Shadows over Innistrad is here, and it is a brewer's paradise in Standard right now. This thread is dedicated to the competitive development of UB Control and will provide some of my experience, card choices, and strategies for the deck. I have been working with Control lists since early on in the spoiler season, and while I feel like I have tested a ton of different configurations for the archetype, much of my experience is with Esper Control and a bit of UB Control lately. I feel like of what I have tested, UB is one of the stronger lists I have played and I am excited to document its development here in this thread. So without further ado.
Why Play UB Control?
In the current Standard card pool, UB has a lot of solid removal and counter for a steady draw go game. Without much in the way of Hyper aggro decks right out of the gate, these cards give us a lot of play against all three major archetypes. In addition, there is a lot of options to make efficient plays in tight corners during the course of a game to allow you to work out some potential kinks as the format actually unfolds. Having the ability to be flexible as you play into the mid and late game, means you can stock up on value cards within these colors.
Why Not Play UB Control?
Games can sometimes get pretty long. While there are some ways to create a lot of pressure on an opponent, sometimes securing those methods can just take time. This is not the slowest deck that I have tested, but it is not as fast as some of the UW lists I have tried when quickly looking to close a game. If you are looking for something faster, this deck may not be for you. But if you want solid inevitability - give UB Control a try.
Card Selection
Black has a lot of removal at its fingertips right now, and it is very reasonably priced. Running 2 colors lets you take advantage of more of these spells without having to really sacrifice much, if anything. The removal can scale into the mid and late game and is more than playable in the early game. Having access to Ultimate Price and Grasp of Darkness means you are not tapping out for white removal in the early game, and you have stipulations that allow you to get around a number of situations that white removal is not going to let you. Languish gives you a lot of play against creature heavy decks and being able to cast it on turn 4 as opposed to turn 5 means you are much more likely to stabilize into pressure.
Your mid and late game comes with a lot of value cards that give you closing power, stability, and control over how the game progresses after your removal suite has gotten you this far. Silumgar's Command packs a big punch when you are looking to turn a corner and it means you can let some pesky cards resolve and do a soft reset into a Dragonlord Silumgar to create immense pressure on an opponent who is wearing down, and you can use Confirm Suspicions to start filling up on gas again and pave the way for a win or keep digging for the card you need to gain control of the match. You can use Dragonlord Silumgar to great effect when your opponent tries to hail mary with a win condition, and having access to Silumgar's Scorn and Foul-Tongue Invocation means you can make use of him from your hand as you work towards your endgame.
There is not really a lot of effective draw options in UB unless you are willing to pay a lot of mana, or a good chunk of life. While the black draw spells Painful Truths and Read the Bones are popular cards, they cost life and I am not entirely sold on the fact that they are necessary. Between Anticipate, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, and Dragon Lord's Prerogative, you should be able to see enough cards to keep you going. A copy or two of Read the Bones isn't something I would completely rule out, but if I can minimize the life I have to spend looking for answers by simply just running more answers - I am okay with that.
Black also affords us a lot of anti aggro tools out of the board, from extra copies of cards already in the main, to powerful mini sweeps for boards to going wide. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet also gives you the ability to create more pressure or a larger safety net as needed and can soak up removal to give your Dragonlord Silumgar more staying power in the late game. Black can also give you some utility options for the midrange and control match as well, adding cards like Duress and Transgress the Mind to the mix for even more flexibility.
Looks good. It sort of makes sense given the decline of Raptor and the weakness of certain lists to Languish.
Obviously, killing your opponent is a concern. Similar to UB KTK/THS, this style is not for the person who enjoys using 60 seconds every turn.
It's a bummer that SOI never really provided the UB recursive zombie shell that this sort of deck would need to turn the corner quickly and utilize madness spells efficiently.
I think two Kalitas should be maindeck for one of the Sil. Comm. and the Confirm Suspicions. I'd 3-1 split Grasp/Ult Price. -1 Jace and Learn from the Past for a Ob Nix and a Rise from the Tides. -1 Dragonlord Silumgar for a Drifting Death.
Relentless Tormenter seems like the finisher of choice for control right now. Languish being one of the few cards that can take it out and we have counters for that. Sideboard is missing Infinite Obliteration in my opinion, but depends on how much Eldrazi Ramp is in the area. Just my edit to this list of what I would play if I had to play this list with a few tweaks. I'd trade an Evolving Wilds for a Blighted Fen.
Overall I liked the basic idea of counter and kill everything, and then end the game with Ob or Rise. Declaration wasn't an issue as I could wait until I had Rise + a Counter, or they didn't see it game 1 and took them out for the next game.
Pieces of the Puzzle was straight garbage, but Pore over the Pages was actually really sweet. The only deck I had trouble with was Esper Dragons, mainly because game 1 I kept a really bad hand and game 2 he chained 3 Painful Truths which I couldn't answer. Epiphany seems like equal garbage, but since I don't care too much about binning spells because of Rise I'll give it a shot.
I'm not sure sticking with Rise is the best idea, but it only gives them one turn to answer it or they lose, and like I said, I can wait until I have 9+ mana to answer their answer.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
Have to disagree. We can't bin a card every turn (maybe two cards if they have two removal spells) to keep him around. He's a monster in limited, but in constructed our resources will likely be too taxed to maintain his transform cycle. Also, regardless of what side he's on, he also dies to Languish and I'd like to avoid sweeping my threats away with my opponent's.
wait wait...UB is possible? HA!!! SWEET, this is like my Favorite color combination eva! Win cons, Daddy Toothless eh? I can dig it, but 4 dragons to turn on Scorn's? How has this been playing out? Last Season's Esper Dragons had DTT and baby jace to dig for answers. Is this deck turning Scorn on reliably?
