I have always believed that control decks offer the best bang for your buck in constructed. Control decks generally get better value and card advantage for their mana, and of course improve with every turn. Of course, in the traditional rock-paper-scissors formulation, aggro beats control, but it takes a special kind of aggro deck to do well in standard, and the kinds that are efficient enough to win reliably are slow enough for control to have a good chance against them.

The best way to accomplish control nowadays is to kill creatures. There are only a handful of decks that do not rely on creatures to win; turbofog, Luminarch Ascension, et. al. being a few notable exceptions. A few counters can help with these decks.

That's why I am a strong Grixis Control advocate who continues to fly the Red, Black, and Blue. Grixis has all the tools, and those tools are frighteningly efficient. It's got access to Infest , Volcanic Fallout , and now even Consume the Meek for mass removal. It's got the unbeatably-efficient Terminate . It's got Consuming Vapors now, which is a fantastic card. It's got Countersquall , Swerve (for those awful Jund Blightning s ), and Soul Manipulation , plus any arbitrary number of 1U or 2U blue counterspells. It has its OWN Blightning s. There is no play that Jund can make that Grixis Control can't easily outdo in terms of card/board advantage. Slave of Bolas a Sprouting Thrinax . Swerve a Blightning . Wretched Banquet a Putrid Leech , or better yet, Lightning Bolt it with its pump on the stack.

And of course, Grixis Control has the most decisive Control finishers, other than perhaps the Eldrazi themselves, but we have yet to see if they are competitive. Thraximundar , scoop. Cruel Ultimatum , scoop. And of course, for the bold, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker , scoop.

So know ye all by these presents that I will stick by Grixis Control in Standard until they pry my Terminate s from my hands in the Fall.

I do enjoy a good infestation and/or fallout from time to time.

I can see Grixis Control being enabled a bit with Consuming Vapors in particular. That's a great spell cast twice for four mana. Take a look at the 2009 World stats though; disheartening regarding Grixis. Less then 1% ran those builds.

Before Grixis had a name, these were among my favorite mixed manas, too! IMHO, tempo alone is what has undone Grixis at that level of competition. Jund is nearly a "double" cast for every spell that resolves and makes up over 60% of the decks from those 2009 stats above.

I wonder if the Eldrazi will provide amunition to allow it a second coming. I'm not seeing it yet, but I remain hopeful. Would love to see a comeback there before the cycle is complete.

An alternate to Spawning Breath is Nest Invader . If you have both in a deck + Hand of Emrakul , there is a slightly more likely chance of getting him turn 3. Still rare but doable.

I think you missed Student of Warfare which will definitely be played for as long as Ranger of Eos is in standard, and likely long after. Wall of Omens is also a gigantic change, though it will play even better as soon as the Putrid Leech cycles out. Consuming Vapors is fantastic. I think that Black/Red is going to be overpowered for a while.

I like the idea about Staggershock and Bloodchief Ascension . I may try that deck.

Any thoughts on Sarkhan the Mad and Gideon Jura ? I like Gideon, since he's a great control card and can clearly have important effects as soon as he hits the board. Sarkhan the Mad is far more conditional. I really liked him at first, but found it very hard to build a deck around him. He fits pretty nicely into Jund's turn 5 slot though, which is almost disappointing.

Well, I made an attempt at Staggershock + Bloodchief Ascension here: bolts-of-the-bloodchief. I feel like decks like this could be reasonably competitive.

Nest Invader is pretty amazing in mono-Green. Green's main weakness so far was the lack of decent 2-drops.

Tajuru Preserver is sideboard material against not only Eldrazi but also Gatekeeper of Malakir .

I initially had a pretty bad impression of Sarkhan the Mad , but that's changed as I've thought about it and tested some things out. He can be x4-ed where it's generally a bad idea to do that with other Planeswalkers. You can turn Eldrazi Spawn or Saproling tokens into dragons; you can have dragons other than his own smack the opponent for a painful swing; and you -want- him to kill himself with his abilities so you can recast him. Try dropping Sarkhan and making a dragon, then playing Broodmate Dragon next turn and using his "ultimate". 13 damage before the combat phase hurts.

Of course, absolute hilarity would be having Sarkhan Vol sac himself with his ultimate and then playing Sarkhan the Mad for his ultimate, but that's...infeasible at best. Still, one can dream.

As for the Eldrazi titans being unplayable, that's not true. There are reasonable ways to get them onto the battlefield. Djinn of Wishes is doable, Polymorph is quite good, there's always Elvish Piper , etc. If Progenitus was playable, well, you have your answer considering the existence of Eldrazi Spawn tokens to help cast these colorless titans. Also, don't forget that x1-ing an Eldrazi titan offers immunity to graveyard-mill (though exile-mill still works), so playing them isn't even a necessary part of having them affect the game drastically.

It's that latter part which I very much dislike; milling is a valid winning strategy, so their free-Gaea's-Blessing abilities are pretty stupid.

I played at the pre-release event and I think you are underestimating the eldrazi. The set has several ways to assist in casting these monster behemoths, and tutoring out additional lands, or otherwise accelerating your mana curve to allow you to cast these much larger creatures... and once you get one out, it can be put to very devastating results with those annihilator abilities. Plus how can you not like cards like the Gigantomancer which are just fun to play with.

I admit that current builds are very fast and very efficient, but ROE has ways to deal with some of that as well, the rebound mechanic can be pretty amazing / devastating. And lets not underestimate Annihilator. Sacrificing 1-4 permanents before the attack even gets to your side of the board is a pretty brutal mechanic.

