It's been a while since I put my fingers to the keyboard. I decided that before I wrote about another deck I ought to earn a little street cred. So I went out and played in a couple of local four-round tournaments... and I didn't lose a single match with this deck. My records were 4-0 and 3-0-1, coming in first and second, respectively.
When I first saw the Dissension spoiler I was not only annoyed and disappointed, I was downright pissed off. I wanted the Azorius Senate to be all about permission and Wrath effects. So, when it turned out that the Guild's biggest theme was “small fliers,” I got upset. I was so disgruntled that I hacked off my legs and became a pirate, ultimately joining up with Gruul's Scab-Clan. I was later kicked out when a Burning-Tree Shaman caught me playing Jenga.
With nowhere left to turn, I decided to give those Azorius cards a try.
At first I was all over the beautifully illustrated, but usually underwhelming, Windreaver. Then I read the comprehensive rules Ravnica update, and learned that a single Jitte counter in response to switching Windreaver's Power and Toughness will kill the ‘Reaver*.
Then I was on to Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. He seemed so cool, until I realized that almost all the time he's just a 2/3 Annex**. They go down one mana and you go up one. Then he dies to Mortify, Lightning Helix, Wrath of God, or Volcanic Hammer. Seriously, the man is so freakin' old that they had to write about his medical IV right on the card.
That was basically it; I was going to leave the Hallowed Fountain adorned Azorius Chanceries and stick with Orzhov control. Until the pre-release, that is. In my first flight (placed 4th ,4-1) I had Pride of the Clouds, two Azorius First-Wings, two Freewind Equenauts, and a couple of other fliers.
I felt the power of a 5/5 Flier for two mana, and there was no turning back.
Small fliers ho! Hmm, an aggro deck, not something I'm particularly fond of, or good at. When I got home from the pre-release I hastily jotted down some initial lists. Sometimes I'd get these fantastic starts; Lantern Kami, into First-Wing, into Pride, followed by the infamous Jitte and equip play. Then I'd lose when Wrathy G or a channeled Arashi would kill my team***.
As I implied, I'm not a very good beatdown player. I either over extend or I hold back when I should go all in. I needed some control elements. I began examining some other successful decklists and decided to take a page out of the Hand in Hand playbook and try out a couple of Paladins En-Vec and Descendants of Kiyomaro.
Oh yeah, and some Counterspells… those are pretty good. Here's the winning list:
I'm going to break the rules and leave out the usual section in which the author says insightful things such as “Jitte is good” and “Remand is neato”. Instead I'm going to go over my reasoning for so many three-ofs and two-ofs.
The theory behind running three Devouring Lights is that you really only need them in the later part of the game, when your opponent is playing legendary dragon spirits or other board dominating fatties. Generally speaking, Spell Snare is used early against opposing Jittes or late against opposing Mana Leaks. Occasionally you can Snare some two-mana dude like a Hand of Cruelty or a Dryad Sophisticate. Pride of the Clouds is almost exclusively used to Forecast in the late game, so three is the perfect number.
Paladin En-Vec is amazing at times and just a 2/2 First-Striker at others, hence two in the main and an extra in the board. Do you seem to have more cards in hand than your foe does? Great, bring in the additional Descendant for games 2 and 3. If the answer was no, then board out Kiyomaro's brood for something more useful.
In testing, my worst matches have been against Ghazi-Glare style mid-range aggro. In other words, Loxodon Hierarchs who are surrounded by ways to win the Jitte war are pretty good against this pile. The best matches feature cards that say either Rakdos or Hellbent anywhere on them.
I wrote, and deleted, and re-wrote a sideboarding section against specific decks, then I just gave up after realizing that there are simply too many viable decks for me to write a guide against all of them. Here, then, is a two-part guide against certain established archetypes and against more vague deck outlines.
Versus Magni-Fire
-3 Pride of the Clouds
+1 Paladin En-Vec
+1 Descendant of Kiyomaro
+1 Spell Snare
Your goal in this match is to get Paladin En-Vec down and Jitte him up. Spell Snare comes in to help against Eye of Nowhere and Pyroclasm. And Descendant is simply better than Pride in this match. Of importance is also the concept of holding back some land. Once you have enough mana (usually four), keep the rest back to help out the Descendants and make recovering from land destruction easier.
Versus Gruul Beats
-4 Remand
-3 Spell Snare
+3 Wrath of God
+3 Threads of Disloyalty
+1 Descendant of Kiyomaro
If at all possible, you want to wait until they cast Moldervine Cloak before stealing their guys with Threads. If you see Burning-Tree Shaman that's your cue to Wrath, even if it's the only dude they have on the board. Shaman with Cloak is very difficult to for you otherwise. The overall strategy in this conflict is to clog up the ground and abuse Guildmages then fly over for the win.
