Despite being a writer for Pojo.com, I have never been to their message boards. Perhaps I should sign up for them. This E-mail sure makes me want to.

Well here it is, my first deck ever. This is the result of me looking at cards and reading their effects online, looking at the Pojo Boards advice thread, and just going and getting the cards. It seems the woman at the store didn't know much about MTG, so she didn't have much advice to offer. This deck did well against my friend who is equally new to magic, but I'm not sure how good it is, nor if I am using it to it's full potential.


3 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Thieving Magpie
3 Clone
3 Shapestealer
3 Jushi Apprentice

4 Timestop
4 Annex
4 Counsel of the Soratami
4 Boomerang
4 Rewind

22 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

Side Board
3 Evacuation
3 Twincast
3 Quash
3 Pithing Needle
3 HInder

Keiga is my favorite card by far, he's won a few games. When I was first learning the basics of MTG I wondered if there was any land destruction, but then I found annex, which to me seemed even better. Time Stop just seems too good to be true, same as boomerang. Shapeshifter is in there to function as a one for one trade off, and clone is just awesome. As it is right now, the deck was a lot of fun, but I believe it can be much better.

Thanks in Advance
Genryuuzai

You can also find the deck's thread on the pojo.com message board


Ah, the time-honored tradition of isolating the strengths of a certain color, and building a deck to take advantage of them. I'll be happy to help you, Genryuuzai. Blue has a rich legacy of bring tricky, gaining card advantage, and denying opponents their win condition while protecting their own. But when building a mono-colored deck, you must be wary of the color's weaknesses, and try to minimize them in your own.

Blue's first weakness is its near-complete lack of any mana acceleration. I notice you have 4 Time Stop, and while Time Stop is a very powerful card, having 4 makes it very likely that you'll draw one in your opeening hand or on the first turn. Since the earliest you can hope to cast it is Turn 6 (Turn 5 if Turn 4 was spent playing Annex), it is a dead card in hand until then. I would suggest running only two Time Stop.

Blue's next weakness is that while it can counter any spell, it has difficulty dealing with things that have already resolved. You have Annex for lands, and Clone, Shape Stealer, and Keiga to dissuade your opponent from playing nasty creatures, but against artifacts and enchantments the best you can do is have a Rewind in hand at the right time, or wait for Boomerand and Rewind. For this reason I recommend Blue's all-purpose answer-- Reweave. It's probably a sideboard card rather than a main deck card, but it can be very helpful if you find yourself without a counterspell.

And speaking of Rewind, as a rule I don't like counterspells that cost four or more mana. Four lands are a lot to leave untapped during your opponent's turn if you've got a Keiga in hand waiting to make an appearance. I would suggest switching Rewind and Hinder between your main deck and sideboard, so you'll be more likely to have enough mana to play spells and counter your opponents'.

A few final notes: Counsel of the Soratami is a bit underpowered in a deck that already has Thieving Magpie and Jushi Apprentice, especially when you can get Compulsive Research for the same price. And Minamo is great in this deck, but Oboro, not so much.

That's really all I can say about this deck, Genryuuzai. You've clearly done your homework already and you've built a good deck, but I did want to bring a few things to your attention. Hopefully you'll be able to take this deck far. Best of luck!