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In case you hadn't heard yet, Our Hero is back on the path to the Pro Tour!
I won a pretty hard Regional Championship Qualifier the other day; a full six rounds (almost like the old days); then the whole Top 8 (with a Finals opponent who neither would buy me out nor would be bought out). When I say "buy out" the reason the tournament was unusually big relative to the RCQs of this era is that it was also a $2k. Not a $1k... There was a Pauper $1k I was originally planning on attending across town, but the rich RCQ was at capacity.
Blue-White is the most successful deck right now, and I think it's kind of silly to argue this point. Tons of notable players are taking home their Blue Envelopes with it; but I do hesitate to say it's "the best". I guess it is the best because it's the most successful? However, I think it's largely successful because people don't understand how to approach it properly.
Hence.
This.
Article.
Understanding Your Own Deck: Blue-White Control with Murders at Karlov Manor
Blue-White changed dramatically with the most recent set. I didn't appreciate how much until I put a lot of reps in online; but it's essentially a different macro archetype.
In The Lost Caverns of Ixalan days, Blue-White would play cards like Dissipate and even Negate main deck. It was in fact a Blue-White CONTROL deck, with mostly Weissman DNA.
The current versions are somewhere between a 2005-era Flores Tap Out deck and a Mono-White Control deck from maybe a year ago. It just so happens that that "Mono"-White Control deck has a weird feature that it can stop an opposing two-for-one in the early game with soft counters.
What it can't do is "control" much of anything in the late game. Unless you're talking about just killing creatures at sorcery speed. That, it can do well.
So, you're basically shifting from a Weissman Prison to a mostly creature-killing board control deck (that happens to have No More Lies). You can't really think about it as any kind of historically recognizable Blue-White CONTROL deck or you'll fail even in basic assumptions.
This is the deck I played:
RCQ winner#AMA pic.twitter.com/HSoVgPe7By
— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) March 4, 2024
Blue-White Control | MKM Standard | Michael Flores
- Creatures (4)
- 1 Chrome Host Seedshark
- 1 Horned Loch-Whale
- 2 Ezrim, Agency Chief
- Planeswalkers (5)
- 1 The Eternal Wanderer
- 4 The Wandering Emperor
- Instants (17)
- 1 Destroy Evil
- 1 Elspeth's Smite
- 2 Get Lost
- 2 March of Otherworldly Light
- 3 Deduce
- 4 Memory Deluge
- 4 No More Lies
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Temporary Lockdown
Export Arena
This is mostly Roman Fusco's spell suite stapled to mostly Matt Costa's mana base.
Costa's mana base is GOATed. It's simply much better than Roman's mana base because it gives you the most advantage in the mirror. And as I said, with Blue-White being the most successful deck in Standard, having an edge in the mirror without committing any spells is highly valuable.
Sunken Citadel is essentially a Sol land that operates the most important breakers in your deck: Restless Anchorage, Mirrex, and Field of Ruin itself. I won my 
"mirror" semifinal match with all four Anchorages in The Red Zone in both of the games I won. This requires an extraordinary amount of sitting around patiently doing nothing, followed by an almost unpredictable violence that limits the opponent's ability to interact in a single turn.
Meanwhile playing two copies of Mirrex forces them to either have enough copies of Field of Ruin themselves... Or Sunfall away a single Mirrex token (something that happened to me more than once in the tournament).
I don't want to dwell too much on why Costa's mana base (with the extra Mirrex) is the best; you'll just have to believe me?
Roman's spell suite is (mostly) GOATed. I initially wanted to play Costa's spells because I thought they would be better in "the mirror" given that - repeat after me - Blue-White is the most successful deck in Standard. But I didn't immediately understand that other Blue-White decks fall so badly behind
Ezrim, Agency Chief or The Eternal Wanderer; because you can get them to resolve if you're just patient enough. There isn't really a play pattern that allows the opponent to outmaneuver your superpower of "patience" but I'm talking about waiting until you have 11-12 lands in play before casting your semi-soft locks.
This is where having two copies of Mirrex can come in handy. Your opponent can be very, very, far behind Sunken Citadel + Mirrex from an early position in the game; such that their best play is Field of Ruin, meaning they're going to lose to a Restless Anchorage way, way later in the game.
The weird thing is that sorcery speed, slow and expensive, threats are simply likely to resolve and gain value in the mirror now. Can they be answered? Kind of. Your opponent can Sunfall an Ezrim at par mana. You can Counterspell fight over the Sunfall. If you win, that's probably it. If you don't, you got three-for-one and your opponent's mana is all tapped now. This is not intuitive for anyone who has experience playing Blue Control mirrors... But here we are.
Blue-White Currently Benefits from Information Asymmetry
Reminder: Took a lot of shots in the gym before I hit the game winner.
— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) March 4, 2024
Won 4 of my last 5 Leagues at 7-1 or better and the odd one was a 5-winner https://t.co/HqH3Ne5LXE
When I wrote the original Tweet, I was under the impression that Boros Convoke is a good matchup.
In the RCQ, I beat Boros Convoke 2-0, and it looked effortless.
I would guess that globally, most players currently command a win rate over Boros Convoke in the 80% range.
Boros Convoke is, in reality, an extraordinarily challenging matchup; especially in Game 1.
The problem?
Boros players don't know it.
Are you a Boros player? Listen up! The feared Blue-White deck is going to have real problems beating you if you play properly.
What you should do is...
Nothing.
Nothing.
NOTHING!
You see, almost every card in your deck is terrible and negative value in-matchup. Even Knight-Errant of Eos is pretty bad. It just gives cards like Destroy Evil something mana efficient to shoot at; and you're just getting more garbage that dies to Temporary Lockdown and Sunfall anyway. Non-cards. Non-damage.
