Sculpting Standard

I have to say, I am thrilled about tomorrow's GP. I think it will shape my natz standard. Sure there will be other 2 GP's, but those will just tweak the main decks, I really don't believe some new crazy high tech will be coming for those.
So yeah, it's all about this weekend.
Maybe this post will be absolutely useless since the decks I wanted to talk about maybe completely changed tomorrow, but still, I am gonna give it a try.
So to include the decks in a context, I have to specify the latter. So I am talking about a standard which the most played decks are:



- Jund
- UW
- UWr Walkers
- Mythic
- Naya vengevine
- Red

So, knowing this, it's important for me to refer that I want to play control. If I wanted to play aggro, maybe I would went for vengevine naya. But that's not the point, I don't have enough testing to pronunciate.
The point is, I want to play control, so I got a few choices:

UW (like 5 versions of it)
UWr

Then I got the fringe side of the story:

Esper
Brilliant Esper
Open the Vaults

So, based on my experience, I auto exclude Esper, Open the Vaults and UWr.
Justification:

Esper and OTV suck. Esper is just a UW with esper charms and OTV, well, it's a lame deck.
As for UWr.
Well the deck isn't all that good. It's certainly good and backbreaking against control, sure it is. But against jund for instances... Just an example:
You got 3 walkerz on board against a leech. You pass with 2 cards in hand and just played you gideon.
The jund goes like: Bloodbraid into pulse kicking out gideon and then bloodbraid takes jace down and leech takes ajani. Now what?
I mean, the walkerz are very fragile against a strategy like jund's. Hasty creatures with direct PW removal like burn/pulse can complicate things A LOT.
So yeah, I don't care about UWr. Besides I could manage to tweak my tappout to actually beat walkerz after sideboard. So, no advantage there.
Moving on...

My real decision is about UW vs Brilliant Esper

For reference the lists:

UW Tappout by Corey Baumeister

4 Spreading Seas
4 Wall of Omens
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Everflowing Chalice
3 Path To Exile
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Gideon Jura
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Deprive
4 Day Of Judgment
2 Mind Spring
2 Sejiri Refuge
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Arid Mesa
6 Island
5 Plains
1 Halimar Depths
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress

Sideboard

4 Negate
1 Jace Beleren
1 Martial Coup
1 Deprive
3 Kor Firewalker
2 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Path to Exile
1 Kor Sanctifiers


Brilliant Esper

// Lands
4 [ALA] Arcane Sanctum
2 [M10] Glacial Fortress
3 [ROE] Island
4 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
3 [ROE] Plains
3 [ROE] Swamp
4 [WWK] Creeping Tar Pit

// Creatures
4 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 [ROE] Wall of Omens

// Spells
4 [ALA] Brilliant Ultimatum
3 [ZEN] Day of Judgment
3 [ALA] Esper Charm
4 [ZEN] Spreading Seas
1 [WWK] Smother
3 [CFX] Path to Exile
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [LRW] Liliana Vess
2 [ARB] Fieldmist Borderpost
2 [ARB] Mistvein Borderpost
1 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 2 [M10] Celestial Purge
SB: 2 [ARB] Identity Crisis
SB: 2 [ZEN] Kor Sanctifiers
SB: 4 [M10] Negate
SB: 4 [WWK] Kor Firewalker

In spite of Corey's UW list being the best I have ever seen so far, I am still engaged with the esper one.
I mean, esper kicks everyday uw's ass and post board it eats planesdeck alive. The matchup against jund it's like 50-50, slightly favorable, and naya it's just easy since they got no means to stop us from "comboing".
Mythic however can be a pain on the ass all depending on their draws. The good thing about esper, it just beats random crap, by waiting until t7 for the blowout.
Against mono red though, I think esper is slightly advantaged than UW since it can win at T7 and UW takes a lot of more time than that.
The matchup's theoreticaly go something like this:

Matchup's UW Esper B.
Jund 60-40 50-50
UW - 80-20
Uwr 50-50 60-40
V. Naya 60-40 70-30
Mythic 60-40 50-50
Mono red 40-60 50-50

for Jund:

Game 1, UW's highly favorable and esper is favorable as well that is due to jund's all around maindeck which is not very focused pre board. UW's just has to try to stall board as it is possible by landing spreading seas, doj's, white PW's and then play a mind spring for a virtual win. Esper however is not as easy, it has to build up mana and try to 1-1 with jund until the 7th mana then just let it go ftw.

