Hey guys. So I was watching to Star City Games tournament today on Twitch livestream. I noticed the bulk of the field was Abzan Midrange (efficiency beats), Rabble Red Variants with black. Green Devotion + black and or red. and Jeskai Burn. I saw a few videos of people attempting B/W control. But they didnt show any decks of control past like round 3. Does that mean that the controls decks simply got destroyed today and there was literally no control deck that could compete?
I know a lot of the control brews were Bug and Esper. But i didnt even see any BUG decks, no prognostic sphinxes, etc... It really looked like a bleak scene for anyone attempting to play a control strategy. what are your thoughts on that tournament if you saw, or if you didnt
The thing with control is that it has to answer the meta in order to have success, on the first day of a new standard you really can't know what to expect from the field. That's why deck's like burn/mono red/ midrange good stuff decks as well as old standard decks updated with new cards like the devotion decks will probably have success. Once the meta is established control decks will be prominent. It's a lot like esper control of last standard. The first couple weeks it was non existent but esper/UW came out of no where and dominated.
It's tough building a control without an understanding of what to expect in a given tourney. The first big tourney of each new season usually has a good turnout for aggro and midrangey strategies and control falls into a few weeks later. I'm more interested in seeing what answers people will bring with them to the next big tourney after seeing this weekend's results.
I thought it was pretty expect that it would be abzan midrange, rabble red, mono black aggro, and green devo, green red monsters. the one deck i didnt expect to see do as well as it did was the Jeski burn deck. that was pretty cool, that my type of aggro deck. anyways yeah i guess it will take time for these decks to settle, but it seemed to me that everyone knew these decks would be the vast majority. It seems like the control decks just dont have efficient enough cards... to match up with tokens and genesis hydra and multi walker jund decks at the same time. idk... i hope you guys are right and its just a meta expectancy thing
Honestly, control isn't looking like it'll be well-positioned at all in this format. The delve CA spells are great, but the lack of a good sweeper could wreck control. Hopefully Wizards realizes that they've created goodstuff.format and will print a good 4-mana sweeper in the near future.
Still just goodstuff.dec for the most part, so it doesn't solve my problem. In any case, I don't think Sultai is the best option for control because you want to tap out early, but you have very few ways to deal with, say, a resolved Anafenza. The lack of a good sweeper hurts too.
I played esper in Indy today - green devotion decks were SUPER popular and packing 4 ashiok and end hostilities was the place to be. Didn't drop a game against them on the way to the top tables, but took a second loss off of a horrible gaffe where I accidentally took a plains instead of a game-winning hero's downfall off of my dig through time. People are building with no fear of sweepers, so it was just really effective. I think the glut of green decks is actually muscle-ing the aggressive decks out of the format early.
What about the Red White control list that has top 8ed? It strongly answered the meta and has a distinct advantage over basically every aggro and midrange deck?
Whenever rotation happens the best decks right out of the gates are the aggro/proactive decks. Reactive decks that don't know what they're trying to react to are very poor decisions. Any control deck I feel will have white in it for end hostilities, the best sweeper in the format. BUG has infest for 5 mana that gains you a life for each creature that dies that turn but that's nothing in comparison to just destroy all creatures and anything bestowed on those creatures especially against midrange decks that won't have many X/2's. Even 2 drops get around it (sylvan caryatid.)
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Here's what I was rolling with. Again, I dropped at a second loss because my group was leaving, but I could see this deck tearing it's way to money if I stayed:
4x ashiok, nightmare weaver
1x caves of koilos
2x despise
3x divination
3x elspeth, sun's champion
3x end hostilities
4x flooded strand
4x hero's downfall
2x island
2x jace's ingenuity
4x last breath
1x liliana vess
1x murderous cut
1x negate
2x plains
4x polluted delta
3x swamp
2x temple of deceit
3x temple of enlightenment
4x temple of silence
2x thoughtseize
1x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2x utter end
The deck's main problem was not having enough straight 2-for-1s. There were a few games where I got ground out by opponents after 1-for-1-ing the first 10-ish turns. I recommend cutting some amount of removal for prognostic sphinx, divination, jace's ingenuity, etc.
I know a lot of the control brews were Bug and Esper. But i didnt even see any BUG decks, no prognostic sphinxes, etc... It really looked like a bleak scene for anyone attempting to play a control strategy. what are your thoughts on that tournament if you saw, or if you didnt
Esper draw go Control!
Twitch stream: http://www.twitch.tv/pimpdonny
Currently Playing:
Retired
end hostilities
elspeth, sun's champion
thoughtseize
utter end
read the bones
bile blight
it'll be around soon.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
4x ashiok, nightmare weaver
1x caves of koilos
2x despise
3x divination
3x elspeth, sun's champion
3x end hostilities
4x flooded strand
4x hero's downfall
2x island
2x jace's ingenuity
4x last breath
1x liliana vess
1x murderous cut
1x negate
2x plains
4x polluted delta
3x swamp
2x temple of deceit
3x temple of enlightenment
4x temple of silence
2x thoughtseize
1x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
2x utter end
sideboard:
3x nyx-fleece ram
2x typhoid rats (take THAT knuckle-blade!)
3x drown in sorrow
2x negate
3x spicy secret tech
2x thoughtseize
The deck's main problem was not having enough straight 2-for-1s. There were a few games where I got ground out by opponents after 1-for-1-ing the first 10-ish turns. I recommend cutting some amount of removal for prognostic sphinx, divination, jace's ingenuity, etc.