Standard Corner #4: U/W Control

This past Friday, I played Standard for the first time since the rotation of Zendikar block and I have a lot of researching to do. What was it like playing the new format? I think the new format is very interesting and it's significantly more aggressive and faster than Zendikar/M11/Scards of Mirrodin. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to play and what was within budget. The format features many aggro decks, including Mono Red, Tempered Steel, G/W Humans, U/W Blade, some different mid range decks, like RUG, Birthing Pod, Kessig Ramp, Heartless Summoning, and finally the dominant Solar Flare control. There was a lot to choose from and considering the price of Scars of Mirrodin lands keeps jumping higher and higher, I had to choose wisely. I ended up sleeving something you usually wouldn't see me playing, simple U/W Control. I used Tim Landale's Philadelphia U/W List, because it looked like a lot of fun to play and seemed strong against the aggro filled field I had predicted. The deck featured very strong Planeswalkers and creatures to run the show, including Gideon Jura, Elspeth Tirel, Karn Liberated, and Wurmcoil Engine. The deck also had a nice removal suite of Dismember, Oblivion Ring and the mighty Day of Judgment that gave it some weapons to stall till the mid-late game. Overall, I thought the deck had the tools it needed to take down a very diverse field and felt confident going into the evening.

Another funny thing about the rounds was I realized I didn't have a sideboard built whatsoever, so I had to move fast. After running around and trying to find cards to fill up slots, here's how it looked:

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

1x Jace, Memory Adept

3x Flashfreeze

1x Dissipate

1x Gideon Jura

1x Timely Reinforcements

1x Revoke Existence

2x Divine Offering

1x Celestial Purge

2x Nihil Spellbomb

1x Surgical Extraction

How did I end up doing? 

In Round 1, I was paired with my good friend and Casual Net Admin, C.J., who is notorious for playing Mono Red. After talking a big game, I delivered with a 2-0 victory over the aggro deck. After resolving a Day of Judgment and using Oblivion Ring on his Shrine of Burning Rage, his deck ran out of gas very quickly. Did I mention I killed him after a Koth emblem by using Dismember on his two mountains and using Karn to exile the rest of his lands? Yeahhh.

In Round 2, I played against Kessig Ramp and it was a rough set of games. After feeling the pressure of my opponent using Beast Within and a pair of Acidic Slime to keep me off lands, he quickly overran me with Primeval Titan and Garruk Primal Hunter and won the game pretty quickly. I got stomped, 0-2. 

In Round 3, I played against a W/B control deck that seemed more geared towards graveyard hate. Luckily, I didn't run any graveyard shenanigans and Karn and Elspeth took the game home with a 2-0 win. 

Round 4 played a bit strangely. In game 1, I was down to 8 life on my turn 4 with my opponent having about 10 power worth of dudes on the board with his G/W Humans deck. I sat there looking at my double white and thinking 'Day of Judgment would be awesome right now.' After flipping the top card and seeing the expression on my opponent's face, I'd say Day of Judgment is more than fantastic. Game 2 went the same way when I kept a hand of 3 lands and a Day of Judgment. If you're reading this G/W guy, sorry =[ Victory 2-0.

Round 5 was a heartbreaker. I played against G/W tokens and game 1 lasted a grueling 45min. With a pair of crucial mistakes on my end, I finally got pounded. Gavony Township is no joke. With time in the round, I unfortunately could not redeem myself. Loss 0-1

In the final round, I sat at 15th place overall. I wasn't very optimistic about making Top 8, but decided to play anyways. I played against the one deck I really did want to test against, Solar Flare. After two extremely intimidating games of land-pass and playing around Mana Leak, I eventually stuck a Karn on the board and went to town. My opponent could not draw an Oblivion Ring to save him and Karn grinded the win like you wouldn't believe. After sideboarding, I put in Dissipate, both spellbombs, and surgical extraction for good measure. After using Elspeth to stall with tokens, I eventually landed a Karn with 3 mana up and my opponent sighed as they looked at their Mana Leak in hand. Final win, 2-0.

I ended the night with a 4-2 record and a 9th place pat on the back (with a turn out of 60 or so people). Unfortuately, I was just shy of Top 8, so I missed out on prizes, but I did gain valuable information for what changes I can make to the deck and what cards I need to be cautious of in the future. Fortunately for you guys, I'm including my field notes in this post as an added bonus!

There are a few cards to look out for. I don't have a ranking, but I'll write about the most problematic ones. First off, the big elephant in the room, Sword of Feast and Famine. This card ends games very quickly and when left unanswered, serves as a card advantage and a tempo boosting machine. The ability to obtain both gives this sword my vote as the best (and broken) abilities of the protection swords. I won't go into too much detail about why it's so powerful (a discussion, I'm saving for a Casual article), but it is a card that you will have to keep in mind when fighting against the mid-range decks, which will spam or side in several copies of this powerful equipment.

Another heavy hitter is the very subtle Inkmoth Nexus. This card in multiples can end games very quickly and is the only viable man land after we lost the Worldwake lands during rotation. Since it has incredible synergy with Kessig Wolf Run and Gavony Township, the card is a beating and is difficult to destroy. Inkmoth is also the perfect creature to have after a wrath effect when the board is clean and you can run rampant with these Infect fliers. Unless you're packing instant speed artifact hate, burn spells, or land destruction, be prepared to get swarmed and poisoned to death. 

The final vote for most influential card is Elspeth Tirel. Although she hasn't shined much since her debut in Scars of Mirrodin over a year ago, she will be seeing tons of play now. The ability to produce 3 tokens and have a living, breathing (figuratively speaking) planeswalker is very powerful. Elspeth has very strong synergy with Gavony Township, protects herself, gives you multiple dudes to fight other planeswalkers, and helps you against sacrifice effects. Did I mention Liliana of the Veil? Also, those tokens are Soldiers that can block Stromkirk Noble, which is very important for the G/W decks that need blockers against this huge guy, because they spam Humans in the early game. Elspeth also is 5 mana and comes out a turn earlier than any Titan and if you have board position over your opponent, can threaten to semi-Planar Cleansing away all of their hard work.

The weapons you'll need for this new Standard environment include cards that can deal with multiple types of permanents. With such a diverse field, you'll need cards that can answer Planeswalkers, Creatures, Artifacts/Enchantments, or even Lands. Cards like Oblivion Ring, Beast Within, and Bramblecrush are the means to fighting off whatever your opponent's strategy is. Late game control finisher, Karn Liberated, also has great versatility in bringing your opponent's strategy to a hault. 

This standard environment also has quite a few aggro decks that can be problematic for the mid range and control decks. Hitting the reset button will help save you time and time again. The three most important cards for the job are Day of Judgment, Black Sun's Zenith, and a new favorite, Slagstorm. Killing the armies of dudes the token decks and aggro decks produce so quickly is vital to surviving and keeping your opponent's tempo off. If you can't stop their onslaught or produce an army to go toe to toe with theirs, the game will end in just a couple turns.

Other notable cards include Wurmcoil Engine, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Karn Liberated, Stromkirk Noble, Brimstone Volley, and Viridian Emissary, but there just isn't enough time to talk about them. Shout outs to Jav and C.J. for running the gauntlet at the Coolstuff FNM with me and thanks to Evan and Gyula for letting me borrow cards to play the deck. Until next FNM Magic players!

Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

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