Geist of Saint Thalia

Geist of Saint Thalia is a 1/2 flying Spirit that gives a flat cost reduction to all of your noncreature spells, which is rather good for its asking price. Discounts like this in blue are usually reserved for mere instants and sorceries, and even then they generally only start showing up at three mana.

No, affecting all noncreature spells that early in the game is spectacular. The first thing that comes to my mind is that makes it possible to cast any cost artifact for free, and there are a ton of those that just so happen to replace themselves with another card. Combine that with cards that care about you casting artifacts, and you’ll overwhelm the board with value very quickly.

If you’re not in a Cheerios mood, though, you might still find playing tons of cheap instant speed interaction fun. Of course, cheap spells benefit disproportionately from cost reduction: discounting a five-mana spell to four mana is modest, but taking a two-cost spell to one cuts the price of that spell in half. That means you can cast way more spells per spell, and that’s what blue exists to do in the first place.

And even if you’re not looking to pilot a deck that takes ten minute turns resolving a bunch of dorky cantrips, it just can’t be overstated what that small discount can do for your overall card quality. For example, Thalia wildly enhances your selection of playable counters; while it was hard to argue with Counterspell on account of its raw efficiency, you may find that with Saint Thalia on board, you’re reaching for Bane’s Contingency or Three Steps Ahead instead. She will win a lot of games on incremental value over the course of ten turns.

And if somehow that isn’t enough, you could always fall back to the tried-and-true mono-blue Spirit typal deck.