Tag: jace-architect-of-thought

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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - February 10, 2014

Champion’s Deck – Mono-Blue Devotion by Eric Gray (1st at ...

Bident of Thassa
Mono-Blue Devotion
Eric Gray
1st Place at StarCityGames Standard Open on 2/8/2014
Lands (25)

Creatures (28)

Planeswalkers (2)

Spells (5)

Sideboard

Well, well…the more things change the more they stay the same. This happens to be one of only two decks in the top 32 to not feature at least one new Born of the Gods card in its 75, the other being also Mono-Blue Devotion. The telling sign is that both of those decks were in the top 8 finishing first and seventh. But the major players were UW Control and GR Monster which combined for almost half of the top 32 pushing most of the devotion decks to the wayside.

There really isn’t much new to say about Mono-Blue Devotion as it seems to have found its optimal configuration for the moment. As with any devotion deck it is a mass of permanents designed to get mana symbols on the board. The curve of the deck is also very specifically crafted to flow with harmony. Starting with the one drops there is Cloudfin Raptor which unchecked has the potential of becoming a real threat and Judge’s Familiar adding another flyer which is the decks only real control element. Then we move up to the two’s with Frostburn Weird able to work offensively or defensively as you need him and Tidebinder Mage that finds itself well positioned in a world of Green and Red monsters. The three drops are key with the very powerful Nightveil Specter which builds advantage while potentially stealing threats away from your opponent and Thassa, God of the Sea who can at times be a very potent attacker but for her two abilities alone is worth an oceans bounty of pearls. We finally get to the top end of the deck with Master of Waves which can potentially be dropped on turn four escorting seven friends along with him often setting up for a win next turn. Playing well with the pump from Master is Mutavault to just increase the amount of threats presented on the board. Also at the four spot is Bident of Thassa which turns your entire army into Magpies which just ruins your opponent in very short order. Jace, Architect of Thought is around as well to help with digging for your necessary pieces or holding back an aggressive army and Domestication is able to snatch up an annoying threat, both of which are very important to the devotion count. The final cog is a one of Rapid Hybridization which will take down that fatty that just couldn’t be dealt with otherwise.
Moving forward I would imagine the sheer power of this deck is going to keep it around as a major force in Standard. We will see as the weeks play out if it continues to stay true to form or if it finally finds use for something new from Born of the Gods.
Eric J Seltzer
@ejseltzer on Twitter
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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - January 27, 2014

Champion’s Deck – Azorius Control by Alexander Hayne (1st Place at...

Dissolve

Azorius Control
Alexander Hayne
GP Vancouver Champion

Lands (27)

Creature (1)

Other Spells (25)

Planeswalkers (7)

Sideboard

Local Montreal hero and perennial golden boy Alex ‘Insayne’ Hayne went on to win yet another Grand Prix tournament in what is turning into an illustrious and formidable young career. As you may have already heard that makes three such victories in the past six months. If he keeps this up there’s no telling where he and his team ManaDeprived will soar to this year. And to mention his team Alex had to battle fellow teammate and Montrealer Jon Stern, who has also been making waves on the Pro circuit, in the semifinal in a tough battle spotlighting the talent emerging from ManaDeprived and Montreal alike.

The deck he piloted is a rather straightforward U/W Control shell based around the Return to Ravnica trilogy of Sphinx’s Revelation, Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere with full set of each of those. For his win conditions Alex chose a singleton Ætherling to go with a trio of Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. He was also able to squeeze three Mutavault in by bringing his land count up to twenty-seven to have the extra reach against other control decks. The permission package is a robust combination of a set of Dissolve and a trio of Syncopate to prevent threats from hitting the board. To keep pressure off the board there is a set of Last Breath which do well to answer a variety of threats big and small. We also have Jace, Architect of Thought with its ability to either weaken opposing armies or dig for answers which has been a key to many a blue based decks success. The final cog in the machine comes from the versatile Azorius Charm where a pair of them help to either gain some life in a pinch, bounce a pesky creature to the top of the library or most often as a means to cycle for another card which is hopefully the one you’ve been waiting for.
With the ability to answer so many questions I don’t doubt that this deck is going to show continued success going forward into Born of the Gods Standard. There are a few cards which look interesting with the most important of course being the UW scryland Temple of Enlightenment. I’m also interested to see if Ephara, God of the Polis can be work into Elspeth heavy builds to max out on draw potential. I could also see some possible sideboard options with Glimpse the Sun God, Fated Retribution or Revoke Existence. Only time will tell us what the new look of U/W Control deck is going to be.
In honor of this amazing win by Alex we are offering a 5% discount on all Standard sets this week until Friday Jan. 31st.
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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - January 12, 2014

Champion’s Deck – Mono-Blue Devotion by Tyler Wilkerson (1...

