Here Comes the Rain Again, Blue/Black Control in Standard

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Here Comes the Rain Again, Blue/Black Control in Standard

By Sean DeCoursey on April 14th, 2005 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 4 Comments

by Morgan_Coke

In Magic, there are three main deck archetypes (Aggro, Combo, and Control), and five colors. Some colors have always naturally tended to be associated with one or another of these archetypes. Red for example is often associated with aggressive decks, while Green is regularly found in decks that emphasize creatures. While control decks have appeared in a wide variety of forms and colors, the three colors most often associated with control are Black, Blue, and White. There have been many control decks built around one of these colors, or any two of them together depending on what cards are currently available in the environment. In Standard both Mono-Blue Control and Mono-Black Control are currently viewed as being very powerful decks. This got me started on wondering what would happen if the two decks were combined.

Historical Example

Probably the greatest example of a Blue/Black control deck would be the familiar Psychatog deck which originated during Odyssey Block’s time in Standard. The basic theory of Blue/Black control decks is, however, very old and goes all the way back to the original Alpha set of magic. Once you have emptied your opponents’ hand, all of your counter spells essentially become Time Walks .

Similarities and Differences

While it’s true that many of the best cards and spells from those old decks are no longer available, there are several things currently available which make up for it. #1: Instant Speed Discard. This is HUGE in a discard/counter deck because it lets you force your opponent to discard during their end phase, thus allowing you to keep mana open during their turn in order to counter their threats (or bluff that you will). #2: Free Discard. Honden of Night’s Reach is also HUGE in this type of deck because it lets you force them to discard without spending any mana of your own, again freeing up your mana for card drawing and counters. #3: Mana Acceleration. Blue and Black have many powerful abilities not available to other colors, and thanks to Chrome Mox they now have acceleration. This is HUGE because it lets you play a first turn two mana discard spell, or alternatively, allows you to have countermagic available on the first turn, stopping that crucial Genju or Vial that they were planning to use to circumvent your plans. #4: Artifact and Enchantment Removal. Blue and Black both traditionally have trouble dealing with Artifacts and Enchantments, now, thanks to Engineered Explosives , they don’t.

In addition to the above reasons, many of the old “power” cards of Blue/Black control have modern counterparts that work very similarly. Fact or Fiction can be replaced quite easily with Gifts Ungiven . Now, before people start doing a double take on that, let me explain. Most of the time with a Fact, you end up getting two cards, sometimes three, which could be anything. Gifts Ungiven lets you pick what you want, all it requires is some slight diversification of your spells when building your deck, which is actually a much better thing than many people give it credit for, especially in this era of Cranial Extraction , Quash , Eradicate and Sowing Salt . If for example you have four different counter spells in your deck, you can always Gift for two of them, a claim which neither Fact or Fiction nor Inspiration can make. If you want you can always make sure that another Gift is in the selection of spells your opponent has to deal with, another claim that Fact and Inspiration cannot make. I’m not saying Gifts is better, but I am saying that it is comparable to Fact or Fiction.

Compulsion can be replaced with Thirst for Knowledge . Compulsion is mostly useless in multiples, Thirst is not, and Thirst can also net you card advantage in addition to selection if you have a Mox to discard to it.

Duress is replaced by Distress and Wrench Mind , while Counterspell is replaced by Hinder , Mana Leak , and Condescend . These replacements are notably weaker than their original partners, but sometimes, that’s just the way it is.

Now that we have an idea of where the deck came from, I’ll put up a list so you can see where it went.

Deck
Blue/Black Control 4x Nezumi Shortfang 1x Yukora, the Prisoner 1x Meloku, the Clouded Mirror 3x Distress 3x Wrench Mind 2x Honden of Night’s Reach 3x Mana Leak 3x Condescend 3x Hinder 1x Last Word 2x Gifts Ungiven 3x Thirst for Knowledge 2x Boomerang 3x Terror	3x Chrome Mox 2x Stalking Stones 4x Mirrodin’s Core 1x Shizo, Death’s Storehouse 1x Minamo, School at Water’s Edge 8x Island 7x Swamp	Sideboard: 4x Echoing Decay 4x Engineered Explosives 3x Cranial Extraction 2x Quash 2x Eradicate

The main deck is set up mainly for dealing with control and combo decks while the sideboard is mainly for dealing with aggro and aggro-control. There are no cards in either main or side included for any particular deck, this is mainly because I’m really not sure what the metagame will evolve to in the wake of the Affinity bannings. Instead I tried to include a variety of cards that are good versus general forms of aggression, combo, and control styles of play.

