[Article] - The Perils of Playing Control

[Machinus]

Another piece by Anwar! Awesome!

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14808.html

[goobafish]

I actually really liked this one, and I am normally very critical of articles. Great information for new players, good stats, and good analysis.

[sammiel]

Great article. My personal opinion is that the fundamental problem with control decks in legacy is that they are trying to emulate their extended and standard counterparts. The problem is that even the most powerful control deck cannot dominate the game in legacy because there are too many viable strategies. Landstill is the most powerful and consistent control deck in the format, but that is because it plays the best draw spells and the most powerful answers in the game. Unfortunately, it plays very weak threats that require you to be in control of the game to use.

I don't necessarily think that all control needs to shift towards the aggro-control archetype, but I do think that control decks need to be more aggressive, maybe sort of a midrange control. As an example, I have been tinkering with some old G/B/x lists and tuning them with a mix of cheaper, more aggressive creatures to mix with the more traditional, resilient win conditions. I certainly don't think that I've come up with a format breaker, but the deck is substantially more successful than the previous ones I've run.

Hell, everytime I see someone say deed + low cc creatures is bad, I want to shoot myself. People are still caught up on the cool little play of deeding for 4 when you have a 5cc creature in play. Alternately, I could drop a goyf on Turn 2, drop deed on turn 3, and simply accept that I will lose my goyf if I have to sweep the board. An acceptable tradeoff for playing the best creature and the best sweeper in the colors.

[Hoojo]

Great article, as it does a great job of pinning down what the problems the control archtype has. Lots of information, directly written, allowing for a fast, informative read.

[Citrus-God]

I will say this now. The only Control deck I ever see viable is EPIC UWG Landstill. Because of Humility and it's easier to manage mana base, it's an Aggressive Control deck. It doesnt win quickly, but it ensures that you have the dominant position against other Creature decks, thanks to Humility and the 3 EEs.

[Meekrab]

Solidarity only plays two types of spells, lands and instants.
Lands aren't spells. ;) Proofreading is tech.

Good article otherwise. Very concise, direct analysis of why waiting until turn 40 to win doesn't work well in this format.

[Silverdragon]

Just two words: Too short!
After reading the first few paragraphs I was dissappointed when I looked at my scrolling bar. There is so much more that can be said on this subject and I really hoped you'd give your own opinion on how to solve the problems control faces.
As much as I hate it when some writers just throw out a bad decklist and claim that their deck beats everything I always like to see new ideas and tech (or even just the revival of old forgotten tech).
So in your opinion what is the best approach a control player can take in the current meta? What's the next step for control?

edit to clarify: You already wrote "If control decks are able to avoid having the wrong answers and are able to find ways to accelerate their win condition then they may enjoy more success."
My question was towards practical solutions, either deckconcepts (e.g. Landstill or 'Tog) or specific cards (e.g. Faerie Conclave becomes Nantuko Monastery, Wrath/Disk becomes Deed etc).

[Iranon]

Control faces the dilemma of striking a balance between power and versatility. They will be overwhelmed if their deck consists of flexible but weak answers (they might establish control, but are unlikely to maintain it; the Goblin/Landstill match was a good example), and statistics are against them if half their deck is irrelevant regardless how devastating their bombs are.

So they need general-purpose cards, heavy-duty answers that make the game almost unwinnable for their opponent and a way to reliably draw what they need; I think this is easiest accomplished with tutors in addition to cantrips.

Enlightened Tutor allows fetching that lone Moat, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt or whatever else shuts down the opponent's deck most completely. It can also fetch more proactive cards like Counterbalance and Isochron Scepter for heaps of virtual card advantage.

[Fred Bear]

Another excellent historical article, but...

this article needs a major update. I'm in no way saying that the conclusions aren't acurate or valid, but it doesn't do anything to analyze Control in the current Legacy metagame. Rifter vs. Solidarity illustrates a valid point, in February 2006 and the following couple of tournaments, but it doesn't describe anything relevant in the current meta (The lesson - 'don't bring a knife to a gunfight' - will always be relevant, but are there 2 decks that illustrate this in the current meta or has Legacy evolved past this point?). The 'newest' decklists presented are 358 days old.

