MTG Salvation

This is a first draft of a control deck I've been working on with the help of Jivanmukta (he's so proud) and a few of the other mods.

I am generally pretty inexperienced with control (and blue), so this deck will likely fluctuate as I start to learn what works and what doesn't for my group, and how I play, and as I can start investing in this deck. Suggestions are welcome, though I'll be a little slow on drastic changes until I get a feel for the deck by playing it.

I see a lot of value but any ideas how to close out games or finishers?

Quote from Kahboom0225 »

I see a lot of value but any ideas how to close out games or finishers?

I've been informed by a few of the blue-loving moderators that the goal is to chip away at your opponents until they die or concede.

On a serious note, it's a little hard to judge what the deck will actually need to close out games until I get some play experience with it. Right now I'm aiming for a laid back draw-go style plan, but that may change in the future.

Finally managed to put this together. I ended up swapping All is Dust to the maybe board and added Void Winnower to the list in its place, as I didn't end up having an All is Dust for the list. I'm planning on getting some play time today so that I can see what needs to be tweaked from here.

Quote from Airithne »

Quote from Kahboom0225 »

I see a lot of value but any ideas how to close out games or finishers?

I've been informed by a few of the blue-loving moderators that the goal is to chip away at your opponents until they die or concede.

On a serious note, it's a little hard to judge what the deck will actually need to close out games until I get some play experience with it. Right now I'm aiming for a laid back draw-go style plan, but that may change in the future.

Having a combo in reserve is a good way to do that. My favorite involves the following:

• Deadeye Navigator
  
• Peregrine Drake
  
• Blue Sun's Zenith

(For the uninitiated, Deadeye and Drake make infinite mana, after which point you use USZ to draw your deck. You then recur and recast USZ to mill everyone else out.)

Doesn't this want Sensei's Divining Top?

For win conditions, there is always Seedborn Muse + Teferi + Opposition. Unless you think you are short on creatures.
I play Void Winnower in Rakdos, and people often have an answer. I would suggest an Eldrazi Titan. Solid win condition.

Quote from Phosphorus »

Having a combo in reserve is a good way to do that. My favorite involves the following:

• Deadeye Navigator
  
• Peregrine Drake
  
• Blue Sun's Zenith

(For the uninitiated, Deadeye and Drake make infinite mana, after which point you use USZ to draw your deck. You then recur and recast USZ to mill everyone else out.)

I've kind of tried to stay away from a combo win condition, because I prefer to have some degree of density when I run them just in case I lose a piece somehow early on, and it's difficult to get that with this kind of gameplan without sacrificing it.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Doesn't this want Sensei's Divining Top?

For win conditions, there is always Seedborn Muse + Teferi + Opposition. Unless you think you are short on creatures.
I play Void Winnower in Rakdos, and people often have an answer. I would suggest an Eldrazi Titan. Solid win condition.

Added Top to the maybe board, I'll look at trading it in to the list when I make cuts. Unfortunately, the only play experience I've managed so far is in 6+ player games, which isn't really what I'd like to base changes on because the deck works significantly worse in those scenarios. I also agree that I don't have enough creatures for the Teferi wincon, and that a Titan would likely work better however I currently don't have an extra titan to place in the deck, so that will be down the line.

I do like that Void Winnower assists the control plan, however.

Ancestral Vision is strong tech for Rashmi. I'd like to add that there aren't a whole lot of times where Reclaim and Noxious Revival are good, but popping a powerful spell (Like Ancestral Vision) on top of your library in response to Rashmi's trigger is the actual nut and it's fun as hell. Similarly, you can Mystical Tutor for Ancestral Vision in response to her trigger as well.

Small update:

Insidious Will ---> Sandwurm Convergence

How well is Void Winnower working out for you? I've found it may be a little cumbersome in trying to hard cast in the EDH decks I have tried playing it in.

I'd also like to ask how you win the game. I understand Sandwurm Convergence is a strong card, but it takes a while to really spin up and beat your opponents to death. How does this deck close things out after you've adequately controlled everyone?

Additionally, what kind of recursion do you run here aside from Eternal Witness? One of the strengths I've noticed of playing Tasigur control is that with your commander, you can always have access to your answers, since one opponent will almost always give you what you want in order to stop a second opponent from doing something. I understand Rashmi provides built-in card advantage, but do you have any kind of recursion like that as well?

I also notice that you have a very strong emphasis on casting things at instant speed. Do you find that you need so many flash enablers in the deck? I imagine that playing an artifact, enchantment, teferi, and two lands may be a little heavy-handed, but I wanted to get your two cents on it as well.

Finally, what are the extra turn spells for? As a control deck I would have thought that you couldn't capitalize on using extra turns as much as a combo or aggro deck could. What draws you to run these time spells?

Quote from GoldenCapitalist »

How well is Void Winnower working out for you? I've found it may be a little cumbersome in trying to hard cast in the EDH decks I have tried playing it in.

I'd also like to ask how you win the game. I understand Sandwurm Convergence is a strong card, but it takes a while to really spin up and beat your opponents to death. How does this deck close things out after you've adequately controlled everyone?

