With the release of Avacyn Restored, the standard metagame is obviously going to undergo some changes. Now I won’t pretend to know what these changes are, exactly. I am sure the first Star City Open will shed some light on the situation. What I will say is there is at least one deck that I think will show up in the Standard Top 8 of the Providence Open: Blue/Red Delver.

There is so much raw power in a deck like this. One of the best creatures in the format, Delver of Secrets, gets to pair up with some of the sweetest spells in the format, including the newly released Thunderous Wrath. How is this not the most exciting? Well we have 60 cards to  put together so let’s start!

First off, the obvious creatures are Delver of Secrets and Snapcaster Mage. I would like 4 of each, please! These will form the backbone of the deck. Since both of these guys interact with spells and our spells are part of our win condition, our actual spell suite will have to be much more diverse than regular Blue/White Delver or Spirit Delver.

We obviously want to set up our Delver to flip, so Ponder is an automatic inclusion. When you use ponder on turn 2, assuming you didn’t just flip your turn one Delver, don’t be afraid to just go ahead and shuffle away a set of cards that doesn’t line up with your plan. I get that flipping Delver is “The Plan” but this deck actually has enough ways to interact with your opponent outside this Lightning Bolt on wings that you don’t have to try and get there 3 at a time. Ponder is especially important because it will hide the Thunderous Wrath until we have Red mana to actually hit them for 5.

Since Thunderous Wrath interacts so poorly with Snapcaster, we aren’t running a full 4 of these bad boys. Instead 3 will be enough and we will supplement the numbers with Noxious Revival. This card does work well with Snapcaster and adds a real level of versatility to your deck that continues to be surprising.

The other spell that really brings the heat is Brimstone Volley. This card is no joke in a format that runs rampant with Zombies that go morbid ever turn and Lingering Souls which offers about a trillion chump blockers. 3 of these fit the bill nicely, giving this deck even more reach.

The plus side to Volley is that you won’t often find yourself in a place where you have to cast it for 3 damage because the ground should stay clear with 2 Arc Trails and 3 Incinerates.  Of course there will be the ever present 4 Vapor Snags so your burn spells won’t have to do all the work.

With 3 Miracles in the deck, drawing on your opponents turn will help get in extra points of damage. Besides the singleton Desolate Lighthouse, 3 Thought Scour will assist in this. The ability to mill our opponent or ourselves does two things. We can clear the chaff from Ponder, which is not the best use of the card, or we can destabilize our opponents’ Ponders, which is way better.

Getting a miracle stuck in your hand, especially one that costs 6, is not the best. 2 Faithless Lootings actually handle that problem nicely and give us some filtering to find the spells we need to maintain our dominant position.

With 5 cards remaining in the list, I have to suggest adding some control elements to the deck. With Cavern of Souls, Mana Leak becomes less good. That is fine for us as we actually don’t care about many creatures. Instead Negate is going to do some serious leg-work in this list. 3 of them plus Snapcaster protect us from board wipes, enemy plainswalkers, and Unburial Rites for Elesh Norn.

The last two spots fall to Grim Lavamancer! While the Lava-man does eat up out graveyard, he is death to opposing Delvers, gives us a lot of consistency with our damage, and can occasionally distract choice removal from our Delvers. The EOT synergy with Thought Scour doesn’t hurt either.

Our final list should look like this:

Creatures: 10

4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grim Lavamancer

Instants: 21

3 Thunderous Wrath
2 Noxious Revival
3 Brimstone Volley
3 Incinerate
4 Vapor Snag
3 Thought Scour
3 Negate

Sorcerys: 8

4 Ponder
2 Arc Trail
2 Faithless Looting

Lands: 21

4 Sulfur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Evolving Wilds
7 Island
6 Mountain

I don’t know about you, but I get a warm feeling inside seeing an absolutely devastating removal package that happens to double as damage to the face for a final kill. For this deck, 10 is easily doable in one turn and if the games turn grindy, the reach that all the burn adds can quickly allow you to break away from your opponent.

If you have questions about the deck, or magic in general, feel free to talk to me on Twitter @samdavisboyhero, or leave me a comment below. If you have time to listen to a podcast, Planeswalker Asylum is up on MTGCast and our full archives can be found on Couch Pirate Radio, if you have some catching up to do. As always, thanks for reading!

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your miracles on top.

