MTG Salvation

First of all, my favorite thing to do in Magic is ramping. Nothing better to me than playing a turn one ramp spell. Therefore, my decks usually run toward various aggro strategies like Voltron or Battlecruiser. Problem is, I hardly ever win due to all of the control that is played in my meta. People see my board state take off and then there is almost always someone (usually multiple people) that throws a monkey wrench into my plans and shuts me down. I am looking for A) an aggro deck that can deal with all this control, or B) a deck that will allow me to switch strategies to something that can control the control, or at least join the party of the control players that win by attrition consistently.

As you cast Maelstrom Wanderer you get 3 spells, sometimes they are better than it, and they choose to counter or kill it.
You can try Dragonlord Dromoka, conqueror's flail, silence, Iona, shield of emeria,
Grand Abolisher, Autumn's Veil, Vexing shusher and so on..

3 suggestions:

Maelstrom Wanderer - It's very hard to deal with as a control player. You get 3 spells for 8 mana and a lot of times they're better off letting Wanderer stay on the board rather than let you cast it again. Insane value. Can out of nowhere generate an aggressive, hasty boardstate. Hard to deal with.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Very hard for a control deck to deal with without a lot of grave hate. Tends to cost 3 mana more often than not and makes it significantly less valuable to counter your creatures.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide - Karador on steroids. Though a bit more costly not having Karador's cost reduction, she let's you recur all permanent types. Countering your things almost seems pointless at times. There is not enough exile removal in the format to properly deal with a Muldrotha deck after it's ramped a bit. Same weakness as Karador, grave hate, but much stronger over all.

I will say that Karador and Muldrotha tend to play better as control but the end game is to have all your opponents' answers spent.

What kind of control are you seeing: classic counterspells, target removal, and draw-go holding up mana for instant speed answers? Or more permanent-based grindy value decks that slowly advance a game plan?

For the former, I can’t think of “nice” options, but if you’re okay with being “mean” (quotes classified IMO only), Ruric Thar, the Unbowed with some Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast backup if they try to counter him could fit the bill. Gives you access to green ramp (preferably of the creature type so you don’t hit yourself with Ruric later), which is what you’d want to do to get Ruric out ASAP anyway, and red control disruption stuff like War’s Toll and general red chaos stuff that gives control decks a headache.

Counters didn't matter too much when I was playing Azusa, Lost but Seeking. You still get your "when cast" trigger on the Eldrazi titans, and you shuffle your graveyard up and do it again next turn.

You could try Thrun, the Last Troll to stay in green and thumb your nose at blue.

There's also City of Solitude, Dosan the Falling Leaf, and to a lesser extent Carpet of Flowers and Tsunami to hose blue.

Or you could expand out into RUG and play Surrak Dragonclaw to enable the Timmy gameplay with some protection from counterspells built in.

Thanks for the replies everyone, many good ideas that I will examine.

I will second the fact that Karador and Maelstrome are hard for Control players to deal with, having played with and against them. I would imagine Muldrotha would be equally as annoying.

Muldrotha may have a very slight disadvantage as not scaling to late game after dying once or twice. Karador has cost reduction, and Malestrome has a cast trigger which makes the extra mana less relevant. Though Muldrotha has more flexibility with recursion.

My Karador deck usually has NO trouble with Control players barring repeated GY hate. It is attrition based and its biggest weakness is combo and Craterhoof Behemoth.dec or Purphoros, God of the Forge.dec. Otherwise it is very resilient.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang has similar benefits to Karador, being extremely easy to cast with Delve, but with the colors of Muldotha. He is strong but mana-intensive, and though you are limited by the opponent's choice, you can limit their choices with Delve, and it works with non-permanents as well.

Play Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and watch them control players burn...

Quote from sefenvold »

Play Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and watch them control players burn...

Double up on that with Possibility Storm which ruins their plans, and slap on a Helm of the Host for Ruric to have multiples of him.

I guess it depends on how much counter magic specifically you see but Zacama, Primal Calamity could play well into a control meta in that its a lot of impact and plays well into ramp strategies. If you encounter a lot of counter magic though it might be a little less friendly though.

Thrun, the Last Troll as mentioned could be nice against blue control.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury - could be nice from the standpoint that often he plays towards big mana and killing him doesn't do much since most people build him as a reanimator kind of deck.

Sidetrack: It's a shame there's no werewolves that'd punish control decks harder with their transform abilities.

I personally like Marchesa, the Black Rose against boardwipe heavy decks. That said, she isn't ideal against blue counterspells.

What you probably want is a graveyard deck, like Karador, Ghost Chieftain (who was mentioned prior), or one of my personal favorites, Chainer Dementia Master. Lavaz, Dimir Mastermind also comes to mind, although I haven't built him yet so I can't vouch for his prowess.