I mean I liked Three Steps Ahead all right... But until playing with the card in Azorius, I kind of missed the point of it.

Before playing the Spree card, I thought of it as a card that "got into your deck" as a kind of Cancel; but, like performing Cancel variants like Sinister Sabotage or Dissolve, had a little bit of library manipulation upside.

The actual truth of the card is that even when you have five or eight free mana... It's often right to play it just as a . However, there are certain times - and against some unusual opponents - where you'll want to play multiple Spree conditions. The most frequent and important, of course, being:

Only you don't pay six mana for the effect. Thank the dealer! You only pay five.

One of my initial eyebrow-raisers on this card (Spree cards in general) was thinking about it as six before tapping the mana. You don't actually want to pay three for either effect, so the prospect of paying six for both was abhorrent; and might be something kind of blocking your own assessment of Spree.

Anyway, when you Cancel + Catalog for five, the card feels a whole lot more like one of these:

... Now we're speaking a completely different language.

Dismiss was not a "great Counterspell" in its era. It was not particularly inspiring fighting off a Jackal Pup that was three turns faster, and it could be a liability in a permission battle. But what it did - often as Counterspells 10-14 on the curve - was to create a mechanism for practical card drawing. Control decks almost by definition have to draw more cards than their beatdown brethren, just because they play more lands. If your opponent has 20 lands and you have 27 or 28 lands... If you answer most threats one-for-one successfully, almost by definition you will lose to the equivalent of mana flood. They'll simply draw action on one of the turns that you draw your sixth or seventh basic Island and you'll become the ignominious loser to a fifth turn two/1.

That's actually where a multi-Spree Three Steps Ahead seems to be at its best in Standard right now.

Let's look at a pretty good baseline deck, Yuta Takahashi's from Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction:

Azorius Control | OTJ Standard | Yuta Takahashi, 2nd Place Pro Tour Outlaws of Thunder Junction

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 The Wandering Emperor

• Instants (23)
• 1 Get Lost
• 1 Make Disappear
• 2 Phantom Interference
• 3 Deduce
• 4 March of Otherworldly Light
• 4 Memory Deluge
• 4 No More Lies
• 4 Three Steps Ahead

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Sunfall

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Temporary Lockdown

• Lands (28)
• 3 Island
• 3 Plains
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Sunken Citadel
• 2 Mirrex
• 2 Seachrome Coast
• 3 Adarkar Wastes
• 3 Field of Ruin
• 4 Deserted Beach
• 4 Restless Anchorage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Hullbreaker Horror
• 1 Boon-Bringer Valkyrie
• 3 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 3 Negate
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse
• 1 The Filigree Sylex
• 2 Temporary Lockdown

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At 28 lands, Yuta's deck is one of the most emblematic of one that would fall prey to some of the popular beatdown decks (often red) in Standard.

But I've found its success rate against attack decks to be wonderful!

Azorius Control won the vast majority of games and matches against Boros Convoke prior to Outlaws of Thunder Junction. I think it's actually a little worse now, but still seems to win the vast majority of games.

Why might it be worse?

Three Steps Ahead is actually kind of a poor answer against a deck that has really potent threats at 1-3 mana, of10 powered out by Cavern of Souls. Previously I played this giant Dream Trawler in my main:

You could tap out (or, if you were super rich and not about to die, leave 1 mana up) when playing Ezrim, Agency Chief and that might be all she wrote for Boros Convoke. If you were any semblance to "alive still" they'd need to try to finish you, which might give you not only a bite at their best creature, but a vital bit of lifelink.

Now slots like the life-swinging Ezirm are taken up by the ostensibly faster Three Steps Ahead... Which can be okay, unless the opponent is chaining around Imodane's Recruiter and Knight-Errant of Eos. The cards also serve different primary functions. Three Steps Ahead is mostly a card that keeps you pace (more on this in a second), whereas Ezrim is a card that turns the corner on multiple points simultaneously (battlefield position, life total, opponent's life total). You don't really have that function in your deck in Azorius Control any more, so there is more pressure on your "answer" cards before getting there.