“Sick of the same old war stories? This week, Sam takes a different look at tournament reports.”

I don’t know about you but I don’t enjoy tournament reports. There are exceptions, of course. But as a general rule, I just don’t see the point most of the time. If you have a sweet deck, tell me what you liked and didn’t like. Feel free to offer some matches as examples. What I don’t want to see is something dull that has literally no point. The first game of my first match of the Legacy event is a perfect example of what I am talking about. This will be boring. Stick with it. It will pay off. If it doesn’t, you can write mean comments.

I sit down across from my opponent. He seems cool. We say the words we are supposed to. Where are you from? Oh that isn’t the worst drive. Did you play standard? Oh that is an interesting choice. How did you do? Oh that isn’t too bad. Blah Blah Blah. Dice are rolled. He is on the play. He shuffled weird. I see an Underground Sea and then an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Okay, this is the worst match up for me.

We draw up our hands. He keeps. I have no lands. Down to 6. No lands. 5. No lands. 4. No lands. Keep it anyway. Underground Sea Go.

Draw. Not a land. Go.

EOT Brainstorm. Untap. Land. Careful Study discarding Inkwell Leviathan. Reanimate targets the big fish. Go.

Draw. No land. Go.

Draw. Hit you for 7. Go.

Draw. No land. Scoup.

That was boring. Just a bad beats story. Now I know that not all reports go like that but sometimes it is round after round of effort to meet the final wordcount. I would honestly rather you put out no content at all than content that isn’t worth reading. So I would like to try something a bit different for my games 2 and 3.

Feeling the shame of a crushing defeat at the hands of the Leviathan, I blinked off the plane and into the Void. The space between one plane and another is the perfect place to gather my thoughts and devise a plan to fight off this powerful, necrotic foe. Fortunately, stored in a bubble and hidden in the Void at a location only I knew, there exists a cache of spells that might assist me. Finding it, I smiled to myself, selected a choice few, and blinked back to the plane.

The dark mage stood, mockingly, across a blank field. He called out to me, asking if I was prepared to try my luck again. My mind was full of fire and thoughts of home. I simply nodded to him and I saw his eyes glow blue with the untold power hidden inside his head. Focusing on the mountain ranges where I first discovered my spark, I saw the ground dry and turn a dusty red. The lands had responded to my call. Not a moment later, a goblin snapped through the aether and charged headlong, unfazed by its trip from the plane of Zendikar, toward my opponent. I could see for a moment, in the necromancer’s eyes, thoughts of a delta, tainted by evil. Then the teeth of the goblin met the flesh of his leg. The pain was certain but the mage stood stoic. After a moment the goblin exhausted his energies and paused his assult.

The same delta that formed in the mage’s eyes moments ago appeared beneath his feet. Then the land shifted and he stood at the mouth of a cave, water trickling past his boots. He closed his eyes for a moment and I saw his aura grow blue as he chanted in a language I didn’t understand. Suddenly, behind him appeared the corpse of a radiant angel clad in armor. I had heard tales of such an angel from a knightly female who claimed that once summoned the angel would accept upon itself the dangers and damages that would normally befall a mage.

The fire flowed into my mind with even greater zeal than at the beginning of the battle. The red earth beneath my feet shook and a mountain appeared behind me. The goblin, regaining his strength, again gnawed at the mage, who was now certainly worse for wear. Then again calling upon the power of my home, I let fire flow through me. It burned. The pain was great but I knew that the necromancer felt the same pain. His discomfort made mine easy to dismiss.

He gestured arcanely at the angel and I saw that this attempt to rouse the guardian, were it to prove successful, would hinder my spells from finding their true mark. His face paled as he strived to reanimate her lifeless corpse. At that moment I knew that this spell would hurt the mage a great deal and I thought of a plan. Desperate but potentially rewarding, I pushed forth the flames from mountains at my back. I knew that doing so would certainly sever my connection with these lands but the damage it would deal the tainted mage would be enough to ensure that victory was mine this time. The lands disappeared and so too did the mage. I knew he would be back shortly.

I blinked again into the void and cleared my head. Then back to the contested plane. Moments later my opponent was back as well. I looked at him and he shook his head, dismissing what knowledge might be therein, seeking to find more potent sorceries to fight my magics. After a moment, he nodded and I found almost all my thoughts again consumed with fire, save the piece of trickery I had pulled from the bubble in the Void. Our fight was about to begin for a third time and to the victor would go the plane along with whatever treasures and spells that might have been hidden here.

