Welcome back to another addition of Bryan’s Brews. A place where we aren’t just going to brew; we’re going to go on an adventure down memory lane!
Back in 2013 when I decided to come out of my Magic: The Gathering hiatus, I knew it was time for me to play the game again. So naturally, I decided to jump straight into standard. I had a roommate who played FNM every week. I asked him if I could see some of the new cards. HOLY COW! Power creep had gotten out of control since I last played.
I needed to play with a bunch of these cards! So, I built my own Standard UW control deck.This is where our story begins today. First off, we need to understand what that deck did well, and what it lacked in execution.
My deck had tons….. maybe “tons” isn’t the right word….. Oodles of card draw and life gain. It played Sphinx’s Revelation, Divination and Azorius Charm. These were the cornerstones of the deck.
It was able to play Supreme Verdict to perfection. Allowing enough time to clear the board, use our life total as a resource, and then “Rev” our opponent into the ground with massive card advantage. We had some decent counter magic but nothing too crazy. We had Dissolve, Syncopate, and Negate on some occasions. Nothing to write home about but, effective enough in our deck.
The deck also played some spot removal spells but they were not very good. When I say not very good, I mean we had to rely on Last Breath and Azorius Charm to keep the board clear until we could amass a giant Revelation. Detention Sphere was a good card back then and continues to be a good card today. It’s the UW version of Maelstrom Pulse.
We also used Jace, Architect of Thought for card advantage and to make attacking creatures smaller. This was a pretty good plan back then but nowadays, creatures are bigger and more efficient. I don’t think this planeswalker is completely useless but probably not good enough for Pioneer.
With all of this said, let’s look at what I came up with and talk about how I got here on this list.
Ok, let’s start with the main deck.
Sphinx’s Revelation is an insanely powerful spell I feel is overlooked too often. Sometimes, simply casting Rev for 3 or 4 just ends the game. Sometimes our opponents simply can’t recover from the card advantage and have to play catch up the rest of the game. Oftentimes, it just results in a concession immediately because they know they can’t recover.
Supreme Verdict is still a powerful/playable card. When our opponents drop the entirety of their opening hand on turn 3 or 4, Verdict can feel like a reset button allowing us to get back into the game.
Now that we’ve covered the core of our deck, let’s get into the real meat and potatoes of what makes this deck tick.
I upgraded our planeswalkers to Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Narset, Parter of Veils. These 2 walkers do basically everything we want. Draw us more cards and find us more spells. Easy fits into the deck.
Narset just happens to be good against some of Pioneer’s best decks. Adding 3 copies to the main deck feels great. Sometimes it hoses our opponents but for the most part, it helps us dig for more action.
Now, for our upgraded removal spells. I cannot express how much better of a removal spell March of Otherworldly Light is than Last Breath. This is not even close to a comparison. It targets more than just creatures and allows us to do it at a prorated cost if needed.
I also feel that Fateful Absence is underplayed. I think this card is very good. I personally like it better than Portable Hole. Being able to pick off opposing Planeswalkers is really what sets this card over the top for me.
We are also playing a couple of Shark Typhoons. I read this card and saw “Cycle for X mana, create a chump blocker and draw a card”. It’s mostly just a cantrip in my eyes. As the game progresses, I suppose it could be used as a “win condition” if that’s what you’re into.
I believe that our counter suite is an upgrade from Dissolve and negate.
We get to play Absorb and Dovin’s Veto. These cards are great and exactly the types of upgrades we want.
The single copy of Disallow is also another upgrade but it’s so much more than that. I was able to counter an Otawara Channel ability to keep my Teferi on board the turn it was going to Ultimate. It’s really nice to have in our back pocket especially because we draw through so many cards in a long game. Picking off random abilities from our opponents’ Planeswalker abilities is nice.
And now for the last spell. The elephant in the room. Elixir of Immortality. Yes I know this card is a gimmick but, I can’t help but play it in my (4) Sphinx’s Rev deck. It allows me to go infinite in more ways than one. I no longer have to just rely on Teferi tucking itself every turn to make sure my deck doesn’t run out of cards. It allows me to continue to Rev for a “billion” and feel happy about the choices I’ve made. The 5 life we gain off of it is nothing to scoff at either.
So, as a whole, I made this deck based on the old Standard “Winless” version of the UW Control decks with some upgrades. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other options. It is my responsibility to you, the reader, to discuss some of those alternatives.
First and foremost, I think we should discuss the planeswalkers. I felt that Narset and Teferi were the only ones we wanted in this version of the deck.
They are also not “Win conditions”. With that said though, if you feel like the deck should have a win condition, cards like The Wandering Emperor and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion are also very good options.
I could totally see either of them making their way into some iteration of this deck.
The removal spells that are available to use are vast. We could be playing any number of the various sweepers that UW has available. There’s Doomskar, Farewell, Settle the Wreckage, and Planar Cleansing.
I chose Verdict simply based on it not being counterable. I want my important spells to resolve. When we need a sweeper, we REALLY need a sweeper and I’d gladly cast it and spend the restrictive mana cost to ensure it resolves. I can’t fault anyone for deciding to choose an alternative option or variety of any of them though.
As for 1:1 removal, I feel as if Portable Hole is just not a good card. I’ve been burned in the past by permanent based removal too many times. I’m not falling for that again! That’s why I also stayed away from cards like Cast Out, Ixalan’s Binding, Baffling End, and Seal Away. Detention Sphere has a higher upside in my mind to justify playing it but, I still only want it in limited numbers.
