I could talk about my design of mono-red, which is where I spent the majority of my time preparing for States, but I think that the metagame right now is fairly hostile towards mono-red. The problem for mono-red is Wurmcoil Engine. The card really just is that good against the deck. Mono-red has no effective answer outside of trying to ultimate a Koth. This is a problem because Wurmcoil Engine is an artifact.

I don't think this is a problem for the long term because I think Wurmcoil Engine will see less and less play as the format evolves, but right now, with all the hype surrounding mono-red, people are packing a lot of that card. The deck is still very good, but Wurmcoil Engine, especially when they are maindeck, throws a serious wrench into the ramp match-ups, which are otherwise serviceable.

Mono-red is VERY good against Fauna Shaman decks and will likely remain so in the future. For those of you who care, this was my mono-red list:

"Sligh"

• Creatures (15)
• 4 Goblin Guide
• 3 Spikeshot Elder
• 4 Plated Geopede
• 4 Kargan Dragonlord

• Spells (21)
• 4 Koth of the Hammer
• 4 Adventuring Gear
• 2 Elemental Appeal
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Searing Blaze
• 4 Arc Trail

• Lands (24)
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 3 Teetering Peaks
• 13 Mountain

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Ratchet Bomb
• 4 Tunnel Ignus
• 3 Flame Slash
• 4 Forked Bolt

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This is a Sligh deck designed to maximize its advantages against Fauna Shaman decks. In the end, given the field at MA States, it was a pretty bad choice because of its weakness to Wurmcoil Engine, which didn't really come out that much in testing because I didn't face many of them. I had found the ramp match-up to range from slightly favorable to slightly unfavorable depending on the board plan and decided to just leave the testing there. UW Control was and always has been an ABYSMAL match-up, so that got abandoned early in testing. I probably should have re-tested the list during the week leading up to States, but I was busy with school and didn't really have time. I didn't think the results from the NY tournament changed much, but apparently they did.

I built UW Control the night before the tournament based on things that I had learned during testing. Designing a control deck for a field as wide open as States looked was not easy (even if it didn't take me very long). I wanted to talk a bit about my design principles for control decks, as using them let me come up with what I feel was a strong UW list in a very short amount of time.

There are effectively four types of cards you want to be playing in control decks – defense, card advantage/manipulation, utility, and trumps. Let's look at each of these categories in detail:

Defense – defensive cards are cheap cards designed to control the board. They have to be cheap to deal with the aggressive decks but should be flexible enough to handle larger threats presented by mid-range and control decks. Their purpose is to get you to your trumps in good shape.

Card Advantage/Manipulation – This category of cards is there to help you find what you need, when you need it.

Utility – These are cards that are highly flexible answers to a variety of problems. As a control mage you have to consider that you won't always have exactly the right card at the right time, so you need these slots to protect yourself in those situations. Counterspells are the most common form of utility card, but other cards that buy you time while you search for answers can also be utility cards.

Trumps – These are spells that your opponent has few if any good ways to deal with. You tend to win the game if they resolve (instants and sorceries) or stick around for a few turns (permanents).

The exact balance of these 4 card types will depend on the metagame you are designing for. If the metagame is control-oriented you should have more card advantage and trumps (and probably some more countermagic), whereas if the metagame is more aggressive, you need more defensive cards. Sometimes, like States, there are viable decks at all points and you just have to guess.

I thought that States would be primarily ramp decks, mono-red, and Fauna Shaman/Vengevine decks so I built my list with that in mind. This is the list I ended up running.

"UW Control"

• Creatures (8)
• 3 Wall of Omens
• 2 Sun Titan
• 2 Baneslayer Angel
• 1 Frost Titan

• Spells (27)
• 4 Preordain
• 4 Journey to Nowhere
• 3 Condemn
• 3 Ratchet Bomb
• 2 Day of Judgment
• 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 2 Jace Beleren
• 2 Venser, the Sojourner
• 2 Volition Reins
• 2 Everflowing Chalice

• Lands (26)
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Seachrome Coast
• 3 Tectonic Edge
• 2 Kabira Crossroads
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 2 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Plains
• 3 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Stoic Rebuttal
• 1 Cancel
• 4 Negate
• 2 Mana Leak
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 4 Luminarch Ascension

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Let's take a look at the design of this list:

Defense (15 slots) – 3x Wall of Omens, 4x Journey to Nowhere, 3x Condemn, 3x Ratchet Bomb, 2x Day of Judgment

Card Advantage/Manipulation (6 slots) – 4x Preordain, 2x Jace Beleren

Utility – None

Trumps (12 slots) – 3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor, 2x Venser, the Sojourner, 2x Baneslayer Angel, 2x Sun Titan, 1x Frost Titan, 2x Volition Reins

As you can see I skewed the deck towards defense and trumps because of the metagame I expected. Against the aggressive decks you want a solid number of defensive cards (almost half my non-land spells) and against control and ramp you just want to have more trumps. I didn't use utility cards because I felt like my trumps were general enough that the plan of defense into trumps was good against the entire field.

The sideboard was designed that way because I wanted to be a Weissman deck in the mirror, which meant boarding 8-10 counters. I knew the trump I wanted for the mirror was Luminarch Ascension, so those were in there as well. The exact counter distribution was meant to give me some equity against ramp and mono-red, allowing me to board in counters as an answer to Koth or Primeval Titan, depending on what I was facing.

Preordain and Venser were both experimental, as I had never played with either card but they were both gaining in popularity so I figured I would try them out. In the end, I felt Venser underperformed and Preordain was solid, but by no means a staple. There are other packages I am interested in trying (Trinket Mage in particular), so I will probably try those at the next few events.

