Hey! Thanks for the suggestions, I originally was running a deck with cards such as the ones you suggested.

Whilst it was fun in casual play, I felt that it's place in competitive magic was limited largely due to the lack of a win condition.Whilst my deck list evolved, I realized that the majority of the time - My win condition often secured the game without need for help for spellheart chimera's or guttersnipes and that ultimately these cards diluted the control aspect of the deck and as a result allowed my opponent to develop their board far more effectively. Since blue don't have access to Supreme Verdict (Unless your Tri-coloured) we ultimately have to decide to either run either early value/chump blockers or early removal such as anger of the gods. Later in the game chump/value blocking isn't as important because we're able to field our win conditions such as eatherlings, prognostic sphinx etc

Edited, thanks for pointing that out Ziggyra - Appreciated

I run a different version of R/U called Izzet (help wanted/desired) . I based around Prophetic Flamespeaker and Thassa, God of the Sea . It has more of an aggro feel then really a control but I still have the counter spells and burn spells running. I have still to see a real viable R/U out there because of the removal. +1 from me for going against the norm and attempting to make it work, I'd love to hear your results from FNM.

Interesting concept, nice synergy between Prophetic Flamespeaker and Thassa, God of the Sea that I hadn't noticed was there. I actually traded a Flamespeaker yesterday for some other things I needed for Tiny Leader but I really like the flavour your going with between those two.

I'm hoping that come rotation Blue Red control could potentially be a thing - With AEtherling dropping out of rotation, I feel the new siege dragon or Shivan Dragon could quite easily become new win conditions until something more stable becomes available.

Did someone just suggest Shivan Dragon ? facepalm

Just use AEtherling through September. It's infinitely better.

If you want a faster, less stable win-con, Stormbreath Dragon definitely has some power behind it.

AEtherling is the only option for a while yet but people are trying to see how Control will change evolve post rotation. It's difficult to judge how the format will change but we definitely lose our most stable win condition in AEtherling

Uh, true. But so much of this deck is disappearing with it that you might as well just play this and build something separate for when rotation happens.

As it stands, you only have 5 different spells that stay in Standard.

Yeah that's true - Much of this deck does drop post rotation. It's not been as strong as White/Blue Control for obvious reasons but I feel up to now I've managed to get some success with the deck and I've really enjoyed playing a deck with some different style.

I do really like the concept of Siege Dragon from M15 I must admit, however perhaps Elspeth, Sun's Champion could prove a big challenge for the potential win condition along with the black "kill creature" removal. Could perhaps work when splashing white for 1 mana white "Protetion from" spells or "indestructible" protection.

You don't want to get into protection spells just for the sake of protection. It doesn't work as well as it looks on paper.

Just make your creatures more efficient, impactful, and lower cmc if you're having trouble with removal.

Why not replace lightning strike with lightning bolt, it cost 1 less mana for the same damage and it's an instant. Every way better except it's a rare card that is no longer printed I believe.

facepalm