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Or alternatively titled, "Everybody is wrong – UW is still the best control deck in Standard."
I'm not going to mince words. This was true a few weeks ago. It is still true. UB builds have gained popularity, but they are all worse than UW builds, excepting the permission-based one that Matthew Bartmus posted on Wednesday. Here is why.
Reason #1 – Sun Titan is still the best titan.
I don't care about winning titan fights. You have counterspells and removal to do that. Winning titan fights is irrelevant. You should just be drawing more cards and then countering the opposing titan or killing it with a removal spell. Sun Titan advances your game plan of removing angles of attack the opponent has because of one card – Tectonic Edge. Sun Titan-Tectonic Edge is one of the two most important interactions in this format (the other is Fauna Shaman + Vengevine). It is absolutely crucial to your ability to do anything as a blue-based control deck.
Reason #2 – Journey to Nowhere is comparable to, if not better than, Doom Blade
Doom Blade is probably a tad better if you are playing a permission-based build, which is the main reason why a permission-based build of UB is acceptable, since it has to spend less slots on removal. I really like Matthew's list, and if I were to play islands and swamps together, would definitely be playing something like it. So why is Journey comparable to Doom Blade? Because Doom Blade doesn't deal with some very relevant problems:
- Abyssal Persecutor
- Vengevine
- Creeping Tar Pit
- Wurmcoil Engine
- Grave Titan
- The vampires deck
This is in addition to the fact that it puts the creature into the graveyard, because apparently people like Gerry T think Mimic Vat is better than I think. I still respectfully disagree, but perhaps I was wrong about the card. Journey to Nowhere is live against all of these problems except for Creeping Tar Pit, but you have Tectonic Edge for that (oh look, that card came up again).
Reason #3 – Condemn is the best removal spell in the control mirror
The titans don't actually matter in the control mirror. Yes, if you resolve one you can kill your opponent with them, but usually you are already pretty far ahead if you are resolving a titan. At that point, pretty much any titan would seal the deal. What matters in the control mirror are man-lands, specifically Creeping Tar Pit and Celestial Colonnade. Doom Blade deals with 50% of those. Condemn deals with 100% of those at 200% efficiency (compared to Doom Blade). Add in the fact that UW has Tectonic Edge (oh look, here it is again) as a viable plan whereas UB doesn't, and you see that UW is much stronger against man-lands.
Reason #4 – Day of Judgment is still the best sweeper
Consume the Meek should go cry in a corner. Yes, it's good enough and still gets there, but Day of Judgment is still a ton better. It is a mana cheaper and kills more things. Instant speed doesn't really matter, because in the match-ups where you want this card, you would rather have the card be cheaper.
Reason #5 – Celestial Colonnade is the better man-land
Sure, Creeping Tar Pit is unblockable, but it is a pretty terrible blocker. Celestial Colonnade, on the other hand, is a pretty awesome blocker. People don't block with it enough. As attackers, Tar Pit is a little bit better, but that doesn't compensate for its massive inferiority as a blocker. Winning the man-land war is important in T2, and UW has Tectonic Edge (oop, I mentioned it again) to go with the better man-land.
Reason #6 – Luminarch Ascension is the best card in the mirror
See, when this card comes down in the control mirror, the game becomes about the Ascension, and not about you. It even fights with big Jace profitably more often than not. In that respect the two cards are similar; your opponent can't let it be. The difference is that Ascension costs you just an initial investment of 2 mana (the angels are at instant speed, so you can just make them whenever you want). This cheap cost means that it slips under countermagic frequently. UB has no comparable trump in the mirror. In fact, it has nothing even remotely close to the power level of this card. Oh, Ascension is good against ramp decks too.
Reason #7 – Counterspells are good
I don't know why blue mages have forgotten this, but apparently somewhere along the line they decided that tapping out was a good idea. I blame Flores, Keiga, the Tide Star, and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror. This is a great format to going back to your roots. Sorceries are cards named Wrath of God, right?
Reason #8 – Wall of Omens is still nuts (in the match-ups where you want it)
This card single-handedly turns off entire offensives, all for 2 mana and drawing you a card. UB has nothing comparable, once again. Sure, it's been reduced to a sideboard card, but it is still an awesome sideboard card.
