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The season of States is upon us, an entire new set is waiting to be unleashed, and hordes of enthusiastic gamers are flocking to StarCityGames.com with their latest secret tech. Timmy is trying to persuade himself that he will get to cast Autochthon Wurm, while Johnny eyes Mindmoil and Eye of the Storm with an evil glint in his eyes (or both at the same time, with an insane glint). The cult of Malka is heralding the Golgari guild as the second coming of the Redeemer, old timers are reading Vitu-Ghazi and Reito Lantern and trying to persuade themselves that if they can just find an analogue for Browse, then Counterpost will come back.
For some of us, however, the upcoming standard offers other opportunities long thought lost forever: now that Battle of Wits is legal again, it means that we can go through States quoting The Princess Bride while shuffling up the biggest deck at the event!
"The Battle of Wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead."
The printing of Transmute couldn't have been an accident, could it? Surely Wizards doesn't mean to tease us like this? Transmuting Clutch of the Undercity into Diabolic Tutor into Battle of Wits is amazing, right?
The short answer is no.
If someone tries to tell you that transmuting a four-mana spell into Diabolic Tutor in order to fetch a Battle of Wits and play it on turn 5, winning the game on turn 6 is a good plan, get away like the Shrieking Eels are after you. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that if the deck you plan on taking to States can't handle such an opening, you need to find something else to do... Not because Battle of Wits is going to be out in force, but because spending three turns doing nothing in order to win on turn 6 should be suicide. If it's not, you're playing the wrong deck.
That said, there are probably a few other people besides me who simply can't resist the call of winning with over two hundred cards left in our libraries, so for those of you interested in what Battle of Wits could look like come late October, read on!
Let's be clear: Battle of Wits is not combo - it's a control deck. Your goal is not to find Battle as quickly as possible, just to stay alive long enough to resolve it and live to your next upkeep - an important extra fact that many people miss. In order to make Battle work effectively, a certain amount of redundancy is needed to compensate for the extra hundred and eighty or so cards in your library. Like every deck, Battle of Wits needs to be fast enough to deal with the aggro decks of the format (as common at States as R.O.U.S's) (Really? You don't think they exist? - The Ferrett) and yet be able to hold its own against the decks looking to win through an avalanche of card advantage.
As if these difficulties weren't enough, the deck presents certain logistical problems that make it difficult to take to a long, timed tournament such as States. Fortunately for the Johnnies among us, the tools exist in the current Standard to make Battle of Wits viable, if not exactly format-defining.
"They were both poisoned. I have spent the last few years building up an immunity to Iocaine powder."
Redundancy is important to a Battle of Wits deck, and the current Standard environment provides that in spades. Beyond simply drawing and casting Battle, one can transmute Brainspoil for Battle, Diabolic Tutor for it, or Gifts Ungiven for Battle, Reclaim, Recollect, Battle. (Unlike Clutch of the Undercity, Gifts Ungiven is also good when there's too much pressure to pay eight mana to get Battle.)
In terms of mana-fixing, options include Dimir Signet, Golgari Signet, and Selesnya Signet (or Boros Signet, but I'm going to suggest a GUBw build for reasons that will become clear), Birds of Paradise, Elves, other Elves, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Farseek, Kodama's Reach, Journeyer's Kite, Fellwar Stone, and Civic Wayfinder. Playing four of each of these would offer fifty-two pieces of mana-fixing or acceleration - the equivalent of thirteen cards out of a sixty-card deck. I have a hard time thinking of a deck in standard that needs more than three playsets of such cards.
Ravnica provides us with a wealth of removal options, to add to the already plentiful cards. Clearly Sickening Shoal and Putrefy stand out, but arguments can also be made for Horobi's Whisper, Rend Flesh, Cruel Edict, Last Gasp, Exile into Darkness, Darkblast, and Devouring Light. (And that's without even considering the burn present in Red.) Meanwhile, Plague Boiler and Necroplasm join Hideous Laughter, Wrath of God, Kagemaro, and Night of Souls' Betrayal in providing mass removal - along with Hex, for when killing five just isn't enough. Again, many decks are picking and choosing the removal that fits best, but all of the cards mentioned above (with the exception of Hex) deserve such consideration, and Battle of Wits decks can run them all.
Clearly, then, one of the most important tests of a Battle of Wits deck has been passed. The card pool is deep enough to support the deck.
The next question is, of course, whether it can keep up with the competition.
"You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong."
No matter what deck you're testing, it's important to make a run at the fastest deck in the format to see how things stand up. The early builds of WW/r I tested against only included a few Lightning Helixes for burn, and I was able to keep the games close to 50/50 without stretching the mana base to include White. I haven't tested Boros Aggro enough to know exactly what the best build is, but I did learn that a deck packing twelve burn spells is a lot harder to deal with than one using four. In order to keep the matchup somewhat favorable, I dipped into white for two Wrath of Gods, four Loxodon Hierarchs, and four Faith's Fetters for the extra bit of padding. With these changes, the matchup against aggro became much more favorable, as the deck was able to stabilize around ten to fourteen life rather than the four to eight that put it well within burn range.
"But, you've also bested my Spaniard, which means you must have studied."
Again, I don't have the time to figure out the optimal control builds for the format, but it's pretty clear that if WW/r with burn is the worst aggro matchup, Blue-based control with Counterspells is the hardest control matchup. Here, the initial results were more favorable, as cards like Moonlight Bargain, Phyrexian Arena, Gifts Ungiven, and Tidings can provide so much card advantage that it can be difficult for Blue/Black control to recover. Additionally, using Battle of Wits as a win condition means that many decks only get one shot at having an answer.
