“If it weren't for that Meddling Mage...”

“When Meddling Mage comes into play, name a card. The named card cannot be played.” These two sentences make Meddling Mage one of the most awesome control cards ever. Sadly, White-Blue Control is hardly seen in Standard these days, and if it wasn't for this card, it would probably be seen a hell of a lot less.

Just imagine your White-Blue Control deck against a Black-Red-Green Beatdown deck. In game 1, your opponent Terminates your best creatures, and you're left with next to nothing to attack with. Then he goes in with Hellkite Overlord for the win. Game 2; after bringing in your four sideboarded Meddling Mages, you drop one on turn two, naming Terminate. After that, provided your opponent doesn't have any more creature removal ready, it's simple: control the field, and before he gets to eight mana, drop another Mage, this time naming the Overlord. GG. Game three should be much the same.

Unfortunately, Meddling Mage doesn't bring many controlling buddies with it in Alara Reborn. All you've got is Unbender Tine, Offering to Asha and Ethersworn Shieldmage, which is only really good in an artefact-heavy deck. Of the rest, you have evasion creatures and mana-fixing. Apart from that, Control is only really explored on the form of Elementals in the Lorwyn block, and Esper and Bant-themed decks had a handful of control cards. Therefore, Meddling Mage will really shine in Extended, where players have access to the best of Control since Onslaught.

See, in Extended, if you're playing White-Blue Control, you'd want to sideboard a full round of the Mages, unless you've got something better, which you most certainly won't. After game 1, you'll know what exactly is the biggest threat your opponent has, and unless your opponent is playing Burn, which is the worst match-up a Control deck can have, you can make yourself near-invulnerable to that card, or cards, by simply bringing in the Mages. While you're countering your opponent's spells, and bouncing whatever gets through, the 2/2 Mages can be dishing out some pain to your opponent's life total. Even with one Mage out, victory is a mere ten turns away.

I played in the Regionals in Sydney, and while most people were playing tokens or burn, one person did play White-Blue Elemental Control. I don't know how high he got, or if he was playing any Meddling Mage's, but it was refreshing to see nevertheless. He definitely didn't need them in the match I saw him playing. One thing is for sure, though: people want Meddling Mage. It is recognised as an awesome rare almost immediately; every time I was asked if I wanted to trade at the Alara Reborn Prerelease, the words “Meddling Mage” seemed to be said at some point, and were always preceded by “do you have any...”

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and prepare a certain Standard deck for the next constructed tournament. I know it seems early, but for the Regionals I used a Green-Blue giant creatures deck, and failed epically. Back to the drawing board...