Ah, good ol' Blink decks, they make for fun interactions some disgruntled opponents.

Did you know that you can abuse the fact that the Fiend Hunter, unlike the Banisher Priest, has his effect split into two abilities?Tech goes as follows: You cast Fiend Hunter, his entering ability is put on the stack. In response to the Hunter's entering ability, you cloudshift/ghostflicker/navigator him. While his so-far unresolved entering ability remains on the stack, the Hunter leaves the field, and his leaving ability triggers, but does nothing because he hasn't exiled a creatue yet. Then he re-enters, and puts his entering ability on the stack once more. Which means you now have two instances of his entering ability ready to resolve. Which again means you can now exile two creatures. One of them indefinitely. Rulebending at its best :P

Have a few ideas for card choices:

You could go full crazy on the entire "Enters the Battlefield" thing and even expend it to your lands: Think Halimar Depths , Kabira Crossroads , Temple of Enlightenment and the like, coupled with Azorius Chancery to recycle their abilities at will. Then again, those all enter tapped, meaning you'd practically sacrifice your first turn; something you probably won't want in a deck that struggles to make it through the first few turns. A rather cheap, non-tapped land to use could be Nimbus Maze ; it provides you with whatever type of mana you're missing. Safe Haven might also be worth mentioning, not in the context of mana supply, but for its shift out/shift in ability; it doubles as an unconventional, yet nonetheless pretty nice way to make a creature dodge removal too.

As for creatures, Sage of Epityr might be a worthwhile, reusable 1-drop. Stonehorn Dignitary somewhat locks even the critters that Lavinia doesn't for one mana less. "Somewhat" because they can still block and activate abilities. Nobody's perfect. Flickerwisp is a 3/1 flier with built-in flickering; a budget version of Restoration Angel , basically. Just that the Wisp can also be used to exile any enemy permanent until end of turn (including potential blockes just as well as lands); a handy perk with all the options for instant-speed flickering you have there. Conjurer's Closet would be a ni--- wait, is there any particular reason as to why you don't run a single copy of glorious Venser, the Sojourner ? Sky Hussar has a powerful forecast ability for manaless extra card-draw, a saucy entering ability (possibly to untap the very creatures you just used for his forecast) and is pretty much on-par with Serra Angel in terms of combat-savvyness. And last but definitely not least, Kaho, Minamo Historian is a must have. Reusable direct access to whatever countermagic and flickering you want that even removes the individual cards' colorweight - what's not to love?

Moving on, building a blue/white ropor deck without Momentary Blink is almost a sin. You might also think about Silence . A wrench in the opponent's gears to buy yourself some time early on, it'd also be a scary fetch for Kaho, or an evil option to pull from the 'yard with the Archeomancer later on.

And for your sideboard, once you know what you're up against, Meddling Mage is quite a middle-finger towards your foe, especially since you can constantly re-adjust what card she's locking by flickering her.

Generally, you should think about what to board if your opponent runs stuff like Torpor Orb , early-on creature rushes, or burn.

Thank you or the extensive feedback, Dubitable_Salmon, it's very much appreciated.

I was actually aware of the shenanigans that can be pulled off with Fiend Hunter and bounce effects. I should probably put the interactions into the description for other people's benefits.

I had considered adding some ETB lands and Azorius Chancery like you suggested, but I was concerned about all the enters tapped. I just got a bunch of Halimar Depths from the Jace vs Vraska duel deck though, so I'll put them in and see how it much damage it does. Nimbus Maze is kind of expensive for my purposes and while Safe Haven is an interesting idea, I just can't stand the old card style.

Sage of Epityr isn't a bad idea, but I'm not sure there's anything in my deck that I would be willing to remove for it. Stonehorn Dignitary used to be in this deck, but I replaced him with Lavinia of the Tenth because he tended to result in very long, drawn-out and boring games where my opponent couldn't do anything to me but I couldn't get any damage in either. I didn't include things like Flickerwisp and Conjurer's Closet because they only work at sorcery speed and one of my favourite things about this deck is how much of a pain in the ass it is to remove my creatures, but you might be right that Flickerwisp is worth including to use against my opponent's stuff. Venser, the Sojourner wasn't included because of budget concerns. Meddling Mage is also, unfortunately, too expensive for me.

