a-MAZE-ing

Standard Combo Control Five Color GWU (Bant)

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Creature (7)

• 3x Courser of Kruphix
• 4x Gatecreeper Vine

Planeswalker (3)

• 3x Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Land (22)

• 2x Azorius Guildgate
• 2x Boros Guildgate
• 1x Dimir Guildgate
• 2x Golgari Guildgate
• 2x Gruul Guildgate
• 2x Izzet Guildgate
• 4x Maze's End
• 2x Orzhov Guildgate
• 1x Rakdos Guildgate
• 2x Selesnya Guildgate
• 2x Simic Guildgate

Artifact (3)

• 3x Elixir of Immortality

Instant (19)

• 2x AEtherize
• 3x Cyclonic Rift
• 4x Defend the Hearth
• 2x Druid's Deliverance
• 4x Fog
• 4x Riot Control

Sorcery (6)

• 4x Supreme Verdict
• 2x Urban Evolution

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Sideboard

Enchantment (7)

• 3x Crackling Perimeter
• 4x Detention Sphere

Instant (8)

• 4x Abrupt Decay
• 4x Dissolve

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Brought to a 42 person FNM on (1/25/14) and went 5-1-0

This deck is hard as nails! It stands up to most decklists and has answers to just about anything your opponent throws at you.

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By popular demand, I have decided to write up a brief analysis of the deck and sideboard:

Lands:

• We play, of course, 4 Maze's End along with doubles of each Guildgate excluidng Dimir and Rakdos. I play no spells that utilize black mana aside from Abrupt Decay (but we'll get to that later!).

• Now, there's a reason that I only play 22 lands in this deck. Initially, you may think that 22 is too few for a deck that relies on its lands to win the game, but that is not true. We play 22 lands because we don't need any more than that...

• Here's why: Our average CMC is 2.6! Unless Crackling Perimeter is in play, you're doing nothing with that excess mana when "pass to you, play fog effect" is all you're planning on doing. Now, of course you want to be utilizing that excess mana to activate Maze's End... but you also want to make sure you draw into Maze's End.

• Too many times do I see other Maze's End decks fail to draw their win condition unless they're playing copious amounts of draw spells (but guess what, if you are playing lots of draw spells- you are playing less fog spells, see where I'm goin' with this?) I have found that 22 lands is golden for this deck to make sure Maze's End is drawn, and to ensure you have just enough mana to play your 2.6 Av. CMC cards while also being able to activate the maze.

• Besides, once you have 1 maze out, you're pretty much good to go for the remainder of the game.

Anyways, now that that is clarified, let's get onto the rest of the deck

Creatures:

• 4 Gatecreeper Vine provides excellent acceleration and allow you to go get the gates you need most.

• 3 Courser of Kruphix. This new card from the BoTG set provides a substantial upgrade from the previous Saruli Gatekeepers and helps the deck further justify only running 22 lands. Courser helps accelerate mana- sure you can't play extra land drops but it's better than nothing! We also gain 1 life for each land we set onto the field, making Courser a better long-term investment for life gain than the Saruli Gatekeepers. With a 2/4 body, like the Gatekeepers, he's tough to kill and your opponents may be dissuaded from using removal post-sideboard when they find out that this is the only creature in the deck worth killing.

Sorceries:

• 2 Urban Evolution for the much-needed card draw and extra land drop. This card can put you well ahead of your opponent on lands and cards in hand.

• 4 Supreme Verdicts. This card is self explanatory. Destory everything that your opponent ever once loved and cherished... and can't be countered.

Instants:

• Let's begin with the fog-effects: Defend the Hearth , Druid's Deliverance, Fog, and Riot Control . Copious amounts of fog-effects are what keep us alive against aggro and midrange.

• Riot Control is special- it protects my face from direct damage as well! So that means when my opponent drops a Fanatic of Mogis and intends on hitting me for 8 million damage, I can Riot Control in response, take nothing, and gain some!.... then board wipe his life away...

• 2 AEtherize and 3 Cyclonic Rift are MVPs in this deck. Nothing upsets players of heavy creature-based decks more than returning everything they put down back to their hand. When your control-playing opponent has an Elspeth out and a billion flying 3/3 tokens, an Overloaded Cyclonic Rift or AEtherize is the last thing they want to see.

Artifact:

• Elixir of Immortality! Sometimes, you may burn through your fog spells faster than you've expected. Crack an Elixer, and get them all back in your deck while gaining 5 life. Feel your deck isn't giving you the spells you want? Go ahead and crack an Elixer just to shuffle it up! Is your opponent milling your deck out? Elixer can solve that! Do you have a strange rash in between your.... never mind.

Planeswalker:

• 3 Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Kiora is like a miniature Urban Evolution that gets better the longer it stays on the field. Her +1 ability is a sort-of Fog effect, which is nice, and her -5 will win you the game. Kiora makes your opponents have to decide whether they want to invest damage in trying to kill her or you which is a pretty big deal in a turbo-fog-esque deckbuild. Each time they swing at Kiora counts as 1 time you don't have to take damage. We have a lot of spells to protect Kiora, that being Fog, AEtherize, Supreme Verdict, Cyclonic Rift and situational spells like Abrupt Decay and Detention Sphere in combination with her +1 "little fog" ability. Her -2 is Explore which is intensely useful in a Maze's End deck. Drawing 1 card can be gamechanging in this deck. Her -5 provides us with an alternate win condition and if you have enough spells to ensure she stays alive to use her ultimate ability- it's going to be hard for your opponents to catch up.

Sideboard:

• 4x Abrupt Decay. People seemed a little confused about this card- but here's why I have it... shh, be quiet now- we don't want the control players to hear us... Abrupt Decay kills Pithing Needle and Detention Sphere and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Domri Rade and Underworld Connections and Nightveil Specter and can't be countered! No more do we have to worry about a Pithing Needle naming Maze's End or a Detention Sphere targeting our Elixers of Immortality or people exiling our cards with Ashiok and Nightveil specter! Abrupt Decay is simply an MVP against every deck in standard.

• 3x Crackling Perimeter for that alternate win-condition in case you feel that Maze's End isn't doing it's job well enough. This card comes in against Mono-Black Devotion as a finisher (because Mono-Black is already doing half the work for me by decreasing their life totals with cards like Underworld Connections and Thoughtseize. Perimeters also come in against most control or mill based decks as extra security for getting the win.

• 4x Detention Sphere. A very versatile card. I've noticed that Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is quite a problem. If he exiles off our Guildgates, we're done for. Burning Earth is also a problem. In cooperation with Pithing Needle, Detention Sphere does a good job at assuring Ashiok stays off the field, while it can also pick up Burning Earths off the field. Also, if we aren't drawing our Abrupt Decays for whatever reason, Detention Sphere can take away our opponent's Pithing Needles as well.

• 4x Dissolve. Take care of threats before they hit the field, and then scary one. No more shall Maze's End fear Gods, Gary's, and Sire of Insanities.... and other things I also don't like!

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Thank you for taking the time to read my analysis and I hope you enjoy my deck!

Top Ranked	Achieved #49 position overall 10 years ago
Date added	10 years
Last updated	10 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 10 - 8 Rares 7 - 3 Uncommons 36 - 4 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.63
Tokens	Emblem Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Kraken 9/9 U
Folders	Maze's End, Decks to build, Ideas, cool deck ideas, Try, Powerful weapons , Ideas, Other People's Decks, Other, Interested