The biggest lesson the Pro Tour taught us about Kaladesh Standard is that control is back and isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Torrential Gearhulk is a monstrously powerful card, particularly given the density of awesome instants to rebuy, such as Glimmer of Genius. It certainly helps that counterspells are particularly good in this format as a way to fight against Aetherworks Marvel and opposing control decks. Now that we know how good control decks are, the question is this: how do we build control decks to beat other control decks? Shaheen Soorani may have the answer:

Blue-Black Control - Kaladesh Standard | Shaheen Soorani

• Creatures (5)
• 4 Torrential Gearhulk
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 2 Liliana, the Last Hope
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

• Spells (25)
• 4 Anticipate
• 4 Grasp of Darkness
• 4 Scatter to the Winds
• 3 Glimmer of Genius
• 3 Murder
• 3 Ruinous Path
• 3 Transgress the Mind
• 1 Summary Dismissal

• Lands (26)
• 3 Island
• 6 Swamp
• 4 Choked Estuary
• 4 Submerged Boneyard
• 4 Sunken Hollow
• 3 Aether Hub
• 2 Blighted Fen

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Confirm Suspicions
• 2 Essence Extraction
• 2 Negate
• 2 To the Slaughter
• 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 3 Flaying Tendrils
• 2 Lost Legacy

Buy This Deck

It may not look like it, but this deck looks to have a huge advantage over the control lists that we saw at the Pro Tour and seems spectacularly positioned against the format. You have as many counterspells and a higher density of threats, both of which are key in the control mirrors. Critically, your best threat in the matchup may be Liliana, the Last Hope, which only costs three-mana. That makes it much easier to fight over and force her through.

Once she resolves, you can either rebuy Torrential Gearhulks every couple of turns until you bury your opponent in cards or just continuously tick up and threaten to emblem while protecting her with your dearth of countermagic.

As far as non-control matchups go, your biggest strength is the density of instant-speed removal that does not care about toughness. Sure, you’re more likely to fall behind early, given that you can’t play Harnessed Lightning and Galvanic Bombardment to stay on-curve with the aggressive decks, but the upside is that your removal will never be dead, and that you will always be able to kill opposing vehicles.

Additionally, because this is a two-color control deck, you can choose to play powerful colorless lands that help protect you from flooding out. Blighted Fen is a fantastic answer to cards like Emrakul, the Promised End, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Smuggler's Copter. You can also play Blighted Cataract if you think you’re going to need to card drawing. The downside of this color combination is that you don’t get access to creature lands, but you might be able to stretch the mana to include Shambling Vent or Wandering Fumarole if you were really inclined to do so.

Is this the future of control decks in Standard? I think it leaves you a little open to the super aggressive builds of Black-Red or White-Red, and you may struggle against the Metalwork Colossus decks, given that you’re playing Scatter to the Winds instead of Void Shatter. However, if you’re expecting a lot of control mirrors, I think this is the style of control deck I’d want to be playing.