Late last week I caught news of an exciting new approach to building Urza, Lord High Artificer decks in Modern. Urchin Colley, most notable for her early work on the Urza Outcome decks, was pushing for exploring Archmage’s Charm in the Urza Midrange shells in Modern. Sam Black had tweaked her list a bit, including replacing Emry, Lurker of the Loch with Ice-Fang Coatl, and posted about this list in his Discord.
I immediately 5-0’ed my first Magic Online League with the deck, changed a few sideboard slots, and locked it in for Axion Now Mega Modern, a 118-player paper Modern tournament I was playing the next day, where my only losses would be to the same Amulet Titan player, once in the Swiss and then again in the quarterfinals.
World, welcome Urza Control:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (20)
Spells (24)
I find this decklist incredibly compelling, and have continued to enjoy great success with it ever since the tournament whilst jamming more games as research for this article. It attacks in a different manner and with notably different play patterns from the Urza midrange decks, like Simic Urza, that have become so popular; I call this build of the Urza macro-archetype Urza Control for a reason. Meanwhile the changes that we see here change the match-up spread too in a way that I consider pretty beneficial. More on that after we address quite how the deck ended up being built like this, though.
I suspect Archmage’s Charm is one of the more underplayed cards from Modern Horizons relative to how much it has to offer; it saw a little bit of play in Mono-Blue Control decks after it was printed but those have since disappeared, and it’s started seeing play in Izzet Delver since the printing of Mystic Sanctuary, but that’s about it. This isn’t surprising as the card’s casting cost is harsh, restricting deckbuilding by making splashing other colours challenging. Now that the aforementioned Mystic Sanctuary is in the format, though, we have two very powerful cards that are both asking for a high density of Islands, and with Urza decks already going out of their way to play Mystic Sanctuary, it makes sense that they’d want access to Archmage’s Charm too. The colour fixing from Mox Opal, Arcum’s Astrolabe, and Gilded Goose means playing two or three colours in your Archmage’s Charm deck is fairly realistic too.
If we can learn anything from the popularity of Cryptic Command in the more midrange builds of Urza, it’s that spending more than two mana on a counterspell is actually fine, and sometimes something you’re pretty excited to do. The problem with Cancel-effect cards isn’t so much that they cost three mana when you do cast them, as there are certainly matchups even in Modern where this exchange is appealing, but that wasting the three mana you held open is so painful when your opponent doesn’t cast something you’re happy to counter. Having extra modes on your counterspell so that you can still gain some advantage off it in your opponent’s end step if they don’t do anything you’re interested in countering goes a long way to fixing this, as does the extra mana produced by Mox Opal, Gilded Goose, and Urza making three mana cards just generally feel less expensive than they actually are.
As far as the other modes go, this deck is a much better home for the Charm’s Divination mode than a more traditional control deck would be, as the more raw resources you have, the greater Urza’s ability to functionally end the game as soon as he hits the battlefield. On top of this, Charm, alongside Ice-Fang Coatl, gives this deck even more velocity than the midrange Urza decks, meaning that you get to find and cast your Urzas and Okos more often as a result. Mystic Sanctuary emphasizes this even more, as when your Charm draws you two cards you will often find a fetchland to then search for a Sanctuary to return the Charm and allow you to draw two again; Sanctuary means that this kind of card advantage cascades pretty effectively. Mystic Sanctuary also means that you don’t feel bad spending your Charm to draw two cards instead of holding it in hand to counter a key spell later in the game, as you know you’re only moments away from being able to return that very same Charm right back from your graveyard to your hand.
Stealing a cheap permanent with Archmage’s Charm’s third mode is definitely the mode that comes up the least, but it’s the most potent mode when you do get to use it. Some highlights that have come up for me so far include stealing a Death’s Shadow, taking a Champion of the Parish that got to then act as a brick-wall against a Humans player’s battlefield, getting to use an opponent’s Sakura-Tribe Scout to ramp me up to a Turn 3 Mystic Sanctuary, and countering an opposing Oko -5 by removing the Food token it was attempting to trade for my Urza. The most incredible story I’ve heard so far is someone stealing an Aether Vial with three counters, ticking it up to four, and then Vialing an Urza onto the battlefield despite the opposing Meddling Mage trying its best to stop Urza from entering the fray. At its best, these plays can feel game-breaking, and even when it’s just an expensive removal spell getting an opposing Amulet of Vigor or whatever else out of the way, it is still quite reasonable.
