Another Magic set is here, and that brings with it another run of pre-constructed decks. Like all sets these days, Murders at Karlov Manor has four preconstructed decks associated with it and in this piece, I’m going to be looking at Deep Clue Sea, the white/blue/green (Bant) deck based around clues.
Deep Clue Sea Commander Review
When looking at a pre-con, the first place to look is to the face commander, and the alternate commander to see what they are doing, and make sure we’re running the right option.
Morska, Undersea Sleuth is perhaps not going to be the premiere clue commander out there, but she may be the best one for Bant colors. She lets you build up your hand with no max hand size, investigates consistently, and can quickly grow into a threat as you draw cards. It is worth noting that her final ability can trigger on each turn, meaning that she can get two counters for each player in the game, and it provides an extra reason to use clues on other players' turns.
Her low cost is also useful, as it means you’ll be able to recast her easily if she is hit with removal, but the lack of evasion means that we will need to supply some ways of getting through for her. She can serve as Plan A for Deep Clue Sea, if she’s the commander.
Sophia, Dogged Detective is our alternative commander, and is an interesting one. Sophia when she comes in creates Scooby... I mean Tiny, a 2/2 Dog Detective with trample, and you can sacrifice artifact tokens to grow all your dogs. Additionally, when your dogs take a bite out of your opponent, you get food and clue tokens to make use of.
Looking at the deck as a whole, Sophia wants a different type of deck than what we have here – one that is quite interesting to build but different than Deep Clue Sea. She wants all the good boys and girls working together to gather clues and eat up the special snacks to take down the culprit(s). So I recommend Morska as your commander of these two options.
Deep Clue Sea Review
Overall Deep Sea Clue has a cohesive theme and idea of what it wants to do and how it’s going to do it. It has numerous ways to make clue tokens, as well as ways to take advantage of them. A number of those are payoffs for drawing cards, either for each card or a specific number of cards drawn on a turn. There are also some synergies with tokens in the deck with cards like Esix, Fractal Bloom, and Bennie Bracks, Zoologist.
Artifact synergies are the final leg Deep Sea Clue rests on, with cards like Thought Monitor, and Kappa Cannoneer. These take advantage of the fact that the clues you’ve spammed out are all artifacts for some additional payoffs.
Few cards don’t directly play into these intertwining themes in Deep Clue Sea. You make clues, which work for clue, and artifact synergies, and you trade them for extra cards, triggering all the draw payoffs. That’s not to say there’s not some room for improvement, but out of the box, Deep Clue Sea should play quite well as a focused deck. It has several clear paths for victory, something that precon decks can sometimes miss, especially in these colors.
Monetary value is also a strength for the Deep Sea Clues. It has several notable reprints of cards that were in the teens or twenty-dollar range that could be harder to acquire. These include Bennie Bracks, Zoologist, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, Chulane, Teller of Tales, and Koma, Cosmos Serpent. Those cards are also very usable outside of a clue deck, as are cards like Academy Manufacturer, Farewell, and Wilderness Reclamation.
On the more negative side of things, we see the deck is very low on interaction. There is one piece of spot removal, one counterspell, three board wipes, and no way to take care of problematic artifacts or enchantments. There are a couple of other interaction pieces, but generally, Deep Clue Sea just wants to do its own thing, and not interact with the other players.
One final issue to some degree is the mana base. Like a lot of precons, it is very heavy on tap lands, and that means you may be slower than you’d like, especially as you play against more powerful tables. 14 of the 37 lands enter tapped no matter what, and a few more are conditional on if they enter untapped.
Overall, Deep Clue Sea is a pretty good deck with cards with a wide range of use, some desired reprints, and plays pretty well out of the box.
Deep Clue Sea Additions
While Detectives may be new to Magic the Gathering, clues, artifacts, and tokens are not. That means there’s lots of room for some great Deep Clue Sea additions that can help you improve the deck.
Forensic Gadgeteer is a shame to have been left out of this deck as it is exactly what the deck needs. While you could lean into artifact themes to exploit the first ability, the second ability is more than enough with making clues cost only one mana to cash in.