Questions left unanswered for me - What are the perils of playing Landstill against Threshold? How about 43-Land vs Landstill? Breakfast vs 43-Land/Landstill? Is control on an upswing (1/4 of Worlds 2007 Top 8)? What relevant 'answers' does control need to maintain relevancy in the format? Why has control seen recent success (your link to the Bazaar-Liga September results shows Landstill winning a 76-person tournament)?

Like I said, it was a solid article and it did a good job of pointing to most of Control's limitations, but I don't think that it did a very good job of proving it's continued relevancy. As the Legacy metagame (and deckbuilding) evolves, the individual abilities of decks to handle those shifts must be evaluated on their own merits. Several control decks appear to be legitimate contenders in the current Legacy metagame but that point seems to be counter-intuitive based on your article.

Good, but not great...

Fred Bear...

[DragoFireheart]

While this article is great and brings up important aspects of why control will have a hard time in this format, I believe there is another problem with control. Control is a very slow and boring deck for the most part from my personal experience with playing with and against control decks. It can be a great turn-off to new players to this format and I personally would not enjoy playing the deck.

Both the fact that it's a somewhat difficult deck to play and that it isn't very fun and we can see why not a great deal of people are playing it. I would say that for every 1 control deck I see someone play, I see 2 people playing a combo deck and 3 people playing an aggro deck.

[AnwarA101]

While many of the decklists are old, the problems they represent are not. I recently had a Landstill player and a 43 land player basically concede that they couldn't beat my High Tide deck. In those cases, the Control player was admitting that they had the wrong answers. The problem is still happening even if the decks are different. Landstill is still losing to Goblins.

I wasn't able to provide any insight in how to make control better in the future because I'm unsure how to. It seems that beating both aggro and combo at the same time is very difficult along with having to deal with other control strategies.

Perhaps a more defined metagame would greatly help control in general. If Threshold becomes very popular and overwhelming part of the metagame, then Landstill could benefit greatly from such an upswing. When the types of threats becomes more narrow it might be easier to have the right answers.

Thank you all for the compliments.

[Cait_Sith]

Another excellent historical article, but...

Actually, given the time of these decklists, this article would have been a stupid waste of time. Now, as Control is finding its niche in Legacy again, this article is more relevant than ever. This is the LEAST outdated article of Legacy that has appeared in a long time.

Also, there were some random issues:


Solidarity only plays two types of spells, lands and instants.

Solidarity plays what now?

Also, you called Truffle Shuffle by its correct name, but SCG lists the deck as "Thunder Bluff" so it would have been nice of you to correct that.

Otherwise, good job.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I liked it a lot. I agree it could have been a bit longer, though. Still, an enjoyable read.

[Nightmare]

This is the LEAST outdated article of Legacy that has appeared in a long time.

What?

Always a good read from you, Anwar.

[Tacosnape]

I disagree with the notion that Landstill isn't favored against Goblins, though this varies highly on the list and the list in your article rolls over and dies to teh niblogs pretty horribly.

However, this is still a solid article with a lot of points people needed to hear, so very good work. I think your article does well in illuminating why successful control decks are doing one of two things:

1. Running the most versatile answers possible. Pernicious Deed, Force of Will, and Counterspell are probably the top three here. Counterbalance, Chalice of the Void, Vindicate, and similar such cards all pull their weight as well.

2. Running an answer or group of answers that shut an entire strategy down singlehandedly until they are themselves answered. Solitary Confinement + Squee works well here, as does Humility. Enchantress can use double Sterling Groves and the most annoying enchantment possible. MUC ran Back to Basics and Vedalken Shackles. And so forth.

...Also, random note, when I read this thread title? I thought it said "The Perils of Playing Contra."

[outsideangel]

I liked it a lot. I agree it could have been a bit longer, though. Still, an enjoyable read.

Ditto.

Even if you can't pin down exactly ways to make control better, I'd still have liked to hear some of your thoughts on it.

[Aggro_zombies]

Just two words: Too short!
After reading the first few paragraphs I was dissappointed when I looked at my scrolling bar. There is so much more that can be said on this subject and I really hoped you'd give your own opinion on how to solve the problems control faces.
As much as I hate it when some writers just throw out a bad decklist and claim that their deck beats everything I always like to see new ideas and tech (or even just the revival of old forgotten tech).
So in your opinion what is the best approach a control player can take in the current meta? What's the next step for control?
I wrote an article on control for MTG Salvation a while back, talking about a lot of these same decks. The implication throughout the article was that aggro-control is almost always vastly superior to regular control because aggro-control can exploit a dominant board position quickly. Dominant board positions are very ephemeral in this format (as anyone who has ever played against Goblins knows), and there are very few control decks that can establish a true lock in time to be relevant - the best one I can think of is Stax, and even with a lot of acceleration that deck is slow to lock up the game. I can say as a long-time dabbler and developer of control decks, the fact that there are so few slots in your deck dedicated to winning is what hurts you the most. In other words, a control deck's worst enemy is the fact that it's a control deck.

