It's been a long, long time since black blue and green were in the same deck and even longer still since they were in a competitive deck. With the rotation and printing of Assassin's Trophy that seems to have changed. This will be my opening salvo at attempting to find the best control deck for the format. With trophy making things difficult for the traditional UW builds, sultai is my pick for best control deck moving forward and beginning with the best removal spells available seems like a great starting point to build.
Why Sultai?
Assassin's Trophy. That's the reason. Glad we had this conversation.
Ok. Why not UW, Jeskai, or Grixis?
Assassin's Trophy. Yes that is the entire reason to avoid other color combinations and dive in head first with the bugs. Both because we can play it and because we aren't soft to it. We aren't reliant on Ixalan's Binding to deal with walkers (trophy gets them right back) or enchantments like Seal Away to answer creatures and our finishers are spells and hexproof threats. Going BUG gives you the best removal spells in trophy and contempt, you get the best finisher and mirror breaker combo with carnage tyrant all wrapped up in a sweet inevitability engine with gaea's blessing and The Mirari Conjecture.
One less obvious, but especially important reason to go with sultai is the manabase and a clean mana base is facilitated by, you guessed it, the trophy. Having access to "BG - Kill A Thing" means we don't need to run field of ruin to handle utility lands like azcanta or the flip side of Legion's Landing. That combined with two immediately supported guilds gives us all the duals we need. Furthermore we have a reusable draw engine from gaea's blessing which means we don't have to run a copious number of arch of orazca to help keep the cards flowing for when our recursive draw elements get turned into basic lands. We end up not needing a single colorless land and the ability to run a good amount of basics to take advantage of any opposing trophies and to easily cast our own.
As we learned in the previous format, UW control struggled against decks that started with 4xVraska's Contempt or were aggressive enough to clear Teferi easily. Not relying on a walker that gives us a completely random card off the top before dying gives us a leg up on decks who plan to employ this strategy. With a pile of divination effects, better live top decks, and a draw engine that always gives us a good spell makes for a clear advantage.
We do give up the purity of Teferi as a win condition and lack a hard sweeper like cleansing nova, but we are well set up to play the point and click removal game. Should tokens become a thing to make the infinite kill spell plan difficult, we do have Ritual of Soot available to cleanly answer that strategy. Simply put, BUG checks all the boxes you want checked with a control deck. Power. Versatility. Clean answers to literally everything and absolute inevitability.
As you can see we have answers to all the major players of the format. Seven ways to eat a troublesome walker, six counterspells, and a play set of trophy lets us eat annoying artifacts or enchantments. Ritual of Soot to answer super go-wide plans, Vona's Hunger for hexproof threats, and thought erasure to answer anything else before it comes down. We are able to stop something in hand, on the stack, or on the battlefield. We are not relying on Azcanta or walkers as hard as previous control decks which makes Assassin's Trophy much less effective against us if Teferi was our primary source of card advantage. With The Mirari Conjecture plus Gaea's Blessing engine, we are also well equipped to use the extra mana that we could get from the trophy as well and never losing access to our long term advantage.
The lack of Search for Azcanta might put off some players, but it is a way for us to reduce the effectiveness of trophy as much as possible. All of our draw engines happen immediately with our divination effects or give us value before being transformed into a basic island. Relying on something to stick around on the battlefield in a world of trophies and contempts is a rather dubious plan. Focusing on spell based card advantage is the best way to ensure that you're never cut off from maintaining a material advantage.
Our primary way to actually end the game is simply decking them with their draw step while we sit around reshuffling answers with gaea's blessing indefinitely. The first blessing puts back three counters or kill spells and the second blessing gets back two draw spells and the first blessing and we can repeat this until the end of the game. While not as clean as doing the same thing with a teferi emblem hanging around, it does the trick just as well. The sample list includes the single carnage tyrant as a concession to our opponents not giving us the concession and will kill through anything quite fast. It also allows us to win game one against any deck playing Nexus of Fate as that card's mere existence prevents the use of decking as the sole win condition.
The overarching game plan of the deck past the traditional control strategy is to eventually recycle our entire deck. Gaea's blessing ensures that the top of our deck is going to be more live than our opponent's and prevents us from not only running out of cards in our library, but also prevents us from running out of the right answers. If we have to spend our edicts early to stay alive we can still find them again and again if hexproof threats start rolling off the top. Because of this infinite recursion aspect the only things that we are truly afraid of are dedicated hate for our blessing engine like Unmoored Ego and banefire.
With Banefire being in the format it may be correct to run Pelakka Wurm as the dedicated win condition. The wurm gains a huge amount of life when it enters and some extra value on the way out. The only real downside of this swap is that a hard exile effect like contempt sends us to the dedicated mill plan. One potential consideration is going down to only one copy of blessing as you can still recur it indefinitely with the mirari conjecture which gives you an extra main deck spot for another answer or hard win con. Only time will tell which is correct.
Thoughts on Removal
Our removal suite is going to be changing from week to week, which is typical in standard control decks. The only spot removal spells that will always be in the deck are the contempts and trophies. After that we will have to decide if we want to lean towards hard removal like Cast Down and Vona's Hunger to fight green stompy and their hexproof threats. After that is the red aggro decks where we'll want to shy away from edicts and focus more on Ritual of Soot and moment of craving.