I'm willing to admit that I'm a little rusty as I haven't played for a month or so, but I tried a deck out with these cards last night. It turned out to be hot garbage - you rarely get the X madness cost to something actually decent. If you hit all your land drops, by turn 7 you get X equal to 5. I used Mage-Ring Network to try to push it higher, but the highest I ever got it was 5. And since they enter tapped, it's just not that powerful and then you have to contend with cards like Declaration in Stone and the anti-token stuff being brought in that other people had for Secure the Wastes.
UB is where I want to be as well - I've only been splashing white in my deck for a while to get O Com, Utter End and Narset (oh, and a pair of Gideon), but that was basically because it was "free" to do so. I've been thinking of going back, but my one main concern is a lack of win-cons, other than the DL Silumgar route. Rise from the Tides is answered by one Declaration in Stone, or in the control mirror, by a Hallowed Moonlight. The route I've been considering is to play UB Eldrazi control. Run several Mage-Ring Networks, then ramp up to, say, 2 each of Newlamog/Kozilek at the top end. After all - exiling, counter magic and card draw is what we want, right? The aim would be to keep the board in check through countering/killing, increase the Network when you can, then turn the corner by dropping a Titan with counter magic.
Why Blighted Cataract over Blighted Fen? Why 3 Havens? Why a dragon-centric build but only 4 dragons to enable 7 (8 if counting Perogative) dragons-matter cards? Why no baby Jaces? Why Learn? Why no Ob Nixilis?
Blighted Fen was not selected because boards last weekend were going wide. I would rather just draw two cards to get to a targeted removal spell or two, than to let them just sac fodder. While I like Fen, I severely dislike it when most boards are going wide and your removal is good enough to handle boards that are using single threats.
Why not 3 Havens? The mana base can support them and it means you can aggressively play Dragonlord more often. There is a lot of opportunity to play him aggressively and start exhausting removal and chaining him until he sticks.
Esper ran 5 Dragons at first, and was fine. You don't always need the Dragon value out of the spells. Force Spike is a strong card when people are focusing hard on curving out. In fact, I remember people having to be reminded about that when Esper Dragons first hit the scene.
As for baby Jace, he was eating removal and costing me tempo to play. He is not as good as he was before rotation, by a fairly substantial margin. It was pretty evident if you were watching coverage or communicating with people actually playing him at the open.
Ob Nixilis Reignited vs Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is a pretty hot topic it seems. I would rather be able to -2, -2 and still have my walker on the board. With Ob Nixilis, Reignited, I have to -3 then immediately tick up. I do not like not having the option to use a disruption mode for a consecutive turn. I get that just killing the creature means it is not coming back, but people really underestimate how much that extra loyalty cost actually is. In addition, scrying before a draw is a huge game. Jace does a ton of work in this deck and he does not make me nickel and dime my life for it.
Why remain UB when both grixis and esper would open up a slew of options and most importantly make painful truth playable. Shard mana is pretty good.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
wait wait...UB is possible? HA!!! SWEET, this is like my Favorite color combination eva! Win cons, Daddy Toothless eh? I can dig it, but 4 dragons to turn on Scorn's? How has this been playing out? Last Season's Esper Dragons had DTT and baby jace to dig for answers. Is this deck turning Scorn on reliably?
I have had little issue turning on the dragon spells when I need to. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is more than workable. This deck is pretty deceptive... it sees a lot of cards without DTT and baby Jace.
UB is where I want to be as well - I've only been splashing white in my deck for a while to get O Com, Utter End and Narset (oh, and a pair of Gideon), but that was basically because it was "free" to do so. I've been thinking of going back, but my one main concern is a lack of win-cons, other than the DL Silumgar route. Rise from the Tides is answered by one Declaration in Stone, or in the control mirror, by a Hallowed Moonlight. The route I've been considering is to play UB Eldrazi control. Run several Mage-Ring Networks, then ramp up to, say, 2 each of Newlamog/Kozilek at the top end. After all - exiling, counter magic and card draw is what we want, right? The aim would be to keep the board in check through countering/killing, increase the Network when you can, then turn the corner by dropping a Titan with counter magic.
I thought about the Eldrazi, and I may run a single Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, the Great Distortion alongside the 4 Dragons. I have been contemplating it, but I mostly have voided it just because it is pretty dependent on how fast the format remains in the coming weeks. More often than not, I am tapping down my mana - just on my opponent's turn instead of mine, and it means that I need something cheaper to start closing the game out.
Why remain UB when both grixis and esper would open up a slew of options and most importantly make painful truth playable. Shard mana is pretty good.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
Just because you're going esper doesn't mean you have to go dragons, I personally tested with 3 Avacyn's, a single Ojutai and single Silumgar. Languish killing your own win cons is what makes Gideon so good. And the primary win con in anything black can easily be Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet after a single activation he survives Languish and nets you tokens in the process.
I found shards easy enough to get Jace out turn 2 consistently being able to cast grasp of darkness turn 2 consistently depending on needs as well as converge 3 for painful truths.