That said, there are three cards in Lorwyn that caught my eye as potential additions to control decks: Ajani, Garruk, and Hoofprints of the Stag. The last two may find a home in Landstill, as they allow for non-land win conditions that don't clash too heavily with the deck's strategies. Garruk allows you to swing in with a manland and then untap it - essentially giving your Mishra's Factory vigilance - and the token generating ability is extremely relevant, as a 3/3 in a deck that tries to win on the back of a 2/2 is nothing to sneeze at. His last ability is somewhat irrelevant unless you're trying to alpha-strike, but you can't win them all. Hoofprints is batshit insane with Standstill (you play a spell, I draw three and get a 4/4 flying Elemental for :2::w:, thanks) and turns cards like Brainstorm into creature-generating engines to allow a shift to aggro mode for this deck.

Ajani seems like he would be good in dedicated white control decks of just about any stripe. His last ability doesn't play well with Humility, but his other two do - the life is always relevant in the mid- to late-games for recovery from early-game beatings, and a 3/3 or bigger Vigilant Mishra's Factory is always hot. In a Truffle Shuffle or maybe a Stax deck, the Serra Avatar token is a legitimate finisher.

Both planeswalkers also have the benefit of drawing fire off of you, since most players won't want them to stick around very long and will most likely try to kill them on sight.

I don't know if any of these would improve control very much, but they're worth looking into. The two planeswalkers actively further control strategies, whereas the enchantment is something of a neutral bonus.

EDIT: Good article, by the way, and it's always nice to see elementary examples like what you did instead of complicated tech versus complicated tech. The analysis is much cleaner this way.

[BreathWeapon]

I was wandering whether or not the Evoke creatures gave control more possible threats, Shriekmaw would be a reasonable removal card that doubled as card advantage/beat down for Landstill etc.

[TheCramp]

That said, there are three cards in Lorwyn that caught my eye as potential additions to control decks: Ajani, Garruk, and Hoofprints of the Stag. The last two may find a home in Landstill, as they allow for non-land win conditions that don't clash too heavily with the deck's strategies. Garruk allows you to swing in with a manland and then untap it - essentially giving your Mishra's Factory vigilance - and the token generating ability is extremely relevant, as a 3/3 in a deck that tries to win on the back of a 2/2 is nothing to sneeze at. His last ability is somewhat irrelevant unless you're trying to alpha-strike, but you can't win them all. Hoofprints is batshit insane with Standstill (you play a spell, I draw three and get a 4/4 flying Elemental for :2::w:, thanks) and turns cards like Brainstorm into creature-generating engines to allow a shift to aggro mode for this deck.

I had this same thought, this is a powerful tool for control. It is poor with Fact of Fiction though, and I don't like that. It is insane for enchantress however. Win condition for solitary enchantress anyone? What would that be Control Combo then?

[sammiel]

On the subject of landstill, it doesn't need more conditional win conditions. Hell, Landstill doesn't really need much of anything beyond people willing to slog through all the tournament rounds with it and not be too fatigued to play at 100% in the Top 8. That and a more defined metagame, with the metagame undergoing a shift every 3-6 months, it is hard to nail down any particular list and sb as optimal.

I want to take a look at extended, its a fairly close format to legacy, maybe even legacy-lite especially with ravnica's duals closing the gap a bit.

I took all of the extended results on SCG from 2006-06-04 to 2007-10-07, checked all the first place decks, and found the following. Mind you, these are only the winners, not the top 8. Im not sorting through 291 decks.

Aggro: 15 wins. Aggro includes Flow Rock, King in the Castle, Boros Deck Wins, Domain Aggro, Affinity, and Haterator.

Control: 12 Wins. Control includes U/W counterpost/tron decks, Scepter Chant, Tog, and Gifts Rock.

