When the mono-colored commander products were released I wasn't sure which one I'd get. But I bought the blue one and it turned out to be pretty strong and a lot of fun. I pretty quickly wanted to turn it into a blue Planeswalkers deck based around Teferi, Temporal Archmage's ultimate ability. I made it into kind of a pillow fort, with some planeswalkers, proliferate, and bounce spells. Which leads me to this:

Blue Bounce is Awesome. Aetherspouts is the best card since cyclonic rift. Plus there's also aetherize, evacuation, wash out, capsize, cryptic command, and those are just the good ones.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage

1. walkers
jace, memory adept
jace, architect of thought
jace, the mind sculptor
Tamiyo, the moon sage
tezzeret the seeker
karn liberated

Could also add Ugin, the spirit dragon and maybe jace beleren. Basically there's no bad blue/colorless planeswalkers. Except that one...


2. creatures
trinket mage
solemn simulacrum
fog bank
guard gomazoa
wall of frost
silent arbiter
viral drake
phyrexian metamorph
vesuvan shapeshifter
sphinx of magosi
windreader sphinx

Just some utility and pillow fort guys. With all the mana this deck generates, a mana sink like viral drake or sphinx of magosi is pretty good.

3. counters
arcane denial
counterspell
dream fracture
fuel for the cause
cryptic command
mindbreak trap

Maybe another one is a good idea. Mostly just to protect the walkers.

4. creature control
meekstone
torpor orb
cyclonic rift
capsize
portcullis
domineering will
aetherize
illusionist's gambit
treachery
aetherspouts
evacuation
blatant thievery
curse of the swine

Basically this is the amazing bounce suite, which I've come to think of as pretty unbeatable. Stealing / copying the biggest thing on the table is also a good way to protect some planeswalkers and stall while they activate. Blatant thievery lets you take other planeswalkers!

5. planeswalker synergy
contagion clasp
inexorable tide
contagion engine
rings of brighthearth
the chain veil
darksteel reactor
copy artifact
copy enchantment
clever impersonator

The big proliferate effects, plus ways of copying them. Clever impersonator can copy an opposing planeswalker. The chain veil turns out to be a combo enabler. :/

6. draw & utility
leyline of anticipation
tezzeret's gambit
stroke of genius
blue sun's zenith
time spiral
recall

Leyline of anticipation is on theme... if Teferi, Temporal Archmage gets the emblem off, then you're activating walkers at instant speed, so you might as well cast everything else at instant speed, too. Recall is sort of an under-used card, and it's not the strongest thing around, but it's one way of getting a planeswalker out of the yard in blue.

7. ramp
everflowing chalice
expedition map
sol ring
mana vault
coldsteel heart
sapphire medallion
grim monolith
unstable obelisk
commander's sphere
darksteel ingot
thran dynamo
gilded lotus
dreamstone hedron

Ramp is basically what makes the deck work. All these can be untapped with the general for big gains. And everflowing chalice is fun with proliferate.

8. land
thawing glaciers
arcane lighthouse
academy ruins
maze of ith
reliquary tower
tolaria west
dust bowl
temple of the false god
nykthos, shrine to nyx
26 islands

Thawing Glaciers is pretty key. Getting to use that multiple times per turn is just awesome. The maze is pretty integral to the pillow fort idea; and the arcane lighthouse is great for enabling your bounce/theft stuff to work when it has to.

adds :
relic of progenitus

Probably need another grave-hate card. Another option is another cheap timetwister effect.

Main Idea.

Stall and bounce and make it tough for people to attack while ticking up teferi toward the ultimate. Usually the deck gets off to a fast start with something like Turn 1/2 mana vault and then turn-3 Teferi, Temporal Archmage, untap the mana vault and three islands, then use those to play something that protects teferi, like a wall or a sphinx or something. Then use teferi's +1 to find another walker and start working toward the ultimates. Win with planeswalker ultimates, or perhaps proliferating the darksteel reactor.

Some good tricks: you can untap thawing glaciers and use it multiple times in a turn. Stuff like aetherspouts, aetherize, and illusionist's gambit are really sweet untargetted effects that basically never fail. They're much better than a blue fog. Copy enchantment on inexorable tide is pretty amusing. You'll need at least at minimum a Level-2 judge if you have Portcullis and an opponent playing Brago, King Eternal.

The Chain Veil seems good, but basically it turns out to be pretty bad without Tezzeret the Seeker, and then it just goes infinite. So... if you're not into infinite combos, I suggest cutting the chain veil. Which is sad, and all, cause when else are you gonna use it? But you gotta face facts.

Anyway, the deck is pretty fun and surprisingly strong, without (usually) being overpowering or resorting to lame combos. Really a pretty good way to play blue control.

