Hello, and welcome to the first installment of my new column. I have a lot of grand ideas about what I want to do with this series, and disclaimers about how I’m trying to teach long term skills more than providing short term decks, but I don’t want to waste too much time on that in one article, so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Let’s just say that, in general, I intend to focus on my process more than my conclusions.
Last week I decided to set about the process of making a control deck with a manabase that I didn’t hate. This was inspired by Volcanic Fallout, which could potentially make Cloudthresher unnecessary, allowing me to cut Green from the deck. I’m not sure that cutting one color really lets you change the mana that much, although it certainly helps the filter lands when you stop trying for GGGG in a deck with Cruel Ultimatum, but I wanted to take it a step further and drop White as well. Doing that would certainly let me have consistent mana.
I wanted to try to take advantage of incidental damage to punish players for Bitterblossom, because fallout by itself will not beat Faeries. I was excited about how the damage from Volcanic Fallout, Blightning, and Countersquall could really add up.
When I cut Green and White I lost Esper Charm (I was hoping to fill that slot with Blightning, which can serve a somewhat similar role, but better if the damage actually matters and I plan to choose discard frequently) and Kitchen Finks. I needed to find a different three-mana creature to stabilize, and I turned to Nyxathid. Playing with him has been interesting. In general, he’s been pretty good, but he can certainly have his bad days, and the card seems like it would be really bad in a beatdown deck that didn’t have a ton of direct damage. This is not a Blightning Beatdown card. Fortunately, I was looking for a creature that could block against aggro and potentially finish a game later on, and he’s great at this.
The first build I threw together was:
2 Agony Warp
4 Mulldrifter
3 Graven Cairns
4 Nyxathid
2 Terror
1 Underground River
4 Vivid Marsh
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Mountain
1 Cascade Bluffs
4 Blightning
4 Sunken Ruins
3 Broken Ambitions
4 Cryptic Command
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Scepter of Fugue
3 Volcanic Fallout
3 Countersquall
Sideboard
1 Scepter of Fugue
3 Infest
2 Unmake
4 Thoughtseize
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Necroskitter
1 Terror
2 Curse of Chains
This maindeck is dedicated very heavily toward beating control decks, which I think it does very well game 1. The deck was proving very awkward against decks like RW, where Scepter of Fugue and Countersquall were dead weight, and the sideboard wasn’t hitting hard enough to make up for it. This lead to the very reasonable decision to move the cards that were only good against a few control decks to the board for my second version, which looked like this:
2 Agony Warp
4 Mulldrifter
4 Nyxathid
3 Terror
2 Infest
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Pithing Needle
4 Blightning
1 Liliana Vess
2 Broken Ambitions
4 Cryptic Command
3 Volcanic Fallout
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Underground River
3 Graven Cairns
4 Vivid Marsh
4 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Mountain
1 Cascade Bluffs
4 Sunken Ruins
Sideboard
3 Scepter of Fugue
1 Infest
3 Countersquall
2 Unmake
1 Volcanic Fallout
4 Thoughtseize
1 Relic of Progenitus
This version brought more removal, including Infest to dodge Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender and allow me to kill creatures without damaging myself against aggro decks. I also added Pithing Needle to the maindeck, largely in preparation for the number of Planeswalkers I expect to see in the upcoming Standard.
Playing this version against Five-Color Control lead to the conclusion that I had moved too far away from my original discard package and I was no longer favored against control decks. My minimized discard package just let them get rid of their meaningless anti-creature cards, while their Esper Charms allowed them to find their relevant spells and hit more land drops. Also, the Pithing Needles were useless in game 1, though they got much better in games 2 and 3 when they brought Planeswalkers in from the board.
Also, at some point I played a Mulldrifter against someone, and he untapped and played a Siege-Gang Commander. I didn’t have a way to sweep the board and I felt thoroughly outclassed. This caused me to want to try Siege-Gang Commander in my deck, filling something along the lines of Broodmate Dragon’s role, so I cut Liliana Vess for Siege-Gang.
After playing a few more matches, I eventually got around to this build:
Creatures (10)
Lands (23)
Spells (27)
- 1 Mountain
- 2 Island
- 3 Terror
- 2 Broken Ambitions
- 4 Cryptic Command
- 2 Agony Warp
- 4 Blightning
- 3 Cruel Ultimatum
- 2 Scepter of Fugue
- 4 Volcanic Fallout
Sideboard
Playing against Faeries showed me that 3 Volcanic Fallouts is definitely the wrong number, but the matchup felt pretty favorable. It is worth mentioning that I’m really not sure what sideboard plan is right against Faeries at this point. One option is to cut the expensive spells and try to beat them with incidental damage and attacking with Nyxathid. This is the approach I generally take against Faeries. It is also possible to take it a completely different direction, and instead overload on discard to void their counters and then treat them as an aggro deck, bringing in sweepers, and try to finish them off with Cruel Ultimatums that they can’t counter because of the discard.
Glen Elendra Archmage was added for the mirror, largely to force Cruel Ultimatum through. It seemed like the card most similar in power level in the mirror to something like Ajani Vengeant, which my colors don’t support.
Ultimately, I really like the mana. It’s all but impossible for me to have 7 lands and still not be able to cast Cruel Ultimatum. The deck has very reasonable plans against most other decks, but I think it still struggles with RW, which may be a death sentence in the current format. Still, there are enough tools available, and enough ability to shift the focus as far as what kind of decks this is trying to beat, that I’ve really gotten the feeling that there’s a lot of potential here.
After building this deck, I got to wondering about whether a different set of three colors had the tools to accomplish what Five-Color Control decks are doing, and I decided that GWU was the next most likely.
