Introduction

Anytime you take a control deck into a tournament, you are metagaming and making a gamble against what you expect to see at the tournament. For small scale events, it is possible to get a feel for the room; this last week at my weekly Legacy event I noticed that roughly 33% of the field was going to be combo, so I made some tweaks to my maindeck and sideboard to help shore up those numbers. It paid off when I played against two of them, but sadly I was ill prepared for the Zoo player that was metagamed against Landstill – that sort of thing happens when everyone knows your list.

I've been discussing how to approach the definite shift in the metagame since the Grand Prix and I'd like to walk through some of the testing that I've done and take a look at the conclusions that I've drawn for myself, and perhaps you can learn something from them as well.

From the Ground Up

In order to control the other decks, we're going to need to establish an idea of what the other decks are truly doing and what we need to do to stop them. There are going to be strategies that are nearly always effective at this, such as countering spells, forcing the opponent to discard key spells and destroying permanents, but we want to know which cards are going to be ideal for the job and to do that we have to look at the track record of the decks in the gauntlet.

The data pool that I am using can be foundhere, as it is the largest source of collected Legacy data I know of that is fairly easy to cross-reference. The entry of (Way) Too Much Information will allow you to see all of the data from SCG events from prior to the grand Prix and there are only two afterward that are compiled into one article.

Zoo

Zoo frustratingly isn't cross referenced in the post of the most recent two tournaments, so that leaves us without data from the Grand Prix and prior to work with, but of any deck, that is likely one of the more acceptable ones to work with.

Zoo is Legacy's premier aggro deck. All it really does is attack, it plays the biggest creatures and then burns the rest of the way there. Traditionally, Zoo has stumbled against any combo deck and decks that are able to play creatures that keep pace with Zoo and are as large. This has been made evident with the surge of U/G Survival lists that have emerged. They've gotten a lot of attention since the Grand Prix and will be discussed later in this series, but they put down large creatures that are ultimately able to end the game very effectively.

As far as control decks are concerned, most of the control plans that want to attack Zoo are inherently flawed because they depend on the Zoo player over-extending. The only instances in which a Zoo player will over-extend is when the player is inexperienced or when they are piloting Cat Sligh (a hyper aggressive build of Zoo that features Steppe Lynx.) In the first case, you don't need to know how to beat the bad players because the cards should do that on their own. In the second case, Cat Sligh is done with those creatures anyway and is just going to burn the rest of the damage.

The next problem with the Firespout route is that it really isn't Wrath of God. Wrath of God destroys all creatures, literally all of them and this forces Zoo to attempt to reload. Firespout will generally not kill Knight of the Reliquary or Tarmogoyf, which means that the Zoo opponent doesn't really need to reload. The point of playing Firespout is to deliver crushing card advantage that takes away the clock. When the card only one-for-ones them, it really isn't getting the mileage that you need from a card you're splashing for to go. Firespout needs to really be paired with something else for it to be immediately effective, the standby was often Rhox War Monk, but the problem has been that Rhox War Monk does so little in other match-ups and was often not even pulling his weight against Zoo. Firespout looks a lot less attractive when your opponent Lightning Bolt's your guy that is supposed to live through it and start regaining you life. The other card that people have been trying to pair with Firespout to combat Zoo is Counterbalance and this is nothing new. The big problem is that Zoo is one of the more difficult decks to effectively lock out of the game, as it really requires Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top + cards to kill all of their guys in a very short amount of time, and the Counterbalance will likely need to actually be the last card played, meaning that at best this turns on around turn four.

The U/B/g build of Landstill that plays Pernicious Deed has a similar problem, wherein Deed will require a full turn to enable, meaning that the opponent is in a position where they can trade a Qasali Pridemage or even a Krosan Grip for your sweeper. Ideally you won't be in that kind of position where that needs to happen, but if Zoo is able to execute it's game plan at all, there isn't going to be an opportunity for a Landstill player to spend {4}{b}{g} to Wrath of God. Lewis Laskin had been playing White when he initially reintroduced the deck and was using white for both Swords to Plowshares and Pulse of the Fields out of the board (a personal favorite.) My personal concern is that the white commitment was so low that it was difficult to fully take advantage of that card in aggro match-ups, which I imagine is why many players ultimately cut the color.

