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By: The Milk Man, Michael Mulcahy
Jun 19 2014 12:13am
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Many people are discouraged by the cost of a reasonably competitive Standard deck and here I present to you a deck that defies the myth that Standard Constructed is too expensive.

In a previous Giant Slayer article I mentioned that on a tight budget the reality is that combo and control strategies will be out of our financial reach ('us' being the poorer or more budget conscious players). This is not entirely true though;  there was a Maze's End deck that I recalled that went 3-1 or 4-0 in a Standard Daily event. After a little digging I have found the deck. This Giant Slayer was piloted by Corrado on the 24th of February 2014 in the Standard event #6767372 to a 4-0 finish. It currently costs $14.61 (@16-06-14)

 I recall that the deck cost around $28 at the time that it won, however due to meta changes and the approaching RTR Block rotation some of the cards have reduced in value a considerable amount making it easier for new players and older players alike to pick up the cards. One of the great things about this deck in contrast to previous Giant Slayers is that it is both a budget orientated control deck with a combo win condition and it won't break the bank.  

Here is the decklist: 

 

The decks strengths include:

- A win condition that cannot be countered.

- A win condition that does not care about your opponent's life total.

- A deck that has the ability to lock your opponents out of the game; controlling the tempo of the game and the board state.

- A non-aggro budget deck that can win against any deck in standard.

- A deck that offers rewarding, fun and interesting sequencing and lines of play, especially compared to previous Giant Slayers.

- The deck utilises great Return to Ravnica cards like Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict to efficiently remove our opponent's non-land permanents and creatures respectively. Even though rotation isn't for another 3 months these cards have become very affordable. 

- The deck has very few specific weaknesses giving it a fair matchup against most decks in standard.

- The deck has not recently been in favour so it will have an 'edge' in a meta that is not expecting it.

- The deck runs no creatures in the mainboard which presents an interesting advantage against some decks like Mono Black Devotion, whose removal spells will be all but dead. 

-The mana base of the deck is surprisingly cheap given that it has no basic lands.

-16 'Fog' effects buy you a lot of time against creature based decks to assemble your combo.

- There is very little land destruction at all in standard at the moment. Bramblecrush out of the Sideboard of some mono green decks will likely be the closest you will come to getting your win conditions destroyed.

- Maze's End is not only a win condition but it also allows you to tutor your other lands which allows you to; fetch the colours that you need, thins out your deck to increase the quality of cards that you draw and is a powerful card advantage engine itself. 

- The more expensive cards in the deck; Temple Garden, Breeding Pool, Hallowed Fountain, Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict all see some play in Modern and the eternal formats, so even though they're going to rotate out of Standard soon you will not lose much financial value in these cards if you have to purchase them to construct the deck.

 

The deck is certainly not without its weaknesses though.

- SkullcrackIf you're facing a burn deck or post-sideboard against red decks, save your Negates for Skullcracks or take a ton of damage.

- Burning Earth - Burning Earth requires you to take 3 or more damage if you already have the Detention Sphere or Merciless Eviction in hand. You will struggle to survive for long without Detention Sphere or Merciless Eviction. Fortunately for us Burning Earth is quite underplayed at the moment. Post-sideboard against red decks Negate will be MVP. Revoke Existence also gives us a solution post-sideboard. 

- Pithing Needle. Pithing Needle naming Maze's End literally stops us from being able to win as we cannot activate Maze's End's ability. Pithing Needle is seeing less play in standard than it did at the release of Theros though, as most sideboard slots are dedicated to fighting a 'known' meta, rather than being versatile and broad answers to a lot of threats. Crackling Perimeter comes in out of the sideboard as an alternate win condition, but Pithing Needle naming Maze's End really slows our game plan. We do have 'outs' to Pithing Needle in the form of Merciless Eviction and Detention Sphere in the mainboard and Revoke Existence out of the sideboard.

- Gray Merchant of Asphodel. 'Gary' presents quite a problem if we do not have a Merciless Eviction to get rid of non-land permanents providing devotion or Supreme Verdict to get rid of the Black mage's creatures. This may be a card that we need to deal with in other ways. Turn/Burn can be used in response to the ETB trigger, reducing their devotion by 2, although you may still take quite a bit of life loss.

- Clunky mana base with ETB tapped lands can sometimes create unnecessary pressure on us against aggressive decks. 

