Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
Tetsuko keeps breaking out of jail only this time she's bringing her friends with her. They quickly and quietly slip past all the guards and then they're free to wreak havoc! She'll be helping us draw cards, keep our opponents under wraps, and poking our opponents a little at a time until its too late for them to stop us! Time for some sneaky mono-blue agro!
From the Sea
Blue is not exactly known for its incredible ramp, so we will rely on a lot of our artifact ramp played in a lot of other decks, the best of these being Sol Ring, Thought Vessel, and Sapphire Medallion. The two pieces of mono-blue ramp that really need to be talked about though are High Tide and Dreamscape Artist. High Tide is more useful late game as it gives us one big explosive turn, hopefully to take out one or all of our opponents. Dreamscape Artist on the other hand is an underrated blue ramp card. Yes we have to sacrifice a land and discard a card, but we get two untapped basic lands in exchange which is something we really don't see in blue often. If you've never tried it out in a deck it comes highly recommended. Side bonus, it becomes an unblockable attacker as soon as we get Tetsuko out.
Stop That!
When the guards (opponents) start doing stuff we really don't like, we've got the answers!
Are they casting stuff that's got you worried? Try a classic Counterspell, Swan Song, or Cryptic Command. Cryptic will also give us the option to tap down a whole opponent's board and swing in for a win, even if Tetsuko is in the command zone. A little run card that can mess with a lot of decks is Interdict. No more abusing activated abilities for that Ezuri player! And while Meekstone doesn't necessarily stop other players from attacking us, it will make them think twice about making big swings. We will be tapping out with our creatures most turns though so will need a way to keep our opponents under control so that we don't die on the crack back. Our single target removal consists of Rapid Hybridization, Reality Shift, Unsummon, and Chain of Vapor. Tetsuko also runs a heavy package of mass removal with River's Rebuke, Curse of the Swine, Aetherize, Innundate, and Flood of Tears. Oh and Cyclonic Rift, because, well you always play the Rift. Those guards never stood a chance.
Death by a Thousand Papercuts
Tetsuko and her friends are pretty sneaky, but not all that strong. Since most of our creatures only have one power we need to have cards that give us a bit of advantage when they deal damage. First lets keep our opponent's creatures where they belong, in their hands. Mistblade Shinobi could use ninjutsu to get in off another creature, but Tetsuko makes it unblockable on its own so this bounce ability will be useful turn after turn. But one creature per combat isn't enough so lets try Cephalid Constable. As is it's still just one permanent per attack, but if we bump its power up we will be bouncing a ton of our opponent's cards to their hand. If we are extra mean we'll target their lands and stop them from playing the game! Blighted Agent will help us quickly close out a game with some infect, and Riptide Enforcer will let us threaten our opponents creatures with our ability to kidnap them. Lastly let's just remove cards from other players' decks so they don't have any answers to our board of 1/1's. Mist Intruder, Raven Guild Master, and Rootwater Thief help us mill out our opponents and hopefully keeping us safe from their best threats in their decks.
Knowledge Is Power
Time for the best part of Magic, drawing cards! There are a total of 16 cards in this deck that let us draw a card on dealing combat damage so trust me we will be drawing a lot of cards. But whats better than drawing a lot of cards? Drawing more. Coastal Piracy, Bident of Thassa, and Deepfathom Skulker let us draw a card for every creature that deals combat damage to an opponent. Your hand is going to look like your deck pretty quick so our Reliquary Tower, Thought Vessel, and Graceful Adept are in our decks in order to let us keep all these beautiful cards we'll be drawing.
Rogue's Tools
Every good rogue needs their own set of tools and Tetsuko is the best rogue of all. Swiftfoot Boots and Lighting Greaves will protect Tetsuko once she's out on the field. We need her to make sure our creatures are hitting on a consistent basis. Bloodforged Battle-Axe just keeps making more and more of itself allowing our one toughness creatures to hit for huge amounts of unblockable damage. Fireshrieker lets us double up all of our combat damage triggers and for an absolute flavor win, Umezawa's Jitte will finish off Tetsuko's toolbox.
Deck-stras
Let's put in a Grim Monolith, Thran Dynamo, and Gilded Lotus if we want to upgrade our artifact ramp. Mana Drain, Force of Will, and Pact of Negation would make our counterspell package just a little more oppressive. Finally, Snow Covered Islands and an Extraplanar Lens will double up the mana were able to produce!
Instant (14)
Sorcery (6)
Enchantment (2)
Artifact (14)
Creature (28)
Land (35)
Comments