Historic: Mono-Blue Lifegain

Mono-Blue Lifegain

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Deck
4 Aetherflux Reservoir
4 A-Cosmos Elixir
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
4 Shadowspear
4 Nettlecyst
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
4 Mox Amber
2 Paradox Engine
4 Moonsnare Prototype
4 Metallic Rebuke
16 Island
2 Buried Ruin
4 Inventors' Fair

Sideboard
4 Spell Pierce
3 Disruption Protocol
1 Disruption Protocol
4 Planar Incision
3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Overview

When you think Mono-Blue, life gain is not really something you think about. But this deck aims to make it work by making an aggressive go big deck that can easily hold up counters to protect itself, return threats from it's graveyard and even combo off using Paradox Engine, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Mox Amber to cast a ton of spells and kill with Aetherflux Reservoir. That combined with big lifelinking creatures can quickly overwhelm opponents.

Big Creatures

One of the things that this deck likes to do is make big creatures. Karn, Scion of Urza along with Nettlecyst let us grow our creatures doing the other thing our deck wants to be doing, playing artifacts. These cards scale very well as the game goes on and since Nettlecyst sticks around and Karn also provides card advantage you'll often find yourself pulling ahead when you get the chance.

Life

This deck does have "Lifegain" in the title. We are running full sets of Shadowspear, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Cosmos Elixir plus a full set of Inventors' Fair for the incidental life gain. Where Shadowspear pays us off for going big with our "Karnstructs", Aetherflux gives us some incremental lifegain, combo potential, and a late game finisher. Cosmos Elixer gives us some early game stability while we setup, and card advantage once our other synergies come online. Finally Inventors' Fair gives us an easy way to find our combo pieces, card advantage, or finishers as the game drags on.

Odds and Ends

The rest of the deck primarily consists of Emry for recursion, Mox Amber for ramp and our combo, Moonsnare for ramp, Metallic Rebuke for protecting our board and getting in threats, and Buried Ruin for recurring cards we lost to counters or removal.

At first glance Mox Amber might seem like an odd choice. Combo aside though it provides an early game drop for pumping our creatures, can be tapped by Moonsnare turn 1, or tapped for Metallic Rebuke. That all combined with it's insane upside gains it a space in the deck.