Hello everyone! Rivals of Ixalan is here with a whole mess of new cards for us to brew around. With that, let's start with my first deck of the season: Boom-Bird Control, a RW control deck focusing on one-sided board wipes and bomb drops.
To start any control deck, you need a removal package. The regulars are still here in Magma Spray, Abrade, Lightning Strike, and Cast Out. We also picked up a new piece of spot removal in RIX in the form of Baffling End, a quality 2 drop that allows us to permanently remove any spell with CMC 3 or less. It is especially effective against embalm or eternalize creatures. Gideon's Intervention also goes in to shut down whatever we might need to turn off. Approach, Glorybringer, and Scarab God are likely to be your main picks.
We also run 7 total board wipes in our deck to make sure that our opponents can't maintain a board presence. 3 copies each of Slaughter the Strong and Fiery Cannonade and a copy of Hour of Devastation. The conditions on these spells work rather effectively around most of our creatures, leading to some very effective 2-or-3 for ones.
We only run 3 creatures main deck to make sure we are on the positive side of our board wipes. Glorybringer is a staple for red decks everywhere we look, changing games when it hits the board. Combustible Gearhulk sees far less play, but at 1 of it might restock our hand or deal some damage to our opponents. The last creature is a new piece. Rekindling Phoenix is a very valuable piece that will eat 2 of your opponents spells in the worst case, and more if it can't be dealt with immediately.
Our other game closers usually come in our various PWs. Gideon of the Trials and Chandra, Torch of Defiance can steal a game on their own if protected. Gideon also turns of the Approach win for our opponents. We include Huatli, Warrior Poet to gain some life if we need it or make a late game token army, but she isn't overly effective most times. It's still better to have a variety of closers though. Lastly, in the event the games run long we may be able to pull off the Approach of the Second Sun win. I haven't tested to see if this should be changed.
Side board is transformative to be aggressive against control decks, so not too much to see there. I am looking for suggestions should anyone have them. Also, if you play the deck, let me know what weaknesses you see in the matchups. I think it can do fairly well in most cases. Thanks, and good luck with all of your brews!
Ixalan's Binding replaced
Baffling End so we can remove threats that are not creature based such as hidden stockpile and Search for Azcanta.