Should control variants become equally as popular as the midrange and control decks then we may want to cut our additional removal entirely. Without gear hulks in the format, essence scatter loses all of its value against control so this will be an extremely delicate balance. Because of all of this, there really is no point in suggesting a "this is what you should do" set up for spot removal outside of the two base inclusions with the caveat that we want something in addition to assassin's trophy for early game kill spells.
Card Advantage Options
There are no shortage of great options to get ahead on raw card count in standard and choosing the best one depends on several factors. First of all is how much red aggro are you expecting to face? How often will you find yourself in a control mirror? These questions must be answered before you select your draw spells. Here are a few suggestions of which spell might fit best in a particular meta.
Chemister's Insight - This inspiration variant puts you up one card on the first cast and another on the jump-start cast making it a grand total three for one with some finesse required. The biggest draw to this spell is the instant speed nature and the ability to filter dead removal spells in the mirror. Meanwhile it has the down side of the 4-CMC and the requirement to have a card to pitch when you cast it a second time. A solid card, but it does ask a bit of you for everything to go right.
Secrets of the golden city - Fine early and great later on makes this a solid middle of the road choice. The double blue cost may be a bit tense at times, but a three mana ancestral in the midgame is still very powerful. This should most likely be your default choice until you have done more testing with your list against the predicted metagame.
District Guide - While not card draw in the traditional blue sense, this is still a 2-for-1 spell that might have some added value. It does turn on opposing removal, but what it does is help fix your mana and provide you with a nice speed bump that can harass any walkers you can't immediately clear. If you want to go this route you'll want to include some additional basic lands and perhaps a singleton guild gate to make the trigger worthwhile. Another minor point worth mentioning is that if you're running Secrets of the Golden City this is yet another permanent to help you get the city's blessing.
The guide also fills the role of allowing you to run a lower land count than you typically would to avoid flooding while helping you still hit all of your land drops. What it really comes down to is how useful is the body and is it better than simply running anticipate. I can easily see a situation where this is a 4-of value play that is mediocre game one, but is more useful post board when all of the removal comes out.
Notion Rain - A sweet call back to the very powerful Read the Bones with the surveil mechanic replacing scry. We know from past experiences that this is a very powerful card, but the life loss is certainly not free. If you expect a lot of opponents to be aggressively attacking your life total this is not a good choice, especially since you plan to cast it 4-8 times a game. However in a slower, midrange centric meta this is one of the best choices. Even though it doesn't get you a third card, the surveil 2 that's tacked on makes up for that and in some cases may end up being superior.
Finishers
In the bug colors there isn't a perfectly pure and clean win condition such as Approach from the previous format or looping Teferi with an emblem. Furthermore, relying on walkers to get the job done is a bit risky due to the Trophy + Contempt combo making them exceptionally hard to stick around long enough. Luckily there are a few other options for us that are a bit more likely to go the distance.
Millstone - The original win condition of durdle do nothing control decks. It fights on a unique axis with the effect that now bears it's name of milling. With a perpetual loop of gaea's blessing this isn't exactly necessary to win the game by decking your opponent, but it can help accelerate the process by a huge amount which can be important. If you are playing online and don't want a creature based threat, one or two of these is highly recommended to prevent yourself from losing to the clock. Decking does have one glaring weakness however: Nexus of fate. If your opponent merely discards to hand size each turn pitching their nexus, you will never be able to kill them this way. This one tiny wrinkle might make a pure mill plan impossible to execute.
Carnage Tyrant - The implacable death lizard has been giving people fits for as long as it has been around. With the rotation of doomfall there will be much fewer decks that are running an answer outside of blocking. This is a much more reliable finisher than most options and checks all the right boxes. Hexproof, can't be countered and a way to punch through blockers in the form of trample. The seven power means it gets the game over in a hurry and can still trade with other control "mirror breakers" should the need arise.
Nezahal, Primal Tide - Another finisher that got better with the rotation, but this time it is from the lack of Disallow. Pitching several cards to save it only to have the return trigger stifled made the dino very sketchy, but now it is just one suitable option among many with a bit of card advantage tacked on to boot.
Sideboard Options
In our sideboards we do have a large amount of respectable directions to attack any given meta. First and foremost you have to decide which plan of attack you want for the control mirror because that will require the most dedicated slots. After that you must look closely at the aggro and midrange decks of the format and decide how many of what effects you will need. For ease of reading I will split up this section into Control Options and Aggro as there is very little overlap in utility.
Control Negate and Unwind - Extra counters are one of the few things you are certainly going to want and which combination depends on your strategy. The default tends to be a play set of negates before adding any extra counters in the side.
Thief of Sanity - A fantastic new addition to the "dimir specter" variants that threatens to get out of hand super fast. It's the Gonti that keeps on giving and is fantastic against any deck with little to no removal or blockers. Just like control mirrors. I'm a huge fan of this card and would recommend you give them a try first.
Mystic Archaeologist - The half way mark between the card advantage and aggro plan that beats down early and can draw a pile of cards later on. A slightly different version of Thief of Sanity, but still an option to consider if you're wanting a cheaper threat that might be a touch easier on the mana. The CMC is the main reason to choose this card over another as it is quite easy to slip in under permission even though it takes a long time to get value from it.
Nezahal, Primal Tide - An additional hard to answer threat with built in card advantage. As mentioned previously, the absence of a stifle effect really makes this card worth considering.
