Well...

Honestly...

No.

No. Soul Partition is probably not the card that secretly holds Standard together.

However!

It is a really cool card that has a lot of applications. While it might not be holding Standard together, it certainly holds together the main deck that I've been playing recently. This deck is quite appropriate to the current Standard format, up and down, and Soul Partition is a big part of what makes it special.

Over the Top Azorius | BLB Standard | Michael Flores

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Jace, the Perfected Mind

• Instants (21)
• 1 Deduce
• 2 Farsight Ritual
• 2 Get Lost
• 4 No More Lies
• 4 Soul Partition
• 4 Spellgyre
• 4 Three Steps Ahead

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Sunfall

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Temporary Lockdown

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree

• Lands (26)
• 3 Island
• 4 Plains
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 2 Fountainport
• 3 Meticulous Archive
• 4 Demolition Field
• 4 Restless Anchorage
• 4 Seachrome Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Dust Animus
• 2 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Chrome Host Seedshark
• 2 Requisition Raid
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 2 Negate
• 2 Boon-Bringer Valkyrie

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

The last several weeks in this column we've focused on Boros Token Control, another sort of Azorius Control, and Mono-White Control... All in Standard. All those decks are heavily White; and all of them - even the other Azorius deck - feature on Caretaker's Talent as one of the main draws.

Which is great! Because Caretaker's Talent is one of the best cards in the format, and a good way to lace together the payoffs that come from everything from Urabrask's Forge to Beza, the Bounding Spring. Those decks are also (to some degree or another) competitive against the Red Aggro decks that are defining Standard. Together, they make up an important pillar of the metagame.

At the same time, with the possible exception of the deck, they tend to be soft to opponents like Domain. Decks that can go "over the top" absolutely feast on Caretaker's Talent decks. Unless you're working an Urabrask's Forge on turn three, as good as a Caretaker's Talent is at drawing an extra card or two per turn cycle, that card is often just a Carrot Cake or Temporary Lockdown... Meat for an opponent bursting with action via Atraxa or flush with both mana and life from Ancient Cornucopia.

This deck attacks a different stripe of the metagame: It attacks the other White Control decks and the big Domain decks and can compete with the fast Red decks! It does so with Soul Partition!

Okay, it doesn't do that at all: It does so, primarily, with Jace, the Perfected Mind.

You see, as long as you can contain something like an Urabrask's Forge, the Caretaker's Talent decks are not so great at offense. I had a lot of problems - especially with the Mono-White and versions - potentially decking myself! I drew two or three cards per turn cycle, which might be more than the damage I was able to do to the opponent. Do you know who likes it when the opponent is drawing lots of extra cards (but not advancing offensively)? Jace!

This is a powerful Jace deck that basically always wins if given sufficient time. Luckily it can buy a lot of time with its interactive cards; then put together two or three Planeswalkers (often just two thanks to Soul Partition), and nug the opponent for 30 in one turn.

The end punch is obviously Jace here; but there are kind of a disturbing number of four mana Blue cards. Of these I just wanted to comment on relative newcomer, Spellgyre: It's good. I was surprised at how good. I don't even mind countering target spell with it; that seems like it would feel awful, but it's not that bad. I don't recommend using Spellgyre that way, but sometimes the opponent has 6+ mana and you need to stop a Forge. But this deck also wants to get to 6+ or even 8+ mana; the extra card drawing (and filtering) from Spellgyre can be helpful in getting there.

The unique feature that I've more than hinted at, though, is Soul Partition.

Soul Partition provides a number of on-label and off-label functions in this deck.

On-label it takes a little bit of load off of Get Lost. Get Lost is both one of the best cards in the format (specifically when White Control decks fight) because it can interact with Caretaker's Talent and the Planeswalkers... And one of the worst cards. It's conditionally bad because it can give the opponent so much card advantage. This is particularly evident when you're stuck using it against Red Aggro... and then they use your Map tokens to not only buff their little dudes, but trigger all kinds of Valiant.

Soul Partition can at least slow down a Caretaker's Talent; but it can put a real stop to a card like Urabrask's Forge. Even with 12+ Counterspells, an Urabrask's Forge can slip through; and that is one of the main ways Over the Top Azorius can lose to Boros Token Control (frankly, there aren't many).

