Mono White ConTroll - or: "How to put the "troll" into control"

[Barook]

Behold! This is a thing of beauty:



3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
3 Rest in Peace
4 Runed Halo
3 Stony Silence
3 Suppression Field
4 Idyllic Tutor
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Nevermore
4 Oblivion Ring
1 Endless Horizons
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Sigil of the Empty Throne

4 Porphyry Nodes
1 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
1 Suppression Field
2 Aura of Silence
1 Rule of Law
2 Faith's Fetters
2 Heliod, God of the Sun
1 Nevermore

Travis Woo put this abomination together on this stream yesterday: Click me

The kicker: How it fares against Jund or hyperaggressive decks is yet to be seen, but: This pile actually seems to work, believe it or not (although it certainly needs refinement).

Played a few games on MODO so far - it's hilarious. I even had the honor to play against the mirror - man, that was absolutely miserable and about as much fun as TNN mirrors, especially post-board with Aura of Silences and Nevermore.

[Arsenal]

Seems not terrible. You have a fair amount of maindeck cards that really hurt the top tiered decks. What are the terribad matchups for this?

[cherub_daemon]

What are the terribad matchups for this?

Here's how I see a lot of this deck's losses going: "Stabilize" at a low life total by turn 4, then die to something random because there's no life gain and no instant-speed defense. Also, a lot of the creature defense relies on neutralizing a named threat. Seems like the bad matchups are going to be things like Zoo and Burn with a large number of threats and some reach. (Burn is of course hosed by a t0 Leyline, but if you don't see it in the opener, it's going to be t4 before you get it down.)

I feel like Shining Shoal might be a good addition, because in any given match-up, you're going to see some cards that are stone dead, and it can allow you to stabilize at a slightly higher life or prevent some one-off you didn't see coming from killing you.

[Arsenal]

Although I agree with the named card defense being sketchy, I think you're underestimating the power of turn 2 Suppression Field, turn 3 Ghostly Prison against Zoo, particularly if you're on the play.

Field also greatly hampers Planeswalkers like Domri Rade out of Zoo, Liliana of the Veil out of BGx decks. And just being able to stack them is ggpo for a lot of decks (UWR Control relies on 7-8 fetches to smooth out it's bipolar manabase). It should probably be a 4-of maindeck imo. Luminarch Acsension seems like a reasonable inclusion in here as well once you've Prison-ed them, but you don't necessarily want to keep playing spells to trigger Sigil.

Reverence may be good here too. Shuts down Twin, Zoo, a lot of Pod's attackers, random aggro, etc.

[Barook]

I've cut MD Stony Silence. It's just dead in too many match-ups. Added a couple of Gitaxian Probes to smooth out draws (23 lands is a tad bit too low) and for the added synergy with Runed Halo and Nevermore.

Luminarch Ascension sounds interesting (especially with Nykthos mana, you can blow out your opponent almost immediately after it goes online), but the anti-synergy with Suppression Field can be an issue. Nevertheless, I'm going to test 2 copies and see how it goes.

I would also love to port the deck to Legacy since we have quite a few fun toys, but Legacy isn't a durdle format like Modern.

[(nameless one)]

Has anyone thought of Mesa Enchantress as a means to draw or is it not needed?

[Barook]

I don't think she would survive long enough, considering she's pretty much the only target for creature removal in the deck. Having a draw engine would be nice, though.

Done some further testing. Burn is doable, even if you stablize at very low life. Leyline is key here.

Other stuff: Infect is a terrible match-up. They're simply too fast.

Ramp decks like Mono Green Devotion or Tron gives it huge trouble.

I don't like Porphyry Nodes too much. It's always too slow to be relevant or win-more. Journey to Nowhere might be overall better since it gets shit done.

I don't know too much about Modern, but is there some non-banned acceleration that the deck can use and doesn't suck?

Edit: What about Elspeth as alternate wincon?

[Phoenix Ignition]

People keep coming up with this style of deck and I just don't think it's doable in Modern for large tournaments. If you can sneak it into an unsuspecting inbred meta you can probably win a lot, but like any stax style deck 1/2 of your deck is dead against any given matchup and if you get the wrong cards against the wrong deck you lose. Pair that up with all of your defense being proactive and thus easy targets to blow up and you're going to have an extremely streaky deck. If it ever does get in the spotlight there are so many "Destroy all Enchantments" effects that it'll be slammed back into the ground. At least the graveyard combo decks can run reactive removal to prevent RiP/Relic/Tormod's Crypt from shutting down their day. Nevermore is literally the only defense this deck has against mass removal.

