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D.I.Y.: Control What Controls YouBy happybounce on April 5th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 20 CommentsPretty much everyone can agree that control decks are Blue, and that they counter stuff. Also, pretty much everyone can agree that they are no fun to play against, and that only mean evil spiteful jerks who don’t want you to enjoy the game play them - the kind of bastards who would rather stop you from playing a spell than play a spell of their own. You know who I’m talking about.
Sideboard? We don't need no stinking sideboard! When I was in high school, Feldon’s Cane was restricted. I don’t know why. Anyways, the point of the deck was to get something out and beat face. If you got real lucky, you’d get to swing all of one time with a Serra before someone else cast a Wrath, or tapped it with their Icy, or just cast Terror. The day my best friend Dave got a Maze of Ith was a bad day for me. The day Maze of Ith was unrestricted was a worse day for me. Yes, Blue is the classic control color, but counter-control isn't the only type of control deck. In some respects, a control deck can be thought of as one that stops your opponent from messing with you while you play the game. These decks are, by their nature, reactionary; the popular Blue archetypes that are running right now are the logical extremes of these decks, moving almost into a category of their own. For whatever reason, as much as I dislike Blue I loves me some control, particularly aggro-control. Getting my stuff countered sucks. It sucks long, and it sucks hard, but I’ve come to terms with that. Blue is a good color right now (okay, pretty much always), and decks like Dralnu, Pickles, and Izzetron are hot. Each week as I build my deck, I prepare to deal with the Blue threat . . . but lately, I've noticed a trend lately. I'm over-preparing. You see, everyone has their matchups that they hate and fear the most, and mine is counter-control. Preparing for Blue matchups has changed the way I play the whole game. Suddenly, I’m running more aggro decks than I ever have in my entire life, putting Giant Solifuge in almost every deck, and putting the skeleton of Scryb/Force in every sideboard. The last real control deck I ran was Jon-Glare, and even that was heavily favored towards Blue control (what with Demonfire, Mouth of Ronom, Giant Solifuge and all). There's nothing wrong with doing any of this, but I haven't been doing it because I wanted to… I've been doing it because I'm scared of Blue. Quick Lesson #1: Play the game the way you want to play it. I’ve been in kind of a creative deck building funk lately, and a lot of it has to do with how I react to the game (Mark Rosewater has a great article on creativity that I really relate to). It’s not that countering stuff is the best strategy in Magic… it just feels like you can't do anything about it sometimes. I let this get to me, and I began to let it affect all aspects of deck design; I was doing the same things over and over, and that’s no fun for me (and also makes me predictable, which is bad). I knew I loved playing aggro-control style decks but I’d shifted away from them, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last six months (other than to stop shuffling my sideboard in with my deck by mistake), it’s that most weird control decks I make can’t stand up to a hardcore Blue control deck. I decided I’d had enough- I would stop cowering in the corner, I’d let the chips fall where they may, I’d cry havoc and let loose the dogs of hell! I wanted to build a weirdo control deck that would beat a counter-heavy Blue deck, but one that would be good against the rest of the field as well. And it couldn’t have Blue. And there wouldn’t be room for a lot of creature removal. And I didn't want to be doing all the same things I've been doing to deal with Blue control (things that often don't even work). Oh, and I didn't want the deck to specifically hate on Blue counter-control (at least, not a whole lot). What is Blue's weak spot? Furthermore, is there a weak spot that the counter-control decks just so happen to share with almost all other popular decks in the standard meta? You bet your sweet patootie there is. That weak spot is the reliance on non-basic lands.