Also you have underestimated a mechanic that is virtually a guaranteed win against any deck that relies heavily on creatures. If you can get the 8 mana it requires then you can keep all the creatures of the other player completely locked down permanently until and unless they draw some removal to get rid of your card. What good is Jund w/ all its fast powerful creatures if as you start to untap them they all get tapped again every turn?

no doubt jund will still be popular but that doesn't mean that new eldrazi decks won't rise to challenge the pack.

By the way, you seem to have missed the point of the article you read. I read it too. It explained that the Eldrazi are a step towards slowing down Standard, but it -didn't- claim that they're capable of beating Jund with any degree of consistency as-is. The idea was that they're a step towards a slower Standard for when Jund cycles out, which is a very different concept entirely.

Let us know how that goes Sage/Marub... I'm interested, for one.

As for Eternal's comments, started out pretty good however there exists a reason that of the 100+ decks entered at worlds, not a one is running Polymorph , Djinn of Wishes , Elvish Piper nor Progenitus . I don't mean to sound like another l33tist here, but I did say that I would lean towards the competitive aspect; these cards are simply not that. They are too slow and honestly, they are not going to work any better now than they did then (2009) - at a competitive level mind you. Certainly there are a far greater amount of creatures options that you can avoid the hard-cast on, but the tempo remains the threat in standard.

You're right though. I honestly can't recall the point of the article; it's been several months. However I think you may be missing mine. I'm not commenting on a given point already illustrated, but simply trying to uncover a clear understanding on how this set is going to put a dent in any of the top competitors now.

"What's the better play?" What's going to "undo" the power we see. Upset the balance we know; or will there even be a paradigm shift at all?! I'm not talking about "...when Jund cycles" but now!

In my estimation, over 80% of the Eldrazi release IS "...a slower Standard" so to put DeckBuilder345 on the spot for a second... He said "no doubt jund will still be popular but that doesn't mean that new eldrazi decks won't rise to challenge the pack." - show us how. That's the better play, and the direction I'm urging.

Anyone see the latest tournament results? MYTHIC is suddenly winning tournaments in droves. What the hell?

I really like Mythic, just because it's really well built and doesn't have any really wasteful cards. I'm surprised it wasn't played a lot before, though a lot of people played relatively similar bant decks.

Here's my attempt at an Eldrazi deck. Eldrazi R/G . Nest Invader + Brood Birthing . Turn 3 Hand of Emrakul . Splinter Twin is in there to make loads of spawn when placed on either card:Kozilek's Predator or even better card:Emrakul's Hatcher. Suggestions are always accepted. Thanks

You're not going to get a turn 3 Hand of Emrakul by x2-ing it.

@KrazyCaley Hadn't seen that actually but... damn! That's good to hear. Took a look. If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. Tempo and consistency kills; again.

@blueclay Full proprs; that's 10 damage by turn 4. Boros could do better, but not by much. Great play!

The weird thing about Mythic is that it's been around a while but never seemed to be able to handle Jund very reliably. Now suddenly I see it winning three separate tournaments and getting multiple top 8s. Odd.

That's worth investigating... he's not really using anything Eldrazi that I can see; or am I missing something?

I'll tell ya what though, Bloodbraid into Maelstrom Pulse or Blightning and your day is just not what it was, regardless of what you were doing before hand.

What is this Mythic ?

http://www.mananation.com/magic-walkthrough-jund-mythic-jund-perspective/

That will lead you in the right direction.

I think the thing about Mythic is that it is somewhat difficult to play correctly, and even harder to play correctly knowing that your opponent is playing Jund. I guess people have finally figured it out.

Maybe. At least the barrier to entry for Mythic is a lot higher than for Jund; the name kind of says it all.

@EternalLurker What i mean is on my second turn play Nest Invader . On my third turn play a Brood Birthing . Since i have one spawn out i get 3 more for a total or four. Sac them and lay out on my third turn a Hand of Emrakul . Albeit i'm not playing a lot of Hands it could still happen. It happened while casually playing amongst friends several times.

majehdemon: I understand what you mean. I'm just saying that your deck only has x2 Hand of Emrakul so the chance of a turn 3 Hand is extremely low.

Newb here but i made a nice deck and did something a little interresting with it. woot's-to-ulamog! My opening hand had 2 Joraga Treespeaker and 2 Arbor Elf in it. plus two lands and a Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre turn one dropped an Arbor Elf and a land. turn two tapped arbor elf and dropped a Treespeaker leveling it up with arbor elf. on turn three i have umm... gets a calculater five mana on turn two. I really hope i'm not sounding stupid right about now x.x But i thought it was a neat hand.

eternallurker, understood.

@Benny840 That's not newb'esk at all. Five mana on turn three is considered a competitive tempo; it's what you do with that tempo by turn five that matters most.

@Benny840: It's 6 mana, actually, not five, assuming you play another land on turn 3. 'Course, it's four mana and a wasted second turn if they Bolt your Treespeaker. Be careful about relying on 'em.

Yeah i know and the worst part is that i can't build this deck anymore mainly cause EVERYONE is building an Eldrazi deck so all the local hobby stores are out of the two critical lands i need XD

Well whether you hate or love the Eldrazi, it appears that they're coming. Eldrazi temples were sold out in all my hobby stores. I was barely able to get two and that was only cause there was a guy sellin em right next to me as i was there.

I certainly don't hate them, but let's pool from what you can expect of the professionals -

Take first Mythic that Caley brought to point - swing for 10, turn three. Now the the tried and true Boros match up - swing for 12, turn three. Jund is generally capable (albeit not quite as consistent) of a 10 point turn three, dependent on build and cascade.

Note: these are best case scenario's when all the fates are in your favor.

Eldrazi... well, that's the pith of my moil here and exactly what our Eldrazi is up against.

Update: Why play Hand of Emrakul turn 3 (with 4 spawn tokens out) when you can play Thunder-Thrash Elder and roll out with a 13/13 turn 3? :P Came up with this beauty myself...