Corporate needs you to find the difference:

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

And..

Won Standard Store Champs at @OdysseyGamesCA with ol' reliable. Caretaker's Talent + Fountainport is cracked. @fireshoes pic.twitter.com/WMof8wvYTB

— Roman Fusco (@roman_fusco) August 31, 2024

Honestly I was already going to write about Roman Fusco's take on Control in Standard (which he had previously published here)... But then he went ahead and won Store Champs with it [again?]

Nice job, kiddo!

If you've been paying attention to my own interest in , it started when Roman came to visit me last winter, and won our local Store Champs (meeting future superstar Jason Ye with an early version of the Legends deck in the finals). Roman got my gears turning, which a few months later, resulted in an RCQ win for Our Hero.

Today's article is mostly going to be a contrast to Caretaker's Talent versus Mono-White (which I've written about last week). To me, is less of a natural Caretaker's Talent deck. Because it has another color to worry about, can't go as all-in on Fountainport. It has to make room for Counterspells, so there is less room for token-producing Planeswalkers. And you don't get the whole Virtue of Loyalty angle that can snowball out of control.

All together that makes for a weird overlap.

Yes, you can technically play Caretaker's Talent in . But it doesn't seem like the deck that most exploits the powerful Class if that makes any sense.

So, it's not a "natural" deck; but rather an iteration on a set of shells that offers a positive wrinkle or three. Think about it like the move from Jund Death's Shadow to Grixis Death's Shadow. Jund was probably the better natural shell, especially with cards like Traverse the Ulvenwald that Grixis couldn't play... But eventually Grixis became the only Death's Shadow color combination because a couple of one-mana Counterspells just helped keep your 'Shadow in play long enough to win the game. Eventually Horizons additions like Dress Down were impossible to ignore, but Death's Shadow had already gone Grixis at that point.

Unique Incentives Beyond Mono-White

There are three-and-a-half Blue things that might not seem obvious that does get; and they are all compelling.

The one Phantom Interference: This can sometimes be a 2/2 flying creature (though its main job is as the fifth No More Lies). Just a random way to get an additional token, often during your opponent's turn. Two things from this... First of all, triggering Caretaker's Talent on your opponent's turn doubles the card's efficacy; and secondly, being able to do something with a tempo Counterspell at the point the opponent has ample mana is just a nice bonus. One thing you'll learn about this deck is that the games tend to go long. So unless the opponent concedes for time, they're likely to be able to pay for your tempo Counterspells late.

Restless Anchorage: This is probably the single most most important upgrade that gets over Mono-White. Attacking with a 2/3 is not all that exciting (and is not actually synergistic with Caretaker's Talent Level 3), but making a random Map can be excellent. First of all, the Anchorage is a recurring source of token production at no cost in cards, which is great with Caretaker's Talent on its face; but subtly, it makes a non-creature token. This can be useful for Caretaker's Talent Level 2, when the opponent will sometimes destroy your only [creature] token in response, preventing card draw.

Deduce: This little instant has graduated to a four-of, when it was a three-of (or fewer) in most previous builds. Deduce is crazy good with Caretaker's Talent, essentially a "draw two" for two mana, before you even think about eating the token itself. Like Phantom Interference, Deduce has the superpower of being a card you will tend to use to trigger Caretaker's Talent on the opponent's turn. I probably don't need to tell you that as a blue mage with lots of Counterspells it is generally good to leave your mana open. Deduce gives you that option and a great payoff at the same time.

Bonus - Farsight Ritual: This card is less great with Caretaker's Talent and more the beneficiary of being in a deck with so many tokens lying around. If your question is to Bargain or not, I tend to over-Bargain, myself. You don't get any more card advantage, but eight is a deep dig. This can be vital for finding the Sunfall you need under pressure, the last Three Steps Ahead, etc. in a long game. Regular Farsight Ritual is fine of course. Hit your land drops, keep action coming, etc.

