Pretty cool take on Illusions! I really like the Polymorphist's Jest. Have you considered using any number of Vapor Snags?

Well it's hardly set in stone but at the moment, for bounce, I prefer Into the Roil because of its flexibility. Both that it can bounce any nonland permanent and that you can pay extra to make it cantrip. The latter of the two being the main reason for my picking it over other bounce spells.

I don't doubt the quality of Into the Roil, but you should realize that it's costly, even for it's -1 mode. It's fine in a draw-go control shell but here, you're going to be tapping out for creatures and curving out each turn. With Vapor Snag, you're more likely to have spare mana for it during turns 3-6 where you'll probably need it to just win out-right. There's also the rare occurrence when you have multiples in hand and need to bounce a few creatures to swing through.

Good point, you've convinced me.

Control Magic for those Mind Control

I would love to take some Control Magics, but unfortunately it's not modern legal.

Honestly control magic seems a little under powered here, and (personally) I would use four of the frog thing, because a one sided board wipe is pretty crazy! Additionally, I would at least playtest Anticipate or Telling Time over think twice, since they net you a psuedo-1.5 card advantage for half the mana that Think Twice does, however I don't play blue in modern so I'd be curious to hear if you have a differing opinion! Finally, I'd recommend a playset of AEther Vial's, most people use them in curving out aggro decks, but I think it would serve a great double purpose here in providing a way for you to leave mana up for control magic while still hitting your creatures each turn! Hope some of this helps, tell me what you think!

I do agree that Mind Control might be a bit slow and a bit too mana intensive to be good, it's the first thing I'm going to consider replacing once I actually pick up the cards for the deck and start testing it against my friends. It'll probably be replaced by an extra Vapor Snag and Polymorphist's Jest if I find it ineffective.

As for the card draw, I'm likely a bit too attached to actual card advantage, which is why I currently have Think Twice despite it's terrible mana inefficiency; but I can certainly see why a cheaper spell that helps dig for the cards one needs can be better. I may have to try out both Anticipate and Think Twice a bit to figure out which I prefer. I'm also not a huge blue player and haven't had to choose a card from the typical blue assortment of draw without the right card for a deck being totally obvious. That being said, given the generally low mana costs, I think card advantage is likely more important than controlling draws.

Finally, AEther Vial, I'm well aware it's basically an auto-include in this sort of deck, as it's an extremely powerful card, but the only thing holding me back is the price. A playset would run me twice the cost of the rest of the deck, and I'm trying to keep this somewhat budget.

That's definitely a fair argument against the vial!

I love this deck. I've always wanted to make an illusion tribal deck, and this is the only one I could see working competitively. And if you don't mind. I'm going to steal your entire deck idea and build it for myself! +1 absolutely from me.

I'm glad you liked it. If you do end up putting the deck together, I'd love to hear how the deck performs, and how effective you find Polymorphist's Jest and/or Mind Control.

I was just thinking that. Polymorphist's Jest Looks like it'll be lots of fun, and super viable. Gets around shroud, hexproof, regenerate, indestructible... basically anything that's a threat. I already use and abuse Turn, which has become obscenely helpful. I can only imagine this will do the same.

Mind Control seems like it's a bit pricy to be all too beneficial. I think I may swap that out with some cheap card advantage. I was thinking of switching all of the control up, actually. Condescend also seems like a bit of a gamble with how much mana is needed. I think I will replace that with Muddle the Mixture. And possibly trade Mind Control for Mana Leak? I'm not sure. I'll have to tinker some more with it. But I do like where this is at. And I do love your creature base

Really thinking you should put Mana Leak or Familiar's Ruse (Your CMC is low enough that it shouldn't be too much of an issue) in over Mind Control

Ooooor... Replace Think Twice with Thought Scour and Mind Control with a couple of Jace's Phantasm's

I definitely agree that Mind Control should be the first thing to consider replacing. That being said, I do want to give it a shot before I toss it out, I haven't actually had a chance to test the deck against some real opponents yet.