Has anyone thought about playing Westvale Abbey? It's a way to sit back and hold mana up, and while it is a little passive and won't close games out too quickly, it is a good possibility. Running that also brings Call the Bloodline as a possible card, and while we have to pitch a card to it, it gives us a way to pitch lands when we start to flood. You could go one further and play the madness counterspell and Just the Wind to utilize the madness aspect. It all is a slight stretch, but it is something to consider. I'm excited to see someone posted this today, because earlier today I told a friend I think turn 4 Languish into turn 5 Jace, bounce a guy could be one of the strongest plays in standard.
I'm not sure about Silumgar's Scorn. I put it in the deck because of this list, but only four dragons makes me cry, so I added ICefall Regent and now the deck just seems waaaay too crowded. I think the deck really wants Thing in the Ice to block early, and it can close games out rather quickly in it's own right. If you have to Languish it away, that is okay. I'm treating it more of a Wall of Omens with upside potential, like in the old UW Sun Titan decks.
Hello, thanks for starting this thread about UB control...I've been searching the net for UB control forums and so far this is the only one I've found...my last UB deck was Adrian Sullivan's UB Control Dragonless, but after the rotation of heroes' downfall and bile blight I stopped playing UB for a while...now that SOI's around though, I've decided to brew my own UB control. Take note that my brew does not include flip Jace for two main reasons- I can't afford him, and I want to stick to as few creatures as possible. This may be viewed by most as a rogue brew (WHY NO FLIP JACE? WHY NO DRAGONS? WTF BIG ELDRAZI? WHY NO 4-of???) but I've playtested it against the current decks in the meta, such as B/W control, B/W midrange, red eldrazi, UR TITI, white weenies, even B/R vampire brews, and it's been meeting expectations (roughly 80% winrate vs midrange, control, and ramp decks [I always win pre-sideboard], 40% winrate vs hyperaggro/tempo and burn decks [I always lose pre-sideboard]).
Constructive criticism and suggestions are very much welcome. Thanks!
My gameplan is pretty simple: keep the board state clean until turn 6, cast sower, then ramp to either: a) opponent EOT catalog then floorboards via madness cost, or b) cast ulamog with counter-magic at the ready. I know that ob sower isn't in the mainstream meta, but it's been surprisingly effective, either exiling much-needed lands or the opponent's wincons. Even if it dies quickly to removal, simply casting it already nets me some advantage.
I'm wondering why people aren't using To the Slaughter that much- I'm usually able to reach delirium by mid-game, and 2-for-1'ing an opponent always feels good. I have ruinous path as a backup targeted removal as well.
My alternative wincons include ob-nix and jace, although most games they're just there for the card draw (having both on them in the field is really, really sweet). It's usually game over once ulamog resolves (and by that time, the opponent has no more cards in hand). Mage-ring network is also there to provide ramp. There have also been games when I hard-casted floorboards to get lifegain and chump blockers. Some of you may wonder- why no rise the tides? My problem with rise is its high cmc and it becomes relevant one turn later (the tapped clause really sucks), giving the opponent a chance to cast a board wipe. It's also a dead card early on in the game; I've chosen to keep 2 copies of floorboards instead. I know the zombies also come to play tapped, but the 3 lifegain is really important for a reactive control deck like this. I rarely get to transform westvale abbey (people are usually eager to shut this down), but there have been hilarious games when I won because of the 1/1 tokens it produces.
Regarding the counterspell suite, I found negate to be really relevant in the current standard, while void shatter is a catch-all that prevents graveyard recursion.
Regarding the weird 1, 2, 3-of number of spells, I wanted to build a versatile UB deck, that's why I didn't build it with any 4-ofs in mind. Keeping spells below 4 allow for a more versatile mix, in my opinion.
The weakness of the deck is, of course, fast and cheap creatures. I keep two languish main, but I also sideboarded 3 flaying tendrils, because I hate graveyard recursion. Regarding card draw, while I miss DTT a lot, I've found epiphany to be really effective at 6 and above cmc. Sometimes, during early-game emergencies, I fire it off at 4 or 5cmc. Read the Bones is an excellent card-draw spell- can't recount the number of times it netted me a much-needed wincon in a tight situation.
Just a thought as another win-con/card draw engine... Sphinx of Magosi from the new Welcome decks? It's a 6/6 flier for 3UUU, but the ability says "2U: Draw a card, then put a +1/+1 counter on ~". Maybe a win-more card, but seems like an interesting plan to control the board for the first few turns, drop a Sphinx with mana open to protect it, then pump EOT on the opponent's turn if it survives. Seems something to think about...
So, this is where I'm thinking could be a good start. No baby Jace though, which may need to change for card filtering. Also, I feel that 4 straight up draw spells is a little too few, although all the walkers draw cards too.
Most of the decks I've played against so far are more durdly, and this deck just wipes the floor with them. Oblivion Sower typically provides 1-2 land cards which can be back-breaking. A fun combo is using Jace's -2 on your own Sower and then recasting it to gain more lands and also mill your opponent.
The deck draws a lot of cards and while the Ulamog is kind of overkill, I really like him in the deck. It's unfortunate that exile and sacrifice removal is so common in this meta, I almost always ended up bringing in more counterspells to protect my win conditions. Other than that, absolutely nothing can touch Overall the deck is kind of slow but it's not a bad slow.
