The brain is the most underrated card in a player's deck. It is also the easiest card to take for granted, when designing something new or tuning something pre-existent. So often, players forget that all strategy games are a contest of mistakes. As in golf, the victor is the person with the lowest magnitude on the chart of mistakes. This is the most important factor in games of Magic, far above the value of deck choice or draw strength. Should a player choose to wield his opponent's mistakes as a weapon, he would become a powerful warrior like so many athletes and gladiators before him. For this reason, I believe the most powerful strategy is to be reactive.

To quote the 6th chapter of The Art of War:

"Military formation is like water—the form of water is to avoid the high and go to the low, the form of a military force is to avoid the full and attack the empty; the flow of water is determined by the earth, the victory of a military force is determined by the opponent."

Ironically, most successful reactive decks in Magic are ones running many Islands. Perhaps Sun Tzu predicted blue to be the best color in Magic 2000 years before the game's conception, or perhaps the game was designed with his thoughts in mind. Regardless of this uncovered satire, there are valid lessons to be learned from this passage, and from water itself.

Let's look at a hypothetical. Your opponent has the mana to cast only one threat on his turn, and he has two sorcery-speed threats in his hand. He has three options: casting the best threat, casting the worse threat, or waiting until later to act. You are playing at instant speed and you have one counterspell and one draw spell in your hand. If he casts the strong threat, you will simply counter it. If he casts the weak threat, you can ignore it and draw some cards, since your deck will have plenty of outs to a resolved weak threat. And if your opponent does nothing, you can draw extra cards without any negative consequences.

That's the power of playing a deck full of instants. Your opponent has to make complicated decisions based on hidden information, in order to make his plays. All you really have to do is decide when to use your answers. If you are as formless as water, your opponent has no weaknesses to attack. If you have no skeleton, your bones cannot be broken.

Play Around Everything.

Have you ever tried to punch a lake? The water does not break or become hurt; it simply flows about you and envelops your arm. Then the water has you surrounded, and you are completely wet. This is the very definition of an ambush: a force moving by its own free will, directly into a surrounding enemy force.

A good example of an ambush is the following:

A Sligh player has a Goblin Guide on the table, attacking into a Blue/Black Control deck. The Red Deck turn his man sideways, and after the trigger the control player decides to take the damage. Then, in the second main phase, the aggressor holds back his threat because it's clear the Draw-Go player has a counterspell ready. Then, on his end step, his Goblin Guide is destroyed by an instant removal spell, and the Red player can only respond by throwing two burn spells at his opponent's dome.

Perhaps, the Sligh player should have cast another threat, but that threat would have been countered. Eventually, he would run out of threats, but the control deck would probably not run out of answers. Because the control deck draws extra cards and because it runs more answers than the Red deck plays threats, it will nearly always have plenty of answers for the mid-game and it will dominate in board position through the end-game. The only power the Red Deck has is in the ability to put damage on the opponent while his threats are still alive, and then figure out clever ways of resolving a critical mass of burn spells.

Since the best way to control the board is to stop the opponent from putting major pieces on the table, ideally you want to conservatively sit on countermagic and wait until your opponent taps out or moves to his end step before use your removal. It hurts to take an extra 2 damage from a Goblin Guide, but it hurts even more to take 5 damage from a Plated Geopede on the next turn. Your life total is a resource; it is best to pay some life points so that you can play around everything your opponent could do. When your opponent stops running his threats into your counters and you finally kill off his last board presence, you are rewarded with an empty table and the freedom to run wild with draw spells.

Moving Towards the Tangible.

Recently, I won the 2010 California State Championship with a Draw-Go deck. This was the list that I used:

[cardlist]

[Lands]

4 Creeping Tar Pit

4 Darkslick Shores

2 Drowned Catacomb

4 Tectonic Edge

7 Island

4 Swamp

[/Lands]

[Spells]

4 Mana Leak

2 Negate

2 Cancel

2 Stoic Rebuttal

3 Minbreak Trap

3 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Doom Blade

2 Into the Roil

4 Preordain

4 Jace's Ingenuity

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[/Spells]

[Creatures]

2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

[/Creatures]

[Sideboard]

3 Flashfreeze

2 Duress

2 Disfigure

2 Smother

2 Sign in Blood

2 Consume the Meek

2 Grave Titan

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This is about as conservative a control deck as you will find in Standard. I run a minimal suite of finishers, a maximum number of draw spells and deck manipuation, and fill out the rest of the deck with lands and answers. Let's look at the specifics.

