I spent this weekend celebrating our country's independence AND watching the ENTIRE Star Wars series! What a great weekend!!! I've also spent a ton of time watching the list of spoilers for the new M2011 set and the times are about to change. Or, are they?

Now that we're on the tail end of standard's current state, its safe to say that we've found complete balance between the powers of Jund, Bant and U/W Control. Keep in mind that discussion about the future of standard and the new set's contents are purely speculative. I believe that with the information we have now, U/W Control and Bant are the decks to beat when M2011 enters play. I base this statement on one card and one card alone: MANA LEAK.

Mana Leak was, not too long ago, considered a weak form of countermagic. The late game always rendered the spell useless as most would have 3 mana to spend on fizzling the spell. Now this might've also been due to the power of the counterspells in the era of which Mana Leak was created. Counterspell was the first and the definition of spell for spell trade at a relative cheap cost and Manadrain came soon after providing abusive countermagic. Mana Leak has proven quite valuable in most occurrences when in possession by the control mage. Now that the all powerful Jace is in decks that would contain Mana Leak its usable even when useless with the "Brainstorm" application.

Currently, turns 2-4 are the most crucial plays to gain game momentum or fall flat into defeat. I'm not saying anything that you don't already know here. Putrid Leech, Thrinax or Blightning and the overpowered BB Elf seems pretty standard for Jund. With Bant or Naya its pretty much the same, Bird or Hierarch, Knight of the Reliquary, BB Elf or Ranger of Eos. In either of the recipes, the respective deck lands permanents and overruns with a tremendous amount of momentum.

With U/W control, it’s a little different sequence of turns. Typically, it wants to sets up a turn 3 or 4 Day of Judgment. Obviously different with a Path to Exile in hand or a Turn 2 Wall but Turn 3 and 4 are pretty open. It’s a completely different sequence and focus and one that is entirely unstable and ALL passive. With Mana Leak in the list, the strategy changes entirely. With 3 lands, Wall of Omens, Mana Leak, Path to Exile and Jace, the Mind Sculptor in hand, control becomes more an atmosphere rather than a destination. What I mean is, if you replaced Mana Leak with virtually any card that is "normally" in the U/W list, then the play was assumed, Turn 2 Wall, Turn 3 Path (if necessary) and hopefully Jace on the 4th turn. However, Mana Leak changes that with merely the ability to say "Yes" or "No". It goes without saying that this example hand would be a relative good draw and not necessarily the norm. Mana Leak alone changes the dimension of the game at hand by merely allowing you to determine on turn 2 whether or not you want to play your Wall or leave the mana open to leak a spell. Turn 3, if you've NOT used the Leak, allows a Wall and Path play or a Leak for Blightning and Path for a Thrinax play.

Bant potentially benefits from the return of the leak and should NOT go unnoticed when building this deck. While no one can deny the versatility of the Bant Charm, the cost of charm over leak is what might require the Mana Leak's inclusion. The cost makes it a tremendously easy way of stopping an opponents game changing or game winning move against the Bant onslaught.

Mana Leak is just one card I'm excited to be in M11. I don't foresee a lot that will help Jund, but I do see a few items for Bant and U/W. I can't wait to see M11 in action!