Recently, I've been trying to see how good control can get in my Pauper cube, and the resulsts have been dismal at best. My most recent Grixis control deck basically affirmed what I already knew: control does sweet things against midrange but folds to aggro like nobody's business.
Is anyone else feeling the same thing from there cube?
What are some ways that we could remedy this? One I've been thinking of is cutting down on burn, which is something I've been thinking about for a while anyway, but that doesn't really respond to aggro overall. After all, one of the sweetest aggro decks currently is GW aggro.
I've been looking at sweepers in Pauper because that's one way control can stabilise against aggro, but they are dismal. Things like Evincar's Justice and Martyr of Ashes which are passable cards are already in my cube, and the next best card seems to be Bloodfire Infusion, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it requires a creature and is so easy to answer with instant-speed removal.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
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Fixed. Why did you not warn me on Skype or something.
Crypt Rats is very sweet and already in the cube. Although midrange decks use it a bit better than control. Definitely good in the control decks.
If only there was a reprint of it.
Ah. I had somehow overlooked it when I checked your list.
In general, I'd look to cards like frostburn wierd (and yeah, i see it in your list, but it's an example) that can single-handedly make them reconsider attacking with ANY dudes. The 0-power walls in my experience tend to get overwhelmed. More removal is another route that could work.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
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ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Control is definitely not the most common archetype in my cube but it has had its success. Usually this comes in the form of G/R/X decks that use ramp, greens beefy creatures, and any of the X red spells to keep board presence low. The third color usually fills in either stuff like card advantage (U draw or B recursion) or solid early game creatures to stabalize (W: Aven Riftwatcher I'm looking at you!). Beating aggro usually requires some of the better G or W 2-3 drops which can usually beat most cards in the red zone or on the back of lifegain from Grazing Gladeheart or Pristine Talisman.
This is a funny thread, because I could swear about a year ago we were talking about how much more dominant control was and that people were avoiding aggro as a result!
My two cents: Majikan raises a good point - walls are a possibility worth considering. I know when I play control in non-cube limited, I'm definitely keeping an eye out for walls to pick late. Disrupting a few attacks from an early 2/X creature and/or forcing removal/pump to be wasted on your wall can be the difference between winning and losing I find.
Also, the control decks that have been most successful here are U/B, U/R, and G/R/u/b/w ramp good stuff. I find that when I'm drafting control, the most important spells are early drops with big butts, 2 for 1s like Branching Bolt and Soul Manipulation, and late game bombs.
Sweepers buy time too, but often with the cost of life. Red ones do not, but they're less consistent than the Black ones. Ways to help here would be to include more Red Control cards, so that Martyr of Ashes has other Red cards in hand, or to offset the damage dealt in Black by having reliable life gain, in forms control decks want, such as Corrupt, Tendrils of Corruption, Bloodhunter Bat, Absorb Vis, or Sylvan Bounty.
Card Advantage, Inevitability, and Consistency all come through in recursion. Most recursion at Common is with creatures, but since so many creatures have other effects, recurring them is like recurring spells. Including more creatures that have effects for Control decks, like Ondu Giant, Temple Acolyte, or Ingot Chewer, can help make the recursion more beneficial. Spell recursion helps Control decks more than Aggressive decks in general, so including more of that and more cheap spells that hold value later can let Control decks get more reliable results.
The best way to tie these two forms of recursion together is with Transmute cards. The creatures are mostly better with Dimir Infiltrator, Drift of Phantasms, and Dimir House Guard all hitting extremely relevant spots on the curve. Some spells are useful as well, primarily Brainspoil, but even Dizzy Spell can do some good. Similarly, cards with Cycling that help fulfill one of the roles Control decks want, creature or spell, help feed the engine of the deck.
That's how Control decks can be improved. The other is to diminish the Aggro decks. This happens while cards get cut in favor of Control cards anyway, but to get double the effect, these cuts can be targeted to hit the cards that are currently giving Control decks problems in your Cube. This approach feels heavy-handed to me, but if you really want to shape your environment, it may be necessary.
Keep signets. Play a large number of draw spells. Keep a good number of counterspells. Try and draft the archetype?
