College Cup: Test of Knowledge Event Guide and Singleton Emeritus Decklists

Hello everyone! Today will be the first guide on the three part event series that is the College Cup. Each week there will be a different variation of a Standard format you can battle in to earn points for your preferred Strixhaven School! Make sure to check out the main guide for the full details.

The first event is called Test of Knowledge and the format is Singleton Emeritus, which means you can have at most one copy of any card in your deck (excluding basic lands), but with a twist: Archmage Emeritus will be overseeing this test. Whenever a player casts or copies an instant or sorcery spell, that player will draw a card!

Event Details

• Duration: May 13, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST – May 18, at 8:00 AM PST
• Format: Singleton Emeritus
• Entry Fee: 2,500 Gold or 500 Gems
• Ends After: You can keep playing, but rewards do not go past four wins.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Event Rewards

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• 1 Win: Cultivate Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 2 Wins: Thrill of Possibility Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 3 Wins: Opt Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 4 Wins: Revitalize Japanese Mystical Archive card style

Singleton Emeritus Decklists

I have 7 lists to start you out with, but definitely flex those brewing muscles to see what you can come up with as well. To help you out, there are three things you should consider when building your Singleton Emeritus deck.

1. Play a lot of Instants and Sorceries

Advice like this is why they pay me the big bucks. I know this seems stupidly obvious, but the real tip here is that some color combinations don’t offer enough instants or sorceries to take full advantage of this particular format. You’ll see when looking at my decks that the vast majority of them are Blue as that has the highest incidence of spells in the color pie. You don’t have to play Blue (I branched out for 2 decks), but that’s likely the easiest place to start. That leads me into my next tip nicely.

2. Thassa’s Oracle is Busted

This is both Singleton and Constructed advice wrapped into one! Since you’ll be drawing so many cards, you may get to the point you are running low on library before you can actually win the game. To help prevent that, Thassa’s Oracle can just steal the game away if you’ve spent a lot of time durdling.

3. Play Lower Land Counts

Since we’re presumably playing a lot of instants and sorceries allowing us to draw a bunch of cards, you can definitely work on fewer lands than you’re used to for Constructed decks. I’m not sure the perfect ratio, but keep trimming as needed.

With that out of the way, let’s explore the 7 decks I cooked up for the event!

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[sd_deck deck=”jSI2TCyIh”]

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This event is going to have a lot of decks durdling around so it’s a good time to smash face. Play small creatures, keep the pressure on with spells that draw you into more action, win the game.

[sd_deck deck=”jLHouWMAT”]

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Since so many people are going to be drawing an excess amount of cards, may as well help thin their deck a bit! Most games are likely to go decently long and will involve a lot of card draw so actively milling them as well can make it really likely that they die to their own draws!

[sd_deck deck=”SUaIUQIIq”]

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If you want to play a more midrangey deck for the event, here’s your chance. We have solid creatures, cheap spells, and strong top end. Not much more you can ask for.

[sd_deck deck=”1kw4ojaIT”]

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This is an event focused on casting a bunch of instants and sorceries, may as well build harder around that! We have a bunch of the spell and draw 2 payoffs for Standard all jammed in here to maximize the value per instant and sorcery.

[sd_deck deck=”AK526HUlY”]

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What better way to take advantage of drawing a card everytime you cast a spell than a Control deck? Stymie the opponent’s game plan with interaction then go over the top with a Planeswalker or Thassa’s Oracle!

[sd_deck deck=”VvCTPYmwV”]

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Your second flavor of Control for the event. This Control variant has cheaper interaction compare to Dimir and you get fun cards like Velochus Lorehold and Magma Opus to kill the opponent!

[sd_deck deck=”19BRKtiFH”]

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You thought you could escape Standard that easily? For the devil in all of us, you can play a version of Sultai Ultimatum that’s just as devastating as the Standard version when the Ultimatum resolves.

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy the College Cup!