Control as an Archetype

[raharu]

I remember a thread asking if Control as an entire archetype was viable, possibly started by P_R or Nightmare, someone much smarter than I was a year or so ago. At the time, I was not developed enough to realize the implications on that question, argued yes, if the archetype was willing to adapt a bit, and left it at that. Now, as I continue my quest for perfect control, like others before me, I question conventions of the archetype, much like others before me.

To the point, and the thesis statement: in what manner does control need to adapt, as an entire ideology, to dominate in the modern metagame? Control has always run the “most powerful” (i.e. expensive) control elements and win conditions. Tons of late game card draw, with the now lackluster Fact or Fiction as a mainstay, and generous amounts of land, which was necessary to support the aforementioned powerful draw and control.

Since then, a great deal of things happened. The Flash Fiasco, Threshold’s ascension in Flash‘s absence, the vague decline of Goblins (again due to Flash and the following tide of combo). Flash make the metagame lurch forward and evolve at a much more rapid pace. As other builds excelled, Control seemed to… Sit and twiddle it’s thumbs, content to do what it has done forever and ever, Amen, and damned be the fool that tried to evolve the concept. It still works (somewhat), but I believe that it’s possible for control to control the metagame. I think that the vantage point from which we observe and develop control needs to be advanced a bit. Control has always been slow, which is an un-alterable hallmark of the archetype. The reason that control is inherently slow is because of it’s high curved “Control” elements. With the cards that have been printed/ “discovered”, control has the room to, at the very least, lower it curve and make itself a fundamentally stronger deck/ archetype. Also, with the advent of the Counterbalance/ Sensei’s Divining Top “combo” (about damn time everyone figured out this was amazing!!), compressing the curve, while opening up vulnerabilities to metagame hate decks (stax and the like), allows control itself to run the CA+lock machine that is CounterTop.

That’s all I have. Compress the curve, lower the land count, ++business, win. Any other thoughts/ arguments to extend the concept/ conversation would be apreciated, as I'm not the best at adding flesh to skeletons (i.e. I can explain the concept fully, but the extension/ fluff is the hard part).

[Mental]

That’s all I have. Compress the curve, lower the land count, ++business, win.

Isn't that just Threshold?

[Thehunter820]

Isn't that just Threshold?

I would agree it would be a similar product lol

[from Cairo]

Compressing the curve and lowering the land count seems like you start to take away the powerful late game effects for early/mid game ones. If thats what you're suggesting you have to walk a fine line since what most control decks have historically tried to accomplish was extending the game to its late stages and overpowering with the late game bombs.

Unless as Mental mentioned, you're just talking about Threshold in which case yea; if you can play agro control and win in the mid game than there is clearly no reason to gear the deck toward the late.

[raharu]

Kinda, unfortunately. The decks I draft generally follow threshold's building theory, but with a different playstyle and different cards. The problem that I run into is the always present question "why not just take out Damnation, Back to Basics, Diabolic Edict/ whatever and replace them with broken-ass'd green creatures". They're different decks though. My lists are -- cantrips, -- aforementioned green creatures, ++control elements and resilient win conditions. For one of my older drafts that I had the guption to post, look for "Les Nobless Oblige" in the N&D Forum. Not stellar, not bad. I've been working on it recently, but I can't reply to the thread... wtfgay406 error??

EDIT: Bombs such as? The newest addition in Landstill (Tarmogoyf)? Damnation (which I plan to run, or something of the like)? Fact or Fiction, which itself is no longer as good as it once was? For the loss of FoF, I get Back to Basics, Snares, Diabolic Edicts, I keep my Wrath effects, Dark Confidant, COUNTERBALANCE, and keep strong finishers like Hoofprints of the Stag, Tombstalker, and the like? Sure, I'll loose FoF for that.

[romain7]

The days of control attempting to bring a train to a screeching hault, only to begin pushing the other way are over. The Legacy meta is simply too explosive for the old tactic. I agree that the curve of control must go down, as well as the land count. Look how many lands any other legacy deck needs to operate successfully? Not many. I believe control must become more proactive and yet remain very defensive at the same time in order to bring in wins. It must retain nearly complete control through the entire game by explosively locking the opponent out without running out truly running out of counterspells(countertop and chalice are excellent, permanent early game road bumps.) Control manages to stretch itself too thin and too early nowadays, and often the one spell that sneaks through spells game over, with the current explosiveness of modern decks.

[from Cairo]

EDIT: Bombs such as?

Cunning Wish, Fact or Fiction, Wrath/Damnation, Humility/Moat, Pernicious Deed/Engineered Explosives, Planeswalkers

Idk, things like that, supporting and protecting cards with 3-4cc+ generally are going to require more land than Thresh-style midgame control decks run. Especially with Goblins, Dragon Stompy, Waste/Stifle Thresh variants running around, being able to stabilize in the midgame with 4+ mana is huge for control, running less land makes that more challenging.