Archmage’s Charm’s versatility is what lets this deck be Urza Control. Sometimes you’ll run your opponent over with Oko, but a lot of games come down to always holding your mana open until your find an Urza. Against decks like TitanShift and Storm you now have a critical mass of countermagic in your deck and ways to return it with Sanctuary. Against decks like Humans and Infect, Charm gives you much more removal than you’d see in the maindeck of midrange Urza lists. And against Bant Control or Jund, the Divination mode gives you cascading card advantage that can let you go toe-to-toe with their two-for-ones. Suddenly there’s much less pressure to kill your opponent because you can just answer everything.
Ice-Fang Coatl goes some way to contributing towards this by again increasing the amount of removal you have in your maindeck against creature decks whilst happily cycling for a fresh card against decks that don’t care about the 1/1 deathtouching body. Replacing Emry with Coatl may sound surprising, but the artifact count in this build is on the low side for Emry, she trades cleanly with removal spells in a way no other card in the deck does, she risks milling your Mystic Sanctuaries which are an important element of your late-game, tapping low for her plays poorly with the flash gameplan you’re engaging in, and just generally you don’t need access to her card advantage when the deck already just has so much card advantage in it already.
There’s one big difference to play style that comes with all of this that I haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s how you get to grind out card advantage by activating Urza’s final ability more than any other Urza deck I’ve played. This is because games are longer, as you are slower at killing people with fewer haymakers and no combo in your deck, and counterspells naturally contribute to making games go long too. On top of this, you draw more Urzas than other lists due to the deck’s velocity, meaning that you’ll get an Urza on to the battlefield more often, and your Urzas stick around for longer too since you have nine pieces of countermagic in your maindeck, dramatically more than any other Urza build has had. This is another compelling reason to play this decklist, as it contributes to this feeling that you’ll just never run out of cards or things to do.
Different Builds of Urza Control
There are, to my mind, three main approaches you could take towards your build of Urza Control which come down to what colours you’d like to play.
Sultai, seen earlier in the article, most notably offers you Thoughtseize, Drown in the Loch, and Fatal Push, though obviously there are other options beyond that that might be worth dabbling in. The versatility of Thoughtseize and Drown is a big part of the appeal of splashing black, as they make it very easy for you to have plenty of cards to bring in in matchups; the other side of this is that they don’t do a great job at solving any problems the deck has, as your countermagic already makes you quite good at fighting over spells. I’ve been finding myself wanting more graveyard hate, as those matchups have felt most challenging, and it’s hard to fit enough of that in your sideboard whilst also feeling like you’re fully taking advantage of your black splash.
I’ve heard a few people ask about playing Bant instead to gain access to Path to Exile. I’d tend to think Path to Exile is a bit better than Fatal Push in Urza decks due to being better against Veil of Summer and also due to Fatal Push sometimes feeling a bit redundant alongside other cards that effectively target small creatures like Archmage’s Charm and Engineered Explosives. That said, you don’t get any of the other upsides of splashing black when you choose to splash white instead. You could choose to splash Teferi, Time Raveler, though that card doesn’t appeal so much when Charm already means we have a lot of three-mana spells, and Rest in Peace would go some way towards helping our graveyard matchups, but I’m not convinced that card is as appealing as Grafdigger’s Cage when we have Mox Opal and Urza in our deck.
I think Sultai is clearly better than Bant, but something I’ve become keenly aware of playing the Sultai version is that three-colour mana isn’t quite as free as the presence of Mox Opal, Gilded Goose, and Arcum’s Astrolabe might make it seem. I’ve had games where Collector Ouphe or Stony Silence have functionally cut off access to one of my colours, sometimes you open up an opening hand with only one fetchland and have to accept you’ll only have access to either green or black mana for a little while, and one of the only games I lost this last weekend would have gone much better for me had my Watery Grave instead been a land that could cast an Arcum’s Astrolabe. There is a very real cost to adding a colour to your deck, even with such generous mana fixing available to you, and what you gain has to be worth that cost.