The most important card in the entire deck is Jace's Ingenuity. This is the most efficient instant speed draw spell since Thirst for Knowledge, and it functions very similarly to Fact or Fiction. Jace's Ingenuity is your win condition and the card that buries your opponent alive. Don't be fooled by the 5 mana cost; this card is priced perfectly for what it's supposed to do. It is an automatic 4-of, and if I had my choice, I would consider running 6-7 of them (cutting Jace entirely from the deck). When you cast one, the odds are high that you will draw into a second one, which will draw you towards a third…. Ultimately, Ingenuity into Ingenuity into Ingenuity is a 9-for-1 that you can cast whenever you have spare mana ready. This chain-draw effect is exactly why Fact or Fiction was so broken, in its heyday.

The next most important card in the deck is Preordain. Whereas Ingenuity is designed to bury the opponent, Preordain is the shovel that digs you out of holes. Whether your issue is mana troubles, a lack of countermagic, a lack of removal or disruption, the need for card advantage, or the need for a finisher, Preordain can solve any of these problems. I've been playing this card as a 4-of since the end of the Standard PTQ season, and since that time I've seen most of the Island-tapping players start to include Preordains in their decks. The card is so powerful because it provides draws with extreme stability at a minimal cost. No matter what turn it is or what stage of the game it is, Preordain will always be useful. For years, people have been playing card like Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor, Scroll Rack, and Sensei's Divining Top as 4-ofs in their decks. Library manipuation and tutoring is such a powerful tool, and Preordain is one of the best such wrenches to see print, in the history of the game. Preordain even has obvious power level when played alongside a Jace, the Mind Sculptor set to Brainstorm mode. Use it.

The rest of the deck forms around that core of 8 blue draw spells. I play 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor because it's the next best draw option and because it powers up Preordains, but I wouldn't deem it a necessity to the deck. If there were other good draw spells available (or a maindeck-able counterspell that draws cards, such as Cryptic Command or Exclude), I might be inclined to run 2 of those and a little more removal, instead. I play 2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle because it's the most solid method of closing games, but it's more important that there are 2 finishers than they are specifically Sphinxes. The core of the deck is in its card advantage and library manipulation. Everything else, including the literal finishers and the $80 bills, is secondary. I make a big deal of this fact because of sideboarding. Most anything in the deck can be sideboarded out, but not the Preordains and Ingenuities. Those are ironclad; without them, the deck ceases to function properly.

Nevertheless, I think it's necessary to explain how Jace should be used in this deck. Breathe in deeply, clear your mind, and then repeat after me:

Jace is not my win condition. It is only a back-up win condition. I do not automatically seek to +2 Jace and go for an ultimate, because my opponent does not necessarily need to be on a literal clock. Jace's job is to draw me cards and occasionally bounce creatures. I will not fateseal my opponent unless I think about my my options, and it is my absolute best action.

Unless you literally have no other finishers, you should never, ever try to go for a Jace ultimate. +2ing Jace is fine if you're doing it to make him more resilient to damage, if you have enough cards in hand, if you don't want to deck yourself, and/or if you want to scry something bad to the bottom. It is not acceptable to use Jace as a fatesealing device. Players who do this by default are players who hate card advantage, and traitors to the Island. A large number of people don't fully understand that fatesealing doesn't actually answer anything. It simply cycles away a good card from your opponent's topdeck. You know your opponent is just going to draw something else, instead. Most of the time, when I look at my opponent's topdeck, I just leave it there. Then I play around it, because my deck has answers for basically anything. That's a much more cohesive strategy than crossing one's fingers and saying, "I hope my opponent doesn't rip like a boss!" Sometimes you don't have a better option than trying to stop a certain topdeck (such as an Eldrazi or Gaea's Revenge), but those times are few and far between. It's more important to solve a board position and draw extra cards than it is to win the game faster or to keep your Jace alive. Think carefully about what you're doing with your planeswalker.

