One of the most puzzling things about the current Standard format is how little Blue we’re seeing. Or at least how little Blue we’re seeing in control decks. With threats being hyper-efficient and varied, and both Green and Black having powerful card advantage options in Painful Truths and Seasons Past, Blue doesn’t have a ton to add to control decks outside of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. As good as Jace is, he’s not necessarily worth splashing when he just turns on opposing creature removal. Still, some of us long for a classic U/W Control deck, and bloodsmurf has built just that:

U/W Walkers ? Shadows over Innistrad Standard | bloodsmurf, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (1)
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 2 Narset Transcendent
• 3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• Spells (28)
• 1 Disperse
• 1 Epiphany at the Drownyard
• 2 Immolating Glare
• 2 Negate
• 3 Secure the Wastes
• 3 Spell Shrivel
• 4 Anticipate
• 4 Clash of Wills
• 3 Planar Outburst
• 1 Trail of Evidence
• 4 Myth Realized

• Lands (25)
• 10 Plains
• 9 Island
• 2 Port Town
• 4 Prairie Stream

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Dragonlord Ojutai
• 1 Trail of Evidence
• 1 Angelic Purge
• 2 Horribly Awry
• 3 Invasive Surgery
• 1 Linvala, the Preserver
• 3 Reflector Mage
• 2 Silkwrap
• 1 Stasis Snare

Buy This Deck

What I like about this deck is it is more capable than most decks of playing a draw-go style game in the early turns. You have a handful of cheap counters in Negate and Clash of Wills, as well as the potential to cast either Anticipate or Immolating Glare. Having enough unique instants that leaving up mana doesn’t immediately reveal what cards you have in hand is certainly valuable, particularly when the threats in this format are so varied.

However, the real power of these cheap instants becomes apparent when you lead off with Myth Realized. This card lets you build a quick 3/3 or 4/4 capable of playing defense against Humans and Collected Company decks or let you beat down against ramp and control. It’s a cheap card which slips in under countermagic, and if your opponent is taking a turn off to kill your Myth Realized, you’re probably getting enough time out of the exchange to find a sweeper or resolve a powerful Planeswalker.

In addition to powerful Planeswalkers to top off the curve, I like this deck because it has awesome X spells. We’re all familiar with the power of Secure the Wastes at this point; it’s an awesome surprise finisher in conjunction with Gideon which also lets you generate chump blockers or trade off with a creature or two early on in the game. The most exciting card for me in this deck is Epiphany at the Drownyard. Epiphany is certainly no Sphinx's Revelation, but an open-ended Fact or Fiction is definitely nothing to scoff at, particularly since it can be a cantrip or better very early in the game.

All in all, if Humans and Collected Company continue to be a dominant presence in Standard, this style of control deck may be where Blue mages want to be. The ability to combine efficient removal and counterspells and back them up with haymakers like Gideon and powerful X spells seems like a winning combination to me.