fbpx

Standard U/B Control Primer

If you want a recommendation for what to play at Grand Prix Baltimore or SCG Open: Memphis, U/B Control might be a good choice! Read why Brad thinks so and how to play each matchup like a pro.

Standard is in full swing! The metagame has been shifting constantly, and it seems like a different deck is winning every week. Two weeks ago, we saw Wolf Run Ramp take down the Pro Tour and Esper Delver put up insane results. Last week, we saw Corrosive Gales and reanimator strategies pick up in popularity. This week will be a great time for my favorite archetype, U/B Control. Today I am going to run through why I think it will be the best deck for this weekend and everything you need to know to be able to pilot this monster.

U/B Control had a decent showing at the Pro Tour even though it was underplayed. I should have played this deck as well, since we worked on it for some time, but I just couldn’t get myself to pull the trigger. I guess I had pack mentality, which made me push for the team deck—Wolf Run Ramp.

The shell of U/B Control is pretty much the same for any version you want to play. Creature removal, card advantage, and counterspells take up a major portion of this deck. The only real decision to make is how you want to kill your opponent. However it’s also the most tricky.

Win conditions differ depending on what archetypes you think will be the most popular. Blue Sun’s Zenith is the best win condition if you think the field will be other control variants, ramp strategies, self-mill strategies like the French reanimator deck, and Delver. Grave Titan and Consecrated Sphinx are needed when you think creature strategies like Dungrove Green and Mono Red will be littering the top tables. It comes down to metagame calls.

You do not need to play many ways to finish an opponent. This deck sees so many cards in a given game because of Forbidden Alchemy that you will usually go through about three-quarters of your deck. You don’t want to be holding a bomb in hand until very late in the game.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with this deck is to try to kill your opponents the first chance you get. Even though Grave Titan costs six, that does not mean he hits the board when you play your sixth land. U/B has the most powerful late game of any deck in Standard right now. With every passing turn, your chances of winning get better. This means that it’s more important to preserve your life total and the board state before considering going for the kill.

This week, I think it is best to be winning with Blue Sun’s Zenith and Nephalia Drownyard. The format has slowed down a bit recently. The deck can be grindy, but it runs much better without creatures clogging up your hand. This is the list I am currently thinking about playing this weekend in Baltimore.


The biggest issue with this configuration is the possibility of going to time. This deck is not for the faint of heart. You need to know this archetype inside and out to be able to pilot this deck at a reasonable pace. A game-one victory will tend to take about seventeen of your turns. It’s easy to control the time spent on your turns; however you want your opponent’s turns to take no more than 60 seconds on average. This will allow you to have more time on the complicated turns. If you think your opponent is playing slowly, ask him/her to speed up. If your opponent still plays at a slow pace, call a judge.

Some people have a difficult time calling a judge about this. When calling a judge, ask to step away from the table. Bring the cards in your hand with you. When you’re far enough from the table, tell the judge you want him/her to watch the opponent for slow play but look like you’re asking a question about a card. It will seem normal if the judge stays around for a few turns—or the judge can tell another judge on the floor to keep an eye on the match. Once you get passed this hurdle, the deck is pure gas.

The numbers on the spells in the deck also change with what you expect the format to be. Geist of Saint Traft should be gaining popularity again, which means I want enough Tribute to Hungers and Phantasmal Images in my 75 to deal with this annoying card. These also hit Thrun, the Last Troll, which is not irrelevant. The rest of the numbers can be tweaked based on the predicted metagame.

Volition Reins is a card that has not seen much play in this format as of late. It is open information that U/B has a tough time dealing with resolved planeswalkers, which is why people fill their sideboards with these cards. This makes it easier for them to get blown out by an under-the-radar card like Volition Reins.

Volition Reins is also good in the mirror match, since it cannot be killed. Of course it can get countered, but Surgical Extraction is there for the assist. U/B commonly runs Nihil Spellbomb, but few decks run Extraction—a trump in the mirror match. It not only can get rid of all of an opponent’s Dissipates, but it can also take every copy of Nephalia Drownyard as well. That is a game-ending play if it succeeds!

Surgical Extraction is also MVP against the new incarnations of Delver. Esper Delver relies very heavily on Lingering Souls but does not lean on the power of Moorland Haunt. Nihil Spellbomb can deal with a late-game Moorland Haunt but is not very good against Lingering Souls.

Nihil Spellbomb is great against opposing Snapcaster Mages, but it is not necessarily better than Surgical Extraction in this situation. You just play the cards differently in order to gain value. Nihil Spellbomb sits in play so they can play around it, but Extraction leads to blowouts when they try to cast Snapcaster, and it fizzles.

Batterskull is a card that I am not extremely happy to have in my sideboard over Bloodline Keeper but is needed for the Mono Red matchups. Batterskull is also a much better card against Esper Delver than it is against Geist Delver. Esper Delver is less equipped to play a tempo game, and its Phantasmal Images are worse when they can’t copy Bloodline Keepers.

Matchups

Wolf Run Ramp

Wolf Run is one of your best matchups. Curse of Death’s Hold is the best card you have against them. This card shuts off Inkmoth Nexus so you can just let them resolve and kill them with spot removal.

Ratchet Bomb is a great way to deal with Huntmaster of the Fells. Simply saying "go" with a Ratchet Bomb on zero will let you take out both creatures while losing only two life. This also turns on your Tragic Slips, forcing good players into passing and letting bad ones walk into it. As Shuhei would say it, "Both is okay." Always be happy with a Time Walk! This will give you time to flashback Forbidden Alchemy or Think Twice.

Don’t get too behind on the board! It is important to set up a situation where you can tap out/low for a Curse of Death’s Hold and not die to anything on the following turn.

