Control Decks Week in Review and Other Stuff

The overall goal of last year’s inaugural Championship Deck Challenge was to work an “interest back into the art of deck building.” When that event was conceived, Tier One lists all started with “4 Arcbound Ravager, 4 Disciple of the Vault…” with little or no variation. The most important deck to come out of that event was a Mono-Blue Control deck… that was assigned during the Blue/White week. Not that Ravager Affinity wasn’t awfully good and probably the right choice for the majority of players.

As such, Control Week feels to me like the most important one, at least until we hit “tuned decks” next week. The themes are by nature contrived “make a mono-colored deck… make a Guild deck…” Decks created under those parameters might end up being quite good, might be obvious implementations of card combinations R&D expects us to find, and probably aren’t ultimately as good as Block Gifts Ungiven (which according to Knut was more dominant than Ravager Affinity). But a Control deck is different. A Control deck by its very nature must be aware of the conflicting incentives in the metagame, be ready for literally every kind of threat the format dictates, and generally go long with its back against the wall. Ultimately Control decks for Champs are less about the self-contained or internal elements of its plan and more about how well it can crash against the shifting faces of an untested metagame.

So that is the context, in my mind anyway, of the 2005 Championship Deck Challenge as we hit the end of Control Week. I’m going to add a deck list of my own at the end of this article, but the main thing Knut wanted me to do was go over some of the other writers’ decks and give my comments and ideas on their implementation or viability. Per usual, send hate mail to Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2.

Jim’s G/W Glare Deck

Glare of Subdual Control

Jim Ferraiolo

Test deck on 10-09-2005

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (21)

Spells (13)

My problem with this deck is twofold. 1) It doesn’t do anything, and 2) it has no plan against control. Those are two big problems, and in the context of Control decks, the second is particularly glaring (no pun intended). This deck is probably okay against a one-dimensional attack deck, but failing Glare of Subdual, it has basically no plan against a flying onslaught as implemented by White Weenie or Boros; sadly these will be the most common attack decks that will appear a week from tomorrow. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of dorks. Imagine it gets everything online. Yep, still dorks. No real outs against, say, a Wrath of God. And then there’s that “Suppression Field” card…

For this deck to be good, I think that it has to do something more exciting than tapping random creatures provided that there is no Suppression Field in play. I’m sure this deck has an okay matchup with the average beatdown deck but regardless of its mid-range control elements… this Glare Control deck has got no life gain. I can’t imagine it can stand up to a Boros deck with a quick start into Skyknight Legionnaire (you know, that card that Knut’s “superior” Boros deck doesn’t have). Even if you get control of the creatures a couple of turns in… you’re just going to get smoked if you can’t win fast enough.

One thing that I think the deck can do to give it more oomph and to set up some kind of a plan against control is to main deck Natural Affinity. Natural Affinity on the opponent’s turn, either on upkeep or at the end of turn, can create a significant tactical advantage. Remember, Natural Affinity turns the opponent’s lands into creatures too, so they are eligible for tapping via a Glare of Subdual. This can help to let the deck set up Hokori and/or Gatekeeper. Natural Affinity can also “Fireball” the opponent out given sufficient setup and give a Wrath of God player a surprise that he isn’t prepared to deal with.

The other major issue I would have with Jim’s implementation is Sundering Vitae. I guess it’s nice to be able to play Disenchant at a discount, but if there is any deck in the history of Magic that wants Seed Spark – other than Investigating Sunforger anyway – it’s this one. Two 1/1 tokens rarely matter in Magic, but in a deck based on breaking parity via tapping? Right in, boys!

Quentin’s Thugged Out Gifts

Thug Gifts

Quentin Martin

Test deck on 10-02-2005

Standard

Creatures (15)

Lands (23)

Spells (22)

I welcome the idea of a new non-Splice focused Gifts Ungiven deck, but I don’t know if the deck needs to completely eliminate the Arcane elements in order to make that point at tournament deck level. If you want to go the Dredge route over the Splice route, I don’t see why Life From the Loam isn’t in the main. Gifts for land, land, land, Life From the Loam? That’s kind of like an Inspiration into an Ancestral Recall, maybe not immediately but down the line. Especially given the necessity to fight – and win – Legendary Land battles over Miren, Okina, Shizo, and… no idea why this deck has Oboro over Minamo, but that’s neither here nor there, Life From the Loam just seems better to me than Golgari Thug, though I certainly appreciate Quentin’s attempt to do something different.

