Azorius Control, whenever playable in Standard, will always be my weapon of choice in a local competitive tournament. In recent years, Control decks as a whole have been much overlooked in Standard, and I don't blame players for it. Cards do so much now, and it's hard for your wrath effect or counterspells to efficiently run your opponents out of cards. I had pretty much just given up on the archetype, that is until Eli Kassis and co. put up some amazing results at Pro Tour Aetherdrift.

There are two key additions that make Azorius so potent in this Standard format: Stock Up and Ride's End. Ride's End isn't that different from other cards we've had in recent sets, like Seized from Slumber - the only thing here is that Ride's End exiles, which is actually pretty relevant against threats like Abhorrent Oculus or Mosswood Dreadknight.

Stock Up, however, is on a different level entirely. Initially I was trying this card out in Pixie builds, but I now understand why it's so broken in Control - it's just Dig Through Time! With the rotation of Memory Deluge last fall, Azorius Control was severely lacking a good draw spell. Spellgyre is too slow and costly, and Farsight Ritual just isn't good enough. While at sorcery-speed, the one mana less makes a significant difference, making Stock Up just Dig Through Time lite. Being able to find your Day of Judgment or Beza, the Bounding Spring in a pinch can fully stabilize you. More importantly, it draws you much faster to your few copies of Jace, the Perfected Mind to mill out your opponent for 30 in one go.

Taking all of this into account I played two RCQs over the span of a week, making some minor adjustments to Eli's list. While I liked the initial list, there were a few key changes I made:

1. Adding Counterspells - Decks like these should always have access to hard counters like Three Steps Ahead, and I know while I didn't want the full four copies, two or three would do
2. Less Jaces - Jace is a great win con and bailout to not decking yourself before your opponent, but the full four is unnecessary. Even three copies is a lot, but a safe place to land on as you see them more frequently now with the printing of Stock Up
3. More Anti-Aggro Cards - I added Boon-Bringer Valkyrie as another threat against aggro, but it's a card I bring in a variety of matchups. It's a flexible threat and I like it when my opponent is either trying to attack me or Duress me
4. Less Colorless Lands - You have a lot of restrictive costs in this deck, especially since I added Three Steps Ahead. This led me to go down on copies of Demolition Field and just settle for one Field, two Fountainports, and one Blast Zone - which still feels like a lot in a No More Lies deck.

Taking all of that into account here is the list I ended up on and won with:

Azorius Control | DFT Standard | Roman Fusco, RCQ/1st

• Creatures (6)
• 1 Horned-Loch Whale
• 2 Overlord of the Mistmoors
• 3 Beza, the Bounding Spring

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Jace, the Perfected Mind

• Instants (19)
• 1 Destroy Evil
• 1 Elspeth's Smite
• 1 Change the Equation
• 2 Deduce
• 2 No More Lies
• 3 Get Lost
• 3 Ride's End
• 3 Stock Up
• 3 Three Steps Ahead

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Sunfall
• 3 Day of Judgment

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Temporary Lockdown

• Lands (26)
• 3 Island
• 5 Plains
• 1 Blast Zone
• 1 Demolition Field
• 2 Adarkar Wastes
• 2 Fountainport
• 2 Meticulous Archive
• 3 Restless Archive
• 3 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Floodfarm Verge

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Authority of the Consuls
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 1 Devout Decree
• 1 Elspeth's Smite
• 1 Negate
• 1 Loran of the Third Path
• 1 Beza
• 1 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 1 Jace, The Perfected Mind
• 1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
• 2 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Boon-Bringer Valkyrie

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The first RCQ didn't really feel like much of an event. I 2-0'd a Mono-Red opponent in round one. Rounds two and three my friends (already qualified) scooped me in, granting me some handshakes in rounds 4-5. In the quarters another qualified player scooped again, leaving me up against my friend Noel in the semis, on Red. I could not have played this match worse.

I was ahead in Game 1, by a lot. I had an opportunity to Sunfall for not a lot of value, potentially sweeping away a Heartfire Hero, but I chose to hold back. I ended up foolishly blocking the same Heartfire Hero with my Overlord of the Mistmoors, only to have my opponent double Monstrous Rage it to hit me for 11 damage. While I miraculously survived this attack I played even worse at the last turn in the game. Noel attacked me with a Pawpatch Recruit (that I forgot had trample) and a Screaming Nemesis while I was at 1 life. I cast Ride's End on the Pawpatch and completely forgot to sacrifice my fish token blocking Screaming Nemesis to Fountainport to negate Nemesis taking damage. I mulliganed in Game 2 and promptly lost the match.

Lesson Learned: As a Control deck your life total is your most valuable resource. If you're ahead, shut off any possibility that can take you out of a game. Also maybe don't miss lethal to your on-board Fountainport trick.

Thankfully Noel defeated his opponent in the finals and secured his invite, leaving me the last person in my friend group without an invite to the Regional Championship. But the story doesn't end here.

I actually didn't do much between the two Saturdays I RCQ'd. I made one minor change between lists. I cut a Mirrex from the sideboard for a Devout Decree. The Mirrex was just a thought for the Azorius Control mirror, as it was one of the best cards to have in the mirror last year when the deck was popular, plus hitting your land drops is extremely important. But with no other Azorius Control players to be found I just swapped it for a Devout Decree out of consideration for all the Red players in my area. I also cut a Sunken Citadel for an Adarkar Wastes, another initial consideration for the mirror.