Duress - Thought Erasure in the main deck makes duress less of a home run, especially since it can't take the creature threats, but it still fulfills a certain role and the information gained is incredibly valuable.
Arguel's Blood Fast - Yes, this card is still in standard and will continue to give headaches to control players. This time though there is a cheap answer to it which means it is less of an instant win card. It is still going to be worth several cards if it resolves and if the card advantage plan is how you want to approach the mirror this is likely the best option.
Knight of Malice - If you want to go for the "Gotcha!" plan post-board then this is one of your better choices. The black-ish knight is at its best against the white based control decks of course, not just for the bonus power, but also to brick wall any tokens from History of Benalia that might come in.
Vine Mare - Another gotcha card for the control mirror. This one has the fun word "Hexproof" written on it which makes it almost impossible to be removed post-board. It being four mana does open it up to permission, but if you're heavy on the discard plan it can be quite easy to force through. Once you get to untap with it the game is going to end in very short order as you are able to counter the very few things they'll have to remove your threat.
Arch of Orazca - An extra land in a control mirror is always a good thing and one that draws cards is even better. With a number of playable answers to utility lands this might not be a great option if drawing cards is your primary motivation, but the extra land to draw into makes this a worthy consideration.
The Eldest Reborn - Should you want another option for a grindy late game card with some additional utility this has always been "fine." Never amazing, but always acceptable. It's another edict effect for vine mare or dinosaurs and can potentially steal a walker to win with. All around solid without being amazing.
Aggro Ritual of Soot - Even though The Chainwhirler is keeping token decks from being played, some number are still fine. With goblins being a semi-supported tribe and boros aggro looking to be quite good, having access to an effect that can clear the board is great to have in your list. Depending on the typical sizing of the aggro decks you can easily end up wanting a full set or just one. It is worth pointing out that golden demise is another possible option for a sweeper slot if costing one mana less ends up being important.
Moment of craving - If burn heavy, hyper-aggro decks are prominent then this will be your best card against them. This one requires the most context to be correct so any number from zero to four could end up being right on a given weekend.
Dead Weight - A sorcery speed disfigure isn't anything to be especially excited over, but this is our only option for turn one removal. The more popular Llanowar Elves are the more that you'll want these. Pay close attention to the general sizing of creatures as this could easily make its way into the main deck.
Cast down - For the bigger green decks where the ramp from Trophy can be a real liability this is your best spot removal spell and will always be good to have a couple copies around. There will always be a stray legend hanging around like Kari Zev or Tajic that you can't tag with this, so keep that in mind when deciding on your final count.
Pelakka Wurm - Even though this is quite the odd inclusion, it acts as a slightly better finisher against the aggro decks because of the life gain attached to it. The main reason to want this over a dinosaur is to get yourself out of Banefire range. If the unstoppable fireball is popular you can easily want more threats that gain you life to keep your head above water and not get got. Not to mention the fact that gaining seven life tends to win the game on its own as was shown with the first casting of Approach of the Second Sun. Depending on the metagame you expect, some number of these could even be considered for main deck play if the durability of carnage tyrant isn't necessary.
As you can see there are answers to everything that we could be facing down. From token swarms to walkers to hexproof threats, everything can be neatly answered with a single card. With a properly constructed 75, we could easily end up being favored against anything we want to be. It all comes down to having the correct configuration of removal and draw spells which won't be too difficult. Let's get the discussion started by posting our initial testing experiences and deck lists.
EDIT: Added a second, more "expected" looking deck list to the start.
I thought a lot about how to beat Nullhide Ferox in this build. I expect it to be everywhere in the meta.
The best tools against it we have are counters and sac effects. This deck has 10 ways to get it maindeck.
I expect them all to be using Llanowar Elves to ramp it out turn 3 though, so, might be that we get more maindeck Cast Down and/or sideboard Fungal Infection (which seems amazing against x/1s). Unmoored Ego would be a great way to hate it out T3 too, ideally preceded by a big fat Syncopate or Essence Scatter in the opponents turn.
This looks like exactly what i want to play this format. Ty
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
I'm so ******* hype for Sultai midrange and control!!
Only thing I'm a bit worried about with going Sultai Control is not having access to Settle the wreckage. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of Ferox, Vine Mares and particularly Carnage Tyrants.
@Simto Been playing on Arena for the last few days, have run into green a ton. I've only had one instance where a Carnage Tyrant was an issue, although I've run into both Ferox and Vine Mares, but generally have the discard or counter magic handy. Really the only out for Carnage Tyrant is one of your own or Thought Erasure, will be fine tuning the list as I go on. I'm not quite sold on Dead Weight yet, aside from a bolt the bird response...
I'm going to see if I can sort of make a variation of my current Esper control deck with Sultai instead. See if it makes sense kinda swapping stuff out one for one as much as possible. My Esper deck feels very flexible and ready for any matchup really, so I hope I can recreate that with Sultai somehow.
@Arglebargles: What're your thoughts on Assassin's Trophy so far in game?
@Torrysan: I think the control and midrange Sultai deck will probably be different enough to warrant two separate threads
Why are we running secrets of the golden city at UU cost when we could be running chemister's insight? All of your card draw is sorcery speed, which could cause problems when you want to keep up counter magic, but need answers to find for something already on the board.
