The recent TCG 5k in Boston proved to be a great experience.  I would first like to congratulate my friend Paul on his performance.  As most of you would expect, I played UW control.

Here is the list:

[cardlist]

[Spells]

4 Mana Leak

3 Stoic Rebuttal

1 Cancel

2 Deprive

2 Negate

3 Condemn

3 Journey to Nowhere

3 Day of Judgment

2 Ratchet Bomb

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Jace Beleren

3 Jace’s Ingenuity

1 Volition Reins

[/Spells]

[Creatures]

2 Sun Titan

[/Creatures]

[Lands]

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

2 Seachrome Coast

3 Tectonic Edge

6 Island

2 Plains

3 Misty Rainforest

1 Marsh Flats

2 Kabira Crossroads

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

4 Wall of Omens

4 Luminarch Ascension

2 Negate

2 Flashfreeze

2 Baneslayer Angel

1 Volition Reins

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

I would not change a card. I was ecstatic with this list, despite a lackluster performance on my part. I ended up dropping after a 5-1 start because I took consecutive losses in rounds 7 (a feature match over on TCGPlayer) and 8. My deck began being uncooperative (I had some mana issues in round 7 and more in round 8) and I wasn't playing well enough to compensate for that. I was pretty tired from lack of sleep, so I was playing pretty poorly. I can only blame myself for that though. The deck, on the other hand, was great.

I played against everything except mono-red, and felt like I was fine in every match-up. The deck is equipped to handle a wide variety of threats through the tried and true blueprint of card draw, removal, and counterspells. It's nice to see that in an age of 6-drops this style of deck still works. For those of you true control players out there, I advise you take a similar deck out for a spin. You won't be disappointed.

I said last week I don't understand why people are moving away from Sun Titan, and this tournament further cemented my convictions. The interaction with Tectonic Edge simply buried my opponent in 3 different matches (one against UB, one in the mirror, one against ramp). Sun Titan enables the deck to use Tectonic Edge aggressively, much like a mid-range deck would. This allows a list like this to force down threats and leverage land drops extremely well.

Anyone who plays control knows how important it is to hit your land drops in the mirror, and the Sun Titan-Tectonic Edge package gives the UW mage a way to fight the mana war outside of simply drawing more lands. Often it can take a game that is see-sawing back and forth and turn it into a blowout, or slam the door shut in a game where you are ahead.

Weissman-style decks have a huge advantage against other blue control decks right now because of the density of countermagic and raw card advantage. Because it runs a bunch of interchangeable parts it does not need to use Preordain to fix its draws, which makes it more consistent. If you hit your land drops you will probably win.

Having double the countermagic of most lists and a similar amount of card draw means that you win most counter fights with cards left over. Counterspells are actually very well positioned right now for a variety of reasons.

1. Mana Leak is just that awesome
2. The primary predator of UW, Eldrazi Green, starts playing the game on turn 4
3. Between Wall of Omens, Condemn, Day of Judgment, and Journey to Nowhere it is easy to shore up the aggressive match-ups.
4. Most blue-based control decks are light on countermagic, so having lots of countermagic gives you an advantage there.

By being able to board up to 16 counterspells against ramp decks you can frequently just sit there and never let them resolve a spell, which makes it very difficult for them to win against you. Ramp decks are actually very threat light, given that in many situations cards like Cultivate, Khalni Heart Expedition, and Explore can be allowed to resolve. That leaves cards like the Eldrazi, Primeval Titan, Summoning Trap, and maybe Wurmcoil Engine/Avenger of Zendikar as cards that you are concerned about. You should be able to counter all copies of those easily.

This is where Tectonic Edge comes in. By keeping Eye of Ugin and Valakut off the table you severely reduce the other deck's interactivity. Without Valakut (and without Primeval Titan to find them Valakut), the Valakut Ramp deck basically does nothing. You can allow every Explore, Khalni Heart, Harrow, and Cultivate to resolve as long as there isn't a Valakut on the table (and even if there is sometimes). Given that you have more card advantage and a way to recur your Tectonic Edges, you will almost invariably draw more Tectonic Edges than they draw Valakuts.

The same goes for the Eldrazi Ramp deck – Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple need to stay off the table. I will only go after Eldrazi Temple if it is putting them near Eldrazi mana, as those are basically colorless lands in a lot of situations. Eye of Ugin, however, needs to be blown up on sight. Given that they usually access this card via Primeval Titan, however, it is normally easy for you to stop. In the instances where they draw it as a real land, you can expect to find a Tectonic Edge to stop it.

Tectonic Edge is one of the defining cards of the control deck, as it takes care of so many problems. Maximizing this card is one of the main benefits of Sun Titan and the primary reason why I believe it to still be a better choice than Frost Titan. You don't need to beat Titans in a fight. You already have amazing tools to handle Titans – Journey, Day, Volition Reins, and countermagic; you don't need more. Sun Titan on the other hand gives the deck a whole other angle it can attack from. My results at States and the TCG 5k confirmed my suspicions that having this angle of attack, regardless of the kind of UW deck you are playing, is more valuable than winning Titan fights.

People played Spreading Seas because they were afraid of man-lands. People are playing Frost Titans because they are afraid of other Titans. Some decks, like Nick Heal's from the 5k, have a legitimate reason for wanting Frost Titan. He's playing a ramp deck and actually cares about his Titan being the best creature on the board. UW doesn't. It is very rarely in a position to be the aggressor and has more than enough tools to deal with Titans.

I discovered playing at these two events that the layered defense presented by a true Weissman-style deck is still good enough to confuse people and cause them to give you extra turns because they are afraid of your countermagic. I spoke before about the value of the threat of the counterspell, and my recent experiences have show it to still be an extremely effective, if underutilized, advantage.

Because most people play and test against counterspell light versions of control they expect their second or third threat to resolve. When you are playing extra countermagic this plays right into your game plan. You just counter those threats and absolve them of that notion. Frequently they then become completely clueless how to proceed in later games, allowing you to simply leave Celestial Colonnade and Island untapped, silently beckoning them to run their spell out there. You'd be surprised how often they decline that offer.

The power to say "no" is still one of the biggest advantages you can have despite the beating it's taken in recent years. You would be wise to take advantage of it.

May your opponent's spells never resolve,

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5@gmail.com