Thanks for the tip CandiedRats. That is a really good combo card for this deck, and it might slow down opposing strategies as well.

There are only about 7 sources of targetted bounce in the deck, and it will also nonbo with Control Magic. It also doesn't really speed up our ability to fish our wincon, it just slows and punishes opponents more. I'll consider it, but it is getting tough to make cuts these days.

i wasnt a wizard101 kid now i feel left out

Oh man my little brother used to steal my mom's credit card and spend hundreds of dollars on that stupid game, if I could down vote this for all the times we had to stress on Bill's or the all the times I had to pay them with my meager highschooler salary you'd have no votes lol, but even tho I hate 'wizards 101' this deck is pretty cool I'm always a fan of Soothsaying in decks like this, its playable 1st turn and then always useful if you got extra mana on the end step before your turn, you can fix your draw

Sorry to hear about your brother's antics Vash!

Soothsaying is an option, I like the colorless mana sink that it provides. It also combos well with all the scrying the deck does. I don't know what to remove for it at this point, but I'll keep it in mind as I continue playing the deck.

your thoughts on Jace, Mirror Mage

Hmmm, seems like a great way to put lands in my hand for free! Especially since there are so many Brainstorm-like and Scry abilities that let me know what is on my top deck. The big problem would be protecting him from combat damage - my wizards are pretty squishy and dealing 4 damage to Jace is a lot easier for people to do mechanically and get away with politically than dealing 4 damage to me, but that 4 damage to Jace hurts a lot more than just taking the damage myself. It might encourage people to swing when they otherwise wouldn't, I want people to play very passively until I can get a wincon off.

I could see it going into my topdeck-shenanigans deck.

May I suggest removing the budget tag? Price-wise, it is budget, but once you start including foils of cards that have cheaper non-foil varieties, it generally means it’s walking away from budget. Nothing wrong with that, just pointing it out.

Hey, have you thought about Docent of Perfection  ^Flip? I think it could be strong. Clearly this is a very well thought out deck. +1!

Upvote earned from me for the hilarious creativity on the description and the card types :D

Gonna start building this deck! Looking good!

Thanks Electro412! Here's a couple keys to success:

1. Memorize your bottom card. Remember to re-memorize it every time you scry.

2. Draw as much as you can, scry as much as you can. You are fishing for your combo - Except for your opening hand, you never need more than 1 or 2 lands in hand at once - you will be able to draw/scry more if you even need them.

3. Some cards are much more useful than they seem at giving you an unfair advantage. Combos like Retreat to Coralhelm and Walking Atlas let you spitfire out lands at instant speed - the second you draw them if you wish. Retreat to Coralhelm with Dreamscape Artist turns every card in your hand into a Harrow that costs . There are little synergies like this all over the place, I still stumble upon new ones myself. Which brings us to #4.

4. The true strength of this deck is its interactivity. You need time to set up your combo, and you have great tools to protect yourself while you do. Be assertive, remind someone who threatens you that you can not only bounce one of their creatures a turn, but also effectively shut down any other threats with counterspells you can just retrieve later. In the rare instances this deck loses, it's because someone else combo'd out Turn 0-3 and I couldn't stop them, or everyone at the table realizes what a threat I will become and unites to crush the wizards before they can get going. Of course, not many decks can stop these threats. So be assertive, but not intimidating. Be cautious, not ambitious.

tl;dr: Just sit there and play with yourself, fishing for your combo. If anyone tries to mess with you, show them the true strength of the deck - interactivity.

Hey KongMing - Thanks for the awesome tips! Definitely needed some extra advice to get this going (this is my first deck after a long break)!

Are there any cards you would recommend swapping out for more pricier/better alternatives? Just in case down the line I may want to add in some crazier cards. Otherwise this deck looks good as is and I'm stoked to try it out soon.

You should rename Sources to Pips, missed opportunity lmao.