Domestication

Mono-Blue Devotion
Tyler Wilkerson
1st Place at Star City Games Orlando Standard Open on 01/11/2014

Lands (25)

Creatures (28)

Planeswalkers (2)

Spells (5)

Sideboard

And again we find that devotion is such a powerful strategy in the current Standard meta.  While we wait for some new power players to emerge with the release of Born of the Gods we still have three more weekends to go before they will be working to forge a new face of Standard.

This deck is aggro through and through but uses Thassa, her Bident and Jace to help the deck keep the pedal to the metal.  It all starts curving out smoothly through the one drops with Cloudfin Raptor and Judge’s Familiar.  Then we move through the two drops from Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage into three drops Nightveil Specter and Thassa herself.  That all works to push out max devotion to drop Master of Waves.  There is just a tiny bid of support in one-ofs from Domestication, Cyclonic Rift and Rapid Hybridization.  All together the deck is able to pack a formidable punch that shows why it has been so dominant the last few months.

Eric J Seltzer
@ejseltzer on Twitter
ejseltzer@hotmail.com

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Gregoire Thibault - January 4, 2014

Deck of the Day – UB Control by Shouta Yasooka (4th place Grand ...

Prognostic Sphinx

UB Control – Dimir Control
Yasooka, Shouta
4th place GP Shizuoka 2013

Lands (26)

Creatures (4)

Other Spells (24)

Planeswalkers (6)

Sideboard

After what was becoming a stale Standard meta abundant with Mono-Blue, Mono-Black and UW Control reigning supreme the Japanese Grand Prix in Shizuoka showcased for us more somewhat fringe decks. I’ve already broken down two new top decks with the GP champion Orzhov Human by Ryo Nakanada and second place Esper Human/Midrange by Shota Takao. These new decks are tuned for the meta with favorable match ups against those top three decks in Standard, something you’d expect when the Japanese start brewing. I wanted to call this deck Dimir Devotion because of it’s Master of Waves, but this is definitely much more then your standard UB control deck using a plethora of removal, counters, draw and disruption coupled with it’s finishers: Master of Waves and Prognostic Sphinx. Blue and Black has a very nice mana base with Dimir GuildgateWatery Grave and Temple of Deceit so Shouta was able to add the full set of Mutavaults.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver could be considered a finisher, but his role is more against aggro decks where he slows them down by using +2 ability to exile the top three cards, followed by his -X to bring one of opponents creatures that was exiled to the battlefield usually as an additional blocker. He could become a problem for UW Control if you just keep using his +2 ability mill all his answers and hopefully their Elixir of Immortality till you finally ultimate which is usually good game. What you  want to do against midrange and other control decks is bring in your Pack Rats from sideboard and flood the board with rats. Our next planewalker in the list is the  good ole MVP for all control decks with a set of Jace, Architect of Thought who’s just great at slowing down the beatdown from aggro as well. Continuing down the list we see more answers against aggro with a plethora of black removal  such as singletons Devour FleshDoom Blade and Ultimate Price as well as three Hero’s Downfall. Shota also added Domestication which has been gaining popularity in Mono-Blue builds with so much creatures with under 4 power like Master of Waves and Nightveil Specter making them a good catch-all. Another very interesting addition main deck are the three Ratchet Bombs to easily take care of tokens from Pack Rats, any Zombies from Xathrid Necromancer or Elementals from Master of Waves. Yasooka added more originality to his deck with a couple of Warped Physique. There probably mainly used as removal, but I wonder if he ever pumped a Prognostic Sphinx for the win.

It wouldn’t be much of a blue control deck without any counters. Yasooka opted for three Dissolve and Syncopate with a singleton Essence Scatter which sounds good to me. Finally with a couple of Opportunity as draw for late games as every blue control deck does just little less in this one.

The sideboard is tweaked to the metagame with two Gainsay and a Negate to bring in against UW control along with three Duress which seem very sound to me. Let’s not forget the Pack Rats in the sideboard against deck with little or no answers to a turn two Rats, they work especially well with the set of Mutavaults. The rest of the sideboard is pretty much self explanatory with Tidebinder Mage against Green or Red and Gainsay obvisously against Blue decks.