Been testing with Mage-Ring Network + Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and I must say... even with the ability to add charge counters to the land, casting Ulamog is tricky - especially if you are trying to combat a ramp deck and it is too big and clunky to keep up with aggro. It required me to add an additional land to make sure I could set up successful casts for it, and it led to a lot of flooding, weaker Anticipate options, and a big fatty in the early game that should have just been something else, almost anything else.
Overall, getting to cast it is strong. Getting to protect it is quite rare. Getting to attack with it to win is beyond slow.
I will pass on it. I value more interactive cards that allow me to prep for faster wins and stable boards earlier. 1 Ulamog amounted to 2 lost card slots and it just has not been worth it in testing. I think it would be better to just run Alhammarret, High Arbiter. At least with him I can cast him and get away with 26 lands + MRN and have the ability to negate a late game removal option from my opponent to protect him a bit longer.
Good to hear about your results with Titans. If you're now thinking Alhammaret, maybe a route could be Sphinx control - as I mentioned earlier, I'm a little intrigued as to whether Sphinx of Magosi could fit in here. Yes, it's got UUU in the cost, but if it survives the turn, you have 6 mana up to protect it, which if not needed gets dumped EOT into it to give 2 counters and 2 cards.
Running a pair of Alhammaret and a pair of Magosi could be not a bad thing, with Alhammaret clearing the way to protect Magosi for a turn.
One other question - how to deal with something like a flipped Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey...?
Good to hear about your results with Titans. If you're now thinking Alhammaret, maybe a route could be Sphinx control - as I mentioned earlier, I'm a little intrigued as to whether Sphinx of Magosi could fit in here. Yes, it's got UUU in the cost, but if it survives the turn, you have 6 mana up to protect it, which if not needed gets dumped EOT into it to give 2 counters and 2 cards.
Running a pair of Alhammaret and a pair of Magosi could be not a bad thing, with Alhammaret clearing the way to protect Magosi for a turn.
One other question - how to deal with something like a flipped Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey...?
I most certainly do not want to pay 6 mana for a creature that has 0 impact upon being played. The issue is that you need it to produce some kind of value in the face of removal, or you need it to have an incredibly high ceiling for if it sticks around. Sphinx of Magosi is not really that card. I am sold that Dragonlord Silumgar is hands down your best option. He has board presence, can swing a game when he hits play, can be looped with excess lands, and has DT + X/5 body for being defensive. Alhammarret, High Arbiter is 7 mana, but a potentially unkillable evasive body. I likely will just stick with DLS, I think it is more than enough.
As for dealing with Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey, I have not had an issue. It is pretty easy to keep the board down at those stages, at least enough to keep an edict online so if they do get Ormendahl out, he is dead. I also have just taken it with DLS + Scorn a couple of times.
I most certainly do not want to pay 6 mana for a creature that has 0 impact upon being played. The issue is that you need it to produce some kind of value in the face of removal, or you need it to have an incredibly high ceiling for if it sticks around. Sphinx of Magosi is not really that card. I am sold that Dragonlord Silumgar is hands down your best option. He has board presence, can swing a game when he hits play, can be looped with excess lands, and has DT + X/5 body for being defensive. Alhammarret, High Arbiter is 7 mana, but a potentially unkillable evasive body. I likely will just stick with DLS, I think it is more than enough.
Good point about the doing nothing on the turn it's played. However, once (if) it survives the turn, it looks like it could get out of hand fairly quickly. As I said, it could be worth a consideration, so I'll let you know how badly it does...
As for dealing with Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey, I have not had an issue. It is pretty easy to keep the board down at those stages, at least enough to keep an edict online so if they do get Ormendahl out, he is dead. I also have just taken it with DLS + Scorn a couple of times.
Just out of curiosity, how did Scorn help? Or do you mean Scorn to protect DLS once you stole it? Cards I was considering including were OStrike, or maybe boarding in Tainted Remedy (if a player was to gain life, they lose that much instead).
Below is the latest list I've come up with. The land only has 6 guaranteed CIPT lands (from the Evolving Wilds and the Submerged Boneyards), with the Shadow- and Battle-lands depending on basics. There are 15 lands to reveal to Choked Estuary as well. According to the Frank Karsten article, 19 of each colour are needed to hit Ruinous Path and Void Shatter 90% of the time on T3, and the Submerged Boneyard helps to have both options available by increasing the number of dual lands. Baby Jace is in the list for early card filtering, but could easily (and most likely will be) switched out for Anticipates, so it doesn't clash with new Jace. Finally, I put in a few answers to my worry card (Westvale Abbey), with OStrike, Silumgar's Command and the DLS mains (plus able to bounce with new Jace and Engulf the Shore, assuming enough islands).
I'm still not sure about the sideboard cards. I like Ugin's Insight as I'll have some form of permanent down late game, and that will give a good number of cards to scry through. I'm tempted even to run it main instead of Pore over the Pages, although that one leaves up the counter magic if needed. Talking of which, I'm not sure if my side is too counter magic heavy...
Scorn is to protect DLS from a removal spell after you steal it.
I don't think you really need to be getting into tech cards to deal with him, I have not had a problem with him at all. Like, ever.
As for the comments about the lands and Frank's analysis, I have not had an issue with that either. Depending on your removal suite and counts, you shouldn't have to actually worry about needing 3 open mana on turn 3 and you can still sequence your lands easily enough to have it open on turn 3 if you need to. The format is slow enough to where you can give up turn 1 or 2 for your t3 play and not get buried.
