Left Field Control

[Mister Agent]

So I have been liking ugb control decks and so I decided to make this:

Left Field Control


1 Academy Ruins
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
2 Island
3 Tropical Island

2 Life from the Loam
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Spell Pierce
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Treasure Hunt
4 Innocent Blood
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm

2 Krosan Grip
4 Engineered Plague
2 Worm Harvest
2 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Extirpate
2 Relic of Progenitus


I got the idea from CAB Jace and it's also a spin off of Ugb Landstill.

Card choices:

Life from the loam: Works well with Worm Harvest in the sideboard and constantly bringing back your wastelands, fetchlands, duals, and manlands wins you games. Considering, this deck needs alot of mana to operate consistently.

Engineered explosives: Pretty much a required card for this deck.

Fact or fiction: I haven't really figured out what to do with this slot yet but for now FoF seems to work just fine.

Spell pierce: Mostly for combo but can be used in other various aggro-control matchups.

Jace, the mind sculptor: An auto four-of and it's the best card in the deck.

Pernicious Deed: Another auto playset and with creature decks everywhere this seems like a necassary card in Ugb blue based control.

Treasure Hunt: A killer draw spell with 26 lands in the deck.

Innocent Blood: With emrakul decks running all over innocent blood seems really good right now.

Force of will: Duh

Counterspell: Has always been a great, flexible, and versatile counterspell.

Brainstorm: See force of will.

Matchup analysis

Merfolks: Favorable. You have all of the best cards against them like deed, explosives, and engineered plague. Your advantage of playing under standstill is just as good as theirs unless they happen to resolve an AEther Vial on the previous turn. A resolved Treasure hunt and/or life from the loam can help you recover from wasteland. Although, engineered plague doesn't always work to your advantage especially with a rapid levelled Coralhelm commander. However, this is why deed is really good in this matchup.

Zoo: Favorable to Unfavorable(Depending if they are running price of progress or not). You have just as much removal as they have threats. Your countermagic package is pretty solid against their burn spells, especially, postboard.

New Horizons: Favorable, Your board sweepers along with Jace can make quick work of their clock. Since you play with so many lands as well as Treasure hunt and loam you can quickly recover from stifles/wastelands.


In the next few weeks, as I test more with the deck, I will add on to the matchup analysis for this deck and I'll add other content as well.

Also, I want to come up with a better name for the deck too. :)

Feel free to discuss!

[Valtrix]

Not to nitpick or anything, but have you actually tested the zoo MU? It seems really difficult without an abundance of creature removal, and you don't have "as many threats as they do." A typical zoo list is going to have 21+ creatures, versus your...2 EE, 4 blood, 4 deed, so 10? Mishra's don't really count. I've tested the MU quite a bit actually, playing a control deck with 18 removal effects (4 sword, 3 blood, 2 diabolic edict, 3 explosives, 3 firespout, 3 maze of ith), which was able to win very consistently. (Zoo was about 5/25 games, or very close to absurd like that). After changing the main to attack other decks differently, I ended up dropping to 12 removal effects (4 swords, 2 EE, 3 firespout, 3 maze of ith), which changed my games to about 50-50. I even dropped mazes and found my winning going down even more. I noticed that without significant creature removal effects, you'll have to use all of your resources on creatures, but they'll still sneak damage through, putting you right into burn range. Perhaps this is an observation of mine, but this is what I've seen. Whenever creatures actually matter, even if you stabilize, the burn tends to get there. Deed in particular is a poor answer versus them, because it's so slow and can just die to pridemage.

Likewise the same goes for Merfolk. They run about as many threats, but they'll actually stop any of your answers with counters. Additionally, they have a lot more tricks, so I think you'll find yourself having a tough time against them as well.

Have you been finding things differently?

[The Pharmacist]

I really don't think 1 fact or fiction is going to do much for you. I think I would make that spot Worm Harvset. Also Damnation could be good in this deck.

[Mister Agent]

Well, I find spell pierce to be pretty efficient in both matchups and I haven't really had a problem removing their threats in a timely fashion. When I would test the zoo matchup, I remember losing more to price of progress then anything else to be honest.

As far as running as much removal spells as they do threats, I meant on general terms since zoo usually has 2-3 critters in play at a time.

Not to mention, I'd still argue that pernicious deed is pretty good against merfolks since it blows up their vials in addition and gets around cursecatcher. So I'd probably would be more wary if I happen to play against a merfolk list with stifle in addition to their usual countermagic suite.

Also, yeah I've tested all three matchups.

@The pharmacist: I agree the 1 FoF hasn't really been doing that much for me. Worm harvest does seem like the better option. As for damnation, achieving two black mana might be hard with all of those wastelands running around but I'll definitely consider testing it. Although, I thought about playing perish in the board.

[The Pharmacist]

Less and less decks are running Wasteland now days. Getting two black mana really may not be that hard. Also you may want to look into Garruk. Being able to untap two blue lands for counter magic could be really good for you. If you added Garruk You can add a few Bayou and that helps with your two black

[Mister Agent]

You know, I probably could fit in a garruck. I'll test it out this friday for a bit and see how that goes.

Also, yeah wasteland hasn't really been a problem anyway because of the 26 lands, loams, and treasure hunts in this deck.

So I am thinking about testing a deck like this:


1 Academy Ruins
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Bayou
2 Island
3 Tropical Island

2 Life from the Loam
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Garruck
2 Spell Pierce
2 Damnation
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Treasure Hunt
3 Innocent Blood
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm

[The Pharmacist]

I like the way this list is going. I feel going to 3 Jace is a good call and I really like Garruck. I do feel you should be playing two of them tho. I would cut a deed for the 2nd one.

[Mister Agent]

I was playing the list above on mws and I managed to beat these matchups:

Ubg Landstill 2-0
New horizons 2-0
Mono blue merfolk 2-1
UG Survival madness 2-1


Garruck actually felt pretty solid against both New horizons and ugb landstill. Considering, ugb landstill doesn't run any creatures and against New horizons I have jace, deed, ee, bloods, and damnation to protect garruck.

Against UG survival madness, I just steam roll them with mass removal and graveyard hate. I'd admit, I won g3 on the back of extirpate targetting vengevine which takes a good chunk of that deck's explosiveness away.

Also, yeah I want to make this change: -1 deed for +1 garruck. I still have plenty of removal spells anyhow.

[heroicraptor]

Needs more Sensei's Divining Top.

[Mister Agent]

I would run Fact or fiction before I would run top but FoF was cut for garruck. Between Treasure hunt, jace, and brainstorm you have plenty of library manipulation and card filter as is.

[The Pharmacist]

Needs more Sensei's Divining Top.

Why would you put top in this deck? It doesn't fit the build at all and it's not good for the deck

[Mister Agent]

Here are some reasons on why I don't like top in here:

1. When I would test it out, I always felt like it could be something else like treasure hunt, especially with 26 lands in the deck.
2. It would most likely be in the treasure hunt slots.
3. It's not pitchable to force of will and with 26 lands in the deck I'd like to have at least 20 blue cards including Force to pitch to force.
4. I like having to crack my fetches after I use the brainstorm ability of Jace and also brainstorm itself. With top it's not as nearly as good since I am not putting back cards.