[FoolofaTook]

The days of control attempting to bring a train to a screeching hault, only to begin pushing the other way are over. The Legacy meta is simply too explosive for the old tactic. I agree that the curve of control must go down, as well as the land count. Look how many lands any other legacy deck needs to operate successfully? Not many. I believe control must become more proactive and yet remain very defensive at the same time in order to bring in wins. It must retain nearly complete control through the entire game by explosively locking the opponent out without running out truly running out of counterspells(countertop and chalice are excellent, permanent early game road bumps.) Control manages to stretch itself too thin and too early nowadays, and often the one spell that sneaks through spells game over, with the current explosiveness of modern decks.

Control probably needs to effectively end the game by turn 4 or 5 at the latest to be a serious contender at this point. The win can come whenever, but if there is still give and take on turn 6 or so the odds are really good that the reactive deck is going to wind up on the short end of things as you point out.

[Machinus]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5970

[raharu]

Thank you for the link Machinus. I think I'll go re-read that in it's entirity now.

20 lands isn't enough to support three and four cc cards anymore?? OK then, if you say so.

[Phantom]

There have been times when I thought control was really struggling to keep up with the format, but now is not one of them. Landstill appears to be the second most played deck in Legacy, and is performing well, and there has been a resurgence of Rockish control that falls in different points along the aggro-control line. After that there is a drop-off, but there have been some solid innovations lately like TEC (and the other sort of "Standstill-less Landstills" that have popped up) and if I may plug my own deck, Skybus (Moat Control) which I am still ripping up MWS with.

I honestly think combo is in more trouble right now than any archetype thanks to so much of any given field being Thresh, Lanstill, and Dragon Stompy.

[mercenarybdu]

It's solid as long as you have the funding to make the deck effective, as most can't even be built on a budget by my understanding.

[Nihil Credo]

It's solid as long as you have the funding to make the deck effective, as most can't even be built on a budget by my understanding.
You're probably thinking of 4C Landstill and its dual-heavy manabase, but that's hardly always the case. MUC is a pretty good deck and costs very little after the FoW playset - in fact, it's quite likely the cheapest DTB after Dragon Stompy.

[raharu]

There have been times when I thought control was really struggling to keep up with the format, but now is not one of them. Landstill appears to be the second most played deck in Legacy, and is performing well, and there has been a resurgence of Rockish control that falls in different points along the aggro-control line. After that there is a drop-off, but there have been some solid innovations lately like TEC (and the other sort of "Standstill-less Landstills" that have popped up) and if I may plug my own deck, Skybus (Moat Control) which I am still ripping up MWS with.

I honestly think combo is in more trouble right now than any archetype thanks to so much of any given field being Thresh, Lanstill, and Dragon Stompy.
I think that my concern is more that it could be immensely better.

[GreenOne]

Control has to move away from pure CA cards. I mean cards that put more cards in your hand. Fact or Fiction sucks. Gift Ungiven can be good only if it can fetch a win.

The meta is unfortunately Thresh-dominated, and control decks has just to start working from a Thresh list focused on winning the mirror with its CA machine. Something like adding V. Shackles or other control element to threshold is probably the next victorious strategy that control can adopt.

Other than that, you can just accept to lose to some decks and live with it. Play Truffle Shuffle if your meta is thresh-dominated, play Rift if Gobbos are huge where you live and so on.

[raharu]

True, but I think that, if given enough time, control could adapt to be multi-facated in any given metagame (i.e. good against most decks). I believe that some threshold/ Landstill hybrid is the answer.

[Hanni]

The problem with pure control is that its one dimensional. Control is a very viable strategy... there difference is how many dimensions it has. Here is a perfect example of a control deck that works simply because it has hybridized to work well early as well as late game:

U/G/b DAT

Lands (19)
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Wasteland

Creatures (15)
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Psychatog
1 Wonder
1 Genesis
3 Shriekmaw

Spells (26)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed

The deck handles the early game extremely well, keeping combo and other explosive decks on their toes with tempo-oriented elements much like Threshold does. However, it still has the same lategame power a normal control deck would have with Loam+Coliseum and Genesis card advantage engines as well as powerhouse cards like Pernicious Deed.

On the surface, this deck may look like aggro/control because of Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf, and it is to an extent. Don't be fooled, however, since it can transition itself as control just as well. Rather than being slow and clunky and rolling over to combo, this deck plays a strong early game that transitions into control once the game gets to that point. All the while, in this specific control design, the deck can drop Tog and go for the oldschool Tog 1-hit finish.

As previously mentioned, too, Landstill is also performing well. Landstill is much more control than aggro/control in comparison to DAT but it still maintains a more hybridized approach than a pure control deck like Rifter.

B/w/g Deadguy Rock and other Rock variants are also performing well and fit the same type of hybridization as I've previously explained.

On the same end, some decks have decided to go with a more comboish win condition rather than an aggro plan. Examples of this are decks like the different Dreadnought Control shells that I've seen all over the place. Even Cephalid Coliseum can fall into this category... although it is much more on the combo end than the control end. [UGb DAT can somewhat fall into this category because of Tog... though its not as reliant on a combo finish as something like Cephalid Coliseum is].

Another thing to consider is what you define as control... a deck with lots and lots of creature removal is just as much control deck as a deck with lots and lots of stack disruption (think discard, countermagic, etc).