Neither of these matches is a blowout in favor of Battle of Wits, but they are certainly the two most difficult that I've come across - and each is definitely winnable. Control decks focusing on board control without either counterspells or hand disruption generally play like bad aggro decks that give you more time to set up, while packing enough removal to keep WW/r at bay means that decks focusing on creatures for disruption (particularly Hypnotic Specter) are not as frightening as those packing counterspells.
"What are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp?"
Unfortunately, things are not all rosy for our hero, as anyone who has ever considered playing with such a large deck will have realized. Three dangers in particular stand out when playing Battle of Wits that do not appear when playing with smaller decks.
The first danger is cards like Cranial Extraction or Blood Moon, both of which cause an incredible setback when they resolve. The second is the sheer size of the deck, and the losses that result, and the third is the simple logistics of such a thing.
Battle of Wits is expensive. The mana base should include the new (and pricey) Ravnica dual lands as well as painlands, card drawing like Gifts Ungiven, Phyrexian Arena, and Moonlight Bargain are essential - not to mention that Battle of Wits itself is a rare. I can almost guarantee that if I'm able to build this exactly how I want it, I'll have the most expensive deck at the tournament.
Then I'll get to sleeve two hundred and fifty cards. Perhaps most importantly, I'll have to sufficiently randomize them. It's one thing to shuffle with an unsleeved deck while playing casually with friends, simply cutting the deck, shuffling the top and continuing, but the difficulties of shuffling every time you tutor mean that the Battle of Wits deck faces a very real danger of timing out.
A closely related problem is that land- or spell-clumps can be more pronounced in a 250-card deck. Even with eighty-four lands and twenty-nine mana fixers, the deck mulligans a lot. And a hand of three lands that just needs a forest to explode can end up completely crapping out. It's bad enough that one of the most popular decks is likely to just randomly win with an amazing draw - but Battle of Wits is also likely to just lose a few games despite good design, appropriate mulliganing decisions, and excellent play.
Finally, it must be admitted that like every deck, there are a few silver bullets that simply cause havoc for a Battle of Wits deck. The most obvious is Cranial Extraction, although the inclusion of threats like Kokusho and Meloku means that the game is not over as soon as Extraction resolves. Perhaps even more deadly is the possibility of Blood Moon. Being heavily reliant on nonbasics, this card can completely wreck this deck without too much difficulty. Fortunately, Cranial Extraction does not seem quite as popular as it was when Kamigawa was released (everyone thinks about it, but few decks really want to run it), while one can hope that the multi-color emphasis of Ravnica will restrict the presence of Blood Moon since people want to play with their new toys. Certainly these threats are out there, but neither one is an auto-loss for this deck (I have won a game after being Extracted, while I've not yet seen a list to test against that uses Blood Moon).
"Bye-Bye, boys."
"Have fun storming the castle."
Having explained many of the strengths and weaknesses of the Battle of Wits deck, here is the list I'm currently testing, along with some explanations of the more unusual choices:
"Let me 'splain . . . No, there is too much, let me sum up."
Perhaps the most obvious omission is the lack of Enduring Ideal. I realize that it is another tutor for Battle, but double-white is not always easy to come by, and the deck usually doesn't sit for very long praying to draw a tutor but unable to find Battle. Ultimately, I feel like if you're going to play with Ideal you should play with some variation on Good Form, but I could well be wrong about the effectiveness of Ideal. I didn't like it in testing, but feel free to include it. (Just don't follow up by throwing in Genju of the Realm and Form of the Dragon.)
Both Muddle the Mixture and Shred Memory can transmute for two-drops, and each has a fairly selective role. For a long time, Muddle was actually Perplex, but Perplex is best against decks that want to win through card advantage, and most of those are likely to try to beat you with counters and other instants or sorceries. Perplex also doesn't stop the final Char from killing you, while Muddle does. Shred Memory is also a very narrow card - but I've seen enough Grave-Shell Scarabs, Nightmare Voids, and Necroplasms to want a way to deal with graveyards. It's also been transmuted into Farseek, Cruel Edict, Mana Leak, Last Gasp, and Telling Time on various occasions.
Basically, the deck has two draws (well, three, but two that can lead to wins). In the first draw, the deck trades removal against early threats while slowly building up card advantage. Eventually, Battle shows up and the deck has enough control to drop the enchantment and win.
The other frequent draw involves early acceleration leading to a turn 3 or 4 Battle of Wits, often with a small amount of disruption included. (Turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Edict, turn 3 Kodama's Reach, turn 4 Battle.) Many beatdown decks have a problem with this opening.
The third draw, of course, involves copious amounts of the wrong card showing up, usually resulting in ignominious defeat.
"The wizard who memorizes a thousand books is insane."
Battle of Wits is not for the faint of heart, nor am I claiming that it's the best deck to take to Champs. For those of us who are breathing a sigh of relief at never having to see another Tooth and Nail, however, it does provide another option that is, above all, fun to play. Having tested this deck for a few weeks now, I am almost certain that I will be at Illinois champs with the biggest deck in the field (and yes, I do expect that either I or my opponents will feel the need to comment on overcompensation), and do not be surprised to hear me informing you that "The Battle of Wits has begun. It ends when you decide . . . and we find out who is right, and who is dead."
If, like me, you'd rather not play the latest netdeck, feel free to try this out; and if you sit down against an opponent with way too many cards in their deck, try not to laugh about how they've fallen victim to won of the classic blunders until after you've actually defeated them.
Today we hit the end of Control Week. Last year, my control deck ended up as one of the strongest decks in the States metagames and I'm going to add another... 