The Blood Baron of Vizkopa have been a common issue lately, but this deck had a lot of counters like Essence Scatter to stop it from resolving and a Devour Flesh main deck. I would prefer Far & Away for it’s versatility cause if the opponent has only two creatures and one of them is the Baron then you bounce the other so the Away resolves with opponent sac’ing the Baron. Another use Far  is to bounce opponents creature like a Blood Baron and Thoughtseize it. This deck looks like a fun list, if you like control and your tired of the do-nothing draw-go cycle of UW Control you should try this one out. If anyone sees any more issues with this deck leave comments, i’m sure a lot more people got to test it by now.

Happy New Year everyone

Gregoire Thibault

Follow me on Twitter @Gregsterism

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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - December 21, 2013

Decks of the Day – Spotlight on Shaheen Soorani at the SCG Invit...

Shaheen Soorani

Esper mastermind and longtime magic aficionado Shaheen Soorani battled last weekend at the SCG Invitational in Las Vegas to a third place finish. Fighting through a field of 299 qualified participants he was able to slaughter most every mage who stood in his way. The Invitational, much like the Pro Tour, is a multiformat tournament requiring proficiency in both Standard and Legacy to find success. In true Soorani fashion his weapon of choice for both formats was blue, white and black control style concoctions. With the two byes he had been awarded he drudged to a final swiss record of 12-3-1, the last round an intentional bye with Thea Steele to clinch the top 8 berth. The competition was fierce with hard wins against Tom Ross, Tim Landale, Erik Smith and Jeff Hoogland. Some tough losses came at the hands of Matt Nass the last round of day 1 playing for the perfect 8-0 and against eventual winner Max Brown entering the second leg of Legacy putting Shaheen on the ropes fighting to maintain a top positioning. In the top 8 he was immediately put to the test against Brian Brawn-Duin but dispatched him easily in three games but was knocked out by Greg Hatch after a hard fought five game battle.

Esper Control
Shaheen Soorani
3rd Place at StarCityGames Invitational on 12/14/2013
Lands (26)
 Creatures (3)

Planeswalkers (6)

For the Standard rounds he piloted a sweet and well rounded Esper Control list built around the stock UW pieces. Full sets of Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere, Jace, Architect of Thought and Azorius Charm are complimented by a trio of Sphinx’s Revelation and a pair of Elspeth, Sun’s Champion to for the core of the deck. Premier creature finishers come with an Ætherling and a pair of Blood Baron of Vizkopa both very resilient to removal in the meta. Speaking of removal the deck sports pairs of Devour Flesh and Hero’s Downfall for spot duty and an additional sweeper in Merciless Eviction which with its many modes is surely able to remove the permanent that is most troubling you. The deck is rounded out by a light disruption package that contains counters from two Dissolve and a Syncopate with discard from two Thoughtseizes.  Shaheen took this to a 6-2 record through the swiss and top 8 winning games 15-5, with three of those losses in the semifinal match.
Esper Stoneblade
Shaheen Soorani
3rd Place at StarCityGames Invitational on 12/15/2013
Lands (22)

Creatures (8)

Planeswalkers (3)

 Spells (27)
For his Legacy deck Shaheen kept in the same vein with Esper Stoneblade sticking to a more classic list by eschewing both Deathrite Shaman and Legacys newest golden boy True-Name Nemesis. In quintessential control style we start with a formidable draw package with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Brainstorm, Ponder and a singleton Intuition. For the permission the is the requisite Force of Will with a Counterspell comboing with discard from Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek to stifle the opponents plans. The plan of attack starts with Stoneforge Mystic which is able to tutor up preeminent beatstick Batterskull. There is also an Umezawa’s Jitte which paired up with the Lingering Souls can make short work of your opponent. I especially like how Intuition can work together with Lingering Souls to quickly provide access to a small flying army. To complement those flyers there is also a one of Vendilion Clique which also carries equipment, and has an abusable interaction if you’re also able to get your Karakas out. For removal there is a diverse array with spot removal from Swords to Plowshares and Vindicate complimented by sweepers in Supreme Verdict and Engineered Explosives. Finally, to take full advantage of all the varied instants and sorceries we have a trio of Snapcaster Mage to flashback whichever answer you need access to the most. For the seven rounds that he played with the deck Shaheen was able to pull out a 5-2 record including his two last wins in the swiss which allowed him to intentionally draw the final round to secure his spot in the top 8.
So if you enjoy control style decks and need a list to try either in Standard or Legacy I definitely recommend giving one of these decks a go. It’s great to see Shaheen continue to excel at these high level tournaments and you can be sure that we will see him maintaining this caliber performance for years to come, and where he goes control mages everywhere will benefit from his tightly tuned lists.
Eric Jeffrey Seltzer
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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - December 19, 2013

Deck of the Day – UWR Control by Steven Phillips (2nd at SCG Las...