Playing the Deck

When playing blue black control it is very important to note whether you are emphasizing counters or discard more. This particular deck has 12 discard spells and 10 counter spells, so it will usually aim to emphasize discard more, but depending on your initial draw, sticking with counters can be more productive. Remember, even if all you do is play land and counter their spells they will still empty their hand without card drawing spells since every time they play both a land and a spell in a turn they go down by one on the number of cards in hand. Thus it is possible to force someone to empty their hand with only counters. Discard does make it a lot easier and faster though.

It is also important to immediately decide whether you are going to go the discard or counter route early in the game because many of your spells require double colored mana in their casting costs. Discard with the exception of Shortfang requires you to cast it during your own turn so you're basically deciding that they get to cast spells on turns 2-4 in order to empty their hand quickly. This takes some practice to get used to, but once you've gotten the hang of it deciding whether your opening hand leads you towards discard or counters is almost reflexive.

If your opening hand seems like it could go either way, lean towards discard first. Early game discard is very disruptive and gives you time to get more discard and counters online. The ideal way that this deck plays out is with early discard slowly supplemented by counters and removal until you've locked your opponent down and are beating on them with a solid, dangerous threat.

Basically, your primary zone of attack is your opponents hand. Your secondary zone is the stack, and cards in play are a distant third on your list of priorities. If it helps, you can think of your discard spells as pre-emptive counters for your opponents' spells. You're simply countering them in hand rather than on the stack.

The ability to cast Gifts Ungiven for four counter spells is simply amazing (especially once you’ve emptied your opponents’ hand and they realize that you’ve just effectively gained two Time Walks) and is the main reason that the single Last Word is in the deck. Last Word is also a little bit of bias towards Blue Control decks since they have few threats and being able to unconditionally counter those threats is kind of a big deal.

You never really want to do things during your turn. Over the course of a game you most active phase of play should be your opponents’ end phase. Your second most active phase should be your opponents’ main phase. All of your card drawing is Instant speed, two of your win conditions are instant speed, most of your removal is instant speed. Use that to your advantage. Always bluff the counter even if you don’t have it. Tricking your opponent into play mistakes is by far the greatest advantage your counters and discard have. Other players will fear holding onto cards since they think you’ll simply force them to discard said cards, but they will also fear casting those cards since they think that you’ll counter them. This often leads to players playing spells at the wrong time out of fear of one or the other effects.

You’re trying to attack your opponents’ cards in their hand, and on the stack. Focus on those two main zones. You have twenty life points; don’t be afraid to trade some of it in for some card advantage.

Thirst for Knowledge is one of the most important cards in the deck and deserves special mention. This deck runs a high land count both to make its counters such as Condescend more effective and to make sure that it hits its early land drops. Thirst for Knowledge lets you trade in late game useless lands for action cards, Thirst also lets you trade in late game discard after you’ve emptied your opponents hand for threats and answers. In short, Thirst is an amazing card, don’t play without it. Plus it’s an instant so you never need to mess around with casting it on your own turn.

Card Selection and Explanation

I spoke briefly earlier about how many of the currently available cards are similar to what was around during the Odyssey Psychatog days, but that doesn’t really help with any kind of explanation of what’s in the deck. So here’s a card by card explanation, including why some things AREN’T in here.

Before I get to the specific cards, I'd like to explain why there are so many two and three ofs in the deck. I know that many, many players and theorists will argue until they are blue in the face that you should pick the very best card and run four of it in order to make your deck more predictable. However, if you go way back in time to the beginning of magic when I learned to play, things weren't very organized or defined. There was no such thing as an archetype or netdecks, everyone designed and built thier own unique decks. It was considered embarrasing to play something you didn't create yourself. This meant that any deck you built had to be ready to take on anything and everthing possible. It's why Disenchant was considered godly and Crumble was considered junk, versatility was king in an undefined format. Well, in the wake of the bannings the format is VERY undefined. By running several two and three ofs this deck maintains the same number of EFFECTS as it would have by running many four ofs while gaining lots of VERSATILITY to deal with an unkown metagame. Later on when the format becomes more defined and everyone is playing the same two or three decks, then yes, it will be possible to run lots of four ofs and have a very consistent basic deck, but right now, the added versatility is more important.

Nezumi Shortfang : He’s cheap, he’s fast, he works at instant speed, and he’s an awesome win condition. As an added bonus he’s a Legend when flipped and can benefit from the Legendary Lands in the deck.

Yukora, the Prisoner : He’s very cheap for his power/toughness, he’s Legendary, big, Black, and a Spirit. This means almost every single removal spell in the format fails to hurt him. A pretty good deal if you ask me. Also his “drawback” is almost 100% irrelevant in this deck because you almost never have more than one creature in play.

Meloku, the Clouded Mirror : He’s insanely powerful, very hard to stop, and makes lots of little flyers to help you win – all at instant speed so you can mess around with it during your opponents’ turn.