- 'Fog' effects do not stop life loss, such as from Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

- Running out of Fog effects or board wipes like Supreme Verdict and having them removed to discard spells such as Duress can remove our shields and make us quite vulnerable resulting in taking too much damage.

 

I really like this deck as a 'fun' deck that you can enter in to a Daily Event or take to your FNM and take people by surprise. Once they catch on to the deck it can get hated out quite badly, so it is a good deck to pull out and play on the odd occasion. It is also great to have a deck that is a different playstyle to previous Giant Slayer decks. In the Innistrad/RTR Standard an enchantment version of Maze's End existed utilising cards like Sphere of Safety, Abundant Growth, Possibility Storm and Curse of Exhaustion. Without Abundant Growth this style doesn't work. Market Festival could fill this role, however one of the facts of the current meta is that there is both a lot more enchantments being used and consequently a lot more enchantment hate. We use the Turbo-Fog Strategy instead.

Here is how it works.

 

Fog  Defend the Hearth  Druid's Deliverance  Riot Control

You utilise your Fog effects to prevent damage from your opponent's creatures and spells. This is to buy enough time to assemble our combo. Be careful to sequence the spells in a way that is both mana efficient for the turn as well as leaving you with mana efficient options in future turns i.e. casting a Defend the Hearth instead of Fog on turn 4 so that you can activate Maze's End and keep up a Fog in the following turn. Riot Control has the potential to gain a lot of life as well as possessing a unique subtlety compared to the other Fog effects in that it stops all damage, not just combat damage. A good strategy is to use Riot Control during your opponent's combat phase to gain a bunch of life and then in our turn follow it up with a Supreme Verdict or Merciless Eviction to wipe their creatures off of the board.

 

Urban Evolution

Cards like Urban Evolution mean that you can play multiple lands in a turn, allowing you to combo off before turn 10. This can be pretty important so as to enable your win condition before running out of removal and/or Fog effects. The card advantage can be huge too. In this particular build it is the only source of raw card advantage other than Maze's End itself. This is a little odd for a control deck but Turbo Fog Maze's End isn't a regular control deck either.

Maze's End

 So the way that the deck wins is by satisfying the condition on Maze's End's activated ability. It must be done in an order where the 10th unique guildgate is put on to the battlefield via a Maze's End activation. If you play the 10th unique guildgate from your hand, you will not satisfy the win condition. It is possible to play the 9th unique guildgate from your hand and then activate Maze's End to fetch the 10th. This is the best way to win if you have a guildgate in hand that is unique to the other guildgates on the battlefield. If you get your Maze's End engine running and have a unique guildgate in hand, hold on to it so that you can finish in this way.

It is important to keep track of your land plays once you have a Maze's End in play. If you have used a Maze's End activation to fetch a guildgate and put it on to the battlefield tapped, it is best to play the Maze's End again as your land drop for the turn. It is tempting to put guildgates from your hand on to the battlefield as your land play for the turn to increase the number of unique Guild Gates on the battlefield. However if you do this without another Maze's End already on the battlefield you will not be able to tutor with the Maze's End for another 2 turns as you will need to wait 1 turn to replay the Maze's End and then you will need to wait until the following turn to activate the Maze's End.

Urban Evolution is a key spell to gain a card advantage and to 'ramp' in to an earlier combo win. It may also allow you to follow up with spells like Supreme Verdict as well as activate Maze's End in the following turn by having more lands on the field than you would have otherwise had. Once you have Maze's End out there are very few situations where you should be playing guildgates from your hand, rather than tutoring them with Maze's End. These include:

- Early on in the match up, to establish the colours you need to use your spells

- When Maze's End is on the field and you do not have enough mana to keep up a Fog effect/cast a Supreme Verdict AND activate Maze's End in the same turn, but you wish/need to keep the fog effect up to use the board wipe.

- If a unique guildgate is not in your library as it is in your hand or if you have resolved an Urban Evolution.

- If you do not have a Maze's End under your control. :)

Activating Maze's End should be the preferred method for putting lands on the field after turn 4 or 5. Playing multiple Maze's End is only a good option if you have 2 or more early on in the match and no other lands to play. This gives you more uncoloured mana sources to activate one Maze's End without using up your coloured sources. If you have multiple Maze's End in hand or if you use an Urban Evolution to put 2 of them on the field, this grants you the opportunity in the late game for you to fetch 2 guild gates in the same turn meaning you can win as early as turn 8 or 9.