Sphinx of Jwar Isle is an underrated finisher, especially in today's world of Titans, where Baneslayer Angel has been dwarfed. Don't be fooled, though: it's the absolute best finisher for the deck. It doesn't turn on Searing Blaze. It blocks most anything. It has evasion. It bashes up all the planeswalkers in the format, including Jace. It stops Koth from swinging in with a Mountain, and then turns sideways to headshot said Koth. It can't be targeted by Act of Treason or Mark of Mutiny, and it can't be targeted by a Smoldering Spires. It is simply the most solid finisher in the format, if you want to run a minimal number of creatures in your deck. As a bonus, it even has a useful Peek ability, which is information that promotes better decisions on your behalf. You could play basically any 6-drop and protect it with countermagic to win games, but Sphinx is the kind of creature that usually doesn't require any protection.

My suite of countermagic for States was a solid 13 spells. I would never go below 10 counters, and prefer the number to be somewhere between 12 and 16. Most of it is obvious. There are 4 Mana Leaks, which allow the deck to have an early game. There are also 4 Cancel effects, to bolster the answer suite with some hard counters. After that, it's a bit more flexible.

Negate is something that will probably be a strong maindeck inclusion (in limited numbers) for the entire next year of Standard. Even against decks with many creatures, it still counters a Planeswalker or burn spell, or some other annoyance like Mind Sludge or Eldrazi Monument. It's good to have more 2-drop counters in the deck, to keep the opponent guessing. Negate is also valuable as a cheap counter that you can leave open while playing a threat or draw spell, or to have alongside Mana Leak against an early Primeval Titan+Summoning Trap combo. I wouldn't leave home without it, and Duress is no substitution.

I also play 3 Mindbreak Trap in the maindeck. I have been on board with this card since the moment it was spoiled, and I tried to make it work for months. The truth is that permission simply wasn't possible until M11 came out. Jund was a problem, but more importantly there wasn't a powerful and playable instant draw spell. Even at the point in time when a player could legitimately run 4 maindeck Flashfreeze as a faux-Mana Leak, permission simply didn't work without an Instant draw spell. After M11 and after the rotation of many annoying Shards cards, the format became much more conducive to 4-drop counterspells. It's now a perfectly reasonable proposition to play some of these in a deck with 9 or more counterspells, even without any sort of mana acceleration. Over the course of a game, it won't matter how expensive your counters are, so long as you have one in your hand.

Based on the proof that Trap is a reasonable extra Cancel to play in Draw-Go, I'll give some reasons for actually playing it over more Cancels (since Stoic Rebuttal allows you up to 8). For starters, it can answer uncounterable spells like Gaea's Revenge and Emrakul. Those creatures can be dangerous threats against a very reactive control deck, but Mindbreak Trap completely trumps them. And because Mindbreak Trap exiles spells (rather than countering them), it is the perfect counter for Vengevine or Bloodghast. Mindbreak Trap's exile effect also has great value in permanently answering any Eldrazi legend, as opposed to allowing the opponent to shuffle it back into his library and potentially find it later. In addition, Mindbreak Trap can counter a creature (such as Primeval Titan) without allowing the opponent to cast free Summoning Traps for the turn. Quite a versatile answer.

Mindbreak Trap is also a strong trump in any kind of stack war. Many times, there will be a counter war in any control versus control match-up. When your opponent plays a threat with two counterspells for back-up, you can trump his threat with a free Mindbreak Trap—or multiple free Mindbreak Traps. Your opponent may have tricks like 1-mana counterspells or multiple threats, but Mindbreak Trap doesn't put up with that kind of crap. This is another reason why it's so strong against Summoning Trap—your opponent can play his threat and 2 Summoning Traps, and having just 2 regular counters and a Mindbreak Trap allows you to completely deny all of his threats for only 4-5 mana.

Although I wish it was the case, not every answer in a deck can be a counterspell. While many problems can be solved through Jace unsummons, putting a Jwar Isle on the table, or trading 1-for-1 with a utility land, there is still a great need for the deck to devote some slots towards solving resolved permanents. Therefore, the deck must run removal.

I don't think Doom Blade needs much explanation. At the time of States, it was the best removal spell for Draw-Go (and possibly the best removal spell in the format). Over time, if the metagame evolves to include many more black creatures, Doom Blade can be substituted for basically any other similar-costed black removal spell, such as Smother or Grasp of Darkness. The important thing is that the deck actually has cheap, instant spot removal in it. Being able to kill opposing creatures in combat or during your opponent's end step is massive.

