His featured card is Maze of Ith

Running 1 of any guildgate in a Maze's End deck is a bad idea unless you have ways to bring lands back from your graveyard to the battlefield. There is a fair amount of land hate in Standard and if they kill one of your 1 ofs, then you lose unless you can pull of Kiora's ultimate.

What land-hate is there in Standard? I spent the entire weekend playing in GP Phoenix and saw nothing that could destroy lands.

Bramblecrush , Demolish , and the new tectonic edge.

Can't see too many people running it though.

Nobody's using any of those, and comparing Encroaching Wastes to Tectonic Edge is a grave injustice.

I don't see anyone running land hate, at least locally. I side in Bow of Nylea to recycle my discarded or destroyed gates.

I HAVE seen my local players keeping Pithing Needle in their sideboards, though. I'm not sure if this is in response to someone actually playing a Maze's End deck or not, but it is one of the few cards that can stop Maze's End .

After some additional testing I have decided to go back to 2 of each gate and 4 Maze's End (plus the 2 shocks). I like being able to play a variety of gates even when I do not have Maze's End out. I haven't had any issues with getting the colors I need, as I usually mulligan out of any hand that has no green sources.

In my experience with playing Maze's End decks, the best way to counteract Pithing Needlebis to run stuff like Wear / Tear and different win conditions, like Crackling Perimeter and AEtherling in your sideboard.

Hey, can you tell me how to sideboard (what goes in and out) with these match ups

MBD, MUD, Midrange, Boros Burn,Control, Aggro

Thanks!!

Brawdi: Sure!

Against Burn you side out 4x Dictate of Kruphix , 1x Detention Sphere , 1x Supreme Verdict and 2x Merciless Eviction for 4x Heroes' Reunion , 2x Swan Song , and 2x Bow of Nylea . You really need as much life gain as possible here. I've considered adding Negate or Dispel to the sideboard just for this matchup.

Against Aggro you side out 4x Detention Sphere and 2x Merciless Eviction for 4x Heroes' Reunion and 2x Bow of Nylea . Again, it's all about the life gain. If you can make it to turn 5 then you should be fine.

Against MBD you side out 2x Dictate of Kruphix , 1x Druid's Deliverance , and 2x Swan Song , for 2x Kiora, the Crashing Wave and 3x Essence Scatter . Most black players will side out most or all removal, so Kiora can get some work done. She's mostly used for her -1 but can also lock down a Desecration Demon . Essence Scatter is to counter Gray Merchant of Asphodel .

Against MUD i like to side out 2x Swan Song and 2x Merciless Eviction for 4x Heroes' Reunion . This matchup isn't very hard, IMO, as they have no way of dealing damage outside of combat.

Against Control (Azorius or Esper) I side out 4x Druid's Deliverance and 4x Defend the Hearth for 2x Swan Song , 2x Crackling Perimeter , 2x Kiora, the Crashing Wave , and 2x Bow of Nylea . This gives you a wider variety of win conditions at the expense of useless Fog effects.

Against Gruul or Jund monsters I side out 2x Swan Song and 1x Dictate of Kruphix for 3x Essence Scatter . This is another relatively easy matchup, IMO.

I don't know if it is standard legal, but Amulet of Vigor would be great here!

Hey, Can you talk about the new changes? Thanks! Big fan of your deck, but i lose to mono black devotion most of the times :(

Brawdi: I basically just added 4x Jace, Architect of Thought for deck digging/drawing and a little more longevity against Aggro. I took out Urban Evolution and Merciless Eviction to make room. Jace basically removes the need for Urban Evolution , and Merciless Eviction just wasn't pulling it's weight.

I also removed the shock lands as I found them to be unnecessary. I'm thinking about adding a few basic islands to help land that turn 3 Dictate of Kruphix or a turn 4 Supreme Verdict .

I'm glad you like the deck, though! I don't play this one much any more as I have moved onto a Grixis Superfiends build, but I troll FNM with this deck every now and again.

Crucible of Worlds would be a good thing to have here, I would think.

I agree, but this is a budget build (see the deck tags).

Has Stone-Seeder Hierophant been suggested? It functions as a pseudo Amulet of Vigor (since you get a free land untap every time you play a land)

This deck hasn't been updated in too long, but I thought I might mention that Gateway Plaza adds an entire additional land for Maze's end to work with.

Realm Seekers is a really good card for this sort of thing, able to tutor for any gate card (and if you have enough mana, even several in a turn.) If you're playing in anything more than a duel, you'll likely be able to do this 5 or 6 times.

itsmekidney

I came up with Maze Winner and I hope you will like what you see there.