Kadamo, Fortress at the sea
Legendary Land (MR) : Draw two cards, then discard three cards.
Sacrifice Kadamo, Fortress at the sea: Add to your mana pool.
Sleeving up this cool mono blue control list for the next FNM. Excited to see how mono blue control does against the current meta. The deck packs ton's of counters and card drawing, along with some of the best blue threats in standard. I also added the "desert" package to the mana base since this is only a 1 color deck. I can work the hostile desert and dunes of the dead to get some extra blockers when I miss countering a creature.
Apprehend the Mind
Enchantment (R)
Flash
Whenever your opponent casts a sorcery, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.
Whenever your opponent casts an instant, you may tap or untap target permanent.
Sacrifice Apprehend the Mind: Counter target spell.
Spitfire Raptor
Creature - Dinosaur (R)
Haste
When Spitfire Raptor enters the battlefield or attacks, it deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Whenever Spitfire Raptor deals damage to a creature, if that creature were to die this turn, exile it instead.
3/2
Trigger Mage
Creature - Wizard (R)
When you cast Trigger Mage, exile all other spells on the stack.
When Trigger Mage enters the battlefield, you may cast spells exiled with Trigger Mage, and you may spend mana to cast them as if it were mana of any color.
0/2
Wizards is obviously more interested in profit then the health of a format they make very little money on. They are a business, this is natural.
Wizards profits are from players buying sealed products of NEW released sets. Wizards doesn't make a penny off the secondary market, so why is it any surprise that they aren't playing their best hand, to sell the most sealed product of M25? The health of Modern, Legacy, and Vintage does not affect their profits, so why should they care about it?
Match 1 against black white vampires - very easy match. Black White vampires has little in the way of card advantage, so a simple fumigate or settle the wreckage makes the match a total blowout. profane procession being able to exile an unlimited number of tokens really helped too.
Match 2 against Merfolk - Another blowout. Although the games tended to last longer than the vampire match, and I was taking considerable damage before stabilizing, once I was setup, there was simply no coming back.
Match 3 against Grixis Energy - I ended up losing to Chandra ultimate both games. It was a very easy and controllable match, until I just couldn't find an answer to Chandra. 6 main board answers would seem like enough, but the luck was against me in those games.
Match 4 against G/B snek - walking ballista seems to be the only problem with this deck. I was easily able to control the game, but since the deck is slow to get set up, I had taken considerable damage before I was able to keep the board clear. Since there is no way to prevent ballista from shooting you, I lost to huge 10 and 12 mana ballistas.
All in all, the deck works, but is a little slow. When set up, it was impossible to lose. I'll be doing some more play testing and will resport some more results when I can.
looks good! are there any video about this deck? play testing? I've been looking for BW control in standard
No video's to be honest. I'm pretty sure I am the pioneer of this strategy right now. There was someone else who had a black white list posted on MTG Goldfish or something, but it was significantly different than mine.
Playtesting is going well so far, I'll have more to report after FNM tonight.
I did find one major weakness that needs to be addressed though. The deck has a terrible match up against any blue based control deck in game 1. Way too many dead cards, and if your opponent knows your gameplan, they can easily navigate themselves to victory by simply countering, or killing the 4 Gideon of the trials and 4 Torment of Scarabs.
So, I immediately thought of the B and W expertise spells, as they get Profane down and do something impactful. Taking a turn off to drop it seems bad, but wiping the board with Yahenis(best) or making a wall of blockers with Srams (ok to good) and playing it for free, untapping and dropping a 5th land and removing whatever they drop is near unbeatable. It seems really good anyway, and should shore up the weaknesses.
I haven't had that much trouble taking turn 3 off, because I am trying to bait them into attacking into a turn 4 settle the wreckage anyways. Turn 3 is always a non-interactive turn anyways, as the other turn 3 play is Gideon of the trials which only nerfs one creature.
I do plan on adding Yahenni's expertise to the side though, as it really works well in the deck, I just really don't need any more sweepers in the mainboard, especially ones that don't catch everything. It sucks to have a Yahenni's in hand, but then see the opponent play a turn 3 jadelight ranger as a 6/5 you know?
