Oh wait... You haven't yet seen Azorius Artifacts? Here's a pretty representative deck list:

Azorius Artifacts | LCI Standard | Bernastorres, 3rd Place MTGO Standard Challenge 12/3/2023

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Market Gnome
• 4 Thran Spider

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Depopulate

• Artifacts (25)
• 1 Chimil, the Inner Sun
• 1 Glass Casket
• 1 The Irencrag
• 2 Thousand Moons Smithy // Barracks of the Thousand
• 4 Braided Net // Braided Quipu
• 4 Fabrication Foundry
• 4 Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot
• 4 The Mightstone and Weakstone
• 4 Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph

• Lands (25)
• 2 Island
• 6 Plains
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Demolition Field
• 4 Deserted Beach
• 4 Restless Anchorage

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals
• 3 Disdainful Stroke
• 3 Glass Casket
• 2 Knockout Blow
• 3 Negate
• 2 Urza, Lord Protector

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Azorius Artifacts is exactly what it sounds like: A Blue-White artifact based deck. It is probably the most obvious yet innovative archetype to come out of The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, showcasing not just a whole Santa's sleigh full of new set goodies, but also featuring signature set mechanics like Craft, Discover, and Map tokens. Not for nothing, it was also something like a quarter of my Store Championship in New York.

While not exactly the fastest deck to the finish line, Azorius Artifacts has some unique advantages that most controlling decks in the format would absolutely kill for.

2 mana "Mana Rocks": Fabrication Foundry and The Irencrag

These descendants of Fellwar Stone let Azorius Artifacts get the jump straight to four mana. I suppose they can make up for a missed land drop, too; you know, just so you can play a Braided Net // Braided Quipu with your back to the wall or whatever. (More on Braided Net in a second.)

The Irencrag can function in a lot of decks, but its inability to make colored mana plus its severely diminishing returns in multiples have limited its widespread use in Standard. Even here, in an artifact deck, The Irencrag is only a one-of; again mostly because of its Legendary status... The second one sucks.

Fabrication Foundry, though? Bonkers bozonkers. It, on the other hand, shines only in an artifact-laden deck. Limitations? None of its reliance on White mana, ability to make specifically White mana, or narrowness of mana use are big barriers. After all, many of the permanents in this deck are specifically White artifacts!

In addition to being able to deploy Thousand Moons Smithy // Barracks of the Thousand (a spotlight card spoiled a very handsome writer, I hear) early, Fabrication Foundry is even more awesome than it seems initially.

In this deck, your first The Mightstone and Weakstone is often going to be slightly clunky - if welcome - point removal. Your second one, whatever function it's coming down to do, is often going to gobble the first due to The Legend Rule. Well, to be fair, the first will often help pay for the second, but that won't actually elongate its life expectancy.

But wait!

You have a The Mightstone and Weakstone on the battlefield, and another in the graveyard? Have you yet read Fabrication Foundry?

Intuitively, on cost, you can exchange them one-for-one! This can become a very powerful draw engine over time; especially given that your The Mightstone and Weakstone in play will again help make the one coming from the graveyard inexpensive. When you start hitting The Mightstone and Weakstone's "draw two" ability over and over, you can dig into more copies of The Mightstone and Weakstone; each will be worth multiple cards, compounding for more and more cards even though you are technically exiling fuel as you move through your deck.

Once this engine gets going, it will be difficult to stop, even if opponents have permission spells. That is because, so long as any Fabrication Foundry resolved earlier, you can ultimately re-buy the powerful artifact, even if the opponent pointed a Counterspell at it.

That's not even the good card-drawing engine.

Braided Net // Braided Quipu is almost a one-card combo. The front side of this card is surprisingly versatile. It's a little expensive to start, but its ongoing non-cost will give you breathing room (or force the opponent to waltz into a Depopulate). It's almost never really dead weight, you can even slow down Planeswalkers!

But the real powerhouse is its opposite number: Braided Quipu. At the point that you're flipping into a Braided Quipu you're likely to have plentiful artifacts thanks to 1) Map tokens from Restless Anchorage, 2) the 30+ actual artifact cards in the main, and 3) Powerstones from Thran Spider. All these will help Braided Net Craft, and give you impressive supply for Braided Quipu once it does. If you've never seen this engine going... It refills a spent hand more often than not.

