Brain control is a interesting take on control in modern. it has less focus on counter spells, while not depriving myself of the best ones. it also uses hard to remove plainswalkers because of the lack of effective removal for them.
the Land base contains 8 fetches and 12 fetchable lands (possible change being adding 1 yogmoth's). i focused on this type of land base, because although this may feel and play like a control deck, its combo and colour fixing is the strong point.
The Control parts of the deck have a focus on board control, specifically against creature threats. because of a density in creature based decks, i decided to move into a heavy board wipe main board. it consists of 2 angers and 3 supreme verdicts but also 2 cryptics for holding the line for an additional turn or two.
The Combo parts of the deck are crazy greedy. notion thief, days undoing, collective defiance, and sphinx's tutelage. with gift's ungiven to tie it all together. any 2 of these peices works well or at the least, assist in accelerating our game plan and taking over the game.
Consistency and the battle plan; while it may feel like this deck has issues in terms of consistency, the games typically feel the same. idealy, you set up with serums and a brain in a jar. setting your brain up before big tempo turns is a must. missing even 1 activation can set you back too far to recover. the big swings will happen between turns 3-6. activating brain to get a days undoing on your opponents end step, you refuel your hand and allow for consistent land drops but also allows you to slam a narset or ral while holding mana to activate a supreme verdict or cryptic from brain. after this, you should feel confident about controlling the game. you can safely pop a brain or hard cast a second days undoing with a notion thief and take full advantage of the sweet amount of draw you will get and set your opponent at 0-1 cards. effectively putting them out of the game for good.
Support cards to assist in the combo; logic knot, gifts ungiven, tormod's crypt, Tasigur and Ral Zarek. with so many fetches and such a small pool of fetchables' you will find yourself drawing into the extra fetch lands without much to do with them. so with cathartic reunion, we plan on discarding these bad fetches and delving them away with tasigur or logic knot. this is so when we day's undoing, we reduce the chance of drawing into even deader fetches late game.Ral zarek is just one of those plainswalkers that didn't see enough play in my eyes, but hes perfect when he lands here. bolts 5-6, or simply activating brain twice to turn out faster combos. Gifts ungiven allows us to assemble some of the combo pieces. simple enough...but we got more with the sideboard.
Weakness' this deck may come across; time! the big part of this decks appeal is how much it controls the game, but with that the deck also takes tons of time between fetching lands and taking your turn. this is a thinking mans deck and even grabbing the wrong fetch land can hurt. ive spent time with this at events and game 1 would usually conclude around the 30-40 minute mark. additionally, blood moon decks and faster combo decks may very well sneak under from time to time. blood moon wont hurt you for most things, but your Plainswalkers feel dead in hand and same can be said about the notion thief's.