Before you disagree with me... How have your Blue-White matches been going? How do you feel about the Warden of the Inner Sky / Resolute Reinforcements curve? Are you even getting them below double digits when you lose?
Just line up the cards in your deck and their deck. Almost every card you play is an invitation to card advantage, tempo, or even life gain.
It's actually not winnable for Blue-White if you play with - repeat after me - patience.
What you should do is only cast Voldaren Epicure and Novice Inspector. And definitely don't cast Gleeful Demolition. You need to cast these guys just to keep hitting your land drops. You can cast these guys to manage hand size and to transform your artifacts into mana.
Your plan is to initiate a turn where you can present 10+ power all at once; and pair that with Cavern of Souls + Imodane's Recruiter. You do it all in one turn and hit for 10+. You might just have a giant Bunny!
Surely, your opponent will find a way to survive. They'll then sweep you.
Then you do it again. Ideally the next turn.
The problem in the abstract is that you can't really win a fair fight. If you play Plan A against Blue-White, they just trash you. Your cards are all terrible. They're all some version of a 1/1. If you lay them out one spell at a time, the Blue-White player will just two-for-one you at every single turn. They're not a controlling "control" deck but they're very good at killing random creatures. That's just how their deck is built.
Their limitations are 1) playing removal primarily at sorcery speed, and 2) a very slow clock to actually win themselves.
What I've described is not a bulletproof plan.
If the Blue-White player is on Roman's build, they can get to Ezrim to defend life total. But if they're not on Roman's version? You're probably even better after sideboard.
My sideboard was quite good but not GOATed.
The problem is I didn't finish killing the darling of Jace, the Perfected Mind.
But the big thing I did get right was to play four copies of Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition. I don't know how to say this other than Knockout Blow isn't good enough. It's generally worse against Red Decks because it doesn't solve their sideboard card of Urabrask's Forge; and Dennick has text against all the different aggro decks. In the Boros matchup, playing four copies allows you to steal the initiative and prevent the otherwise difficult-to-overcome do-nothing strategy. Dennick plus The Wandering Emperor is of course a super combo v. basic Mountain.
For and Against Jace, the Perfected Mind
I lost Game 1 in the Blue-White mirror in the Top 4 due to one really disastrous turn.
I did all these things in one turn cycle:
- Forgot to activate Mirrex
- Forgot to activate The Wandering Emperor
- Forgot to attack!!!
POG says I also missed a Chrome Host Seedshark trigger on Deduce; but that might not have been the same turn.
This was Game 1 and I had otherwise navigated an ironclad advantage on the numbers. I was ahead in every way, but that poly-messup turn made it so my opponent got to his turn on two life.
"How many cards in your library?"
"Exactly fifteen."
The problem is that my seven cards in hand were not going to save me from Jace, the Perfected Mind with fifteen cards in my deck. Sixteen cards? I win. I didn't deserve to win that one.
I sided in my own Jaces and they kind of did stuff in Game 2 and Game 3. Notably I drew three cards once. But even there, Jace was pretty medium. Like, he milled a Memory Deluge. Barf, am I right? I'm right.
I think Jace would have been better (similar to Costa's sideboard) as a second Negate and a second Disdainful Stroke.
Why?
Losing to an opposing Jace aside... It doesn't do anything! If I had just had two more hard counters in sideboarded games, I would have felt invincible to a Jace kill.
The problem is Jace doesn't even beat Domain any more (which is the main reason anyone ever played him to begin with). Set Cavern of Souls to "Merfolk" and you're often golden in the Blue-White matchup, Domain players!
A better way to fight Domain is with Ezrim and The Eternal Wanderer. I was able to survive at least three giant Nissa tokens, two Herd Migrations, and the Nissa ultimate with those two cards. The Domain deck's solution to The Eternal Wanderer is Leyline Binding; meaning no solution at all. But they still have to win in The Red Zone.
You mostly can't keep them from drawing infinite cards because of Cavern of Souls, but you can keep them from actually beating you in The Red Zone. You just have to be focused. Yes, it is nice to have a Jace safety valve, but playing Jace often means not playing cards like Ezrim and The Eternal Wanderer that snowball advantage while stopping the opponent in their tracks.
In my Domain matchup in the Swiss, I didn't even side in Jace. I figured that I would much rather play to prevent my opponent from actively killing me than commit to cards whose only function was a de facto combo kill - and then only when drawn in multiples. If you lay out what Jace does, and what it costs you to play him, it starts to look flabbergasting that this was ever good.
Blue-White Can't Really Beat Patience
So, I'm down a game in the Top 4 and I look at my opening hand... Seven lands. I think about keeping it. My six card hand? No lands. Argh! I settle for five but can only keep two lands.
I naturally draw the third, but get stuck on three for several turns.
The only move I make is to cast a Deduce on turn two.
I never break the Clue token, not for maybe 10+ turns.
Most players would break the Clue to try to draw into more lands. But like I said, I was stuck on 3 mana. Breaking the Clue would mean that I would tap down to 1 mana, which would allow my opponent to resolve The Wandering Emperor or Memory Deluge at instant speed. I couldn't beat either of those cards, so I never risked it.
What I did do was catch some tempo and eventually draw into six lands. Then I could start operating. I always played in a way that I could disrupt a more powerful (and expensive) proactive card... Or at least pretend that I could. Eventually we got to a point in the game where, again, no one's Counterspells were doing much of anything. But mine did their job by helping me to not get blown out in the early turns where I was stuck on lands.
You Should Probably Still Play Blue-White
In conclusion, I think Blue-White is still the best deck to play. This is largely because most people just don't know how to beat it yet. They're playing their cards right into Blue-White's cards rather than imagining how they can exploit the limitations of Blue-White's current construction and strategy. But you? You already know better!
LOVE
MIKE