Counterspells are always tricky. Trying to figure out which ones to use that best fit your deck is of course subjective. It also depends on what type of deck you are trying to build.
If you want to build something similar to this, I could see playing something like Dissolve or Sinister Sabotage to get the Scry/Surveil trigger. Getting extra cards out of the way that you may not want in the matchup or finding extra lands can make a huge difference. The mana requirements are also slightly better as well, only costing 1UU instead of Absorb’s WUU.
If you want to play Doomskar, I can see Saw It Coming as another viable option as well. Being able to Foretell the spell and keep your opponent guessing which spell was Foretold has value.
I chose Absorb simply due to the fact that I never intended on playing a creature and the extra life gain was very important to me.
Dovin’s Veto is a strictly better Negate but again, I can see playing other counterspells here. Things like Spell Pierce for the early game or Syncopate for the exile effect has its own place in the meta.
I chose Veto simply because it couldn’t be countered but it is in no way the only option. I just wanted to make sure that I could answer an early noncreature spell.
I know that I haven’t really spoken about a couple of other cards in the deck. Mainly Search for Azcanta and Azorius Charm.
Azorius Charm, Is a decent cantrip as well as good enough “removal” for early creatures or actual removal for creature tokens. Search for Azcanta is a good card. This helps us filter out our draws and eventually becomes a land. A land that does stuff and also helps us cast Rev later. I chose this because it is technically a spell that we can find with Narset that also becomes a source of mana. However, I could see this becoming a Sea Gate Restoration slot. This becomes another card that can be found off Narset that is also a mana source.
Speaking of mana, Let’s take a look at the manabase. I opted for 25 lands + Search for Azcanta to make 26 if we want.
I chose 26 lands but I can see going as high as 28 and as low as 24. I just felt that 25 + 1 fit our deck the best. A lot of our lands either produce multiple colors or Have an activated ability. With Hall of Storm Giants being a creature, Castle Vantress scrying, Field of Ruin attacking opposing mana, and Otawara, Soaring City and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire both affecting the board. A lot of our lands just do something other than just produce mana.
The basic lands are strictly there for fetching with Field of Ruin but after we use Elixir once or twice, they become Strip Mine just to further our chokehold on the game. With that said, I could see cutting the Fields for more colored sources of mana. Field can be awkward in the early game when trying to cast Absorb and Supreme Verdict.
Adarkar Wastes were simply a concession to wanting both colors of mana in the early turns with minimal sacrifice. We still take a point of damage from them but I believe that is a small price to pay for having perfect untapped mana to cast our absorbs early.
And now, we need to talk about the “Transformational Sideboard.”
This Sideboard is in no way optimized. Let’s start there. I added things into this board that I believe were going to help me in my local meta.
With cards like Lyra Dawnbringer and Baneslayer Angel, we get actual win conditions and threats that could help some of our matches.
Elite Spellbinder (a.k.a. PVDDR) is a really good disruptive creature against the combo decks (of which there are a lot of in the Pioneer and my local meta). This card disrupts their hand and allows us to put pressure on our opponents at the same time. It also gives us full information of the opponent’s strategy. This is nice as a control player. Knowing what we need to be careful of in the early game and helping us navigate through the turns.
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade was also to help in the combo matches but also the big mana decks. This card also lets us start applying pressure early. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Damping Sphere in this slot as an alternative and may just be a better option.
The issue I have with Damping Sphere is that a lot of those big mana or combo decks are also playing Boseiju, Who Endures. Lavinia ignores that all together. However, if your counter suite includes more Disallow, I could see making the change.
Lion Sash in my mind, is the best way our deck has to interact with the graveyard without messing with our own plan. This also becomes a threat that we can use to apply pressure.
Aether Gust and Mystical Dispute are both just alternative counters that we can bring in. These are pretty self explanatory when considering when we want/need them.
Now that we have covered everything, I’d like to talk a little bit about my experience with the deck at our local weekly Pioneer event.
War of the Spark
I played against:
Round 1 – UW Control
Round 2 – Rakdos Midrange
Round 3 – 4 Color Jeskai Ascendancy
Round 1: UW Control 2-0 W
This match was all about being able to gain more card advantage than your opponent.
Round 2: Rakdos Midrange 2-0 W
In this match, It is hard for your opponent to recover from a rev if you can keep the board relatively clean through the first 5-7 turns.
Round 3: 4 Color Jeskai Ascendancy 2-1 W
This was a cool deck to play against but all we need to do here is just interact with the Ascendancies and it’s pretty easy sailing front here.
A lot of decks in Pioneer are not ready to deal with Sphinx’s Revelation. I know there is no such thing as a perfect deck but this one felt close. It was the perfect deck for me at least. I was able to play interactive games all 3 rounds and I got to cast some big awesome spells!
In all seriousness, I feel like this deck could still be playable throughout the meta and it may be just as good if not better than the current default version of Pioneer’s UW Control. I will leave that up to the audience to decide. Change the numbers. Play around with different spells and different threats. Maybe this is the deck for you. Or maybe it’s just me still being a boomer and living in the past, playing the deck I fell in love with. I would suggest giving it a try before passing judgment on it though. It felt very powerful and if nothing else, you get to draw a million cards and play interactive Magic.
