Introduction:
I really like playing Control. Especially the traditional draw-go version that is very reactive, has a lot of answers and cardadvantage, and takes forever to finally win the game. However this type of deck faces some serious challenges when used in multiplayer and especially EDH. the usual main answers in those decks are spotremoval and counterspells, but those cards are carddisadvantage in multiplayer. You take away one card from yourself and from one of your opponents while the other opponents lose nothing. The best way to get around this issue are boardwipes. Also politics matter and if you often counter/destroy your opponents cards you can be sure to attract anger from your opponents. For those reasons you cant really spend your counters/spotremoval to deny your opponent ressources, and have to only use them to deal with actual threats that would kill you if unanswered. This can be an issue against decks that gain a lot of value, because those decks can accumulate a lot of cards and mana to later overwhelm your answers. Since you cant deny the value from all your opponents, your best bet is to outvalue them. to achieve this a lot of ramp and carddraw is essential. Control decks want to drag the game out, so you need to be the one who profits from a longer game by accumulating more ressources.
So the main pillars of this controldeck are boardwipes, ramp and carddraw, supplemented with some spotremoval, counterspells and wincons.
Since EDH is such a diverse format with many powerful enchantments and artifacts, you mostly want to focus on boardwipes that hit all nonland permanents, not just creatures. This also means you want your own cards to mostly be boardwipeproof. This is why land based ramp is used instead of artifact ramp.
Taking all this into consideration its clear that this controldeck should use bant colors. Green is essential for land based ramp, blue is needed for draw and counterspells while white is the best color for boardwipes and spotremoval.
Commander Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Usually people build EDH decks around their commander. They decide on a commander and use the cards that go best with this commander. This deck is different. I decided on a deck and then chose a commander that goes best with this deck. This doesnt mean i didnt include cards that specifically go well with my commander, but it wasnt my main focus.
So while most Derevi decks really want to maximize its triggered ability by playing a lot of cheap creatures, this deck does none of that. Such a Strategy wouldnt go well with all the boardwipes. Instead it enhances the triggered ability by playing good untap targets like lotusfield, and makes extensive use of the activated ability to "replay" Derevi at instant speed for cheap no matter how often she died. This activated ability is very valuable for a controldeck like this.
Meta
This deck is built for a Casual playgroup with decently high powered decks but certainly not cedh. There are certain Cards not included here because they would be too powerful for the playgroup or similar reasons.
Lands
First thing to note is that this deck plays a lot of lands. as a control deck you really dont want to miss landdrops even in the mid/lategame. this deck plays a lot of draw so usually the most constraining ressource is mana. also all the ramp is land based which requires an increased number of lands so you dont run out of ramp targets and also to continue hitting landdrops even after the ramp thins out your deck. for this reason the deck plays 40 lands, but if you include cards like Bala Ged Recovery and count lands like Simic Growth Chamber as two landdrops, the deck actually runs 46 lands.
this deck only contains a minimum of utility lands, especially colorless ones, because its 3 colors and also plays some cards with very contraining mana cost such as Cryptic Command or Devastating Mastery and you really dont want to get stuck with a few colorless lands. Castle Ardenvale isnt the greatest utility land but it does synergize with Derevi and it does provide colored mana. Alchemist's Refuge is one of the best utility lands for this type of control deck. being able to cast boardwipes or wincons at instant speed is amazing. one of my favourite plays with this deck was to flash in Kozilek, Butcher of Truth at instant speed to ambush an attacker. Field of the Dead needs no introduction. in this deck it is especially good because of the extensive amount of land ramp and the synergy with the commander. Reliquary Tower is always good for a control deck that likes to draw a lot of cards. Lotus Field is literally the best card in the deck. generating 3 mana from every derevi trigger is amazing. it allows you to recast your commander for 1 mana as often as you want, and can generate amazing amount of mana when connecting with a few tokens. Simic Growth Chamber, Selesnya Sanctuary, Azorius Chancery, Temple of the False God are not as good as lotus field but still pretty good in this deck.
the other lands are just duals for fixing and basics. important is that all duals can be fetched with cards like Farseek or Three Visits.
Ramp
This deck plays every reasonable Rampspell that ramps in the first 2 turns of the game, as you usually dont do much else in those turns. Summer Bloom is a bit situational as it requires you to have many lands in hand. but if you do this card is amazing. and this deck plays a lot of lands and also a lot of draw, so having enough lands in hand is pretty realistic. its especially good with the Simic Growth Chamber type of lands. Pir's Whim and Tempt with Discovery are here to find Lotus Field which alone is worth their inclusion. but the deck also has some other juicy targets. Dowsing Dagger is a bit situational but usually not that hard to transform with derevi. then it is amazing. you spend 4 mana to get an untapped land which taps for 3. so basically for 1 mana you ramped 3. in addition its a second lotus field which goes very well with Derevi.