Sky Hussar is an interesting idea; I'll definitely consider it. Kaho, Minamo Historian is a great suggestion, I'll put that onto my acquireboard. Momentary Blink is great but I'm not sure what I would remove for it. The most obvious thing to replace for it is Cloudshift but that 1 mana flicker can be very useful for protecting important creatures from removal. I'll consider Silence but it doesn't fit into the bouncing theme quite as well as the other stuff.

You're right that Torpor Orb would completely shut this deck down; I've put some Revoke Existence s into the sideboard for now.

Nice deck! I really like this blink/ETB effect thing you've found :).

I have a similar style deck but a few different card choices. Check out UW Creature Control and you may get some ideas.

I have to second Venser, the Sojourner . He's really good.

I don't doubt that Venser is really good, but he's still outside my budget. Thanks for the +1 though; I'll have a look at your deck.

With all the card draw maybe you should play Reliquary Tower. Love the deck though.

Thanks for the suggestion and the +1, Mtgslime.

I don't think I've ever been in a situation where Reliquary Tower would have been helpful while playing this deck. I'll bear it in mind while I'm testing, but I'm pretty sure there's not enough card draw to necessitate its inclusion.

No Flickerwisp?

Two can infinitely go off with Soul's Attendant so you gain a life at the end of each turn

I've thought about it, but I actually don't think it's well suited to this deck. I want my flicker effects at instant speed for the interactions with Fiend Hunter and Mangara of Corondor and to help dodge removal. It's better in a much more aggressive deck than this, where it's 3/1 flying body can be very useful and you can use its ability to remove an opposing blocker for a turn.

• Meadowboon
• Jace's Mindseeker
• Act of Authority my favorite exile blinker because you can emergency exile if needed

Also, if you ever get into commander and want to make a deck like this: Brago, King Eternal.

Thanks for the suggestions, InDirectX. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond.

Meadowboon is one of the cards I considered when creating the deck, but I think it belongs in a more aggressive deck than this. I just don't think there's room for anything that doesn't contribute to the job of controlling the board.

Jace's Mindseeker is something else I already looked at and decided against because there wasn't room for both it and Lavinia of the Tenth at the top of my curve, but looking back on it, it might be good in the sideboard to bring in against decks that don't have many permanents. Although those sorts of decks might be ones that I won't have an opportunity to resolve a 6-drop against. I don't know; I'm going to put it into the maybeboard for now.

Act of Authority is a really good idea, but I've very recently started playing this deck on MTGO and I want to keep it Modern legal now.

I'll keep Brago in mind if I ever get into Commander.

Ah crap, forgot that Act of Authority isn't modern legal. Well, here's a fun card you can't have!

wow, I posted my suggestion a long time ago

I'll put together some good suggestions later tonight, idk why I failed to include so many good cards that fit your deck theme

I have 2 Brago, King Eternal and a Venser, the Sojourner lounging around and I wanna try to build a deck with them. On my quest I stumbled over your deck and I love it!

I think Lavinia of the Tenth is a pretty good card in here and complements the Fiend Hunter pretty nice, which can take care of anything Lavinia cannot. But, I think (unless I overlooked something) your deck is pretty week against Stormbreath Dragon, which is fairly common in modern, and your options against planeswalkers are limited (really slow/unreliable Mangara of Corondor and Familiar's Ruse). I think some sideboard options would be necessary.

I would love to pick your brain about some card choices, what do you think about:
Lyev Skyknight: I liked him alot in standard. Do you see him work in a blink deck?
Mulldrifter: I don't have Wall of Omens, so I will try Omenspeaker. To get some card draw Cloudshift + Mulldrifter seems pretty crazy, 4 cards for 4 mana + a 2/2 flyer.
Kitchen Finks: Do you have any experience with it? Seems like a robust lifegain creature, it can block without the need to immediately blink it.
Omenspeaker vs Augury Owl: Which one do you think works better, a stronger blocker or better filtering?

