Standard

A New Year, A New Grind

A couple of weekends ago, I started off the new year with a PTQ in Syracuse. In deciding what deck to play, my number one priority was having a favorable matchup versus Mono-Black, which I expected a lot of the best players to be playing. My favorite sideboard plan against Mono-Black? [card]Assemble the Legion[/card], of course.

My interest was piqued when I saw a UW Control list from the top eight of Grand Prix Shizuoka that splashed red for Assemble in the sideboard. It was exactly the type of deck that I wanted to play. I made some small changes to it and wound up liking the following list:

[deck title=”UWr Control”]
[Creatures]
1 AEtherling
[/Creatures]

[Planeswalkers]
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Planeswalkers]

[Spells]
2 Azorius Charm
2 Essence Scatter
4 Last Breath
4 Detention Sphere
4 Dissolve
3 Divination
4 Supreme Verdict
3 Sphinx’s Revelation
[/Spells]

[Lands]
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Island
3 Plains
4 Mutavault
[/Lands]

[Sideboard]
1 Pithing Needle
1 Wear // Tear
2 Blind Obedience
2 Glare of Heresy
4 Gainsay
2 Archangel of Thune
3 Assemble the Legion
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

There are no red cards in the maindeck; this is basically a UW Control deck with sideboarded [card]Assemble the Legion[/card]s. Most of the U/W lists run a few off-color Temples anyway, so it’s not that much of a stretch to make use of the red mana.

The first thing to note here is the maximum number of [card]Mutavault[/card]s. Four colorless lands in a two-and-a-half color manabase might be greedy, but the payoff is huge. [card]Mutavault[/card] is probably the best card in Standard. With Mono-Black and Mono-Blue each playing four, it feels like a disadvantage to be playing fewer than that.

In this deck, our [card]Mutavault[/card]s can trade with opposing [card]Mutavault[/card]s, but their main purpose is to attack planeswalkers and serve as uncounterable threats that don’t die to your own [card]Supreme Verdict[/card]s. In post-sideboard games, [card]Archangel of Thune[/card] makes [card]Mutavault[/card] even better.

[card]Azorius Charm[/card] isn’t what it used to be, and I’m only running two copies. There are pro-white creatures and pro-blue creatures, creatures with haste, and creatures with dangerous enters-the-battlefield abilities that you either can’t [card]Azorius Charm[/card] or can’t afford to [card]Azorius Charm[/card]. [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card], [card]Blood Baron of Vizkopa[/card], [card]Gray Merchant of Asphodel[/card], and [card]Fanatic of Mogis[/card] are the main offenders. [card]Essence Scatter[/card], on the other hand, is a clean and efficient way to deal with those cards. This is at risk of it being a mostly dead card in the mirror for game one, and also requiring you to leave two mana open in the middle turns of the game.

Last Breath, on the other hand, is currently an extremely flexible removal spell. For just two mana, it removes [card]Pack Rat[/card], [card]Nightveil Specter[/card], [card]Master of Waves[/card], and [card]Mutavault[/card]. The exile clause is particularly relevant against [card]Xathrid Necromancer[/card] and [card]Voice of Resurgence[/card].

[card]Elixir of Immortality[/card] works as a win condition, but I like an Ætherling instead, simply because this was a offline tournament, and Elixir can take a long time to win with.

First PTQ of the Year

My actual results at the PTQ were rather disappointing-I went 3-4, losing to Rw Devotion three times.

It was clear to me that this list is positioned to beat Mono-Black, where the [card]Last Breath[/card]s, [card]Mutavault[/card]s, and [card]Divination[/card]s really simplify the matchup. We match them play-by-play in the early game: [card]Last Breath[/card] for [card]Pack Rat[/card] and [card]Nightveil Specter[/card], [card]Dissolve[/card] for [card]Thoughtseize[/card], [card]Mutavault[/card] for [card]Mutavault[/card]. They have [card]Underworld Connections[/card] and [card]Desecration Demon[/card] to demand a fast and specific answers, while we have Jace and Elspeth to do the same. Eventually, [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] breaks the game wide open.

The Rw Devotion matchup, on the other hand, was not so hot for me. Nykthos decks, in general (which includes the blue and green varieties), cause a lot of problems for control decks when they start spewing out a mixture of creatures, planeswalkers, weapons, and gods that all apply pressure from different angles.

I like trying to reverse the roles in post-sideboard games against these types of decks, when they tend to take out their removal. Getting on the board with creatures early makes it a lot easier to deal with their planeswalkers while freeing up your mana to do other things. I had a solid sideboard plan with [card]Archangel of Thune[/card] and [card]Blind Obedience[/card], which did a lot of work on their own. (I had tested [card]Fiendslayer Paladin[/card]s, as well, but ended up cutting them.) Unfortunately, my number of non-Supreme Verdict answers to [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] was low. For this kind of strategy to work, I think I may need cards like [card]Turn // Burn[/card] and [card]Celestial Flare[/card] as outs to a resolved Dragon.

It was strange that I never played against a single blue deck on the day, so perhaps I just hit an unlikely series of matchups. If your metagame has an abundance of Islands, I would recommend shaving some [card]Mutavault[/card]s, adding more red sources, and playing [card]Counterflux[/card] over [card]Dissolve[/card]. In the control mirror, there is a lot of merit to the gameplan of Counterfluxing their Elixir or their Ætherling and letting them deck themselves.

But for now, I think I’m going to explore other options. There are certainly a lot of viable decks in Standard right now, and I don’t think a single one is above the rest.

The GP Drought

If you’re on the eastern half of North America like I am, there’s nothing on the Grand Prix schedule until Richmond at the very end of the current season. Thankfully, there’s still Magic to be played, with the Standard PTQ season in full swing. Hairy Tarantula is hosting another fine PTQ in Toronto this weekend, but I’m actually looking at attending SCG Columbus instead. It’s been a year and a half since I played in an Open, and I’m excited to take a break from the harsh and unforgiving PTQ grind. It’ll also be my first time playing Legacy competitively, so it’s sure to be a train wreck!

Speaking of trains…#GPDrunkTrain.

Alex Bianchi
@Gemmanite

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