Aggro-Control: 8 Wins. The only extended deck I classified as aggro-control was Aggro-Loam. Even though it is very different, it seems to be the closest thing extended has to an aggro-control deck, instead of quick beats and free countermagic, it runs a heavy disruption package meant to mess up the entire board, recover faster than your opponent, and end the game with a big vore. If people disagree that it's aggro-control, it's certainly more control than aggro, which would bring control up to 20 wins.

Combo: 4 Wins. Combo includes TEPS, Locket Combo, and Tooth. I find it incredible that the only thing legacy combo really has over extended combo is lion's eye diamond and dark ritual, yet combo seems to do so much better in legacy despite the presence of FoW and Daze.

Mind you, all of these results seem to be before three major changes to both metagames, Tarmogoyf, Ichorid, and Breakfast.


I took all of the Source results for 50+ legacy tournaments, and here are the first place winners. I threw out any tournaments where flash was legal, and threw out the 4 tournaments with a top 2 split, which includes Kadi's first 3 tournaments, and The Mana Leak Open 2.

Aggro: 15 Wins. Aggro includes Vial Goblins, Mono-W angel stompy, RGB sligh, Domain Zoo. Thing to note: with the exception of Angel Stompy's single win in 2005, no aggro deck aside from goblins has ever won an american legacy event with more than 50 people. However, the Mana Leak 2 was a top 2 draw between two non-goblin aggro decks.

Aggro-Control: 14 Wins. Aggro-control includes a million Thresh variants, Trinket Angels, Aggro Loam, W/U angel stompy, and U/G Madness. If people disagree with my classification of Trinket and/or Aggro Loam as Aggro-Control thats fine, but within my definitions, U/G Madness is the only Aggro-control deck aside from thresh variants to win an american event, and only once.

Control: 6 wins. Control includes 43 Land, RGW Confine-Loam, GBW Loam (had to sort of guess control from the lack of description), Rec-Sur, and U/W Landstill. Things to note: No american event has been won by a control deck. None of the Top 2 splits that were left out had a control deck involved either. As Anwar touched upon in his article, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way people are constructing or playing control decks in this format.

Combo: 5 wins. Combo includes Solidarity, TES, and Breakfast. So this basically directly contradicts my thoughts from the extended combo results. Of the decks on this list, Solidarity has fallen off the map with the recent development of faster and equally consistent combo decks. Breakfast is a very recent breakthrough, so we will see how it continues as the metagame continues to rotate. TES was a combo deck that seemed specifically designed to beat the aggro-control matchup, we will see if it puts up results again, or slides down into obscurity.


Now granted, I'm comparing some pretty massively different results here, 2.5 years of legacy tournaments is pretty significantly different from just over 1 year of extended. If someone knows where I can find more information on extended tournament results, I'll take a gander. This also doesn't address the fact that legacy does not have nearly as many 50+ tournaments a year as extended, and I'm willing to bet combo has posted much better results at smaller tournaments, but I think it's underperformance in large tournaments is pretty telling.

Honestly, people need to either seriously reevaluate their control lists and mentalities, or else just stop playing control. It hasn't worked yet, and with the format only getting a bigger and bigger cardpool, control will only have a harder job.

[Kilz88]

The lack of current decklists really killed this article for me. It had a good point to make but really couldnt do that for me while misrepresenting facts. The biggest one being the fact that the Truffle-Shuffle sb had no obvious combo hate that allows it to walk over combo. Where was Orim's Chant? That is just one card. Overall, seems like an article that should have been written pre-flash era.

[MattH]

This was a fine descriptive article, but it was missing something: it was all "Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, ..., Fact N" and no real analysis or conclusions. For example, do you think it's even possible for control to make a comeback?

I don't think so. I happen to think that, given enough cardpool, hybrid strategies are just plain superior to 'pure' strategies and that pure control will never really make a comeback, because it is better to Just Win Already, which aggro-control and combo-control do.

If you disagree with that, and think that control could once again be good, what do you think it will take? Does the answer lie in further development of existing decks? Some kind of new archetype, a distinct break from all that has come before? Or do we have to wait until new control cards are printed, and what form those would have to take? And if you think one of these, why do you discount the others?

So overall I give this article a B for missed opportunity. Not bad, but not excellent.

[Bardo]

I happen to think that, given enough cardpool, hybrid strategies are just plain superior to 'pure' strategies and that pure control will never really make a comeback, because it is better to Just Win Already, which aggro-control and combo-control do.