Versus Orzhov aggro
-2 Descendant of Kiyomaro
-4 Remand
Husk;
+3 Pithing Needle
+1 Kami of Ancient Law
+2 Wrath of God
Hand in Hand;
+3 Threads of Disloyalty
+3 Wrath of God
Against Husk you want to land a Needle on the Husk itself and then do your best to establish mid-game control through flyers and Guildmage. Against Hand in Hand you want to steal Dark Confidant or a board influencing Hand of Anything. For example if they have a couple of Rusalkas and Hand of Cruelty, you would want the Hand of Honor… whereas if they have Paladin and Hand of Honor, you want Hand of Cruelty. This will allow you to clog the ground and fly over for a late-game victory.
Versus Ghazi-X
-2 Paladin En-Vec
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Pride of the Clouds
+3 Pithing Needle
+3 Wrath of God
Glare;
-1 additional Pride of the Clouds
+1 Kami of Ancient Law
Chord;
-2 additional Pride of the Clouds
+2 Hinder
Needle. Needle. Needle. On Vitu-Ghazi, Glare of Subdual, and Selesnya Guildmage. Prayer. Prayer. Prayer. That is all.
Versus confused about guild loyalty-Tron
-2 Descendant of Kiyomaro
-3 Pride of the Clouds
+2 Hinder
Meloku;
+3 Pithing Needle
Simic Sky Swallower
-1 Devouring Light
+1 Spell Snare
+3 Wrath of God
Use Spell Snare on their Signets! Give Jitte to a weenie, and protect that guy! I love exclamation points!!! The Sky Swallowing version of the deck is by far the harder one to deal with. Guildmage can't cancel his abilities, and naming SSS with a Needle is totally useless. Against the Meloku, Keiga, and burn approach, this match is in your favor; against triple S… eh, not so much.
Versus Heartbeat Harvester
Pffft…hehehehe… OH! Oh sorry, I can't help but laugh when I think about this “match.” This is so far in your favor that it really is funny. Guildmages in the main really hurt the Heartbeat player. Simply put, Azorius Guildmage absolutely trumps Transmute. Remand and Mana Leak will allow you to reach the mid to late game and completely own with Guildmage.
Oh right, some sideboarding;
-3 Devouring Light
-3 Spell Snare
+1 Kami of Ancient Law
+2 Hinder
+3 Pithing Needle
This board scheme will leave you wide-open for the “man plan,” which I must say sounds like something to be discussed on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. However, in my experience, no one is still trying to use that method. If you're worried about it, then just swap your Spell Snares out for Pithing Needles.
Versus Firemane/Weirding
The first thing I want to say is that this deck should really be called Zur's Angels. Isn't that just a bit cooler than Firemane Angel Weirding? It can be this whole fun Charlie's Angels thing wherein you send your Firemanes on special mission and force your opponents to call you Bosley…
-3 Spell Snare
-2 Descendant of Kiyomaro
+2 Hinder
+1 Kami of Ancient Law
+2 Pithing Needle
You have plenty of time with which to find your Needle and say “Firemane Angel.” Put on pressure early and ride it to victory. I have never lost this match, and frankly the round timer is a bigger threat than this deck.
That concludes the specific matches section. I want to just take a second to talk about a couple of common decisions that come up when playing this deck.
When you're on the play, you want to hold back on turn 2 and save a mana for a counter. Make your opponent work to resolve anything. Once you've hit the four or five mana mark then start playing out your men. This will allow to play and equip Jitte in the same turn, to play and activate Guildmage or to begin Forecasting an army of Bird tokens.
On the draw, you want to get men out quickly and use your counters to protect them. The only real exception here is that you want to leave mana open for Spell Snare instead of playing Sleight of Hand on your first turn. Even if you're just bluffing. This deck has a lot of tools for the player who is adept at bluffing.
Now lets' say that you have to play a guy and you're gripping more than one weenie (oh my!). Play out men in this order:
Azorius First-Wing
Paladin En-Vec
Descendant of Kiyomaro
Azorius Guildmage
Pride of Clouds
This will maximize your pressure while protecting your resources. I have forced many people to Wrath my First-Wing. Someone can only take two (or more, including Jitte) for so long before needing to do something to stop the bleeding.
Finally, bluff, bluff, bluff! Hold that Island you just drew and front a counterspell. Count your White creatures every time someone moves to beginning of combat to fake a D-Light. This is the type of deck that makes an opponent think ahead and worry themselves, often leading to a critical mistake that you can exploit.
Most of all - have fun with it, because this deck is a blast to play!
Vrax
Vraxgrimm@”yo'momma so ugly her nickname is Damn!”Gmail.com
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*Windreaver's controller could obviously respond by switching the P/T again, but when the stack resolves there will be a point at which Windreaver has one toughness and -1/-1 thus being reduced to zero toughness and dying as a state-based effect. For more information see section 418.5 of the comprehensive rules. Yes, they could also return Windy to hand, at which point they've spent 3WUUU to get exactly one counter off of your Jitte.
** Unless you're playing Dovescape, in which case he is some sort of living God.
*** At four mana a channeled Arashi (with X being two) would kill the aforementioned air force. After Kami and First-Wing die, the Pride has one toughness and two damage. Darn those SBEs.
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