Table of Contents
When thinking on where blue is located in the color pie, and what it seeks to do as its identity, more often than not, resource denial is the primary method to achieve victory. However, playing with Deekah, Fractal Theorist as your commander, you’ll be present with a different style of gameplay. This strategy does not merely focus on negating your opponents of playing their spells. Instead, Deekah will give you an option where every instant and sorcery you play will be also generating a physical manifestation of that spell in the form of a Fractal Token. This proactive strategy allows you to maintain a defensive perimeter of Fractals while exerting lethal pressure on opponents’ life totals and restricting their ability to resolve spells once the board is established.
Deekah’s Premise
The core strategy centers on Deekah, Fractal Theorist’s Magecraft ability. This ability triggers whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery, creating a 0/0 blue and green Fractal creature token. Immediately after that, it will put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the mana value of that spell upon the token. Essentially turning every single Instant or Sorcery you cast into a creature.
Deekah herself provides a secondary layer of tactical utility through her activated ability. By expending three generic and one blue mana, target creature token will become unblockable. This ensures that the massive fractals created by your high cost spells can bypass defensive lines. Your boardstate will be growing constantly the more instants or sorceries you play, that’s why this deck has only 12 creatures, counting your own commander. This deck functions as a Spellslinger and Tokens hybrid.
Core Gameplay
In the early game, focus on developing the mana base and casting low-cost spells to prepare for the Commander. Cards such as Sol Ring, Sky Diamond, and Sapphire Medallion are utilised to ensure that Deekah can be cast as soon as possible, because this is a commander heavy deck. Establish protective pieces and play your low cost cantrips during this phase to prepare for Deekah’s arrival.
In the mid game, once Deekah, Fractal Theorist is on the battlefield. Every spell you cast, such as a Frantic Search or Gush will net you a fractal. Because the Fractals enter with counters, Herald of Secret Streams will turn them into unblockable creatures, allowing for the opponents’ life totals to be chipped away without relying on the expensive activation cost of Deekah second ability. During this phase, focus on broadening the board state.
In the late game, you’ll have a massive swarm of tokens dominating the board state. The game is closed out either through overwhelming combat damage, amplified by extra turn spells like Alrund's Epiphany, or through the execution of infinite combat-adjacent loops that are provided by specific high-synergy pieces. We want to prioritize high-mana value spells to generate the largest possible threats.
Decklist
We’re looking at a Bracket 3 middle of the pack deck costing around $300, with one Game Changer in the likes of Cyclonic Rift and a couple of Extra turn cards that will come handy for the late game.
Creatures (13)
Instants (26)
Sorceries (14)
Artifacts (9)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (35)
101 Cards
$294.16
Creatures
This deck relies on instants and sorceries to generate Fractals, that’s why we have the low creature count of only 11. Because this strategy depends on the Commander to develop and maintain board presence. But that doesn’t mean that the creatures in the list are just random creatures, every single one of them is there to help you in some way or another.
Card Drawers
As you can suspect, card draw is a must on this deck, because you have to cast instants or sorceries to create your fractal army, there’s some creature that will help you with that.
Archmage Emeritus is another magecraft creature which is pretty powerful by himself. Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery, you’ll draw a card. Essentially turning every instant or sorcery in your deck into a cantrip. Ensuring you that your hand will never end up empty.
Similarly, Curiosity Crafter provides you with card draw whenever a token creature deals combat damage to a player. Rewarding you for using your Fractals in an aggressive way.
Recursers
What’s better than casting a powerful instant or sorcerie? Casting it again, so, we got to have some recursion for our high-mana high-power spells.
Archaeomancer and Torrential Gearhulk will help you to bring back your powerful spells from the graveyard.
Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch,while not your traditional recursive granting creature, it will grant your instants of Rebound exiling them as you cast them instead of putting them in the graveyard and allowing you to play them again the next turn without paying their mana cost. This effectively doubles the number of spells cast, and thus the number of Fractals created.
Ojer Pakpatiq grants you all of this, while also being a pretty difficult creature to deal with, because if it dies it will return as the Temple of Cyclical Time, with three time counters in it, eventually turning itself into Ojer Pakpatiq again.
Miscellaneous and Mana Efficient Creatures
Finally we have some creatures that by themself are pretty mana efficients which will come pretty handy to have some creatures in the battlefield to block some early threats.
Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake both of these creatures are effectively net-zero mana creatures, because both of them will untap a number of lands equal to their mana cost as they enter the battlefield. This also helps you up your storm counter, which will come in handy for two specific spells.
Herald of Secret Streams as stated previously is an essential piece, as each Fractal produced by Deekah enters with a number of +1/+1 counters on them. Herald will be turning them into unblockable creatures.
Inquisitive Puppet is a pretty simple creature, a 0/2 by 1 generic mana that will make you scry 1 when it enters the battlefield. This little guy will be an important key to unlock one of the combos on this deck.
Arcane Proxy by itself is a pretty good recursion card for your instants and sorceries, but more often than not you’ll want to imprint it into Ugin's Labyrinth to get two colorless mana instead of one.
Artifacts and Equipment
This deck requires two things from the artifacts included in it. Mana and protection for Deekah.
Mana Rocks
We will be running an astounding amount of mana rocks such as:
Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, what is a commander deck without these two staples used for early mana fixing? Especially when you’re playing a deck that can’t naturally ramp. Mind Stone and Sky Diamond are also included as basic mana rocks.
Sapphire Medallion is a powerful card in this deck, as you have seen in the decklist, we run a pretty heavy mana curve, this is where Sapphire Medallion shines, by reducing the cost of your blue spells by one mana. Allowing you to cast many spells early in the curve.
Thran Dynamo and Worn Powerstone are here to ramp you up to cast your high-cost spells like Temporal Trespass earlier than expected.
As you know, you’re expected to draw many cards each turn to keep your hand full at all times, Thought Vessel provide a way to maintain a massive hand size without discarding to hand size.
All of these artifacts ensure the deck remains on curve.
The Only Pair of Boots You’ll Ever Need
Lightning Greaves is a mandatory inclusion, providing Deekah with haste and shroud to make her virtually immune to targeted removal.
Enchantments
Not every game of Commander will give you access to Lightning Greaves, so, these enchantments provide essential redundancy. Because mono-blue decks often draw early aggression, these cards function as alternative token generators, board-state answers, and unique recursion engines.
Shark Typhoon provides flying X/X Shark tokens whenever you cast a noncreature spell, where X equals the spell’s mana value. This card serves as a staple for board presence in blue-based control strategies.
Metallurgic Summonings functions similarly to Shark Typhoon, creating an X/X Construct token whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, where X equals that spell’s mana value.
It also comes with a pretty hefty ability, if you control six or more artifacts, by paying three generic and two blue manas and exiling Metallurgic Summonings it will return all your instants and sorceries from your graveyard to your hand.
Spellweaver Volute is a very original aura, as it will enchant an instant that is in any graveyard, allowing you to copy that instant any time you cast a sorcery, and you could cast the instant without paying its mana cost, but, if you cast the copy, Spellweaver Volute will in turn exile the instant and you’ll attach the Volute to another instant in a graveyard.
Keep in mind, Deekah ability triggers also if you copy an instant or sorcery. So, even if you don’t cast the copy of the instant, it will trigger Deekah, giving you another Fractal.
Imprisoned in the Moon serves as a versatile removal piece, neutralizing problematic commanders or planeswalkers by transforming them into Wastes.
Instants, Sorceries and their Lingering Fractals
Deekah needs you to cast Instants and Sorceries to give you fractals, that, and the fact that you’re playing mono-blue are reason enough to fill the deck with the most instants and sorceries you could have to control your opponents while Deekah fills the battlefield with fractals
Don’t Let your Opponents Play Anything
What is a blue deck without Counterspell? Two manas for denying your opponents to play their spell? There’s nothing more efficient than that.
Archmage's Charm, and Cryptic Command are your primary tools for interacting with the opponents’ plays, countering their spells, returning one permanent to their hands, drawing cards for yourself whatever you need for the moment.
Narset's Reversal and Misdirection while they are not counterspells, they can change the target of any spell that is targeting your commander. These spells act as defensive shields.
Cleaning the Battlefield for your Fractals
Cyclonic Rift, our only game changer, is a versatile mass-removal spell that can reset your opponents boardstate, specially powerful against token heavy decks. Perplexing Test also works as a “Budget” Cyclonic rift that, if by any chance you’re not playing against another token deck, will leave the battlefield empty for your fractals to deal with your opponents.
Ensure your Commander Stays in Play
Protecting Deekah is a primordial thing to do in this deck, leading to the inclusion of March of Swirling Mist, which will protect not only your commander, but also X number of creatures at instant speed by phasing them out.
