-[THE MISSION]-
Dovin Baan is the all star of this deck. His ultimate alone is borderline game ending, but when combined with Jace, Unraveller of Secret's emblem your opponent begins to flip tables. One thing is for certain about the Kaladesh standard, however; creatures are going to be swinging hard and fast. We don't have long to activate the Dovin Baan emblem, and without it, we lack luster the late-game force to secure a win.
We can buy more time, using Niblis of Frost to create a freeze engine that makes enemy creatures useless until we get to ultimate Dovin Baan. Let's now dive in to how we are going to draw out the game and take down our opponent.
-[FREEZING THINGS WITH NIBLIS OF FROST]-
Nibbles is a great spirit for stalling. A 3/3 flying-prowess for two blue mana and two colorless mana, this creature taps an enemy creature whenever you cast an instant or sorcery - additionally, the tapped creature does NOT untap during the opponent's untap step.
Once Nibbles is onto the battlefield, your opponent is immediately under pressure. Our suite of instants and sorceries lies on the cheaper side of our curve, meaning we could be freezing multiple creatures per turn. Grip of the Roil is our all star, freezing a creature before even triggering Nibbles and allowing us to draw a card; for bonus style points, we can combo it using its surge cost. Good stuff.
You may also spot the one main board copy of Elder Deep-Fiend. We plan to emerge this guy as a big safety net - I will eventually talk about Reflector Mage, who acts as our emerge fodder. If you happen to have a spare Niblis on the board, you can sacrifice that as well; the Deep-Fiend offers a unique tap out of our opponent in that it hits more than creatures while maintaining instant speed. Not to mention, it is a huge freaking Eldrazi octopus.
-[BACK UP DEFENSES]-
Even while tapping all the aggro creatures across the table, there still are threats to Dovin Baan and Nibbles. The first card I'll talk about is Authority of the Consuls, a one mana enchantment that makes me drool looking at it. Sure, it isn't broken or so OP it face rolls enemies, but this card has so much to offer. To begin with, it shuts down haste entirely, which often counters our biggest threat - aggro! It also takes care of vehicles, as the enemy will struggle to crew in their big meatheads in a timely manner. All the while, we will enjoy healing for each creature they attempt to throw at us. This is always a pleasure to play turn one.
We also feature a play set of Thing in the Ice. Thing in the Ice offers a different approach to halting aggressive enemies; a board-wiping bounce. Sure, we will bounce our own Niblis, but often times I believe that a 7/8 left unguarded isn't too far off of its own win condition. Not to mention, it doesn't bounce our Planeswalkers, and it benefits from us casting spells like we're supposed to. I am more than satisfied with this inclusion.
Reflector Mage is a very competitive card that has truly proved its worth. In this deck, it is a quick turn three play to halt the setup on an opponent's board, and can then be sacrificed to emerge our Deep-Fiend after it has done its job. I considered a play set of this creature, but it clashes with our other play sets and really loses synergy with our one Deep-Fiend when we play a full four copies. If you felt super inclined to put in a fourth, I can't say you'd be completely wrong to do so. I'd recommend taking out an Impeccable Timing to do so.
Spells in this deck also offer some mild protection. Gideon's Reproach is an odd choice for this deck, but hear me out; on turn two you can play this card and kill most attackers. Even in the late game, you can emerge a Deep-Fiend and use this as a combat trick to secure the kill. At the very least, it is a spell, and provides an outlet for freezing with Nibbles and bouncing with Thing in the Ice. Finally, we have a pair of Disappearing Acts - without going too much into detail, being able to counter a spell to bounce a Reflector Mage or Deep-Fiend back into our hand for repeated use is a phenomenal two-for-one. There is no way I'd be caught dead not playing this gross combo; imagine the faces of stricken horror as you bounce your Deep-Fiend to counter your opponent's huge comeback, and then next turn re-emerge it to get the cast trigger. Absolutely evil, yet hilarious.
