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The goal of this deck is to use Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves to accelerate into a turn 2 Hypnotic Specter or Ohran Viper. Those creatures are very good, since if a control deck cannot deal with them right away, the card advantage they provide will likely win you the game. When you play them on turn 2 on the play, there is not much many control decks can do about them. This deck would have never worked pre-Coldsnap with only four Hypnotic Specters as great 3-drops, but Ohran Viper makes it viable. The deck also ran Dark Confidant, Giant Solifuge and Umezawa’s Jitte, which should basically go into every aggro deck that can support them, so that’s no surprise. Rounding out the deck were a couple Genju of the Cedars, Putrefy, Giant Solifuge, and a splash for the powerful game-ending Demonfire.

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Akira Asahara is the Enduring Ideal master. He had made it to the top 8 of last year’s World Championships with an Enduring Ideal deck and I think everyone who like the epic card should trust his builds since he knows the deck inside out. Once Enduring Ideal fans online saw the innovative deck he played at the Japanese Nationals, they quickly copied it and took it to the Premier Events. The main innovation of this deck is the addition of the trio of Counterbalance, Scrying Sheets, and Sensei’s Divining Top. Counterbalance and Scrying Sheets become powerhouses once you can control the top cards of your deck. Last week, many players had showed up with Blue-White, Blue-Black, of Blue-White-Black control decks with a lot of countermagic, Sensei’s Divining Top, Counterbalance and Scrying Sheets. This deck plays those cards as well, but they don’t reside in a classic control deck, but in an Enduring Ideal combo deck. The deck works like this. In the early game, you dig for an Enduring Ideal with Sensei’s Divining Top, Scrying Sheets, and Court Hussar. Wrath of God takes out an opposing assault along the way. Hopefully, you can accelerate into a turn 5-6 Enduring Ideal with Coldsteel Heart or Azorius Signet and then the fun begins. What you search out then of course depends on the situation, but a Zur’s Weirding is often a good start, since that allows you to control your opponent’s draws. Or you can go for the combo of Dovescape and Meishin, the Mind Cage, shutting down your opponent’s spells. The kill mechanism is Form of the Dragon. The best thing about this new version is that even though Enduring Ideal prevents you from playing spells, it does not prevent you from countering every card your opponent plays with Counterbalance and Sensei’s Divining Top. Those cards still work under the Epic restriction.

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“Ghost Dad” was built on the idea that Shoals are cool, and that triggering Tallowisp and Thief of Hope is profitable. The deck focuses its efforts on breaking Tallowisp. In order to accommodate the Tallowisp engine, it has to compromise unconditionally adopted cards like Mortify for the potential card advantage of Pillory of the Sleepless in the course of its design. Cards that can trigger Tallowisp or Thief of Hope are the Shoals, Thief of Hope, Ghost Council of Orzhova, Kami of Ancient Law, Thief of Hope and Plagued Rusalka. Yup, almost the entire deck is Spirit or Arcane.

Ghost Dad is one of the best decks you can possibly play against Red-based beatdown. However, Ghost Dad can force interaction only if the opponent is willing to play on the same field of battle. For example, it is great at holding down creatures with Pillory of the Sleepless, but against Heartbeat of Spring combo, its main out is the one Strands of Undeath and the hope that a single Kami of Ancient Law will be enough.

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GhaziGlare has a number of viable game plans. The deck can function as a reasonable G/W beatdown deck with mana acceleration and efficient threats such as a fast Watchwolf and Kodama of the North Tree. And Umezawa's Jitte, of course. The deck can also win via marrying token creatures (produced by Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree or Selesnya Guildmage) and Glare of Subdual into an overwhelming board advantage. And the deck can also go for the double Yosei, the Morning Star lock, especially post-board. GhaziGlare has many unique elements, such as the underrated Congregation at Dawn, which fetches 3 Loxodon Hierarch to win the game against any burn deck.

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This deck is a crossover between Satanic Sligh and Boros Deck Wins. Its main colors are red and white, splashing black for Dark Confidant and sometimes Hit/Run. Bob Maher’s Invitational card is apparently so good that it draws the Boros legion to the dark side.