It's difficult because of the terrible quality of the high-drops in cube, and my attitude is that I'm not going to include terrible high end cards just to try and make control playable. I've tried, but all that ends up happening is that there are aggro decks with 15th pick 5 mana 5/5s in their sideboards. Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait for wizards on this one, but there are a handful of strong ways to finish the game in pauper cubes. I'd urge everyone to play all of the available x damage burn spells (there are 5) even though it may seem like a totally boring thing to do.
In general, I'd look to cards like frostburn wierd (and yeah, i see it in your list, but it's an example) that can single-handedly make them reconsider attacking with ANY dudes. The 0-power walls in my experience tend to get overwhelmed. More removal is another route that could work.
This is a pretty good point. Frostburn Weird was one the MVPs of my aforementioned Grixis control deck. Looking for more creatures like that seems good.
This is a funny thread, because I could swear about a year ago we were talking about how much more dominant control was and that people were avoiding aggro as a result!
Just an idea that came to my mind: why not play Soul Warden et al.?
Not a bad idea, but these won't really support control any more than the other archetypes, especially since aggro weenie decks would get better uses out of them.
I made great experiences with Wall of Heat and I'm actually testing Ætherflame Wall, that could also scare some creatures. I think control is the future of red for my cube.
I've started moving red into supporting control, too. Ætherflame Wall has been awesome in U/R control decks, and might do more work than Wall of Heat because it can deal with X/3 creatures. Nivix Cyclops has been another really good card for the archetype because of its blowout potential combined with instant-speed burn.
Just a couple quick observations: You have a lot of blue 1-drop creatures. I'm not sure if you can give blue both control and aggro themes at 360. Recommend putting some blue creatures with bigger behinds in their place. Some may have been suggested already:
Calcite Snapper
Giant Tortoise?
Yotian Soldier?
Makeshift Mauler
Elgaud Shieldmate holds the fort nicely as well.
On the topic of burn--I don't know how it plays out in your cube, but 3 X spells that go to the dome at 360 seems like a lot. It feels like they'd be flying around everywhere. If I were drafting your cube, I'd be banking on getting at least 1 one of them and splashing it no matter what colors I am playing and just plan on drawing it and burning people out.
Full disclosure: I am also biased towards drafting aggro in my cube and have also had to pay attention to give control the tools it needs to compete.
I think the red X spells are exactly what red decks want for the most part. If you're going to cut any of them, it should be the single target ones like Disintegrate and Kaervek's Torch. Rock Slide, Rolling Thunder, and Fireball are exactly what the G/R/x control deck needs to gain some much needed advantage and board wiping against aggro. I personally run all of them. Rock Slide was at first a test but it has proven itself pretty well.
@ Makeshift Mauler : I feel like I'm the only one that runs this card at 360 but it has done very well in my cube. A 4/5 is huge, especially in such a strange color like blue. Even if you somehow can't manage to get a guy in the yard early, he's perfectly awesome as a 6+ drop with counter back up. So far, I've had few problems getting guys into the yard whether its from one of the various looters or trading value bears and manowars.
EDIT: I have had one complain as far as getting this guy in play due to graveyard restriction but he was playing both Makeshift Mauler and Stitched Drake and got them both in his opening hand and didn't mulligan :P. It should also be noted that both of these cards have pretty poor synergy with black's graveyard recursion.
I think he's a fair bit better than Elguad Shieldmate and on the same level if not a little better than Crookclaw Transmuter which a lot of people seem to run now.
I really like the Mauler, but I prefer my actual blue cc4 creatures. Tell me one card, I could cut for it and I will maybe add him.
I'd cut Phantom Monster but I don't play with Masters Ed common reprints.
Looking at your list, I'm not a fan of Welkin Tern. Not enough other aggro support. I like the 3/1 flyers for 3 if you want blue to be an aggro color but that still gives blue kind of an identity crisis.
I also cut Cloudfin Raptor recently along the same lines. I'm looking at getting Evolve back in but it will probably end up strictly in green once I figure out how I want that color to work.
since Rock Slide can't hit players. Then again, maybe it should be 6 red X spells.
Yep, I didn't include Rock Slide in my count due to it not being a finisher, but it's a strong card and people should cube with it if they want more red control support.
