For the Standard Singleton format, players are allowed to play one copy of any card between their deck and sideboard. The minimum deck size is 60, and the pool of legal cards is limited to the sets currently in Standard. I've been playing Grixis Control in the format, in the beginning mostly due to card availability, but I've stuck with it as it proved itself to be a strong contender.

In this format, the most popular deck seems to be Naya/Jund based aggro. These decks tend to use planeswalkers such as Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth, and Garruk Wildspeaker to complement a difficult to handle creature suite of Woolly Thoctar, Baneslayer Angel, Battlegrace Angle, Thornling, and more. Due to the omnipresence of Bloodbraid Elf, Enlisted Wurm, and Ranger of Eos, these decks can keep the gas going in the mid to late game, effectively negating the diminished value of mana accelerators at that point.

The deck that I've designed is equipped to deal with the creature based threats on a 1-for-1 basis, then pull ahead with card drawing. Planeswalkers are solved using fliers, discard, or bounce effects. After a Cruel Ultimatum or Mind Spring for 5 or more, the game is usually over since I will be able to easily outpower their topdecks while committing difficult to answer threats such as Sphinx of Jwar Isle or Siege-Gang Commander. The decklist:

GG Grixis
Creatures: 1 Merfolk Looter 1 Goblin Ruinblaster 1 Siege-Gang Commander 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle 1 Hypnotic Specter 1 Vampire Nighthawk 1 Djinn of Wishes   Spells: 1 Ponder 1 Deathmark 1 Duress 1 Lightning Bolt 1 Armillary Sphere 1 Essence Scatter 1 Negate 1 Dark Temper 1 Divination 1 Doom Blade 1 Terminate 1 Agony Warp 1 Soul Manipulation 1 Diabolic Tutor 1 Cruel Ultimatum 1 Mind Spring 1 Mind Shatter 1 Blightning 1 Bituminous Blast 1 Deathmark 1 Ice Cage 1 Covenant of Minds 1 Mind Control 1 Grixis Charm 1 Traumatic Visions 1 Absorb Vis 1 Obelisk of Alara 1 Lavaball Trap Mana: 5 Island 4 Mountain 5 Swamp 1 Akoum Refuge 1 Arcane Sanctum 1 Crumbling Necropolis 1 Dragonskull Summit 1 Drowned Catacomb 1 Jwar Isle Refuge 1 Savage Lands 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Terramorphic Expanse 1 Veinfire Borderpost 1 Mistvein Borderpost	Sidboard: 1 Black Knight 1 Clone 1 Flashfreeze 1 Goblin Outlander 1 Infest 1 Magma Phoenix 1 Pithing Needle 1 Pyroclasm 1 Quenchable Fire 1 Rite of Replication 1 Twincast 1 Vampire Hexmage 1 Voices from the Void 1 Wretched Banquet 1 Zombie Outlander

The sideboard uses pro-bears to slow down aggressive Naya decks as well as provide reasonable attackers against planeswalkers, which the maindeck is a bit soft against. Quenchable  Fire is another tool to fight walkers, alongside the Pithing Needle. Twincast, Voices from the Void, and Clone are brought in for the control mirror, which usually features shroud creatures such as Sphinx of Jwar Isle or Empyrial Archangel.

This deck is modified from my top 4 deck the week before, the main differences being I've moved Phoenix to the board for the control matchup, and replaced Pyroclasm maindeck with Lavaball Trap. The relative speed of Pyroclasm isn't as important since you do only have one copy in the deck. Whereas Lavaball provides twice the sweeping power and takes out two lands to boot.

As a rule, I draw first in this format. With the nature of singleton, having more consistent mana development has been more instrumental in winning games than the tempo of playing first. Also, decks tend to be slower and trying to win by bombing out your opponents tends to be a popular strategies. Going second also makes any discard effects that much more brutal.

Round 1: Andurill66 with Grixis splash W control.

Game 1:

I Duress away a Cancel, leaving him with Countersquall and some removal. My turn three Nighthawk is bolted, and we settle down to draw-go. I tap out for Siege-Gang, which he Oblivion Rings on his turn. The tokens annoy his life total for a bit, while I sit on Cruel and wait for an opening to bait out the countersquall. Turns out he drew his Cruel and casts it with 2 open for Countersquall. I have 5 cards in hand to his 1. So I cast Grixis Charm to bounce the Oblivion Ring, attempting to bait the counter. He takes the bait and Cruel takes out my other three cards. This play is absolutely wrong since the last card in my hand will obviously be worth countering whereas giving me back Siege-Gang temporarily isn't very relevant since Cruel puts him at a high enough life total. I cruel him back on my turn, and from there easily contain his Sphinx of Jwar Isle with my Vampire Nighthawk and contain his threats until my Obelisk of Alara finishes him off.