Still, Azorius seems to be beating Boros more than Boros is beating Azorius... Just not as much as it used to.

The biggest change? All the decks that used to beat up Azorius.

The biggest one of them all? Mono-Red Aggro.

Previously this was a very challenging matchup where Azorius would lose Game 1 consistently. If you remember my RCQ-winning version....

RCQ winner#AMA pic.twitter.com/HSoVgPe7By

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) March 4, 2024

... It was hyper-aggressive on sideboarding. Four copies of Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition to play baby Ezrim. Get battlefield presence; defend life total while making combat annoying... Maybe for the opponent into blowing Lightning Strike even though we were about to play Temporary Lockdown.

I haven't finalized my RC sideboard yet, but I doubt I'll play many Dennicks this time. Why? Mono-Red has become one of the easiest matchups in Standard! And it's largely about Three Steps Ahead.

This - much more than Boros Convoke - has become a deck where Cancel + Catalog is just great. It is relatively easy to exhaust Mono-Red early. Your "tax" Counterspells like No More Lies and newcomer Phantom Interference might as well be hard counters. Because the opponent doesn't have card drawing via Clue tokens or Knight-Errant of Eos, they can actually be put into topdeck mode around turn five.

Bang!

That's when the Cancel + Catalog version of Three Steps Ahead shines. If you've never done it before, this really feels like one more mana than a Memory Deluge, but for 150% of its efficacy. Rather than finding you a one-for-one and a way to keep the ball rolling, Cancel + Catalog answers the card itself and digs you to your next action simultaneously.

Previously I was super afraid of the Green-centered graveyard-based combo decks. When I beat them, it was usually because I got lucky on my one Farewell, or my opponent blundered in a particularly bad spot. Part of the problem was that there was really no reason to fight their resource-getting. You'd eventually run out and then they'd get you with one of the big spells in the late game. Of course, with No More Lies as the primary Counterspell, they were going to get you with one of the big spells in the late game no matter what because they'd just have three spare mana on the turn they were trying to kill you.

Now that you have a relatively unconditional "no" that doesn't care how many lands they have in play... Those matchups have gotten a lot better in Game 1 (and that's before we start looking at cards like Unlicensed Hearse or Rest In Peace after sideboarding).

This is as good a time as any to mention this new take on Azorius in Standard:

Azorius Awakening Combo | OTJ Standard | CovertGoBlue

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Malevolent Hermit // Benevolent Geist
• 2 Fallaji Archaeologist
• 2 Ruin-Lurker Bat
• 4 Hulking Metamorph

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, the Perfected Mind

• Instants (13)
• 1 Negate
• 2 Confounding Riddle
• 3 No More Lies
• 3 Otherworldly Gaze
• 4 Faithful Mending

• Artifacts (5)
• 4 Abuelo's Awakening
• 1 Portal to Phyrexia

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Rakdos Joins Up
• 4 Temporary Lockdown

• Lands (24)
• 3 Island
• 4 Plains
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Tranquil Cove
• 2 Meticulous Archive
• 4 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Deserted Beach
• 4 Seachrome Coast

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This deck recently went to Mythic #1 on Magic: The Gathering Arena in Best-of-One. The main thrust is to get these two cards into your graveyard:

You can't cast a Rakdos Joins Up and you wouldn't really want to cast a Hulking Metamorph anyway.

The combo is at that point just casting Abuelo's Awakening, targeting Rakdos Joins Up.

It now enters the battlefield as a Legendary 1/1 creature thanks to its own type and the switcheroo from Abuelo's Awakening.

Hulking Metamorph comes into play as a 9/9 Rakdos Joins Up, which triggers its own copy ability, The Legend Rule, and Rakdos Joins Up's death trigger. If unimpeded, this will result in lots and lots of damage, nine points at a time.

I've only ever lost to this deck so far on Arena Best-of-One.

The first time I didn't realize what my opponent was doing, so I didn't realize I could just kill Rakdos Joins Up with a Get Lost before I had let too many copies go on the stack.

