UW Control For The Rest Of Us
Hey there everybody. Long time since my last post, but things have been crazy lately. I have been really enjoying Chapin’s UW build from PT San Diego, but like most of us “aspiring” professional players, the build can be a little unforgiving. Playing the wrong land turn 3 can lose you the game by turn 7. This type of powerful deck can be likened to a precise scalpel; capable of miraculous things in a trained set of hands, and a glorified paring knife to the rest of us. In light of the recent surge of Jund’s popularity, I figured that anything I can do to bolster that matchup would be of benefit to the deck. I’m no expert mind you, but I have always been a UW player at heart, with Old School Counter Post being my favourite deck of all time. I felt that in order for me to have success with this archetype, I needed to make it a little more forgiving. I decided that I needed what every good discerning mage needed… time to think. 
I went ahead and took a look at the Flores UWR concoction during his you make the call article, and decided that I wanted to use some creatures that even Sir-Mix-A-Lot would love to protect my Jaces. Having creatures that don’t die to the Jund suite of removal seemed like a great idea, and it allowed me to control my matches through maintaining board parity, instead of relying heavily on the right mix of sub standard countermagic. I took Mike’s advice here though, and then lowered the number of wrath effects main in order to be able to get more out of my shroudy dudes.
Here is the deck list. Kudos to ManaNation for creating mtgurl.com…
I have played a bunch of games with this, and in using the sideboard effectively, have been able to fend off all comers. The idea behind the deck is to create situations where it is impossible for your opponent to generate profitable attacks, and then proceed to Jace them out. The shroud and firewalkers make this easy against Jund, as your counters can be saved for blightning and pulses; the only two spells that matter game one. Game two allows you to adjust your removal and counters to be even more effective. Luminarch Ascension beside Jace allows you to create some very difficult scenarios for your opponent to deal with; do I bolt Jace, or the player? The creatures aren’t getting through anyway, so these choices become more relevant.
My experiences with Chapin’s list opened my eyes to the wonder that is the Perimeter Captain. Whenever I drew the miser’s copy of it after boarding, I felt my blood pressure drop. This guy was so good against early aggro by himself, that I almost maindecked him. In light of the Jund popularity though, the firewalker got the nod. Bringing in the Captains against mono red and other non pulse/terminate decks is amazing. the life gain is a huge boon, and contributes greatly to the creation of the non-profitable combat situations that we are looking for with this deck.
I hope that you enjoy this list as much as I have. Unlike the Master’s build, this one is very forgiving. There is something to be said about being able to +2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor on the first turn that you play it, because the board is otherwise locked out… by turn 4.
Love to see some comments. Feel free to post.
Big Thanks to the Yo! MTG Taps Crew for their continued support and hard work. If you dont listen to their podcast on MTGCAST.COM or iTunes, then you are missing out.
-MrScottyMac
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