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Alrighty!

I received a lot of questions about the RUG Mayor of Secrets deck. First and foremost, here is the list I ran in the video article in case you couldn't get ahold of it.

Mayor of Secrets Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-11-13 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/23105.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Mayor of Avabruck 2 Phantasmal Image Enchantments 1 Curiosity Instants 2 Dismember 4 Disperse 4 Dissipate 2 Galvanic Blast 3 Incinerate 4 Mana Leak 4 Think Twice	Sorceries 4 Ponder Basic Lands 5 Forest 7 Island Lands 4 Hinterland Harbor 2 Rootbound Crag 4 Sulfur Falls	Sideboard: 2 Batterskull 3 Ancient Grudge 4 Flashfreeze 3 Geistflame 1 Garruk Relentless 2 Slagstorm
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

The deck performed pretty well for the most part. If you ever got the combo out, you couldn't lose. The combo being on the play:

Turn one Delver of Secrets.

Turn two Mayor of Avabruck.  

The best combo in Standard!!!

I really enjoyed the deck and got too excited, exclaiming to all my friends, “MAYOR IS TARMOGOYF OMG OMG OMG I LOVE THIS GUY!” Okay while he is not nearly as good as Goyf, he is still amazing when flipped. If he lives one or more turns, he just takes over the game. He does this for only two mana! This card has some amazing potential alongside Delver of Secrets.

Side note - So when Innistrad came out, I was all over U/B. I may have had the wrong list, but my mind was in the right place. Later U/B won GP Brisbane. I then made an Esper deck named Ali-Cats, which got around (in a good way). That deck is still very good, and I'm sure I'll eventually go back to it. I just love Sword of Feast and Famine with Midnight Haunting and Forbidden Alchemy. I also had an article go up called Playing with Paint that had a U/R CounterBurn deck in it. That weekend Caleb Durward showcased his beautiful U/R list to the world. I may not always have the most tuned lists, but I can tell when a card or archetype has potential, and Mayor of Avabruck has some real potential.

Last weekend I went up to visit Stephen, a good friend of mine in Raleigh. He had a Super IQ near him, which ended up paying out 3000 dollars. I decided I would give RUG a run at this tournament, since I just kept facing G/W all day on Magic Online. I sat down with him and Lee McLeod Friday night and showcased the deck. After many thoughts and suggestions, I decided to just go straight U/G. I didn't feel I was getting enough out of red to warrant it. I told myself if I really wanted to kill mana dorks, I could just run Gut Shot. Lee McLeod ran the same list, but he kept red in so he could play Manabarbs in the board.

This is the list I registered for the IQ:

Mayor of Secrets Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-11-13 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/23105.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Mayor of Avabruck 4 Phantasmal Image Instants 1 Cancel 4 Disperse 4 Dissipate 4 Mana Leak 1 Negate 1 Stoic Rebuttal 4 Think Twice Planeswalkers 2 Garruk Relentless Sorceries 1 Divination 4 Ponder	Basic Lands 7 Forest 11 Island Lands 4 Hinterland Harbor	Sideboard: 2 Batterskull 2 Sword of Feast and Famine 3 Spellskite 2 Dismember 1 Flashfreeze 2 Naturalize 3 Thrun, the Last Troll
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Overall the deck was very good. The matches I lost were so, so very close. I ended up losing to a Wolf Run Ramp deck and the third G/W deck I played.

Garruk Relentless was insane! He was just a constant threat. One thing I wish I could've done though was use Garruk, the Veil-Cursed's -1 ability to tutor up some big nasty creature, but I didn't have a good target for it. It's okay though; deathtouch and trample are two insane abilities to have together.

Thrun, the Last Troll on the other hand was meh. I never wanted more than one, and sometimes I didn't even want one. He just doesn't do what I want him to do. He can't really end the game on his own, and we can't cast him turn 3, making him much weaker. I will not run so many trolls next time. Sorry, buddy. :[

I ended up having eleven counterspells maindeck. I didn't get to fully test what this would do to the deck. What ended up happening was the deck would get into the long game if you didn't kill them fast enough. I would have seven or more lands in play and nothing to really abuse it with. I didn't want to play Snapcaster Mage and instead ran more counterspells. This was wrong. Snapcaster Mage may not flip Delver of Secrets, but the card is just so good. I've also found a spell that flips my Mayor of Avabruck and my Delver of Secrets. Enter…

This card can lead to such blowouts! This card can also act like a fog that lets your creatures do damage. So many times, your opponents will main phase a Think Twice or a Snapcaster Mage so that your Mayor doesn't flip. Well now you can flip it at anytime no matter how hard your opponents try to tame the beast. Just make sure to howl when you play it. Strike fear into your opponents' hearts!!! If you just have Delver of Secrets, I guess you can make some insect sounds… Yea… Moving on!

We can't overload on Moonmists though. You don't want to have them in your hand without any creatures out. You also don't want to use them as a Fog. That's just disappointing. I could see running between two and two Moonmists in this deck. Yea, that seems about right!

Let's look at a list with the all the changes we talked about.

Aaawoooooooo!!!

