Mono-Blue Living End

[Wobbles The Goose]

I'd like to port the mono-blue living end deck that's made a recent splash in Modern (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-ub-43908) to Legacy.

Mono-Blue Living End (MULE)

//Creatures (12)
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
//Spells (22)
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Living End
4 Brainstorm
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
1 Echoing Truth
1 Repeal
//Enchantments (4)
4 As Foretold
//Lands (22)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Wasteland
7 Island
3 Tolaria West
//Sideboard (15)
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Field of Ruin
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Flusterstorm
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Restore Balance
3 Faerie Macabre
3 True Name Nemesis


For those unfamiliar with the combo, As Foretold allows you to play Visions and Living End for free immediately, bringing back the various cyclers for a fast clock.

The shell combines the features of the Modern deck, along with cards from the legacy old Mono-Blue Control decks. MUC has always been a fringe contender, just like every other deck that can consistently cast Force of Will, and adding a more reliable sweeper in the form of Living End helps to shore up it's main problem: Resolved Creatures. That really helps against the aggro control decks, while the card drawing of Ancestral Visions helps keep you ahead of other control decks.

The sideboard allows the deck to board into more of a land destruction package against Miracles/Lands with Crucibles and Field. Unlike previous MUC builds, Back to Basics is out sense it's too slow against the aggro matchups and it doesn't feel like it does enough against the control decks. Nimble Obstructionist is also more of a metagame call, although it's great in those control matchups and can even help force a living end through a Chalice on 0.

TNN, Restore Balance and Shackles combat more traditional aggro decks like Eldrazi/Czech, hopefully buying time to sweep with Living End or Balance. None of these are great solutions to Thalia or Deathrite, so it's something to keep testing. The graveyard package is also really important against reanimator and dredge, sense Living End is just terrible there and those match ups can be rough.

It's possible that the deck wants to move toward a more combo route, using Sol lands to play the As Foretold earlier, however I just don't think that's optimal when Living End is your payoff. Living End really requires some cycling to happen first (which is hard if your hand can't produce U on turn 1) and the setting up early counterspells is important. It's also possible that the deck wants to splash a color. Of those options, I'd like to try a build splashing Red possible for Burning Wish and Pyroblasts/Bolts out of the sideboard.

I'd love any feedback or for others to test.