These two questions go hand in hand. Both are slow, but the purpose of this deck is to be an exorcise in a style I don't play (drawgo). I cannot win often, and my win condition is to chip away at people with whatever I have at hand, and hopefully stick a larger threat like Sandwurm Convergence or Void Winnower later in the game.

Not to sugar coat it, winning is absolutely an uphill battle for this deck. It's maddningly slow if I do pull it off, and for my preferred playstyle, it drives me insane. But, that is the reason I built it in the first place. Hard control that I couldn't cheat my way out of by trying to quickly combo off or just focus on aggro, since it is my weakest playstyle.

Additionally, what kind of recursion do you run here aside from Eternal Witness? One of the strengths I've noticed of playing Tasigur control is that with your commander, you can always have access to your answers, since one opponent will almost always give you what you want in order to stop a second opponent from doing something. I understand Rashmi provides built-in card advantage, but do you have any kind of recursion like that as well?

The strongest recursion I have access to is probably Seasons Past. With something like Mystical Tutor in hand, I can have constant access to it via Rashmi's ability on someone else's turn, as long as I'm regularly recurring at least one other instant spell. I also have Snapcaster Mage, Archaeomancer, and Torrential Gearhulk as well, though Snapcaster and Gearhulk are not repeatable for a single spell.

Tasigur is an extremely good general, but I don't wish to go that direction for a few reasons: When I built this deck, I was originally looking at Leovold/Tasigur (Leo was not banned, at the time), but three color, especially with my current deck roster is difficult to maintain. Especially UB, because I don't have many lands for that setup. In addition, I've had a Tasigur control deck previously. It does give you recursion as well as a combo win condition from the command zone, but the forced collusion can feel pretty bad, especially if you can find someone to let you hold down the rest of the table. It wasn't a playstyle I particularly enjoyed, and was the biggest reason I took that deck apart.

I also notice that you have a very strong emphasis on casting things at instant speed. Do you find that you need so many flash enablers in the deck? I imagine that playing an artifact, enchantment, teferi, and two lands may be a little heavy-handed, but I wanted to get your two cents on it as well.

I could probably stand to cut one of them, but I've found it helpful to be able to cast larger spells not on my turn, even if I have a lot of instants.

Finally, what are the extra turn spells for? As a control deck I would have thought that you couldn't capitalize on using extra turns as much as a combo or aggro deck could. What draws you to run these time spells?

Simple answer is that I like them, honestly. My signature is a bit deceiving, but over the course of my EDH career, I haven't played blue often and when I do, I have a set of pet spells I like to run, because I don't often get to run them elsewhere.

I have an Ephara, God of the Polis deck, where the idea is to get a creature every turn and draw a ton of cards, and this list heavily reminds me of it.
Lacking white is a substantial disadvantage, since white has much more reliable control options in all, yet switching it for green just might be the only acceptable alternative.
So considering your priority is to gain ridiculous card advantage from your commander, you might want to run more instant speed spells like the bounceable Draining Whelk or Plasm Capture or whatever.
The most powerful effect that decks like these have is to be able to cast a single card multiple times for substantial value. Cards that might help you achieve this are Cloudstone Curio and the infallible Temur Sabertooth to bounce cards like Mystic Snake and Snapcaster, as well as Archaeomancer for noncreature spells.
I don't think expensive cards like Void Winnower and even Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur help your game plan, because it's still a lot of mana to pay for them even though you're green. They won't benefit you if they just sit in your hand and do nothing.
My win conditions in Ephara are mostly token swarms once I lock the table down with control. You might look for something along those lines, but more to the direction of recasting spells that cripple your enemies to your advantage. Maybe bounce something like Acidic Slime a ton of times to kill your opponents' mana, bounce your Altered Ego then cast it to be a buffed up version of their Akroma, Angel of Wrath or maybe bouncing and recasting Emrakul, the Promised End since you have a bajilion Delirium, letting True-Name Nemesis wreck face... The options are many, but generally it's recommended that they take up the least amount of cards from your deck and hopefully synergize with bounces and what your deck generally does. Swords are also a good idea to push a board advantage farther.

To clarify, I am specifically aiming for draw go, even if that's putting myself at a disadvantage. The idea behind cards like Sandwurm Convergeance/Void Winnower/Jin-Gitaxias are because I'm trying to win through a slow grindy game.

I might look in to maybe Temur Sabertooth, but for the most part, I don't want to open myself up to convenient ways to win, or I'll start making excuses to use them. This is an excercise in playing a deck style I typically dislike (one of the reasons I'm playing UG is to stayin somewhat in my comfort zone with green while I do so) and improve how I play other decks while I'm at it.

I don't think trying out a new style needs to be so radical and only have cards matching that style.
In fact, the most effective way of building a deck is so that it doesn't depend on a single mechanic.

Another thing - draw-go is relatively weak in EDH, even if you are getting card advantage from it, simply because you have limited amounts of mana that don't allow you to play on all of your opponents' turns.
However, you might be able to mitigate this by playing cards with alternate costs that still abide to draw-go:
Force of Will (budget dependent), Misdirection, Daze, Gush.
You might also like spells that untap lands, like Rewind.
And of course, Whispers of the Muse.