Tectonic Edge is a very integral part of the removal suite. Many of the most problematic cards in the format are actually lands. I stand by 4, but it's fine to go down to 3 in a very color-hungry build. I think Tectonic Edge is probably one of the most skill-intensive cards in the format, both to play with and to play against. Sometimes it will be correct to pop Tectonic Edge(s) as fast as possible, to deny the opponent's mana. Sometimes it's better to leave an Edge open, implying several layers of threats during your opponent's turn. As with any other highly-interactive card, I recommend that all control pilots think carefully, then carry out their actions according to a plan. Whatever you do with Techtonic Edge, make sure it follows a greater strategy.

Into the Roil is the ideal card to fill out the rest of the removal suite. While it doesn't permanently solve anything, it still takes a threat off of the table. This deck is packed with countermagic, but all kinds of random crap can slip through the cracks. Usually Roil can be kicked to maintain card parity and dig for more business, but don't ever be afraid to go down a card, in order to solve the board. If you are about to be +2 card advantage because there's an Ingenuity in your hand, it might be better to play Roil unkicked to gain that tempo/mana advantage.

Inquisition of Kozilek is both removal and a counterspell rolled in one. Every deck in the format (and, probably in history) uses 0-3 mana spells. Most decks run many targets for Inquisition, and basically anything you can't snipe is probably something you will handle with countermagic (at a tempo advantage, no less). Inquisition is one of the fundamental reasons why this deck beats Red Decks on a consistent basis. It covers Doom Blade's bases as a faux-Smother, and it covers Mana Leak's bases in dealing with early game threats. Even in the late game, an Inquisition that misses is still free information. Plus, you can use bounce effects to push something into your opponent's hand, then Inquisition it away. I've done this against topdecked Fauna Shamans, I've done it against Jace Belerens, and I've done it against Plated Geopedes. Don't leave home without it.

That about covers the maindeck. Let's take a look at the match-ups.

Valakut Titan

This was one of the most popular decks at States, and it remains a very popular deck. It's very linear, and it only can make 2 plays in most turns: land drop and one spell. I tend to counter Cultivate almost every time in the early game, and I also think countering Explore is a good plan. Don't counter Overgrown Battlement unless you know your opponent has no Traps in his hand, but feel free to Doom Blade it on the spot. Try to use your Cancels to counter ramp spells so you can save your cheaper counters to fight against Summoning Traps when your opponent gets to 6 mana and you have about 4 mana. Don't let a Titan resolve if possible, but if you do…Doom Blade it quickly. This match-up can be difficult in game 1 if the opponent has a strong draw and you don't hit a draw spell quickly enough, or can't safely roll a Jace out there. That's fine; this is what happens when you sideboard:

-1 Inquisition of Kozilek, -2 Doom Blade, -2 Into the Roil

+3 Flashfreeze, +2 Duress

When you play sideboarded games, you have to assume your opponent has better creatures (i.e. Terastodon) to Trap into, you have to expect 2-4 Ricochet Traps, and you should definitely think about Gaea's Revenge. Sometimes people pull the man-plan on your and board in their Obstinate Baloths to become more threat-heavy, and this is why I like leaving in 2-3 Doom Blades as a general practice. In any case, you're planning on stunting your opponent's growth a little bit, then using Duress/Mindbreak Trap to win the counter war against Titan+Trap+Trap. After that, just play solid Draw-Go and draw lots of cards, and you should be golden.

Note that Gaea's Revenge is answered in many ways. If your opponent doesn't get to 7 mana, he can't cast it. If you Mindbreak Trap it, it goes away. If you have 2 Tar Pits and 8 mana, you can trade 2 lands for it. You can trade a Sphinx of Jwar Isle for it, or board in the Grave Titans to solve it. I've even flat-out raced it with a Tar Pit and Sphinx of Jwar Isle, after getting an attack in first. While the angry green man is very strong against this deck, there are multiple solutions. Be creative.

Eldrazi Green

The other major Primeval Titan variant. This deck has a much more dangerous spell-base at the end game, but is also way more vulnerable to removal spells (considering it uses creatures to ramp harder in the early game). Play as you would against Valakut or any other Titan deck, but bear in mind their ability to cast aliens. Eldrazi Green is practically a control deck in its own right, so treat this as a permission versus tap-out match-up. You want to deny your opponent's early acceleration to keep up with board position, then you want to find a way to boost your card advantage, and finally you need to quickly set up a win condition. Don't forget to play around All is Dust when you drop a Sphinx on the table!