Forgot that the other Dragons rotated out. Whoops. My bad. I still stand by Tormenter as a good control finisher. You can gain card advantage back through draw spells. Think of turning the card you pitch into a Negate for targeted removal, while only needing an actual counterspell for board wipes, Negate and Invasive Surgery being the cheapest options mana wise. Also, this could be a good enabler if you want to go the madness route with Under The Floorboards, Just The Wind, Welcome to the Fold, or Murderous Compulsion.
Been testing with Mage-Ring Network + Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and I must say... even with the ability to add charge counters to the land, casting Ulamog is tricky - especially if you are trying to combat a ramp deck and it is too big and clunky to keep up with aggro. It required me to add an additional land to make sure I could set up successful casts for it, and it led to a lot of flooding, weaker Anticipate options, and a big fatty in the early game that should have just been something else, almost anything else.
Against aggro I board him out in any case, and I haven't run into too many ramp decks so far in either case. I agree that just playing him by himself with Mage-Ring Network is awful, but where he shines is if you do run some amount of Oblivion Sower (I run 2) which do end up ramping you a fair bit more.
Overall, getting to cast it is strong. Getting to protect it is quite rare. Getting to attack with it to win is beyond slow.
I will pass on it. I value more interactive cards that allow me to prep for faster wins and stable boards earlier. 1 Ulamog amounted to 2 lost card slots and it just has not been worth it in testing. I think it would be better to just run Alhammarret, High Arbiter. At least with him I can cast him and get away with 26 lands + MRN and have the ability to negate a late game removal option from my opponent to protect him a bit longer.
That's fine - it's been working well for me thus far but I completely cut it when speed is necessary. I've even been thinking of something like Startled Awake to help mill out. I would have 3 cards free by dropping the 2 Oblivion Sower and 1 Ulamog.
As an aside, how have your games versus U/R control been going? I've been doing well against most lists, but Fevered Visions is very strong against us and they run just as many counters.
The meta can be pretty quick, if you are cutting it when you need speed - you should just cut it entirely imo. There is not really any reason to be giving up a game 1 by running clunky cards that are fair in some matches. Your finishing package is the meat of your deck, you should not be siding it out to be faster. Instead you should just streamline it.
As for UR Control, the match has been fine. You just have to pick your spots, I also play my DLS's aggressively and you can force a Jace emblem fairly easily. Out of the board I will bring in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to get more pressure during the mid game, he also coincidentally allows you to gain back life which is nice. Silumgar's Command is rather handy for getting a FV off the board for a counter play. Overall, I would not say that the match is easy or anything, but it is fair and it really seems to come down to technicals.
I've been working on a deck to take care of Bant Company and Mono White Humans. It's UB based with splash red for Radiant Flames. Running both Radiant Flames and Languish gives is the only way to play control and be able to survive long enough for late game imo.
The big tech here is From Under the Floorboards. We have 8 discard outlets in Jace VP and Elusive Tormentor for massive lifegain and zombie finishers in the late game but even at 5cmc I think 6 power plus 3 life is still very good. There isn't really any need for countermagic since Elusive Tormentor has inbuilt protection. The deck lacks lifegain but the sweepers are so good that they act as pseudo life gain especially a radiant flames on turn 3 which is almost always a blowout against Mono White. Dragonlord Kolaghan acts as a fast finisher since Tormentor is slow and can get chump blocked easily. He also prevents your opponent from recasting anything since a lot of the time they will have cards of the same name in the graveyard.
The sideboard is a bit of a mess at the moment but it is mainly aimed towards improving the midrange/ramp and possibly control mirror matchup. Use Negate and Transgress to stop their ramp and Silumgar to steal their threats if need be. Ultimate Price is for more removal against aggro and Void Shatter for the potential mirror.
Testing has been very limited so far but I really like the foundation of the deck. Originally I was playing Esper Dragons but I felt it was way too slow. Lack of turn 3 sweeper was a big negative and Silumgar's Scorn plus Foul-Tongue Invocation were really meh. Both top 2 decks have too many creatures where they sack their worst creature so Invocation was almost always just Gain 4 life (meh) and Scorn was too situational. I'd rather have hard removal and answers game 1 and side in counter magic games 2 and 3
Ideally I'd like to make more use of some other madness cards but right now I can't think of any that would be improvements. Cards like Fiery Impluse and Fiery Temper are too inconsistent with our manabase.
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Shadows over Innistrad is here, and it is a brewer's paradise in Standard right now. This thread is dedicated to the competitive development of UB Control and will provide some of my experience, card choices, and strategies for the deck. I have been working with Control lists since early on in the spoiler season, and while I feel like I have tested a ton of different configurations for the archetype, much of my experience is with Esper Control and a bit of UB Control lately. I feel like of what I have tested, UB is one of the stronger lists I have played and I am excited to document its development here in this thread. So without further ado.
Obviously, killing your opponent is a concern. Similar to UB KTK/THS, this style is not for the person who enjoys using 60 seconds every turn.
It's a bummer that SOI never really provided the UB recursive zombie shell that this sort of deck would need to turn the corner quickly and utilize madness spells efficiently.
Relentless Tormenter seems like the finisher of choice for control right now. Languish being one of the few cards that can take it out and we have counters for that. Sideboard is missing Infinite Obliteration in my opinion, but depends on how much Eldrazi Ramp is in the area. Just my edit to this list of what I would play if I had to play this list with a few tweaks. I'd trade an Evolving Wilds for a Blighted Fen.