Game 2: 

He Duresses my Mind Control on 1, Then follows up with Courier's Capsule. I Pithing Needle the Capsule, as in the control mirror card advantage is king. He then plays Scepter of Fugue, which slowly grinds out my hand. My Mind Shatter repays the favor and we go into a topdeck battle where he draws the first creature in Sedraxis Specter and I just eat damage from it until I die.

Game 3:

In this game I make a grave misplay on turn three when I cast Duress and he responds with Swerve. I reflex Negate his Swerve, without bothering to check that Duress reads "Target opponent" and his Swerve would've actually done nothing. My Duress takes a Liliana Vess out of a mana-light hand. His Blightning is counteracted by my Covenant of Minds, which draws three lands. I outmana him the entire game, and my Goblin Ruinblaster sets him further behind. He attempts to Celestial Purge the goblin, and I use Bituminous Blast, which cascades into Pithing Needle, which I set to Obelisk of Alara that I know is the last card in his hand. He resolves Mind Spring for only 4 due to mana constraints, and I'm now sorely missing my negate. He eventually lands Luminarch Ascension, which I have only Lightning Bolt to answer. Luckily, I rip Hexmage, and can Flashfreeze his Double Negative. Hexmage buys me 3 counters off the Luminarch and 5 life as his Shpinx does not swing that turn. That time buys me into Cruel Ultimatum, which draws all gas. He topdecks Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker and takes control of my Djinn of Wishes, and I'm happy I kept that Lightning Bolt to deal with it. A Siege-Gang Commander later and it's all over.

Round 2: Gainsay with Bant Control

Game 1:

He plays turn 2 Luminarch Ascension. I accelerate with turn 3 Borderpost into turn three Deny Reality. The Deny cascades into Mind Shatter, and is countered. My Cruel Ultimatum to follow up is too slow to stop the horde of angels eating me alive.

Game 2: I set him back on mana with an early Ruinblaster on Rupture Spire, and pull ahead with Covenant of Minds. Bituminous Blast cascades into Diabolic Tutor, which I use to find Cruel. I Deny Reality his Baneslayer Angel, and get Blightning on the Cascade. Duess on his Planar Cleansing leaves his hand as Baneslayer and Bant Charm with a Scepter of Insight in play. I really don't like Scepter in this format, as it takes 11 mana to be up a card, whereas Divination takes only 3 mana. The Scepter is so slow and drains resources that I can't see it as being better than Mind Spring or Covenant as a CA engine. Cruel comes down in short order, and I Needle the Scepter to cut his options down. He concedes.

Game 3: I open on Duress, and see a hand with no more lands and just a Birds of Paradise. My Duress takes (Elspeth) over Path to Exile as I have no creatures. I leave him with irrelevant 5 drops. Mind Shatter is Negated, but and my Bituminous Blast on his Birds is met with Path. However, I do get to cascade into Diabolic for Cruel again. His fifth land comes a turn later and comes into play tapped. So his Acidic Slime never makes it into play. The one-two punch of Voices of the Void into Cruel Ultimatum makes him hellbent. Mind Spring for 6 is enough to earn the concession.

Round 3: Unfortunately I don't have replays available for this match. I do remember a point where he had Elspeth, and I attacked him with Hypnotic to make him discard one of the three cards in his hand. I'm pretty sure one of the games he was stuck on three lands, and I cast Lavaball Trap for his board. He conceded with a sole mountain in play and 2 cards in hand. So I think he was some kind of W/G deck, probably using the various planeswalkers and heavy hitters like Baneslayer Angel and Thornling. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Round 4: ChrisKool with Naya Aggro.

Game 1:

I Agony Warp a turn 2 Qasali Pridemage to protect my borderpost, and let 2/2 Protean Hydra beat down for a while. Deathmawk answers Dauntless Escort, and Grixis Charm eventually gets rid of Hydra. I land an Obelisk of Alara, but he rips the fifth mana for Acidic Slime. I race with Slime against Great Sable Stag with Absorb Vis providing a nice cushion. Unfortunately his followup of Captain of the Watch into ( Eldrazi Monument) provides too much for me to handle.