Select for Inspection gets its own paragraph because of a neat mechanic I'd like to point out that makes this card very good in this deck. With a Niblis of Frost down, here is how playing Select for Inspection works; when you cast it, BEFORE IT RESOLVES, you may tap a creature thanks to Niblis. Mr. Nibbles' rules text says "Whenever you *cast* an instant or sorcery spell," which means that a creature is tapped before that card resolves. Select for Inspection, therefore, taps out a creature before you are asked to bounce a tapped creature - this is relevant because this is an instant-speed answer to crewed vehicles for one mana, that also is a spell and fuels our Ice Things. Very solid inclusion, and even without Niblis, I find this card still to pull through with due to the mere fact that the scry aids our major weakness of inconsistency.
-[OTHER TOOLS]-
Anticipate is really good for counter-acting an opponent's play,since you can find a card that will allow you to respond to whatever your enemy is doing. It also gets rid of an ice counter on Thing in the Ice, and honestly is okay just for scrying three and drawing one, essentially.
Geier Reach Sanitarium fixes our card draw, and can also force opponents to discard. The downside to this land is that it has a global effect, which can often times serve use to our opponent instead of us... but when in doubt, the Sanitarium can help you turn trash into treasure.
-[REMEMBER!]-
The end-goal of this deck is to use Dovin's -7 ability. Activating Jace's -8 is dandy, but our opponent can play around the Jace emblem much more fluidly than Dovin's. Jace has other purposes aside from his ultimate ability; he offers advanced card selection, and can bounce enemy creatures away from harming us. Losing Jace to his own -3 is sometimes worth the eventual win, and we have to play super safe in order to activate Dovin's ultimate, which usually means we've won.
-[SIDEBOARD]-
I will write on this at a later date, it is pretty self explanatory.
-[STRATEGY MATCH-UPS]-
=Eldrazi Ramp (usually Green/Red)=
I'd say your odds of winning this match up are pretty good. You are going to want to counter their early ramp spells and Planeswalkers, and use the copies of Fragmentize in the sideboard to destroy their artifacts that ramp them. The one thing that becomes a pain is the Eldrazi cast triggers - half of our deck freezes those guys, but the other half of our deck bounces them. Repeatedly bouncing Eldrazi is a terrible, terrible thing. Cut off their ramp, then hit them with creatures before they pull enough mana to do anything.
=B/G Delirium w/ Emrakul=
Not too difficult to defeat, despite the fact that this deck does not use too many creatures. Similarly to the Eldrazi match up, you are going to want to sideboard in control spells and counter the enemy spells that puts card into their graveyard. Saving Summary Dismissal exclusively for Emrakul is always smart, and it is almost always obvious when they are about to play Emrakul (usually as soon as they can, in my experience). Gideon's Reproach is something you wouldn't need in this matchup, and same with Authority of the Consuls - Delirium really is light on creatures compared to self-mill spells.
=R/B Triskaideckaphobia=
This deck stomped a ton of people at my local meta, FYI. It is no joke. However, Azorius Freeze does in fact counter R/B Triskaideckaphobia for a couple reasons: first, it plays a lot of creatures that we tap and heal with Authority of the Consuls. Second, the Tree of Perdition often is stuck in the tapped position, and therefore the opponent cannot force us into defeat that way. Be warned, however; this deck uses lots of token makers and creature removal, and so if you feel like you don't have any creatures on the board, make sure to counter some of their removal and try to keep your creatures alive. Otherwise, enjoy the monstrous amount of hilarity that comes with this match up.
=B/W Life Gain=
This deck was everywhere! I was surprised it came up so much. Anyhow, this is a very easy match up; life gain decks are primarily based around life link, which doesn't happen with tapped creatures. Finally you get a Thing in the Ice to flip and shortly after you win - not to mention, this was the one match up where I got to activate Dovin and Jace's emblems in the same game.
MORE MATCH UPS TO COME!