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (20)
Spells (24)
With that in mind this is the list that I am currently exploring, so far to extremely positive results. I fully understand if someone doesn’t want to let go of the black cards but I have not missed them too much, and being able to fit in so much more graveyard hate has really helped in those otherwise challenging matchups. Dismember is definitely a downgrade from Fatal Push, but not by as much as you’d expect, as some amount of the time you can use Mox Opal or Arcum’s Astrolabe to save yourself some of the pain that Dismember asks of you. It’s not clear to me yet which of Simic or Sultai Urza Control is better, but this is the build I’d register if I had a tournament to play tomorrow.
Sideboarding Guide
VS Simic Urza
Out:
In:
VS Simic Whirza
Out:
In:
Against Simic Urza you’re largely looking to name Emry, Lurker of the Loch with your Pithing Needle, whereas against Simic Whirza you might want to wait on deploying it until you know whether you’re more scared of Emry or Thopter-Sword combo.
VS Eldrazi Tron
Out:
In:
This matchup is quite a bit easier for this deck than for midrange Urza lists as Ice-Fang Coatl makes many of the Eldrazi look embarrassing, whilst countermagic is the best way to keep Karn, the Great Creator at bay.
Out:
In:
Here I like both removing some bad topdecks, whilst also cutting the card in your deck that lines up the worst against Stubborn Denial. It’s plausible I’m being over-eager to remove the Cryptic Commands here, but I feel like you already have enough card advantage against your opponent even without this card.
VS Infect
Out:
In:
Oko is scary enough that you could make an argument for Mystical Dispute, but I simply don’t think they have enough blue cards for Dispute to be reliably good.
VS Bant Snow
Out:
In:
If I see Entreat the Angels, I’m much more interested in having some Explosives in my deck, but very few of the lists I’ve seen have adopted that card so far.
VS Dredge
Out:
In:
Before I upped the amount of graveyard hate this was one of the hardest matchups. Despite it not profitably killing many cards in the matchup, I prefer keeping in Engineered Explosives instead of Ice-Fang Coatl as you need your Mox Opals active as soon as possible. Pithing Needle comes in to name Shriekhorn or Forgotten Cave; this sounds unexciting, but anything that slows them down is appealing. If you don’t draw graveyard hate, the games will come down to trying to tread water just long enough to eventually tap down your opponent’s team with Cryptic Command and one-shot them.
VS Amulet Titan
Out:
In:
If Ice-Fang Coatl ever gets the opportunity to trade for a Primeval Titan, it likely means you’ve already lost, so I’m pretty keen to cut them here. Engineered Explosives is too slow at answering Sakura-Tribe Scout and we’re still reasonable at answering Amulet of Vigor even without it thanks to Charm and Oko.
Use Ashiok, Dream Render and Damping Sphere to disrupt their plan long enough to kill them. They have the long game thanks to Field of the Dead, but your counterspells are very effective at limiting their ability to set up that long game provided you pressure them sufficiently such that they don’t have time to tutor up a Cavern of Souls. Don’t forget that Cryptic Command, especially when recurred with Mystic Sanctuary, can steal wins against players who are forced to be zealous with their Summoner’s Pacts.
VS Humans
Out:
In:
I’m not keen on Cryptic Command in the matchup but the other options in your sideboard are worse. Ice-Fang Coatl goes a long way towards helping this matchup.
VS Burn
Out:
In:
By far the matchup where I’d rather be playing Sultai than Simic as both Fatal Push and Drown in the Loch are huge additions here; if I expected a lot of Burn on any particular weekend then I’d likely either register Sultai or put a high-impact card like Weather the Storm in the sideboard of this Simic list.
VS Mono-Green Tron
Out:
In:
On the play you could maybe make an argument for Ashiok, but on the draw it is far too slow.
It’s early days for this particular approach to building Urza decks, and I hope that this guide can give you an edge whilst people attempt to adjust to such a build. Until then, I really do believe that Urza Control is the best way to build an Urza deck and I’m excited to battle with it some more!