So if I take gideon of the trials and activate his 0 ability to make him a 4/4, and then exile him with endless sands... when he returns, will he stay in play permanently as a 4/4 creature with indestructible, or will he still turn back into a planeswalker at the end of the turn he comes back?
Initial testing has been fantastic. If Merfolk becomes a tier 1 deck, this has a great matchup against it as long as they don't have an explosive start, as well as energy variants, and g/b snek, and the deck has TONS of exile effects to keep the scarab god under control against the sultai matchup.
Welcome to Black White Control! The new standard format looks to be primed with aggressive and midrange creature strategies. This leaves the window open for powerful control decks to dominate by controlling the board state.
The idea behind Black White Control is all about value. Black and White normally both share a major weakness, which is drawing cards. To combat this, we need our cards to have as much value as possible. This means our cards need to be 2 for 1'ing our opponent as often as possible. This is easily accomplished with the arsenal of cards in Black and White that are available to us. Some cards can 3 for 1 or even 4 for 1 our opponent, leaving us with a massive advantage.
Card Choices:
fatal push - An obvious inclusion in any black deck in some number of copies. How many you run main and sideboard will be meta dependent.
profane procession - This card is one of the work horses of the deck. Profane Procession is a power house value card, and fits in the curve of the deck perfectly. Ideally we want this card cast on turn 3, with a turn 4 follow up of a sweeper, or removal to keep the board clear. From that turn on, we can spend each turn exiling a creature of theirs while drawing a new answer each turn to hold in our hand until Profane procession fills up to flip. Once flipped, start dropping their threats back at them for the win. While mana intensive, for this 1 single card, we are exiling 3 creatures, and gaining 3 of our own over the course of the game, for a total card advantage of up to +5.
live fast - We can't just rely on drawing 1 card per turn the whole game, so some sort of card drawing spells need to be present. This one nets you +1 card advantage, at the cost of 2 life.
sword-point diplomacy A black card draw spell that gets little to no attention, however this card will catch your opponent off guard often. Early in the game while at 20 life your opponent won't hesitate to pay their life to prevent you from getting good cards, but later on in the game, they'll find that spent life would really come in handy once we start oppressing them with our secondary win condition: torment of scarabs.
torment of scarabs - The main win condition of the deck. This passive enchantment does work every turn with no investment, stripping our opponent of cards or life. Your opponent needs to be massively ahead to win after even 1 of these resolves, let alone 2.
gideon of the trials - Gideon is a great inclusion here, both to slow our opponent down, and as an alternative win condition as a 4/4 attacking every turn we keep the board clear.
vraska's contempt - This card is very versatile, and deals with the best threats in standard. 2 life is always helpful too.
cast out - Another instant speed kill anything card. Instead of gaining 2 life though, we have the option to cycle it if we don't need it.
ixalan's binding - When played correctly, this card is absolutely back breaking. If you can nail something early in the game, your essentially getting a 4 for 1. This card will generate tons of value when your opponent has dead cards in their hand.
fumigate - Life gain + sweeper, this is obviously an auto include
settle the wreckage - another auto include, this card catches people off guard and can be a total blow out.
ravenous chupacabra - At 4 mana this card is pretty efficient. We're putting a creature on the board to attack or block with, while killing one of theirs, all for 4 mana.
endless sands - At first you'll scratch your head and wonder why this card is important here. With only 2 colors, we can afford a few colorless lands. Endless sands is a great late game value card. At instant speed, we can remove our ravenous chupacabras from play, to protect them, or just to "store" them in endless sands. Later on for 4 mana at instant speed, we can bring any number of them back to play, reactivating its enters the battlefield trigger. It might be a little cute, but it looks like the deck can afford it.
arch of orazca - getting the city's blessing is not that hard for this deck when we are running a high land count plus a number of enchantments. The idea behind this card is to keep our hands filled later in the game when you'll most likely have the city's blessing.
Here is a sample decklist that I put together and am testing.
Deck strengths
Black White control is a very powerful deck when it gets going, and the value it can generate when played properly is hard to beat. It has passive win conditions, and a ton of removal that hits all the best cards in standard.