What Has Been Working

Zoo has been getting a beating from combo and U/G Survival which are essentially both combo decks. I'm sure that Reanimator is still good against it, if anyone even plays that anymore and New Horizons has a very good record against the deck too and although that deck is aggro-control, it isn't quite what we're looking for. What has been working for controlling Zoo on the control front? Of course I am partial to the approach I have been taking, but the data of Landstill is actually quite lacking, along with that on any of the other U/W control decks. I, and several other people tested quite well with the U/W Counter-Top Thopter deck against the Zoo deck, it has a strong combo win that can come on-line fairly quickly, and has the majority of the control elements that Landstill variants have available to them, with the strength of Counterbalance locks.

The combo win aspect of Counter-Thopters is a really attractive way to lock up the battlefield while negating the strength of the opponent's burn spells, so this is perhaps a very desirable alternative route to keep in mind. This aspect can also allow use of cards like Humility and Moat which are proven bombs against Zoo.

There is another avenue of possibilities against Zoo, it's called, "Go Bigger." This is the plan that allows Aggro-Loam and New Horizons to do so well against Zoo, but how well this translates to a control deck is up in the air. Playing just Tarmogoyf likely isn't going to be good enough, although there is a U/W control variant that plays just Baneslayer Angel and Glen Elendra Archmage as win conditions, Baneslayer certainly does qualify as going bigger, and she really can't be knocked out except by double burn spell or a Path to Exile, which is actually excellent news.

Combating The Opposing Sideboard Plan

Most Zoo decks are packing 2-3 Krosan Grip in the sideboard and there are really only three things that can be done about it:

1. Deal with it, sometimes your stuff gets gripped
2. Remove all targets for Krosan Grip
3. Overload your opponent with Krosan Grip targets

There is clearly no need to discuss the first option. The second plan works for Landstill, specifically a build that uses Humility + EE. Engineered Explosives should really never be able to be hit by Krosan Grip unless your back is against the wall and cards like Humility, Moat and Vedalken Shackles can be removed for things that are just going to one-for-one them like Path to Exile, Condemn and other cards in this vein, or even better, cards that are going to X-for-one them, like Perish, Firespout and Wrath of God. This plan is attractive so that you're minimally exposed to the cards that they intend to be using and perhaps will even cause them to have dead cards.

The other plan is to load up on things that they want to hit with Krosan Grip. This plan works best in a deck like Thopter-control or Stax variants, you will generally have some weak links that can be cut for cards that are going to really stick it to them unless they are able to deal with them. Additional copies of Humility/Moat, Runed Halo, Ensnaring Bridge and once again Vedalken Shackles, which can be used to steal blockers, are all great options. This plan is attractive for decks that need artifacts and enchantments to win, you want to present as many solutions to their aggressive start as possible, and if you are able to do so, they will need to use a vital Krosan Grip on something that is actually non-essential to winning the game.

Zoo decks also like to use Price of Progress, this is a holdover from everyone overreacting to the Lands deck, but it turned out to be an effective tool against at least a few decks in the metagame. To combat this we're going to want to be looking at a deck that can play many basics, or can at least minimize its exposure to that sort of card. Another card of interest is Sulfuric Vortex, it gets played a lot in my metagame, but that is likely because I like to cast Pulse of the Fields so much. Even without access to Pulse, Vortex presents a huge problem for a control deck, although it is uncommon it is a great thing to keep in mind.

Zoo will also tend to use Gaddock Teeg, but when you pack at least six Plow effects, he is seldom a problem. I've been able to get into a number of situations where my Karakas is able to act as an excellent Rishadan Port to keep down G/W on their side to play Teeg every turn, while I am free to play my Engineered Explosives, Force of Will and Planeswalkers.

Merfolk

Merfolk is likely the single most popular deck in Legacy right now. Combining AEther Vial with a swarm of Islandwalking guys and pairing both of those up with the critical mass of disruption, Merfolk is the true bane of any control deck. Unlike Zoo, if a deck can get the upper hand on Merfolk, it is very difficult for Merfolk to get the last few points in. The bad news is that unlike Zoo, Merfolk is able to counter that critical spell that you're banking on, with a highly respectable clock. The modern builds are moving away from the 16-Lord build that we had seen win the Bazaar of Moxen IV, and are a bit closer to mono-blue builds of the list that Saito won Columbus with. They are dropping Merfolk Sovereigns for Spell Pierces. This helps to shore up the combo match-up and is incredibly effective in crushing the dreams of those hoping to Firespout Merfolk out of the game before lord number three hits the table.