Increasing the Budget

Changes to the deck you could make if you have a bigger budget or if you want to improve the power of the deck over time include cards like Slaughter Games out of the sideboard or Cyclonic Rift. Cyclonic Rift may be a bit too slow though - if you can overload it you may be close to winning anyway. It is still good as a versatile 2cmc instant that bounces nearly anything. Slaughter Games can be used to hit cards that get around our Fog effects like Gray Merchant of Asphodel or hurt our hand such as Rakdos's Return or punish our lands like Burning Earth. Abrupt Decay gives you an efficient option to remove a broad number of threats as well as not being able to be countered. Sphinx's Revelation is the best control card in standard. Card draw and life gain at instant speed. What more could we want? Some people think that Sphinx's Revelation is wasted in this deck because if you are casting it for a large amount you should be in a position to win. Later on in the videos you will see situations where I have plenty of land and can't draw in to a Maze's End to win the game. One or two Sphinx's Revelations could change that instantly.

 

Slaughter Games     Abrupt Decay     Sphinx's Revelation

 

 I quite like the deck as it stands. Some Maze's End decks are put under a huge amount of pressure if they have guild gates go to the graveyard as they are unable to return them to their library or battlefield and most decks only use 2 copies of each gate. This deck utilises Bow of Nylea to fill this function. It may seem strange to put the card back on the bottom of the library, however the guild gates position in the library is irrelevant if you can tutor for it with Maze's EndElixir of Immortality could also fill this role, however the Bow of Nylea can fill both roles that the Elixir of Immortality fills, except that the Bow of Nylea can do it repeatedly, as well as potentially destroy opposing fliers with 2 toughness or less. I am not sure yet whether we should increase the number of Bow of Nylea or Elixir of Immortality or if we could use counter magic to protect them from removal or if we will simply not encounter this as an issue. I am going to assume that the last of those three possibilities is the most likely as Maze's End should take our opponents by surprise due to it having been off of the radar for quite some time. The split between an enchantment and an artifact also makes it harder for your opponent to deal with them as some colours may have access to enchantment or artifact removal, but not both.

Changes to the deck

I will be using the deck pretty close to how Corrado played it. One minor change that I will be making is to swap a Crackling Perimeter in the sideboard for an Elixir of Immortality. This is a hedge against burn strategies and milling strategies. I will also swap the Shocks for Essence Scatters to deal with key weaknesses like Nightveil Specter.

 

 

 Here are my sideboarding plans for the top decks in the meta.

 

 - Mono Black Devotion

- Out

Druid's DeliveranceDruid's DeliveranceDruid's DeliveranceDefend the HearthDefend the HearthDefend the Hearth

- In

Merciless EvictionTurn/BurnTurn/BurnTurn/BurnCrackling PerimeterCrackling Perimeter

 

Mono black devotion in the first game can be difficult for two reasons; Thoughtseize and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Thoughtseize can remove our protection from combat damage spells or pinch our removal causing us to get overrun by Desecration Demons or Pack Rats. Games 2 and 3 don't get much better when the Black Mage Brings in Duress out of the sideboard to replace their dead removal spells.

There are some upsides about facing mono black post sideboard. Other than duress, their sideboard generally has no 'good' spells to bring in against us. Erebos, God of the Dead can stop us gaining life off of Riot Control, but the rest of their sideboard is generally dedicated to different types of efficient creature removal. Maze's End cares not for our opponent's creature removal. Druid's Deliverance comes out as it is more expensive than Fog and doesn't have the upside of Riot Control. Defend the Hearth just as easily comes out; they're practically the same spell when you do not have any creature tokens to populate.

Turn/Burn comes in to reduce their devotion at instant speed if or when they land a Gray Merchant of Asphodel. It can also take care of Desecration Demon or Nightveil Specter. Fog effects will stop a Nightveil Specter from taking your card, but if they take your gates they may take your win condition. Don't underestimate the power of Nightveil Specter in this matchup.

Crackling Perimeter comes in as an alternative win con that puts a clock on the opponent. This can be very important if you somehow are not able to win with Maze's End. We do have a bit more time against Mono Black Devotion than we do against many other decks, so cutting down on a couple of the more expensive Fog effects shouldn't be too much of an issue. Merciless Eviction is important as it can remove multiple Enchantments in one sweep. This is important for reducing devotion and card advantage by removing our opponent's Underworld Connections and Whip of Erebos.