Board as you would against Valakut Titan, but keep more removal spells in the deck instead of some of the Duresses. I like bringing in Smother or Disfigure as a way of shooting down ramp creatures. There is no concrete sideboarding plan here; only guidelines base upon the feel of the first game and how you want the other game(s) to go. The match-up is basically the same pre-board as it is post-board, aside from your opponent possibly bringing in some Gaea's Revenge, Acidic Slime, or Terastodon.

Sligh/Boros

Almost all variants of RDW are functionally the same against you. Your opponent plays 16-24 creatures, and your goal is to counter his creatures in the early game. Then, when you have a window of opportunity, remove his resolved threat(s) without tapping out for one of his main phases. After that, you're probably going to be somewhere between 7 and 11 life, or possibly even higher. All you have to do is play around burn spells and draw a bunch of cards. Don't forget that Creeping Tar Pit can trade with attackers, and don't be afraid to throw a Jace away to get far ahead in cards.

-2 Negate, -3 Mindbreak Trap, -2 Into the Roil

+2 Disfigure, +2 Smother, +3 Flashfreeze

Some variants run Kuldotha Rebirth, Devatasting Summons, or otherwise find a way to swarm against you. In that case, bring in your Consume the Meeks and find something from the higher end of your answer curve to cut. Most of the time, you should be able to keep pace with the Red deck as your opponent casts his threats, but Consume the Meek can save your hide when that isn't possible. This match-up is extremely favorable if you play it correctly, due to the stable manabase, Preordain, instant speed draw, and a very low mana curve.

Ux Control

This deck will win counter-wars with any other deck in the format. You have more countermagic than any other deck, and you have 4 Preordains and 4 Ingenuities to sculpt your hand. All you have to do is play land-go for as long as possible, bide your time, and set up an absolute victory. Creeping Tar Pits force the opponent to think carefully about when and how they use their planeswalkers, and Sphinx of Jwar Isle solves basically any planeswalker…so the Jace War is not completely real in this match-up. Play carefully and quickly, and you should win almost all game 1s against control—even if you miss a couple of land drops.

If I am execting Luminarch Ascension:

-4 Doom Blade

+2 Duress, +2 Sign in Blood

If I am not expecting Luminarch Ascension:

-2 Doom Blade, -2 Inquisition of Kozilek

+2 Duress, +2 Sign in Blood

You don't necessarily want too many discard spells, but having 5+ Duress effects will basically solve Luminarch Ascension, in many cases. I like leaving in 2 removal spells, though they don't have to be Doom Blades—they can be Consume the Meek, Smother, or Disfigure. What's important is the ability to solve some resolved permanents with efficient answers. Keeping in about 2 removal spells will stop most man-plans from the opponent, but won't flood your hand with dead cards. It's also good to have more than just 4 Tectonic Edge to solve manlands, especially an opposing Creeping Tar Pit.

I disagree with the idea of boarding in more bombs for a control mirror. I think that's a cop-out. If you play at a brisk pace, you should be able to end your round on time. Trading bombs (Battlecruiser Magic, as some call it) is a very shallow strategy. Smart players should understand that it's all about building up your hand, then choosing your battles based on timing and careful planning. Control mirrors, in my opinion, are a contest between 2 minds, as both players dance around each other's ideas like two knife fighters in a ring. I like Sign in Blood because it allows you to have more stable draws, and it's a non-threatening way to gain some easy card advantage. It doesn't require blue sources to be played, so it doesn't interfere very much with your counterspells. A Jace Beleren can leave you way more exposed to cheap counterspells and Creeping Tar Pits, and will ultimately leave you quite exposed. Sign in Blood, however, quickly sets you up with card advantage and a smoother draw, at a minimal cost. It's worth countering, but difficult to justify countering at only 2 mana (none of it blue). It's the elegant way of winning games, as opposed to boarding in more 6-drops and Jaces and crossing your fingers.

Fauna Shaman/Vengevine.dec

This is the deck's most difficult match-up, but it's actually not a bad match-up. If your opponent draws lots of Vengevines, or if he can sneak a Fauna Shaman onto the board and activate it a few times, you will probably lose a pre-board game. This is probably the match-up most worth practicing, because it will take a lot of experience to do well against this deck. Don't let your opponent stick a Fauna Shaman almost ever. Don't let your opponent resolve any sort of other card advantage. Save your Mindbreak Traps for Vengevines, most of the time. Ignore crappy creatures and save your removal spells for important ones—think Fauna Shaman, Birds of Paradise, Lotus Cobra, et cetera. Don't be afraid to use a Mana Leak, Doom Blade, or Creeping Tar Pit to trade with a Vengevine 1-for-1 and put it into the graveyard, because often it costs considerable resources to overextend the board to reanimate the Vengevine.

