Mono black beats this deck it was my downfall... but everything depends on your local meta...

26hungb due to your suggestion, I added 3x Glare of Heresy to the SB. Unsure about Gainsay at this time since most of my opponents are running R/G Colossal or Monoblack Devotion.

Calavon, I know. :(

Very similar to my list!

I have updated my SB list to exclude AEtherize which was to be sided in against aggressive decks and mono-black (to be used against Pack Rat tokens primarily) as an extra 4-drop board wipe-type effect for the time being and replaced both with Jace, Memory Adept to help me in the Esper mirror which I have been having trouble with due to Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall .

Any thoughts on this, folks?

Nice deck. Jace, Memory Adept is a great card. I was using two of them mainboard in my deck before I got my last two AoT. I have one in my sideboard now for control match ups for that extra push.

Thank you meulaven. Jace, Memory Adept is indeed a great card, the only match at FNM I got to use him in, I believe he was countered. :(

Maybe he'll see more play if people decide to build Phenax decks. :)

In a mirror, if your Elspeth, Sun's Champion gets into a Detention Sphere , you lost. There are alot of Thoughtseize decks around, if they take your Elixir of Immortality it looks pretty grimm as well. I know Huey did that at a recent GP, but I think this was a very meta dependent decision and you don't see that anymore. If you don't have a 2nd Elspeth, Sun's Champion just put in an AEtherling . This even helps you out against Slaughter Games , which I saw a few times playing online.

In a control mirror where they run D Sphere, Elspeth probably wouldn't win me the game anyway, but if she did get Sphere'd, I would just rely on Mutavault . Additionally, I wouldn't run Elspeth out to be removed without holding at least a counter or two, and in games two and three I would have the Gainsay s in my deck instead of Celestial Flare .

I haven't played against Slaughter Games except for once before Theros was out. Rakdos is so unpopular at the moment that I'm not too concerned with mainboarding against it when Slaughter Games isn't mainboarded a bunch anyway.

I need to add another update, but I played in another tournament on 1/18/14 and went 5-1 (got 3rd out of 37) with this deck. That's coming very soon. In it, I did have my Elixir Thouhtseized away but I won before decking myself.

I would definitely add a Blind Obedience at least in the SB. This card wrecks the GR decks. Also when do you side in Cyclonic Rift ?

What other finishers would you recommend? Jace is a bit expensive and I dont quite understand how he can be usefull. Elspeth, well a great card but an expensive one. What do you think about 4 atherling for example?

and I cant afford Sphiinx at the momment, will Opportunity do alright?

Enlightened_Jedi I definitely agree about Blind Obedience in the side against that deck, I took it out one week because I was really frustrated with my matchup against monoblue, but I will probably put one or two back in the SB because of Xenagos, God of Revels . I bring in Cyclonic Rift to overload against most devotion decks, and I've been trying it against control matchups to get rid of their Planeswalkers/Detention Sphere s and it has worked alright. Against G/R and monoblue and monoblack it has been most useful. Thanks for the comment.

arkaram Your control deck without Jace, Architect of Thought and Elspeth, Sun's Champion will be much weaker than decks that have them because Jace is so strong against aggro because of his +1 and he is great in control matchups by generating card advantage through his -2. Jace is probably one of the best cards in Standard right now imo. If you can ultimate either of these your opponent is going to have a pretty difficult time winning, although it's still possible for you to lose. I would say for a budget deck Opportunity would be an alright substitute for Sphinx's Revelation until you get them, but the lifegain and being able to draw more than 4 cards with Sphinx's is what makes it so incredible. Good luck building your deck, man.

I playtested this against my deck: Oh look, I'm tappedout, BUT WAIT! (Please Feedback, and mine won. How does yours normally do against a deck like mine? It was odd because it felt too easy for me, I was just trying to test mine out. I got some early ramp, an early Courser of Kruphix and managed to sneak by an Archangel of Thune and d-sphered your Elspeth, Sun's Champion after Rootborn Defenses save my creatures from your Elspeth and got some counters from the Archangel of Thune and didn't attack until you were tapped out since you were running the charms and flares. Did I play yours wrong or does a deck like mine typically beat you?

SpaderAce I've never played against Bant Flash, but the one time I did play against U/G Flash it was very difficult because he was so reactive but also ran several counterspells. What did you side in on game 2? I imagine it's just a bad matchup but so few people play that deck I haven't really considered sideboarding specifically for it.

Rootborn defenses and mistcutter hydra. If you look at my deck, it's pretty different from the norm and I don't really run counterspells (maybe I should?) But yeah I had too much for you to handle quickly enough, I don't know what you could do differently though

Guildgates are still superior to basics

Gates are too slow

SpaderAce I meant what did you side in from my deck. :P Mistcutters are good but Celestial Flare is great at dealing with them especially post-Verdict.

valendras I might end up running 2x Azorius Guildgate over a Plains and an Island but I don't want too many lands that come in tapped, because I usually really need to Jace or Supreme on turn 4. We'll see how it goes though at FNM next week. I'm missing this week because of Valentine's Day.

Thanks for the feedback both of you. :)

I actually don't know how to sideboard using this website :P I would've gone with AEtherize , Essence Scatter and Cyclonic Rift for sure though

Hey, thanks for you reply. I added 4 AEtherling and 2 Angel of Serenity instead of 4 Jace and 2 Elspeth (I dont have fund for them..(( ) will it work this way? or its necessary to have those planeswalkers for this deck to work? I also lack scry lands and mutavolts..

Hey, I'm making a deck around this, could I ask your opinion on using cards such as Silence and Render Silent . If not could you tell me why you wouldn't? Many thanks :)

Lyev Skyknight and/or Lavinia of the Tenth?

Hey there Markeyp94. I have tried using cards such as Silence and Render Silent in the past, however I have decided to not use them because I think that Silence doesn't actually deal with any of their threats. All it does is give them a handful of threats (since they weren't able to play them one turn), and makes aggro and midrange decks more explosive in some situations, depending on how many lands they drew. It isn't a terrible card, but you would have to consider what you would cut from your (or my) deck in order to put some copies in, and making cuts like this have obvious drawbacks in other areas. For example, Celestial Flare is great against hexproof and protection-from-U/W creatures such as Stormbreath Dragon , Blood Baron of Vizkopa , and Mistcutter Hydra , so cutting it would make you weaker there and they would still generally resolve their threat on the next turn. Another example, Divination is great against discard decks utilizing Thoughtseize and Duress , so cutting it would remove a lot of the consistency and draw capacity that makes this deck strong. I don't like Render Silent as much as Dissolve because of the more strict mana cost and the fact that Dissolve letting you scry can be really key since this deck really needs to be able to hit Supreme Verdict (if there wasn't enough other removal) in most cases by turn 6 at the latest. Render Silent isn't a bad card either however, but if you are looking for a deck with more counterspells consider using Syncopate as well. Best of luck constructing your deck.

sixsamuraisoldier Neither of those cards really fit in my opinion. What would you take out and why would they make my deck better?

ah sorry, i should elaborate, i meant in sideboard against aggro

Thanks a lot for the response. My deck is a mirror of yours and it has performed great! The only difference is in place of a 3rd Divination I have added 1 Quicken to use with Supreme Verdict to counter the use of Mutavault and to Quicken into Divination at end step.

My final question is if you had both a Dissolve and a Divination in your hand on turn 3 would you keep the mana open for Dissolve or is the card advantage from Divination worth it?