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As the title suggests, I was fortunate enough to snag the priceless Urza's Saga textless foil card everyone's been ranting and raving about and my second Store Championship win with an Azorius Control deck in the past year - and I did it with none other than my trusty Azorius Control deck:
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
Standard has been a pretty interesting format to navigate since rotation happened a few weeks ago. There aren't exactly any major competitive tournaments for people to play in, aside from the exclusive World Championship in October. The format definitely has seen a change in appearance since the leaving of four sets and the addition of Bloomburrow. While there were certainly new hot decks to try out, like Rakdos Lizards, I chose to stick with what I know best - jamming counterspells and wraths in one neat, tight package of fun.
In my last article on the subject, I detailed my thoughts on adding Caretaker's Talent to Azorius Control. After seeing how the card performed alongside Urabrask's Forge in the Boros decks, I couldn't help but think that I could break the card even more. Sure, Talent might pair best in some Mono-White deck (cough, cough, Flores sensei), but what really sparked my interest was the sheer number of cards in the Azorius decks that made tokens.
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Although I was hellbent on Caretaker's Talent's synchronicity with Fountainport, I did start to notice that I would fall behind in games against aggro where I drew one too many Caretaker's Talent (one being that number a non-zero amount of the time). I went back to the drawing board, and in preparation for a heavy-aggro meta at my local game store, Odyssey Games in Pasadena, I came armed with a list to take down the event.
Azorius Control | Standard | Roman Fusco
- Creatures (3)
- 3 Beza, the Bounding Spring
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 1 Archangel Elspeth
- 1 The Eternal Wanderer
- Spells (23)
- 2 Elspeth's Smite
- 1 Phantom Interference
- 4 Three Steps Ahead
- 4 Deduce
- 2 Get Lost
- 4 No More Lies
- 2 Farsight Ritual
- 4 Sunfall
- Enchantments (6)
- 2 Caretaker's Talent
- 4 Temporary Lockdown
While I've said a lot on this deck already, there are a couple of key card additions and numbers I'd like to bring attention to. First, the four Temporary Lockdowns. It might seem kind of strange to have four Lockdowns in a deck that well, makes a crap ton of tokens. There are times where Lockdowns just get discarded to Three Steps Ahead, but they're a necessity, depending on where you play.
The FNM the week before the store championship I played a similar list, defeating an Esper deck and Boros Convoke before splitting store credit with Rakdos Lizards in the finals. We played a few games for fun - and I got crushed. The Lizards deck is pretty remarkable in how it can stack damage up against you quickly. With Iridescent Vinelasher, Gev, Scaled Scorch, and Hired Claw, the Lizards deck can push some serious offense that must be answered with. Thankfully, a timely Lockdown into Beza, the Bounding Spring is just the tempo play you can make with this deck to really turn the corner.
If you want to play a Control deck in this format I honestly think you need four Temporary Lockdowns to seal the deal. Lockdown is useful in stopping everything from large Heartfire Heros, to a fast Lizards start, all the way to Bandit's Talents and Innkeeper's Talents. Even firing off a Lockdown against a Resolute Reinforcements and its single token can be the difference between your opponent powering out a Knight-Errant of Eos and turning the corner, or doing nothing on their next turn.
I've often been put with the decision of whether or not to fire off a Deduce when I know I'm Lockdowning the following turn. When presented with that option, I usually ask myself things like "do I need a land next turn?", "how desperately do I need a Beza to turn the corner?" - be mindful of how much time you have to give if you care about your clue hitting the dust or not.
I'm finding I need Restless Anchorage less while relying more heavily on the power of Fountainport and Sunken Citadel. It's entirely possible this deck wants a third Fountainport, I just get worried about drawing hands with a Fountainport and Demolition Field when I need to fire off a Lockdown on turn three. Although I will say there are some pretty sweet turns you can take by blocking with an Anchorage and using an Elspeth's Smite to finish off a larger creature, or copying an Anchorage with Three Steps Ahead. It's also worth noting an attacking Anchorage is a token generator for Caretaker's Talent. I'd play with the numbers on these lands a bit, but I do feel like I'm in a close spot with the manabase.
