random control brew

[frogboy]

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Wrath of God

4 Spell Snare
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Fact or Fiction

3 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm

1 Windswept Heath
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
2 Lonely Sandbar
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Island
1 Plains

sideboard:

1 Life from the Loam
1 Academy Ruins
1 Exile into Darkness
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
3 Deep Analysis
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 unknown sideboard card for tribal aggro decks that isn't Plague. Porphyry Nodes, Wing Shards, Tsabo's Decree, I dunno. Plumeveil >_>

This is sort of a port of an Extended Faeries list, at least in terms of numbers of cards that do x things. It's 25/61 but I want the second Sandbar pretty badly and can't cut any other lands. Third Tundra might be training wheels. Plains might not be necessary and could be another Wasteland or Factory. Vendilion Clique is pretty sweet. There were two Wraths but I decided I wanted to be able to Intuition one up as needed. The third one is the 61st. A Fact could go instead but I want that many draw spells. I board Fact out a lot, though, so I dunno. I haven't Intuitioned for Deeps since like 2004 but it was always a gigantic beating back then so it probably still is!

Tarmogoyf makes your Counterspells and Snares way worse while making all of their removal spells way better. If you needed him to hold the ground and they kill it, you are probably in a pretty bad way. If you just kill all their shit instead, they have nothing. Clique getting Plowed sort of sucks, but you still Duress and you get to untap instead of having them Plow your animal and untap and play something even worse. God help you if you get Sowered. Goyf would be in one of the removal slots, but he's worse removal than all the actual removal spells, and I would rather play Clique as a win condition.

(sideboard is over, but tunable to own meta, etc. I think the second Ruins is pretty important and so are the unknown cards. To get to fifteen I would probably cut a Loam and a Canonist. If meta infested with mountains, storm probably doesn't exist; cut the Canonists for some random bullet.)

Exile is retarded against all of the decks that evolved out of Threshold. Intuitioning for Loams is pretty slow but pretty sick going long, and setting up Explosives and/or Shackles is very strong against a lot of things. After boarding you would tend to just want to get up on cards instead because of Grip being a sort of trump in that it's a sick tempo play, but game one a Ruins pile is usually fine. Wish is also really slow. I thought about just playing 4 Fact or Fiction but when I was playing Landstill before it felt like if I was digging for something I would get a loose 2-3 split and have to take a bad pile. Dunno.

A Top might be good if for some reason you need to make Loam more retarded.

I don't like Vindicate because it doesn't reliably get Counterbalance and you usually pay as much or more mana than what you killed.

I don't like Counterbalance as much in control decks because it's hard to reliably have ones twos and threes and decks aren't quite as vulnerable to it. You also fall behind on board while establishing it.

Cryptic is fine but what do you cut? Maybe 3 Counterspell/1 Cryptic, but drawing two early is pretty clunky and it's pretty blue intensive.

Sea kicks Explosives to four and provides Exile. I think Grip is pretty important.

counterbalance threshold lists:

+3 Krosan Grip +2 Deep Analysis +1 Exile into Darkness
-1 Force of Will -3 Wrath of God -2 Fact or Fiction

Wrath is a very expensive one for one that taps you out. Concievably, they could stay and all the Forces could go. I hate Force of Will because the matchup is basically based around attrition and Forcing is awkward, but I don't want to have too many four mana draw spells in my hand. You probably get Deeps most of the time because getting Ruins/Loam/Shackles is a million mana and if you get Gripped it's the worst.

If they don't have Counterbalance, they're probably super aggro. The Deep package might be too slow, but Wrath is probably solid against them. Grips can stay on the bench. I dunno, I'd probably make it up as I went along.

control mirrors:

-3 Wrath of God -2 Engineered Explosives
+3 Deep Analysis +1 Academy Ruins +1 Life from the Loam

Against Dreadstill specifically you bring in Grips and leave the Explosives in, instead cutting probably Cliques or Facts or maybe Shackles.

I'm not sure if you need the spare Ruins and Loam; it depends on how many people have stuff like Mage for Relic/Crypt. It's also worth noting that you probably get the Deep package with one of your first two Intuitions, so you might be able to free up some space. I would have to test it.

Goblins, Daze aggro without Counterbalance (Merfolk, Countersliver, et al):

+1 Wrath of God +3 other

Goblin cuts: -4 Spell Snare (I think you want a Shackles going long; at least, I did in Extended. Explosives might be cuttable but seriously fuck Vial.)
Daze aggro: Probably cutting Facts and two Counterspells

Not sure what to add. It's probably the same card, because I'm pretty sure it wants to be based in removal. I don't think Plague is good because I think anyone it's good against has a plan for it. Tsabo's Decree might be lol. Anyone have any good ideas?

(The problem with Plague is that it's not terribly effective because Goblins has outs and Merfolk and Slivers have a million lords. Two or more is good, but I prefer to not be on the "mise" plan. Crystalline Sliver makes spot removal sort of frustrating, and you might need stuff that gets you up cards because Goblins has the Ringleader engine and the Daze decks play like seven less land than you do.)

