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Magic: The Gathering Pro Stansilav Cifka Builds A Powerful Blue/White Control Deck


The Magic: The Gathering Mythic Championship VII is happening later this week, and one of the 36 Challengers in the tournament has already brewed a dominating Control deck ahead of the Magic Arena tournament.

32-year-old former Czech Hearthstone champion and MTG pro player Stansilav "StanCifka" Cifka built a new competitive Standard decklist, and his roommate/fellow Czech MTG pro Ondřej Stráský has shared his new creation on Twitter: a Blue/White (UW) Control deck.

Check it out:

Midrange decks are still dominating the Standard meta right now even after "Oko, Thief of Crowns" and "Once Upon A Time" got banned, so Control players are seeking a viable build that could take those decks down. As you can see in the list above, the deck runs 6 boardwipe cards (3 "Time Wipe" and 3 "Planar Cleansing"). As you'd expect from any hard Control decks, Cifka's build runs a bunch of counterspells in the main deck with more copies in the sideboard to battle other Control decks. Of course, there are 4 copies of "Teferi, Time Raveler". The War of the Spark Planeswalker card has been a staple in Control decks ever since it was printed.

The spiciest part of the deck is the four copies of Gadwick in the main deck. The legendary blue creature is usually used as a card draw and board presence in the late game, but Cifka uses Gadwick in the early game too, casting it for only three blue mana.

click to enlarge

The only other creature in Stansilav's Control deck in the main is "Brazen Borrower" (3 copies); and in the sideboard, he runs two more creatures: 2 copies of "Giant Killer" to deal with big creatures like "Questing Beast", and one copy of "Spectral Sailor" - a 1/1 Flying creature with Flash that is typically used to gain card advantage.

While this deck looks fun to play and looks strong enough to compete in the current Standard meta, Cifka said that this is only the second best deck he discovered, and he has a stronger build that he plans to use for Mythic Championship VII. It's always exciting to see what MTG decks Cifka is brewing. He is credited for building the surprising Kethis Combo deck that qualified him for MCV earlier this year. You can watch me play that fun deck in the YouTube video below:

While Hearthstone fans would recognize Cifka as the player who earned the Czech national team a first-place championship win at the Hearthstone Global Games in 2017, in Magic, he is best known for winning Magic's Pro Tour Return to Ravnica in 2012. Cifka's qualification for Mythic Championship V earlier this year marked his return to MTG, and fans have celebrated his return ever since.

The Mythic Championship VII will take place at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California on December 6-8. The format of the three-day Magic Arena tournament is Traditional Best-of-Three Constructed Standard.

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