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
Spells
3 Horribly Awry
4 Void Shatter
2 Silumgar's Command
3 Grasp of Darkness
3 Complete Disregard
1 Ruinous Path
1 Grip of Desolation
4 Anticipate
2 Languish
4 Transgress the Mind
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Pore over the Pages
2 Rise from the Tides
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
1 Blighted Cataract
1 Blighted Fen
6 Swamp
9 Island
Overall I liked the basic idea of counter and kill everything, and then end the game with Ob or Rise. Declaration wasn't an issue as I could wait until I had Rise + a Counter, or they didn't see it game 1 and took them out for the next game.
Pieces of the Puzzle was straight garbage, but Pore over the Pages was actually really sweet. The only deck I had trouble with was Esper Dragons, mainly because game 1 I kept a really bad hand and game 2 he chained 3 Painful Truths which I couldn't answer. Epiphany seems like equal garbage, but since I don't care too much about binning spells because of Rise I'll give it a shot.
I'm not sure sticking with Rise is the best idea, but it only gives them one turn to answer it or they lose, and like I said, I can wait until I have 9+ mana to answer their answer.
Silumgar, the Drifting Death sure would be sweet... if he was a Standard legal card. Come on, man.
Have to disagree. We can't bin a card every turn (maybe two cards if they have two removal spells) to keep him around. He's a monster in limited, but in constructed our resources will likely be too taxed to maintain his transform cycle. Also, regardless of what side he's on, he also dies to Languish and I'd like to avoid sweeping my threats away with my opponent's.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I'm willing to admit that I'm a little rusty as I haven't played for a month or so, but I tried a deck out with these cards last night. It turned out to be hot garbage - you rarely get the X madness cost to something actually decent. If you hit all your land drops, by turn 7 you get X equal to 5. I used Mage-Ring Network to try to push it higher, but the highest I ever got it was 5. And since they enter tapped, it's just not that powerful and then you have to contend with cards like Declaration in Stone and the anti-token stuff being brought in that other people had for Secure the Wastes.
Blighted Fen was not selected because boards last weekend were going wide. I would rather just draw two cards to get to a targeted removal spell or two, than to let them just sac fodder. While I like Fen, I severely dislike it when most boards are going wide and your removal is good enough to handle boards that are using single threats.
Why not 3 Havens? The mana base can support them and it means you can aggressively play Dragonlord more often. There is a lot of opportunity to play him aggressively and start exhausting removal and chaining him until he sticks.
Esper ran 5 Dragons at first, and was fine. You don't always need the Dragon value out of the spells. Force Spike is a strong card when people are focusing hard on curving out. In fact, I remember people having to be reminded about that when Esper Dragons first hit the scene.
As for baby Jace, he was eating removal and costing me tempo to play. He is not as good as he was before rotation, by a fairly substantial margin. It was pretty evident if you were watching coverage or communicating with people actually playing him at the open.
Ob Nixilis Reignited vs Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is a pretty hot topic it seems. I would rather be able to -2, -2 and still have my walker on the board. With Ob Nixilis, Reignited, I have to -3 then immediately tick up. I do not like not having the option to use a disruption mode for a consecutive turn. I get that just killing the creature means it is not coming back, but people really underestimate how much that extra loyalty cost actually is. In addition, scrying before a draw is a huge game. Jace does a ton of work in this deck and he does not make me nickel and dime my life for it.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
I have had little issue turning on the dragon spells when I need to. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is more than workable. This deck is pretty deceptive... it sees a lot of cards without DTT and baby Jace.
I thought about the Eldrazi, and I may run a single Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, the Great Distortion alongside the 4 Dragons. I have been contemplating it, but I mostly have voided it just because it is pretty dependent on how fast the format remains in the coming weeks. More often than not, I am tapping down my mana - just on my opponent's turn instead of mine, and it means that I need something cheaper to start closing the game out.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/681695-dragonless-esper-control?page=4
Been there, done that.
I'm not sure about Silumgar's Scorn. I put it in the deck because of this list, but only four dragons makes me cry, so I added ICefall Regent and now the deck just seems waaaay too crowded. I think the deck really wants Thing in the Ice to block early, and it can close games out rather quickly in it's own right. If you have to Languish it away, that is okay. I'm treating it more of a Wall of Omens with upside potential, like in the old UW Sun Titan decks.
Constructive criticism and suggestions are very much welcome. Thanks!
6 Swamp
5 Island
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
1 Mage-Ring Network
1 Blighted Cataract
1 Mortuary Mire
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Westvale Abbey
Creatures
2 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Spells
2 Oath of Jace
2 Read the Bones
1 Anticipate
2 Catalog
2 Epiphany at the Drownyard
2 From Under the Floorboards
3 Grasp of Darkness
2 Languish
3 Negate
1 Ruinous Path
3 To the Slaughter
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Ultimate Price
3 Void Shatter
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Aligned Hedron Network
2 Infinite Obliteration
2 Dead Weight
2 Duress
3 Flaying Tendrils
2 Horribly Awry
1 Crush of Tentacles
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
1 Virulent Plague
My gameplan is pretty simple: keep the board state clean until turn 6, cast sower, then ramp to either: a) opponent EOT catalog then floorboards via madness cost, or b) cast ulamog with counter-magic at the ready. I know that ob sower isn't in the mainstream meta, but it's been surprisingly effective, either exiling much-needed lands or the opponent's wincons. Even if it dies quickly to removal, simply casting it already nets me some advantage.
