The format is moving away from tempo-based decks, at least as far as I can tell. I will continue to tune the Delver list, as it may end up being necessary at the start of the Avacyn Restored release on MTGO. Control variants and midrange decks are the dominant forces in the format. My next deck attempt is going to be a U/W homebrew. I want a no-frills deck that can win through card advantage. I will be loosely patterning the deck off of Dave Shield's U/B Control deck that he received second place with in Grand Prix: Baltimore this year. You can view his decklist, other competitors' decklists, and enjoy the event coverage here. The deck's choice of game-enders is mill (through Nephalia Drownyard) and Consecrated Sphinx beats. The deck effectively runs 6 board sweepers, none of which can be recast through Snapcaster. Three Forbidden Alchemy, four Think Twice, and a single Blue Sun's Zenith represent the card draw suite (excluding Consecrated Sphinx of course).
I want to lean a little harder on Snapcaster than Dave's deck did. His deck has the advantage of being able to wipe out a horde of X/1 tokens for 2 mana via Black Sun's Zenith. The only downside to Black Sun's Zenith is that it cannot get rid of Undying creatures effectively. The -1/-1 tokens reset it so that it comes back every time.
Well, enough of the comparison game. I need to have a working list. Starting with the obvious 4-of's:
Day of Judgment
Snapcaster Mage
Think Twice
Mana Leak
Dave's deck features a strong spot removal suite. Oblivion Ring should be fine here, along with a couple Midnight Haunting. Now, on to the finishers. The blue and white Miracle cards may have a place in my removal suite, but that will be to contemplate later. This may end up being an inferior U/W miracle deck, but time will tell.
Runechanter's Pike will be pretty large for this deck. I think it will serve me well as a finisher on a spirit token... but the deck needs some resilience. For backup in the finisher department, I have a lot of options. The budget option would be Chancellor of the Annex or Sunblast Angel. I really like the idea of Sun Titan, however. It allows me to accelerate if I need to get ahead on mana, or simply return important permanents such as Oblivion Ring, Runechanter's Pike, or Ghost Quarter. Its power to converted mana cost ratio is better than the other finishers' as well.
For the card drawing suite, I am going greedy by playing 3 Divination as opposed to the Forbidden Alchemy in Dave's list since I'm not sure how I would hard-cast the flashback on it. Ok... I think that's a list.
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Day of Judgment
2 Dissipate
3 Divination
4 Mana Leak
2 Midnight Haunting
4 Think Twice
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Ratchet Bomb
3 Runechanter's Pike
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Glacial Fortress
10 Island
12 Plains
This is where I'm starting anyway. Oooo... I didn't mention the Ratchet Bomb. It's an out to Entreat the Angels and other decks with the "randomly win with creature tokens" game plan. Not sure what things will look like post-board in the mirror. Hopefully, that won't be a problem. Let me know what you think. Sideboard plans?
Was working up a follow-up article to this and realized the original never got posted. Oh well. It's here now. Enjoy.
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