At the next RCQ I got a bye in round one, and then a pairing against Gruul Leyline in Round 2. In Game 2 I kept a one-lander with double Elspeth's Smite, Temporary Lockdown, and Stock Up on the draw, and somehow won that game despite missing my second land drop for multiple turns. I think this matchup is much easier than Gruul, because they go so all-in on the Leyline Package - cards like Horned Loch-Whale, and now Ride's End can really put a dent in their plans. These decks also lack the ability to survive the mid-game, which is why cards like Questing Druid and Innkeeper's Talent are sometimes hard to beat. I think this is the key reason I won Game 2, even though I probably wasn't supposed to with the hand I kept.

In round three I beat Azorius Oculus. This is a match of attrition, and one you can win just by managing their Oculuses. My opponent, Jen, had an interesting version of the deck that felt closer to the original Azorius Helping Hand decks, as it played Monastery Mentor and Stormchaser's Talent with This Town Ain't Big Enough for interaction. Blast Zone was actively great in this matchup, as it allowed me to either kill Talents on 1 to stop the loop of getting back This Town, or killing Oculus and Monastery Mentors at 3. In Game 2 I actually survived because of it, as I had ran my opponent out of cards and she had three Picklock Prankster on an adventure aiming to whittle down my life total. Despite us both playing at a reasonable pace I won this match at 1-0 and stabilized in Game 2.

After drawing into Top 8, I got another concession from a friend, putting me up against Jen again in the semifinals. While I did lose a Game 2 to keeping a one-lander (Meticulous Archive + Stock Up hand on the draw!), I out-grinded Abhorrent Oculuses, with one game coming down to a lethal Jace kill.

In the finals I played against good friend and cinema connoisseur Hunter Bolding. Hunter was on Golgari, which is an okay matchup for Azorius in a vacuum. Hunter was thankfully on the Phyrexian Obliterator version, which makes things a lot easier from the side by not caring about the mini combo of Obliterator + Bushwhack (just don't play Beza into this!). Stock Up proved to be extremely powerful, as I was able to refill my hand while not under an obscene amount of pressure.

Game 2 did reach an interesting point where Hunter cast an Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber, netting him an extra card per turn. Off an explore Hunter binned a Go for the Throat, which to my relief allowed me to stabilize with a Boon-Bringer Valkyrie, followed up by an Overlord of the Mistmoors. While this matchup has historically felt pretty close, I think the addition of Stock Up from the Azorius side and Hunter playing the Obliterator version made things easier.

At the end of the day, I only played six "real" matches of Magic across both RCQs, but that's honestly just the nature of the new system, especially if you play late in the season when the bulk of players are either qualified or out just doing other things. I'll at least give myself the credit of going 5-1 in the matches that mattered, and feeling confident about my play and list, except my punt against Noel. This isn't to say I didn't make mistakes in my wins, but I think my experience playing Control and the way I constructed my list led me to get bailed out in a lot of situations - Azorius is good at doing that. I think if I noticed anything from the matches I played is that some of my opponents played too conservatively. Time is everything when you play Control, whether it be to draw enough cards deep to hit a Day of Judgment, or distract your opponent with things that don't matter before you Jace them to death, the more time you have the more likely you are to win a given game.

This is my favorite aspect about playing Control, especially if you are the only one in the room piloting it. Hunter is an extremely strong player, and I was worried about playing him in the finals. However, his deck being Golgari Obliterator (which is tuned to beat Red) is a much better matchup for me than say a Golgari deck with Archfiend of the Dross and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. You can't lose to Obliterator + Bushwhack if you don't have creatures for them to target.

I also like the customization of Control decks, and the silver bullet cards you can pack. You virtually have game against everything, even though some matchups are harder than others. Dimri Midrange is pretty awful because Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is so hard to interact with. But when it's such a small portion of the meta you have a much better matchup against the field. Rest in Peace can nuke Oculus, Obstinate Baloth and Wilt-Leaf Liege are sometimes free wins against Esper Pixie, Boon-Bringer Valkyrie is the perfect breaker against Red - the list goes on. I think Azorius struggles with the more unfair things you can do in this format, like Up the Beanstalk into an Overlord of the Hauntwoods cast from Cavern of Souls, or a turn three Ninjutsu'd Kaito on the play. However, when players are just putting in creatures and attacking, that's where these strategies shine.

As I look forward to Tarkir: Dragonstorm and the upcoming Minneapolis Regional Championship in May, I'm going to keep Azorius Control in mind, but I'm not sure if it'll be my deck choice for larger events. While I think Azorius is the perfect deck for a smaller local metagame, I'd rather play a strategy with more initiative like Esper Pixie or Raise the Past over the course of two days. I'll be keeping an eye on upcoming spoilers since Tarkir will be the last set before the RC.

If you want to play a strong deck that has great customization, Azorius Control might just be the deck for you. At the end of the day, as someone who doesn't get as much time to play anymore, I love this deck because it's just easy to play. As long as you can figure out sequencing, just efficiently remove the threats that are trying to kill you - that's really all there is to it.

Hope you win your next RCQ with ol' reliable.

-Roman Fusco