More Cards, More Fractals
For resource management, Fact or Fiction and Memory Deluge will help you dig through the library for specific answers. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise both of these hefty spells comes with Delve, allowing you to cast them for very little mana, while putting in a massive massive 8/8 or 7/7 Fractals for that minimal investment.
Bring your Best Spell Back
Recursion is handled by Spelltwine and Reenact the Crime, which allow high-impact spells to be brought back from the graveyard to disrupt your opponents once more.
If One Turn is not Enough, Take an Extra One
As you might suspect, this deck runs its own flavor of extra turns in the likes of Temporal Trespass and Alrund's Epiphany, providing additional combat phases to swing with your Fractal army.
Exploiting the Perfect Storm
As this deck can generate impressive amounts of mana by our two combos, which we will be talking up next, Mind's Desire and Temporal Fissure are both included as a way to capitalize the storm count you’ll be generating from those combos and creating a final game state where your opponents won’t be able to deal with.
Combos and Infinite Loops
The deck contains a couple of ways to achieve a state of infinite mana and infinite storm counts, which almost always results in an immediate victory through either massive draw spells or infinite Fractal generation.
Hullbreaker’s Storm
This combo requires Hullbreaker Horror, Sol Ring and any one cost permanent card we have (remember Inquisitive Puppet?):
- You need both Hullbreaker Horror and Sol Ring on the battlefield, with Inquisitive Puppet in hand.
- Tap Sol Ring, adding two colorless mana to your mana pool.
- Cast Inquisitive Puppet, triggering Hullbreaker Horror ability, returning Sol Ring to your hand.
- With the other colorless mana you have in your mana pool, cast Sol Ring, triggering Hullbreaker Horror ability, returning Inquisitive Puppet to your hand.
- Restart the cycle from the second step.
This cycle repeats indefinitely to generate an infinite storm count. Once you have enough, casting Mind's Desire allows you to cast every remaining spell in the library without paying their mana costs.
Hullbreaker’s Infinite Mana
You can create an infinite amount of mana and storm count by using Hullbreaker Horror, Peregrine Drake, Cloud of Faeries and having
- You need both Hullbreaker Horror and Cloud of Faeries on the battlefield, with Peregrine Drake in your hand.
- Cast Peregrine Drake, using Ugin’s Labyrinth, triggering Hullbreaker Horror ability, returning Cloud of Faeries to your hand. Untaping five lands, and leaving one mana in your mana pool.
- Cast Cloud of Faeries, using Ugin’s Labyrinth, triggering Hullbreaker Horror ability, returning Peregrine Drake to your hand. Untaping two lands, and leaving another mana in your mana pool.
- Repeat the process starting from the second step.
This cycle repeats indefinitely, generating infinite mana and an infinite storm count.
Mana Infrastructure
Playing a mono colored deck is a good way to cut the mana base budget, because you won’t be needing expensive fetchlands, or expensive dual lands. You’ll be playing 25 islands and 10 utility lands.
The land selection includes several utility lands such as Castle Vantress, Mystic Sanctuary, and Riptide Laboratory.
Castle Vantress allows you to scry 2 before your turn to ensure you have a good card in the top of your library.
Mystic Sanctuary will more often than not enter untapped, bringing one instant or sorcery from your graveyard to the top of your library, functioning as extra recursion on a land.
Riptide Laboratory is a good way to protect your wizards by returning them to your hand, kind of a panic escape button.
To assist with deck thinning we’ll be running Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and Vibrant Cityscape. Allowing you to fetch an island and effectively removing two lands from your deck.
Reliquary Tower is a Thought Vessel on a land giving you no maximum hand size, while also giving you colorless mana.
Sunken Palace provides a powerful copy effect. By paying one generic and one blue mana and exiling seven cards from your graveyard, the land adds one blue mana. When this mana is used to cast a spell or activate an ability, that action is copied, which triggers Deekah, Archmage Emeritas to generate an additional Fractal token.
Emergence Zone is a good emergency button that you should use to grant spells flash when needed.
Finally
Closing Words
Deekah, Fractal Theorist represents a highly resilient and explosive option for mono-blue.
By focusing on turning your instants and sorceries into physical manifestations of them, you’ll be creating a stable battlefield while controlling your opponents, something not every mono-blue deck could do.
The deck is capable of pivoting between a control strategy, a wide token aggro approach, or a decisive infinite loop finish, providing a versatile gameplay experience.