The Tournament
In this event I played against four distinct Standard decks, all being a decent matchup for Azorius Control: Mono-Black Bandit's Talent, Rakdos Lizards, Simic Cookies, and Mono-Green stompy. However, each of these matches felt pretty close, but I was able to dismantle my opponents' gameplans with the suite of tools I had access to as Azorius Control.
One of my favorite aspects about Control is the concept of this "emergency button." While playing the event I noticed something looking around at neighboring tables - the matchups were a lot of creature decks butting heads with each other. There were a few players on more midrange-creature decks, such as Dimir Midrange and the Simic deck I played against. But at the end of the day, every deck seemed to rely on pressing an advantage with creatures, benefiting greatly from winning the die roll.
I honestly can't tell you how miserable it must be to play the Rakdos Lizards mirror. I'm sure there are some sickos out there that indulge in leveraging Laughing Jasper Flints and figuring out the correct sequencing and combat math - you do you, buddy. Truth be told, if you're great at playing the mirror, I give you mad props. But me? I like playing the easy decks.
Famed Pro Tour competitor and overall good guy Jonathan Sukenik once taught me the valuable lesson that Control decks are just easy to play. Seeing confusion sprawled across my face the first time he told me this, he went into a few more details. With Control decks, you just have to worry about how your answers line up to their threats. You don't have to worry about combat math or how to best leverage your winning of the die roll. Ultimately, you're just playing a jigsaw puzzle, figuring out which piece best fits the situation you're in.
Flores now calls me the "master deck designer" between the two of us. I don't know if that's exactly the case, but what I will say is that I've designed my Control decks over the last year with that jigsaw puzzle mentality in mind, figuring out what pieces fit the best situation I could be in. Winning a Store Champs FNM is no Pro Tour, hell it isn't even no RCQ. I admit, however, that my deck felt extremely prepared to bail me out of whatever wall I had my back against, which funny enough is probably why I won three of my last four games sitting pretty at 1 life.
I Boon-Bringer Valkyrie'd my way out of not one, but at least two games I was sure to lose otherwise. Demolition Field kept my opponent's Restless Vinestalk's at bay, Elspeth's Smite bailed me out against a lethal Gingerbrute that none of my tokens or Anchorages had any chance of blocking. I Fountainport'ed my heart out to one life against Stompy in the finals - even a hasty Axebane Ferox can't match the power of a couple of 1/1 Mike Flores tokens in place of the fish I ate to save me double digits of life points over the course of that match. There's nothing more gratifying than winning a game teetering on the edge of defeat, only to slowly claw your way back to a triumphant victory.
Ultimately, while Azorius Control might not have all the answers at all the right times, it certainly has the widest array of them. Maybe I've dug myself too deep into a hole where I only know how to cast counterspells and egregious wraths, but I'll always massively enjoy the flexibility and joy that Azorius Control brings me.
My face was dripping with sweat at the end of that event, probably due to the stress of winning those games one life point away from defeat (or the fact that it's still hot as heck in LA), but I walked away with an Urza's Saga in my hand. Whether or not my list is competitive in the current Standard metagame isn't as important to me than the fact that it works (and worked!) for me.
The next day I played another event, finishing 3-2, including a loss to a friend in game three on Rakdos Lizards (he smartly kept in Go for the Throat knowing my Boon-Bringer plan!) and an intentional concession to my friend Emin on Domain - but I did win the ~40 minute game one for fun we played by decking him, which has got to count for something right? I beat his two maindeck Jaces in the process! I'd also be remiss to mention that Emin graciously bought me dinner afterwards...
If you're finding yourself dissatisfied with how your Standard games are going, or wish you had more tools to take games into your own hands, give Azorius Control a whirl. Don't take my list at face value, figure out for yourself what cards suit your playstyle, what decks you want to beat, and what answers you want access to at a moment's notice. Standard will definitely die down for a few weeks, but we'll be thrown right back into the fray with Duskmourn Store Championships starting mid-October. On the horizon is also the impending Magic Spotlight series and Standard RCQ season...
I hope this article gave you some inspiration to try out my deck or others like it. Hopefully some knowledge here will get you to your first Standard Store Champs win.