Buuuuut...

Novel Way to Kill Azorius Artifacts #1: Jace, the Perfected Mind

While Azorius Artifacts is "powerful" in many classic ways... It can accelerate its mana; it produces enormous value and power (as in power and toughness) via artifact synergies; it draws a ton of cards... It's not fast at closing a game except in weird situations. In fact, it's kind of terrible at pressuring Planeswalkers.

As such, Jace, the Perfected Mind can prove a perfect foil.

Check out the deck my apprentice and Ancestral Recall co-host used to win Standard Store Championships this past weekend:

Won Standard store champs @BrooklynStrat with ol' reliable UW Control. Sleeves are 4 Get Losts that I borrowed for the event. @fireshoes pic.twitter.com/ahDECXOG1e

— Roman Fusco (@roman_fusco) December 11, 2023

Roman correctly assessed that certain position-hungry decks like this one, Beanstalk Control, or Five-color Domain, all do a ton of "deck damage" to themselves without beating you. They rely on an overwhelming amount of card advantage but can have sluggish offenses. These decks, generally permission-poor (or reliant on very situational answers) can be combo'd out by two - or even three - copies of Jace, all played in quick succession. "Take thirty." Sort of.

Just watch out for Cityscape Leveler! Some versions of Azorius Artifacts play that card in the sideboard, or even the main. A haphazard or non-lethal Mill sequence, or one that takes multiple turns to conclude, might put that hard-to-handle Powerstone peddler in prime position.

Powerstone Asymmetry: Thran Spider & Co.

This is a very good card!

Good toughness for its cost; excellent flying defense; baby Primeval Titan, even.

You don't need to ever tap for Thran Spider's activated ability to get value out of it. Just by entering the battlefield, the inheritor to Spitting Slug, the best-ever Giant Mantis, is going to play 187 for you (and certain opponents, I guess). The reality is you will likely be able to make great use of incoming Powerstones... While most opponents simply won't.

Azorius Artifacts isn't that fast offensively... And it's also not that fast defensively. But it has some good defensive tricks. A turn-three Thran Spider can set you up for The Mightstone and Weakstone the next turn. That might just play Stop Sign, and kill their Sheoldred!

Think for a moment what most enemy decks are going to actually do with a Powerstone. In their main decks anyway? One of the popular Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom decks? Esper Legends? You'll occasionally stumble on someone tapping The Celestus or scrying with a Treasure Map... But rarely anything impressive.

Unless...

Novel Way to Kill Azorius Artifacts #2: Fiery Flashback

Despite playing specialty blockers like Market Gnome main deck, Azorius Artifacts can still be soft to Mono-Red. It can fall to flyers (in particular Goddric, Cloaked Reveler; who will rip a Thran Spider in half) and has relatively little to say about a Lightning Strike... Or three.

That's the trick.

I didn't do a lot of winning at Store Champs, but I was able to pick up a 2-0 over Azorius Artifacts; both games went the same way.

I got a little damage in, but was stymied by Market Gnome and Thran Spider. Market Gnome is really impressive. For almost no mana it has massive toughness and really goes down swinging; especially against point removal.

I'd get a little value with Planeswalkers, and ultimately draw into some Lightning Strikes. Meanwhile the opponent was doing much more impressive stuff than I was. Looping -5/-5, making Gnomes of ever-increasing power and toughness.

What could I ever do?

Play for the Powerstones, of course!

You see casting a Bloodthirsty Adversary and paying once it's already on the battlefield are two completely different things. You might not be able to tap a Powerstone for the first; but especially when you have multiple Powerstones from Thran Spider and Cityscape Leveler?

The opponent might just go from nine to zero in a single turn cycle.

Azorius Artifacts is, in a word, cool. It does the thing. It does the things, even. It puts together incentives from two different artifact-based sets in ways that make them both look exciting. If you let it start to go Go GO... You might not be able to stop it. That's why punishing its excesses of card advantage, whether by riding "deck damage" or finding a way to exploit the Powerstones they carelessly sent your way, are so rewarding.

In other words: PLEASE LET'S ALL PLAY STANDARD. THANKS.

LOVE

MIKE