Blood Moon is a brick house, son. A brick house. It’s like a Stone Rain that doesn’t go away. It’s like a, uh . . . well, it turns everything into Mountains. That’s pretty much what it does. “But Jon,” you say, “You’re running non-basic lands!” That is correct. I am, indeed running non-basic lands - 11 of them, in fact, taking the place of most of the Mountains. If I drop a Blood Moon, chances are I have at least one Forest on the board, and if not, chances are it screws up my opponent more than me anyways. Blood Moon means I don’t take damage from pain lands, or lose counters from Gemstone Mines (shock lands, however, still hurt). Furthermore, by running Stormbind and Magus of the Scroll I never really have to worry about Blood Moon being a dead card. No, it’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s inconvenient, and doesn’t always work. But resolving a second or third turn Blood Moon against, say, an Urza’s Mine and a Steam Vents just feels so good. The rest of the deck stalls until I can win the game, either with Spectral Force, Demonfire, or (occasionally) a Bird of Paradise carrying a Loxodon Warhammer. Don’t laugh. It works. You know what I see when I look at Mwonvuli-Acid Moss? I see a card that reads “destroy target land that they probably need, then get a free card that will help you drop something big and angry, then shuffle your now-thinned deck.” But hey, that’s just me. Why didn’t I run Ghost Quarters? Because, um- shut up, that’s why! Actually, I thought about it, but decided that Blood Moon and Ghost q\Quarter kind of have the same function, except that Ghost Quarter gives them a land that they'll probably use. I mean really, who uses Red anymore? I probably should have put 'em in the sideboard, but I didn’t think of it. I made the deck pretty quick, which means I made some obvious mistakes, and when this happens, it's the sideboard that suffers the most. Don’t look- it’s too late, isn’t it? You already looked. Yes, I know. It’s terrible. Quick Lesson #2: Put time and effort into your sideboard. That’s pretty much it. Also, when you’re playtesting, make sure you playtest with your deck sideboarded, so you know how it ticks. It’s amazing what a difference a couple of cards can make. Sideboarding is pretty easy for most people; the good netdecks all have sideboards and instructions on how to use them, and it’s not too much effort to tweak it to one’s local metagame. Making your own sideboard for your own deck is a whole different ballgame and (in my opinion) one of the hardest parts of original deck design. It’s certainly the part of deck design I have the most trouble with, and an issue I’m going to tackle at a later date. Well, I decided that since land disruption was kind of a central focus in my main deck, and since I was making something specifically to hose Blue control, I should have more LD and anti-counter in the sideboard. Really, I made it in a matter of minutes. I’m not proud of it, and a little embarrassed; what could have been a valuable addition to my deck was, in fact, a bunch of crap I pulled out of my trade folder. The Sudden Shocks were actually pretty tech; the week before, the big three decks were all running Martyr, and so I was strongly advised by John #1 to find a solution. Ironically, I didn’t even play anyone with Martyr of Sands. After like four test games (wherein I discovered that Boom // Bust and Akroma didn’t belong maindeck and that Wilderness Elemental is not as awesome as I thought), we bolted out the door to FNM. I was pretty excited; I’d never ran anything resembling land manipulation/destruction before, and the only real LD deck I’d ever seen at our store was my friend Becca’s Magnivore deck. Then I got to the store, and discovered that seven of us were playing land destruction. That’s right, seven. Out of 34. So much for the element of surprise. How I Rolled Match One: Nowicki, with G/U Beats Game One: Stupid Green and Blue. Game Two: Stupid, stupid Green and Blue! A really powerful combination. I fizzle both times, with no signs of a Blood Moon or pretty much anything useful. It happens. Matches: 0-1 Games: 0-2 Well, that’s not good. Let’s try again. Match Two: Finn, with his feared Izzetron Game One: This is why I side against control… Finn is a better player than me and generally has a better deck, one that he knows inside and out. And for some reason, we always play against each other! I generally need to get lucky against him to win (remembering to attack with my Giant Solifuges helps). A second turn Blood Moon slips onto the board, and screws up his plans just enough for me to squeak one out. Game Two: After a long and arduous battle, I finally get out Akroma, Angel of Fury! Ha! Counter that! What? Demonfire? Oh, and a Bogardan Hellkite? I lose? Oh, okay. Game Three: Some sideboarded Wreak Havocs wreak, uh, havoc. Loxodon Warhammer equipped to anything I can stick it to finally wins it for me. Matches: 1-1 Games: 2-3 Match Three: Sean, with Mono-Red Land Destruction Game One: Well, it was bound to happen at least once; a Blood Moon on the board doesn’t really do anything, and the other two in my hand don’t help. Eventually a Stormbind and a Magus of the Scroll hit the board, and push me through. Game Two: I play a land. Sean blows it up. I play another land. Sean blows it up. This goes on for a while until I pull my single copy of Life From the Loam, and make his last three land destruction spells worthless. Sean can’t recover, and it occurs to me how much I would have given for Loam to be in my old ‘Geddon deck. Matches: 2-1 Games: 4-3 Match