Why are we running secrets of the golden city at UU cost when we could be running chemister's insight? All of your card draw is sorcery speed, which could cause problems when you want to keep up counter magic, but need answers to find for something already on the board.
I think 4 Chemister's Insight are mandatory in control decks post rotation.
Also why not run a few creatures? Doom whisperer and carnage tyrant are valuable threats that threaten to quickly and the game and DW manipulates your draws which can bring valuable in control mirrors and against grindier decks
I would agree with Plaugecrafter as at least a 2 of, as for Assassins Trophy it's working out well. I sometimes use it as recurring land destruction when I no longer have targets and can get into a Gaea's Blessing loop. Really the only thing that I am missing is Plaugecrafter or similar to remove those uncounterable threats. So I'm going to add those in and tweak and see what happens. Not sure who else plays Arena but I've gotten several 7-0 and 7-1 out of this deck with no modification at all, which is pretty good considering I'm seeing some really strange stuff pop up in the meta on there.
I would agree with Plaugecrafter as at least a 2 of, as for Assassins Trophy it's working out well. I sometimes use it as recurring land destruction when I no longer have targets and can get into a Gaea's Blessing loop. Really the only thing that I am missing is Plaugecrafter or similar to remove those uncounterable threats. So I'm going to add those in and tweak and see what happens. Not sure who else plays Arena but I've gotten several 7-0 and 7-1 out of this deck with no modification at all, which is pretty good considering I'm seeing some really strange stuff pop up in the meta on there.
@Simto Running the first list in the OP, no changes so far. Running through a league with Jeskai right now, but will make some mods to the Sultai list and run through a couple tomorrow.
@Simto Running the first list in the OP, no changes so far. Running through a league with Jeskai right now, but will make some mods to the Sultai list and run through a couple tomorrow.
Ok cool. I'm going to be buying most of my new cards this week, so I'm basically making a list of what I need to finish my midrange deck, but I'll also buy stuff for a control version since it looks like I can swap a few cards and change between the two.
Had my best FNM results with my Esper Control deck, so I'm sad to see it go, but I'm thinking Sultai Control will be able to keep me going. Again just still worried about Vine mare hehe. I have a feeling it's going to pop up a lot more. Just gotta have those discard or counter spells ready when I know the opponent is using them.
The first list looks pretty sick. My esper list just had a few more "traditional" finishers like 1 Scarab God, 2 Gearhulks, 2 Lyra and 2 Teferi. Also had Chromium in the sideboard. Damn I love that card!
I think I'd put in 2 Carnage Tyrants, 2 Doom Whisperers (maybe 3) and 2 Vraska Relic Seeker. I like having sort of more traditional beaters to finish the game.
I think I play too aggressively in general hehe.
I agree that Sultai seems the colour combination most likely to challenge the idea that the best standard control list will have Teferi in it, but the lists posted so far don't appear optimal.
Notion Rain vs Chemister's Insight - for the purposes of the control playstyle you always get a huge benefit from being able to play on your opponents turn if possible, which plays into Chemister's favor. In addition, as a control list we're likely to have games where we end up stabilizing the board state on a lower life total, which makes the 2 damage from Notion Rain difficult at times.
Thought Erasure. This card seems a little dubious to me. This is not like Thoughtsieze in older formats where you're happy to run it out on turn one because you didnt have any other play. Turn two is where our counter magic starts to kick in. If we have Essence Scatter or Syncopate we probably want to hold up that two mana for our opponents turn. So this card ends up becoming more of a mid game play where we can run it out on turn five while keeping up mana for Sinister Sabotage. That changes the value proposition for it and its place in your deck. It may still be a valuable include even as a mid game play, but I suspect 2 or 3 copies is enough.
I'm thinking it's possible to go four colour so we can run Teferi too. Untapping two lands after a Teferi +1 with an Assassin's Trophy in hand makes my nipples tingle.
Damn we need that Hallowed Fountain hehe.
I still think it's possible to maybe splash the 4th colour since Teferi would be the only white card in the deck.
How do those lists at the top win against any deck that can handle a single Carnage Tyrant?
I think we cross our fingers on having a Thought Erasure or our own Carnage Tyrant ready.
@arglebargles says he hasn't had any problems dealing with Vine Mares and Carnage Tyrants even after playing against lots of green decks. At least Vine Mare can be Essence Scattered.
I just know I'm going to get ****ed up by them from not having Settle hehe.
I'm thinking it's possible to go four colour so we can run Teferi too. Untapping two lands after a Teferi +1 with an Assassin's Trophy in hand makes my nipples tingle.
Damn we need that Hallowed Fountain hehe.
I still think it's possible to maybe splash the 4th colour since Teferi would be the only white card in the deck.
How do those lists at the top win against any deck that can handle a single Carnage Tyrant?
I think we cross our fingers on having a Thought Erasure or our own Carnage Tyrant ready.
@arglebargles says he hasn't had any problems dealing with Vine Mares and Carnage Tyrants even after playing against lots of green decks. At least Vine Mare can be Essence Scattered.
I just know I'm going to get ****ed up by them from not having Settle hehe.
I'm thinking it's possible to go four colour so we can run Teferi too. Untapping two lands after a Teferi +1 with an Assassin's Trophy in hand makes my nipples tingle.
Damn we need that Hallowed Fountain hehe.
