Hi, everyone. I have recently returned from the Pro Tour, but my own performance being rather lackluster. I chose to play W/u Humans, which was a fine deck, but it also had some glaring holes in its game. The major weak point of W/u Humans is that it is very easy for your opponent to predict what is going to happen on any given turn—the deck is extremely linear. It’s quite hard to surprise your opponent, and the matchup against Delver Spirits and R/G with Huntmaster of the Fells did not seem very good.

I’d like to spend the next two articles going over the top-performing Standard decks from Pro Tour Dark Ascension. We'l start with the fringe of the successful Standard runs.

W/U/B Control – Orrin Beasley (22 points), Alessandro Portaro (21 points)

"W/U/B Control"

• Creatures (2)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (8)
• 1 Elspeth Tirel
• 2 Gideon Jura
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

• Spells (24)
• 3 Tragic Slip
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 2 Forbidden Alchemy
• 3 Doom Blade
• 3 Think Twice
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Day of Judgment
• 1 Oblivion Ring

• Lands (26)
• 2 Island
• 3 Plains
• 5 Swamp
• 2 Seachrome Coast
• 3 Evolving Wilds
• 3 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Isolated Chapel

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Azure Mage
• 1 Batterskull
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx
• 2 Curse of Death's Hold
• 3 Geist of Saint Traft
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Revoke Existence
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Buy This Deck

Orrin Beasley was a big proponent of U/B control before—he was influenced by Pat Cox and Ben Stark to some degree. This seems to be a reasonable update to the deck since Evolving Wilds lets you stretch your mana further in order to play Liliana of the Veil, Day of Judgment, and Snapcaster Mage (to flash back Mana Leak) in the same deck. Of note is that Lingering Souls has good synergy with Forbidden Alchemy. One of the problems I had with old U/B is that you would get ahead by Alchemying into card-draw (Think Twice and more Alchemies), but Lingering Souls lets you catch back up or protect your planeswalkers. All in all, this seems very solid.

Grixis Control – Reid Duke (22 points)

"Grixis Control"

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Consecrated Sphinx
• 3 Grave Titan
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Sorin Markov
• 2 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (26)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 2 Faithless Looting
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 2 Doom Blade
• 2 Forbidden Alchemy
• 3 Mana Leak
• 4 Desperate Ravings
• 2 Black Sun's Zenith
• 2 Slagstorm
• 2 Curse of Death's Hold
• 2 Pristine Talisman
• 2 Ratchet Bomb

• Lands (26)
• 2 Swamp
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Copperline Gorge
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 3 Shimmering Grotto
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Sulfur Falls

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Curse of Death's Hold
• 3 Dissipate
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 Mana Leak
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Precursor Golem
• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Ray of Revelation
• 1 Sever the Bloodline
• 1 Slagstorm

Buy This Deck

Reid Duke worked with Patrick Chapin and the rest of the Finkel/Gerry beach house on this one. Faithless Looting, Desperate Ravings, and Forbidden Alchemy let you play conditional cards such as Ancient Grudge and Curse of Death's Hold in your maindeck. Grave Titan and Consecrated Sphinx were eschewed by this sort of deck in the past, but they serve as very good finishers once the board is locked up, and they even help you catch up if you are slightly behind on board.

U/B Control – Lukas Jaklovsky (21 points), Robert Jurkovic (27 points)

"U/B Control"

• Creatures (5)
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx
• 3 Snapcaster Mage

• Spells (28)
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 2 Dissipate
• 2 Doom Blade
• 2 Tribute to Hunger
• 3 Forbidden Alchemy
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Think Twice
• 4 Tragic Slip
• 3 Black Sun's Zenith
• 2 Curse of Death's Hold
• 1 Ratchet Bomb

• Lands (27)
• 7 Swamp
• 8 Island
• 2 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Nephalia Drownyard
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Drowned Catacomb

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Batterskull
• 2 Bloodline Keeper
• 1 Dissipate
• 1 Flashfreeze
• 1 Negate
• 2 Nephalia Drownyard
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Phantasmal Image
• 1 Ratchet Bomb
• 1 Surgical Extraction

Buy This Deck

Both of these guys performed very well with this slightly modified list of U/B control. Tragic Slip is a notably good removal spell for this deck since it fits well on the curve (turn one and turn three). They also decided to add a Ratchet Bomb to the maindeck to hedge.

U/B Control with Tezzeret – Shouta Yasooka (19 points)

"U/B Control with Tezzeret"

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Bloodline Keeper
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 2 Spellskite

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

• Spells (22)
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 4 Tragic Slip
• 2 Black Sun's Zenith
• 2 Despise
• 2 Curse of Death's Hold
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Tumble Magnet
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Sphere of the Suns
• 4 Ratchet Bomb

• Lands (24)
• 3 Island
• 9 Swamp
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Curse of Death's Hold
• 3 Distress
• 1 Doom Blade
• 3 Flashfreeze
• 2 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Phyrexian Crusader

Buy This Deck

This deck has a lot going for it. Notably, it is a tap-out control deck, although I am relatively sure that Yasooka ran the Mana Leak bluff more often than not. Bloodline Keeper is hell for Delver and Human decks alike. Tezzeret is his primary way to get ahead on cards. Besides that, I think he is behind against other control decks and Ramp, but reasonably well-positioned against other decks.

Grand Summoning – Andre Mueller (18 points)

"Grand Summoning"

• Creatures (29)
• 4 Grand Architect
• 4 Phantasmal Image
• 4 Treasure Mage
• 1 Geistcatcher's Rig
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 3 Wurmcoil Engine
• 4 Myr Superion
• 4 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 4 Solemn Simulacrum

• Spells (9)
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Heartless Summoning
• 1 Contagion Engine

• Lands (22)
• 3 Swamp
• 8 Island
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 2 Buried Ruin
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Drowned Catacomb

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Curse of Death's Hold
• 2 Dissipate
• 2 Doom Blade
• 1 Havengul Lich
• 4 Mental Misstep
• 2 Negate
• 2 Ratchet Bomb

Buy This Deck

This is a deck we haven't seen until very recently when it broke out in the hands of Ali Aintrazi at an SCG Open. The list for this deck seems focused and is probably hell for Delver and Humans. The matchup against Ramp does not seem very good—you have no recourse to avoid being poisoned out nearly every game. Contagion Engine is an interesting innovation and seems quite good. Geistcatcher's Rig is an interesting card that can take down a Drogskol Captain or another flying nuisance.

Later this week, I'll have the follow up article on the decks I believe to be the best performers from the Pro Tour.

Feel free to leave comments here, on Twitter, or on my blog.

Jarvis