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UB Reanimator

In a recent article posted on the magicthegathering.com website, the Dimir guild was spotlit in an anlysis of the viable blue-black strategies in standard. One of the more eye-catching decks was a reanimator deck that used Zombify, Vigor Mortis and Goryo's Vengeance to reanimate 1-of's that had been graveyarded by Compulsive Research and Gifts Ungiven. A decent deck, but all the 1-of's (and the use of creatures like Kira, Great Glass-Spinner and Kuro, Pitlord) made the deck seem unreliable.

Then came StarCity.

By trimming the non-UB cards, adding better card draw and focusing the win conditions, Shenanigans (not actual name) built a very convincingly consistent strategy. The turn-4 Kokusho makes for some pretty quick pacing for a UB deck. Here's the math:

UB Vengeance

4 Sleight of Hand
4 Mana Leak
4 Remand
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Compulsive Research
4 Zombify
4 Vigor Mortis

4 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star

9 Island
5 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
4 Underground River
2 Miren, the Moaning Well

I love the synergy and focus of this build. I read once that a great deck has no card that would be a bad draw on 3rd turn. All of these are card you'd love to see opening hand or mid-game, due to the flexibility allowed by cheap recursion and discard effects, as well as the protection of Miren, The Moaning Well.

Read The Wizards Article
Read The StarCity Post

RWG Creature Control - The Honden Effect

Fungus is good, Hondens are bad, right?
Maybe.
Using Hondens is usually bad deckbuilding; they're expensive enchantments with small-scale game effects. But they are a constant threat. So if you can have major large-scale effects already in place, they become a major annoyance. With some decent acceleration and solid removal, you can handle most threats. I love creaturless decks, and the Genjus make this a viable build. And having Searing Meditation available turns 2 hondens into 3 damage and 2 life every upkeep.

4 Wrath of God
4 Lightning Helix
4 Farseek
3 Genju of the Fields
3 Genju of the Spires
3 Honden of Cleansing Fire
2 Honden of Infinite Rage
1 Honden of Life's Web
3 Kodoma's Reach
2 Final Judgment
3 Pyroclasm
2 Searing Meditation
2 Mirror Gallery
1 Blaze
1 Worship

6 Forest
7 Plains
7 Mountains

Winning with this deck comes down to patience and control. With no targets for popular cards like Last Gasp (or Wrath of God), you can hold footing by picking and choosing targets until you clear the board. Blaze is usually the killer, but the green honden (post-wrath) is my favorite win condition for longer games. The effect is still small-scale, but by mid game a few other Hondens will have made their presence known and can get you a massive token army in just a few turns. And that works even without the Mirror Gallery in play.

RWG Control: Fungus Fires

RW control is pretty big right now, and I'm more than ready for that to end. I dont think RW really counts as control; burn and removal isnt a precision strategy to me. That being said, I had to give deserved props to a 3-color control deck that uses the colors that are usually dedicated to aggro: red, green, and white. The temptation arises in building a deck like this to use the incredible aggro weapons these colors have to offer. By not doing this, you throw most opponents off when they try to gauge your strategy by looking at your mana base or opening spells. This deck's first plays look like aggro or sligh, but after stabilizing, plays like GW control with red for burn. Check the list:

4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
4 Forest
4 Plains
2 Mountain
3 Battlefield Forge
3 Karplusan Forest
3 Brushland

2 Firemane Angel
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Sunforger
3 Kodama's Reach
4 Wrath of God
4 Lightning Helix
4 Faith's Fetters
4 Devouring Light
3 Char
3 Seed Spark

As far as the matchups, I'm not really clear on how the deck answers control, but it did pretty well (8th Place) in the Alabama Champs. I'd like to build smething similar to this when I get more of the tools.

Guildpact

The new logo is in, and damn does it look good. The whole guild idea is probably going to get kinda tired, but making card mechanincs that reflect the strengths of multiple colors is always great for deckbuilding. The Magic Arcana has also released the images for the following expansion and some great looking art for the new BR guild legend. Thanks to MTGNews for the update.

MTG.com: Forward Thinking

I have been drawn to the strategic side of MtG since I started playing in 5th. I dont think Ive ever read an article on the art of planning, the science of strategy, as it relates to Magic. Stephen Menendian gets historical on that ass with a well-written analysis of the thinker's perspective.

Read it Here