I don't think I've ever QFT'd anyone or any of that shit, but that is pretty much my central position with respect to the format and deck-building.

In Legacy, hybrid strategies will almost usually outcompete "strategically pure" decks, because -- given the depth of the cardpool -- power vs. versatility concessions are mitigated by the high power level of the format overall. And hybrid strategies allow decks to accomplish many things over the course of a few turns and sometimes multiple strategic executions in the span of one turn (counter your removal [Daze a Deed], remove your blocker [Bolt], +4/+4 for my Goyf, swing for a lot, for all of 1 mana).

It's difficult for most "strategically pure" decks (mostly aggro [Sligh], mostly control [Rifter], mostly combo [Belcher]) to dominate the field at large, other than by overwhelming numbers, just given the power + multi-modality of the hybrid decks.

Tourney results bear this out as well.

[AnwarA101]

This was a fine descriptive article, but it was missing something: it was all "Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, ..., Fact N" and no real analysis or conclusions. For example, do you think it's even possible for control to make a comeback?

I don't think so. I happen to think that, given enough cardpool, hybrid strategies are just plain superior to 'pure' strategies and that pure control will never really make a comeback, because it is better to Just Win Already, which aggro-control and combo-control do.

If you disagree with that, and think that control could once again be good, what do you think it will take? Does the answer lie in further development of existing decks? Some kind of new archetype, a distinct break from all that has come before? Or do we have to wait until new control cards are printed, and what form those would have to take? And if you think one of these, why do you discount the others?

So overall I give this article a B for missed opportunity. Not bad, but not excellent.

I am unsure if control can make a comeback. That is why I didn't try to give some grand conclusion like saying that control is dead. What I was sure about was that it suffered from these problems which seem to continually plague the archetype in Legacy.

There are several things that could happen going forward. Metagames could become less diverse which would make it easier for control to anticipate the field at any given tournament. Control decks themselves could become more versatile and be ready for a larger array of strategies. Finally control could just get a set of cards that are really powerful that overwhelm the best threats in the format. There are probably other possible scenarios that might allow control's return as well.

[Bardo]

Excellent article. It was brief, but it was also concise and to the point. Well done.

My only objection and one raised by others, is that it seems like this article was submitted to SCG about 14 months ago and Craig just got around to posting it yesterday. Given his track-record, I would not be surprised to discover this is indeed the case...

[AnwarA101]

My only objection and one raised by others, is that it seems like this article was submitted to SCG about 14 months ago and Craig just got around to posting it yesterday. Given his track-record, I would not be surprised to discover this is indeed the case...

If the examples seem dated its because they are. It should be easy to see why Rifter is terrible against Solidarity, but less so why Landstill is. I was trying to portray the easiest to understand situations. The reason I couldn't pick any recent examples is because for the most part people have stopped playing decks like Rifter which can't answer anything but creatures. The other reason is that there are very few control decks to discuss. The only relevant ones seem to be Landstill (which I used) and 43 land. Are there other control decks that actually see play in Legacy anymore? I can hardly find any.

[calosso]

Great Article Anwar alot better than some of the other articles written by other people on the source.

[URABAHN]

I can't disagree with the content of the article! I think it clearly states some problems Control has in Legacy, too bad that's all the article does. The article can be summed up like this

In Q4 2006, over 1 year ago, Control Decks suffered ~these~ problems in Legacy. That is all. Thank you and good night.

Anwar told me that he used those specific examples because he felt they were the most obvious, but I still would've liked more analysis on today's Legacy. If I'm reading about Extended, I don't want to hear about how Mono-Black Control cut U/G Madness off at the knees, but got rolled by Wake. If Anwar took a History Repeats Itself approach to the article and drew parallels to the current metagame, I think that would've been a more complete article. It's not a terrible article, but it's only slightly above average.

[sammiel]

except the situation hasn't changed. there are no more successful control decks in today's metagame than there were at any point in legacy's history.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Honestly, if you think this article is outdated or irrelevant, then you didn't understand it.

The specific decks talked about in the article may not appear in your testing gaunlet anymore, but it was not Anwar's intention to offer the reader any sort of new tech. Instead, he chose the decks and matchups that he did in order to most clearly illustrate the problems that control decks have to deal with in this format.