I'm wondering why people aren't using To the Slaughter that much- I'm usually able to reach delirium by mid-game, and 2-for-1'ing an opponent always feels good. I have ruinous path as a backup targeted removal as well.
My alternative wincons include ob-nix and jace, although most games they're just there for the card draw (having both on them in the field is really, really sweet). It's usually game over once ulamog resolves (and by that time, the opponent has no more cards in hand). Mage-ring network is also there to provide ramp. There have also been games when I hard-casted floorboards to get lifegain and chump blockers. Some of you may wonder- why no rise the tides? My problem with rise is its high cmc and it becomes relevant one turn later (the tapped clause really sucks), giving the opponent a chance to cast a board wipe. It's also a dead card early on in the game; I've chosen to keep 2 copies of floorboards instead. I know the zombies also come to play tapped, but the 3 lifegain is really important for a reactive control deck like this. I rarely get to transform westvale abbey (people are usually eager to shut this down), but there have been hilarious games when I won because of the 1/1 tokens it produces.
Regarding the counterspell suite, I found negate to be really relevant in the current standard, while void shatter is a catch-all that prevents graveyard recursion.
Regarding the weird 1, 2, 3-of number of spells, I wanted to build a versatile UB deck, that's why I didn't build it with any 4-ofs in mind. Keeping spells below 4 allow for a more versatile mix, in my opinion.
The weakness of the deck is, of course, fast and cheap creatures. I keep two languish main, but I also sideboarded 3 flaying tendrils, because I hate graveyard recursion. Regarding card draw, while I miss DTT a lot, I've found epiphany to be really effective at 6 and above cmc. Sometimes, during early-game emergencies, I fire it off at 4 or 5cmc. Read the Bones is an excellent card-draw spell- can't recount the number of times it netted me a much-needed wincon in a tight situation.
Sideboard TBC.
3 Mage-Ring network
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
4 Evolving Wilds
5 Island
7 Swamp
Removal (17)
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Silumgar's Command
2 Flaying Tendrils
2 Ruinous Path
2 To the Slaughter
2 Ultimate Price
3 Languish
4 Grasp of Darkness
1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
1 Read the Bones
2 Anticipate
Counter spells (5)
1 Negate
4 Void Shatter
Planeswalkers (3)
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
2 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3x Anticipate
1x Dragonlord's Prerogative
1x Foul-Tongue Invocation
2x Grasp of Darkness
2x Negate
3x Silumgar's Scorn
3x To the Slaughter
1x Ultimate Price
1x Void Shatter
Planeswalker (2)
1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
Land (26)
1x Blighted Cataract
4x Choked Estuary
3x Evolving Wilds
1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
5x Island
2x Mage-Ring Network
4x Sunken Hollow
6x Swamp
4x Languish
2x Read the Bones
2x Ruinous Path
Creature (7)
4x Dragonlord Silumgar
2x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1x Dispel
2x Duress
3x Flaying Tendrils
2x Foul Renewal
3x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Negate
1x Transgress the Mind
1x Ultimate Price
Most of the decks I've played against so far are more durdly, and this deck just wipes the floor with them. Oblivion Sower typically provides 1-2 land cards which can be back-breaking. A fun combo is using Jace's -2 on your own Sower and then recasting it to gain more lands and also mill your opponent.
The deck draws a lot of cards and while the Ulamog is kind of overkill, I really like him in the deck. It's unfortunate that exile and sacrifice removal is so common in this meta, I almost always ended up bringing in more counterspells to protect my win conditions. Other than that, absolutely nothing can touch Overall the deck is kind of slow but it's not a bad slow.
Overall, getting to cast it is strong. Getting to protect it is quite rare. Getting to attack with it to win is beyond slow.
I will pass on it. I value more interactive cards that allow me to prep for faster wins and stable boards earlier. 1 Ulamog amounted to 2 lost card slots and it just has not been worth it in testing. I think it would be better to just run Alhammarret, High Arbiter. At least with him I can cast him and get away with 26 lands + MRN and have the ability to negate a late game removal option from my opponent to protect him a bit longer.
Running a pair of Alhammaret and a pair of Magosi could be not a bad thing, with Alhammaret clearing the way to protect Magosi for a turn.
One other question - how to deal with something like a flipped Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey...?
I most certainly do not want to pay 6 mana for a creature that has 0 impact upon being played. The issue is that you need it to produce some kind of value in the face of removal, or you need it to have an incredibly high ceiling for if it sticks around. Sphinx of Magosi is not really that card. I am sold that Dragonlord Silumgar is hands down your best option. He has board presence, can swing a game when he hits play, can be looped with excess lands, and has DT + X/5 body for being defensive. Alhammarret, High Arbiter is 7 mana, but a potentially unkillable evasive body. I likely will just stick with DLS, I think it is more than enough.
As for dealing with Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey, I have not had an issue. It is pretty easy to keep the board down at those stages, at least enough to keep an edict online so if they do get Ormendahl out, he is dead. I also have just taken it with DLS + Scorn a couple of times.
Good point about the doing nothing on the turn it's played. However, once (if) it survives the turn, it looks like it could get out of hand fairly quickly. As I said, it could be worth a consideration, so I'll let you know how badly it does...
