Last season, we saw Sphinx's Tutelage become a real deck when midrange decks became too inbred to effectively fight against an unexpected strategy. This Standard format might be quickly reaching a similar point. Some of the engine cards for this strategy may have rotated, but the U/R Tutelage shell is still largely intact, and Andrew_Schneider is ready to take advantage.

U/R Tutelage ? Battle for Zendikar Standard | Andrew_Schneider, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Spells (29)
• 1 Disperse
• 2 Dig Through Time
• 2 Send to Sleep
• 2 Roast
• 4 Magmatic Insight
• 4 Radiant Flames
• 4 Tormenting Voice
• 4 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Sphinx's Tutelage
• 1 Alhammarret's Archive
• 1 Pyromancer's Goggles

• Lands (27)
• 1 Swamp
• 3 Mountain
• 4 Island
• 2 Smoldering Marsh
• 2 Sunken Hollow
• 3 Skyline Cascade
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Swiftwater Cliffs

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Dispel
• 2 Displacement Wave
• 3 Encase in Ice
• 4 Fiery Impulse
• 2 Negate
• 1 Orbs of Warding

Buy This Deck

The strategy is the same as it’s always been. Use Red removal and cheap card selection to stall the board until you can find a Sphinx's Tutelage. Then you can use the plethora of cards in your graveyard to chain together Treasure Cruises and the like until you’ve milled your opponent out. This is a powerful strategy right now because there are so few cards capable of effectively interacting with Sphinx's Tutelage.

This deck has lost access to Radiant Fountain as a way to stall against aggro decks. In exchange, it has gained Radiant Flames in the main-deck. Roast, Send to Sleep, and Disperse give you reasonable ways to fight against permanents, especially considering they can be bought back with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and the red spells can be doubled with Pyromancer's Goggles.

The power of this deck is two-fold. First, you are attacking from an angle few opponents are really prepared to interact with. Second, the density of cheap card selection spells means you are more able to find powerful singletons and sideboard cards. This is especially important when you have access to Pyromancer's Goggles and Jace to make those cards twice as impactful.

All told, this deck is attacking a very particular metagame, one where every deck in the format is trying to go just a little bit bigger and is overemphasizing Creature- or Planeswalker-based trumps. This deck is too slow to race effectively against decks like Atarka Red, but is more than capable of milling out Siege Rhino decks before they really get off the ground.