I originally wanted to write a guide on Standard UW Control however with rotation coming up so quickly it will be obsolete information. Instead, I want to write about the future of UW Control and where I believe it will stand post rotation. The biggest thing you want to look at when trying to carry an archetype over to a new era of Standard is first looking at what cards you are going to lose. My decklist that I currently have been running to great success is as follows:

27 Lands

0 creatures

“Just the way I like it!” – Joby Parrish

33 Spells

Looking at this list, we keep a lot of the cards after rotation, which is an excellent start. However, we do lose some major key cards that will need to find a similar replacement. Luckily so far with spoilers coming out we already have some good replacement cards for the cards we are losing.

While we have some replacements that I think are actually better than what we currently have, we do not have replacements for some of the biggest cards we need alternatives for. Not all is lost, however, because I do believe I found a solution, which is to turn the deck into Esper Control. 3 Cast Outs turn into 3 Price of Fame – not only do we get the surveil which is as close as you get to cycle but Price of Fame will sometimes cost half the cost. To replace our 7 mana win con, 2 Approach of the Second Sun, we can add 2 Chromium which has the potential of being a better clock than Approach does. This gives us the opportunity to replace the lands we have with black lands without compromising our mana base too harshly. If I were to run this deck tomorrow, this is the what I believe the final list would be:

Lands

2 Memorial to Genius

4 Glacial Fortress

1 Field of Ruin

3 Isolated Chapel

3 Drowned Catacomb

1 Swamp

7 Plains

6 Islands

 

Creatures

2 Chromium

Spells

1 Negate

3 Settle the Wreckage

2 Search for Azcanta

2 Essence Scatter

4 Sinister Sabotage

4 Seal Away

3 Price of Fame

4 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

2 Cleansing Nova

2 Syncopate

4 Chemister’s insight

Obviously, we still need to test the new list, but I think I’m heading in the right direction for the new evolution of my favorite UW Deck! What do you think? What kind of changes would you make? Let me know in the comments!

I look forward to sitting across from you at future events and testing it out!