This analysis is the content of the article, and it is by no means outdated in today's Legacy. In fact, this article will likely prove to be relatively timeless; as long as Legacy exists, control decks will be asked to overcome the same general difficulties.

[URABAHN]

While the ideas presented in the article are not outdated, the article clearly is. As it stands, the Perils of Playing Control is nothing more than a History lesson. For those of us who've taken The History of Control Decks 101, it's a bore. Remember, Anwar used those examples because he felt they were the most obvious.

If we all know Earth is round, why tell us?

[Hoojo]

While the ideas presented in the article are not outdated, the article clearly is. As it stands, the Perils of Playing Control is nothing more than a History lesson. For those of us who've taken The History of Control Decks 101, it's a bore. Remember, Anwar used those examples because he felt they were the most obvious.

If we all know Earth is round, why tell us?

This is wrong. Anwar's article defines what makes control weak and points out exactly what people interested in control need to work on to make it competative. That's the beauty of the article; players looking at the various control builds can use this article as a reference for fine-tuning control decks. If you are looking at the dates on the decklists, you aren't understanding what the article is trying to do.

[URABAHN]

...points out exactly what people interested in control need to work on to make it competative.

Where in the article does Anwar offer suggestions as to how people should can fix Control?


I wasn't able to provide any insight in how to make control better in the future because I'm unsure how to. It seems that beating both aggro and combo at the same time is very difficult along with having to deal with other control strategies.


That's the beauty of the article; players looking at the various control builds can use this article as a reference for fine-tuning control decks.

Are Rifter and Truffle Shuffle decklists going to help me play Control today? Can we include Onslaught U/W Control, Sarnia Affinity, R/W Rift-Slide, Mono-Black Control, Keeper, and Parfait decklists, too? Will Deadguy Red decklists help aggro decks in Legacy? ProsBloom help combo?

I cannot disagree with the ideas Anwar presents in his article. The message is fine, but the article is too short. What about Landstill vs. TES? Does it share the same problems as Truffle Shuffle vs. IGGy Pop? What about 43land.dec vs. Cephalid Breakfast? Does it share the same problems as Rifter vs. Solidarity? The article doesn't go the extra mile to show that Control still plays WRONG or NO answers.


If you are looking at the dates on the decklists, you aren't understanding what the article is trying to do.

If anyone's fixated on the dates of the decklists, it has to be you and ObFreely. I'm not sure what you two are trying to get at by essentially saying

"You just don't understand."

Understand what? I think I've made myself incredibly clear that I get the message Anwar is sending and I agree with his opinions. Is there something more to be gained from the article? If so, I'm all ears.

[AnwarA101]

Are Rifter and Truffle Shuffle decklists going to help me play Control today? Can we include Onslaught U/W Control, Sarnia Affinity, R/W Rift-Slide, Mono-Black Control, Keeper, and Parfait decklists, too? Will Deadguy Red decklists help aggro decks in Legacy? ProsBloom help combo?



There is something to be gained by looking at previous control decks. You can see their flaws and try not to repeat them. If you get the urge to build a control deck with just answers to creatures, Rifter should teach you that isn't a particularly great strategy at least in Legacy. If you think you can get away with running 8 disruptions spells to beat combo, Truffle Shuffle should teach you that is rarely enough.

[Sims]

An article on SCG that I actually bothered to read, and I found it very worthwhile. The article may not provide teh l447 s3krit t3k to creating a control variant that can hold a solid game against Aggro, Aggro-Control, Combo, and other Control strategies (if there even is a way) but it did outline some of the problems control has had in the past, which allows us to not repeat those mistakes if we delve into that control world. I don't play control often and rarely try to build control decks unless I am bored, but it does aid one to know the faults of building your deck like a glass cannon set to go off at 1 or 2 archtypes. Gunning for aggro will get you rolled by Combo or other Control, very limited disruption isn't enough, etc...

Btw- <3 Anwars avatar.

[Hoojo]

There is something to be gained by looking at previous control decks. You can see their flaws and try not to repeat them. If you get the urge to build a control deck with just answers to creatures, Rifter should teach you that isn't a particularly great strategy at least in Legacy. If you think you can get away with running 8 disruptions spells to beat combo, Truffle Shuffle should teach you that is rarely enough.