Counterflux
U/W/R Control
Steven Phillips
2nd Place at StarCityGames Standard Open on 12/14/2013
Lands (26)

Planeswalkers (4)

Spells (30)

Sideboard

The title of this deck is a little misleading as it really is a UW Control deck with a tiny splash of red mainly to gain a little edge in the control mirror and for some extra options out of the sideboard. The core of the deck is the standard UW classics with full sets of Sphinx’s Revelation, Supreme Verdict, Azorius Charm and Detention Sphere which work overtime to control the board, draw through your deck and regain lost life once you stabilize. The primary wincons come through the always powerful planeswalkers Elspeth and Jace, with a pair of Mutavault to plink in as well. The control package sports pairs of Dissolve, Syncopate and the reason for the red splash Counterflux. There are two one of artifacts with the new hotness Elixir of Immortality to recycle your used spells back into the deck and Ratchet Bomb which can take care of numerous permanent problems especially rat or soldier tokens in a pinch. We finally get to a little bit of cuteness in the deck with Quicken which while limited in targets does make Verdict into a surprise sweeper or turns Divination into an instant speed Concentrate.

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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - December 8, 2013

Champion’s Deck – UW Planeswalker Control Joe Lossett (1st Place a...

Azorius Charm
UW Planeswalker Control – UW Control 
Joe Lossett
1st Place at StarCityGames Standard Open on 12/7/2013
Lands (26)

Spells (27)

Planeswalkers (7)

Sideboard

Here we have a UW Planeswalker Control list  from Joe Lossett which is rather similar to the list we featured last week piloted by Stanislav Cifka at GP Vienna.  Joe showed us that his twist was well positioned against a varied Devotion field after battling through Mono Black Devotion in the quarterfinal, Mono Blue Devotion in the semi-final and then R/w Devotion in the finals.  The deck remains true to the UW core with full playsets of Jace, Architect of Thought, Sphinx’s Revelation, Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere all of which have proven to be vital to controlling the board and keeping ahead in card advantage.  The primary win condition is Elspeth which once you’ve stabilized the board can very quickly spiral out of control with a battalion of soldiers appearing by her side in trios, and additionally there is also a pair of Mutavaults to help out as well.  The permission package is pieced together tightly with Dissolve, Syncopate and Essence Scatter to hold the peskiest threats at bay.  The removal comes primarily from Verdict & Spheres but is shored up with some spot removal in Last Breath which covers a wide range of popular creature threats in the current meta.  We see Joe decided to go with two Divination for some additional card draw which has been a popular choice seen in years past.  There is also the very versatile Azorius Charm which can either cycle itself, bounce a pesky attacking/blocking creature to the top of the library or even grant your legion Lifelink in a pinch should you need a few extra points.  The final card that he squeezed in is a misers copy of Elixir of Immortality which is a great card to run for a variety of matchups as it can help you to really go long against other control matchups by recycling your graveyard into your library or giving you that boost of life needed to just stabilize and grab hold of the game against aggro matches.  Going forward I think that this list has a lot of the tools needed to fight through the meta and wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to rise to the top.
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Eric Jeffrey Seltzer - December 4, 2013

Deck of the Day – UW Control – Stanislav Cifka (Grand Prix Vi...

Elspeth, Sun's Champion

UW Control – UW Planeswalker Control

Stanislav Cifka

Grand Prix Vienna – Top 8

Lands (27)

Creatures (0)

Other Spells (26)

Planeswalkers (7)

Sideboard

I have to admire this very traditional feeling UW Control deck.  While technically creature-less it does use Elspeth as a primary win condition with Mutavault as backup.  The permission comes in the form of Dissolve, which works with the Temples to provide some dig with Scry, and Essence Scatter to fight off troublesome creatures.  The deck then boasts a rather robust amount of removal starting with Supreme Verdict to sweep away aggro swarms, Detention Sphere is very versatile in controlling all other threats, and Last Breath is the spot removal that can handle most of the threats in standard currently.  Azorius Charm is a useful with all it different modes either as another spot removal, to cycle for another draw or as a way to gain some quick life.  The deck is topped off with Sphinx’s Revelation which is without a doubt one of the keys to the success of the UWx Control strategies.  This list of Cifkas also included a very interesting sideboarding plan with Archangel and Fiendslayer capitalizing on a lifegain theme to build on a heavy creature package that’s brought in to combat the red decks.