Your gameplan's goal is to stall as much as possible, then find and resolve a fat creature. Don't even attack with it if you don't have to; just use it to clog up the table and stop attackers. By creating an artificial stalemate, your 6-drop allows you the time to draw cards and dig up another finisher and all the answers you could possibly want. Who cares if it takes you 25 turns to win, so long as you win?

-2 Into the Roil, -2 Negate, -1 Cancel, -1 Inquisition of Kozilek

+2 Disfigure, +2 Smother, +2 Grave Titan

Often, I bring in Consume the Meek in place of another Cancel and/or a different removal spell. Because Fauna Shaman decks vary wildly, you basically have to think about how the match-up will play out. Most of the time, Consume the Meek is a huge blow-out against these kinds of decks because it will kill a Manland, a Birds, and random cantrip creatures in the middle of combat. Other times, it's just going to trade 2-for-2 with a creature and a cantrip creature. Use your better judgement. Just remember the game plan: Stall, stunt your opponent's growth, and then resolve big fat road blocks. Win the game when it is optimal to do so, and not a moment before.

White Weenie

Think of White Weenie like this: It's a Red deck, but it doesn't play any burn spells. It has somewhat larger creatures or more evasive creatures, and it plays more creatures in the deck. It also plays Quest for the Holy Relic, which can be a pain in the neck against a nuts draw. However, all it takes is minimal disruption and a little bit of patience, and you can't lose this match-up. They only play about 20-22 mana sources, so if they go off with a Quest, just kill the equipped creature. Then you're staring down maybe 2-5 points of damage per turn, and absolutely no way of re-equipping until about 9 turns later. The deck also has little to no card advantage in it, so it functionally loses to Jace's Ingenuity.

-3 Mindbreak Trap, -2 Negate, -1 Into the Roil

+2 Disfigure, +2 Smother, +2 Consume the Meek

It's also reasonable to bring in Grave Titans here, but do not take out Sphinx of Jwar Isle. It is unsolvable (unless the White Weenie deck boards Day of Judgment against you), and it shuts down fliers.

Elves

See White Weenie, above. This is a match-up about board position and tempo, where your opponent has lots of mana creatures and a small amount of advantage. Play smart and stop your opponent from getting ahead with his mana acceleration, and don't let him start going off with a Genesis Wave or Monument swarm. It's hard for them to win an attrition war against a permission deck because their card advantage is basically a bunch of 5+ mana sorceries. Because most of the creatures are quite small, based upon the concept of explosive openings, Elves can't really put you on a dangerous clock. For that reason, this is fundamentally a good match-up for the control deck. It may be a little bit difficult in game 1 on the draw, but post-board your plethora of removal should demolish the green deck.

Some builds play Vengevine, and sometimes even Fauna Shamans…but they are required to overextend hard in order to reanimate Vengevines. While they may get a free creature, they have to essentially lay their hand on the table in order to do so. That gives a huge edge to the control player, who can use a Tar Pit to solve any of the random 1/1s on the table and then just remove the Vengevine, while the Elf player is out of gas.

-3 Mindbreak Trap, -1 Cancel, -2 Into the Roil, -2 Negate

+2 Disfigure, +2 Smother, +2 Consume the Meek, +2 Flashfreeze

If they are running Vengevines, leave in the Mindbreak Traps and take out a couple of other counterspells. If you see a lot of planeswalkers in the Elf deck, consider bringing in the other Flashfreeze and the last Cancel, and leave a couple of the extra removal spells in the sideboard—though don't forget how good Sphinx, Jace, and Creeping Tar Pit are against Garruk and Nissa. Don't forget about tricks like Vines of Vastwood and Autumn's Veil! Be flexible and think about what your opponent's deck will have after sideboarding, and then react accordingly.

Permission control is at a high peak of playability and strength in Standard (and, if my prediction is right, also in Extended). It offers many opportunities for opponents to make mistakes, more so than any other deck in the format. While it is a skill-intensive deck, it rewards solid play with consistent wins. Your worst match-up is yourself. If you can control yourself, you can defeat any opponent with this deck.