Game 2:

I die on turn 8 after not seeing the second blue for my Mind Control or Cruel Ultimatum the entire game. Garruk tokens beat me down.

Round 5: fathom with W/G aggro

Game 1:

He starts out with Wild Nacatl into Bant Sureblade. My ponder sees Terminate and Cruel, which I shuffle as my hand already has Agony Warp and Grixis Charm. My Vampire Nighthawk gets tapped by Kor Hookmaster and I die to his 2 powered guys.

Game 2:

His first play is turn 3 Dauntless Escort, which is met with Terminate. Blightning takes out Kor Outfitter and Serra angel. His Knight of the Skyward Eye picks up Behemoth Sledge, but due to only have 2 Forest and a Plains in play, its effect is negligible due to my Black Knight. I Bituminous Blast his Knight into Merfolk Looter, and Dark Temper his Valeron Outlander the next turn. Cruel Resolves and the game ends shortly.

Game 3:

I terminate his Kor Skyfisher, and Nighthawk comes down to trump his bears. He has removal for it in Crystallization, and also fins a Mold Adder. My Sphinx of Jwar Isle two turns later is enough to stall his army. Though I am forced to Diabolic Tutor for Swamp to be able to cast Cruel, and in the few turns his adder grows to lethal size. I run out a steady stream of chump blockers, and the Sphinx shows me Deathmark after Mind Spring for 6 which ends the game easily as Djinn of Wishes shows up to finish him from 22.

Record 4-1, in Top8 again!

Round 6: intherain with Grixis control.

Game 1: He has Jace on 3. I ponder into Blightning which kill his jace and leaves him 1 card in hand since he misplayed by using the -1 ability.We play draw go for a long time. I eventually pull the trigger on Lavaball trap on end step, which baits a counter. A Duress is Negated, which allows Mind Shatter to clear out the last card before I play Obelisk of Alara. He topdecks Cruel for my hand, and lands Empyrial Archangel. I Mind Spring for 10, which puts me very far ahead. I even resolve Cruel for his angel and his hand, and am absolutely crushing him with Obelisk pumping Nighthawk. But he once more topdecks Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker to make the game unwinnable for me as it destroys my Obelisk and takes my Nighthawk.

Game 2: He has a quick Duress and Brainbite to force through Liliana. Then answering my Djinn of Wishes with Day of Judgment. I am holding Deny Reality + Twincast after clearing his hand with Mind Shatter when he topdecks Blightning, puts Vess to 8, and I concede as there is a Djinn of Wishes in my graveyard for him to reanimate at leisure.

I feel like I got extremely unlucky in the top8. Game 1 should've on all accounts been mine, but 2 ridiculous topdecks got him back in the game, then won it for him. But that's the game. Game 2 I probably misplayed by not running Mind Shatter into his hand first, even if it wasn't for all of it, just to make the path clear for my Djinn of Wishes, which was actually answered by Day of Judgment the way I played it. With an active Djinn, I might've been able to win by just attacking the Liliana and getting a bit lucky with the ability.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my performance in Singleton. Back-to-back top 8's is pretty good. I've changed the deck since then, replacing Ice Cage with Burst Lightning as an additional answer to Planeswalkers while being about as efficient in answering creatures. Additionally, I will be looking to add planeswalkers of my own into the deck, though I'm not sure if Liliana is better than Diabolic in game 1 since Diabolic brings the card to your hand, which is much stronger when you need removal. I will certainly try out Jace and probably Nicol Bolas, since that guy is more unbeatable than Obelisk of Alara.

Given that I drew first every game, and I posted reasonable results over two weeks, I feel it's definitely right in this format, even against aggressive decks. Even if the aggressive deck curves out, a few removal spells buys a ton of time, which allows your bombs to take over. Mind Spring is probably the best card in the format, as I've seen it end more games than any other spell. The prevalence of X-spells means you want your cascade spells to be very powerful, in the case that the miss. This is also why I don't favor counters very much. For example, cascading into Duress is good, while cascading into Negate is useless. Furthermore, being able to answer planeswalkers is a must, as is having solutions to shroud creatures. Whether this be deathtouch like Vampire Nighthawk, or edict effects like Gatekeeper of Malakir or Fleshbag Marauder. Of course, my favorite answer is Cruel Ultimatum.

Thanks for Playing.

Kmaster on MTGO

Clan Cold Fusion