Vara Midrange [Into Shadow]

I was inspired to build this deck after I watched the Shadowfall test tournament. I had tuned in during a Big Combrei mirror match where both players had a full board of aegis units after Stand together. I couldn't help but think of playing a midrange/control deck with Vara, Vengeance-Seeker. As a longtime player of Justice midrange decks, I've been annoyed at the resurgence of Stand Together after the release of Alessi, Combrei Archmage, so I set out to build a midrange deck that could fight back.

Other powerful cards from the Into Shadow campaign were natural inclusions as well. Shakedown is early-game disruption, and late-game card advantage. Even if it hits nothing, this deck still benefits more from the extra card than most other decks because we need to keep removal in hand at almost all times. Poaching Drake silences early units and can even debuff them in many cases. I've used this for everything from taking deadly off of Kerendon Merchant to ruining a 13/13 Valkyrie Enforcer after 2 Icaria warcry triggers. Needless to say, its ability is insanely powerful and a 4/3 flier is nothing to sneeze at either.

To finish the game, we usually win with Vara or Black Sky Harbinger, often after grinding through our opponent's resources and possibly Dark Returning a Vara as an 8/9. I top off the curve with Sword of the Sky King to get in late game damage.

For my removal suite, I have a pretty standard collection of Annihilate, Slay, Eilyn's Choice, and of course, Harsh Rule. I've deliberately opted to keep Permafrost out of the main deck because it's absolutely terrible with Vara. It's always correct for the opponent to sacrifice the stunned unit and generally we want them to actually lose a creature or give Vara the buff. Of course, they will still always choose what is the best option for them, but on the flip side, if we can play Vara onto an empty board we are left with a very powerful 5/6 with lifesteal and deadly. This is pretty easy to do as we have a very good removal package, but it's near impossible with Permafrost. I do keep one in the market in case of emergencies (big units that need to be dealt with on the spot but we're missing other spot removal).

As far as other market choices, I have Hailstorm for tokens/aggressive decks; Vision of Austerity for Temporal Control, Armory-style decks and potentially fighting off Azindel's Gift (less than ideal usage); and Feeding Time to deal with anything that is good against our other removal or might come back, in particular Azindel, Revealed and Tavrod, Auric Broker. Rain of Frogs is more of a general-purpose utility card that you want to see exactly once almost every game, but no more or less. This should be played against most non-aggressive decks, as early as turn 4 if possible. Particular targets include Icaria, the Liberator, Tavrod, Auric Broker, Azindel, Revealed, and anything that looks like part of a combo (e.g. Talir, Who Sees Beyond, Clockroach, or anything else that looks suspicious). If none of those are present, Merchants can be a good target since they often tutor for specific powerful cards. After that it's just whatever they happen to have multiples of or personal preference.

Overall, I think this deck has a lot of potential. It's not amazing, but it does have very good matchups against a lot of key decks in the format. It's even fairly resilient to Disciplinary Weights, which is unique for a controlling deck that wants to draw a lot of cards. However, there are several matchups that are nearly unwinnable without an absolutely perfect draw. It cannot beat Skycrag Berserk unless they are running slow. The deck is a lot of fun to play, and, though it's hard to keep track since I've been tinkering a lot, I would say this exact list has about a 60%-65% win rate which isn't too bad at all. I am currently ranked Diamond III with the deck and it is still performing consistently above average as I work my way up the ladder.