B/W Axis (Standard)

Objective:
This deck is a build-around for Axis of Mortality. Our objective is to manage our life total and control the board until we can drop Axis of Mortality. At which point we can drop our life total low, swap, and then finish from range. Of course we can also win the traditional way by hitting our opponent with creatures and direct damage.

Life Management:
Adanto Vanguard is the best combo piece to go along with Axis of Mortality. We can respond to the trigger by tanking our own life total and then swap. It's also a great threat by itself and we often win just by swinging with this difficult to remove threat. Arguel's Blood Fast pulls double duty for us by drawing a ton of cards and dropping our life total. The flip side isn't super relevant and we probably never flip it. We have another bit of self damage in the land base that is often helpful. We can do damage to ourselves at the end of our opponents turn and in response to the Axis of Mortality trigger to lower our life before the swap. The abilities on the deserts are rarely relevant, but they can and will give you that extra edge you need to win some of the time.

Direct Damage:
Gonti's Machinations is our hidden gem. We generate loads of energy over the course of the game, which is helpful for our spenders like Glint-Sleeve Siphoner. It is also a great way to finish the game after swapping life totals. If you already have the energy, you can just play it and sac it to basically bolt your opponent. And if things get dire, the life you can gain from it can keep you in the game. Our other direct damage option is Painful Lesson. We're playing this over Live Fast, because while the energy would be nice we value the option of hitting our opponent with it to do lethal after a swap. Early game you'll be targeting yourself with it to draw lots of cards and find your combo pieces.

Control:
We pack a lot of sweepers in the deck. Our opponent wins if they get enough creatures on board to kill us in one hit. Fumigate resets the game for us and gives us all the time we need to put our combo together. Settle the Wreckage does better than average in this deck, since our opponent has to commit a lot to kill us. Cast Out is there to deal with planeswalkers and gods. It's a nice catch-all and we can cycle it away if we don't need it. Gideon of the Trials helps with each of our game plans. He stalls the board and buys us time. If we manage an aggressive start, he can turn into a dude and end the game quickly. And of course we have the emblem option. If you can make yourself go negative and then swap life totals, you are literally living the dream. Note that you cannot pay life you don't have, so the only real ways we can go negative intentionally are Painful Lesson and Glint-Sleeve Siphoner. Lastly, we have Consulate Surveillance. This deals with all the direct damage that would interrupt our combo and ruin the fun. It gets around hexproof and unconventional damage sources like a Chandra, Torch of Defiance emblem. It also makes attacking very awkward for our opponent, since we can use it to micro-manage our life total for Axis of Mortality.

Sideboard:
The choices here may vary for your local meta. Duress, Doomfall, and Ixalan's Binding are good vs control. Duress can also be good in game 2 and 3 after our opponent sides in their Negate and planeswalkers. Authority of the Consuls and Gifted Aetherborn are helpful vs aggro and mid-range. Protection of the Hekma is sort of strange, but it's an OK answer against go wide tokens decks and Walking Ballista.

Notable Exclusions:
We aren't running Fatal Push, even though we totally could. For one, we don't have many reliable ways to trigger revolt. Although, that's not a great reason by itself. The main reason is that we are focusing on sweepers. It just doesn't feel worth it to trade card for card, since we need to build up significant card advantage to put together our combo. We also aren't as scared as most decks are about a resolved Longtusk Cub. We have lots of board clears and we don't mind taking some damage while we find them. We also don't have Vraska's Contempt in whole 75. While this card is fantastic, it feels worse than Cast Out in almost any situation this deck cares about. Vraska's Contempt is much stronger in blue based control, because they can target it with Torrential Gearhulk.