Merfolk is soft to just about any other creature plans, provided the opponent does not have Islands.Yes, Lord of Atlantis really makes that much of a difference. Goblins is able to swarm them, and the creature quality is higher. Zoo and Aggro Loam have huge creatures that Merfolk struggles to race. Having huge guys is what has made New Horizons perhaps the most successful blue-based deck against Merfolk, it comes out with a slight edge.

What has been working

Counter-Top lists with Firespout in the main have enjoyed some success with bringing in Grim Lavamancer, but, echoing Rich Shay, my concern with this is that Grim Lavamancer is only good if it comes down in the first couple of turns. Alternatively there has been a discussion in Landstill threads about utilizing Preacher to put them against a wall on blockers. While there are people that swear by this card, I've never sat down to test this out, because Preacher just doesn't seem like it's going to do what a player is going to need it to do at that clutch moment. Cards like Preacher, Vedalken Shackles and Old Man of the Sea are going to also requite a lot of support to back up, going up to nearly four Plow and four Path on top of this other card. When I was playing Landstill, I was in a similar position but I couldn't beat Merfolk in a game two or three.

U/B/g Landstill has access to Pernicious Deed, which looks really sleek against Merfolk, except that Deed is likely the only spell in that deck's arsenal that Merfolk really cares about and it is only active on turn four. These builds of Landstill also only tend to play one basic land, which is obviously going to leave them quite exposed to Wasteland, and Merfolk loves to Wasteland people.

They're not played much anymore, but there is a vein of non-blue control decks, such as The Mighty Quinn [the Eskimo] and rock-control decks such as Truffle Shuffle. Both of these decks are actually pioneered by the same person, but that is mostly coincidence and the fact that the designer hates blue cards. The attractive quality to both of these decks is the lack of Islands, meaning that you can block Merfolk barring anything zany happening. Quinn is a mono-white control deck with a combo finish, generally in the form of Painter's Servant + Grindstone. The deck is a bit weak to Counterbalance strategies but has a fair game against other control decks, combo and is pretty good with most aggro decks, but can drop games to Zoo. Let's take a look at a list now:

[cardlist]

[Lands]

19 Snow-Covered Plains

4 Scrying Sheets

[/Lands]

[Spells]

4 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Enlightened Tutor

4 Orim's Chant

2 Runed Halo

2 Wrath of God

2 Grindstone

2 Humility

2 Isochron Scepter

1 Abeyance

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

1 Moat

1 Sacred Mesa

1 Pulse of the Fields

1 Oblivion Ring

1 Path to Exile

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Day of Judgment

[/Spells]

[Creatures]

2 Painter's Servant

1 Eternal Dragon

[/Creatures]

[Sideboard]

2 Relic of Progenitus

3 Ray of Distortion

1 Story Circle

1 Ethersworn Canonist

1 Aura of Silence

1 Tormod's Crypt

1 Sacred Ground

1 Pithing Needle

4 Leyline of Sanctity

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

This is the list that I play and test with, it goes in a different direction than a few other people, but it isn't too far off where everyone else is. One important note to discuss is that Humility does not turn off Painter's Servant, ever. Humility will make Painter's Servant a 1/1 Artifact Creature with the text (paraphrasing) 'All cards in all zones are the chosen color.' These interactions will be discussed in greater detail in an upcoming "How Humility Works" primer. Anyway, I feel this is a very interesting deck that was really pushed aside when Reanimator rose to power, and it is a deck that I would really like to discuss and explore in greater detail in the future. Truffle Shuffle is a B/G/w control deck, a few steps away from Train Wreck, which is a B/g control deck. The hesitancy toward playing a rock-like deck without fast creatures or blue is the fear of what happens in the combo match-up. I was going to discuss these decks in greater detail, but my research showed that none of them had placed in some time, so it's time to talk about the good news.

I've mentioned Peacekeeper_Do_First_Place_With_Ubw_Dreadstill.html">Rich Shay in this article, he recently reached exactly the same conclusion that I have regarding Merfolk. The cards that people have been using just are not cutting it, just as Newton and Leibniz independently came up with Calculus together. However, this time we likely just both stole tech from thesame person. I commented on this deck back in my primer on Daze, but neglected to include a sideboard. Peacekeeper is likely the answer we've been looking for.

