This is a more refined form of a deck I've been toying around with for a little while.
Stonecoil Serpent
is an excellent, highly versatile card that works in a variety of deck archetypes, and it especially excels in U/W Ensoul Artifact control.
WIN CONDITIONS:
Fundamentally, this is a midrangey tempo deck focused on artifacts and enchantments that features a substantial control package more than it is true Azorius control. Your early drops,
Ornithopter
and
Hope of Ghirapur
, are both cheap fliers with low power/toughness that become immediate threats with
Ensoul Artifact
and
All That Glitters
, dealing a surprising amount of early damage.
Hope of Ghirapur
specifically can exert some serious control, and knowing when to sac it and when to keep it around is one of the more important ways you can gain tempo.
Stonecoil Serpent
is the deck's favorite win condition, completely immune to common, multicolored artifact and creature removal like
Kolaghan's Command
and Put to Death. It's also part of a winning combo with
Supreme Verdict
, and gets a full +5/+5 from
Ensoul Artifact
. The best thing about the snake is its flexibility. There's a full playset in the deck, and you can cast one early for board presence and a good target for
Ensoul Artifact
, or later for more mana to deliver a final blow.
CONTROL:
Surprise! This blue/white deck goes for control largely through counterspells.
Judge's Familiar
is my favorite one-drop creature legal in Pioneer. It's incredibly versatile - a 1/1 flying body for one hybrid mana is already enticing, and the ability to sacrifice it for a baby
Spell Pierce
makes it excellent. You can also sac it in response to a board wipe to save the rest of your creatures. It's a lot like
Spellskite
in certain ways, but I feel better in Pioneer with a bird than in Modern with a Horror. The rest of the counterspell package in the deck is robust and varied, and they take on a bit of a midrange curve of their own.
Spell Pierce
works best for early-game tempo,
Dovin's Veto
shuts down with your opponent's mid-game, noncreature power plays completely, and
Disallow
can handle absolutely any effect but needs a more developed land base to work.
Detention Sphere
is catch-all permanent removal that shreds tokens and
Death's Shadow
, as well as strengthening
All That Glitters
.
SUPPORT:
Speaking of
All That Glitters
, it's a great mid-game buff for one of your creatures. Auras are, of course, risky in general because, if the creature they're attached to dies to a removal spell, you've been two-for-oned. This deck has enough counterspells to mitigate that risk, though, and
Stonecoil Serpent
completely ignores anything multicolored.
Darksteel Citadel
is a perfectly valid target for
Ensoul Artifact
, too, and having an indestructible 5/5 on turn 2 or 3 is just as good as it sounds.
The Antiquities War
is a terrific four-drop later in the game to tutor out more artifacts that Ensouls all of them at lore III, and
Arcanist's Owl
will also find you enchantments, but is only a turn 4 play if you don't have a Citadel out.
Supreme Verdict
is a nuke that can completely shift a game's momentum, and it also spares
Stonecoil Serpent
and
Darksteel Citadel
, which frequently wins games.
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
can revive an
Ornithopter
, or a Serpent you've lost, or most effectively
Hope of Ghirapur
, which can completely lock your opponent out if they don't have instant-speed responses left.
MANA BASE:
Other than the four copies of
Darksteel Citadel
(it's a must-include in this list), the 23 lands in this deck are meant to get out both blue and white mana as quickly and usefully as possible. With your basics (eight of them), as well as a playset of
Irrigated Farmland
,
Glacial Fortress
and
Port Town
should be fast whenever you need them to be.
Irrigated Farmland
, while slow, can also be cycled if you're flooded with mana (which rarely happens, but it's always a nice option to have).
Castle Vantress
can give you some much-needed scry in the later game, and also usually arrives untapped. There's a lot of gold borders in this deck, but other than
Supreme Verdict
there's nothing with more than one symbol of each color in the cost, and the main board curves out at 4 (unless you want to cast a
Stonecoil Serpent
for more than that as a finisher), so mana fixing and finding are not too tough.
SIDEBOARD:
Faerie Impostor
can move the deck further towards aggro, and also provides a way to pull
Stonecoil Serpent
back and cast it for more mana in the late game if you'd like, or save something from an incoming
Supreme Verdict
. Also, with an unenchanted
Ornithopter
out, the "drawback" is basically free.
Pithing Needle
makes perfect sense for this deck, and
The Immortal Sun
provides an even better catch-all answer for planeswalkers.
Leyline of Sanctity
is
Leyline of Sanctity
, and
Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp
is a 5/6 in the air for four mana if you play your cards right, no pun intended. I like
Ordeal of Heliod
here because it's a cheap, permanent buff that doesn't have to worry about enchantment removal as much, as well as basically saying "gain 10 life" on a
Stonecoil Serpent
, which is a huge boon against aggro.
Lavinia of the Tenth
is a terrific answer to red aggro and red in general, and
Tormod's Crypt
provides some much-needed graveyard hate. Run
Ashes of the Abhorrent
here if you want, but I find the Crypt a bit easier to cast, and it actually gets rid of a graveyard rather than just preventing access until it's removed. There's also some negative synergy with
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
. Another option is
Phyrexian Revoker
over
Pithing Needle
, but that's hair-splitting in a deck that Ensouls everything, anyway.
I'm really interested in what people think of this list! I've thrown up a few different versions of something similar already, but I think this one is much more smoothly built. Let me know what improvements you'd make!