The delta again appeared and this time it transformed into an island. Once more the mage closed his eyes and he glowed with power. In the waters behind the island, the body of the dreaded leviathan that had bested me upon our first encounter floated to the surface. I knew that in moments I could be met with the attacks of this monster.

A mountain emerged underfoot and with its power I threw a bolt of lightning. It connected with the mage and his face was wracked with pain for the briefest of moments.

Next to the island a swamp emerged and I knew that my time may not be long for this plane. Instead of simply reanimating the beast still floating behind him, the mage closed his eyes for a third time. Careful consideration went into the next few moments then the corpses of not one but two of the Phyrexian Praetors. I know that my fear must have shown. This mage was clearly well traveled and powerful.

I call upon a second mountain and summon an elemental. The mage winces as the elemental’s claws pierce his skin. After a moment the elemental disappears and a pile of ash, still smoldering, appears behind me. The warmth at my back reassures me that I may yet have hope to defeat this necromancer.

He smiles and I am filled with concern. Again he whispers arcane words and I feel the taint of his spell engulf the area. Black tendrils curl about the pile of ash behind me, attempting to beckon it back to life. Similar whisps dance between the three dead monsters behind the mage. I then realize my rage has blinded me to my own options. I shake my head, seemingly dismissing a thought. A faerie appears behind me for a moment and the corpses of both Phyrexians disappear into the aether with a malicious giggle and a snap. The dark tendrils afix themselves to the mighty leviathan and to the faerie, animating both of them with its dark touch.

I send the faerie over the oddly helpless leviathan to scratch at the eyes of the dark mage. As soon as the faerie stops, a spike of lava erupts from a mountain behind me, splashing against my opponent.

He retaliates, sending the leviathan straight for me. There is nothing I can do to prevent its attack. The pain is massive and I know I won’t be able to survive more than one more attack like that.

I preform a bit of necromancy, asking the smoldering pile of ash behind me to reform once again for just a moment. The ashes form and the revived elemental joins my malicious aerial ally against the necromancer. After its purpose is served, the elemental disappears into the Void.

Unwilling to give up hope, the black mage sends the leviathan crashing in a second time. I know that this will hurt, but bracing against the might of the sea monster does little to lessen the pain. I coax lightning from my fingers toward the mage but through sheer force of will he swats the spell away.

My faerie goes toward the mage again, making contact with his throat. After just a second, The Void opens up and the necromancer and his vile taint are gone from the plane.

I stand alone, victorious. Now to seek the spoils…

That was certainly more enjoyable to write than a play-by-play of what otherwise would have been fairly uninteresting games. I hope that you had just as much fun reading it. If you’re interested in reading more like this, please let me know. In fact, any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated. As always, I can be found on Twitter if you can’t get in touch with me here. Thanks for reading!

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your reading interesting.

“Sam takes a look at how players can most appropriately interact with Judges and shares a few things that most may not know. A solid read for every level of player.”

While attending Grand Prix Hoth (located in Lincoln, Nebraska), I got to experience a new format for the first time. Modern was different from Legacy and obviously different from Standard. On that front, I believe WoTC can say that Modern is a success as a format, however that is an entirely different article. Not only did I get to interact with a new format but I, once again, found myself observing several situations that could have been avoided by a few simple things. Given that I find these things to be so simple, many of which I believe to being fundamentally polite and cautious, I felt obligated to share my thoughts about appropriate conduct throughout the course of a major event. Much of this can also be easily applied to your local game store and I will be sure to point out those things as they come up.

The first thing that I noticed was the number of simple mistakes that both players make. Most of these are honest and accidental. Despite the honest nature of these mistakes, they can be damaging on the game state and are frequently irreversible. For example, I witnessed a match where a Burn player had a Torpor Orb on the table, keeping the Twin player from going infinite. However neither player caught the two damage from two Keldon Marauders entering the battlefield. By the time one player noticed, at least two turns had passed, which restricted a judge from being able to give the Twin player his two life back, despite the fact that both player had detailed notes and agreed on where the exact life losses had taken place. That could have been a huge advantage to the Burn player. Luckily the damage was not relevant in the end but that could have easily been prevented by slightly more observant play on either side. These things are things you can train yourself to avoid at FNM and you should be sure to constantly check the board state every time an action is taken. Make sure that you don’t play slowly while doing this but a constant vigilance is important. I know seasoned players who would say that this is obvious, and maybe you are thinking the exact same thing presently, however even those players make mistakes that would result in warnings at a large tournament. No matter how long you have been playing, there is always a chance to miss something. Remembering that tenant helps ensure that you won’t.