Distress : Basically a cheap Coercion , it gives you a chance to look at your opponents hand and make it significantly worse. Depending on what you’re holding you probably want to vary your targets with this. If you’re holding lots of discard you want to hit cards that will leave their hand soon so you can force more cards to be discarded. If you’re holding lots of counters you want to hit cards that are hard to counter or are just very problematic for you if they resolve (i.e. Troll Ascetic and Aether Vial).

Wrench Mind : Essentially unplayable when Affinity and Ironworks existed, now it is a true powerhouse since almost any artifact your opponent discards is something you wanted them to discard anyways – Vedalken Shackles , Sundering Titan , Mindslaver , Umezawa’s Jitte , etc. Otherwise it’s just a slightly weakened Hymn to Tourach which is still pretty amazing.

Honden of Night’s Reach : There is a lot of control out and about right now, and this is by far one of the worst cards any control deck can see hit play. It also works amazingly well with Stabwhisker the Odious . I realize that this was probably the worst Honden before the bannings, but in a slower environment this card quite simply dominates people.

Mana Leak : An early counter that makes people play cautious since no one wants to lose a spell to this and then think “If I’d waited one more turn and played another land that would have resolved.”

Hinder : A hard counter that stops Witness tricks, all for only three mana.

Condescend : Countermagic and library manipulation in one package? You can’t beat that with a stick, and trust me, I’ve tried.

Last Word : A fourth counter to find with Gifts Ungiven and a little bit of extra “stick it to ya” for MUC, one of the best decks in the format. Also, the Last Word isn't here in place of a fourth Mana Leak, it's taking the place of the fourth Hinder. Once you've emptied your opponents hand and are trying to use your counters like Time Walks, easily circumvented conditional counters don't really cut it any more.

Gifts Ungiven : A way to draw two cards that do what you want. Whether it’s fetching four counters or four discard spells gives you want you want when you want it.

Thirst for Knowledge : This lets you trade in dead cards for good ones at Instant speed, kind of like Brainstorm except without the need to shuffle your library afterwards and the occasional bonus card from Chrome Mox .

Boomerang : A universal solution for that problem card. Returns permanents from an area where it is hard for your deck to deal with them (in play) to a zone where you have lots of ways to attack the offending card (In hand and on the stack). There is also one big reason why this is in here over the much more splashable Echoing Truth . Boomerang can target lands which gives you a way to kill Genjus dead, dead, dead.

Terror : With Affinity leaving the format, Terror once again becomes one of the premier removal spells available. Solemn Simularcum is the only artifact creature that sees regular play in a variety of decks so besides Black creatures your targets with this spell aren’t really very limited.

Chrome Mox : Accelerating to a fist turn Distress , Shortfang, or Wrench Mind can absolutely devastate many decks. Late in the game provides card advantage when combined with Thirst for Knoweledge .

Stalking Stones : This deck is pretty light on win conditions, so cramming a few extra ones into your land base is good stuff. Especially if they are uncounterable and activate at instant speed .

Mirrodin’s Core : Far superior to Salt Marsh since this can produce colorless mana on the turn it comes into play if you need it to, it also enables regularly setting Engineered Explosives to the three counters it needs to deal with the Enchantments and Artifacts that ruin your day (Glorious Anthem , Vedalken Shackles , Choke , Phyrexian Arena , etc.)

Swamp s, Island s, Legendary Lands: The basic color producing lands every deck needs to function. The lower number of basic lands is generally helpful given how much hate Islands and Swamps are currently experiencing (Choke , Boil , Karma , Sundering Titan ).

Echoing Decay : Good spot removal that sometimes nails multiple creatures or Rude Awakenings , also able to target Black creatures.

Engineered Explosives : Gives Black and Blue a way to remove Enchantments and Artifacts. Also doubles as mass creature removal vs. weenie rush decks.

Cranial Extraction : A favorite for dealing with other control decks and combo decks.

Eradicate : A star in some matchups, but its sorcery speed and casting cost of four relegate it to the sideboard.

Quash : See Eradicate.

Some cards noticeable by their absence

Vedalken Shackles : This deck only runs eight Islands and has no way to search them out, which massively limits the Shackles’ effectiveness. I tested this out and was frequently frustrated by some silly little two or three power creature smashing my face in while I sat staring at the one or two Islands on my board.

Barter in Blood : On the very few occasions when you do have a creature in play, you want it to stay there, so this particular form of mass removal isn’t really so great for you. On the other hand, this is your only way to get rid of untargetable creatures such as Troll Ascetic and Kodama of the North Tree . So its actually merits a spot in the board if you expect a lot of those in your metagame. It can easily be added to the board in place of some Explosives and Decays.

Hideous Laughter : See Barter in Blood. But without the positive caveat.

Telepathy : Don’t laugh. This card is very good in this deck. Knowing when to save a counter, whether you opponent is just holding lands or if you need to go ahead and cast that Distress, these are all very, very important decisions that need to be made with this deck, and Telepathy ensures that you almost always make the correct one.

Jushi Apprentice and Inspiration : A lot of people don't like Gifts Ungiven and both of these are acceptable replacements for it.

Keiga, the Tidal Star , Kokusho, the Evening Star , any other big tough Blue or Black creature: These are all fine choices for the deck, I picked Meloku and Yukora because they’re the best in my opinion, if you have better luck with one of the others, fell free to switch for them.

Isochron Scepter : To utilize the oh so broken Scepter you have to build the deck very differently, with many more one and two casting cost Instants. The first version of this deck that I tried used these and I must say I was fairly disappointed with it. Mana Leak on a stick just isn’t quite the same as Counterspell on a stick.

Tendo Ice Bridge : This is really only superior to Mirrodin's Core if you're regularly returning it to your hand with moonfolk, and since you only have one moonfolk in the deck, that won't be happening very often.

Salt Marsh : This is a great turn one play if you DON'T have a mox, otherwise it's just basically worse than Mirrodin's Core over a long game.

The Matchups

Instead of going into detailed analyses of every deck vs. deck fight, I’ll simply list them by category and give some general advice. The few decks that everyone knows will be played in the new Standard get their own brief mention. Just for the readers edification, I don’t use percentages to define matchups, I know this is a common practice, but I have found that no one ever likes what percentages you put up because they or their cousins buddy’s sisters boyfriend or some pro or the kid at the 7-11 got numbers that were three points higher. Instead I use a simple rating system: Very Good, Good, Average, Bad, Very Bad.

Deck Type Matchups

Aggro: This is good if they are not black, average to bad if they are. Echoing Decay and Engineered Explosives are two of your biggest stars here, along with Terror, Boomerang, and Mana Leak. Black Aggro isn’t so good for several reasons, namely: Ninja’s that can’t be countered, many of their creatures have a toughness of three or higher (Scourge of Numai, Takenuma Bleeder, Yukora). The creatures with low toughness’ usually have useful abilities (Ravenous and Chittering Rats) and these decks run both discard and card drawing to reduce your ability to handle threats. Sideboarding in aggro matches generally involves taking discard out of your deck (starting with Distress first) and adding Echoing Decays and Engineered Explosives .

Control: This is generally a good, although sometimes only average matchup. Blue control has trouble dealing with both counters and discard, and you have much better discard than they do. When playing Blue Control do everything you can to keep them from drawing more cards. Whoever wins the card advantage war almost always wins the game. Non-Blue Control decks generally have a lot of trouble dealing with large amounts of countermagic, and discard only makes the situation worse. Usually in a control matchup you'll add the remove from game effects and remove Boomerang , Terror , and Gifts or Thirst.

Combo: Mostly these games fall into the very good category, but every so often they will go off fast enough to win through your disruption. Why is combo good? Simply because Combo decks do not, in general, like discard or countermagic, and your deck packs both. Combo usually requires little sideboarding, just pull any cards you don't think are that useful in that particular match (usually Terror) and add Extractions.

Specific Matchups

Tooth and Nail: Very Good. This is an absolutely terrible matchup for them. A couple of counters or discard hitting some of their land search spells usually prevents them from hitting the turn four Tooth, which is generally their only shot at winning the game. Mindslaver is usually a disaster for you, so try to not let one resolve. Focus on emptying their hand then go into kill mode fast. After Sideboarding you lose some dead cards (Terror, Boomerang, Mana Leak) for some more useful ones (Cranial Extraction, Quash, Eradicate).

Mono Black Control: Good to Average. Whoever gets lots of discard going fast usually wins this battle, if they empty your hand first, you’re probably in trouble. Fortunately Black has a lot of trouble with counters, and you have answers to most of their threats. The addition of cards such as Quash and Engineered Explosives in place of Terror and Distress helps a lot.

Mono Blue Control: Average. Considered by many to be the best deck of the new format, this fight is anything but easy. Honden of Night’s Reach is simply insane against them, if one resolves you have most likely won the game right then and there. An early Shortfang also spells trouble for them, but sometimes they are able to Shackle their way out of it. Discard ripping their hand apart is very hard for MUC to handle when that discard is backed up by countermagic, so feel free to mix and match it up against them. Keep Jushi Apprentice and Thieving Magpie off the table at all costs. Quash and Cranial Extraction are just brutal for them. Eradicate can be pretty devastating too given thier low threat count.

White Weenie: Good to Very Good. Terror , Echoing Decay , and Engineered Explosives all pose significant problems for them, as does countermagic. Run them out of cards and creatures then go ahead and win at your leisure. Ivory Mask and Karma can be very problematic though as you’ll have to draw two Core’s before you can get rid of them with Explosives.

By Sean DeCoursey on April 14th, 2005 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 4 Comments