Deck weaknesses
The deck is slow to get going. We have little interaction in the first few turns. The deck needs time to set itself up for the win, leaving us vunerable to very fast decks like Ramunap red. You'll have to shore this up with good sideboard selections to win game 2 and 3.
Kadamo, Fortress at the sea
Legendary Land (MR)
Sacrifice Kadamo, Fortress at the sea: Add
Blue is a very difficult color to deal with resolved permanents. I also plan to add cards like confiscation coup and vizier of many faces to help.
I'd really like to avoid "bounce" spells, that essentially net me a -1 card advantage.
4 Torrential gearhulk
2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
1 Kefnet the mindful
1 nezahal, primal tide
Spells (27)
1 Metallurgic Summonings
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Disallow
4 Censor
4 Essence scatter
4 Admiral's order
4 Glimmer of Genius
2 Supreme Will
2 Aether Meltdown
1 Field of Ruin
4 ipnu Rivulet
4 Desert of the mindful
2 dunes of the dead
2 hostile desert
12 island
Perfect Timing
Instant (R)
Choose one -
- Counter target spell if it is the first spell cast this turn.
- Tap or untap target permanent.
Apprehend the Mind
Enchantment (R)
Flash
Whenever your opponent casts a sorcery, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.
Whenever your opponent casts an instant, you may tap or untap target permanent.
Sacrifice Apprehend the Mind: Counter target spell.
Spitfire Raptor
Creature - Dinosaur (R)
Haste
When Spitfire Raptor enters the battlefield or attacks, it deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Whenever Spitfire Raptor deals damage to a creature, if that creature were to die this turn, exile it instead.
3/2
Trigger Mage
Creature - Wizard (R)
When you cast Trigger Mage, exile all other spells on the stack.
When Trigger Mage enters the battlefield, you may cast spells exiled with Trigger Mage, and you may spend mana to cast them as if it were mana of any color.
0/2
Wizards profits are from players buying sealed products of NEW released sets. Wizards doesn't make a penny off the secondary market, so why is it any surprise that they aren't playing their best hand, to sell the most sealed product of M25? The health of Modern, Legacy, and Vintage does not affect their profits, so why should they care about it?
Match 1 against black white vampires - very easy match. Black White vampires has little in the way of card advantage, so a simple fumigate or settle the wreckage makes the match a total blowout. profane procession being able to exile an unlimited number of tokens really helped too.
Match 2 against Merfolk - Another blowout. Although the games tended to last longer than the vampire match, and I was taking considerable damage before stabilizing, once I was setup, there was simply no coming back.
Match 3 against Grixis Energy - I ended up losing to Chandra ultimate both games. It was a very easy and controllable match, until I just couldn't find an answer to Chandra. 6 main board answers would seem like enough, but the luck was against me in those games.
Match 4 against G/B snek - walking ballista seems to be the only problem with this deck. I was easily able to control the game, but since the deck is slow to get set up, I had taken considerable damage before I was able to keep the board clear. Since there is no way to prevent ballista from shooting you, I lost to huge 10 and 12 mana ballistas.
All in all, the deck works, but is a little slow. When set up, it was impossible to lose. I'll be doing some more play testing and will resport some more results when I can.
No video's to be honest. I'm pretty sure I am the pioneer of this strategy right now. There was someone else who had a black white list posted on MTG Goldfish or something, but it was significantly different than mine.
Playtesting is going well so far, I'll have more to report after FNM tonight.
I did find one major weakness that needs to be addressed though. The deck has a terrible match up against any blue based control deck in game 1. Way too many dead cards, and if your opponent knows your gameplan, they can easily navigate themselves to victory by simply countering, or killing the 4 Gideon of the trials and 4 Torment of Scarabs.
I haven't had that much trouble taking turn 3 off, because I am trying to bait them into attacking into a turn 4 settle the wreckage anyways. Turn 3 is always a non-interactive turn anyways, as the other turn 3 play is Gideon of the trials which only nerfs one creature.
I do plan on adding Yahenni's expertise to the side though, as it really works well in the deck, I just really don't need any more sweepers in the mainboard, especially ones that don't catch everything. It sucks to have a Yahenni's in hand, but then see the opponent play a turn 3 jadelight ranger as a 6/5 you know?
