Standard: Azorius Blink - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Edge of Eternities kicked off the new Standard season, with several strategies—both old and new—emerging in Magic Arena ranked play and in Magic Online Challenges.

Among these decks is Azorius Blink, a new strategy driven by the combination of cards with the Warp mechanic, with effects that exile creatures and return them to the battlefield, allowing you to reuse your ETB and LTB effects and "cheat" on their mana costs.

This is the same list used by player DB_Dykman in the first post-rotation Standard Challenge, without any changes to the maindeck or sideboard, as the format continues to adapt and rediscover itself to the point that creating meta calls and/or adapting the list to an "expected environment" seems to anticipate situations that don't yet exist in Standard.

Azorius Blink has a straightforward game plan, if you're already familiar with the theme: use the alternative Warp costs of the new creatures in Edge of Eternities with cards that exile the creature and return it to the battlefield. Like Evoke, the Warp trigger considers the object that was on the board at that time, and when the blink (exile and return to play) occurs, that card is treated as a new object and doesn't need to be exiled at the end of the turn.

With ETB effects becoming increasingly prevalent in Magic, it's natural for Bounce and Blink abilities to gain more prominence, but there's a specific problem with this list: it tries too hard to repeat the same effect to the point of having too many cards that do the same thing—we have 16 cards that exile creatures, one of which is a repetitive effect, for 11 payoffs.

Among them, Splash Portal would easily be the card I'd remove to add more stack interaction, or even more removal and/or card advantage. The idea of paying three mana and putting a Quantum Riddler on the board as a 4/5 for , or with Anticausal Vestige to get a 7/6 and another permanent in play may seem very appealing, but it's nowhere near enough in Standard to be worth the slots in one of the worst topdecks you can have in more interactive games, and while the Metagame is still shaping up, opponents have been interacting a lot.

In defense of the card, it's absurd with Beza, the Bounding Spring and can practically return us to a lost game with it, but the same can be said of any other card with Blink on the list, and they all do something besides being a means of reusing ETBs.

If we prefer to stick with the 16 cards, Parting Gust seems better as it functions as two-mana removal and a Blink effect in the same slot, while Abuelo, Ancestral Echo has the advantage of functioning as a pseudo-Eldrazi Displacer, which, despite its restrictions, can reuse ETBs twice per turn cycle while also protecting creatures from spot removal.

Maindeck

The payoffs. Primary targets of blink effects and the reasons this deck exists.

Quantum Riddler has arguably become the best Warp card in Edge of Eternities. Despite its similarities to Mulldrifter, its body is much better, and the possibility of gaining a Divination with any draw effect is huge. A 4/6 with Flying can end games while burying the opponent with card advantage.

Ridller's ability also interacts with Anticausal Vestige, which, in addition to having a significant LTB effect, has a 7/6 body that punishes the opponent for destroying it. It's common to use multiple Blink effects on it to put permanents into play for free in the same turn.

Beza, the Bounding Spring has no alternative costs, but it does everything we want from an ETB effect: card advantage, extra life, more bodies on the board, and whatever else is needed for each matchup, in addition to having a decent body for combat.

The Blinks.

Charming Prince is the most efficient among them as it does something other than being a Blink with its ETB and at a low cost. Life gain is decent against aggro, and Scry helps filter the top in attrition matches.

Fortune, Loyal Steed interacts with Warp since they don't have Haste to attack the turn they enter, so they can be tapped to saddle the creature for it, then when it attacks, exile them, and return them to the battlefield. Its biggest drawback, besides being legendary, is that it needs to wait until the end of combat to trigger its ability, which means that any trade in combat or removal hinders our entire game plan.

Twining Twins is a Momentary Blink (the card gave rise to the archetype's name in 2007) with a 4/4 body with Vigilance and Flying. It's not the best creature ever, but it provides another threat on the board during matchups without losing slots.

Splash Portal, as mentioned above, seems to be the least impressive card among these effects, but it's the only one-mana blink card we have in the format, allowing for more explosive plays with Warp.

Seam Rip and Get Lost are our interaction package, with Get Lost being a more comprehensive answer to the Metagame while Seam Rip deals with smaller threats, plus it has the bonus of responding to Agatha's Soul Cauldron and Astrologian's Planisphere.

Elspeth, Storm Slayer offers a second winline while turning all your creatures into relevant threats with the +1/+1 counters, and the Flying is extremely dangerous with Anticausal Vestige and Beza, the Bounding Spring if it created some tokens. Elspeth also works as a removal against larger creatures.

There's not much to say about the mana base. We want as many duals as possible that enter untapped on the most important turns, but we don't have Hallowed Fountain to complement Floodfarm Verge, so we're betting on conditional lands like Starting Town and Fabled Passage in those slots.

Sideboard

The interaction against smaller creatures.

The extra copies of Seam Rip work against Aggro and also against Agatha's Soul Cauldron lists. There are other games where it can be a relevant side-in, such as in Dimir Midrange variants that have been more Tempo-oriented with more cheap creatures with flying like Deep-Cavern Bat.

Elspeth's Smite handles smaller creatures and can play against some Midranges running Unstoppable Slasher, but I avoid using it against archetypes that easily bring a lot of permanent power to the board, like Mono Green/Temur/Naya Landfall.

Negate and Spell Pierce serve both as protection for our creatures and interactions and to counter archetypes heavily based on non-creature spells like Azorius Control, Izzet Prowess, and Mono White Tokens.

Annul complements this package against Prowess and Tokens, but it also plays into games against Naya Yuna/Abzan Yuna.

The extra copy of Beza, the Bounding Spring plays in several matchups, and we could even consider including it in the maindeck, but we already have too many cards with higher mana values in the list.

Rest in Peace and Kutzil's Flanker play primarily against Yuna decks today. They're also useful in the Izzet Cauldron matchup, but I wouldn't run many copies of Rest in Peace in this matchup since it's easy for the opponent to take advantage of having too much graveyard hate to punish us with the beatdown plan.

Izzet Prowess

IN

OUT

Azorius Control

IN

OUT

Gruul Aggro

IN

OUT

Green Landfall

IN

OUT

Izzet Cauldron

IN

OUT

Naya Yuna

IN

OUT

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!