Elspeth, Storm Slayer is broken in half. That's it, that's the article.

Jokes aside, I think this card is incredibly powerful, pushed, and a perfect slot into Azorius Control in Standard - for a variety of reasons. If you've read my Standard articles before you know I'm a big propronent of Azorius Control - I even won a RCQ with it just a few weeks ago!

As someone who's played this archetype in Standard inside and out, I can't tell you how excited I was to see this card revealed. A planeswalker with three incredible abilities, a powerful static, and a reasonable mana cost, Elspeth, Storm Slayer is the next big card to hit Standard.

Let's start from the top down - the static ability. The first big thing that caught my eye about this card is the fact that her static is relevant to over half a dozen cards out of Azorius Control! Here's a short list:

• Fountainport
• Beza, the Bounding Spring
• Three Steps Ahead
• Deduce
• Restless Anchorage
• Overlord of the Mistmoors
• Sunfall

So yeah...most cards are relevant to Elspeth's static ability. What on earth??

I think what's so important about this static ability is how it plays into Azorius Control's game plan. Step one of playing Control decks is to stop your opponents from doing what they want to do. Step two is actually finding ways to stabilize so that as the game goes longer you'll pull ahead inch by inch to inevitably secure victory. Elspeth's static ability is pretty potent when it comes to stabilizing depending on what token maker you play.

Instead of two 1/1 fish tokens, Beza, the Bounding Spring makes FOUR. Instead of two insect tokens from Overlord of the Mistmoors you get FOUR. Fountainport makes not one fish, but two! You get the idea here.

Elspeth's static ability gives you arguably the most important resource a Control deck could want - time. I've been in so many spots where I've had to chump block with a fish token from Fountainport, but if I'm making two that gives me another chump blocker for the following turn, one that I can sacrifice to draw a card. Beza making five total blockers instead of three gives you so much more life to work with against decks that go wide, like Mono-Red or even sometimes Esper Pixie with otter tokens. This static ability alone gives you so much time and extra resources because it just synergizes so well with a handful of cards we're already playing!

To go even further, this could even change how we construct Azorius Control as an archetype. While I think I don't want to deviate from Stock Up, I could be convinced to go back to a Caretaker's Talent plan (especially with Elspeth's +1 ability, which we'll get to in a second).

While lots of Azorius decks are playing Dissection Tools in the board, I'm much more inclined now to go for Regal Caracal! Even Archangel Elspeth, while incredibly less powerful than this new Elspeth, might be worth an inclusion, although Beza is a tough 4-drop to contend with. Whether it's clue, fish, or treasure tokens, this static ability is one of the main reasons to play this card. It's pretty alarming (in a good way!) that I'm this far into the article talking about this card and I've only been talking about its static ability.

Elspeth's +1 ability is good for the same reason why her static makes Beza and Overlord so good - time. Imagine you cast Day of Judgment on turn four of a given game against an Aggro deck. While you may three-for-one your opponent, chances are they'll probably have more gas in the tank, and will recoup in some way on their next turn. Elspeth, Storm Slayer gives you not one, but two tokens to act as chump blockers to stave off their attackers until you can stabilize with a Beza-type card. The issue becomes then, if your opponent doesn't have enough pressure after you cast a Sunfall or Day of Judgment, Elspeth can snowball out of control, even without the support of other cards. She gets the job done herself, and if you have a Fountainport how is your opponent getting through four 1/1s a turn?

Elspeth isn't only a card that works well defensively, she also can turn games around real quick. In Azorius Control you always want ways to actually win the games you're trying to slow down, and Elspeth's 0 ability does just that. Adding a +1/+1 counter to your whole team is insanity to me. This gets around some of the cheap Black removal in the format and allows you to go-wide if you've used her +1 ability a few times.

It's worth noting that this works well with not only Beza and Overlord, but with cards like Restless Anchorage as well. I think one weakness of Azorius Control in the current Standard is that it lacks ways to close out games quickly. I've definitely lost games where my opponent has a Screaming Nemesis "emblem" on me, and while I've run them out of cards I've still lost to a kicked Burst Lightning.

I want to reiterate this resource of "time" that Elspeth bequeaths upon you. While in some cases Elspeth can be used to truly slow down a game, in other cases she can act as a quick threat to win games fast that you've gained the upper hand in. All it takes is one card that makes tokens, like Fountainport to quickly grow an army to take down your opponent in just a few turns.

Finally, Elspeth's -3 ability is just the icing on the cake. I love this ability for a few key reasons. After you Sunfall or Day of Judgment, it's nice that your planeswalker that can snowball value is also just a mini-Terminate. This is a solid follow-up to a Screaming Nemesis after you've swept up your Red opponent's little guys in a Temporary Lockdown. While you can't kill some more minor threats that have evasion, like Fear of Isolation and Nurturing Pixie, I do think this is a nice tacked-on bonus.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion this card is not. It's better. Overall, Elspeth, Storm Slayer is probably one of the most powerful planeswalkers we've seen added to Standard in quite some time, probably on the playability level of Kaito, Bane of Nightmares. I admire this card's design for how it harkens back to not only Elspeth, Sun's Champion, but to the design of classic Midrange/Control planeswalkers of a decade ago.

This card has an incredible static ability, protects itself, and has a built-in removal spell and eventual win condition. There's really not more you could want out of a card of this design, and all of its abilities and synergies with cards already in the format make it the perfect addition to Azorius Control in Standard.

While I'm going to wait on a decklist, I'd probably start with three copies of this card and work backwards - we don't even have a full Tarkir spoiler yet.

All in all, I'm extremely excited for this card and will 100% be playing it in Azorius Control decks to come.

Thanks for reading!