This essentially sums up what I gathered. Against combo, 8 discard spells and/or counters is "answer-light" and more emphasis needs to be placed on "difficult-to-answer" permanent answers or answers that combat both aggro and combo. The Landstill VS Goblin matchup tells me that I need "difficult to answer" permanent answers that preserve board posistion or be able to capitalize faster when I gain board posistion and win.

[AnwarA101]

This essentially sums up what I gathered. Against combo, 8 discard spells and/or counters is "answer-light" and more emphasis needs to be placed on "difficult-to-answer" permanent answers or answers that combat both aggro and combo. The Landstill VS Goblin matchup tells me that I need "difficult to answer" permanent answers that preserve board posistion or be able to capitalize faster when I gain board posistion and win.

The problem is finding answers that work against both combo and aggro are usually difficult to find. Most of these decks have very little in common except perhaps that Empty the Warrens generates token creatures.

[sammiel]

I don't know who originally said this, but it's an incredibly relevant statement for building any deck, especially a control deck.

There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.

The problem with most control decks is that they are full of answers and very light on threats. The threats they do run are almost always very mana intensive, either by having a 4+ casting cost, or by requiring a mana investiture (manlands).

The ideal control deck is one that is capable of quickly disrupting your opponent's gameplan while placing cheap efficient threats on the board, and then keeping your opponent on his heels before he can outdraw you.

That deck is called threshold. As far as I know, Threshold's only consistently bad matchup is decks with heavier control elements, which are basically obsolete except as a metagame call in a heavy aggro-control environment. Except in that environment, it's probably better to play aggro-control tuned to have an advantage in the aggro-control mirror, such as the UG thresh that won at Gencon.

A deck with more of a control element than threshold will only be successful if it is still capable of putting the game away quickly. The problem with lategame control decks is that despite how powerful your deck is in the lategame, if a combo deck overwhelms you in the early game, you are screwed. In the lategame, despite the fact that your deck performs best there, every turn that goes by you are giving your aggro opponent one more chance to topdeck that burn or creature that goes the distance.

I'm gonna use everyone's favorite creature as an example.

Think of Tarmogoyf as more than a threat, but a threat and an answer. Let's say you are playing a control deck vs an aggro deck, and your opponent has a 2/1 and a pair of 2/2s out. You drop a Tarmogoyf that is 4/5. You also still have mana left for a draw/removal/counter spell. Now if you had cast a removal spell instead of dropping a creature, your opponent would have still had an easy decision, attack for 4 damage. Now that you've played a big blocker, you have changed the board in a much more dynamic way. Now your opponent has to start doing math in his head and decide whether or not to lose creatures attacking through your tarmogoyf, or overextend his board position to try and alpha-strike. Lets say your opponent doesnt attack and passes turn with 2 cards in his hand. You now draw and have two cards in hand. Several possibilities here.

You attack.

Not counting the cards in his hand, your opponent has to block with all three creatures to kill your tarmogoyf, and you can kill two of them. Your goyf just became a 2 for 1 removal spell that also prevented you from taking damage for a turn.

Your opponent blocks with one creature and tries to burn out your goyf. You counter his removal, resulting in a 1 for 1 card trade, and you still have a goyf on the table.

Your opponent blocks with all three creatures, you remove one before combat damage. The combination of your creature and your removal spell results in a 3 for 1 card trade, because you still have your goyf.

You pass turn without attacking.

Your opponent plays a 4th creature and passes turn. After you draw, you have 3 cards in hand, your opponent has two.

You attack.

Your opponent, now having 9 power on the table, lets the Goyf through thinking that you've made a mistake, since you are at nine life. Post combat main-phase, you use mass removal and clear the board. Results in a 4 for 2 card trade, except in this situation, your creature got you through two combat phases without taking damage, and also damaged your opponent.

Your opponent, reading that you have mass removal in hand, chump blocks the goyf. You wrath anyway, resulting in 4 for 2 card trade. Your creature still got you through two combat phases without taking damage, but your opponent played tightly so he didn't do damage.

As another example, lets say your opponent is in a dominant board position, and you have 6 mana available. In my case, you wrath, and then drop a Tarmogoyf. Because you were running with an cheap undercosted threat instead of a more expensive resilient threat, you were able to steal the initiative from your opponent. If, in that situation, you had a 3, 4, or 5cc threat in your hand, you would wrath but the board position would be neutral with your opponent still having the initiative. If he then drops a threat, you are now back on the defensive, even when you drop your 3/4/5cc threat on your turn. If you had wrathed, dropped a goyf, and then followed up with a 3/4/5cc threat, you've gone past taking initiative to the point of getting your opponent on his heels, which is where you want him until you win the game.