I really like Mystical Teachings, but I simply found it to be completely lackluster in an environment with a healthy amount of aggro. It's never going to be good against aggro decks, but even against slower decks it was only really good if you had one of the 2 instant speed buyback spells which happen to be first-pickable and as such not very easy to ensure you get.
I wish it was good enough, because after a certain point in the game, the right deck draws teachings and just wins - that's a powerful effect for sure.
Just a couple quick observations: You have a lot of blue 1-drop creatures. I'm not sure if you can give blue both control and aggro themes at 360. Recommend putting some blue creatures with bigger behinds in their place. Some may have been suggested already:
Calcite Snapper
Giant Tortoise?
Yotian Soldier?
Makeshift Mauler
Elgaud Shieldmate holds the fort nicely as well.
This might be something I have to do if I'm serious about supporting blue control. Blue aggro, we hardly knew thee.
I don't know if it was true for you guys, but I tested with Shieldmate and it was always really meh. Not really better than evasive 3-power guys like Crookclaw Transmuter (which I'm really digging) or Phantom Monster.
I see the Phantom Monster better than the Shieldmate and booth better than the Transmuter. Especially the combination seems nice to me. A 3/3 flying hexproof can be a serious finisher.
I'm not sure about the Mauler. It's maybe better than the Shieldmate, but on the other hand a 4/5 hexproof would be really nuts.
Btw. what are the opinions about Ghost Ship. Azure Drake is already not bad and the possible regeneration makes it really interesting IMO.
I had the combo of Stitched Drake + Shieldmate last weekend which was pretty much unbeatable against a removal heavy control deck.
Don't think I have room for Ghost Ship at 4CC but I love the old-school flavor.
Aggro is supposed to beat control. Shouldn't change that one bit, otherwise I think it is just poor design.
In the pillars of magic, Aggro comes out too fast for people to deal with. Midrange should actually be able to stop aggro with value creatures that are slightly bigger and slightly slower, and play the role that a normal control deck would in that situation.
Midrange will probably be slow enough that a true control deck should be able to take it over most of the time.
Disrupting a pillar just makes the whole thing a mess.
So if you make a control deck that can beat aggro, it certainly is fast enough to beat midrange, which means it beats everything, other than other control decks which depends on the matchup.
Then people will stop drafting aggro if it can't beat midrange and can't beat control. Aggro will become less viable. There would be no reason to draft anything but control at that point.
You need a mix, that is how magic works. Now sometimes control can be aggro, sometimes aggro can beat midrange, etc. Depends on the deck and the draw, but the averages should be tilted towards aggro beating control, midrange beating aggro, and control beating midrange.
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I will keep singing the praises of Perilous Shadow in cubes where control is supported.
Yeah, Perilous Shadow is awesome. It's consistently been good in B/x control and midrange decks (and the B/G ramp deck, although I haven't seen that come together very often) - it's a solid blocker, is almost always out of burn range, and can also be a finisher lategame. I'm surprised that less than a third of the cubes in the recent number crunch are listed as playing it.
Yeah, Perilous Shadow is awesome. It's consistently been good in B/x control and midrange decks (and the B/G ramp deck, although I haven't seen that come together very often) - it's a solid blocker, is almost always out of burn range, and can also be a finisher lategame. I'm surprised that less than a third of the cubes in the recent number crunch are listed as playing it.
I believe that's one of those mistakes that will eventually sort itself out. Kind of like how many thought Lava Dart wasn't worth running. Years have passed and it's clearly killing tons of X/1s now.
I will keep singing the praises of Perilous Shadow in cubes where control is supported.
Word. I've been cubing it since RTR dropped and it hasn't let me down.
If we can generalize a lesson from the cited examples of Perilous Shadow and Frostburn Weird, it's that dedicated blockers with big butts and enough power to eat little dudes -- or at least threaten to eat little dudes with a pump ability -- are very difficult for aggressive decks to attack into. Beatdown decks can keep attacking into 0-power defenders to at least push some damage through each turn, but when those blockers eat the smaller attackers first and have enough toughness to stonewall or trade with the average 3-drop later on, that's a whole 'nother story. Eating small attackers is another form of card advantage for the control deck. Scaring them away from attacking while the beatdown player tries to draw removal gives the control player a tempo advantage. Either way the control deck gets an advantage it needs to stabilize for the long game.