If you don’t mind mixing some Universes Beyond in with your deck, there are some really good cards for clue decks in the Doctor Who decks. The first of these is the Five Hundred Year Diary, which is a 4 mana clue that can tap to give you a blue for each clue you control, giving you silly amounts of mana in a deck like this.
Continuing our trip to Whoville, Displaced Dinosaurs comes from the Blast From the Past deck and will make all the clues you create after it lands into 7/7 dinosaurs. It provides an alternative go-wide win condition as all your clues become real monsters, and you can have fun describing the giant letter dinosaur trouncing your opponent.
Duggan won’t solve the lack of interaction in Deep Sea Clues, but he does give you a bit of removal along with a creature that fits your plan. His size is equal to the number of cards in your hand, and he investigates upon entering the battlefield or attacking. Beyond that, you can a single time spend two mana and deliver ‘The Most Important Punch In History’ and have him deal damage equal to twice his power to any creature.
Also from Doctor Who, Martha Jones is a perfect fit for this deck as she investigates when she comes into play, and then helps you get your commander or other big creature in for a hit by making them unblockable when you sacrifice a clue. Her low cost means you can hold her until it's time to strike, play her, hold priority, and sacrifice a clue to trigger her ability, making one creature unblockable for the turn before your opponent can kill her.
Coming from Murders at Karlov Manor’s tie-in release of Ravnica: Clue Edition (affiliate link), Senator Peacock is a powerful card for a clue deck. She turns any artifact you have into a clue, and lets you make any creature unblockable when you sacrifice a clue, much like Martha Jones does. When you have some big creatures you want to get through, that’s an important ability to have.
While the classic Lonis is already in the deck, this version is from the new Clue tie-in, and it also deserves a spot. While its base stats are small having Evolve means it grows easily, and whenever it does grow, you investigate. Additionally, whenever you cash in one of your clues, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on another creature, helping grow your board even taller than before. While we're not including it in this deck, it goes infinite with Extruder, creating two infinitely large creatures.
An odd omission from the deck, Tamiyo’s Journal is one of the best clue cards to have been released. For five mana you get a clue token each turn, and you can tap it to sacrifice three clues and search your deck for anything. As a repeatable tutor that is a good rate and is one of the first cards to add to this deck.
Left out of the deck’s inclusion of cards that trigger when you draw your second card, Minn can help your board go wide with ever-growing Illusions. Each time you draw a second card you get an Illusion, and each Illusion gets bigger for all the others you control. Plus, if they kill an Illusion you get to put a permanent into play for free.
From Forgotten Realms Commander, we come to Thorough Investigation which will get you an investigation each time you attack (not per creature or player, just attack). It also lets you Venture Into the Dungeon whenever you sacrifice a clue, giving cheap value for something you are already doing. The dungeons you can choose here are Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Lost Mine of Phanelver, and Tomb of Annihilation if it has been a while since you interacted with that mechanic.
Additional cards you may look at adding to Deep Clue Sea are staple interaction cards. Here are a few quick ideas
Counters
Removal
Deep Clue Sea Cuts
Personally, I find what to cut from a deck is one of the hardest parts of deckbuilding there is in Magic. There are thousands of cards, and when you’ve narrowed it down to a relative handful picking out the last few cuts can be brutal. By their nature, cuts will vary on what direction you take the deck, and who you are playing with, so these are just a few ideas of cards I think you can cut:
- Whirler Rogue
- Hornet Queen
- Search the Premises
- Selvala, Explorer Returned
- Innocuous Researcher
- Serene Sleuth
- Finale of Revelation
- Ransom Note
- Teferi’s Ageless Insight
- Knowledge is Power
These aren't necessarily bad cards, but ones you might upgrade on with some of the other options, or may move from on if you take the deck in certain directions.
If you want to see what one take on an upgraded version looks like, I put together a list on Archidekt. If you have any questions about any of the additions or cuts, or any secret tech ideas you want to share, take to the comments below.
Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net
A longtime lover of speculative fiction, in almost all its forms, Don joined TechRaptor in 2014 on a whim sending in an application as he was looking for… More about Don