I consider Landstill to be, objectively, the most powerful deck in the format. It runs the most powerful draw engine in the format, the best answers in the format, has threats that are resilient to removal, and has the best lategame finishers in the format.

Subjectively, Landstill is the best example of inherently flawed deck design in the format. Conversely, the old trio of Threshold, Goblins, and Solidarity, are examples of nearly flawless deck design. The recent shortcomings of Solidarity and Goblins are not due to problems with the deck designs, but rather the powercreep of the format.

Threshold's gameplan is to quickly get undercosted beaters on the table, and then go the distance with cheap hand optimization, cheap removal, and cheap/free countermagic.

Goblins' gameplan is to keep throwing little green men at your opponent's lifetotal until it reaches zero. It has well curved mana costs, cheap, cantripping removal, endgame bombs that get around the attack phase, and the possibility of combo wins as early as turn 3.

Solidarity's gameplan is to quickly optimize the hand, and combo off. The all-instant nature of the deck means that many of your opponents cards are useless, many decks will not have enough relevant cards to sideboard in, resulting in useless cards even post-board. The deck also has the benefit of inevitability, meaning that without sufficient pressure, your hand will reach a critical mass that cannot reasonably be prevented from comboing.

Landstill's gameplan is to play cheap card drawing and removal early on, focusing on drawing your opponent into the mid to late game where the deck excels. The problem is that to accomodate this strategy, the deck completely lacks early game aggression. Even with a multiple factory draw, you cannot play aggressively because factories just don't do much damage, and you can't play aggressively against combo at all because then you are tying up your mana instead of saving it for spells to disrupt your opponent's combo.

I believe there is a sweetspot between the early game of threshold and the late game of landstill that is still waiting to be tapped. It just remains to see if it's worth playing that deck over threshold.

[URABAHN]

There is something to be gained by looking at previous control decks. You can see their flaws and try not to repeat them. If you get the urge to build a control deck with just answers to creatures, Rifter should teach you that isn't a particularly great strategy at least in Legacy. If you think you can get away with running 8 disruptions spells to beat combo, Truffle Shuffle should teach you that is rarely enough.

At the risk of spiraling out into another topic, I think further analysis could have been done as to why Landstill and 43land are the top Control decks right now. What are those decks doing that Rifter and Truffle Shuffle weren't doing in Q4 2006? Neither Landstill nor 43land is running all creature hate (well, maybe 43land's maindeck) or 8 disruption spells to beat combo. If those criteria are not longer being met, then what's holding back Control?

[AnwarA101]

At the risk of spiraling out into another topic, I think further analysis could have been done as to why Landstill and 43land are the top Control decks right now. What are those decks doing that Rifter and Truffle Shuffle weren't doing in Q4 2006? Neither Landstill nor 43land is running all creature hate (well, maybe 43land's maindeck) or 8 disruption spells to beat combo. If those criteria are not longer being met, then what's holding back Control?

Well this is off-topic, but 43land at least has the option to go aggro. It can go Manabond into like double Factory, or Factory and Monastry with a Loam in the yard. Rifter couldn't even pray that it could aggro except perhaps an early Lightning Rift and that really wasn't aggro. Landstill has more versatile answers so it can beat some combo, but I beat Landstill with Permanent Waves (new High Tide deck) and I know wastedlife beat Landstill with TES at the recent NOVA tourney. So I'm not sure Landstill and 43land are all that good against combo decks. 43land seems to work against Ghoul version of Breakfast because of Maze of Ith and such, but that is only because of a specific interaction. 43 land isn't particulary good against Brain Freeze or Tendrils of Agony.


I don't know who originally said this, but it's an incredibly relevant statement for building any deck, especially a control deck.

There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.


I believe it was Dave Price.

[Nihil Credo]

I believe there is a sweetspot between the early game of threshold and the late game of landstill that is still waiting to be tapped. It just remains to see if it's worth playing that deck over threshold.

I think TarmoTog is poised to become such a deck - it's basically Threshold with Intuition and a few recursion tricks to enable a lategame strategy. However, there's still quite a bit of work to be done on it.