Four: Laura, with some crazy Green deck Game One: Badass Green creatures for the win! Not my win, hers. Game Two: I didn’t side out my Blood Moons against her MONO GREEN DECK, because I didn't see them the first game and kind of forgot about them. It didn’t matter- they didn’t make an appearance. It occurs to me that while my deck is very good against control matchups, it doesn’t really do much at all against MGA. In spite of this, I manage to get things under control . . . until Laura casts Greater Good. I look at it and shrug. Then she swings with a Groundbreaker, sacs it and draws seven cards (thanks to Gaea’s Anthem). Then she drops a Spectral Force, swings, and draws for nine cards. Yeah. I loose. Why the hell don’t I have any Greater Goods? Why don’t you? Why doesn’t everyone? That card is . . . well, it’s very good in the right Green deck, really. Matches: 2-2 Games: 4-5 Quick Lesson #3: Go on Gatherer right now and look at all the 9th edition cards. Go on, all of ‘em! I know it hurts- I know how many Vizzerdrixs and Plague Beetles and Utopia Trees there are, but if you make your own decks then you need to see what’s out there. I don’t know why, but there’s a bunch of really great stuff hidden in 9th edition that no one uses. Why not run a black deck with Underworld Dreams? What’s wrong with the idea of a White control deck that locks the board down with Serra’s Blessing, Blinding Angel, and Storage Matrix? How awesome would a Mesa Enchantress-fueled Form of the Dragon/Furnace of Rath/Ivory Mask deck be? The point is this: as original deckbuilders we need to use every single tool available to us. That includes the sideboard, the metagame, tricksy decks, unexpected surprises, and sometimes finding a gem of a card that (almost) no one runs. Things were looking grim, but there was another round. My severely untuned deck had one more chance at glory. Match Five: Zbig, with B/W/U control (I think) Game One: I get out a second turn Blood Moon, and completely shut down Zbig’s mana base. He eventually gets out a Dark Confidant which proceeds to kill him. Game Two: Because it’s the last match, I decide to see what would happen if I sided in all my land destruction. I get a third-turn Blood Moon, blow up all of Zbig’s basic lands, and end up apologizing. It was kind of a dick move on my part. Matches: 3-2 Games: 6-5 In order to write about a deck, it needs to go at least 50-50, and I just barely made it. It's a shame, really- I think this deck has some potential, but by shortchanging the deck and just tossing it together I handicapped it. Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have done any better, but at least my sideboard wouldn't have been totally embarrassing. Cha-Cha-Changes Well, I enjoyed the deck, and it did what it was supposed to (more or less). However, the sideboard is crap, and some minor but crucial changes could easily be made all around.
That looks better. The Vipers just need to be maindecked, because they're Ohran Vipers for crying out loud. Good against aggro, good against control, good against everything except Dunerider Outlaw. The sideboard underwent some hardcore plastic surgery, and now looks like something I'd take to the prom. Utopia Vows are to deal with big creatures; sometimes I don't have a Demonfire, or nine mana available. Also, I've decided to suck it up and cough up the money for a couple extra Life from the Loams. They are very, very good cards, and that's about the extent of it. Will the new deck help me in my quest against the big, bad threat of counter-control? I don't know, because I probably won't run anything like this again for about six months. However, I do know one thing. The Big Lesson: The best way to beat a control player is to be a better player. That's it, really. As much as people might not want to admit it, it takes a damn good player to successfully run a good Blue control deck; one of the reasons Mono-Green Aggro is so popular right now is that the deck has a pretty low learning curve. Now, I'm not saying that aggro is for dummy dum-dums- in the hands of a really good, dedicated aggressive player, an aggro deck in action is a terrible thing to witness. But if you pit a beginner-level player with a control-counter deck against a beginner-level player dropping third turn Spectral Forces, what do you think is going to happen? This is my point: to beat the hardcore Blue control decks, you need to sideboard well, you need to practice against them, and you need to know what they're gonna throw at you. But most of all, if you want to stand a chance you have to become a better player. Practice a lot. Have fun with it, but still practice. I've found that the most sure-fire way to win against control is simply to out-play the opponent. Yeah, sometimes they get lucky and get all the counters and tron in their opening hand; sometimes you get lucky and drop a third-turn Solifuge. Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar eats you. Well, I'm tired of leaving things to chance. Using proxies, John #1 and I have decided to start constructing and playtesting the format's most popular and prevalent control decks. Not only with this make us better at playing against them, playing with the decks will give us an increased understanding of how the deck ticks, and thus make it easier for us to exploit weak spots. Who knows, maybe I'll even find that I enjoy counter-control, and start running that every week. Probably not, though. By happybounce on April 5th, 2007 · Filed in Standard (Type 2) · 20 Comments |
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