Building on my Modern control ideas article from last week, here I will write about a Standard deck I'm starting to get more familiar with. Most people are aware of UB (Dimir) and UW (Azorius) Control variants in Standard, and the most obvious 'wedge' or clan for control is probably Jeskai by analogy with other formats.
In my early testing (before the release of Khans), a lot of people were on Sultai Control. I was happy about this because the deck was just terrible, and I was able to win many matches with my Mardu Warriors deck that I thought was very strong at the time. After testing post-release, it seems that cutting the Warrior sub-theme for Hordeling Outburst made for a stronger deck, but that's old news by now.
I tested various UB Control ideas and haven't really liked any of them. The following decklist is built around a card that sees almost no maindeck play in Standard, for reasons I can't wrap my head around:
This card has been an absolute powerhouse in my testing and tournament play. On multiple occasions, it has gained me 19 life, putting the game completely out of my opponent's reach. It turns the mono-red matchup from okay into ridiculously favorable. Here is the list I am currently on:
In testing, every non-control matchup has been favorable except perhaps Temur Ascendancy Midrange, which is likely to be a nightmare for any control deck. In this matchup alone, I think Perilous Vault is better than End Hostilities, but unfortunately when we run Banishing Light, Perilous Vault is much worse. I haven't tested much against control, but I don't see how we can really win game 1. Steam Augury has been overperforming since I started running 4 Dig Through Times, and it lets you chain Digs on consecutive turns.
The Abzan matchup is probably the best reason to play this deck. It's almost impossible to lose, even if they get all 4 Siege Rhino. They also have a ton of dead cards in their deck, so we naturally make better use of our mana than they do. At a certain point, you just lock them out of casting spells by holding a Mindswipe. I didn't like that card at all when it was first spoiled, but it turns out that in the late game, it's an instant-speed Fireball that prevents your opponent from casting spells.
The Mardu Tokens matchup is also very favorable, as we can deal with their threats on a one-for-one basis while drowning them in card advantage.
Mono-red has been an absolute joke. Our sweepers are really good against them, and they can never beat Resolute Archangel, so all you have to do is survive until you get to 7 mana. We can let a lot more burn spells resolve than most burn decks can because of the option of resetting our life total.
Sultai Whip decks are an excellent matchup as well. Our main way of winning here is to let them mill themself out. I actually managed to lose game 1 (and then time was called) because I foolishly Stroked a Sidisi that would have left him with 5 cards in library and let him resolve his fourth copy of Whip of Erebos (I miscounted and thought all of them had already been milled or countered), but without that major blunder, the game and match would have easily been mine. He actually killed me with the last card in his deck by casting it, Downfalling it, Whipping it, and attacking for exactly lethal. Anger of the Gods should be exclusively used on their four Hornet Queens.
Green devotion strategies are another great reason to run this deck. It's hard for them to answer End Hostilities, and it's not like they can just stick one threat and make us answer it, which is a more effective strategy against the other control decks.
Control mirrors are not where this deck shines, so if you expect a lot of those, you might want to consider running more burn spells in the 75 or having a transformational sideboard to burn. Stormbreath Dragon, Narset, Enlightened Master, and Pearl Lake Ancient give us a bit more flexibility in this matchup as they are difficult to answer. Be aware of how many cards are in each player's deck, as milling is a viable win condition.
I haven't perfected the sideboard yet, so I can't give a detailed sideboarding guide, but it's generally not very difficult to figure out what cards are bad and good in various matchups. Hopefully other people find the same success with Resolute Archangel as I have, as that card is an absolute powerhouse. Since my last major decklist change, I am 100% in games in which I have cast her.
One of the most important concepts of playing competitive Magic is knowing the role your deck has in a matchup. That is, what is your deck's most likely way of being able to win a game of Magic against your opponent's deck? If your deck has to race the opponent, it is certainly not a control deck. If your deck answers everything the opponent plays, runs them out of resources, and wins from an insurmountably strong position, you're playing the control role.
The first deck people generally think of as control in Modern is UWR with Celestial Colonnades, Lightning Bolts, Lightning Helixes, Electrolyze, etc. The problem with this is that this deck is actually not a control deck. It doesn't run the opponent out of resources or strive to establish card advantage. It also runs several cards that do not belong in control decks, namely Mana Leak, which is an excellent card for a deck that wants to end the game in the first eight or nine turns but a terrible card for decks that truly want to win in the late game. I will not consider any variant of UWR further in this article.
The two shards I want to focus on as angles to play control in Modern are Esper and Grixis. Esper Control was piloted by Guillaume Wafo-Tapa to a Day 2 and Top 64 finish at GP Boston in 2014. Here is the list he played:
This is clearly a deck that wants to win in the late game. The primary win condition, White Sun's Zenith, is an ideal card for a control deck. Early in the game, it can be used defensively for low values of X, and later in the game, it can win in a single turn. This is excellent for a deck that is likely to go to time, as you can play White Sun's Zenith, untap, and reduce your opponent's life total to 0 in one turn cycle.
