One of the most exciting cards out of Onslaught Block during its tenure in Standard was Astral Slide. This card let you do all kinds of cool tricks with cycling lands, Eternal Witness, Exalted Angel and much more. Nostalgia for that card is part of the reason that the printing of Drake Haven was so exciting, and a big piece of why it’s so disappointing that we’ve seen so little of Drake Haven since its release. However, in recent weeks, I’ve started to see a Drake Haven deck popping up online. Let’s take a look:

Blue-White Control - Ixalan Standard | Bishop989, 5-0 Standard League

• Instants (20)
• 2 Countervailing Winds
• 3 Farm // Market
• 3 Settle the Wreckage
• 4 Censor
• 4 Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 4 Renewed Faith

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Fumigate

• Enchantments (11)
• 1 Thopter Arrest
• 2 Search for Azcanta
• 4 Cast Out
• 4 Drake Haven

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Abandoned Sarcophagus

• Lands (24)
• 7 Island
• 7 Plains
• 1 Desert of the Mindful
• 1 Shefet Dunes
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Irrigated Farmland

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Authority of the Consuls
• 1 Countervailing Winds
• 1 Disallow
• 1 Forsake the Worldly
• 1 Fumigate
• 1 Jace's Defeat
• 1 Negate
• 2 Regal Caracal
• 2 Sunscourge Champion
• 1 Thopter Arrest
• 2 Torrential Gearhulk

Buy This Deck

The key to this deck is that Drake Haven lets you play to the board while generating card advantage against midrange and control decks. Resolving multiple Drake Havens lets you start pulling increasingly far ahead and punish opponents who can’t apply pressure efficiently. Having your primary threat be a cheap Enchantment gives you an additional advantage against decks like control, which can’t effectively interact with a resolved Drake Haven.

After Drake Haven, the most exciting aspect of this deck is the inclusion of Abandoned Sarcophagus. This card lets you really start revving your card advantage engine. Suddenly, you can rebuy all of your Hieroglyphic Illuminations and Cast Outs for value. When all of your spells suddenly become cantrips in the late game, it can be enormously difficult for opponents to keep up.

The cool card advantage-y tricks you get to do with Drake Haven and Abandoned Sarcophagus aren’t the only exciting things about this deck. The thing that I like most about it might be the combination of Fumigate and Settle the Wreckage. The format is not currently set up to effectively fight against sweepers, so playing a deck that could play up to eight, four of which can answer threats like Hazoret the Fervent, seems like a fantastic place to be.

If you’re looking for a control deck that combines the ability to effectively play sweepers with an overwhelming late game card advantage engine, this deck may be the choice for you. I haven’t seen any of it at paper events recently, but I can’t wait to see if this deck makes the transition from Magic Online to live events.