basically, choose any number of the following colors:
blue: decent against combo, gives card selection and advantage, decent finishers, good v.s. other control, sucks vs aggro.
good cards: mana leak, vendilion clique, trinket mage, snapcaster mage (when ISD rolls around)
black: good against combo, decent against aggro, gives hand disruption/removal.
good cards: thoughtsieze, smother, gatekeeper of malakir, damnation.
white: good against aggro, bad against everything else. Gives removal for artifacts, enchantments, and creatures.
good cards: timely reinforcements, path to exile, elspeth 1.0, wrth.
put them together in a deck. Run some of the aformentioned cards somwhere.
now, you're going to want to make sure you have answers to each of the 5 archetypes mentioned above in your sb. Hate cards in every color:
aggro:
blue:
threads of disloyalty
,
trinket mage
for
engineered explosives
black:
damnation
,
smother
,
gatekeeper of malakir
white:
wrath of god
,
timely reinforcements
,
wall of omens
combo:
blue:
mana leak
,
vendilion clique
spell pierce
.
echoing truth
is nice against storm to bounce swath or goblin tokens.
black:
thoughtsieze
,
inquisition of kozilek
,
duress
. spot removal is also good against twin/shoal, especially executioner's capsule (since they can't counter it on the turn they combo off using
pact of negation
since you played it ealier) smother.
white:
there's some new 3cmc enchantment in innistrad that lets you name a spell, and players can't cast spells of the chosen name. I expect that to be good.
vs storm/pyro ascension:
ethersworn canonist
,
runed halo
,
leyline of sanctity[c]
vs twin/shoal: [c]path to exile
colorless:
chalice of the void
stops storm and pyro for 2 mana.
control: there is no real control presence, but if you insist...
blue: hard counters
black: hand disruption.
white: just sucks against control
midrange:
blue: counters can be nice here, and trinket mage's body + a useful artifact can be helpful
black: hand disruption, gatekeeper of malakir, damnation. Since jund runs black, doom blade is worthless, and they'll already be 2 for 1ing you if you kill their creatures most of the time, so removal isn't really that great here.
white: wrath, wall of omens, path to exile
12post:
blue:
spreading seas
shadow of a doubt
can be sided in, but probably only a good idea if you're playing first. Due to emrakul's uncounterability and their ability to outramp soft counters, mana leak isn't really that great here.
black: see shadow of a doubt above, hand disruption is also good.
executioner's capsule
can kill emrakul.
white: you're screwed. Try splashing or using coloress stuff.
colorless:
ensnaring bridge
. Basically, eldrazi can't attack.
now note how some of the hate cards above show up in a lot of matches (black hand disruption and removal, wrath effects, counters). That means they're good against a lot of decks, and deserve a place in the mainboard.
Finally, now that you've stopped your opponent from winning, you have to win the game yourself. Try out these handy finishers:
blue:
vendilion clique
: hand disruption on a 3 power evasive stick, at a pretty low cost. Nice card for finishing the game. Protip: Flash it out at the end of their draw step, unless they likely have something instant speed to play or will have untapped and gotten counter mana by them. Protip 2: play it, then next turn use trinket mage to fetch a targeted hatecard for whatever was in their hand. The downside is that it's legendary, so multiples are useless, and it dies to pretty much every removal spell in existence.
sphinx of jwar isle
: An unremovable evasive beater with 5 power.
black:
abyssal persecutor
: out of dismember range, immune to doom blades, this guy is a decent finisher, and a 6/6 body for 4 mana is nice. Too bad you need to kill him before you can win. Might be nice if you're running gatekeepers of go for the throats.
tombstalker
: I love this guy. Lategame, you can play him AND keep counter mana up, and he can come out pretty early if you have lots of hand disruption, card selection like preordain, and counters.
grave titan
: solid finisher... If you can survive to get him out. Still, unless you're playing v.s. combo or 12post, resolving this guy is probably gg.
white:
elspeth 1: can continually make tokens to chump block, swing her token over a wall of blockers to hit an opposing PW, or build you a small army. Still, if your opponent has several big beaters like thoctar, goyf, and KOTR out, she won't help much.
gideon jura
: a bit pricy for such a fast format, but he can stop aggro and win the game. Not bad...
hero of bladehold
: beat face for 7, then 11, then 15. Good card. Still, dies in combat to a decent sized goyf, a thoctar, or a KOTR, and doesn't dodge ANY removal (except red burn)
mirran crusader
: swing 4 for 3 mana, protection from tarmogoyfs, KOTRs, superpumped kavu predators, and black removal (
and colorless
). Still, bolt bait.
sun titan: I prefer wurmcoil engine personally, but that's just me.
colorless:
wurmcoil engine
: see grave titan.
my favorite strategy: beat them to death with an assortment of small 2 for 1 utility creatures like trinket mage and gatekeeper. It takes a while, but the damage starts to pile up after you drop a few of them.