Counterspells
not much to say, counterspells counter spells. essential for controldecks, but dont use them extensively. carddisadvantage and angers opponents. only use them when you really need them. focus here is on counterspells that cost 2 or less mana and only 1 blue mana. Cryptic Command is the biggest exception but the added utility is well worth it imo. can also be used as a fog or removal spell and doesnt have the issue of carddisadvantage.
the best counterspell here is Arcane Denial. unconditional hardcounter, doesnt have the issue with carddisadvantage (compared to the other opponents, only compared to the opponent whose spell you countered. but there the 1 spell you countered is probably worth more than 2 random cards) and also good in terms of politics as it makes the opponent less angry because he gets some compensation. costs only 1 blue mana.
Carddraw
Drawing cards is probably the most important part of a controldeck. Emphasis lies on instant speed carddraw. some sorcery speed Draw is included because of certain benefits. Toski, Bearer of Secrets and Search for Azcanta are repeatable draw that survives the boardwiüpes and synergize with Derevi. Secret Rendezvous and Ingenious Mastery are extremly efficient and have politic benefits. Sea Gate Restoration can provide no max handsize for the rest of the game, draw a ton of cards and also be used as a land. thanks to the bouncelands you can also play it first as a land and later still get access to it as a spell.Drown in Dreams and Commence the Endgame can sometimes even be a wincon.
Recursion
The longer the game goes on, the better recursion gets as the graveyards fill up. And since control likes to make the game go long, recursion fits very well into this deck. Regrowth is the most efficient one, Eternal Witness comes with a body, Praetor's Counsel and Seasons Past can generate a lot of value. Especially Praetor's Counsel is amazing when it resolves and provides the third way to achieve no maximum handsize.
Wincons
As the ancient Controlwisdom says: the fewer wincons the better the deck. This deck only runs 2 real wincons in Exponential Growth and Blackblade Reforged. with the amount of ramp in this deck both cards can instantly kill someone with commanderdamage. there are quite a few other cards which can win you the game, but where this is not their main purpose. Those are Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, White Sun's Zenith, Drown in Dreams and Commence the Endgame.
Other Cards Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Prevents getting milled, is a big threat, draws cards. March of the Multitudes and White Sun's Zenith can create an army of tokens out of nothing. great source of Derevi triggers for value, but also useful to chumpblock or as wincon. Comeuppance and Arachnogenesis are good additional insurance cards for cases when boardwipes are not enough.(multiple guys with haste where Derevi chumpblocking is not sufficient for example).
My thought is that you don't have enough counterspells. You need at least 10, also memory lapse is bad. I have played a multiplayer control deck for a long time now but I have found that it is simply too unfun to play casually so I have moved over to playing it harder and meaner to only pull it out when I know everyone else has agreed to play that kind of game.
The key thing I have learnt trying to increase my deck's effectiveness is that you need to play the free counterspells or they will simply defend their combo too easily. They know when to play around your untapped mana and you'll find yourself facing multiple free counterspells ready to defend.
I think you have too much ramp, you have to tap out to cast them and you'll keep drawing into them late game when you need power or interaction. Maybe just Harrow and the ent one from LotR that can be cast at instant speed. I found that I prefer consistent low-cost card draw over big bursts of card draw, although keeping the instant speed ones is probably fine. And the power of instant speed is again something you are going to leverage with all your spells and not just ramp. Have a few emergency low-cost sorceries but leave the high mana cost cards to instant speed.
The best Wincon is probably just flashing in Deveri and beating them to death. But some large flash flyers, for example, Shark Typhoon or the flash uncounterable stuff like nezahal that are hard to interact with in any way.
I really like playing Control. Especially the traditional draw-go version that is very reactive, has a lot of answers and cardadvantage, and takes forever to finally win the game. However this type of deck faces some serious challenges when used in multiplayer and especially EDH. the usual main answers in those decks are spotremoval and counterspells, but those cards are carddisadvantage in multiplayer. You take away one card from yourself and from one of your opponents while the other opponents lose nothing. The best way to get around this issue are boardwipes. Also politics matter and if you often counter/destroy your opponents cards you can be sure to attract anger from your opponents. For those reasons you cant really spend your counters/spotremoval to deny your opponent ressources, and have to only use them to deal with actual threats that would kill you if unanswered. This can be an issue against decks that gain a lot of value, because those decks can accumulate a lot of cards and mana to later overwhelm your answers. Since you cant deny the value from all your opponents, your best bet is to outvalue them. to achieve this a lot of ramp and carddraw is essential. Control decks want to drag the game out, so you need to be the one who profits from a longer game by accumulating more ressources.
So the main pillars of this controldeck are boardwipes, ramp and carddraw, supplemented with some spotremoval, counterspells and wincons.
Since EDH is such a diverse format with many powerful enchantments and artifacts, you mostly want to focus on boardwipes that hit all nonland permanents, not just creatures. This also means you want your own cards to mostly be boardwipeproof. This is why land based ramp is used instead of artifact ramp.
Taking all this into consideration its clear that this controldeck should use bant colors. Green is essential for land based ramp, blue is needed for draw and counterspells while white is the best color for boardwipes and spotremoval.
Commander
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Usually people build EDH decks around their commander. They decide on a commander and use the cards that go best with this commander. This deck is different. I decided on a deck and then chose a commander that goes best with this deck. This doesnt mean i didnt include cards that specifically go well with my commander, but it wasnt my main focus.
So while most Derevi decks really want to maximize its triggered ability by playing a lot of cheap creatures, this deck does none of that. Such a Strategy wouldnt go well with all the boardwipes. Instead it enhances the triggered ability by playing good untap targets like lotusfield, and makes extensive use of the activated ability to "replay" Derevi at instant speed for cheap no matter how often she died. This activated ability is very valuable for a controldeck like this.
Meta
This deck is built for a Casual playgroup with decently high powered decks but certainly not cedh. There are certain Cards not included here because they would be too powerful for the playgroup or similar reasons.
Decklist
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Field of the Dead
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Lotus Field
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Temple of the False God
1 Arctic Treeline
1 Canopy Vista
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Glacial Floodplain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Spara's Headquarters
1 Prairie Stream
1 Irrigated Farmland
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Scattered Groves
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Command Tower
6 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island
6 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Summer Bloom
1 Pir's Whim
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Nature's Lore
1 Into the North
1 Growth Spiral
1 Farseek
1 Explore
1 Rampant Growth
1 Dowsing Dagger
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Three Visits
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Tempt with Discovery
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Cultivate
1 Counterspell
1 Memory Lapse
1 Negate
1 Dovin's Veto
1 An Offer You Can't Refuse
1 Cryptic Command
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Ondu Inversion
1 Hour of Revelation
1 Farewell
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vanquish the Horde
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Devastating Mastery
1 Even the Score
1 Drown in Dreams
1 Toski, Bearer of Secrets
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Ingenious Mastery
1 Pull from Tomorrow
1 Graven Lore
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Commence the Endgame
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Sea Gate Restoration
1 Secret Rendezvous
1 Eternal Witness
1 Regrowth
1 Praetor's Counsel
1 Seasons Past
1 Exponential Growth
1 Blackblade Reforged
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 March of the Multitudes
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Comeuppance
1 Arachnogenesis
Card Choices
Lands
First thing to note is that this deck plays a lot of lands. as a control deck you really dont want to miss landdrops even in the mid/lategame. this deck plays a lot of draw so usually the most constraining ressource is mana. also all the ramp is land based which requires an increased number of lands so you dont run out of ramp targets and also to continue hitting landdrops even after the ramp thins out your deck. for this reason the deck plays 40 lands, but if you include cards like Bala Ged Recovery and count lands like Simic Growth Chamber as two landdrops, the deck actually runs 46 lands.
this deck only contains a minimum of utility lands, especially colorless ones, because its 3 colors and also plays some cards with very contraining mana cost such as Cryptic Command or Devastating Mastery and you really dont want to get stuck with a few colorless lands.
Castle Ardenvale isnt the greatest utility land but it does synergize with Derevi and it does provide colored mana. Alchemist's Refuge is one of the best utility lands for this type of control deck. being able to cast boardwipes or wincons at instant speed is amazing. one of my favourite plays with this deck was to flash in Kozilek, Butcher of Truth at instant speed to ambush an attacker.
Field of the Dead needs no introduction. in this deck it is especially good because of the extensive amount of land ramp and the synergy with the commander.
Reliquary Tower is always good for a control deck that likes to draw a lot of cards.
Lotus Field is literally the best card in the deck. generating 3 mana from every derevi trigger is amazing. it allows you to recast your commander for 1 mana as often as you want, and can generate amazing amount of mana when connecting with a few tokens.
Simic Growth Chamber, Selesnya Sanctuary, Azorius Chancery, Temple of the False God are not as good as lotus field but still pretty good in this deck.
the other lands are just duals for fixing and basics. important is that all duals can be fetched with cards like Farseek or Three Visits.