Reason #9 – Venser, Gideon Jura, Elspeth Tirel
UB has no cards to compete with these cards. They are still good.
Reason #10 – The man-land war
See, it's important to win the man-land fight against everyone, mainly because man-lands are so annoying for the control deck. Your tools in this fight are three-fold – Condemn, Tectonic Edge (oh, there it is again), and Celestial Colonnade. UB only has one tool – Doom Blade. UW is WAY better at doing this than UB.
Reason #11 – Tectonic Edge (hi again) can be used offensively
See, many decks are running 25 land + 4 Preordain. While this is functionally identical to running 27 land, it also means that they will have to dig for their land drops earlier in the game. This opens up opportunities to use Tectonic Edge (I'm really getting tired of mentioning this card) offensively to resolve spells. One of those spells could easily be Sun Titan, which will lead to more Tectonic Edges (really, I am). I believe you see where this is going.
Reason #12 – Baneslayer Angel is still awesome
See, Vengevine, even though it has decreased in popularity, still exists. Baneslayer Angel solves that problem nicely. Gaea's Revenge also exists. Baneslayer solves that problem too. Goblin Guide also exists. Baneslayer solves that problem as well. The 5 mana lifelinking flyer is still good, albeit just a sideboard card now.
Reason #13 – Memoricide is the biggest trap card in T2
See, I played with that card the first time it was legal. It wasn't very good. The format was slower then, and most decks had less ways of recovering from the card (due to planeswalkers not existing). Combo was also more relevant back then (which is where you want Memoricide). So, in other words, the format was better for Memoricide back when it was first printed, and it still sucked. Why do you think that card would be better now?
Conclusion:
UW simply makes more efficient use of the variety of tools it has as its disposal. The big advantage the UW deck has over the UB deck is Tectonic Edge (I'm really tired of making this point, but I can't emphasize it enough). Tectonic Edge is the second most important control card in T2. The only card that matters more is Mana Leak. Maximizing Tectonic Edge is a HUGE advantage that the UW deck has.
The UB deck has a bunch of small advantages, but none of them make up for its vast inferiority on the Tectonic Edge front (really, the card is that important). I'll go through the two main advantages UB has:
As far as Duress and Inquisition are concerned, they deal with a lot of things, but they are all blanked by Leyline of Sanctity. These cards are really good in the control mirror, but most lists cannot justify all 8 in the 75, which means that you'll be facing 5 or 6 at most as a UW mage. Annoying, but not something you have to be horribly concerned about. If you happen to have Leyline and you see both cards, you should bring in a couple Leylines. It will randomly have great value.
Getting access to these two cards is nice, but I don't feel like it is worth playing swamps. If you are playing something like Matthew's list, it is acceptable, but I still think you should be on board with the plains plan.
As far as Doom Blade is concerned, UW has to run both Journey to Nowhere and Condemn to effectively replace this card, which means it has to run more removal. This doesn't really make it worse, however, since the UB deck has to run a bunch of sub-optimal cards to compensate for the fact that it only has Doom Blade as removal. See, the problem with the UB deck is that in non-control match-ups the deck is removal-light, which can hurt it quite a bit. UW doesn't have this problem.
This is the primary reason why Doom Blade is worse than Journey. Quantity matters, and Journey has better back-up than Doom Blade. In a vacuum, Doom Blade is about equal to Journey, maybe a tad better (although I would prefer to have Journey), but once you put them in decks, Journey comes out ahead because its team is better.
I cannot stress enough how important Tectonic Edge is (really, I can't). The UW deck can turn this card into a weapon, and it is the second most effective sword in the control mirror (Luminarch Ascension is the first). It is also really important in the non-control match-ups. If you have never used Tectonic Edge (last time, I promise) as a weapon, I advise you play some games with UW and learn how to do it. It is really really potent.
Winning the mana war is so important in the control mirror, which is now a relevant match-up again. I don't understand why people have forgotten this. Guess what deck is better at that?
From one blue mage to another,
Chingsung Chang
Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO
