn stuff, or since you are dealing with convoke anyway: Stoke the Flames since it can remove Brimaz, King of Oreskos , Blood Baron of Vizkopa , Stormbreath Dragon , and faces. Also: "I play Elspeth, Sun's Champion .", "Ok, Stoke the Flames .". Watching them die a little inside is fun.

Thank you for your input thestrauch, DrLitebur, and maioflw.

I was thinking Wall of Frost > Wall of Fire because it won't die as easily to a monstrous Polukranos and it adds to Thassa's devotion, but both are worth testing.

Curse of the Swine is another option to test.

I hadn't realized the threats that Stoke the Flames can deal with. Definitely higher up on my list now.

I wasn't thinking about the devotion, so you are correct in that in this deck Wall of Frost is stronger. Giving you an extra turn if the opponent can make something big enough to break through it is also worth going for. Wall of Fire is only better in Inspired matchups, like Theros Block MBAggro with Pain Seer and those aren't that common.

Curse of the Swine has also the advantage that the boars can't block Scuttling Doom Engine , so it has some blowout potential, in addition to the removal aspect.

Wall of Frost is a good wall, but everything you have is more offensive-oriented.

What exactly is your reasoning for wanting Springleaf Drum ? Another Ensoul Artifact target?

Thassa, God of the Sea and Haunted Plate Mail are both very good. Plate Mail should probably replace Trading Post and Hammer of Purphoros in my opinion. Hour of Need can be the Thassa, God of the Sea cut.

Of the cards left in the maybe board, I'd say either Cyclonic Rift or Curse of the Swine gets Shock s spots.

Hour of Need has much more utility than Thassa, God of the Sea sorry, but GoldGhost012 you are crazy lol.

Thanks GoldGhost012 and maioflw! I'm rolling up the comments to remove some clutter and get a fresh start on these changes. To recap, I:

1. Removed 3x Hour of Need for 3x Thassa, God of the Sea
2. Removed 2x Trading Post and 1x Hammer of Purphoros for 3x Haunted Plate Mail
3. Removed 3x Shock for 3x Springleaf Drum but this may change to Curse of the Swine

I'd like thoughts about the last change, and whether I need 2 or 3 Thassa's. Thanks!

Sorry, GamerSonX, your comment just hit a comment sweep. Anyways, I hadn't played a game where Hour of Need helped. When I was ahead, I had my bombs out and the 4/4's in the air were useless because I had 5/5's in the air with 6/6 scary-I'm-going-to-eat-you things on the ground. When I was behind, giving them a 4/4 flier instead of a 5/5 Polukranos or a baby-makin' Brimaz wasn't going to do me any good.

no worries, hey, to each their own man, hope it works for you.

3 Thassas means much more consistency at the expense of drawing extras.

I like Curse of the Swine better than Springleaf Drum . Mass removal in U/R can be hard to come by other than Anger of the Gods , and this gets better as the game progresses and can remove Gods and other indestructibles..

@ GamerSonX -- Nevertheless, I appreciate your input.

@ GoldGhost012 -- I'll try it out. I do like the "synergy" with SDE and the clear. Is that too much Polymorph-effects with Rapid Hybridization ?

Nah. My thought is that you're running mostly blue, and without counters, you lack a lot of hard removal. Excluding Shrapnel Blast , since you'll want to be smacking their face with that.

Although since you're running hardly any red now, Searing Blood may prove too costly with its RR. Maybe change that to Magma Jet ?

Glad to be of help ;)

I think I would run 3 Thassa, God of the Sea . She really helps a lot, so the higher the probability of getting her out, better. Yet she is a legendary so 4 would be overkill in the possible dead draw scenario.

I really like the Curse of the Swine here, but it can also be in the sideboard agains strong monsters decks. Putting the Springleaf Drum helps bringing out our threats, but it cannot answer theirs, which was kinda the point in having shock. Try with the Drum, if it feels clunky then swap for the Curse or the Polymorphist's Jest .

Hey, I've been following this deck for some time, enough to drive me to sign up in order to comment. I love the idea and I too am working on a blue/red artifact list.

I was wondering how the 23 lands here feel to you? I've found in playtesting this and my own version, sometimes I can flood out. What do you think about maybe dropping to 21, especially now you have 3 Thassa, God of the Sea and 2 Bident of Thassa to help filter if need be?

When I play test, I get swamped with creature removal, why not take out the rapid's for some Negate or Izzet Charm ?

Most metas allow that much removal. It can be sideboarded of course. Dissolve would be better here because of the scry in my opinion. The sooner you bring the big guns out, the better. The Izzet Charm has a lot of versatility so it's nice main, but is very soft removal, the counter is not that important mid to late and while the card renewal is nice, it is pretty much only good to remove dead cards like a second Thassa, God of the Sea , otherwise the advantage gained is minimal. Still a nice car that fits here anyway.