Ramp
This deck plays every reasonable Rampspell that ramps in the first 2 turns of the game, as you usually dont do much else in those turns.
Summer Bloom is a bit situational as it requires you to have many lands in hand. but if you do this card is amazing. and this deck plays a lot of lands and also a lot of draw, so having enough lands in hand is pretty realistic. its especially good with the Simic Growth Chamber type of lands.
Pir's Whim and Tempt with Discovery are here to find Lotus Field which alone is worth their inclusion. but the deck also has some other juicy targets.
Dowsing Dagger is a bit situational but usually not that hard to transform with derevi. then it is amazing. you spend 4 mana to get an untapped land which taps for 3. so basically for 1 mana you ramped 3. in addition its a second lotus field which goes very well with Derevi.
Counterspells
not much to say, counterspells counter spells. essential for controldecks, but dont use them extensively. carddisadvantage and angers opponents. only use them when you really need them. focus here is on counterspells that cost 2 or less mana and only 1 blue mana. Cryptic Command is the biggest exception but the added utility is well worth it imo. can also be used as a fog or removal spell and doesnt have the issue of carddisadvantage.
the best counterspell here is Arcane Denial. unconditional hardcounter, doesnt have the issue with carddisadvantage (compared to the other opponents, only compared to the opponent whose spell you countered. but there the 1 spell you countered is probably worth more than 2 random cards) and also good in terms of politics as it makes the opponent less angry because he gets some compensation. costs only 1 blue mana.
Removal
Hour of Revelation is the most efficient Boardwipe, while Farewell exiles. Vanquish the Horde only hits creatures but is also very efficient. Devastating Mastery has some political benefits and is almost always cast for 4 mana. Swords to Plowshares is the only real spotremoval, but Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence can also fill that role if needed.
Carddraw
Drawing cards is probably the most important part of a controldeck. Emphasis lies on instant speed carddraw. some sorcery speed Draw is included because of certain benefits. Toski, Bearer of Secrets and Search for Azcanta are repeatable draw that survives the boardwiüpes and synergize with Derevi. Secret Rendezvous and Ingenious Mastery are extremly efficient and have politic benefits. Sea Gate Restoration can provide no max handsize for the rest of the game, draw a ton of cards and also be used as a land. thanks to the bouncelands you can also play it first as a land and later still get access to it as a spell.Drown in Dreams and Commence the Endgame can sometimes even be a wincon.
Recursion
The longer the game goes on, the better recursion gets as the graveyards fill up. And since control likes to make the game go long, recursion fits very well into this deck. Regrowth is the most efficient one, Eternal Witness comes with a body, Praetor's Counsel and Seasons Past can generate a lot of value. Especially Praetor's Counsel is amazing when it resolves and provides the third way to achieve no maximum handsize.
Wincons
As the ancient Controlwisdom says: the fewer wincons the better the deck. This deck only runs 2 real wincons in Exponential Growth and Blackblade Reforged. with the amount of ramp in this deck both cards can instantly kill someone with commanderdamage. there are quite a few other cards which can win you the game, but where this is not their main purpose. Those are Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, White Sun's Zenith, Drown in Dreams and Commence the Endgame.
Other Cards
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Prevents getting milled, is a big threat, draws cards. March of the Multitudes and White Sun's Zenith can create an army of tokens out of nothing. great source of Derevi triggers for value, but also useful to chumpblock or as wincon. Comeuppance and Arachnogenesis are good additional insurance cards for cases when boardwipes are not enough.(multiple guys with haste where Derevi chumpblocking is not sufficient for example).
The key thing I have learnt trying to increase my deck's effectiveness is that you need to play the free counterspells or they will simply defend their combo too easily. They know when to play around your untapped mana and you'll find yourself facing multiple free counterspells ready to defend.
I think you have too much ramp, you have to tap out to cast them and you'll keep drawing into them late game when you need power or interaction. Maybe just Harrow and the ent one from LotR that can be cast at instant speed. I found that I prefer consistent low-cost card draw over big bursts of card draw, although keeping the instant speed ones is probably fine. And the power of instant speed is again something you are going to leverage with all your spells and not just ramp. Have a few emergency low-cost sorceries but leave the high mana cost cards to instant speed.
The best Wincon is probably just flashing in Deveri and beating them to death. But some large flash flyers, for example, Shark Typhoon or the flash uncounterable stuff like nezahal that are hard to interact with in any way.
My deveri deck is aggro but my Ojutai deck is a control deck, I am in the process of upgrading it atm but here it is.
https://archidekt.com/decks/4307605/dragonlord_nojutai
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own