Some of the interesting questions people ask about this deck show that they don't want to really play a control deck, but rather a more proactive strategy:
-Why isn't Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek in the maindeck?
If you're playing the control role, you don't necessarily want to spend mana and a card to deal with something your opponent has not invested any resources in. Sure, these cards are excellent against combo decks that require a specific card or combination of cards, but they're not what a control deck wants to be doing against most of the field. We would rather answer threats after the opponent has invested some resources in them.
-Why isn't Mana Leak in the maindeck? Isn't it better than Remand in a control deck?
This deck wants to win on turn 14-20. Mana Leak will certainly be dead by then, while Remand will always draw a card. One of the best uses of Remand is on your own spells. If you cast a spell and your opponent responds with Cryptic Command choosing to counter your spell and draw a card, and you Remand your own spell in response, you draw a card, keep your original spell, and cause your opponent's Cryptic Command to be countered on resolution as it has no legal targets. Remand is also excellent on Flashbacked spells, as they exile instead of going anywhere else.
-What does black give you that red doesn't, especially if you aren't maindecking targeted discard spells?
We actually are maindecking a targeted discard spell! The biggest reason to play black in a control deck in Modern is Esper Charm, a very efficient and flexible instant-speed draw, discard, and enchantment removal spell. The instant-speed Mind Rot is not to be underestimated. Even in today's metagame with Treasure Cruise everywhere, there are times I use Esper Charm's discard mode against Delver, causing them to lose their entire hand during their draw step, before they have the option of casting Treasure Cruise. This is a backbreaking play in many situations.
That being said, the metagame shifts and new cards that have been printed since July have introduced some new challenges and cards we need to include and adapt to. We get a much better manabase now with Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta, and an excellent tutor in Dig Through Time. Dig is actually the card I have been most excited about while testing this deck. Another consequence of metagame shifts is that the most popular decks are trying to kill you by turn 5 most of the time. UR Delver, Burn, and Affinity all try to win the game early and provide us with different problems. Here is the list I am currently playing with some explanations:
There are a number of differences between my current list and Wafo-Tapa's. The most pronounced is the sideboard, which no longer contains additional win conditions. This is due to my trying to solve all of the matchups and have a good game against every deck. The most difficult matchup for Wafo-Tapa's list is RG Tron, which my list attempts to answer with Bribery. Stealing their Emrakul is usually enough to win the game. Other difficult or popular matchups are covered below:
-UR Delver
This matchup is one where Supreme Verdict really shines, and is the reason I cut Wrath of God from the maindeck. It's also a matchup where Smother is very good, and a reason to consider maindeck Disfigure. Spell Snare counters their most dangerous card Young Pyromancer, while Negate handles Treasure Cruise and many others. Leyline of Sanctity stops them from burning you out of the game, and Dig Through Time helps to find what you need when you need it. I've won the majority of my matches with Delver, but it is not easy.
-Affinity
Postboard this matchup gets a lot better, though it's not so bad preboard. We have a lot of removal for their key threats, Spell Snare hits just about everything, and Stony Silence and Zealous Persecution really make life difficult for the Affinity player. Esper Charm can actually destroy Ensoul Artifact, though I haven't seen that card played recently.
-Bogles
I haven't had issues with this matchup, but other Esper Control pilots have complained about it quite a bit. I think the key here is to use Esper Charm to destroy Totem Armor enchantments, while Supreme Verdict cleans up. It's certainly not an easy matchup, and you could definitely justify running Patrician's Scorn out of the board to deal with it.
Overall, this deck is very fun to play, and is definitely an example of a control deck in Modern. The other decklist I want to discuss is Cruel Control or Grixis Control, which can be built to beat many of the top decks, though I doubt it will ever be good against Burn:
This is a very rough list that I will use as a starting point for testing. I don't recommend playing it as I haven't tested it at all, and I just threw a manabase together off the top of my head. At a glance, it has sufficient blue sources, but I'm not sure about the RR requirement for maindeck Anger of the Gods, or if that card is even better than Volcanic Fallout. What do you think? Have some suggestions for the maindeck/sideboard? Been playing Cruel Control for a while? Write a comment! I just wrote up a rough list because a friend asked me if I thought Grixis Control was viable right now, and I want to test it because it looks like a lot of fun.
I hope you enjoyed the article. The Esper Control decklist is within about five cards of where I would want to be, while the Grixis one could be off by 10 or so. Let me know what you want me to write about! I'll write about just about anything Modern-related.