Sideboard

UW: -3 Path
+2 Purge
+1 Elspeth

Esper B.

-2 path
+2 purge

Basically the decks just upgrade path's into purge's, but the thing is jund does more than that. It brings duress's, malakir blood's and the worst of them all, goblin ruinblaster... after sideboard the matchup complicates for UW and even worse for esper.



UW:

Esper is highly advantaged since most decks just don't play counters maindeck, so it should be easy to resolve the planeswalkers and the ultimatums.

Sideboard

UW:
-4 Wall
-4 Day
-1 Path
+4 Negates
+1 Jace
+1 Martial Coup
+1 Deprive
+1 Elspeth
+1 Kor Sanctifiers

Esper:

-4 Wall
-3 Doj
-1 Path
+4 Negate
+2 Kor Sanctifier's
+2 Identity Crisis

Post board, for esper it becomes like: just play land and before the turn your opponent lays the 4th land you got to stay still always leaving the negate mana up. Well, this is as the mirror should play as well, but here's where esper got the edge:
esper charm! You basically get to resolve your draw spell at the end of their turn so you won't miss land drop's. And esper's lategame's better than UW. If you manage to resolve an identity crisis, game end's.


UWr

So this one does not play counters Main deck. Now UW will probably lose because it has so manyyy dead cards and uwr is loaded with 12 planeswalkers so it's a very rough match G1. Esper mu comes down to an ajani at turn 4. There is no way to stop it/remove it, so...

Sideboard

UW:
-4 Wall
-4 Day
-1 Path
+4 Negates
+1 Jace
+1 Martial Coup
+1 Deprive
+1 Elspeth
+1 Kor Sanctifiers

Esper:

-4 Wall
-3 Doj
-3 Path
+4 Negate
+2 Kor Sanctifier's
+2 Identity Crisis
+2 celestial purge

UW's probably got the upper hand post board with so many counters, more planes, better mana... Esper's totally a new deck, now you can end games with crisis and also got a removal for ajani, there's nothing to fear post board.



Mythic

It can be really though since it has only to land a beater, and then just back it up with a jace and an escort and control can't really do much. It's quite an effort G1... As for esper, the job is easier g1 since it has only to survive until t7 since mythic has no way to stop ultimatum from happening.

Sideboard

UW:

Sideboard
-2 Mind Spring
-1 Spreading Seas
+1 Martial Coup
+1 Elspeth
+1 Path

Esper:

- 1 liliana
+ 1 path

Post board things don't change that much for the control decks, but mythic loads on negates which complicate a lot really. I think that UW got the edge over esper post board against mythic.

Vengevine naya

This one, I trully believe that esper has got the upper hand. Once again, it has only to survive up to turn7 to unleash hell. The vengevines turned what was an awful deck into a good deck, it has haste which can be truly annoying since it comes into play just eats 1/5 of your life total or a planeswalker. It is nearly immune to wrath's...

Sideboard

UW
-1 Spreading Seas
-1 Deprive
-1 Mind Spring
+1 path
+1 Elspeth
+1 Martial Coup

Esper

+1 path to exile
-1 Jace

After sideboard, things actually don’t change much, naya’s side is just an upgrade to fight back control decks with a little more hate in form of ring’s and qasali’s, some have also vapor snare for the angel’s but other than that, it much remains the same.


Mono Red

In UW it all comes down to landing a baneslayer and get to untap with it. Otherwise it will be very rough. As for esper, all is has to do is get to the 7th turn alive, by pathing and smothering all threats and esper charm to wear down the opposing player.

Sideboard

UW
-2 Mindspring
-4 spreading seas
-4 doj
+4 negate
+2 purge
+1 path
+3 firewalker

Esper

-3Doj
-4 Spreading seas
-2 Jace
+2 Negate
+4 Firewalker
+1 Path
+2 Purge

After, sideboard, things complicate for Red. They don’t gain anything spectacular, and the controls gain firewalkers and more instant spot removal making tougher those suicidal lightning freaks to actually get their job done.

Well, so now you see. This is my great dilemma: Stability vs Blowoutness. Let’s see if tomorrow’s GP will actually solve this matter, or just propose a few options…



Bibliography:

The UW decklist as well most of the sideguides were taken from Brad Nelson's article at channelfireball.com