That's why WOTC prints a few purely defensive or mostly defensive creatures in every expansion: these are one of the fundamental tools of control decks in limited formats. Our format could do worse than to emulate this example. We don't want too many of these blockers because that would make aggro unplayable, but having a few is healthy for the format. Control needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against aggro, just as midrange needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against control.
Those two are a little far for my taste, but I think I like the Tortoise more. I like Perilous Myr, Frostburn Weird, Calcite Snapper, Crocanura, Silkbind Faeie, Steamcore Weird, Hussar Patrol, the previously mentioned Perilous Shadow, a couple others I can't remember right now, and I'm coming around to one or two of the red ones to swap for some of my weaker red beats cards.
Silkbind Faerie, Steamcore Weird, and Hussar Patrol are not the most common inclusions, though I think the first and the last are gaining traction, but I stand by them as solid options for control decks. Really, Silkbind can go into pretty much anything and I think it should.
I know a common UW slot is Deft Duelist and I get that it's a fantastic card, but it just doesn't play like I want. It can do the deed in aggressive or more controlling decks, but the thing is that I want my control decks to feel like control decks and great blocker then dwarfed two drop isn't exactly what I'm after for that.
The aggressive decks still have plenty of tools, but the specific goal I'm after for control is that when you're winning, it's because you squeezed out card advantage and had, as a collection, card-for-card more powerful spells than your opponent rather than just enough removal or 2/1 first strikers to draw into your splashed Sprout Swarm.
I don't know if that rambling makes sense to anyone but me.
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Is anyone else feeling the same thing from there cube?
What are some ways that we could remedy this? One I've been thinking of is cutting down on burn, which is something I've been thinking about for a while anyway, but that doesn't really respond to aggro overall. After all, one of the sweetest aggro decks currently is GW aggro.
I've been looking at sweepers in Pauper because that's one way control can stabilise against aggro, but they are dismal. Things like Evincar's Justice and Martyr of Ashes which are passable cards are already in my cube, and the next best card seems to be Bloodfire Infusion, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it requires a creature and is so easy to answer with instant-speed removal.
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Have you tried Crypt Rats? It's a second pestilence. A little limited due to the body, but it's still a pauper wipe.
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Crypt Rats is very sweet and already in the cube. Although midrange decks use it a bit better than control. Definitely good in the control decks.
If only there was a reprint of it.
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Ah. I had somehow overlooked it when I checked your list.
In general, I'd look to cards like frostburn wierd (and yeah, i see it in your list, but it's an example) that can single-handedly make them reconsider attacking with ANY dudes. The 0-power walls in my experience tend to get overwhelmed. More removal is another route that could work.
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This is a funny thread, because I could swear about a year ago we were talking about how much more dominant control was and that people were avoiding aggro as a result!
My two cents: Majikan raises a good point - walls are a possibility worth considering. I know when I play control in non-cube limited, I'm definitely keeping an eye out for walls to pick late. Disrupting a few attacks from an early 2/X creature and/or forcing removal/pump to be wasted on your wall can be the difference between winning and losing I find.
Also, the control decks that have been most successful here are U/B, U/R, and G/R/u/b/w ramp good stuff. I find that when I'm drafting control, the most important spells are early drops with big butts, 2 for 1s like Branching Bolt and Soul Manipulation, and late game bombs.
I think there's nothing really surprising here - my advice would be to drop a few cards like Phantasmal Bear and Wei Ambush Force for better late game cards like Gryff Vanguard and Bloodhunter Bat.
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Early Game Interaction
Ways to Buy Time
Card Advantage
Inevitability
Consistency
Removal covers the first 3 of these pretty well, though some removal works better for control than others, things like Lose Hope, Hobble, or Staggershock, versus things like Vendetta, Snuff Out, or Searing Blaze.
Walls help buy time, though many of them are vulnerable to Flame Slash, so consider walls that aid one of these other areas as well, like Mnemonic Wall, Wall of Glare, or Drift of Phantasms.
