When I talked a few weeks back about the Armada Games EDH League regulars, I mentioned USF Freshman and newly minted Level 1 Judge Matt Newnam and featuring his Isperia deck. One of the things I like about the deck, a solid Blue-White Control effort, is that it strikes a good balance between being good and being fair. It’s a deck that requires some skill to play, some decision trees, and some clever evaluation of board states.
It’s clear that Matt took some inspiration from Caw-Blade decks—so much so that Armada Games employee and Monday Night Gamer Todd Palmer forced foil Player Rewards Squadron Hawks on him to use as tokens. A significant part of his offensive plan is to put a Sword on a flyer and get in there.
Matt likes the gamesmanship of using Isperia as his General, especially the initial guess. Even if he doesn’t connect with the ability, getting a good look into someone’s hand is a significant benefit playing a control-ish deck.
Isperia the Inscrutable: One of the many reasons I picked this deck to feature is that I had an Isperia deck built for me, and while it was some fun to play, it’s not really my style, but I want to acknowledge the viability of similar decks. I still think that I should play such decks on occasion in order to try to broaden my in-game skill set, but control is not really my cup of tea. I might go back to the deck if I could find my way to an aggressive blue-white build (maybe Humans?), although if I’m going aggressive blue-white, Geist of Saint Traft seems like a more solid choice (and I’m not playing Grand Arbiter). Isperia’s Sir Mix-a-Lot-loving backside will keep her in quite a few air battles, while people might not really fear the seemingly innocuous three power. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Matt get a General kill with Isperia, even when Sword-equipped.
ARTIFACTS (11)
Batterskull: Pricey cast and equip costs have kept Batterskull off my radar for a bit, but when it and the creature it’s attached to survive, it’s a real battering. I think lifelink is more meaningful in the format than it has previously been because we tend to see fewer General kills these days compared to earlier days of the format.
Coalition Relic: I like this more in active decks than reactive ones, but it’s pretty good no matter what. I like it even better with proliferate.
Darksteel Ingot: Five-dollar foil commons!!! This format rules.
Mana Crypt: Matt’s playing his Judge Foil, the art for which is kind of meh. One of the issues with Mana Crypt in a control deck is that it will kill eventually kill you if you don’t gain some life. In fact, in the last game we played, Matt’s Mana Crypt did 27 damage to him, to include the last 3.
Mind Stone: Simple but effective design. Acceleration early, self-replacement late. I’d obviously love to see more cards that have this kind of ability set. Maybe there’s some continuation on this and Heart Warden. A cycle of cycling, if you will.
Sensei’s Divining Top: Matt knows how to Top for maximum time savings, so no objections.
Skullclamp: Skullclamp is just good anyway, but when you landfall into creating one-toughness tokens, it’s even better.
Sol Ring: I really want to say this (again) without sounding too harsh: it’s not getting banned. I don’t want to tell you what to do with your time, but my opinion is that you’re wasting it in what has become an argument that the two sides are never going to change the other’s opinions on.
Sword of Feast and Famine: In evaluating which is the most dangerous of all these Swords, you have to consider that control decks untapping all their lands can be pretty bad for the rest of us. I’m still a little head-scratchy about the fact that the Sword of Feast and Famine doesn’t do anything like the instant Feast or Famine. Is it just the and vs. or?
Sword of Fire and Ice: See? This equipment does just what the similarly named card does. Remember that if the target for the shock becomes illegal, you don’t draw the card.
Sword of War and Peace: I love it that this punishes greedy card-drawers. The life gain is pretty nice as well.
CREATURES (14)
Adarkar Valkyrie: Folks forget that this can target other peoples’ stuff. Nice anti-Wrath (or even Wrath combo) tech.
Aven Mindcensor: Players in the Armada League have discovered this card, and several of them are playing it. I can’t count the number of times when I’ve done stuff (“sac my Yavimaya Elder”) only to face-palm when someone points out the Mindcensor is in play.
Consecrated Sphinx: I got a few questions at GP Orlando about potential banning of this card, and while I don’t see any reasons for it at the moment, it’s the kind of card that will always stay on the radar. Card draw for zero mana is always on the verge of broken.
Draining Whelk: A card that got played in abundance when it first came, it then fell by the wayside; we’re seeing a bit of a resurgence for it. I can easily see it going into the Ruhan deck. It would be a beating to first Parallectric Feedback some giant spell and then Whelk it. The beating of all beatings of course is Twincasting someone’s Tooth and Nail, then getting this and countering theirs.
