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Main » Articles » Approaching Control

Approaching Control

Jeff Hoogland
Posted on August 18, 2017
 Reddit

I am always a sucker for a good control deck in any format. The more time I can spend drawing cards without worrying about how I am actually going to win the game the happier I am. This means whenever a format is developing I am always keeping an eye out for control decks that pop up in results from major events. Two weekends ago was Grand Prix Minneapolis which was the first major Standard event after the Pro Tour. At this event not just one, but two copies of a new control archetype finished in the top 32 of the event which had over 1000 players.

The first finished just outside of Top 8 with a 12-3 record in the hands of Dan Ward:

W/U Approach Control ? Hour of Devastation Standard | Dan Ward

The second finished in 28th place with an 11-4 record in the hands of Shong Lo:

W/U Approach Control ? Hour of Devastation Standard | Shong Lo

While these decks were developed and played by different people they are trying to accomplish the same goal with slightly different tools. Contain the opponent’s board of creatures, while eventually casting Approach of the Second Sun twice to win the game. It is a combo control deck in the purest idea of the archetype. Every card we play — including our card that eventually wins the game — help us stay alive. Speaking of our card that lets us win the game, let’s take a look at Approach of the Second Sun, shall we?

Approach of the Second Sun

After we cast Approach of the Second Sun the first time, it gains us seven life and then buries itself seven deep into our deck. One of the most important things to keep track of when playing the deck is how many cards down our Approach of the Second Sun is. This allows us to sequence our card draw and cyclers in an optimal manner to get back to the Second Sun as quickly as possible.

We have two very efficient ways to find our win condition again after we have cast it the first time:

Glimmer of Genius
Supreme Will

Each of these cards let us dig four cards deep. That means we only need to see one more card in conjunction with two draw steps to find the Second Sun again and win the Game two turns after we found the sun for the first time. Glimmer and Supreme Will are more than just cards that make getting back to our combo easy, though. In the early game, Supreme Will is disruption that can help us stop a must answer threat and either of these cards can help us hit much needed land drops as we try to play out seven lands in seven turns each game.

After playing a number of matches with both Dan and Shong’s configurations, a few things became clear to me.

First — Fumigate is fairly well positioned in this current format. The midrange aggressive decks like bg have a really hard time applying meaningful pressure, while not overextending into a 5-mana sweeper. The lower to the ground aggressive decks in the format like Mono-Red and Zombies apply pressure by going wide — this means in games where we have enough interaction to survive until turn five Fumigate is gaining us a reasonable chunk of life when it cleans up the board.

Unsummon is really good at gaining us back some of the tempo control decks often lose in the early turns against decks trying to flood the board. Generally, we do not want to play cards that are card disadvantage in our control decks, but because Fumigate is often a three or more for one, we can afford to play a couple cards that simply buy us some time.

Aether Meltdown is a truly underwhelming card. Not only is it awkward against cards like Sylvan Advocate and Bomat Courier that provide some value while they remain on the table, but Meltdown becomes truly awkward when we factor in that we are trying to play Blessed Alliance as removal.

Speaking of Blessed Alliance, this card creates a really nice tension for our opponent to try and play around. On the one hand, our opponent wants to pace their threats so they do not get blown out by a Fumigate, but at the same time they need to put enough creatures into play so they do not get set too far behind by an Alliance making them sacrifice a creature inside of combat. The life gain from Alliance is also nothing to scoff at when one of the better decks in the format is pointing Shocks at our dome.

Stasis Snare was great. Not only is it an answer to troublesome threats like Hazoret the Fervent, but it also provides a clean answer to creature lands that Dan’s list sometimes had trouble with. Essence Scatter was medicore. Most of the creatures we care about in this format do not have meaningful enter the battlefield effects, so simply playing more removal felt better than hoping I was drawing my creature counters at opportune times.

I really liked the inclusion of Blighted Cataract in Dan’s list. It gave us something to do when flooding out and we are playing enough lands with light enough color requirements that the colorless sources were not too much trouble. That being said, I feel like both lists were at least one land light. This is an archetype that ideally wants to hit seven lands in seven turns every game. Playing 26 lands is not unreasonable — especially when four of our lands can cycle when we are flooding a bit.

When it comes to the sideboards — both Dan and Shong drew similar conclusions about a few cards. First is that they landed at similar cards for taking the Mono-Red matchup from “reasonable” to “great”:

Authority of the Consuls
Regal Caracal
Linvala, the Preserver

Authority of the Consuls gains an unreasonable amount of life in any game we play it out on the first turn. Not only does it gain life from every creature entering play under our opponent’s control, but it gains us virtual life by effectively removing haste from their creatures that have it. I do not think it is unreasonable to mulligan any seven or even six card hand that does not contain Authority in the post board games against Mono-Red.

Regal Caracal and Linvala, the Preserver can both gum the board up all on their own. The thing I like most about these cards is that in addition to helping us stabilize, they can also help us pivot and win the game by attacking. Regal Caracal is at least seven points of power on its own — which closes the game out in three turns on an empty board.