Looks like a fun deck, and love the name lol

+1 I got it up to 269, nice

Downloading deck - Virus infects desktop

Mystic Archaeologist and Sphinx of Magosi seem very expensive for card draw, even if the former is a wizard. Blue has better draw to consider IMO.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - Ramp

Cavern of Souls - Anti counterspell

Valid points on the card draw! There are much better things that have been printed in the intervening years, like Reflections of Littjara that could go into the deck.

Great land recommendations, but they are a little pricey for the budget theme of the deck. Thank you very much for the comment and recommendations!

This is an awesome deck! I’m trying to figure out what makes this illegal in commander though. What would you substitute to make it tourny viable?

Good catch (and cool username) Frostfire524. I was just making some slight adjustments to the deck (adding Rivendell and Elrond), but forgot to remove an Island. Refresh the page, it should show up as legal now.

Absolutely KongMing. I was looking for a mono blue deck and I love the spellbinding cantrip decks. But noticed not commander legal. Glad I can help! Might have to give it a go!

One thing I would love clarity on, what exactly is the combo win con for this deck? Currently starting to build now as I love mono blue!

Great question Frostfire524. There are a couple infinite combos (and a few power combos/cards) that win you the game.

Galecaster Colossus can be enough to lock opponents (even multiple opponents) out of the game with mass bounce. If someone tries to remove it, counterspell.

Cyclonic Rift is in a similar boat, and can be retrieved from the graveyard by cards like Archaeomancer and Mystic Sanctuary. Clone Legion is another great card that can make the game one-sided.

Stormtide Leviathan is a big beater that can finish games if opponents have been swinging at each other a bit and don't have many fliers. Just yesterday I used Rite of Replication on the Stormtide the turn after casting it - six 8/8s with Islandwalk are pretty good at winning the game.

Ultimately though, the goal for the deck is to hold off the opponents until it is ready to draw/mill itself out and win. Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Laboratory Maniac allow you to win when you deck yourself. Those are obvious, how do you get there? We have a few options.

First, the mill. This deck has a LOT of scry, but not much shuffle. That is a very intentional design decision. You want to remember what your bottom card is at all times, because the spell Tunnel Vision will let you throw all the rest of your library into your graveyard, leaving only that card on top. So you go from having 70-80 cards in library to 1.

This strategy can also target the opponent. Our spells Hinder, Spell Crumple, and Vendilion Clique all let us put cards on the bottom of an opponent's library. Now we can target them with Tunnel Vision! Much fun ensues.

Now for drawing yourself out. This is accomplished through infinite bounce triggers. The card Naru Meha, Master Wizard goes infinite with bounce spells like Ghostly Flicker, Freed from the Real, Displace, and Illusionist's Stratagem. This can let you bounce another Wizard that lets you draw cards, or use other output cards like Kindred Discovery or Sage's Row Denizen to knock out libraries. There's lot of others combos too, like being able to use Naru Meha and Ghostly Flicker with Sunscorched Desert to ping opponents to death.

As a post-script, in a lot of ways, this deck is more about Naru Meha than Naban when it comes to getting your wincon online. But Naban is the superior Commander when it comes to fishing through your deck without tutors, gives Wizards broad efficiency, is cheaper to get out, and doesn't draw as much aggro from the table when people see him. Naru Meha as the Commander can give a lot of expert players a heads-up on your combo. Naban lets you be a bit more stealthy and allows you to constantly bounce creatures.

That's part of holding off your opponent - with Naban on the field, Venser, Shaper Savant can bounce one spell/permanent and himself, so you can keep casting him over and over again. Same for AEther Adept and the like - they're meant to bounce themselves and one other thing, just buying you time and disincentivizing people from attacking you - you'll just slow them down and lose no resources in the process.

I noticed there are two Reflections of Littjara in this deck. Any recs for a substitute?

Thank you for that abravo2060! Looking at the deck, it appears I have 20 Islands, not 19.

I plan on making some acquisitions to upgrade the deck in the near future, I'll share my list with you so you have some more ideas too.

Planned Acquisitions: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Paradoxical Outcome Timestream Navigator Thassa, Deep-Dwelling (swapping out Conjurer's Closet)