 

 - Mono Blue Devotion

Out

Merciless EvictionMerciless EvictionDefend the HearthUrban EvolutionUrban Evolution

In

Crackling PerimeterCrackling PerimeterElixir of ImmortalityTurn/BurnTurn/Burn

Mono blue is quite a good match up for us in game 1. They normally do not have a main deck out to Maze's End. Post-sideboard is a different story as many Mono Blue mages transform the deck in to a control deck. A pick and mix of counterspells normally come in as well as many utilising a Planeswalker that causes us quite a bit of grief: Jace, Memory Adept. Having a strong milling strategy shuts down our Maze's End win con if we have 2 of the same guildgate end up in our graveyard. We can use Elixir of Immortality or Bow of Nylea to combat this, but it also requires us to have them in hand and land them in the face of counter magic and bounce spells, namely Cyclonic Rift.

We want to lean on our Bow of Nylea and the Elixir of Immortality out of the sideboard if they land the Jace, Memory Adept. Crackling Perimeter is an alternative win con if our guildgates do get milled in to the bin. Enchantments are also relatively difficult for the Blue mage to deal with once they land on the field as a small number of Cyclonic Rift is their only out. If they do not have the Planeswalker you just need to focus on the main game plan and play into and around the counterspells. Supreme Verdict will be amazing here if you don't get over run by Mutavaults.

 Turn/Burns come in to deal primarily with Mutavault, but can also shrink a Master of Waves to kill the tokens if the Blue mage isn't running Hall of Triumph. Turn/Burn can also remove an active Thassa, God of the Sea that is troubling you. A pair of Urban Evolutions come out as they're a little slow against Mono Blue's potentially aggro draw and we need to keep our Supreme Verdicts and Fog effects in.

 - UWx Control

Out

Defend the HearthDefend the HearthDefend the HearthDruid's DeliveranceDruid's DeliveranceDruid's Deliverance

In

Crackling PerimeterCrackling PerimeterRevoke ExistenceRevoke ExistenceRevoke ExistenceMerciless Eviction

UWx Control is an interesting matchup in that we aren't placed under much pressure early on. Many of their cards will be dead and we may be free to durdle in to our win condition. Post-sideboard it is quite different, as most UWx decks bring in a suite of creatures against fellow control decks to apply further pressure before their big win cons come out. We bring in more enchantment removal to protect our Crackling Perimeters that we will be bringing in to replace cards that are of poor value in this matchup. Crackling Perimeter also gives us a different angle to attack our opponent if they have a way to disrupt our combo. 

 

 - Jund Monsters

Out

Urban Evolution

In

Elixir of Immortality

Our main game plan is quite good against Jund Monsters. Be cautious of a blow out from Ghor-Clan Rampager if you decide to tap out with a Fog effect in hand, while facing something as non-threatening as an Elvish Mystic or a Mutavault. Some Jund Monster pilots run Rakdos's Return out of the sideboard and this is an absolutely must answer card. Do not waste your Negates on anything less. Elixir of Immortality comes in for the life gain effect and if the Jund mage brings in one of our Achille's Heels; Rakdos's Return.

 

 - Rx Burn

Out

Supreme VerdictSupreme VerdictSupreme VerdictSupreme Verdict

In

Elixir of ImmortalitySaruli GatekeepersSaruli GatekeepersSaruli Gatekeepers

Burn is going to be quite a rough matchup, not because they have a really fast clock or even that ours is really slow. The reason it is a bad matchup can be summed up in one word; Skullcrack. The 4 mainboard Skullcracks are very detrimental to our game plan. Merciless Eviction can be used to exile their Chandra's Phoenixes which is another problematic card that doesn't care about Supreme Verdict. Finding our miser's Bow of Nylea early will be big to offset the damage from the Red mage's burn spells. Unless you're going to die save your Negates exclusively for Skullcracks. Hopefully we can land the Saruli Gatekeepers out of the sideboard without being met with a Skullcrack in response. If you can successfully land the Saruli Gatekeepers without being Skullcracked, it will buy you a lot of time against Rx Burn. Elixir of Immortality comes in mainly for the life gain ability.