Just out of curiosity, how did Scorn help? Or do you mean Scorn to protect DLS once you stole it? Cards I was considering including were OStrike, or maybe boarding in Tainted Remedy (if a player was to gain life, they lose that much instead).
Below is the latest list I've come up with. The land only has 6 guaranteed CIPT lands (from the Evolving Wilds and the Submerged Boneyards), with the Shadow- and Battle-lands depending on basics. There are 15 lands to reveal to Choked Estuary as well. According to the Frank Karsten article, 19 of each colour are needed to hit Ruinous Path and Void Shatter 90% of the time on T3, and the Submerged Boneyard helps to have both options available by increasing the number of dual lands. Baby Jace is in the list for early card filtering, but could easily (and most likely will be) switched out for Anticipates, so it doesn't clash with new Jace. Finally, I put in a few answers to my worry card (Westvale Abbey), with OStrike, Silumgar's Command and the DLS mains (plus able to bounce with new Jace and Engulf the Shore, assuming enough islands).
I'm still not sure about the sideboard cards. I like Ugin's Insight as I'll have some form of permanent down late game, and that will give a good number of cards to scry through. I'm tempted even to run it main instead of Pore over the Pages, although that one leaves up the counter magic if needed. Talking of which, I'm not sure if my side is too counter magic heavy...
2 Blighted Cataract
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Submerged Boneyard
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
5 Swamp
6 Island
Removal (15)
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Oblivion Strike
1 Silumgar's Command
2 Flaying Tendrils
2 Ruinous Path
2 Ultimate Price
3 Grasp of Darkness
3 Languish
1 Negate
4 Void Shatter
Draw (5)
1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
2 Anticipate
2 Pore over the Pages
Creatures/walkers (8)
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
2 Dragonlord Silumgar
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Learn from the Past
1 Tainted Remedy
1 Ugin's Insight
2 Dispel
2 Flaying Tendrils
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Negate
2 Transgress the Mind
I don't think you really need to be getting into tech cards to deal with him, I have not had a problem with him at all. Like, ever.
As for the comments about the lands and Frank's analysis, I have not had an issue with that either. Depending on your removal suite and counts, you shouldn't have to actually worry about needing 3 open mana on turn 3 and you can still sequence your lands easily enough to have it open on turn 3 if you need to. The format is slow enough to where you can give up turn 1 or 2 for your t3 play and not get buried.
Against aggro I board him out in any case, and I haven't run into too many ramp decks so far in either case. I agree that just playing him by himself with Mage-Ring Network is awful, but where he shines is if you do run some amount of Oblivion Sower (I run 2) which do end up ramping you a fair bit more.
That's fine - it's been working well for me thus far but I completely cut it when speed is necessary. I've even been thinking of something like Startled Awake to help mill out. I would have 3 cards free by dropping the 2 Oblivion Sower and 1 Ulamog.
As an aside, how have your games versus U/R control been going? I've been doing well against most lists, but Fevered Visions is very strong against us and they run just as many counters.
As for UR Control, the match has been fine. You just have to pick your spots, I also play my DLS's aggressively and you can force a Jace emblem fairly easily. Out of the board I will bring in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to get more pressure during the mid game, he also coincidentally allows you to gain back life which is nice. Silumgar's Command is rather handy for getting a FV off the board for a counter play. Overall, I would not say that the match is easy or anything, but it is fair and it really seems to come down to technicals.
3x Island
2x Mountain
4x Evolving Wilds
4x Choked Estuary
3x Foreboding Ruins
3x Sunken Hollow
3x Smoldering Marsh
4x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3x Languish
3x Painful Truths
3x Grasp of Darkness
3x Radiant Flames
3x From Under the Floorboards
2x Ruinous Path
4x Elusive Tormentor
2x Transgress the Mind
3x Anticipate
2x Dragonlord Kolaghan
1x Kolaghan's Command
The big tech here is From Under the Floorboards. We have 8 discard outlets in Jace VP and Elusive Tormentor for massive lifegain and zombie finishers in the late game but even at 5cmc I think 6 power plus 3 life is still very good. There isn't really any need for countermagic since Elusive Tormentor has inbuilt protection. The deck lacks lifegain but the sweepers are so good that they act as pseudo life gain especially a radiant flames on turn 3 which is almost always a blowout against Mono White. Dragonlord Kolaghan acts as a fast finisher since Tormentor is slow and can get chump blocked easily. He also prevents your opponent from recasting anything since a lot of the time they will have cards of the same name in the graveyard.
The sideboard is a bit of a mess at the moment but it is mainly aimed towards improving the midrange/ramp and possibly control mirror matchup. Use Negate and Transgress to stop their ramp and Silumgar to steal their threats if need be. Ultimate Price is for more removal against aggro and Void Shatter for the potential mirror.
Testing has been very limited so far but I really like the foundation of the deck. Originally I was playing Esper Dragons but I felt it was way too slow. Lack of turn 3 sweeper was a big negative and Silumgar's Scorn plus Foul-Tongue Invocation were really meh. Both top 2 decks have too many creatures where they sack their worst creature so Invocation was almost always just Gain 4 life (meh) and Scorn was too situational. I'd rather have hard removal and answers game 1 and side in counter magic games 2 and 3
Ideally I'd like to make more use of some other madness cards but right now I can't think of any that would be improvements. Cards like Fiery Impluse and Fiery Temper are too inconsistent with our manabase.