I still think it's possible to maybe splash the 4th colour since Teferi would be the only white card in the deck.
How do those lists at the top win against any deck that can handle a single Carnage Tyrant?
I think we cross our fingers on having a Thought Erasure or our own Carnage Tyrant ready.
@arglebargles says he hasn't had any problems dealing with Vine Mares and Carnage Tyrants even after playing against lots of green decks. At least Vine Mare can be Essence Scattered.
I just know I'm going to get ****ed up by them from not having Settle hehe.
I think he meant lists that can handle the decks single copy of it not the opponents
If I run into something that can handle the lone Carnage Tyrant I go full mill mode by looping Gaea's Blessings pulling back in the second copy of blessing and anything that surveil's as a means of refilling the deck. So even if the Carnage Tyrant is exiled I can go full on Assassin's Trophy mode and start in on land destruction while recurring my deck from time to time. I am adjusting today and adding 2x Plaguecrafter to the list as a hedge against any Tyrant or Mare that does stick to the board.
Since not really needing to run Field of Ruin with Assassin's Trophy in the deck, would it make sense to run a single copy of Detection Tower. It looks like it could do some serious damage on the tricky threats.
One of my Magic buddies said he's going to run 4 Plaguecrafter in his 75 too. He usually builds some nasty stuff, so I'll be looking into that too. Running 4 in a control build may be a bit much and more suited for the midrange version of Sultai.
I believe I will be adding in Detection Tower to the build as well. I've removed all of the copies of Dead Weight, it helps in some match-ups, but I believe Plaguecrafter is going to shine a good bit more.
Hello friends! I have a list that is kinda budget (as in I will be acquiring the chase rares as soon as I'm sure this is the direction I want to go) but is doing okay in the practice room. Each copy of the legendary cards can take over the game themselves. This is just a pile of cards I realize but I want to just list a few things.
Discovery/Dispersal is the real deal
This format is going to be diverse, so our answers must be diverse
Answers that can also be threats are at a premium
Greenseeker Dryad has been pretty good in the control mirror
Maybe it's complete jank, but it's somewhere to start at least. It's hard to find answers for a metagame that isn't there. Also I think 4 Freebooter over 4 Thought Erasure may be wrong.
ATTACHMENTS
Random Pile
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
.
(The name Sultai really BUGs me)
It's been a long, long time since black blue and green were in the same deck and even longer still since they were in a competitive deck. With the rotation and printing of Assassin's Trophy that seems to have changed. This will be my opening salvo at attempting to find the best control deck for the format. With trophy making things difficult for the traditional UW builds, sultai is my pick for best control deck moving forward and beginning with the best removal spells available seems like a great starting point to build.
Why Sultai?
Assassin's Trophy. That's the reason. Glad we had this conversation.
Ok. Why not UW, Jeskai, or Grixis?
Assassin's Trophy. Yes that is the entire reason to avoid other color combinations and dive in head first with the bugs. Both because we can play it and because we aren't soft to it. We aren't reliant on Ixalan's Binding to deal with walkers (trophy gets them right back) or enchantments like Seal Away to answer creatures and our finishers are spells and hexproof threats. Going BUG gives you the best removal spells in trophy and contempt, you get the best finisher and mirror breaker combo with carnage tyrant all wrapped up in a sweet inevitability engine with gaea's blessing and The Mirari Conjecture.
One less obvious, but especially important reason to go with sultai is the manabase and a clean mana base is facilitated by, you guessed it, the trophy. Having access to "BG - Kill A Thing" means we don't need to run field of ruin to handle utility lands like azcanta or the flip side of Legion's Landing. That combined with two immediately supported guilds gives us all the duals we need. Furthermore we have a reusable draw engine from gaea's blessing which means we don't have to run a copious number of arch of orazca to help keep the cards flowing for when our recursive draw elements get turned into basic lands. We end up not needing a single colorless land and the ability to run a good amount of basics to take advantage of any opposing trophies and to easily cast our own.
As we learned in the previous format, UW control struggled against decks that started with 4xVraska's Contempt or were aggressive enough to clear Teferi easily. Not relying on a walker that gives us a completely random card off the top before dying gives us a leg up on decks who plan to employ this strategy. With a pile of divination effects, better live top decks, and a draw engine that always gives us a good spell makes for a clear advantage.
We do give up the purity of Teferi as a win condition and lack a hard sweeper like cleansing nova, but we are well set up to play the point and click removal game. Should tokens become a thing to make the infinite kill spell plan difficult, we do have Ritual of Soot available to cleanly answer that strategy. Simply put, BUG checks all the boxes you want checked with a control deck. Power. Versatility. Clean answers to literally everything and absolute inevitability.
Let's start with a pair initial deck lists.