Now as a player in that game, when do you call a judge? As the Twin player, you want to call the judge as soon as you notice a problem to attempt to rectify the problem and hopefully get you a point or two of life back. Whenever you see something that you opponent has done, either willfully or accidentally, that has given him or her the upper hand, you obviously should call a judge. But what if you are the Burn player? You want to call the judge as soon as you notice a problem to attempt to rectify the problem and hopefully get your opponent a point or two of life back. Because whenever you see something that you have done, in this case it will only be accidentally as you won’t be calling a judge on yourself if you are willfully breaking the rules, you need to call a judge and try to rectify the situation. Yes, you may lose because of it. That is irrelevant to the correct line of “play”. Winning games because you cheated means you didn’t actually win that game of Magic.

There is a third side of a Magic game that many people forget. People watch games. When you are watching a game, you are obligated to point out any mistakes in the current gamestate. Don’t confuse this with offering advice or anything of that nature and make sure that you phrase your corrections to the game in as factual and nonleading manner as possible. If Player A casts Path to Exile on Player Bs Goblin Guide, then Player B moves to the attack phase with the Guide in the graveyard what should you say?

A factual statement would be “He path’d your guide.” however that may lead Player B to try and search out a land, despite the fact that the optional may was declined. Instead, “Your guide is exiled.” is the most correct way to say that. Now it is up to Player B to realize he missed his may search, though at that point it is too late.

An extension of the observer’s role in the game is actually one of which I only recently learned but may be the most useful part of this article. If you are watching a game where a judge is called and you believe, for whatever reason, that the judge makes an incorrect ruling, you have every right to ask him about it. By this I do not mean “That’s wrong and you are stupid!” in front of everyone. Instead, step aside with the judge, out of ear shot, and ask as politely as you can why he or she ruled in the manner that they did. Most judges will respond to this favorably if you are respectful. They will explain and then, if you feel like they are incorrect say something like “Oh, that’s interesting. I thought it actually worked like [_____].” or “I was under the impression that that is actually a game loss. Why isn’t it?” The judge will likely explain things to you about why they are correct or, and do not expect this, realize that they actually ruled incorrectly and seek to rectify the mistake. If the judge doesn’t satisfy you and you are certain that he or she has missed the call, you can ask to see the Head Judge. Remember that you should be polite and respectful at all points in the conversation and the conversation should either result in a deeper understanding of the rules on your part or a correction to a ruling. This won’t come up at your local store as often, as there will typically only be one judge about but don’t be afraid to ask that judge

One thing that applies to every part of this discussion is the fact that the judge staff is there to help you out. Just because they cannot take sides does not mean that they are not on your side. At no point in a tournament is the judge ever against you. Talk to these people to foster better communication between judges and players and to expand your rules knowledge. If you know the rules, you won’t break as many by accident, after all.

If you have any specific rules questions, ask your local judge or send out a tweet to one of many Judges on Twitter. My personal favourites to ask are @SCGJudge, @kalipanderson, and @ahalavais. Kali and Arthur are both Level 2 Judges and are usually right on the money when they explain how something works. Keep in mind, they only have 140 characters to work with so be gentle.

As always, any feedback you’d like to give is appreciated. You can contact me on Twitter @samdavisboyhero. If you want more of what I have to say, I talk into a can for the internet to hear semi-regularly here! Once you are done there, head on over to my blog and see what the internet has to offer!

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your judge calls loud.

The first order of business is an introduction. This is my first Wizards Norman official and exclusive article. My name is Sam and hopefully, many of you know me from around the shop. If you don’t, feel free to say hello the next time we happen to be in the same vicinity. Hopefully you find my articles helpful and informative but if you ever have questions, comments or even concerns, there are a multitude of ways to contact me that I will enumerate at the end of this, and every, article.

