Will add tournament commentary soon.
Deck breakdown as it was for GP Phoenix
Mainboard
3 Azorius Charm: Good, but not great as it once was. It's a situational Time Ebb with a cycling effect and an even situational-er lifelink ability. Generally speaking, it would just be better to kill the creature than slow it down.
2 Bile Blight: Great removal. Perfect for Pack Rat, Mutavault, and any deck that plays playsets of its creatures (every aggro deck ever). It's also just good spot removal.
2 Dimir Charm: A less obvious choice. It kills most of aggro's creatures and Course of Kruphix. It counters Thoughtseize, Rakdos's Return, Dreadbore, and Revoke Existence, among other things. The fateseal mode can help keep a screwed opponent screwed or ensure an upcoming top-deck is pathetic.
4 Dissolve: Gotta have counterspells. I don't like Syncopate's unreliability late-game and the Scry ability of Dissolve is more valuable than the exiling ability of Syncopate.
1 Far / Away: I don't care for Devour Flesh but sacrifice abilities are useful. Being able to fuse this the two spells together gives me a lot more flexibility in "choosing" what gets sacrificed.
2 Hero's Downfall: For when you need to kill stuff dead. An EoT answer to Planeswalkers and threatening creatures. I was considering 3 for the deck, but having just 11 Black sources made me nervous. 2 worked well, but I will further look into using 3 and perhaps changing the land-base a bit.
3 Sphinx's Revelation: Duh. I don't like 4 as this card doesn't really do anything until at least turn 5. If the rest of your spells are efficient in what they do (which most are, especially Bile Blight and Detention Sphere), you don't need to be Sphinx-ing every other turn.
4 Supreme Verdict: If you're U/W-based control, 4 is the only number you should consider. Optimally, you always want to have a turn-4 Verdict in your opening hand. Verdict will almost always be at least a 2-for-1, making it a very valuable card in a deck where spell value is your biggest concern.
1 Blind Obedience: My one-of mainboard tech against R/W Burn, which I was expecting to run into quite often. Turns off their haste (making Ash Zealot and, particularly, Chandra's Phoenix much more manageable) and gives me a small but not insignificant source of life-gain.
4 Detention Sphere: If I could play 6, I would. Deals with everything, from aggressive creatures to Planeswalkers to bombs. Hitting multiple cards is a very real possibility, too. It happened numerous times throughout the GP tournament.
1 AEtherling: A must-have. From turn 7 on, it'll end the game with consistency seen rarely before in one card.
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council: Lets me shift to more a midrange strategy and put pressure my opponent in the mid-game. If I have a decent turn 2-4 stretch with lots of removal/countermagic, Obzedat hits hard and gives me a 3-turn clock. That, and he is essentially immune to sorcery-speed spells and abilities.
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion: U/W staple. -3 wipes away bigger threats, like
Blood Baron of Viskopa
, Desecration Demon, and just about everything in Monsters. +1 gets out of control very quickly, and ultimate with tokens is game-over.
4 Jace, Architect of Thought: The other Planeswalker staple. +1 gives me a surprising amount of stall support while -2 is great for digging up lands and useful spells. His -8 is never really strived for unless I don't need answers and I'm not being attacked.
26 lands: 12 Temples, 7 shock-lands, 5 basics, 2 Mutavault, 17 Blue sources, 17 White sources, 11 Black sources. With nearly half of my lands giving my Scry 1, my draws come out incredibly consistent. Scry also lets me plan out one turn ahead of my opponent.
Sideboard
1 Dispel: A quick and dirty counter for opposing countermagic, removal, burn, and Sphinx's Revelation. Comes in against control and R/W Burn (considering nearly a third or more of these decks are Instants). One might argue for just another Negate here, but 1 mana is very different from 2.
3 Fiendslayer Paladin: My unrivaled tech against Burn and B/R decks, both of which are on the upswing in popularity. Neither deck can touch Fiendslayer beyond Chained to the Rocks and Devour Flesh, and he happens to block favorably and gain me life.
1 Gainsay: More counter support against MUD and control. Compared to Negate, it counters AEtherling as opposed to missing Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Against MUD, it's a 1U Counterspell.
1 Last Breath: A seemingly odd choice, as Dimir Charm essentially has this mode with more versatility. However, Last Breath retains its usefulness with the ability to straight-up exile pain-in-the-ass creatures, like Chandra's Phoenix, Voice of Resurgence, and Xathrid Necromancer.
2 Negate: Control support. Hits everything but creatures (obviously), which is 95% of Esper and and Azorius. Also decent against Jund Monsters since they're packing things like Thoughtseize, Dreadbore, Rakdos's Return, and Hero's Downfall, on top of the usual Planeswalkers.
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council: Honestly, I couldn't find room for this one in the mainboard. If my opponent saw the first Obzedat in game-1, this one is for back-up. If he/she didn't, it's insurance to see it this time around.
1 Pithing Needle: Gotta stop AEtherling somehow. Also great against Hammer of Purphoros, Mutavault, and Underworld Connections.
1 Sin Collector: A one-of with a great niche use. Comes in against just about anything I'd use Negate against. Against Burn, it yoinks a burn spell and either trades with a creature of soaks up a second spell. It will nearly always be a 2-for-1. Against control, my opponent will take 2 each turn until losing a Mutavault or throwing a precious left-in-the-mainboard removal spell its way. I've had more Hero's Downfall thrown at Sin Collector than at anything else.
4 Thoughtseize: Sided, not mained, for the fact that Thoughtseize is pretty awful against burn. You shock yourself to make both players discard a card (think about it). That's like going down to 6 and eating a Shock to the face. Obviously, though, it's great against just about everything else. I was prepping to see lots of burn at the GP, so I sided them.
