Cleric of Chill Depths

Creature — Merfolk Cleric

Whenever Cleric of Chill Depths blocks a creature, that creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (1)

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

3 years ago

I think a good place to start would be to evaluate what goals are the most important for your deck while making sure you don't have too many ideas that compete against each other. When I look at the deck now, I can see the general idea of a U/W control list that takes advantage of freeze and lifegain to prolong the fight until you can win. However, I see some major problems with the plan as it is now.

First, the deck lacks a clear win condition at the end of all the control. You'll either need to chip away over the course of a slow game with your smaller creatures or hope you have enough freeze effects to get your big guys in late-game. Control deck usually opt for some type of haymaker that can reliably close the game. Some like AEtherling and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are designed to protect themselves, some like Celestial Colonnade and Shark Typhoon place emphasis on evasion, some like Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster Mage give you as much value as possible, and some like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler deny your opponents of counterplay. There's a lot of overlap within those categories and not all of these cards will be played as a wincon, but having a clear plan to win is better than only playing to not lose. The closest cards you have are probably Serpent of Yawning Depths and Archipelagore. Sea monsters are certainly a fine casual deck but slotting them into something else can be awkward at best and ineffectual at worst.

The second problem I see is the missed potential of your chosen colors combined with your chosen tribe. Right now, you have very few ways to take advantage of the clerics in the deck. Clerics are intended to be W/B since you get access to powerful new tools like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, Taborax, Hope's Demise, and Cleric of Life's Bond along with classics like Sin Collector, High Priest of Penance, and Skirsdag High Priest. The lifegain/drain synergy in clerics also benefits from orzhov colors to play threats like Angel of Destiny, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, Speaker of the Heavens, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Twilight Prophet, Pious Evangel  ^Flip, Drana's Emissary, and Cruel Celebrant.

Incidentally, black also synergizes quite well with tapdown effects because of Assassinate cards like Royal Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Murderous Compulsion, although white does have its share of Vengeance with Sunblast Angel, Deadeye Harpooner, and Swift Response. Anyway, now that I'm on this tangent, it's worth mentioning that including strong freeze effects is important if you want to make such an underused mechanic work. I'm partial to Dungeon Geists and Icefall Regent as permanent taps, but there's also Guardian of Tazeem, Niblis of Frost, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Time of Ice, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Frost Titan, and Hands of Binding. Alternatively you can use cheaper cards that can retap a creature each turn like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Souleater, Fatestitcher, Hidden Strings, and Minister of Impediments. The final category I'll mention are other cards that take advantage of tapping enemy creatures like Palliation Accord and Verity Circle, except I'd only ever recommend the latter.

In summary, I think you should decide whether you're more interested in clerics or in freeze since they don't synergize with each other that well. For clerics, switching to black and taking advantage of lifedrain and sacrifice is advisable. For freeze control, find ways to abuse tapping, implement a strong win condition, and generally include more card draw and countermagic. If you are dead set on combining these styles, I'd at least invest in some tribal support cards to give the clerics more impact than just weakly contributing to the party mechanic. Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, Obelisk of Urd, and Coat of Arms are some popular options. Finally, if your budget doesn't allow you to purchase many new cards, prioritizing the acquisition of additional copies of your strongest but cheapest cards is a good way to upgrade. For this deck, I think those cards are Attended Healer, Cleric of Chill Depths, Hypnotic Sprite, Kor Celebrant, Luminarch Aspirant, Queen of Ice, Shepherd of Heroes, Skyclave Cleric  ^Flip, Concerted Defense, Dovin's Veto, Negate, Inscription of Insight, Staggering Insight, Trapped in the Tower, and maybe Silundi Vision  ^Flip. Good luck with your build and let me know if you have any questions!