In this case, I think that I would follow his line of reasoning that Mana Leak belongs least – this is a very active control deck, and Mana Leak is one of the least consistent permission spells ever to headbutt its way into Tier One anyway – and make room for some of the traditional Arcane elements.

Last thing, I don’t really see how Birds of Paradise is better than Kodama’s Reach in this deck. Knut is playing with Shock for Morphling’s sake! Regardless, this deck itself plays Plague Boiler, Kagemaro, and Hideous Laughter. I’ve tried season after season to get the Birds of Paradise out of my Pernicious Deed’ ways in Extended; though that’s never been right in The Rock testing, I don’t see why I would want to intentionally put Birds back between the crosshairs if I didn’t have to, especially when there is a consistent, powerful, and proven alternative.

Osyp’s Enduring Ideal Deck

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

4 Farseek

4 Kodama’s Reach

4 Wrath of God

4 Enduring Ideal

3 Honden of Seeing Winds

1 Honden of Infinite Rage

1 Form of the Dragon

1 Honden of Cleansing Fire

1 Honden of Night’s Reach

1 Genju of the Realms

1 Honden of Life’s Web

2 Confiscate

1 Reverence

1 Zur’s Weirding

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Swamp

1 Overgrown Tomb

1 Watery Grave

1 Sacred Foundry

2 Island

4 Temple Garden

4 Plains

9 Forest

Sideboard:

1 Privileged Position

1 Mindmoil

1 Ivory Mask

2 Honden of Night’s Reach

1 Confiscate

1 Form of the Dragon

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

3 Early Harvest

3 Pacifism

I don’t like this version at all. Enduring Ideal was nowhere near Tier One in Block, and the reason was that it was the exact same deck as every other Top/Tribe Elder deck except infinitely slower than either the completely expected Gifts Ungiven or the marginal at best TOGIT Three-color Control style of decks, except in narrow situations. Why? What’s the big problem?

Epic.

Once Epic is online, you can’t defend yourself. Cleanfall (a card you may or may not see)? No responses. Plague Boiler (a card you will definitely see)? Ditto.

Even before that point, Osyp’s deck has no offense. His deck as far as I can see is Ideal or no… I guess he can resolve some Hondens, but the deck as listed can’t really beat a Boomerang, let alone a real permission deck.

That said, I think Enduring Ideal is quite powerful. I thought that the Good Form deck which has been reported on elsewhere was good, but that deck was lightning fast, capable of going off at least a turn or two more quickly than Osyp’s deck… and even it was at least somewhat vulnerable to permission decks. A different look, and one you may have never seen, is the Mike Long Homebrew that Dave Williams played at U.S. Nationals.

I know the deck looks like a steaming pile, but Dave ended up with a winning record, and regardless of being ineligible as a direct choice for this year’s States, this deck has an interesting and applicable plan if we are talking about Enduring Ideal.

This deck has an actual proactive plan – guys and mana acceleration into 5/5s – and uses Enduring Ideal as a finisher. I don’t particularly like the numbers – 19 land? one Sensei’s Divining Top? – but the plan is quite fascinating.

Here’s a look inspired by Long’s style of deck that embraces some different and proven strategies with Enduring Ideal as the nail in the coffin of an otherwise viable deck type:

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

1 Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang

4 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Ghost-Lit Stalker

4 Confiscate

1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

1 Zur’s Weirding

1 Genju of the Realm

2 Farseek

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

4 Wood Elves

1 Form of the Dragon

2 Godo, Bandit Warlord

4 Enduring Ideal

4 Forest

2 Island

1 Mountain

4 Overgrown Tomb

2 Plains

2 Swamp

4 Temple Garden

4 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree

This deck has action before Enduring Ideal hits. Even if its guys are small, there is many a swordsman among the early drops. It can win with Godo, win with Meloku, or win going long with Enduring Ideal of course. I tried to play cards that work even if I’m stuck under Epic, and between Vitu-Ghazi, equipment, and channel, the deck has things to do with its mana.

