And this is my last one (so far?): UW full-of-rares no-early-drops control.
p1p1 was really hard for me: Emeria Shepherd versus Halimar Tidecaller. These two cards lead to totally different deck philosophies and pick priorities. I almost timed out before taking the Shepherd. And then the big-mana plays just kept coming my way, with no early drops to be seen anywhere. p1p2 was Angel of Renewal, p1p3 Ugin's Insight (which is quite insane), and so my colors were decided. I passed a Stasis Snare for the Planar Outburst p2p1, but got a Snare p2p4 (again, one of the loudest imaginable signals). But I was quite unhappy till I got the two Reproaches and Glider in pack three. Then I started thinking about maybe winning a game or two.
This deck would kill for a Tidecaller. As it was, I played the Reclaimer to try and get some of my great spells back, and shore up defenses against aggro. I boarded it out most games, since my processing was simply not there. Ruin Processor was the card I wanted to use the one exiled card I managed each game on, not the Reclaimer. I did consider Coils or Scour over it, but Scour further distorted my no-acceleration, top-heavy mana curve, and Coils are not a good fit for a deck with what I perceived as a no-flyers deck. After all, I only have three four-power ones, and a Wind Drake.
Round one was the matchup I feared, RG landfall-based aggro. Well, more midrange, but definitely quite fast enough to out-aggro me. Unfortunately for him, he had some lag issues, had to reboot, and lost a lot of time. So after I managed to stabilize and win game two, he timed out.
Round two was GB control. No problem, except that I had to play really fast last game. He had Void Vinnower, which is actually a very good finisher if you can cast it on a stable board. But I had the Cub in play, used it to blow up my Stasis Snare (giving him back a Herald of Kozilek), and then played the Shepherd and a Plains to get rid of the odd one. Which was good enough to win the match with the fliers.
The finals were UR with two Skyspawners, Adverse Conditions, the Tidecaller, some Clutches, and the Thunder. But he wasn't fast, and my deck did what it did best: the card-advantage game. I remember an Outburst with no awaken, when he had the only live land in play, followed by Ondu Rising and Ruin Processor to get my life total back into double digits. And the Angels were just game.
So, with what I feel was a lot of luck, I won the tourney. The most surprising thing about this was that Retreat to Coralheim is actually playable in this kind of deck. I boarded it in (over Reclaimer) in rounds two and three, and it did a lot of work, untapping creatures, scrying for Plains for the Shepherd, and so forth. Definitely not what you want against a fast deck, but if the game goes long, it provides a lot of card advantage.
I enjoy control, and I finally decided that yes, no matter how slow and/or bad it looks, I will play blue. And I hope that the control deck viability trend will continue.