I started with this list:
4 Mulldrifter
3 Wall of Reverence
4 Cloudthresher
1 Empyrial Archangel
4 Cryptic Command
2 Fertile Ground
2 Jace Beleren
4 Plumeveil
4 Rampant Growth
3 Bant Charm
4 Condemn
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Seaside Citadel
2 Yavimaya Coast
4 Treetop Village
1 Forest
2 Plains
4 Flooded Grove
3 Reflecting Pool
3 Island
Sideboard
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Pithing Needle
3 Wrath of God
1 Bant Charm
4 Negate
2 Relic of Progenitus
This list was driven by a desire to make Treetop Village work in a Five-Color Control style deck, and also an interest in testing Wall of Reverence, which has impressed. Jace tries to make up for the missing Esper Charms, and Walls and Condemns make the Planeswalkers great. My primary fear with this deck was that it doesn’t have a card like Cruel Ultimatum to seal a game, and it has to worry that eventually its opponent will force something like that through.
Empyrial Archangel was an attempt to find a card that can win a game, but it’s definitely not the right card. That card did not impress at all. This deck felt like it was very good at staying alive, but not good enough at drawing cards or putting any kind of pressure on the opponent. Also, I found that when the deck wants to go this long, Rampant Growth was coming dangerously close to running out of targets.
The sideboard was designed to help with my fear of trump cards from other control decks in the form of additional counters and Pithing Needles for opposing Planeswalkers. Relic of Progenitus was there to stop Reveillark from overwhelming my removal, but more card draw might just do the job.
The Wrath of Gods started in the board because I didn’t want to kill my walls, so I figured I’d get more value out of spot removal.
Playing the deck some lead to the following modified list:
4 Mulldrifter
2 Wrath of God
3 Rampant Growth
3 Bant Charm
4 Condemn
2 Jace Beleren
3 Cloudthresher
3 Fertile Ground
3 Wall of Reverence
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Tidings
2 Plumeveil
1 Martial Coup
4 Cryptic Command
4 Seaside Citadel
4 Treetop Village
2 Plains
4 Flooded Grove
3 Island
1 Forest
2 Yavimaya Coast
3 Reflecting Pool
Sideboard
2 Wrath of God
1 Wispmare
1 Bant Charm
1 Cloudthresher
3 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Negate
1 Plumeveil
2 Glen Elendra Archmage
Some Wraths were moved to the maindeck over some Plumeveils because there were much more effective at fighting tokens. Empyrial Archangel was replaced by Martial Coup as a finisher. One Tidings came in to help with the lack of card draw. The sideboard shifted a little to accommodate the new maindeck, but not much changed.
I took a break on the deck there, because I was still more interested in the UBR deck, but I think this deck has a lot of potential as well, and highlights some very different useful paths for control decks.
I don’t think this list understands its game plan well enough. The defense is really strong, and it should have more Planeswalkers to take advantage of that. It’s likely worth splashing Red for Ajani Vengeant. Also, while I like Treetop Village a lot, this deck doesn’t really need four, because it’s using them as a possible way to win at some point, not as a supplement to other early pressure.
The deck sometimes feels like it has a little too much mana, despite its low (23) land count. That count can’t really be dropped, but maybe less acceleration is called for.
At this point I would probably try a list more like this:
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (18)
Spells (23)
- 1 Forest
- 1 Wrath of God
- 1 Plains
- 3 Island
- 4 Fertile Ground
- 4 Condemn
- 4 Cryptic Command
- 2 Firespout
- 2 Bant Charm
- 1 Martial Coup
Sideboard
Red gives me Ajani to help fight control decks and Firespout, which plays much better with my walls than Wrath of God. Mistveil Plains is likely unnecessary, but I included one because I can imagine running out of cards with this deck. One way to make it better would be to replace Fertile Grounds with Rampant Growths so that you can shuffle cards like Cryptic Command back into the deck as the game goes long, but at the moment I decided that getting extra value out of my Garruk and better color fixing was more important.
Additional Planeswalkers and the replacement of Wrath of God with Firespout caused me to put another Plumeveil back in the deck. Bant Charm was trimmed largely due to curve concerns as Firespout, Jace, and Plumeveil all gave me more three-mana options.
Rhox War Monk is probably better than Plumeveil against everything except Faeries, but at this point I feel that Faeries in prevalent enough that this deck really needs the additional instant, especially since I’m playing Condemn over Path to Exile (the only real advantages to Path are that it can stop a Mistbind Clique trigger and I can use it on my own creatures, but I think I want to Condemn early often enough that it’s better overall).
In the sideboard, I made the switch I mentioned earlier and cut Relic of Progenitus for Tidings. I considered Runed Halo over Celestial Purge because Everlasting Torment has seen very little play lately, but I decided to go with Celestial Purge because if anyone did play Everlasting Torment I basically couldn’t win without it. Still, if you’re confident that that won’t happen, this is a very reasonable deck for Runed Halo.
The mana is at the point where Esper Charm could easily be splashed, but I think, given the defensive cards in this deck, that Jace is just better. Another interesting card that just didn’t quite make it based on heavy color requirements is Scepter of Dominance, but I do think it’s a very good card in decks like this.
More than I hope that you copy these decks and win with them, I hope that I’ve shown some worthwhile paths for control decks to consider, and some useful strategies and synergies to build around. As this is my first weekly article, I’ll add that I appreciate any feedback on the forums and I’ll respond to whatever I can. Please feel encouraged to suggest subjects you’re interested in for future articles, and know that I’m happy to answer any questions about the current decks. Also know that I am not suggesting that any of these, or any lists I ever post, are perfect.
Thanks for reading.