With that taken care of, the main topic awaits! I want to be perfectly clear before you read further, I am not normally a speculation writer. However, I believe I have found a slight insight into the future of the meta and I have a few quick tips and a slightly longer investment suggestion. Neither of which will make you any real money. Instead these tips will save you money when the market adjusts to the meta. At most, you may be able to carefully expand your collection by grinding trades with these cards.

At this point in time, about 45% of Dark Ascension has been spoiled. The sweet mythics are out and everyone is excited. And we have had some serious rare power getting spoiled as well. With few exceptions, for the purposes of this article, I don’t care about those cards in the slightest. Instead, I care about the uncommons and the commons that will impact Standard. Powerful commons and uncommons are what make up solid and functional decks that many people can easily sleeve up, both for their local FNM or the Star City Games Open that happens to be just an hour or two away.

The first card that I think you should be pulling out of your draft left overs and those packs you open out of your sweet winnings is Stromkirk Captain. At uncommon, this won’t be the hardest to find but he does almost single-handedly make Red Black Vampires an affordable and decent deck. The card that most directly gets more value from this is the similarly named Stromkirk Noble. It can easily be followed up with a turn two Bloodcrazed Neonate to devastating effect.

Next, we have another uncommon lord, Immerwolf! The same logic that makes Noble and Neonate playable for vamps extends to Reckless Waif and Mayor of Avabruck. Personally, while I wish Vamps was the better deck, I feel like the double lord set up for our Lycan compatriots will push their deck over the top to compete with Haunted Humans and even the Illusion/Delver lists that are so popular. As a budget player at heart, this makes me fairly happy but the moral is, Waif is a common to dig up now and the new wolf lord is something to pick up as well.

Now what about the sweet commons that we have seen? Tragic Slip is a natural control card, that can easily kill an x/1 then get Snaped back to deal with a larger threat. Clearly, a four mana double kill spell is fairly playable. It also fits nicely into Vamps, as you want combat to happen and you can easily trigger morbid with your Neonates. This card is an easy card to keep in the binder and I expect folk will need one or two when frantically building their deck pre-tournament. Lending or trading are both fine but you can’t do either if you don’t have them on hand.

Next up, we have a sweet enabler card in Faithless Looting. Digging for Red Deck Wins or even a combo piece in Modern Storm, this card likely has unforeseen applications. Granted, there is the promo version of this card. However, one way or another, having a few of these bad boys around, either to play or to trade will be to your advantage.

There is a rare spoiled that I want to discuss but not in a “try and acquire these as they will go up” way. Instead this card is relevant to the second portion of the article: what cards presently in Standard will go up as a result of Dark Ascension. The rare is Grafdigger’s Cage, a colorless hate card that will likely see play in every constructed format. If you open these, save them until you get 4. They will be important. They have the potential to turn off Snapcaster Mage in a real way. Anyone interested in snapping back their spells just cannot have that. Luckily there is an answer that can be played in every deck that has flashback.

Mental Misstep.

Misstep become a perfect answer, not only for the Cage but for the rise of multiple aggro decks without the loss of the previous aggro decks. Humans, in both Blue White and, likely to a lesser extent, Green White, aren’t going anywhere. Neither are Illusions lists. With Vamps and Wolves popping up, especially with such impactful 1-drops, Misstep a reasonable answer to alleviate early pressure on both the play and the draw. I needn’t name every card that it functionally dispatches but, if you look back over this article, you will see than many of the good commons I pointed out are CMC-1. These cards are cheap and powerful. And Misstep counters them. At the time of this article, Star City Games lists this card at $1.50. In a month, that card should be about $3-4. This won’t get you any money, but buying them now will save you a couple bucks down the road.

For you non-Blue players, I have a less elegant solution. I can’t help you with the Cage problem, but the multitude of one drops frequently have one thing in common: one toughness. Enter: Gut Shot! This eats up every relevant 1-drop creature in Standard and does some serious damage to anyone on the turn two x/1 plan. You can again note that Neonate and Mayor have one toughness. It can assist you in killing a bigger dude as well if you team it up with Slip. “End of your turn: Gut Shot your mana dork, Slip your Titan.” will make a lot of Red Black players happy and a lot of Wolf-Run players a tiny bit sad. Right now, Gut Shot is sitting at $3.00. In a month, I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a 5 dollar price tag on this, as it is already a favourite for the Illusions players out there.