Sample List 1
3 Dead Weight
3 Vraska's Contempt
2 Cast Down
4 Assassin's Trophy
2 Ritual of Soot
Durdles
4 Chemister's Insight
2 Notion Rain
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Gaea's Blessing
Interaction
4 Thought Erasure
2 Essence Scatter
4 Sinister Sabotage
1 Carnage Tyrant
Manabase
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Forest
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Island
1 Memorial to Genius
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
3 Woodland Cemetery
1 Ritual of Soot
2 Moment of Craving
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
2 Disinformation Campaign
2 Vona's Hunger
4 Negate
3 Pelakka Wurm
Sample List 2
2 Vona's Hunger
3 Vraska's Contempt
2 Cast Down
4 Assassin's Trophy
2 Ritual of Soot
Durdles
4 Secrets of the Golden City
3 The Mirari Conjecture
2 Notion Rain
2 Gaea's Blessing
Interaction
4 Thought Erasure
2 Essence Scatter
4 Sinister Sabotage
1 Carnage Tyrant
Manabase
4 Drowned Catacomb
1 Forest
4 Hinterland Harbor
3 Island
1 Memorial to Genius
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Swamp
4 Watery Grave
3 Woodland Cemetery
1 Cast Down
1 Ritual of Soot
2 Moment of Craving
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
4 Thief of Sanity
4 Negate
2 Pelakka Wurm
As you can see we have answers to all the major players of the format. Seven ways to eat a troublesome walker, six counterspells, and a play set of trophy lets us eat annoying artifacts or enchantments. Ritual of Soot to answer super go-wide plans, Vona's Hunger for hexproof threats, and thought erasure to answer anything else before it comes down. We are able to stop something in hand, on the stack, or on the battlefield. We are not relying on Azcanta or walkers as hard as previous control decks which makes Assassin's Trophy much less effective against us if Teferi was our primary source of card advantage. With The Mirari Conjecture plus Gaea's Blessing engine, we are also well equipped to use the extra mana that we could get from the trophy as well and never losing access to our long term advantage.
The lack of Search for Azcanta might put off some players, but it is a way for us to reduce the effectiveness of trophy as much as possible. All of our draw engines happen immediately with our divination effects or give us value before being transformed into a basic island. Relying on something to stick around on the battlefield in a world of trophies and contempts is a rather dubious plan. Focusing on spell based card advantage is the best way to ensure that you're never cut off from maintaining a material advantage.
Our primary way to actually end the game is simply decking them with their draw step while we sit around reshuffling answers with gaea's blessing indefinitely. The first blessing puts back three counters or kill spells and the second blessing gets back two draw spells and the first blessing and we can repeat this until the end of the game. While not as clean as doing the same thing with a teferi emblem hanging around, it does the trick just as well. The sample list includes the single carnage tyrant as a concession to our opponents not giving us the concession and will kill through anything quite fast. It also allows us to win game one against any deck playing Nexus of Fate as that card's mere existence prevents the use of decking as the sole win condition.
The overarching game plan of the deck past the traditional control strategy is to eventually recycle our entire deck. Gaea's blessing ensures that the top of our deck is going to be more live than our opponent's and prevents us from not only running out of cards in our library, but also prevents us from running out of the right answers. If we have to spend our edicts early to stay alive we can still find them again and again if hexproof threats start rolling off the top. Because of this infinite recursion aspect the only things that we are truly afraid of are dedicated hate for our blessing engine like Unmoored Ego and banefire.
With Banefire being in the format it may be correct to run Pelakka Wurm as the dedicated win condition. The wurm gains a huge amount of life when it enters and some extra value on the way out. The only real downside of this swap is that a hard exile effect like contempt sends us to the dedicated mill plan. One potential consideration is going down to only one copy of blessing as you can still recur it indefinitely with the mirari conjecture which gives you an extra main deck spot for another answer or hard win con. Only time will tell which is correct.
Thoughts on Removal
Our removal suite is going to be changing from week to week, which is typical in standard control decks. The only spot removal spells that will always be in the deck are the contempts and trophies. After that we will have to decide if we want to lean towards hard removal like Cast Down and Vona's Hunger to fight green stompy and their hexproof threats. After that is the red aggro decks where we'll want to shy away from edicts and focus more on Ritual of Soot and moment of craving.
Should control variants become equally as popular as the midrange and control decks then we may want to cut our additional removal entirely. Without gear hulks in the format, essence scatter loses all of its value against control so this will be an extremely delicate balance. Because of all of this, there really is no point in suggesting a "this is what you should do" set up for spot removal outside of the two base inclusions with the caveat that we want something in addition to assassin's trophy for early game kill spells.
Card Advantage Options
There are no shortage of great options to get ahead on raw card count in standard and choosing the best one depends on several factors. First of all is how much red aggro are you expecting to face? How often will you find yourself in a control mirror? These questions must be answered before you select your draw spells. Here are a few suggestions of which spell might fit best in a particular meta.
Secrets of the golden city - Fine early and great later on makes this a solid middle of the road choice. The double blue cost may be a bit tense at times, but a three mana ancestral in the midgame is still very powerful. This should most likely be your default choice until you have done more testing with your list against the predicted metagame.
District Guide - While not card draw in the traditional blue sense, this is still a 2-for-1 spell that might have some added value. It does turn on opposing removal, but what it does is help fix your mana and provide you with a nice speed bump that can harass any walkers you can't immediately clear. If you want to go this route you'll want to include some additional basic lands and perhaps a singleton guild gate to make the trigger worthwhile. Another minor point worth mentioning is that if you're running Secrets of the Golden City this is yet another permanent to help you get the city's blessing.
The guide also fills the role of allowing you to run a lower land count than you typically would to avoid flooding while helping you still hit all of your land drops. What it really comes down to is how useful is the body and is it better than simply running anticipate. I can easily see a situation where this is a 4-of value play that is mediocre game one, but is more useful post board when all of the removal comes out.