Sideboard

-3 Tragic Slip
-2 Black Sun’s Zenith
-2 Ratchet Bomb
-1 Go for the Throat
+2 Volition Reins
+2 Phantasmal Image
+1 Negate
+1 Dissipate
+1 Curse of Death’s Hold
+1 Doom Blade

It would seem that this matchup gets better because of the sideboard cards, but it isn’t entirely true. Wolf Run improves slightly more, since so many cards in their deck are dead game one. Planeswalkers, Autumn’s Veil, and Naturalize effects are all coming in. This means you will have to play much tighter Magic for post-sideboard games. You both will have access to more angles.

Esper Delver

This matchup is much easier than the ones against non-Captain lists. They are more focused on sorcery-speed spells, which makes your life much easier. Delver of Secrets is the most aggressive spell they have, which means dealing with early ones is important. Without an early Insectile Abomination, this deck will have a tough time dealing enough damage to win.

Sideboard

-2 Blue Sun’s Zenith
-1 Karn Liberated
-2 Tribute to Hunger
-2 Dissipate (One on the play)
-1 Mana Leak (Two on the play)
+2 Batterskull
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Curse of Death’s Hold
+1 Ratchet Bomb
+1 1 Doom Blade
+1 Negate

Batterskull is not the most exciting card in this matchup, but it serves a purpose. It was possible to hard lock an opponent with two Curses a couple weeks ago, but most players are packing Celestial Purge and Revoke Existence to deal with them. That means we need more ways to finish off an opponent since two Drownyards is a bit slow.

Mana Leak is actually much better in the late game than you would think. Do not be afraid to counter a spell with it even if they can pay mana, and it’s on their turn. They really don’t want to tap out against you when you have Curse of Death’s Hold in your deck. You don’t even have to have the Curse in your hand if they do not have perfect information from a Gitaxian Probe. You might be able to telegraph a Curse for value.

Frites (French Reanimator)

This matchup is as close to a bye as you can get. They spend all of their energy into milling themselves for you in the early turns and put very little pressure on you. This gives you all the time in the world to craft a hand that can deal with a few fatties. Curse of Death’s Hold deals with their mana producers and Lingering Souls as long as Elesh Norn is not in play.

Sideboard

-2 Tribute to Hunger
-2 Black Sun’s Zenith
-3 Tragic Slip
-2 Ghost Quarter
-2 Ratchet Bomb
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Phantasmal Image
+1 Negate
+1 Dissipate
+1 Curse of Death’s Hold
+2 Volition Reins
+2 Nephalia Drownyard

Your best matchup also has an 11-card sideboard. Things just work out this way sometimes.

Control Matchups

U/B has a huge advantage against other control decks in the format. They tend to have more ways to deal with creatures than you do; they also tend to use creatures to try to win. This means that their removal is completely dead while yours is still live. They do not have access to Drownyard, while you easily win with this card.

Planeswalkers are the biggest concern, so playing an early Ratchet Bomb is a good plan.

The most important thing to do is protect at least one Blue Sun’s Zenith from Dissipate. They may be able to kill both Drownyards, which makes it difficult to deck them. Thankfully you have more counterspells than they do, and you play everything on their turn.

Sideboard

-3 Tragic Slip
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 Black Sun’s Zenith
-2 Ratchet Bomb (depending on the number of walkers)
-2 Curse of Death’s Hold (Keep in against Lingering Souls and Sorin Esper decks)
+2 Nephalia Drownyard
+1 Negate
+1 Dissipate
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Volition Reins
+1 Doom Blade (depending on their win conditions)

U/B Control

The mirror match is very boring. Be sure to play fast and have your opponent on the same page. Things get more difficult if they have Liliana of the Veil in their main deck. She allows them to gain an edge more easily.

Protect Drownyards and Blue Sun’s Zeniths, since those are the only real ways to win the game. Karn Liberated could potentially do something but rarely will resolve. Dig deep for Drownyard and start milling them around turn 10. Use the rest of your time to find the other copy.

Sideboard

-3 Tragic Slip
-2 Curse of Death’s Hold
-3 Black Sun’s Zenith
-1 Doom Blade
-1 Go for the Throat
-2 Tribute to Hunger
+2 Nephalia Drownyard
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Negate
+1 Dissipate
+2 Volition Reins
+2 Batterskull
+2 Phantasmal Image

Almost everything in this matchup is terrible, but both decks feel the same pain. Nephalia Drownyard is miles ahead of everything else, and some games just come down to both players milling each other from the start as long as they have lands to play.

Surgical Extraction can be used to either strip them of an important spell or of three cards in their maindeck when the race is close.

Humans

Humans is one of the roughest matchups. It is very difficult to build a U/B deck that can be good against both Humans and Delver, and it is much more important to be geared towards Delver. Most of the decks in the format give Humans a tough time, so having this deck as a bad matchup is not the worst. Protect your life total, and make sure you can deal with a Hero of Bladehold.

-2 Dissipate
-1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
-3 Forbidden Alchemy
+2 Batterskull
+1 Doom Blade
+1 Ratchet Bomb
+1 Curse of Death’s Hold
+1 Negate

Forbidden Alchemy is very weak in this matchup. You never have time to cast this card in the early game and would rather not need to spend time digging for things later on.

Keeping Honor of the Pure off the table is very important, so try to do whatever you can to make this happen. Ratchet Bomb is the best card on the draw, but Negate and Mana Leak can help on the play. This will allow the Curse of Death’s Holds to actually have an impact on the game.

Mono Red

Die in a fire, literally.

Sideboard

-Doesn’t matter. If you don’t draw Batterskull, you lose.

I hope this helped anyone wanting to play this deck, and I wish you all good luck in whatever event you play this weekend. I hope to see you all at Grand Prix Baltimore!

Brad Nelson