A card I would love to have is Ghostaway, can give you insane value and is able to save creatures from wraths. Why does it have to be so expensive? ;_; Since we are on the topic of wraths, don't you feel any need for some form of swipe against aggressive decks?

Again love the deck! +1

Thanks for the comment, Aethos, I'm glad you like the deck.

Yeah, Stormbreath Dragon would be a problem for the deck. My only chance would be either to Familiar's Ruse it or bring in Sunblast Angel and try to get it with her ability. That being said, I don't think I've ever faced one, so I'm not too worried about it at the moment. Maybe once it rotates out of standard it'll drop in price enough that I'll start seeing it and I'll have to figure out a better solution. Similarly, I don't find myself playing against planeswalkers very often, but Oblivion Ring would be a pretty decent solution for them.

Lyev Skyknight is good, but I think it's better suited to a more aggressive deck that can make use of the 3/1 flying body a little more. I would put it into a deck that uses to ETB triggers to disrupt the opponent just long enough to kill them, rather than trying to control everything like I'm doing. See also Flickerwisp.

Cloudshift + Mulldrifter is a very powerful interaction. I did have Mulldrifter in the deck previously; I removed it in attempt to lower the mana curve and fit in all the other cards I wanted. It's a little clunky if you don't have the flicker for it, so maybe a deck with more lower cost flicker cards like Momentary Blink over Ghostly Flicker or whatever would be a better home for it.

I do not have any experience with Kitchen Finks but I don't seen any reason why it wouldn't be good. It probably depends how aggressive your meta is as to whether it's necessary and it's also better against burn heavy decks where the opponent won't be triggering Soul's Attendant and the big butt on Wall of Omens is less likely to be relevant.

As for Omenspeaker vs Augury Owl, it'll again depend a lot on how aggressive the decks you face are. I do find the ability to block the opponent's early creatures very useful a lot of the time, so in general I would probably go with the 'Speaker, but if you're facing a bunch of deck that don't play creatures in the early turns or mostly play stuff with 3 or more power the extra scry will get you to the answers you need quicker.

Yeah, I also looked at Ghostway and then quickly looked away once I saw the price. It's something of a shame, but figuring out how to make the best deck out of what you have available is part of the fun of budget deck building. One thing to remember if you get Wrathed and have a Fiend Hunter on the field is that you can flicker it in response and then exile one of your own creatures when the Hunter comes back into play, which'll save that creature from the Wrath.

The thing is, Lavinia of the Tenth basically is the deck's Wrath-effect against aggro decks. You could use something like Evacuation to reset them, but there is a risk that, if their creatures are all a lot cheaper than yours, they might be able to rebuild much more quickly and still overrun you. Thus far I haven't found the aggro matchup to be especially problematic, it's the control decks that are the real pain; my deck applies so little pressure and a lot of the cards are really terrible against decks that don't run many creatures.

Hopefully all that helped you and I've not just been pointing out the blindingly obvious.

Thank you a lot for your detailed answer!

Instead of Fiend Hunter you can also use Banisher Priest.

Banisher Priest is way worse than Fiend Hunter because of the way they changed the wording on the ability means you can't flicker it while the trigger is on the stack to permanently exile a creature. Also, you can't target your own creatures with it.

How about Ephara, God of the Polis for that extra card draw?

I've considered it before. She's obviously got plenty of synergy with the deck, but I don't think there's enough room for her; the deck already has a ton of ways to generate card advantage and she's pretty high on the curve. I might just wait until she's rotated out of standard when I'll be able to pick her up for next to nothing and test her out then.

Yaaaaay! Trambopoline!

Not sure if sarcastic, or oblivious...

Could be a little bit from column A and a little bit from column B.

If you happen to like the Blink/Bounce synergy with Enter the Battlefied abilities, and need an idea for a new EDH deck, Animar, Soul of Elements makes for a wonderful commander. I've been playing a deck based on that mechanic for a while. You can play huge creatures with crazy ETB effects, bounce them, play them again, repeat, for next to no mana.

Not helpful for your deck here, which is a cool idea, but I thought I'd pass it along : P