The idea behind Black White Control is all about value. Black and White normally both share a major weakness, which is drawing cards. To combat this, we need our cards to have as much value as possible. This means our cards need to be 2 for 1'ing our opponent as often as possible. This is easily accomplished with the arsenal of cards in Black and White that are available to us. Some cards can 3 for 1 or even 4 for 1 our opponent, leaving us with a massive advantage.
Card Choices:
fatal push - An obvious inclusion in any black deck in some number of copies. How many you run main and sideboard will be meta dependent.
profane procession - This card is one of the work horses of the deck. Profane Procession is a power house value card, and fits in the curve of the deck perfectly. Ideally we want this card cast on turn 3, with a turn 4 follow up of a sweeper, or removal to keep the board clear. From that turn on, we can spend each turn exiling a creature of theirs while drawing a new answer each turn to hold in our hand until Profane procession fills up to flip. Once flipped, start dropping their threats back at them for the win. While mana intensive, for this 1 single card, we are exiling 3 creatures, and gaining 3 of our own over the course of the game, for a total card advantage of up to +5.
live fast - We can't just rely on drawing 1 card per turn the whole game, so some sort of card drawing spells need to be present. This one nets you +1 card advantage, at the cost of 2 life.
sword-point diplomacy A black card draw spell that gets little to no attention, however this card will catch your opponent off guard often. Early in the game while at 20 life your opponent won't hesitate to pay their life to prevent you from getting good cards, but later on in the game, they'll find that spent life would really come in handy once we start oppressing them with our secondary win condition: torment of scarabs.
torment of scarabs - The main win condition of the deck. This passive enchantment does work every turn with no investment, stripping our opponent of cards or life. Your opponent needs to be massively ahead to win after even 1 of these resolves, let alone 2.
gideon of the trials - Gideon is a great inclusion here, both to slow our opponent down, and as an alternative win condition as a 4/4 attacking every turn we keep the board clear.
vraska's contempt - This card is very versatile, and deals with the best threats in standard. 2 life is always helpful too.
cast out - Another instant speed kill anything card. Instead of gaining 2 life though, we have the option to cycle it if we don't need it.
ixalan's binding - When played correctly, this card is absolutely back breaking. If you can nail something early in the game, your essentially getting a 4 for 1. This card will generate tons of value when your opponent has dead cards in their hand.
fumigate - Life gain + sweeper, this is obviously an auto include
settle the wreckage - another auto include, this card catches people off guard and can be a total blow out.
ravenous chupacabra - At 4 mana this card is pretty efficient. We're putting a creature on the board to attack or block with, while killing one of theirs, all for 4 mana.
endless sands - At first you'll scratch your head and wonder why this card is important here. With only 2 colors, we can afford a few colorless lands. Endless sands is a great late game value card. At instant speed, we can remove our ravenous chupacabras from play, to protect them, or just to "store" them in endless sands. Later on for 4 mana at instant speed, we can bring any number of them back to play, reactivating its enters the battlefield trigger. It might be a little cute, but it looks like the deck can afford it.
arch of orazca - getting the city's blessing is not that hard for this deck when we are running a high land count plus a number of enchantments. The idea behind this card is to keep our hands filled later in the game when you'll most likely have the city's blessing.
Here is a sample decklist that I put together and am testing.
3 profane procession
4 gideon of the trials
4 sword-point diplomacy
1 Cast out
3 Ixalan's Binding
4 Ravenous Chupacabra
4 Torment of Scarabs
4 Settle the Wreckage
2 Vraska's contempt
3 Fumigate
1 arch of orazca
4 forsaken sanctuary
4 concealed courtyard
2 ifnir deadlands
7 plains
6 swamp
Deck strengths
Black White control is a very powerful deck when it gets going, and the value it can generate when played properly is hard to beat. It has passive win conditions, and a ton of removal that hits all the best cards in standard.
Deck weaknesses
The deck is slow to get going. We have little interaction in the first few turns. The deck needs time to set itself up for the win, leaving us vunerable to very fast decks like Ramunap red. You'll have to shore this up with good sideboard selections to win game 2 and 3.