Beyond the usual suspects, Volition Reins and Ratchet Bomb both performed very well and I would not leave home without either card. I would also not leave home without Sun Titan, despite many UW lists moving away from the card. I feel like the interaction with Tectonic Edge is just too powerful to give up, especially in the ramp match-ups. You can do a huge number on decks like Valakut simply by keeping their non-basics off the table.

Having no maindeck answer to T4 Koth is probably too big of a risk at this point. It is really the only card I am afraid of out of mono-red. I expected to gain some value out of bluffing Mana Leaks, but for sure that is not an effective long term strategy. It was a risk I was willing to take and I would say it paid off overall.

If I were to redesign this deck I would be packing Lightning Bolt or Mana Leak maindeck, even if it does weaken me against either manlands or Primeval Titan. While Bolt doesn't deal with Koth directly, it usually will indirectly by buying 3 turns for you to do things like hit it with a Colonnade or resolve a real creature.

Venser really didn't impress me at all. He got boarded out a lot, since he really just is kinda slow, so I think he might be better as a sideboard card. I drew him frequently but rarely cast him because it was either just better to be doing other things (like Sun Titan) or I needed to defend myself. Preordain is decent for maintaining velocity, and I haven't seen enough to judge it either way.

The biggest change that I would probably make, as I said above, is packing Bolt or Mana Leak, even though I would rather not. The problem with running Bolt or Mana Leak in a deck like this is that it competes directly with what the deck is trying to accomplish. UW Tap-out is designed to be a high density threat machine, and having Bolt/Mana Leak only dilutes your deck. Bolt is a weak threat at best in many match-ups (ramp decks and the mirror, for example) and a weak removal spell as well. Mana Leak is useless after about turn 6 or so in most match-ups, and is completely dead against Elves. If I am running UW Tap-out, cards like Lightning Bolt and Mana Leak are not what I want to be doing, although they may prove to be a necessary evil.

One of the primary concerns of every deck design should be focus. A well focused strategy will perform much better over a long period of time than an unfocused one. You can walk a well focused strategy into a bad field (like my mono-red deck), but that just means you estimated the field wrong; it doesn't make your design bad.

This focus is, I feel, even more critical for control decks than aggro decks. This may seem counterintuitive to you, but being a reactive deck actually leaves you less room for error. While you may have card advantage and card manipulation to smooth your draws, your deck will be far more awkward if it lacks focus, and will lose games it shouldn't to more focused strategies.

Aggro decks can always fall back on their opponent stumbling, even against their slower, unfocused draws. Control decks don't really have that option, so they have to make sure that every card services the appropriate strategy. Tap-out is a deck that needs to have flexible threats and answers, and Lightning Bolt and Mana Leak really aren't as flexible as most people think they are. Mana Leak is fine when it is backed by other counters, but running it as the sole counter in a control strategy is a recipe for dead cards.

For those of you who are curious how I did, I finished 5-2, losing to mono-green Eldrazi ramp and, strangely enough, mono-red. I beat Valakut ramp, Gw Overrun, Fauna Shaman Naya, mono-red, and UW Control. As far as my losses are concerned, I'm not sure there's a lot I can do about the Eldrazi ramp match-up. It leaves something to be desired, but such is the nature of playing tap-out. Mono-red is a good match-up and my draws in my loss to it were pretty bad. I kept double Preordain + defensive spell in both games and didn't see much. The fact that he had Koth both games didn't help either. When I faced it again (ironically a friend playing my list) my deck drew normally and I won.

In dealing with the wins, my Gw Overrun opponent also had some pretty bad draws, but I suppose you open yourself up to that when you play that style of deck. My Fauna Shaman Naya opponent was a friend of mine. He did not have great draws either (there was a distinct lack of Vengevine), but he also never had an active Fauna Shaman (due to my Journeys). I never felt particularly threatened in either game and I don't think him drawing an early Vengevine would have changed either game. He did have a bunch of Squadron Hawks, but I think I could have easily handled one Vengevine. Two might have been a problem, but you can't expect to draw two of a card early in any game.

My games against my Valakut Ramp opponent and UW opponent were very interactive, and I beat both players on the back of simply having a bunch of trumps. Tectonic Edge was key against Valakut Ramp and my UW opponent won a quick game 1, lost a long game 2, and then lost game 3 to a T2 Luminarch Ascension, which is basically the ultimate trump in that match-up.

I think a tap-out build of UW is an interesting choice, since the higher threat density gives you a lot of play in the mirror and against ramp decks. However, Koth really punishes this type of strategy, so take that into account. Tap-out is clearly very powerful and might well be worth pursuing. Take, for example, something like this:

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Trinket Mage

4 Wall of Omens

2 Sun Titan

2 Frost Titan

2 Baneslayer Angel

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Voltaic Key

2 Everflowing Chalice

1 Lux Cannon

2 Ratchet Bomb

1 Elixir of Immortality

3 Lightning Bolt

2 Condemn

2 Journey to Nowhere

2 Day of Judgment

2 Volition Reins

3 Jace Beleren

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[/Spells]

[Lands]

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

2 Seachrome Coast

3 Tectonic Edge

3 Arid Mesa

3 Scalding Tarn

3 Plains

2 Island

2 Mountain

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Seems worth trying at least. They can't always have T4 Koth on the play.

Without the pall of Jund on this metagame, Standard is developing into a diverse environment where a variety of strategies can flourish. I look forward to the further development of Metalcraft and Infect as strategies (aided by more Mirrodin sets), and seeing where this year takes us. For sure there will be a lot of Jace, Koth, Fauna Shaman, Vengevine, and Primeval Titan, but I think a solid metagame waits for us in the future. I am excited about this upcoming year.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5@gmail.com