Trinket Mage and Tezzeret the Seeker but no Seat of the Synod? I know it's slightly more vulnerable than an Island, but the value it adds when you're stuck on a single blue source and have only Trinket Mage to help you out is more than worth the risk, in my opinion.

The other card that's great with Tezz or Trink is Grafdigger's Cage. No more Genesis Wave, no more Yawgmoth's Will, no more Primal Surge, no more Living Death, and no graveyard combos in general. Also it randomly stops the occasional flashback spell, which can be really satisfying when you tutor it out with Tezzeret, because by the time you reveal it it's already in play and the spell can't be flashed back in response.

As for more pillow-fort, Propaganda? Reins of Power?

Also, definitely add Ugin if there are tokens in your playgroup. -0 loyalty to exile all tokens (assuming you aren't having a serious problem with Myr tokens or Assembly-Worker tokens) is pretty good for a pillow-fort.

Finally, I would love to see Clockspinning get some use here. You already have Sapphire Medallion and Inexorable Tide, it wouldn't take much more to make that really playable. Arcane Melee? Lunar Mystic? Quiet Contemplation? Sage of Hours? Sphinx-Bone Wand? Tidespout Tyrant? I know I'm reaching here, I just really want it to work.

Hmm. But there's SO MANY islands.

You're absolutely right. This is an ideal deck for it. Thanks for pointing this out!

I'm a big propaganda fan, but it doesn't do anything to protect your planeswalkers, which is the whole point here. Reins of power is a good one; I haven't used it but I don't have a good reason for not testing it. I think with the bounce / combat step hosers, it basically comes down to personal preference, cause there's so many good ones. I've been liking domineering will to defend against attacks, but it doesn't let you borrow someone else's alpha strike like reins of power.

I mean this in the literal sense: do you think Ugin is worth the 32$ price tag? Is it that good?

I don't think those other cards are worth using; but clockspinning is about as good as viral drake if there's only one walker to proliferate. On the other hand, clockspinning looks like a terrible card. But, I should force myself to find room for it...

I think Ugin is worth more than $20, his price will probably drop (not a financial expert) once more people acquire him and more drafts occur. If I see him anywhere in the low 20s I will be picking them up as he will probably always be worth at least that and he will slowly climb once he rotates out.

What I want is but I don't feel like paying the $199 for the promo version.

I just wanted to quickly chime in here. Grafdigger's Cage does not stop Primal Surge or Living Death. The cards enter play from exile with both of those.

Yeah, I completely forgot that as I was typing it up, even though it's an aspect of the Cage that has always bugged me. Also doesn't stop Tooth and Nail.

Yeah. I wish they had made it more like Containment Priest. That guy is pretty ironclad.

You seem pretty set and i'm not trying to change your mind, but is Teferi's ultimate as a commander any good or working out for you? You can only have a few walkers on the field, really. It just seems like a lot of work for little payoff since walkers are generally quite easier to kill in multiplayer, and the commander/idea/deck as a whole seems like a target. I mean i do see you have the bounce and such, just wondering out loud, because i really like Teferi but he seems stellar as one of the 99 in a control deck rather than the 1.

Teferi's pretty strong. I think he's probably stronger than he looks. Its really good to be able to choose between digging for more cards/action with the +1 and giving yourself huge ramp to cast the cards/action in your hand with the -1. If you get the ultimate off, really any walker + teferi is fine; Teferi himself is sort of like a seedborn muse, cause he untaps your stuff on someone else's upkeep, or, if you're already untapped, then he's like a consecrated sphinx. Basically any of the Jaces is good enough with all this.

I find that you can get the ultimate off in multiplayer with some pillow-fort stuff and then surprising people with a proliferate enabler. Also, Teferi's ultimate is BETTER in multiplayer cause you get more activations.

Since Teferi is ramp AND card draw, he makes a great commander. Have mana? Use the card draw. Have cards? Use the ramp. It's ideal.

Do you ultimate 'often'? How frequently?

I really like PW Teferi, but I didn't really brew with him as a commander ever; there just didn't seem to be enough blue walkers, and it didn't feel like there was enough to protect them (unlike, say Grixis Control or Bant Fog, let's say).

Also, I hate to be *that guy*, but have you considered Stasis?

Only once a game.

If you like him, try it. There's totally enough blue walkers. Tezzeret and Tamiyo and the Jace that gives creatures -1/-0 are just stellar planeswalkers. Teferi himself is underrated. Then you can use Karn and (for only 35$) Ugin, which are great removal. Further, another 3 of the Jaces are totally playable. Its really only jace the -3 bounce ability that is sub-par here.