Emeria Angel: One of Matt’s favorite cards in the deck, and I agree. Getting flying dudes for the small “price” of dropping a land (again, to Clamp up) is a good deal.
Karmic Guide: Looking at the price of foil versions of the Guide, I’m glad I got mine orders of magnitude ago.
Mulldrifter: I rarely Evoke Mulldrifter except in emergency situations (or if there’s some kind of setup reason to do it, like in Thraximundar). I always feel like spending those two extra mana is going to save me some damage from a big, fat flyer at some point.
Phantasmal Image: This card is a bit of a house in Standard, where there are even fewer ridiculous things to copy than in EDH.
Reveillark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Karmic Guide, so forth and so on.
Snapcaster Mage: I’m not sure whether folks are just saving them for their competitive format decks or the folks that play in the competitive formats have grabbed up all of them, but I don’t see this played much in EDH. Perhaps the prohibitive price is a factor, or that when games go longer, exiling things isn’t as good as recurring them.
Sower of Temptation: You can’t count on keeping the creature, so I think most effective use of this is to clear the path for your battles.
Stoneforge Mystic: The Swords being an operative part of Matt’s deck, the Mystic is a necessity. It can also help get a bit of a discount on getting that Batterskull onto the battlefield.
Stonehewer Giant: Far more expensive and slower than the Stoneforge Mystic, the Giant is also that much more efficient.
Sturmgeist: A piece of artwork that I’m pretty fond of, Sturmgeist helps buff up his own power and toughness. If I had to choose between this and Overbeing of Myth (obviously not a choice available in this deck), I think I’d choose the Overbeing since the card draw comes even in a locked up board state.
Sun Titan: There are quite a few saucy targets in the deck for the Sun Titan. It’s obviously help for getting back the Swords that people blow up.
ARTIFACT CREATURES (3)
Duplicant: Still one of the best value cards in the history of the game, Duplicant is a valid target for Reveillark, which in the end seems kind of silly.
Phyrexian Metamorph: Speaking of valid Reveillark targets…
Solemn Simulacrum: We’ve just started watching Modern Family, one of the funniest shows on TV in a long time. Reminds me a bit of the great Arrested Development. My point is Sofia Vergara.
LEGENDARY CREATURES
Geist of Saint Traft: Matt occasionally swaps this in as the General for the deck when he feels like playing a little more aggressively. When the Geist was originally spoiled, I heard a great deal of chatter about ways people were going to break it as a General, none of which I’ve seen.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence: If you’ll follow me into the Reasonable Protection Aisle, we’ll see Linvala. She’s a card both worth playing and worth killing.
Reya Dawnbringer: Either Reya is a recent addition to the deck or needs to get replaced because I don’t recall seeing it ever in play.
Sakashima the Imposter: We’ve previously talked about the value of copy effects (and Rich Hagon and I talked a good deal about it on the GP Orlando coverage), and Sakashima is a great example of letting someone else pay the big price for something while getting it cheaper for yourself. All in all, I find this an extremely well-designed card.
Vendilion Clique: I’m not really sure why this is legendary save for the fact that it might be bonkers in multiples (in other formats, obv).
Venser, Shaper Savant: Most of the time used to bounce a permanent instead of a spell, I very much like the flexibility of Venser. Given the style of the deck, I wonder why he’s not also playing Venser’s Journal.
ENCHANTMENTS (2)
Copy Enchantment: Value, value, value. Copy Enchantment gives the deck’s limited colors access to all colors of enchantments at a discount price. Three for a Mirari’s Wake? Deal.
Land Tax: In a void, Land Tax seems like a good choice, but I’ve seen Matt skip using it quite a bit because he doesn’t want to discard, especially on early turns. Without the ability to dump some of your hand to let Land Tax fill it back up, it seems less useful. In this deck, Weathered Wayfarer might be a little more interesting.
INSTANTS (15)
Capsize: Old-school tech, Capsize is the original reason I started packing sacrifice outlets for my stuff.
Cryptic Command: I’ve said before that I don’t like in the format counterspells that don’t do something else significant; Cryptic Command is the model for counterspells that do LOTS of stuff.
Desertion: I wonder if I could lobby someone to get this reprinted in foil.
Enlightened Tutor: Obviously Matt is most often going for a Sword with this piece from Magic’s elder days.