 

Let's run it through some 2 man queues to see how it performs:

 

 

 

 

 So our first matchup we versed Mono Blue devotion with a splash of red. Game 1 went to plan as much as it could have. Game 2 I kept a subpar hand and was punished for it as we never drew in to the lands we required. It is very important to both hit our land drops and to get the three key colours for the deck; white, blue and green. Unfortunately, this is not entirely under our control though. Game 3 we got off to a good start but ended up in top deck mode which is not a position you want to be in with a control orientated deck. Eventually we buckled under the pressure when we ran out of answers.

Our second matchup vs Mono Black Devotion went quite well. Even with the Thoughtseizes and Gray Merchant of Asphodels we had both the redundancy and the removal to get the job done. Game 2 we were certainly on track to Maze's End our way to victory and then our opponent conceded well before they were dead. The deck can be quite frustrating for our opponents if they have few ways to deal with the turbo fogging or the Maze's End. Probably not a good idea to play this deck if you're trying to make friends.

Our third matchup was against another Mono Black Devotion deck, however we were not able to get the job done this time. Our opponent wisely kept some removal in against our creatureless deck to combo with Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Whip of Erebos. We were unfortunate to not draw in to one of our 7 board wipe spells or other answers when we needed to.

The last match was against a GB Midrange deck that ended up going to time. It is not the ideal way for this deck to win, but mainboarded Sylvan Primordials were certainly unexpected too. It does however give a solid showcase of how the deck can operate and survive against a powerful midrange strategy.

Since recording the videos for this deck the value of some of the more expensive cards like Supreme Verdict and Detention Sphere have come down in price further reducing the cost of the deck even more so than when I began writing the article. 

 

Changes I would make to the deck after played it.

I would seriously consider dropping the shock lands for 3 basics for a couple of reasons. It drops the cost of the deck considerably while still offering us the possibility of having ETB UNtapped lands that are in the colours that we need. The shocklands can do this as well, but against the aggro matchups we just do too much damage to ourselves. The Shocks in the sideboard in Corrado's original list should probably have stayed in my build to sure up the aggro matches. Changing the shocklands to basic lands reduces the cost of the deck to an amazing $6.41.

 I underestimated how serious of a problem Spiteful Returned would be in the black aggro match up. Just when you think you have the mana and fog effects to save you, Spiteful Returned gets bestowed and closes the game out. Maze's End seems to be great against control and midrange decks but really needs more sideboard space dedicated to the aggro matchups - Maybe even in the mainboard?

If i were to build the deck again it would look something like this

 

Although this iteration of the deck is quite cheaper than the original, that was not the intention of the changes. I am still quite concerned about how the deck performs against the aggro matchups. The changes are to increase the durability vs aggro decks. During testing they were quite easily able to overrun us before we could establish control. With my changes above, Swan Song comes in to more efficiently replace Negate. Swan Song hits almost everything Negate hits that we care about; Skullcrack, Thoughtseize, Rakdos's ReturnBurning Earth etc. It also stops problem creatures like Spiteful Returned. Swan Song doesn't get Planeswalkers or Artifacts, but there are very few that we are going to run in to that give us any trouble or that we don't already have the tools for.

What other options could we utilise to more efficiently deal with the aggro decks? Nyx-Fleece Ram? Aetherize? Anger of the Gods? Blind Obedience? Blind Obedience is not a bad option as we often have excess lands that we could use for the extort effect each time we Fog. Golgari Charm gives us a versatile option for destroying problem enchantments and the -1/-1 could be used against aggro decks to halve the amount of damage we take as well as killing their X/1 creatures. Drown in Sorrow or Anger of the Gods are probably the most efficient sweepers that we can use if our mana base can handle it. Drown in Sorrow being the more budget friendly of the two and the Scry 2 is amazing. Anger of the Gods ability to exile can be important for troublesome creatures like Chandra's Phoenix and Voice of Resurgence. Both Drown in Sorrow and Anger of the Gods are good financial investments as they're cheap, they're used in Modern and they will be in Standard for another 15 months.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts on the Maze's End deck. I am going to be covering a Modern deck in my next Giant Slayer article which is a pretty exciting foray in to a new format - one that is new to me.

I hope you've enjoyed reading and watching this spotlight on a Giant Slayer budget deck as much as I have enjoyed making it.

 

- The Milk Man