Texture and Matchup Movement

The biggest delta you get moving to is against "bigger" or greedier decks. Domain decks, graveyard combo decks, and so on were hopeless matchups previously for Mono-White. That deck is mostly just creature removal with a Caretaker's Talent draw engine... An admittedly powerful draw engine... But there are only so many times you can one-for-one Atraxa before all those cards in hand just overwhelm you.

The benefit in moving to is that you get to say "no" sometimes. And that is the difference between blowing your opponent out and being blown out when you can surgically deny the opponent's big spells.

I think the fast Red decks are still challenging (but winnable). You lose Lay Down Arms, but get No More Lies. Often No More Lies will save you more life!

Generally, the deck can perform against just about everything in a broad sense. There are three major points around this:

This comes up against graveyard reanimator decks a lot, where the opponent has something like 12-16 "must counter" cards... And you only have four hard counters main deck. Generally, I trade anything I possibly can for No More Lies in matchups where the opponent has mana acceleration. But it might be right to let the opponent have Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, even if that means they're about to "draw" ten cards.

If you hard-counter Lumra (or the reanimation card going for it) that is one fewer Three Steps Ahead that you'll have for the Jace when you only have 13 cards left. No matter how many lands - and they're only lands - that Lumra is getting, at the end of the day it's just a Bear and it dies to Sunfall.

Keep in mind that the triggered card draw from Caretaker's Talent is not optional. The course of just operating your deck and casting your cards can be lethal!

I've had a ton of games go to libraries just because my opponent was able to out-last me. Opposing Sunfall and Temporary Lockdown - especially in decks like Domain - can be poison. They're obviously even worse in the mirror, depending on the opponent's build.

Like the Mono-White deck before this one, Caretaker's Talent can be out-sized.

Its nemesis matchup is actually the mirror; generally a non-Caretaker's Talent version with multiple copies of Jace, the Perfected Mind.

The opponent can play a game with you, where they kind of pretend that your token production and Caretaker's Talents matter at all... But they generally don't until you're on Level 3 with one or more Classes. If they can get you to spend Counterspells (in particular Three Steps Ahead) on protecting your engine in the early- and mid-games, that is going to be good for them.

Because of course ALL WAR IS DECEPTION.

Their whole thing is just going to be resolving one or more copies of Jace, the Perfected Mind and killing you with deck exhaustion.

In earlier metagames it might take two or more Jace ultimates to win, but in contemporary Standard, they might be able to get you with just one Jace ultimate. You're forced to draw a ton of extra cards just to operate.

Think about it: You have a Caretaker's Talent (or more than one). Your opponent has nuked you for fifteen, so if you do nothing you're just going to die fifteen turns before they would. What do you do? Attack with Restless Anchorage? That forces card draw. Make tokens to attack with? More forced card draw.

You have Have HAVE to play cognizant of these two forces (any opposing Jace, your own Talent) or you're going to be in a lot of trouble in the quasi-mirror. Well, you're probably going to be in trouble anyway; but at least forewarned is fore-armed.

The original "all war is deception" with this deck as the backdrop:

The last thing I'll leave you with is not "movement" in matchup but actually just a reinforcement of the Mono-White version.

This deck is bad Bad Bahd to Urabrask's Forge. The bright side is that you can stop Urabrask's Forge with No More Lies on turn two-3, even on the draw. But if they land one, you're almost certain to lose. Unlike Mono-White, you have no Virtue of Loyalty mode to try to overwhelm them back. Stop Urabrask's Forge like your life depends on it (because it does).

In some cases this means leaving up No More Lies instead of cracking a clue when you're otherwise going to miss your land drop. Yes, it sucks. But also yes - it's right.

I'm super proud of Roman for winning another Store Champs! When I was beating up on him as an undergraduate at NYU I never thought he was going to grow up to be the master deck designer between us. But here we are!

LOVE

MIKE