Notion Rain - A sweet call back to the very powerful Read the Bones with the surveil mechanic replacing scry. We know from past experiences that this is a very powerful card, but the life loss is certainly not free. If you expect a lot of opponents to be aggressively attacking your life total this is not a good choice, especially since you plan to cast it 4-8 times a game. However in a slower, midrange centric meta this is one of the best choices. Even though it doesn't get you a third card, the surveil 2 that's tacked on makes up for that and in some cases may end up being superior.
Finishers
In the bug colors there isn't a perfectly pure and clean win condition such as Approach from the previous format or looping Teferi with an emblem. Furthermore, relying on walkers to get the job done is a bit risky due to the Trophy + Contempt combo making them exceptionally hard to stick around long enough. Luckily there are a few other options for us that are a bit more likely to go the distance.
Carnage Tyrant - The implacable death lizard has been giving people fits for as long as it has been around. With the rotation of doomfall there will be much fewer decks that are running an answer outside of blocking. This is a much more reliable finisher than most options and checks all the right boxes. Hexproof, can't be countered and a way to punch through blockers in the form of trample. The seven power means it gets the game over in a hurry and can still trade with other control "mirror breakers" should the need arise.
Nezahal, Primal Tide - Another finisher that got better with the rotation, but this time it is from the lack of Disallow. Pitching several cards to save it only to have the return trigger stifled made the dino very sketchy, but now it is just one suitable option among many with a bit of card advantage tacked on to boot.
Sideboard Options
In our sideboards we do have a large amount of respectable directions to attack any given meta. First and foremost you have to decide which plan of attack you want for the control mirror because that will require the most dedicated slots. After that you must look closely at the aggro and midrange decks of the format and decide how many of what effects you will need. For ease of reading I will split up this section into Control Options and Aggro as there is very little overlap in utility.
Negate and Unwind - Extra counters are one of the few things you are certainly going to want and which combination depends on your strategy. The default tends to be a play set of negates before adding any extra counters in the side.
Thief of Sanity - A fantastic new addition to the "dimir specter" variants that threatens to get out of hand super fast. It's the Gonti that keeps on giving and is fantastic against any deck with little to no removal or blockers. Just like control mirrors. I'm a huge fan of this card and would recommend you give them a try first.
Mystic Archaeologist - The half way mark between the card advantage and aggro plan that beats down early and can draw a pile of cards later on. A slightly different version of Thief of Sanity, but still an option to consider if you're wanting a cheaper threat that might be a touch easier on the mana. The CMC is the main reason to choose this card over another as it is quite easy to slip in under permission even though it takes a long time to get value from it.
Nezahal, Primal Tide - An additional hard to answer threat with built in card advantage. As mentioned previously, the absence of a stifle effect really makes this card worth considering.
Duress - Thought Erasure in the main deck makes duress less of a home run, especially since it can't take the creature threats, but it still fulfills a certain role and the information gained is incredibly valuable.
Arguel's Blood Fast - Yes, this card is still in standard and will continue to give headaches to control players. This time though there is a cheap answer to it which means it is less of an instant win card. It is still going to be worth several cards if it resolves and if the card advantage plan is how you want to approach the mirror this is likely the best option.
Knight of Malice - If you want to go for the "Gotcha!" plan post-board then this is one of your better choices. The black-ish knight is at its best against the white based control decks of course, not just for the bonus power, but also to brick wall any tokens from History of Benalia that might come in.
Vine Mare - Another gotcha card for the control mirror. This one has the fun word "Hexproof" written on it which makes it almost impossible to be removed post-board. It being four mana does open it up to permission, but if you're heavy on the discard plan it can be quite easy to force through. Once you get to untap with it the game is going to end in very short order as you are able to counter the very few things they'll have to remove your threat.
Arch of Orazca - An extra land in a control mirror is always a good thing and one that draws cards is even better. With a number of playable answers to utility lands this might not be a great option if drawing cards is your primary motivation, but the extra land to draw into makes this a worthy consideration.
The Eldest Reborn - Should you want another option for a grindy late game card with some additional utility this has always been "fine." Never amazing, but always acceptable. It's another edict effect for vine mare or dinosaurs and can potentially steal a walker to win with. All around solid without being amazing.
Aggro
Ritual of Soot - Even though The Chainwhirler is keeping token decks from being played, some number are still fine. With goblins being a semi-supported tribe and boros aggro looking to be quite good, having access to an effect that can clear the board is great to have in your list. Depending on the typical sizing of the aggro decks you can easily end up wanting a full set or just one. It is worth pointing out that golden demise is another possible option for a sweeper slot if costing one mana less ends up being important.
Moment of craving - If burn heavy, hyper-aggro decks are prominent then this will be your best card against them. This one requires the most context to be correct so any number from zero to four could end up being right on a given weekend.
Dead Weight - A sorcery speed disfigure isn't anything to be especially excited over, but this is our only option for turn one removal. The more popular Llanowar Elves are the more that you'll want these. Pay close attention to the general sizing of creatures as this could easily make its way into the main deck.
Cast down - For the bigger green decks where the ramp from Trophy can be a real liability this is your best spot removal spell and will always be good to have a couple copies around. There will always be a stray legend hanging around like Kari Zev or Tajic that you can't tag with this, so keep that in mind when deciding on your final count.