Since the Grand Prix, there has been a total of three bounce spells in the maindeck and sideboard combined of all the Merfolk decks that have made the top eight of a 32+ player event. Merfolk decks are hoping to attack control decks and decks with creatures like Tarmogoyf in very different ways and they do not have the slots to effectively combat a non-green control deck that is bringing in a creature that stops them cold. This is the weakness that we must strike at. Because Peacekeeper is symmetrical, we're going to have to find a way to win that doesn't involve attacking. Oh, good thing Jace is here. Elspeth will also just produce lethal tokens for us over time, I'm sure. Unlike Llawan, Cephalid Empress, Peacekeeper ignores AEther Vial and is continually effective. Not to mention that there will be no corner cases where Llawan is bounced via a stray Karakas. Peacekeeper is also effective against another big deck in the current Gauntlet:

U/G Survival

This was the deck in testing that was giving me so much trouble, while on paper all of the fundamentals of this deck are off, it performs incredibly well. Aggro decks can't keep pace with the stream of creatures, aggro-control decks struggle with the threat of recurring Vengevine and as essentially a combo deck, it is able to steal games it doesn't have any business winning.

Because the deck is so new, there is such a limited amount of data to work with regarding it. The most popular sideboard cards to combat Vengevine, including various forms of graveyard hate, don't stop the heavy influx of creatures. This is compounded with the problem that you are going to almost always need to telegraph the graveyard hate, which will allow them to either actively play around it or allow them the ability to wait for an answer and then explode shortly thereafter.

I feel that Extirpate is one the best tools against this deck, as if you can eliminate Vengevine from the equation, you are left to fight against a mostly underpowered aggro deck. The problem with Extirpate is that it isn't very strong against most other things, isn't often something you want in multiples and is certainly not something you could imagine maindecking.

Spell Snare isn't a card I'm crazy about, but is very strong against the Survival deck as it counters all of the cards that are going to enable a quick Vengevine or four. Specifically it counters Survival of the Fittest, which is the essential card to keep off the table. The deck has started to make up a large portion of top 8's and top 4's so it may be time to reexamine Spell Snare's role in control decks.

Much like Merfolk, U/G Survival actually has no removal or bounce. This fact remains true post board as well, so Peacekeeper should also be effective in this match-up. Unlike the cases with Moat where they can use Wonder to bypass it or Krosan Grip to eliminate it without the ability to answer it, Peacekeeper is going to sit there and quietly wait for you to win the game, regardless of how many tricks they do with Survival.

Combo Decks

While control is generally a strong strategy against combo, it is important to keep in mind which cards are most effective against the archetype. Because we're playing a control deck with higher cost spells, we're going to likely be staying away from Daze, but Force of Will and Brainstorm are both in. Of all the decks we've discussed, storm decks are actually the first that Counterbalance is effective against, so that is something to keep in mind – both the fact that it is the first deck that Counterbalance is truly effective against and how effective Counterbalance can be against it. Counterspell is a great option as well, and all non-counterbalance cards become stronger when the opponent isn't using Orim's Chant.

There is a natural resistance to using Orim's Chant in combo decks which I may never understand. However, as long as they will not use Chant, that puts control players in a position where you only need to have counterpsells in hand in order to win games – you never actually need to play them. I recently played against a storm opponent and started with a fairly lucky hand of three Force of Will, Fact or Fiction, Brainstorm, Island and Flooded Strand. The end result of this game was that he used a Duress effect on me roughly 6 times, and I cast two spells the entire game: Fact or Fiction and Force of Will targeting Ad Nauseam. Had any of those Duresses or Thoughtseizes been Orim's Chant, then I would have been forced to commit extra resources to countering his disruption spell and probably had lost the game. Game two was basically the same thing, where I open up on double counter and keep drawing into things that stop him, as that is what a control deck is going to do after sideboarding.

Having a good supply of counters is where we want to be, those cards are good anyway. If we're going to play Spell Snare as well, that is just going to give us additional fuel against those decks. Cunning Wish often acts as something greater than a Counterspell against combo decks, so it's another good thing to keep in mind, we're also looking at Cunning Wish for access to Pulse of the Fields and Extirpate, Ravenous Trap isn't bad either.

When it comes to sideboards, Ethersworn Cannonist is a total beating against combo decks. I don't think I've ever lost a game against a combo deck where I've resolved the card. Meddling Mage is fine as well, but is far more narrow than what we're looking for. If Life from the Loam decks are big in your area, Meddling Mage may be a real consideration. Against storm decks, you want to be able to swap out nearly all the removal for more blue cards such as Spell Pierce and Negate. I favor Negate as there never becomes a point at which the opponent can just generate enough mana to get around it, but more than one copy of Mindbreak Trap is actually acceptable for a control deck, as they will be good in multiple places.

