The Blue "The Recycler" deck

Last updated June 26, 1998

This deck was designed by me as an experiment at first. I had an idea for building some strategies around Teferi's Puzzle Box, and this deck is what came from them. Oddly enough, this deck wins a good 75% of the time for me.
15 Island                1 High Tide           1 Prismatic Lace
 2 Svyelunite Temple     4 Howling Mine        2 Prodigal Sorcerer
 1 Scorched Ruins        1 Ivory Tower         1 Steal Artifact
 1 Blue Elemental Blast  1 Leviathan           1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
 1 Booby Trap            1 Library of Leng     2 Twitch
 1 Capsize               1 Millstone           1 Undo
 4 Counterspell          1 Miser's Cage        1 Unsummon
 1 Feldon's Cane         1 Pirate Ship         1 Zuran Spellcaster
Strategy
Each part of this deck has a purpose, but here's the general theme: Cycle through decks fast using the Howling Mines, and the puzzle box -- all parts of this deck then rely on each player's speed tour through their own deck:
1) Prevent opponent's creatures from sitting on the table
Do this by using Counterspell, Undo, Unsummon, Capsize, and the pinging abilities of the Prodigal Sorcerer, Zuran Spellcaster and Pirate Ship
2) Do massive damage with the Leviathan and Booby Trap.
Note that Booby Trap has an excellent side effect of letting you see all those many many cards that are speedily being drawn by your opponent (especially if the Mines and the Puzzle Box are in play.) The High Tide card is excellent in getting the Leviathan on the table. Use Twitch to untap it, but there's no way around the 2 Island sacrifice to attack. (Big deal...one hit with the Booby Trap and one with the Leviathan and "game over, man".
3) Get a life advantage over my opponent
Library of Leng and Ivory Tower ensure a handful of cards for me, and life to boot. Miser's Cage (mixed with the huge amount of cards the opponent draws) ensures they'll be hurting every turn.
4) Other strategies:
Prismatic Lace combined with Blue Elemental Blast provide a quick one-two punch that will take out anything on the table.
Feldon's Cane ensures that with a small deck and 4 Howling Mines (even if the Puzzle Box is "recycling" as it should), you'll never be without cards to draw.
The Scorched Ruins with 2 Islands give the 6 mana needed to use Capsize and Buyback.
The Millstone is just icing on the cake.