Pelakka Wurm - Even though this is quite the odd inclusion, it acts as a slightly better finisher against the aggro decks because of the life gain attached to it. The main reason to want this over a dinosaur is to get yourself out of Banefire range. If the unstoppable fireball is popular you can easily want more threats that gain you life to keep your head above water and not get got. Not to mention the fact that gaining seven life tends to win the game on its own as was shown with the first casting of Approach of the Second Sun. Depending on the metagame you expect, some number of these could even be considered for main deck play if the durability of carnage tyrant isn't necessary.
As you can see there are answers to everything that we could be facing down. From token swarms to walkers to hexproof threats, everything can be neatly answered with a single card. With a properly constructed 75, we could easily end up being favored against anything we want to be. It all comes down to having the correct configuration of removal and draw spells which won't be too difficult. Let's get the discussion started by posting our initial testing experiences and deck lists.
EDIT: Added a second, more "expected" looking deck list to the start.
The best tools against it we have are counters and sac effects. This deck has 10 ways to get it maindeck.
I expect them all to be using Llanowar Elves to ramp it out turn 3 though, so, might be that we get more maindeck Cast Down and/or sideboard Fungal Infection (which seems amazing against x/1s).
Unmoored Ego would be a great way to hate it out T3 too, ideally preceded by a big fat Syncopate or Essence Scatter in the opponents turn.
4x Vraska, Relic Seeker
Instants (17):
4x Sinister Sabotage
3x Vraska's Contempt
3x Assassin's Trophy
2x Vona's Hunger
2x Syncopate
1x Essence Scatter
1x Cast Down
1x Mission Briefing
Sorceries (11):
4x Thought Erasure
2x Ritual of Soot
2x Secrets of the Golden City
2x Notion Rain
1x Gaea's Blessing
2x Search for Azcanta
Lands (26):
4x Watery Grave
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Hinterland Harbor
2x Woodland Cemetery
3x Island
2x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Evolving Wilds
4x Deathgorge Scavenger
4x Negate
1x Unmoored Ego
2x Moment of Craving
2x Ritual of Soot
1x Vona's Hunger
1x Assassin's Trophy
4x Dimir Spybug
4x Murmuring Mystic
1x Mnemonic Betrayal
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Only thing I'm a bit worried about with going Sultai Control is not having access to Settle the wreckage. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot of Ferox, Vine Mares and particularly Carnage Tyrants.
@Arglebargles: What're your thoughts on Assassin's Trophy so far in game?
@Torrysan: I think the control and midrange Sultai deck will probably be different enough to warrant two separate threads
I think 4 Chemister's Insight are mandatory in control decks post rotation.
Damn, nice job with the wins man!
What does your deck look like?
Ok cool. I'm going to be buying most of my new cards this week, so I'm basically making a list of what I need to finish my midrange deck, but I'll also buy stuff for a control version since it looks like I can swap a few cards and change between the two.
Had my best FNM results with my Esper Control deck, so I'm sad to see it go, but I'm thinking Sultai Control will be able to keep me going. Again just still worried about Vine mare hehe. I have a feeling it's going to pop up a lot more. Just gotta have those discard or counter spells ready when I know the opponent is using them.
The first list looks pretty sick. My esper list just had a few more "traditional" finishers like 1 Scarab God, 2 Gearhulks, 2 Lyra and 2 Teferi. Also had Chromium in the sideboard. Damn I love that card!
I think I'd put in 2 Carnage Tyrants, 2 Doom Whisperers (maybe 3) and 2 Vraska Relic Seeker. I like having sort of more traditional beaters to finish the game.
I think I play too aggressively in general hehe.
Notion Rain vs Chemister's Insight - for the purposes of the control playstyle you always get a huge benefit from being able to play on your opponents turn if possible, which plays into Chemister's favor. In addition, as a control list we're likely to have games where we end up stabilizing the board state on a lower life total, which makes the 2 damage from Notion Rain difficult at times.
Thought Erasure. This card seems a little dubious to me. This is not like Thoughtsieze in older formats where you're happy to run it out on turn one because you didnt have any other play. Turn two is where our counter magic starts to kick in. If we have Essence Scatter or Syncopate we probably want to hold up that two mana for our opponents turn. So this card ends up becoming more of a mid game play where we can run it out on turn five while keeping up mana for Sinister Sabotage. That changes the value proposition for it and its place in your deck. It may still be a valuable include even as a mid game play, but I suspect 2 or 3 copies is enough.
Damn we need that Hallowed Fountain hehe.
I still think it's possible to maybe splash the 4th colour since Teferi would be the only white card in the deck.
I think we cross our fingers on having a Thought Erasure or our own Carnage Tyrant ready.
@arglebargles says he hasn't had any problems dealing with Vine Mares and Carnage Tyrants even after playing against lots of green decks. At least Vine Mare can be Essence Scattered.
I just know I'm going to get ****ed up by them from not having Settle hehe.
I think he meant lists that can handle the decks single copy of it not the opponents
One of my Magic buddies said he's going to run 4 Plaguecrafter in his 75 too. He usually builds some nasty stuff, so I'll be looking into that too. Running 4 in a control build may be a bit much and more suited for the midrange version of Sultai.
Stuff
Maybe it's complete jank, but it's somewhere to start at least. It's hard to find answers for a metagame that isn't there. Also I think 4 Freebooter over 4 Thought Erasure may be wrong.