Now hear me out. The claim that Azorius Control could be the answer to the two current behemoths of the standard ladder (plus the ever growing contingent of white weenie decks) may seem laughable, until you change your focus on the win condition.
Thanks to the Kaldheim Mythic Angel of Destiny we can make use of two: We can either deplete their life total or raise our own. What generally happens is both, with one of the two eventually killing them. Here’s how it works.
The Gameplan of the Deck
The game plan here is classic control. You want to disrupt their gameplan, mainly through the use of counters. Then when the opportunity is right in the end game, you want to quickly ramp up damage and life gain with Righteous Valkyrie and Angel of Destiny and win by either 1) depleting their life total, or 2) raising your own above 35+ to trigger the Angel of Destiny win condition.
The Decklist
- 4 Fading Hope (CMC: 1)
- 4 Dawnbringer Cleric (CMC: 2)
- 4 Negate (CMC: 2)
- 4 Reject (CMC: 2)
- 4 Righteous Valkyrie (CMC: 3)
- 4 Saw It Coming (CMC: 3)
- 2 Memory Deluge (CMC: 4)
- 3 Angel of Destiny (CMC: 5)
- 1 Doomskar (CMC: 5)
Mana Sources
- 4 Skyclave Cleric (CMC: 2)
- 4 Jwari Disruption (CMC: 2)
- 2 Cave of the Frost Dragon
- 4 Plains
- 2 Hall of Storm Giants
- 6 Island
- 4 Deserted Beach
- 4 Hengegate Pathway
Sideboard
- 4 Depart the Realm (CMC: 2)
- 3 Disdainful Stroke (CMC: 2)
- 3 Into the Roil (CMC: 2)
- 3 Test of Talents (CMC: 2)
- 1 Memory Deluge (CMC: 4)
- 1 Doomskar (CMC: 5)
The Matchups
Izzet Epiphany
The key in this matchup is to always keep enough mana open for a counter and to find your moments for inserting your angels and clerics.
In the end game, you have two main win conditions:
- The usual depletion of health. You can achieve this by layering Righteous Valkyrie with other angels and clerics to get the +2/+2 boost and then just hammering your opponent in the air. Also the inclusion of two blue and two white creature lands here is crucial as it gives you that extra threat that they can’t use counter magic on.
- Thanks to the Angel of Destiny you have a second win condition which is to pump life gain with your clerics and angels to 35+ to trigger the Angel of Destiny’s win condition. You can see that win condition in action in the second game of the video below.
Mono Green Aggro
The matchups listed here are in order of likelihood of a win in the first game. Izzet Epiphany is our strongest matchup as we have a pretty high density of counters and even the creature counters and bounces aren’t useless thanks to the prevelance of Smoldering Egg and Goldspan Dragon in the meta.
Mono green is still consistently winnable, but it does take a bit more care. Your non-creature spell counters in the maindeck become less effective thanks to the lower density of spells in your opponent’s deck and the speed and power of their board state can get out of your control quickly if you’re not careful.
To win, you really need to balance out bouncing their creatures with inserting your own, and know when to chump block with your clerics and when to take the damage and make up for it with life gain.
In the post board game here you probably want to add in the extra bounces, take out some of the non-creature counters and add in your extra Doomskar.
White Weenies
This might seem like a very inefficient solution to a white weenie matchup. And it is. There’s far better options with wrath cards in red and black (and even white). White weenies aren’t particularly hard to deal with in the current meta. What IS difficult is a deck that can stand up to both mono green, Izzet epiphany AND white weenies. Hence this strategy.
Of the three decks in the meta that this Azoruis Control deck faces, the white weenies matchup is probably it’s weakest. In a BO3 this can be easily remedied post sideboard with an extra Doomskar and by swapping out most of the spell counters for creature removal and more creature counter magic.
The same as in the other matchups, the game plan of this deck is simple: Classic control, bounce and/or chump block their creatures, counter their spells and then win quickly by either the usual method or by raising your own life more than 15+ above the starting line using your Righteous Valkyrie and Angel of Destiny.
If you do try this deck out, drop me a line and let me know how it goes. If you figure out any improvements, I’d love to hear about it!
Rogue Deck 