I do love your suggestions for the deck though, Muddle the Mixture seems like it could be great, Transmute is an old favorite of mine so I'm almost certainly have to try it out, it just provides way too much flexibility to not give a shot. Familiar's Ruse also seems like it could be stellar in this deck, and I believe it's lack of targeting means it could be used to save Bear or Image from their own sacrifice ability (though I may be wrong on that), not to mention returning Fathom Seer for reuse. However, I feel going to ten counterspells may be a bit excessive, so I'm not too sure about just tossing Mind Control out for two more. Though keep in mind this is my first deck that runs more than four, so I'm hardly an expert.

As for Jace's Phantasm and Thought Scour, I can certainly see the potential of the two of them but I don't feel Phantasm is going be all that great and it seems like going overboard to replace Think Twice with Scour just to facilitate Phantasm, who seems unlikely to get the buff all that often even with Scour. Though if it wasn't obvious already, I'm a bit of a card advantage junkie so take my opinion with a grain of salt if it involves replacing anything that does provide card advantage with anything that doesn't. If you do try the two of them out, please do let me know how it goes.

May I suggest Corrupted Conscience instead of Mind Control...?

An interesting substitution, however I feel that the stolen creature will rarely if ever get an infect victory by itself, given the lack of any other source of poison counters in the deck. It'd be sacrificing the ability to deal relevant damage to players with dealing -1/-1s to creatures. You could certainly make arguments for the -1/-1s, but for most decks, I figure it isn't a desirable trade off.

Definitely a viable replacement card if it's being done for personal preference and/or funsies though

On the Fathom Seers, I don't really see those ever morphing, as the game will rarely go on long enough to make returning two lands to your hand not relevant enough to cost you the game.

4x AEther Vial would work well in here. Almost a necessity, really.

Polymorphist's Jest is bad in here. Especially since you don't have a way to do 1 damage to said creature to remove it. It's basically a Fog that only targets 1 creature and still allows 1 damage through AND costs 3 mana. Might be ok on the block, but still not worth the slots or cmc.

Rune Snag would be better as Mana Leak and Condescend would be better as Remand. With only 21 land you do not have the kind of mana available to actually cast Condescend for any meaningful amount. And without AEther Vial your whole control package is almost useless since you have to spend mana on your turn to cast creatures and your mana pool is very limited. Especially if you decide to keep running Fathom Seer since that will put you even further behind on the mana spectrum.

I'd drop Fathom Seer and Polymorphist's Jest to add in 4x AEther Vial and swap out those counterspells with Mana Leak and Remand.

Polymorphist's Jest hits every creature the opponent controls... if you have ANYTHING left to block a huge swing, you've just gotten rid of a huge threat, or more, and gotten around hexproof.

I definitely agree with AEther Vial being an auto-include in this sort of deck, it's literally the kind of deck vial exists for, however it's a budget deck so vial's price tag makes it off-limits. Definitely the first thing I'd upgrade if I really wanted to beef up the deck though.

As for Condescend, I only just put the deck together and am already having problems with it, as Tormentero fortold. So I'm on the search for replacements. Remand seems like a prime choice but for the sake of saving a few bucks and trying something new, I'm going to try my luck with a single Muddle the Mixture, 2 Familiar's Ruse, and a Cryptic Command I managed to get my hands on. The counter package is far from done and I'll be sure to update the list when I decide what I like after plenty of testing.

Finally, going to have to strongly disagree with your opinion on Polymorphist's Jest. It has far more uses than just reducing incoming damage. So far I've been using it primarily as a combat trick, I know combat tricks aren't generally very good in constructed but it's potential impact has made it my win condition against other creature based decks. The moment one player swings out, the jest turns it into a one sided boardwipe. It's also there as a possible way to get rid of creatures with hexproof or pro blue that would otherwise be impossible to deal with. Not to mention it can make opposing creatures lose flying to let Krovikan Mist or Chronozoa swing in for the win. I've actually had so much success with it that I'm strongly considering bumping up the number of them. That being said, it's potency is likely a result of my pretty casual meta where a lot of decks try to win just by overwhelming the opponent with an intimidating board, which the jest obviously counters.

Smoke and Mirrors

I finally got around to making my own illusion tribal! I made mine more for casual funsies, and am trying to incorporate more shennanigans, versus making a real winning deck. It would be awesome if you gave it a quick look over! I really appreciate the inspiration for it :]