Additionally, on-label is just pointing a Soul Partition at Cacophony Scamp or Heartfire Hero. Those cards benefit from dying, but Soul Partition exiles them (even if temporarily)... Meaning they can't trouble you with a big death trigger. Trading a Soul Partition for a pump spell will always result in a better outcome than getting brained for 3+, but will also often provide additional card advantage. Two-for-one or even three-for-one is not uncommon... But it's the bonus stuff, like not giving the opponent a Detective token, where Soul Partition starts to feel really good.

Those are the on-label uses... The uses "everyone" knows about; provided they're down to cast a Soul Partition.

The cool thing about the card is in the off-label uses. You see Soul Partition has - or rather lacks - a nasty line of text.

Exile target nonland permanent. For as long as that card remains exiled, its owner may play it. A spell cast by an opponent this way costs 2 more to cast.

It's only THE OPPONENT who is taxed an extra 2 mana by Soul Partition. If you cast it on your own nonland permanents, you can re-cast them for the usual price.

"But MichaelJ," you might ask... "Why might I want to cast Soul Partition on my own permanents?"

There are two cards that Over the Top Azorius plays that can answer this question profitably.

The first is Temporary Lockdown.

One of the best cards in Standard, right? Not only is it a great sweeper against Red Aggro, but Temporary Lockdown scoops up a lot of the random engine permanents that other decks play... Bandit's Talent, Innkeeper's Talent, even Up the Beanstalk.

But here's the thing: Sometimes an opponent will play into your Temporary Lockdown knowing that you're going to play it. They have the next two small creatures in reserve.

But what happens when you Soul Partition your own Temporary Lockdown? Now you can use "the same" Lockdown - at the original price - to lock down the next wave of creatures. This process can actually feel pretty cool. I once cast the same Temporary Lockdown three times against a hapless Red Aggro player. The great thing was that I was casting Get Lost along the way (to manage big burst damage from Slick-Shot Showoff and other hasty creatures)... And the Lockdown could actually sweep up the Map tokens from Get Lost as well!

Sometimes you'll use Soul Partition to manage your life total. But sometimes it'll feel like you have eight Lockdowns in just the right matchup.

The other spot where this card shines is with the signature kill spell of this deck: Jace, the Perfected Mind.

There are a lot of cool tricks you can do; but ultimately this just stretches the number of Jaces you draw. You tend to need two Jaces to win a long game, but three to win a short one. Soul Partition can not only give you "an extra Jace" but often some free cards, or a ton of life.

How?

At 6+ mana it's often right to play Jace and then [-4]. This isn't the full ultimate, but rather only 12 cards. The opponent will then attack Jace and try to get rid of it. Well you have 2 mana open: So you can Soul Partition during combat. This will cancel the attack and save the Jace. There are few things that feel more productive (or, I assume, more frustrating for the other player). Other cool things include opening up with a [-2] to draw a card (or three) and obnoxiously challenging the opponent to attack Jace in the same way.

Jace itself has really surprised me in this deck. I've played Jace for as long as the card has existed... Mostly in decks, but primarily as a main-deck foil against Atraxa. What can I say? That's just how Roman did it. I've never seen Jace so good against aggro as this format. I mean my sideboard is nothing but giant lifelink creatures because I think Red Aggro is the best deck in Standard; but for a card that gets sided out a lot, I have to say Jace has been awesome.

The structure of the current Red Aggro decks is mostly based on attacking with one or two creatures, and then just hurling 100 pump spells at it. Jace can manage a single small attacker brilliantly, especially when both players know that if the opponent tries to do something too cute, they're likely to buy a Get Lost or Soul Partition.

In this deck you use Jace long enough to force the opponent to commit another creature or two; then you Temporary Lockdown, and then just restart the [+1] sequence. It's interestingly only against Aggro that I've gotten huge Jaces with 12+ loyalty that are capable of one-shotting the opponent's library.

On balance, I am not sure I have ever activated a Restless Anchorage with this version of . I'd obviously done so repeatedly with the Caretaker's Talent build. Gotta get that extra card! But this deck almost can't win by damage... I just don't think I've ever done it. The secondary kill spell is actually Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree.

Realmbreaker is surprisingly good. It generates card advantage, and can be a way to win if something horrible - like the opponent exiling all your Jaces with Deadly Cover-Up - ever happens. I've never had to resort to mono-Realmbreaker, but the plan exists. I can tell you that regular-Realmbreaker - just a contributing Mill permanent - has been great.

Really this deck has been great.

Here's some game play:

LOVE

MIKE