Anyway, here’s my Control Week contribution:

Mono-Blue Control

Mike Flores

Test deck on 10-09-2005

Standard

Creatures (10)

Lands (25)

Spells (25)

Sideboard

You might notice that this deck is similar to the “Possible Blue Control” I posted on Swimming With Sharks. I liked the inclusion of Dimir Aqueduct to fight Hokori and decided to run with the Black a bit for the Cranial Extraction sideboard.

The main difference over that version, other than the inclusion of Watery Grave for the sideboard, is the innovation of Shadow of Doubt. If you haven’t noticed yet, Shadow of Doubt is one of the best cards in Ravnica. Say Osyp’s deck gets Boseiju + Enduring Ideal… Shadow Of Doubt Still Counters It.

And Draws a Card.

Shadow of Doubt is wicked against Gifts Ungiven, Kodama’s Reach, Cranial Extraction… basically every game winning or two-for-one effect that might maul a Blue Control deck.

This deck, which is clearly based on Antonino DeRosa’s Grand Prix winner, seems like it would be really consistent against all the other slow decks, from Ideal to Gifts, so the main deck I tested against was aggro, specifically Mark Young Angry White Men from a few weeks ago. Sorry Mark Young White Weenie; you were not the winner… 7-3 in favor of Mono-Blue. Basically Suppression Field was surprisingly worthless and Blue just countered or Boomerang’d Glorious Anthem if it seemed like a problem. The main issue was that the random White guys weren’t good enough against four maindeck Threads and certainly didn’t get through Keiga without reach.

Obviously Shadow of Doubt was sub-optimal in that matchup, but it was still a bad Impulse. Even Hokori was not game over because of the mighty Dimir Aqueduct. Aqueducts went a long way in beating Suppression Field.

I didn’t test against Boros (yet), but I’m sure Boros would be worse because it can actually finish the game. If it came down to which Boros deck was better in the battle of the editors, I think that Fiorillo’s deck would be much better than Knut’s in this matchup because 1) it can actually kill a Meloku with Char, 2) Skyknight Legionnaire is better than Shock both in that it will deal more damage the majority of the time and that there are few situations In Games I Could Actually Win where I would want to draw Shock, and 3) Umezawa’s Jitte is still insane against any deck with guys whereas Suppression Field was, again, just not good enough against maindeck Threads, Boomerang, and even Meloku (I’ll pay, no lies). Oh yeah, Hunted Lamassu was so exceptionally bad in Young’s deck that I can’t see it being much better in Ted’s. I’m not even going to go into details other than to say if it’s bad to give your opponent a 4/4 the first time, what about the second? After boards, four Dimir Aqueducts is insane against both decks with Hokori and decks with Suppression Field. If it were me, on the White Weenie or Boros team, I wouldn’t even try, and focus on real threats like Jitte, quick beats, and Bathe in Light (which can conceivably beat not only Boomerang but Threads of Disloyalty). [Further testing reflects a lot of what Mike says here is true, excluding the Shock comment. The updated build now has Fields in the sideboard, Jittes in the main, and Hunted Lammasu nowhere near the deck. – Knut, probably never posting another one of his own testing decks again. No matter how many times you say “this deck is admittedly far from perfect,” it’s just not worth the criticism]

Given my testing so far, this Blue deck is one of the two decks that I like the best for the format. The other one, which I will write about next week, is not surprisingly my updated Critical Mass (now featuring zero “critical” Gnarled Masses). At this point, given the fact that White Weenie is the primary beatdown deck that has to be stopped, I think that the main goal for Champs has to be to beat White Weenie at least half the time while having flexible long game answers against any random expensive game winner, be it Eye of the Storm, Kagemaro, or Enduring Ideal. Blue Control and Critical No-Mass are the two decks that are accomplishing those disparate goals best in my Standard testing.

Good luck with your testing the next week or so.

LOVE

MIKE