Wrap-Up

I'm not going to touch too much on New Horizons at the moment; the deck is incredibly weak to control as it stands. The challenge would be to build a control deck that New Horizons, other Aggro-Bant decks or Counter-Top decks are favored against. We can come back to these sorts of decks later to make sure that we're on the right track to beat them.

So, after taking a look at the four biggest decks in the format right now, I have been able to draw some strong conclusions on the build of this deck. However, the purpose of this exercise is to allow you the ability to draw your own conclusions. I'm interested in building a control deck, but that may not necessarily be the strongest route to take either for you or in general.

How would you go about beating these decks? If you are considering the control route, what improvements can you make on the conclusions I've drawn?

To sum up, to start fleshing out this deck, I think it looks something like this at the root:

Obvious Blue Cards:

4 Force of Will

1-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm

2-4 Counterspell

All of these cards are in the deck for sure, although the numbers may not be correct just yet.

Possible Blue Cards:

2-3 Spell Snare

0-3 Cunning Wish

0-4 Counterbalance

These cards are looking good, Cunning Wish is looking like a good choice at the moment, but I have a bias toward the card. If Cunning Wish is played, it will not be as a one-of. I'm not sold on Counterbalance, especially in this metagame, but we'll see what happens.

Removal Suite:

4 Swords to Plowshares/Innocent Blood

(IF Heavy White Commitment)

0-2 Wrath of God

1-2 Humility

0-1 Moat

0-2 Path to Exile

(IF Heavy Black)

0-2 Damnation

0-2 Ghastly Demise

(IF Red)

0-3 Firespout

0-3 Lightning Bolt

0-4 Fire//Ice

(IF B/g)

3-4 Pernicious Deed

(Colorless)

0-1 Nevinyrral's Disk

0-3 Engineered Explosives

0-1 Oblivion Stone

Swords to Plowshares is the best there is, the best there was and likely the best there ever will be. Innocent Blood is better in corner cases, but isn't the best thing going. Having access to mass creature control is going to be a desirable thing, considering that four of the five decks we're looking at are creature-based. I've listed what I see as basically being all the acceptable removal in the colors, although other options can be explored.

Additional Draw

0-3 Fact or Fiction

0-4 Sensei's Divining Top

0-4 Standstill

0-3 Ponder

0-3 Predict

0-3 Ancestral Visions

These are really all the stand-out draw spells. I'm flexible on which way to go, but leaning against the latter two as Predict requires another card to set up and Ancestral Visions is really, really slow. Ponder will help fix early game, Top isn't great against aggro decks but is quite strong against combo and in control mirrors.

Win Conditions and Other Great Cards

0-2 Elspeth, Knight Errant

0-3 Decree of Justice

0-2 Vendilion Clique

0-1 Ajani Vengeant

0-1 Etched Oracle

(Thopter Foundry Route)

2-3 Thopter Foundry

1-2 Sword of the Meek

3-4 Enlightened Tutor

I don't think that playing Tarmogoyf is really acceptable, as it is likely going to be the only creature in the deck. Etched Oracle is an interesting card that used to see play in a deck called It's The Fear, an Intuition-based Counter-Top deck that is famous for having hour long matches. Under Humility, Etched Oracle can be a 5/5 as creatures will get +1/+1 counters under Humility, and then rather than be a 0/0, Humility will make it a 1/1.

There is a lot of flexibility, and even options I haven't mentioned.

Finally, the sideboard.

Sideboard:

3-4 Peacekeeper

2 Relic of Progenitus

1-2 Negate

(IF Cunning Wish)

1 Pulse of the Fields

1 Ravenous Trap

1 Extirpate (if black, for sure)

1 Mindbreak Trap

Personally, I'm committed to playing white, but I'm not sure if I am going to try to build 3-4 colors. I'll be sure to keep this updated with my results and changes from testing. Next week we'll discuss the evolution of this deck and I'll provide a bookmarkable resource for comprehensive information about Humility, with all of it's current interactions and explanations on the rules in technical terms and then I'll break it down for you.

Until then,

~Christopher Walton

im00pi at Gmail for Electronic Mail

Master Shake on The Source