Fact or Fiction: No one calls this by its name any more; it’s always “FOF.” Unless the situation is desperate, I generally think doing 5-0 splits with this is collusive.
Force of Will: EDH is the format where you’re likely to see Force of Will hard cast most often.
Hinder: Hello, Mr. General. I like the Player Rewards full art better than the Kamigawa, but the PR doesn’t come in foil.
Mirrorweave: I love this card, and every time I see Matt play it, it makes me want to put it into one of my own appropriately colored decks. It’s a great example of a card you need to think about before you play, judging the board state for maximum value.
Mystical Tutor: I imagine there are tons of newer players who ask “What the hell is a mana source???”
Path to Exile: One-for-one trades are generally weaker in this format because you have multiple opponents. When they’re aggressively costed like this and Swords to Plowshares, they’re more attractive.
Pongify: Speaking of aggressively costed, making a Monkey (okay, Ape) out of someone is always full of laughs.
Return to Dust: In Matt’s notes to me, he mentioned this “might as well be a sorcery.” It started me on a path of wondering if you could make most of your spot removal from cards that exile things, especially given the amount of recursion going around. Further investigation to be made.
Spelljack: If you could only play one 3UUU card in this format, would it be Spelljack or Gather Specimens? Other choices include Amnesia, Arcanis the Omnipotent, Guile, Inundate, Roil Elemental, Sphinx of the Magosi, and Volition Reins, plus Dovescape, Fable of Wolf and Owl, Mindwrack Liege, and Oona, Queen of the Fae.
Swords to Plowshares: See Path to Exile.
Trickbind: Split second is a mechanic I wouldn’t mind explored a little further. I still think Sudden Spoiling is my favorite, but Trickbind is almost always a pretty good blowout as well.
PLANESWALKERS (7)
Elspeth, Knight-Errant: I can’t say too much about Elspeth that hasn’t already been said. It’s a card that gets people scared, so squeezing off her ultimate is extremely difficult.
Gideon Jura: A favorite in Standard a rotation ago, we don’t see much of Gideon these days. Compared to other planeswalkers, he seems a little mediocre in this format.
Jace Beleren: People with Baby Jace always say they’re making friends, but they’re lying.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: Another card that gets people’s hackles to rise (justifiably), I don’t think I’ve ever seen the -12 ability pulled off in an EDH game.
Karn Liberated: People were really scared Karn was going to be a format-warping card, and I’ve seen no evidence to that effect. Just like in current Standard, his use is EDH is mostly just exiling stuff and not in restarting games.
Tezzeret the Seeker: Matt’s worked further redundancy into getting those Swords. In this deck, Tezzeret almost always gets a Sword then either Skullclamp or Top and then goes away.
Venser, the Sojourner: I really love this card because of the three very distinct and very different abilities. I think the ability to make dudes unblockable is under-used.
SORCERIES (4)
Austere Command: This seems to me to be one of the first cards you pick up when you’re building a white deck with any control elements.
Day of Judgment: The number of regenerating creatures in the format is pretty low, so there’s no appreciable downside to playing the Day. It’s not Wrath, but it’s close enough.
Recurring Insight: A card that surprisingly rarely gets countered. Six mana to draw in the neighborhood of 15 cards over two turns is seriously good.
Wrath of God: The original board sweeper is still the best.
LANDS (20)
I won’t comment individually on Matt’s lands. It’s a pretty standard suite of what you’d expect in the colors. The Academy Ruins doesn’t really fuel anything nasty, so it’s a rare case that it actually gets Wastelanded. I’d save my targeted destruction for the Mazes. The only one I’m not sure about is the choice of Windbrisk Heights. In this deck, I think I’d rather play Mistveil Plains.
Adarkar Wastes
Boreal Shelf
Calciform Pools
Celestial Colonnade
Command Tower
Dust Bowl
Flooded Strand
Glacial Fortress
Hallowed Fountain
Homeward Path
Maze of Ith
Misty Rainforest
Moorland Haunt
Mystic Gate
Mystifying Maze
Reliquary Tower
Sejiri Refuge
Tundra
Vesuva
Windbrisk Heights
LEGENDARY LANDS (1)
BASIC LANDS (15)
There’s Matt’s deck, which Embraces a reasonable amount of Chaos. Again, I think it embodies the spirit of the format, strong with a view toward making the game interesting and fun for everyone involved. If this is your style of deck, I encourage you to sleeve it up, maybe make a few personal tweaks, and give it a run.