Mayor of Secrets Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-11-13 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/23105.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 1 Birds of Paradise 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Mayor of Avabruck 4 Snapcaster Mage Instants 3 Disperse 4 Dissipate 4 Mana Leak 2 Moonmist 2 Think Twice Planeswalkers 2 Garruk Relentless Sorceries 2 Divination 2 Green Sun's Zenith 4 Ponder	Basic Lands 7 Forest 11 Island Lands 4 Hinterland Harbor	Sideboard: 1 Batterskull 2 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Sword of War and Peace 1 Tree of Redemption 2 Mind Control 2 Dismember 2 Naturalize 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

“You're too wedded to Think Twice.” —Caleb Durward

I'M TRYING, CALEB, I SWEAR!

I just can't get off Think Twice for some reason. I know it's not an amazing card by any means, but it's all we really have if we want to run counterspells.

Big thanks to Alian Robles for the Zenith Package. I always wanted to run more Mayors without cheating, and Green Sun lets us do that. It also allows us to grab a Birds of Paradise if we are low on mana or want something to carry a sword after board. The best part is we can run bullets like Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Thrun without overloading the main deck with them.

We have a lot of things going on in the board.

Mind Control:

I'm tired of my opponents slamming a Sphinx or Grave Titan and then drawing the counterspell. I'm just gonna take their fatty with Mind Control and have them deal with it. It's even better against a Birthing Pod opponent. Just casually take their six- or seven-drop. Thanks again to Alian for this idea!

Sword of War and Peace:

I will bring the Swords depending on the occasion. For red decks I will take out my Dissipates and a Divination in favor of Sword of War and Peace, Batterskull, and a Tree of Redemption. I still want to be aggressive with this deck, and that's the reason I'm not running Spellskite or more Tree of Redemptions.

Sword of Feast and Famine:

This sword should be a little more obvious. It's for Wolf Run and U/B decks. Against U/B decks, I don't want Moonmist or Disperse. I'd rather have two Sword of Feast and Famine, Thrun, Batterskull, and Mind Control. Mayor should flip, since he stays around anyway.

Against Wolf Run I want the Swords over Moonmist or Green Sun's Zenith. They can't really interact with your Mayor since they lack instants. In order to flip your Mayor back, they have to sandbag a Birds of Paradise and play two spells at once—which still leaves you in good shape. I would cut both Moonmist and Green Sun if I think they are bringing in Sword of Feast and Famine. I would bring in my Naturalize along with the Swords.

Naturalize:

This card shouldn't be too strange. It's mostly for Oblivion Rings or annoying pesky artifacts or enchantments. Against G/W decks I would bring in two Naturalize and two Dismembers—cutting Green Sun's and a couple of Dissipates most likely.

Now I'm really tempted to get out my painting pallet and change things up. What if we used a dark shade? How about black?

The Secret Of BUG Featured by Ali Aintrazi on 2011-11-13 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/23105.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Creatures 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Mayor of Avabruck 4 Snapcaster Mage Instants 1 Disperse 3 Dissipate 2 Doom Blade 3 Forbidden Alchemy 4 Mana Leak 2 Think Twice 1 Tribute to Hunger Planeswalkers 3 Garruk Relentless	Sorceries 1 Divination 4 Ponder Basic Lands 3 Forest 8 Island 1 Swamp Lands 4 Drowned Catacomb 4 Hinterland Harbor 4 Woodland Cemetery	Sideboard: 2 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Wurmcoil Engine 3 Phantasmal Image 2 Tree of Redemption 1 Disperse 2 Go for the Throat 2 Wring Flesh 1 Praetor's Grasp
Download this deck in Apprentice format!		Download this deck in Magic Online Text format!

Ahh, what a beautiful canvas!

We've upped the land count in this deck since we are playing with Forbidden Alchemy. It's like a blue-black tempo deck splashing green for Garruk Relentless. This deck is untested, but I can't wait to build it and try it out!

Sideboard:

We don't need Mind Control anymore since we can actually just kill their creatures. Praetor's Grasp is against a deck where we know the game is going to go long so we can steal one of their endgame threats and even flash it back with Snapcaster if need be later.

We also have a Wurmcoil Engine to tutor up with Garruk against aggressive decks later in the game. Having two Go for the Throats in the board will help us against Mono-Black Infect. Mono-Black Infect is also a bigger deck than Tempered Steel at the moment. Go for the Throats are also decent against G/W.

If you try out this deck, let me know how it does. I would love to talk about it! I could even see splashing green in a Blue-Black Control deck just for Garruk Relentless since Blue-Black Control doesn't have a cheap planeswalker that is good for it yet.

While we are on the topic of painting things black:

The Power 5

A quick rant...

We first saw Relic of Elequin; then we were introduced to Snare of Sarea. I know everyone thinks the Snare is insane, and they have the right to think that. But I don't think it's strictly better then Mana Drain or Time Walk. Time Walk you can set up to end the game. Mana Drain you can set up to end the game. Snare can also be setup to end the game, but you have to work much harder for it.

Another thing to remember: we only have one new power card per color—so we wanted them all to be on the same level as Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, and Sol Ring.

With that being said, I introduce Vespin's Riutal.

Art by studio2012.

Suppppaaaa Imperial Seal / Booster Tutor! Your opponent is playing a control deck? Punish him and get the best cards in the match. While not so crazy against an aggressive deck, it still serves its purpose. I love this card and can't wait to cast this spell! It. Is. Just. Bonkers.

As always, thanks for reading,

Ali of Notions