Welcome Magic lovers!
After an exciting weekend of watching some of the finest Magic: the Gathering players in the world battle for tens of thousands of dollars at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, it's now time to sift through the wreckage to see how the many different decks fared, and to determine the shape of the ever-changing Standard metagame to come.
While format boogeyman, Domain Overlords, took it all down in spectacular fashion in the hands of seasoned pro, Matt Nass, it was an outlier deck, Azorius Control, that actually posted the highest combined win rate of all the Standard decks in the tournament at a staggering 66.07%, followed by the Azorius Omniscience combo deck with 56.67%. While the control deck did post a rather small sample size of only fifty-six matches (it comprised just 2% of the field at large), its win rates against the more aggressive decks like Gruul Mice, Mono-Red Aggro and the new Jeskai Oculus decks were very impressive, considering those are typically matches where control decks struggle. However, against the Domain Overlords decks, their win rate was less stellar, though that could be due to deck configuration, as not all the control lists ran the same numbers of key spells.
Let's break down the highest finishing list, in the hands of Arne Huschenbeth, who notched nine wins with his list over ten rounds of Standard play.
The Plan
What is immediately striking about Arne's Azorius Control list is the dearth of countermagic. Yes, we see a couple of No More Lies and Negate, alongside a single Change the Equation hanging out in the two-mana slot, but that's it. No full playset of Three Steps Ahead or any one two-mana counterspell, and for good reason; over half of the Standard metagame is comprised of low-to-the-ground aggressive strategies like Gruul Mice, Mono-Red Aggro, Esper Pixie and Dimir Bounce, which all play a plethora of one and two-mana threats and board advantage cards. When one's opponent is able to play around No More Lies as early as turn four, or when Three Steps Ahead is being used to counter spells that cost a third of what it costs, it's time to rethink how much countermagic one puts in their control deck, as Arne did here.
That said, oftentimes simply leaving up one white and one blue mana is enough to give the opponent pause, as they consider whether they want to run their three-mana play into a potential No More Lies, so be sure to leverage the counterspell bluff as often as possible despite playing very few. However, this is very much a tap-out style of control deck, where leaving up a counterspell on the opponent's turn is less important than slamming a Stock Up or Jace, the Perfected Mind onto the battlefield on turn three, to ensure one continues to make land drops, and to find a Day of Judgment for turn four to turn things around.
The early turns are often spent casting one of the four Get Lost, or new addition, Ride's End, to keep the early rush of creatures at bay. Ride's End has been an incredible addition to this archetype, as giving the opponent map tokens with Get Lost was never optimal, and other instant-speed removal, like Elspeth's Smite, was far too restrictive with regard to when one could play it.
Turn three is when things start to snowball. If the opponent has put their resources into an early rush of creatures, Temporary Lockdown comes down to reset the board. However, if the Azorius pilot has some breathing room, it's a perfect opportunity to play an early Jace, the Perfected Mind or the incredible new card advantage engine, Stock Up.
Stock Up was a card that many players flagged during spoiler season as one of the best draw spells we've ever been given in Standard, but it ended up being far more potent than any of us believed. Digging a full five cards deep into one's deck is incredible for only three mana, and the first Stock Up can often find a second…which finds a third, and so on. It feels almost like playing with old Standard staple, Sphinx's Revelation, or Memory Deluge, again. It's no surprise this Divination on steroids is now seeing play in Modern, Legacy and even Vintage!
In this Standard Azorius Control deck, it's the perfect card to find the pilot exactly what they need, when they need it, and it's also cheap enough that it can refill one's hand before it's too late to use the cards one is drawing due to being at the stage of the game where one has a precarious life total. It's the backbone of the deck and no control list should run less than the full four copies.
Moving on to the creature suite, we see perennial control stabilizer, Beza, the Bounding Spring, alongside the powerful Overlord of the Mistmoors. Both of these creatures put a full three pieces of cardboard onto the battlefield, which often leads to opponents having to spend two or even three cards to clean them up. Perfect for the deck that aims to win via card advantage. The lifegain from Beza is a crucial piece of the puzzle when trying to stabilize against an aggressive opponent, while the flying ability of the Overlord tokens stonewalls the popular Nurturing Pixie decks.
Sweepers are a necessity in a control shell, and this list is no different, running seven of them in the form of Temporary Lockdown, Day of Judgment and a single Sunfall at the top end. They all serve their purpose in different ways, with Temporary Lockdown being a necessity against the most aggressive decks of the format, as it costs only three mana. Day of Judgment and Sunfall are there to hammer the midrange creature decks, with the latter being a nice catch-all for any indestructible creatures that a savvy opponent may sideboard in.
So, how does the deck actually win? That's where Jace, the Perfected Mind steps in. Not only is Jace a very quick win condition when drawn in multiples, he's actually a perfectly fine play in the early game in order to draw additional cards and soak up some damage. With multiple copies in hand, it's often correct to simply mill the opponent for the maximum with the first Jace, so that the second one can come down and use its -2 ability to draw three cards. Jace is also the most important card against arguably the best deck in Standard, Domain Overlords, as they simply have no way to stop it in game one, with only a few paltry sideboard Negates to attempt to counter it in games two and three. As the Domain matches go quite long, Jace, the Perfected Mind becomes more and more terrifying for the opponent as they watch their deck naturally get smaller and smaller over the course of fifteen or twenty turns.
The Lands
Here we see a fairly straightforward blue-white mana base, with plenty of dual lands though being careful to not play too many come-into-play-tapped copies of cards like Restless Anchorage and Meticulous Archive, as having too many lands which enter tapped is a death sentence when resolving a turn three or turn four sweeper is an absolute must.
The utility lands are spread over three different cards: a pair of Fountainport to provide card advantage and inevitability after a sweeper, a single Demolition Field to take out a Cavern of Souls or defend against creature lands, and a pair of Blast Zone, which is incredible against the cheaply costed decks like Esper Pixie, as it can come down and wipe their board of both creatures and enchantments the turn one plays it. Blast Zone also deals with problematic permanents like the powerful artifacts Simulacrum Synthesizer and Repurposing Bay, which the deck otherwise has no answer to.
The Sideboard
Here we see the remaining Beza, the Bounding Spring and Overlord of the Mistmoors, which come in against aggro and Pixie decks, respectively.
Wilt-Leaf Liege and Obstinate Baloth are great surprise cards against any deck forcing one to discard with things like Hopeless Nightmare or Liliana of the Veil.
Dissection Tools is an incredible new piece to bring in against the red aggressive strategies, since it comes down as a 4/4 with lifelink, but can also be immediately equipped to a Beza or Overlord in a pinch by simply sacrificing the manifest token that it produces when it enters the battlefield. This leads to huge life swings that the red decks simply can’t overcome.
Rest in Peace is obviously for any graveyard-based decks like the Omniscience combo deck or reanimator strategies running Zombify, while Tishana's Tidebinder continues to be one of the most flexible answers to almost anything in Standard, from Overlord and Leyline Binding triggers out of Domain, to almost anything out of the Pixie decks, and even against Simulacrum Synthesizer decks.
Conclusion
Azorius Control is very well-positioned in Standard at the moment, and if played carefully, has the tools to beat any of the top decks with ease. This may change, however, as players adapt to a hard control deck being viable again in Standard. We may see Domain run more Cavern of Souls, or blue decks putting more Spell Pierce in their sideboards.
However, at the moment, it's control's time to shine, so Stock Up on the tools you need to crush your next Standard tournament and take it down!