I think it is safe to say that both of these cards serve similar roles, depending on the deck that you happen to be playing with at the time. Granted, each scratches an itch that the other can never hope to reach but the rest of your deck will likely be able to handle the additional problems that might arise. Above anything, I want everyone to be aware that commons and uncommons can have real value both in playability and price.

If you didn’t like what I wrote or disagree in any way, you can contact me on Twitter or in the comments section below. If you enjoyed what you read and want more content, I also write for WrongWayGoBack. Additionally, Daniel Dusang produces some excellent articles  that I suggest you take a look at. Oh and there is more! He and I, with a few other folk, have a semi-regular podcast about Magic culture and occasionally we talk about playing the game as well. As always, thanks for reading!

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your binder well stocked.

I play Red. I like Red. I can count backwards in units of 2 or 3. I can open up 7 cards and decide if I will kill my opponent on turn 4 or turn 6. I know if I should remove their man or push the damage to the face. I know those decision trees. This is where Magic is very comfortable for me. This is where I like to play and how I like to play.

So I built a control deck.

I watched a good friend of mine pilot Blue Black control with some success for no small amount of time. He is essentially the only person, who regularly plays Standard, I know in our meta that seems to be truly comfortable with control as an archetype. So instead of looking to White for the secondary colour, I naturally drifted toward Black.

The very first card I started with was Think Twice. This card, as I have found in course of play, is amazing. If you don’t need to cast a counter spell, you can cast it or flash it back. It works so much better than ponder for what you want to be doing in a control deck. Leave mana up to make your opponent not cast spells.

Next I added what is by and large my favourite card in this entire deck. Forbidden Alchemy digs you to the answer you need and with appropriate use of a Snapcaster Mage (a natural 4 of in most control decks) often nets you at least two solutions to whatever problem the board state may currently present. The 7 mana required to flash back Alchemy usually shows up by turn 7-9 and once you have done that, you feel like you are cheating. When you feel like you are cheating, you know your deck is doing what you want.

Speaking of feeling like cheating, Consecrated Sphinx fits that bill quite well. A big butt and the ability to fly doesn’t hurt this card advantage machine. As a 6 drop, this indeterminately sexed creature may not finish a game but it almost certainly ensures that its controller has access to the resources that will.

So what do we dig to? First and most obviously are the 4 Mana Leaks that serve as the backbone of the counter package. Next, I elected for just 3 Dissipates. More often than not, I found that between 4 Snaps and 3 of these bad boys, if I so desired a spell to be removed from the game instead of resolve, I could make it so.

After those sweet counter spells, we need to have some sweet removal to dig to as well. The first of which is the ever classic Doom Blade. Why this instead of Go for the Throat? The answer is simple. In the present standard metagame, black creatures are as scarce as good blue planeswalkers. I put 2 Blades in, because we have more removal coming right up.

In the standard of Geist of Saint Traft, Thrun, the Last Troll and Dungrove Elder nontargeted removal and boardwipes become increasingly important. First up, I have 2 Geth’s Verdicts. The reason for these over Tribute to Hunger is a bit complex. If mana dorks are present, you essentially need to cast 2 verdicts to hit the guy you actually want gone for either Verdict or Tribute. This means that between turn 3 and 4 you cannot cast and then Snapcaster back Tribute. However you can do that with Verdict. Yes, this means your mana base has certain requirements, which will be addressed further south in the article. On the other hand, Tribute can gain you some life that can actually be relevant in getting the control deck into the late game, where the deck truly shines. I find that a more guaranteed kill of your problem creatures is more important against the decks where it really matters.

Next up, we need to clear the board. For this, I have chosen Life’s Finale. Against the present saturation of Aggro swarm lists and against Wolf Run, this can be quite punishing. Black Sun’s Zenith was the other option for sweeping the board clean but as both cards need 6 mana to be appropriately effective, I would rather have a card that I can Snap back a little later in the game with an added bonus of potentially poaching men from their deck.

So we have a fair package of removal and counter spells, we should look to things that the deck cannot presently handle. If, Jace forbid, something makes its way through our wall of counterspells that we cannot simply remove with some creature removal, this deck folds fairly quickly. Appropriately placed Oblivion Rings or the odd planeswalker can turn our plan on its head. After a quick Gatherer search, I found that no card in Standard in Blue or Black said “Destroy target planeswalker or enchantment” which seems like a giant weakness to this deck. But then I discovered a solution to these pesky things. I turn my problems into 3/3 beasts via Beast Within. I know, its Green. More mana trouble ahead. But we can stretch the mana base to actually have a deck that can deal with every card that comes down, at least until WotC prints a card that can’t be countered, sacrificed, or destroyed.