The most recent time I ended up writing this article because I assumed "now would be a good time to Cancel + Catalog" when I had the game on lock... Only I tapped out, and got Counterspelled back when I had Get Lost in my hand. It was not, in fact, a good time to Cancel + Catalog.

I think you should know this deck, in particular if - like the largest population of Magic players - you mostly like to play Best-of-One. I don't know that it is going to be a serious paper contender only because it seems really vulnerable to all the graveyard hate that people are now packing. Still, if you want to outright kill your opponent with your graveyard rather than just getting a huge advantage? It's faster by far than Aftermath Analyst.

The PT Finalist is not the only Azorius Control deck that is making Three Steps Ahead look good. Just a few days ago the Regional Championship in Montreal was won by this version:

Azorius Control | OTJ Standard | Liam Hoban

• Creatures (1)
• 1 Tishana's Tidebinder

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Jace, the Perfected Mind
• 4 The Wandering Emperor

• Instants (21)
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Get Lost
• 3 March of Otherworldly Light
• 4 Deduce
• 4 Memory Deluge
• 4 No More Lies
• 4 Three Steps Ahead

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Farewell
• 3 Sunfall

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Temporary Lockdown

• Lands (27)
• 3 Island
• 4 Plains
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Sunken Citadel
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 2 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Deserted Beach
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Restless Anchorage

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Knockout Blow
• 1 Unlicensed Hearse
• 1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
• 3 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 1 Negate
• 2 Temporary Lockdown
• 1 Hullbreaker Horror
• 2 Kutzil's Flanker
• 1 Boon-Bringer Valkyrie
• 1 See Double

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I hate to say it, but I think you probably want a copy of Jace, the Perfected Mind in your main deck (and maybe more in the sideboard). Not because it's so great to kill your opponent; but more because you just need to end rounds on time and Jace does that better than anything else Azorius has access to.

An echo of the Yuta deck is Boon-Bringer Valkyrie in the sideboard. I was initially puzzled over this, having moved from that card to Ezrim in my main deck... But again this is a concession to Three Steps Ahead. One of them is an absolute banger of a "Clone" target (and it's Boon-Bringer Valkyrie).

Finally, let's talk about MoM:

What a great catch-all! Huge toughness, of course... So decent on the blocks. But it really takes the advantage off of cards like Nissa, Resurgent Animist and Rakdos Joins Up (and for that matter 980 others, including basically ever Adversary, Case, and Briefcase).

Finally, we would be remiss in accidentally DISMISSing Three Steps Ahead, but talking about it only in Azorius Control. This is my new favorite not-Azorius deck in Standard, built by one of my favorite YouTubers:

Crime Spree | OTJ Standard | CovertGoBlue

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Harvester of Misery
• 4 Hostile Investigator

• Instants (16)
• 4 Cut Down
• 4 Go for the Throat
• 4 Phantom Interference
• 4 Three Steps Ahead

• Sorceroies (3)
• 3 Deadly Cover-Up

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Virtue of Persistence
• 4 Intimidation Campaign

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Unlicensed Hearse

• Lands (27)
• 2 Island
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Demolition Field
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Restless Reef
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Shipwreck Marsh
• 4 Undercity Sewers
• 4 Underground River

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CGB is a Content Creator, not a grinder, so he has to showcase new cards like Intimidation Campaign. Personally, I'd just jam a set of Memory Deluges there. But I like how this deck is such a different take on the format, but still provides so much coverage.

Allegedly this here Dimir is positioned to "farm aggro" but Deadly Cover-Up will literally just beat a ton of opponents, even when they don't have any creatures in play. Did you "accidentally" mill a Worldsoul's Rage setting up? Good luck winning against main-deck Cover-Up! Ditto on any piece in the Rakdos Joins Up combo deck.

It obviously has the tools to just manage your life total against aggro. I love how after sideboarding you can really ruin people's lives by bringing in actual Duress in your discard deck (not shown; CGB is The One in Best-of-ONE, natch).

May your Sprees be judicious, rather than criminal. Pay when you can pay and thank your old buddy MichaelJ when you don't get caught by the wrong two-spell turn.

LOVE

MIKE