Sweepers buy time too, but often with the cost of life. Red ones do not, but they're less consistent than the Black ones. Ways to help here would be to include more Red Control cards, so that Martyr of Ashes has other Red cards in hand, or to offset the damage dealt in Black by having reliable life gain, in forms control decks want, such as Corrupt, Tendrils of Corruption, Bloodhunter Bat, Absorb Vis, or Sylvan Bounty.
Card Advantage, Inevitability, and Consistency all come through in recursion. Most recursion at Common is with creatures, but since so many creatures have other effects, recurring them is like recurring spells. Including more creatures that have effects for Control decks, like Ondu Giant, Temple Acolyte, or Ingot Chewer, can help make the recursion more beneficial. Spell recursion helps Control decks more than Aggressive decks in general, so including more of that and more cheap spells that hold value later can let Control decks get more reliable results.
The best way to tie these two forms of recursion together is with Transmute cards. The creatures are mostly better with Dimir Infiltrator, Drift of Phantasms, and Dimir House Guard all hitting extremely relevant spots on the curve. Some spells are useful as well, primarily Brainspoil, but even Dizzy Spell can do some good. Similarly, cards with Cycling that help fulfill one of the roles Control decks want, creature or spell, help feed the engine of the deck.
That's how Control decks can be improved. The other is to diminish the Aggro decks. This happens while cards get cut in favor of Control cards anyway, but to get double the effect, these cuts can be targeted to hit the cards that are currently giving Control decks problems in your Cube. This approach feels heavy-handed to me, but if you really want to shape your environment, it may be necessary.
It's difficult because of the terrible quality of the high-drops in cube, and my attitude is that I'm not going to include terrible high end cards just to try and make control playable. I've tried, but all that ends up happening is that there are aggro decks with 15th pick 5 mana 5/5s in their sideboards. Unfortunately I think we'll have to wait for wizards on this one, but there are a handful of strong ways to finish the game in pauper cubes. I'd urge everyone to play all of the available x damage burn spells (there are 5) even though it may seem like a totally boring thing to do.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
This is a pretty good point. Frostburn Weird was one the MVPs of my aforementioned Grixis control deck. Looking for more creatures like that seems good.
Shhhhhhhhh.
These are not terrible suggestions.
Not a bad idea, but these won't really support control any more than the other archetypes, especially since aggro weenie decks would get better uses out of them.
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I've started moving red into supporting control, too. Ætherflame Wall has been awesome in U/R control decks, and might do more work than Wall of Heat because it can deal with X/3 creatures. Nivix Cyclops has been another really good card for the archetype because of its blowout potential combined with instant-speed burn.
Calcite Snapper
Giant Tortoise?
Yotian Soldier?
Makeshift Mauler
Elgaud Shieldmate holds the fort nicely as well.
On the topic of burn--I don't know how it plays out in your cube, but 3 X spells that go to the dome at 360 seems like a lot. It feels like they'd be flying around everywhere. If I were drafting your cube, I'd be banking on getting at least 1 one of them and splashing it no matter what colors I am playing and just plan on drawing it and burning people out.
Full disclosure: I am also biased towards drafting aggro in my cube and have also had to pay attention to give control the tools it needs to compete.
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@ Makeshift Mauler : I feel like I'm the only one that runs this card at 360 but it has done very well in my cube. A 4/5 is huge, especially in such a strange color like blue. Even if you somehow can't manage to get a guy in the yard early, he's perfectly awesome as a 6+ drop with counter back up. So far, I've had few problems getting guys into the yard whether its from one of the various looters or trading value bears and manowars.
EDIT: I have had one complain as far as getting this guy in play due to graveyard restriction but he was playing both Makeshift Mauler and Stitched Drake and got them both in his opening hand and didn't mulligan :P. It should also be noted that both of these cards have pretty poor synergy with black's graveyard recursion.
I'd assume it's
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Disintegrate
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Lava Burst
since Rock Slide can't hit players. Then again, maybe it should be 6 red X spells.
I'd cut Phantom Monster but I don't play with Masters Ed common reprints.
Looking at your list, I'm not a fan of Welkin Tern. Not enough other aggro support. I like the 3/1 flyers for 3 if you want blue to be an aggro color but that still gives blue kind of an identity crisis.
I also cut Cloudfin Raptor recently along the same lines. I'm looking at getting Evolve back in but it will probably end up strictly in green once I figure out how I want that color to work.