Hello, everyone! I plan on writing semi-regular articles, mostly on the Modern format. I'm cbgirardo on here and MTGO, and I stream Modern events at my Twitch page.
Modern is by far my favorite format. I have been playing Magic since 1994 with several large breaks (1997-2000, 2001-2004, 2009-2012). I was most active from 2007 to 2009, and I especially enjoyed the Extended format, which at the time went back to 7th Edition. The Modern format is larger now, and extends back as far as 8th Edition and Mirrodin. Since I started playing again just before Gatecrash was released, I've put a lot of time and effort into the Modern format. My good friend Ken got me into Magic Online when I saw him playing Daily Events at a chess tournament, and since then I've been grinding, using MTGO as a small, steady source of income in addition to being an excellent testing and proving grounds. My first successful brew in Modern was a UWR Blink Riders deck when RG Tron was extremely popular. Since then, I've had success with Mono-U Tron, Esper Control, UR Delver, Melira Pod, and various other decks.
The reason for my writing today is to address the addition of the obviously powerful Delve cards from the Khans of Tarkir set, and how they have shaken up the Modern format. Today's article will focus on the current most popular deck, UR Delver.
Blue-Red Delver is a deck named after the Delve mechanic from Khans of Tarkir, especially as seen on the card Treasure Cruise. Another powerful Delve card that is perhaps underplayed right now is Dig Through Time. These cards are so powerful that other established archetypes that aren't even running blue cards have been splashing for the 'draw three' effect of Treasure Cruise. The mana cost is very convenient for splashing, as it requires only a single Blue mana. Here is an example of a Delver deck that's had some success:
As you can see, the deck operates largely at sorcery speed due to the powerful Monastery Swiftspear. Remand is a possible inclusion that most players do run, but Mana Leak is especially bad in a Swiftspear deck. The sideboard is indicative of what matchups the deck has issues with. 4 Dragon's Claw is a nod to the Burn matchup. Burn has a difficult time beating that card, and Dispel is also very good against them.
The main card that made this deck Tier 1 virtually overnight is obviously Treasure Cruise. Here is a short video from my stream showing just how absurdly powerful the card is, allowing for a quick Turn 3 kill in a mirror match: http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru/c/5304505
Hopefully those of you who watched the video will be able to appreciate how overpowered this card is, and how its presence in my hand gave me inevitability in being able to kill my opponent extremely quickly.
So how do we win? Do we join them, and build the Delver deck? If so, how do we gain an edge in the mirror? Obviously, that's not the focus of this article. If I thought Delver were unbeatable, I would absolutely recommend playing it, but that's not what people want to hear. People want a way to succeed without playing mirror match after mirror match...or at least, that's what I want!
Burn, as I stated before, is a bad matchup game 1 for Delver. However, I also don't advocate playing Burn. Rather, I want to beat both of these decks!
Other decks that have become more popular because of the popularity of Delver and Burn include the Bogle Hexproof deck, another strategy I am not very fond of. Actually, you can beat all three of these decks with one card:
So, how do we build the best Chalice deck? Well, I have a couple of decklists to share with you. First, the deck I have had the most success with in Modern: Mono-Blue Tron. This deck seems like an obvious place to slot in cards like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time because it always has massive amounts of mana. Right?
....Well, probably not, actually. Dig has a steep UU mana requirement that Mono-Blue Tron has trouble reaching sometimes, and Cruise might actually be okay, but we don't really fill the graveyard, and we don't want to pay 8 mana to draw three cards, especially at sorcery speed. Thirst is actually better in this deck due to its instant speed and single blue mana requirement. Here's the list I've been testing:
This deck has been quite effective against both Burn and Delver. In terms of match results, I have won approximately 70% of my matches against Delver, and exactly 75% of my matches against Burn. If you're wondering how it plays out, here's a recording of an 8man I played back when I was testing 3 Chalice, 1 Dig Through Time. I played many matches and did not once cast Dig, so I eventually cut it.
Round 1 (0:00-20:50) is the first Delver match, which I won 2-1.
Round 2 (37:30-1:04:30) is a Melira Pod match, which I won 2-1 despite playing terribly.
Round 3 (1:06:30-1:34:45) is the second Delver match, which I won 2-1 again despite playing terribly.
The way this works is that the original spell will be countered by Chalice, but the copies created by the Replicate trigger will still resolve (unless they are countered individually). So point your original Spree at anything, and at least two copies at the Chalice you most want to destroy in case they have a counter.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. I apologize for the length, and did intend to put more decklists in, but I think now is a good time to say goodbye. I'll post more Modern decklists and videos next time. If you have any requests for decks you want to see me either play or play against, or just feature in an article, let me know by sending me a message here on MTGSalvation. Thanks for reading!