Granted, you're not dropping a planeswalker every turn, but you can pretty much bank on getting 2 or 3 into play, cause the general is one of them.

Also, this is basically the reason I made this thread: you can indeed build around Teferi's ultimate and it makes a pretty fun blue superfriends deck; and I assume a lot of people sort of dismissed this idea because there aren't other threads on this. That, and, to spread the word about aetherspouts .

Oh man, there is absolutely enough to protect them; the blue bounce suite I've outlined is insane. It doesn't target, it doesn't care about indestructible, persist, etc, it just gets rid of everything. And there are MORE of these spells than I've actually included.

I couldn't play that in my meta ATM; the meta might shift to something more competitive eventually, but that looks like a one-card combo with the general that pretty much ends the game. Although, another idea from another thread is dismiss into dream, which looks like it makes Teferi's -1 into a "kill target 4 creatures" ability...

:P I meant to ask if you hit his ult in every game?

More than anything, I lack a JTMS (though, his price is not so bad now), and Ugin (but he's not a big deal, IMO). Also, it's just a numbers game, too, without JTMS/Ugin, I doubt I'd have the critical mass for PWs to make it go.

Aetherspouts is one of the only cards from M15 that held any interest for me. I deffo like it.

Yeah, I see that you can last long enough to reach ultimates, but does that let you actually win with the Planeswalkers? How do you actually win? (Ugin ghostfire someone to death?)

Dismiss into Dream is a fine choice, not just for use with Teferi, but Cryptic Command and plenty of other cards

OK, more seriously. Yes, I hit the ultimate in every game that I'm winning or that I win, which is, I dunno, at least the deck's fair share of games. Whether or not you include the chain veil for the infinite combos has a big impact on how quickly you can pull a win out of a moderate board state. After I get a Teferi emblem, then I can usually control the game for a few turns and ultimate another walker, one of the jaces, tamiyo, or karn are all pretty awesome. Also, there's a lot of theft and copy cards in here, so you can sometimes steal something huge and win with that. Also if you get a couple proliferate effects, darksteel reactor is legit.

I wouldn't worry too much about Jace, the mind sculptor, I think he's the 3rd best Jace for this deck. Here's the order of planeswalkers:

1. Teferi, Temporal Archmage. MVP! Seriously: draw AND ramp.
2. Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Devastating emblem that is easy to get to; +1 ability is super awesome.
3. Jace, Architect of Thought. The +1 is great; the ultimate is easy to reach.
4. Tezzeret the Seeker. So much ramp! And if you don't have mana artifacts to ramp with, he goes and gets them for you! Occasionally grabs utility stuff like Meekstone.
5. Jace, Memory Adept. The +1 is not great, ultimate is fun and easy to reach.
6 (this is where I assume Ugin, the Spirit Dragon would go)
7. Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The -1 is awesome; the +0 is good with Teferi's +1. The ultimate is usually irrelevant.
8. Karn Liberated. Exiling stuff is good, but its hard to do this repeatedly.
9 & 10. tie! Jace Beleren and Jace, the Living Guildpact. The little one makes friends, the other one at least bounces and has a decent ultimate. Probably the weakest +1 ability ever on a planeswalker since liliana vess.

Also, I know that you're limited to blue planeswalkers... unless your opponents play some, in which case you can steal them with blatant thievery, or copy them with clever impersonator. Could also run volition reins.

Also, a more detailed question about The Chain Veil and Tezzeret the Seeker: Do you find you immediately go actually infinite, or do you get so many PW activations that it catapults you into a board position where people can't effectively respond (because you ultimate whichever PWs you have tabled)?

Well, Teferi, Temporal Archmage + Tezzeret the Seeker + The Chain Veil is immediately infinite if you use Tezzeret to fetch up mana vault, then Teferi to untap vault, chain veil, and 2 other mana sources. Then you use Tezzeret to get another mana rock (like sol ring) and then you untap six mana worth with teferi + untapping the chain veil, so that nets you 2 mana. Then if you use Tezzeret to untap the mana vault and the chain veil, that's a net -1 mana, so for every 1 time you use Teferi's -1 you can use Tezzeret's +1 twice. This means you can alternate Teferi's +1 and -1 infinitely, which lets you draw your deck, and find a better mana rock / land to untap with tezzeret/teferi, and then you're producing infinite mana, to go along with your whole deck in your hand.

Tezzeret without Teferi in play isn't so dangerous. Assuming you have mana vault (or other 3 mana rock) you can +1 tezzeret as many times as you have total mana (minus 3, I think). So he could get extremely large; if you have some other planeswalker then you get that many activations of that guy, which is pretty silly. But if you JUST have tezzeret then you probably have to wait a turn and first fetch up rings of brighthearth to combo out.