Survival variants:

+1 Wrath +3 Grip +1 Tormod's Crypt
-3 Explosives -2 Counterspell

storm combo:

-3 Wrath of God -1 Vedalken Shackles
+4 Ethersworn Canonist

random mountain nonsense:

I don't even know what the best card against these decks is or if I even care. It's probably Circle: Red, Pulse of the Fields, or Chill. Chalice is neat but if I were them I would have a plan for it.

Boarding depends, probably Wraths or Counterspells go most of the time

[Anusien]

Wrath of God seems miserable. Most of the time you're paying 4 mana to get a Goyf and a Trinket Mage.

Wasteland seems sort of miserable. At the least, I'd cut it for Dust Bowl. I might cut it for a colored source; sure you can Loam for Sandbar, Sandbar, Wasteland and Waste them, but that seems so incredibly weak. I guess with that many cycle lands you can put something on top and still get a card. The problem is that you're mana hungry and not getting to make extra land drops. What about Mox Diamond?

P.S., since the deck is already clumsy, what about Forbid?

[frogboy]

You could maybe play one Diamond. The decks Wrath is bad against you would tend to beat by virtue of being a better control deck, and Wrath is both reasonable against the suicide Morphling-analogue plan and is still serviceable if you just need to kill a guy. The decks Wrath is good against tend to be kold to it.

Dust Bowl costs an unbelievable amount of mana. Wasteland isn't there to Strip them into oblivion; it kills Factories, Ruins, and other such nonsense. If you get the miser's free win, sure, take it, but that's not the primary goal.

1 Forbid over a Counterspell might be pretty sick.

[Anusien]

Pretty sure you're going to have a hard time winning in time.

[frogboy]

pretty sure I use maybe 30% of total match time and am pretty aggressive about hurrying other people up.

also vendilion is a beater rawrrrrrrrr

[Roman Candle]

Have you thought about Etched Oracle? It's a recurring, un-STPable win-con with Academy Ruins that also draws a rediculous amount of cards.

[frogboy]

Costs a bunch of mana, is clunky to draw naturally, and is still clunky when you tutor it up. Sandbars are basically two mana, draw a card, and Oracle is eight mana, draw four cards, except Sandbars require way less main phase mana and don't require your mana to be perfect.

[Anusien]

I love Clique but it dies to a stiff breeze. I've had problems before where I couldn't find a way to kill opponents because Cliques died to on-board Fanatics. Maybe Stronghold is enough.

I've had a crush on Etched Oracle for about four years, but I'm pretty sure she's wrong here. I tried it once, but the problem is that the matchups where you want Etched Oracle and have time to cast her, mainly Landstill and slower blue decks, you really don't want to present that many Wasteland targets.

[Roman Candle]

Costs a bunch of mana, is clunky to draw naturally, and is still clunky when you tutor it up. Sandbars are basically two mana, draw a card, and Oracle is eight mana, draw four cards, except Sandbars require way less main phase mana and don't require your mana to be perfect.

I meant more as a resilient win condition than recurring card draw. It probably isn't likely, but it is possible that you just run out of win conditions if your Mishra's are StP'd or Crypted/Relic'd postboard. If not Etched Oracle, I would at least look at Gigapede, but even that is vulnerable to Relic and Crypt postboard.

EDIT: Although maybe just maindecking Volrath's Stronghold would be better.

[frogboy]

If my opponents want to board in Tormod's Crypt in the control mirror they are more than welcome to do so. I could maybe see a Decree or an Echoes as a different sort of threat, but the Romao plan is only good if your opponent can't, for example, do things like Wasteland in response to a Plow if they need to, or whatever.

Stronghold does nothing when you're behind and does little when you're ahead. Meanwhile, Fanatic is less good, Goblins is on the decline, you can still get people with Factories if for some reason you are unable to remove a Mogg Fanatic from play, etc.

[Anusien]

You can't however get them with Factories if they get your Cliques with Plow. Going long I don't think you can beat Landstill, fwiw.

[Nihil Credo]

How about taking a page from Stax and sideboarding 3-4 Exalted Angel? They're a pain for tribal to deal with, and they can work as extra win conditions against anything running more than eight removal spells.

[frogboy]

You can't however get them with Factories if they get your Cliques with Plow.

Why not?


Going long I don't think you can beat Landstill, fwiw.

Odd. The deck with the better inevitability plan, more land, more card draw, and more permission is usually the one that is favored in the control mirror. I would actually expect Landstill to be pretty easy.


How about taking a page from Stax and sideboarding 3-4 Exalted Angel? They're a pain for tribal to deal with, and they can work as extra win conditions against anything running more than eight removal spells.

Like, if you actually care about their removal spell, if, say, you dredged all your Cliques and they Plowed two of your Factories and now they're pointing another RFG spell at one, you can counter it. Note that if you've been attacking for that long that you're probably up a million cards. No one ever whines about Tarmogoyf not being enough win conditions, and Vendilion Clique is essentially the same card that happens to be killed by Fanatic.

Angel can still be Gempalmed or Plowed and is hideously vulnerable as a morph and too expensive as a six. Baneslayer Angel is probably better but five is still a ton of mana.