The main problem is it doesn't run anything to come back from behind like Replenish or Karmic Justice to prevent people from mass removal. You can only stop destruction with Nevermore, which isn't as catch all as you'd hope against a lot of decks that run multiple ways of blowing up stuff. Legacy enchantress has always had combo kills to win fast, but they either rely on searching (helm/RiP) or massive card draw (Words of ____, Sigil).

[Arsenal]

The only card I can think of is Faith's Reward, but that is too situational as if you don't have the 4 mana open at the exact moment, it's a dead card again.

[Mr. Safety]

Is there a reason you are avoiding Gift of Estates or other mana acceleration? I see a singleton Endless Horizons, which I think is tech. Drawing all gas seems really good past turn 4.

[Lord Seth]

The only card I can think of is Faith's Reward, but that is too situational as if you don't have the 4 mana open at the exact moment, it's a dead card again.

What about Open the Vaults?

[Barook]

What about Open the Vaults?

How do you get stuff in the graveyard first?

I wonder if Blind Obedience would be of any use here to gain some life, but I guess it would be too low-impact.

[Arsenal]

Faith's Reward/Open the Vaults was in response to Phoenix Ignition mentioning that we'd be in trouble if the opponent destroyed pivotal enchantments (Back to Nature/Tempest of Light out the opponent's sideboard if this ConTroll deck ever became a major meta player).

[Valtrix]

I think what's missing is Scrying Sheets + Snow-covered plains engine. :D It's actually surprisingly useful, and you can probably even play it alongside shrine. I'd at least try it out, I really like said engine in mono-white decks that I've played in the past.

[Davran]

Surprised to not see Worship here.

[(nameless one)]

I wonder if Blind Obedience would be of any use here to gain some life, but I guess it would be too low-impact.

Not really, it slows down aggro to a certain degree. I would imagine it would be great with Mesa Enchantress and Nykithos. Tap Nykithos to cast an enchantment, Enchantress draws you a card and Blind Obedience deals damage.

I think what's missing is Scrying Sheets + Snow-covered plains engine. :D It's actually surprisingly useful, and you can probably even play it alongside shrine. I'd at least try it out, I really like said engine in mono-white decks that I've played in the past.

Scrying Sheets doesn't work well with Suppression Field.


@the whole deck: are enchantment creatures ever considered? Or even just Baneslayer Angels as a win condition?

[Arsenal]

I like keeping it creatureless as to completely blank your opponent's removal spells. There are plenty of good non-creature win conditions that synergize with the rest of the deck. Suppression Field really should be a 4-of maindeck:

It cripples Living End's cycling engine. It cripples Tron's Egg/Expedition Map nonsense. It slows down Affinity enough for you to stabilize with a Ghostly Prison. It slows down UWR Control/Midrange unless they drew natural lands (doubtful with a deck running 7-8 fetches). It cripples Twin trying to go off (Splinter Twin is an activated ability). Even though Jund is likely finished due to the banning of DRS, it slows them down greatly by making DRS, fetches, Ooze, and Liliana all terrible. That's 6 decks that it definitely will have game against... and that's just with 1 Field in play. Drop a 2nd Field and it's almost insurmountable for those decks to get back in the game.

[Lord Seth]

I like keeping it creatureless as to completely blank your opponent's removal spells. There are plenty of good non-creature win conditions that synergize with the rest of the deck. Suppression Field really should be a 4-of maindeck:

It cripples Living End's cycling engine. It cripples Tron's Egg/Expedition Map nonsense.

Actually, it does nothing to the Chromatics at all, because cracking them is a mana ability.

It does hit Map, Relic, and Oblivion Stone though. (Karn too, but 2 mana to activate Karn isn't a big deal)

[gregtron]

I've cut MD Stony Silence. It's just dead in too many match-ups. Added a couple of Gitaxian Probes to smooth out draws (23 lands is a tad bit too low) and for the added synergy with Runed Halo and Nevermore.

Luminarch Ascension sounds interesting (especially with Nykthos mana, you can blow out your opponent almost immediately after it goes online), but the anti-synergy with Suppression Field can be an issue. Nevertheless, I'm going to test 2 copies and see how it goes.

I would also love to port the deck to Legacy since we have quite a few fun toys, but Legacy isn't a durdle format like Modern.

If you want to turn the durdle up to eleven by by playing enchantments in Legacy, then boy do I have good news for you.

[Blair Phoenix]

I built a deck very similar to this a week or so before Woo came out with his version lol.

Creatures
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4 Magus of the Tabernacle

Enchantments
2 Blind Obedience
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Runed Halo
2 Sigil of the Empty Throne
3 Sphere of Safety
3 Suppression Field

Sorcery
3 Idyllic Tutor

Lands
4 Scrying Sheets
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
16 Snow-Covered Plains

I went overall with more prison/control style variant with a scrying sheets base. I know suppression field can hamper that, but with an active Nykthos, I generally have enough mana not to care.