The other card that kept constantly overperforming for me out of both sideboards was Descend upon the Sinful. Not only is Descend an additional sweeper past Fumigate, but against Zombies and Selfless Spirits it can clear the board. Past this, Descend is technically an alternative win condition for us as well since we can put enchantment and land into our graveyard thanks to cycling cards. This makes it a nice hedge against decks like bg and Zombies that might be boarding in Lost Legacy to take away our copies of Approach of the Second Sun.

With all of these things in mind from playing both iterations of the Approach decks from the Grand Prix we arrive at my current iteration of the archetype in this Standard format:

W/U Approach Control ? Hour of Devastation Standard | Jeff Hoogland

I have mixed and matched the things I liked from both Dan’s and Shong’s main decks, while tuning the sideboard a bit for some of the decks I am expecting to play against — including the mirror match. While this current Standard format seems fairly diverse, there are a number of more popular decks, so the following is how I tend to approach the more common matchups while playing the wu Approach deck.

Against Mono-Red we want to be conservative with our life total. Do not get greedy trying to get “value” out of a Fumigate. We will often just two for one (and occasionally one for one) it with their threats in play to take off the pressure. Mono-Red has a lot of reach thanks to their deserts, so our life total is a precious resource.

In:

Out:

As I mentioned above — post board do not be afraid to mulligan for Authority of the Consuls. While it will not win the game entirely on its own, it is a very important piece in a winning puzzle. While we will still occasionally win with Approach in the sideboard games, we will also win a fair amount simply by attacking with our Regal Caracal and friends.

Against bg Constrictor we can be a lot more liberal with our life total since their only “reach” in the traditional sense comes from Walking Ballista. This matchup feels fairly favorable for the Approach deck since they cannot apply pressure quickly or play through multiple sweepers most games.

In:

Out:

bg can often recover from the first sweeper, but the second is generally backbreaking for them. Because of this we board in our two additional board clears without trimming any of our Fumigates. Linvala coming in is a small hedge against Lost Legacy, but she can also buy a lot of time on her own when she creates 8 power worth of flying creatures.

The Zombies matchup plays out in a lot of ways like the Mono-Red matchup does besides the fact that they lack the reach that the Red deck gains from their deserts. The most annoying cards in this matchup are the recurring threats like Relentless Dead and Dread Wanderer, so whenever possible we want to save our Stasis Snares for exiling these.

In:

Out:

While Fumigate buys us a lot of time in this matchup, Descend is absolutely backbreaking for them since it exiles all of their recurring threats. If our opponent brings in copies of Lost Legacy post board do not be afraid to board in some copies of Regal Caracal as well for additional threat density.

The matchup against Mardu Vehicles can play out a bit differently depending on which half of their deck they draw. Because our deck does not have any creatures Game 1 we can often leave them stranded with removal in hand which generates some virtual card advantage for us. That being said, some of their more aggressive starts can be difficult to keep up with if they are on the play.

In:

Out:

Boarding out sweepers might seem counterintuitive in this matchup, but most Mardu players are boarding “bigger” against us to be more controlling. If we suspect our Mardu opponent is going to stay low to the ground trim some copies of Censor and Cast Out instead of Fumigate.

The Temur Energy matchup is likely one of the more difficult ones for wuApproach. Not only do they apply fast pressure, but they also have meaningful disruption in the form of Negate post board to make our combo execution difficult.

In:

Out:

Much like Mardu, my Temur opponents seem to consistently board bigger into more Planeswalkers. This makes Negate an answer to their threats as well as a way to fight their counters.

The most important thing to keep in mind in the Ramp matchup is that we want to do our best to counter as much of their acceleration as possible. All of their threats come with cast triggers that devour our lands, so we want to try and stop them from getting to that point while we make our land drops and Approach the sun twice.

In:

Out:

Regal Caracal may seem like an odd inclusion, but not only does it pressure their Planeswalkers it can also threaten their life total. Much like against the Mono-Red deck, Caracal on an empty board closes quickly if not dealt with.

The wu Approach mirror is a strange matchup to play. Game 1 feels like a race to make all of our land drops while we both draw a plethora of cards that do not do anything. Eventually, someone stumbles and then the other person can find a spot to go for it. The most important thing to remember is that our first copy of Approach of the Second Sun does not need to resolve. This means if we have two copies of Approach in hand, there is no need to fight over the first copy if our opponent tries to counter it.

In:

Out:

Boarding for the mirror is a bit strange and our plan should likely vary based on what we see / expect our opponent to do. I like overloading on threats as an alternative win condition, while keeping in our flexible answers to whatever threats they could be bringing in. I like to favor keeping our sweepers in as opposed to Blessed Alliance in case they board in their copies of Regal Caracal as well.

Wrapping Up

The wu Approach of the Second Sun deck is the most fun I have had playing Standard in a long time. In many ways, it reminds me of playing Temur Scapeshift in Modern when it was playable. If you enjoy playing combo control decks then I would highly recommend giving wu Approach a try.

Have a question about the deck that I did not cover above? Let me know in a comment below!

Cheers,

—Jeff Hoogland

Commander 2017 is now available for Preorder!

TAGS articles, strategy, constructed, analysis, standard, decklist, jeff hoogland, hour of devastation standard, 08182017

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