Description

Hey guys, I recently had the idea of building a deck that differed from how the usual deck wins. I was inspired by how Lantern controls the top deck, and realized that standard has a large number of cards that can completely tear apart decks. That is cards like Gideon's Intervention, Ixalan's Binding, and Lost Legacy remove entire playsets from a deck, effectively making them a 4-for-1 in certain situations.



The decks gameplan is simple: keep the opponent from doing anything and then slowly rip away anything they can use to win.

First, we stall with removal, hand disruption, and authority of the consuls.Then exile any possible threats with lost legacy, ixalan's binding, and gideon's intervention. You'll want to take your time with your first lost legacy to go through and make a prioritized list of threats (your titular "checklist"). You'll want to focus on the 3 and 4 drops first, then 5+, leaving our boardwipes and removal to deal with the pesky 1, 2s. These are the cards that are worth spending our twelve (eleven) deck shredders with. The deck rewards knowledge of opponents decks ahead of time and taking away exactly what certain decks need to win.



Card Breakdown



Duress and Harsh Scrutiny: this is our early disruption, take down their early threats before they can play them. I think i'm going to switch to 4 main board harsh scrutiny and move duress to the sideboard. We don't really care about most non-creature spells. Most below 4 mana is removal, which we don't care about since no one runs cheap enchantment removal mainboard. Also, duress is a very dead card late in the game, while B: scry 1, is still useful enough. Its also incredibly important to know what we are up against turn 1.



Authority of the Consuls: needed against any red or token deck. Keeps us alive and shuts down hasty creatures and vehicles. Gives us time to remove them at sorcery speed.



Fatal Push : solid removal to keep us alive

Doomfall: a card I was unsure of at first but soon fell in love with. A very versatile card can steal away the best card an opponent can play or deal with that one bomb they dropped mid game.



Lost Legacy Gideon's Intervention , and Ixalan's Binding: our deck shredders, we play these as soon as we can to keep any threats from harming us. They each play a different role however. Lost legacy should hit the cards that never touch the ground or win as soon as they do (Approach, Torment of Hailfire, GPG). Gideon's Intervention takes care of the beaters and embalmed creatures (Glorybringer, Heart of Kiran, Phoenix) and Ixalan's Binding takes care of those that get down before we can take care of them; those with activated abilities that can win games on their own (Scarab God, Hazoret, Planeswalkers). Obviously, their roles overlap slightly, but when you have the opportunity to, play them this way.



Gideon of the Trials: the mvp of this deck. Shuts down escaped creatures, keeps us alive towards the end, and finally win us the game.



Fumigate: our boardwipe, the more I've played this deck the more I think we need more of these. They drastically change the course of the game and are key surviving to the end game



Thaumatic Compass: a card that think really belongs in this deck. It makes sure we hit our early land drops to get us to our removal spells and then turns keeps their strongest creature off our backs, turn after turn.



Profane Procession: a card I am unsure of. If we are doing well, it will keep us in control of the game permanently but seems dead in the early game. I'm going to experiment with more of this as a two of.



Razeketh's Rite: I was considering adding another profane procession or ixalan's binding here but I figured this would help late in the game to get that last card you need or alternatively can just be cycled away turn 2 so its not a dead card like the others could be.



Lands: Our deck plays alot a pretty high curve and lacks many good card draw engines since we are primarily keeping the game as slow as possible.Being at mercy of the topdeck is rough and therefore, I've added the deserts as early lands, midgame removal, and late-game redraw. I added in the evolving wilds for the sake of revolt and a little bit of thinning. I've also found we need a turn one play, but can function alright by just holding up a push turn two, which means that would be the ideal time for the tapland/wilds. Arch of Orazca works fantastically late game to keep up card advantage. It might also be useful to throw in a field of ruin or two, in case they manage to flip something we can't deal with otherwise.