Now that we have three colours to work with we can take a look at what can be both a win condition and a source of card advantage-essentially the Standard Bitterblossom. Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed can be a midgame threat that puts pressure up in the control match up. He can make blockers and act as removal against aggro decks and in a pinch can turn over and make some deathtouch dudes that may eventually trample over even the most stalwart of defenses. Not needing to waste time casting men allows you to keep that mana up to leak away whatever your opponent, who is now on the backfoot, may be trying to answer that Garruk with. He fulfills a suite of slots in just one card. Thanks, Green!

However, we cannot win on the back of Garruk alone. No indeed. So what fantastic finisher do I have in store for this deck? Frost Titan, perhaps? Too cheap! Then maybe the Fireball on wheels, Myr Battlesphere? Too creature! I’ll give you a hint. This card has 3 Black mana symbols and a killer flavor text. Sorin’s Vengeance! Too often did Grave Titan come down only to have a flier finish up its controller with little more than a few attack phases. Instead this both acts as an end game finisher and a stabilizer for the life total. A few turns later, Snapcaster Mage can flash this spell back, or you can keep bashing with 2/2 wolves from Garruk. For this sweet tech, I must tip my hat to my control playing friend Chris Allen.

Let us take a look at this mana base. It is tricky but not ambitious. First, we have some utility lands to look at. Ghost Quarter is no Tectonic Edge but if you have to kill a land, you take what you can get. Nephalia Drownyard doesn’t quite stand up to its Worldwake counterpart either but it does offer the ability to expand your handsize (or mill your opponent out). Out of all the lands in this deck, this is the one I most want to turn into basic land but the advantage it creates can be massive. Just be judicious with the mill in the control match-up. Fair warning.

Next up, I have a singleton Traveler’s Amulet. The reason for this over any Shimmering Grottos is twofold. First, having another, land that doesn’t produce a colour by itself is actually a serious problem. Secondly, there were not enough cards with apostrophes in this deck list (now there are 4). There are 4 Islands, 3 Swamps and a Forest to get with this Amulet, and in a pinch you can Ghost your own land for appropriate fixing. That should be a rare happening though. Selecting the appropriate basic land to fetch, or play, is super important for this deck, given the abundance of buddy lands.

All told, there are 10 of the aforementioned buddy lands. We have 3 Woodland Cemeteries and 3 Hinterland Harbors, allowing us access to 7 total Green sources and allowing us to still cast the double Blue or Black spells that might otherwise have been tricky. 4 Drowned Catacombs and 3 of the Scars early lands (Darkslick Shores) make up the rest of the Blue/Black mana production. This means that we have 14 Blue sources and 13 Black sources. Given 25 land in the deck, you can reliably cast all of your spells and even flash back a turn 4 Verdict without too much trouble. The complete list can be found below.

Instants: 21
4 Think Twice
4 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Mana Leak
3 Dissipate
2 Doom Blade
2 Geth’s Verdicts
2 Beast Within

Planeswalkers: 3
3 Garruk Relentless

Sorcerys: 4
2 Life’s Finale
2 Sorin’s Vengeance

Creatures: 6
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Consecrated Sphinx

Artifacts: 1
1 Traveler’s Amulet

Lands: 25
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Island
3 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Woodland Cemetery

Control is not by any means a style that I am comfortable with and to wiser eyes that may be obvious by my justifications and even by my choices. However I have had immense levels of fun and a fair amount of success playing this deck. If you play the deck correctly, you can often surprise your opponent with a turn 4 Garruk or a random Beast Within just by making your land drops carefully. That can be a huge advantage to you over the course of a game. If I can stress anything about playing this deck, it is keeping track of what you have played and what could be in your deck still. You have to be all there to sling these spells.

If you want to hear more of what I have to say, you can listen to the podcast, Planeswalker Asylum, I partake in on a biweekly basis. You can also consult me via the Twitter @samdavisboyhero. Thank you for reading! If you have questions or criticisms, feel free to comment or contact me however you see fit, though I take offense at too many bricks through my window.

Until next time, keep your sleeves clean and your beasts within.