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Yep, I didn't include Rock Slide in my count due to it not being a finisher, but it's a strong card and people should cube with it if they want more red control support.
I really like Mystical Teachings, but I simply found it to be completely lackluster in an environment with a healthy amount of aggro. It's never going to be good against aggro decks, but even against slower decks it was only really good if you had one of the 2 instant speed buyback spells which happen to be first-pickable and as such not very easy to ensure you get.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
Draft it on Cubetutor!
This might be something I have to do if I'm serious about supporting blue control. Blue aggro, we hardly knew thee.
I don't know if it was true for you guys, but I tested with Shieldmate and it was always really meh. Not really better than evasive 3-power guys like Crookclaw Transmuter (which I'm really digging) or Phantom Monster.
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I had the combo of Stitched Drake + Shieldmate last weekend which was pretty much unbeatable against a removal heavy control deck.
Don't think I have room for Ghost Ship at 4CC but I love the old-school flavor.
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In the pillars of magic, Aggro comes out too fast for people to deal with. Midrange should actually be able to stop aggro with value creatures that are slightly bigger and slightly slower, and play the role that a normal control deck would in that situation.
Midrange will probably be slow enough that a true control deck should be able to take it over most of the time.
Disrupting a pillar just makes the whole thing a mess.
So if you make a control deck that can beat aggro, it certainly is fast enough to beat midrange, which means it beats everything, other than other control decks which depends on the matchup.
Then people will stop drafting aggro if it can't beat midrange and can't beat control. Aggro will become less viable. There would be no reason to draft anything but control at that point.
You need a mix, that is how magic works. Now sometimes control can be aggro, sometimes aggro can beat midrange, etc. Depends on the deck and the draw, but the averages should be tilted towards aggro beating control, midrange beating aggro, and control beating midrange.
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Yeah, Perilous Shadow is awesome. It's consistently been good in B/x control and midrange decks (and the B/G ramp deck, although I haven't seen that come together very often) - it's a solid blocker, is almost always out of burn range, and can also be a finisher lategame. I'm surprised that less than a third of the cubes in the recent number crunch are listed as playing it.
I believe that's one of those mistakes that will eventually sort itself out. Kind of like how many thought Lava Dart wasn't worth running. Years have passed and it's clearly killing tons of X/1s now.
Word. I've been cubing it since RTR dropped and it hasn't let me down.
If we can generalize a lesson from the cited examples of Perilous Shadow and Frostburn Weird, it's that dedicated blockers with big butts and enough power to eat little dudes -- or at least threaten to eat little dudes with a pump ability -- are very difficult for aggressive decks to attack into. Beatdown decks can keep attacking into 0-power defenders to at least push some damage through each turn, but when those blockers eat the smaller attackers first and have enough toughness to stonewall or trade with the average 3-drop later on, that's a whole 'nother story. Eating small attackers is another form of card advantage for the control deck. Scaring them away from attacking while the beatdown player tries to draw removal gives the control player a tempo advantage. Either way the control deck gets an advantage it needs to stabilize for the long game.
That's why WOTC prints a few purely defensive or mostly defensive creatures in every expansion: these are one of the fundamental tools of control decks in limited formats. Our format could do worse than to emulate this example. We don't want too many of these blockers because that would make aggro unplayable, but having a few is healthy for the format. Control needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against aggro, just as midrange needs the tools to win at least a few uphill battles against control.
Silkbind Faerie, Steamcore Weird, and Hussar Patrol are not the most common inclusions, though I think the first and the last are gaining traction, but I stand by them as solid options for control decks. Really, Silkbind can go into pretty much anything and I think it should.
I know a common UW slot is Deft Duelist and I get that it's a fantastic card, but it just doesn't play like I want. It can do the deed in aggressive or more controlling decks, but the thing is that I want my control decks to feel like control decks and great blocker then dwarfed two drop isn't exactly what I'm after for that.
The aggressive decks still have plenty of tools, but the specific goal I'm after for control is that when you're winning, it's because you squeezed out card advantage and had, as a collection, card-for-card more powerful spells than your opponent rather than just enough removal or 2/1 first strikers to draw into your splashed Sprout Swarm.
I don't know if that rambling makes sense to anyone but me.