Here's a card by card breakdown. The quantities may seem odd but i assure you i got to these one/two ofs through much play testing and tweaking.
Lands:
Most of the lands are just for mana obviously. Here's why I play the ones that aren't.
Creeping Tar Pit - 3/2 unblockable. Good finisher in a grindy matchup. Really good for killing planeswalkers. Even useful for blocking/trading sometimes if you have lands to spare.
Field of Ruin - Every control deck (and even many non control decks) need ways to deal with pesky lands. Tron lands, land mans, or just hitting a weak point in their mana base. I choose Field of Ruin over Ghost Quarter because we like having lots of land. Ghost Quarter (while still great) gives our opponent a one land advantage on us. Downside obviously being Field of Ruin costs 2 mana to activate but it's typically not an issue in this deck. We need to hit our land drops at least till 4 and usually after to really dominate the game.
Rest of Deck:
Inquisition/Thoughtseize - Pretty self explanatory. These are staple black cards in modern. If you're playing black without one mana hand disruption you better have a pretty good reason. Lets us disrupt their game plan and get rid of a card we may not be holding an answer to while also giving us the information of what's in their hand allowing us to play accordingly.
Fatal Push - Also pretty self explanatory. Another staple black card. Deals with common threats with ease such as Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, Young Pyromancer. In a format where powerful cheap creatures dominate, cheap removal to deal with these cheap creatures is a neccessity. Revolt is pretty easy to trigger with fetch lands.
Lightning Bolt - Again, pretty basic. Kills little creatures, zaps planeswalkers, or just hits them 3 in the face. Lightning bolt-Snapcaster-Lightning bolt is a very strong play for 4 mana. The only thing to explain here really is why I only play 2. pretty simple really. It misses strong creatures and as far as removal goes i don't think more are necessary with the 2 Anger of the Gods on the mainboard. I would gladly put one or two more if I had room but sadly I don't. Tbh if anything I would play 2 lightning bolts and a burst lightning. Sacrifice a little bit of zap for a more flexible burn that scales better into the late game.
Opt - Great card. Not as powerful as serum visions but has the advantage of letting you make sure you're safe to cast it by waiting until the end of the opponents turn plus you have that much more information when you scry after seeing another turn pass. This card is crucial. Especially with all of our low quantity answers we want to sift through our deck to find the ones we need.
Remand - A 2 mana No. In a lot of instances Mana leak or even countersquall might be better but I feel this card fits in with our hand disruption a lot more. If your opponent is top decking vs. your Liliana bouncing a spell back to their hand is often as good as getting rid of it. Plus it gives more meaning to our inquisition/thoughtseizes we might draw later in the game and would otherwise groan at the sight of. And the fact that it lets you draw a card is part of that card advantage from card value thing we talked about earlier. Early game it can just set your opponents game plan back a turn which is huge. Maybe your turn 4 Chandra would have gotten merked as soon as it hit the board but since your opponent is a turn behind now you can safely play her and minus 3 to stabilize the board.
Terminate/Collective Brutality - I lump these together because i would love to play 2 of each but instead I only have the one of each. Terminate is an all around great card. Non specific removal. Basic stuff. Collective Brutality is a universally useful card. It especially excels vs. aggro where you can escalate to steal 2 health and kill one of their creatures. Just having a card that has multiple uses and can do multiple things at once is awesome. Love this card.
Snapcaster - Cmon. We're playing control and it's Snapcaster Mage.
Search for Azcanta - This card is honestly amazing in this deck. We only play 2 because as much as we'd love to play it on turn two, many matchups we simply can't afford to. We play this later in the game to put our extra lands to use to give us dominating card advantage. The fact that we only run 3 creatures means that azcanta almost never misses and we can can use it to find win cons as well as answers. It's frustrating looking for a win con and seeing a tasigur we can't grab off of our azcanta.
Liliana of the Veil - Extremely powerful for 3 mana. Can quickly turn the game into a top deck matchup (which we are favored in in most matchups due to the power level and value of our cards). The -2 is also very relevant. One common theme all of our planeswalkers share is that they can impact the board immediately. The -6 is obviously devastating.
Anger of the Gods - Not gonna lie, sometimes this is a dead draw. It really sucks holding 2 of these against Valakut or Tron or facing down 2 deaths shadows. But when this card is good it's usually great. Two mainboard Anger of the Gods makes many difficult fast matchups very winnable in game one if we're fortunate enough to see one.
Electrolyze/Kolaghan's Command - To me these cards share a slot in this deck. They are both played simply for their value. Electrolyze at best is a 2 for 1 and draw a card, at worst shoot them 2 in the face with our extra mana and draw a card while we're at it (it's that card advantage through card value we were talking about again). Sometimes its just removal and draw a card. While I certainly wouldnt say it deals with Lingering Souls it is still very good against it. It deals with one of the casts of Lingering Souls and let's us draw another card at the same time, giving us similar value to the 2 for 1 cast that Lingering Souls gives our opponent. Kolaghan's Command is an extremely powerful card. I would drop the Electrolyze for a second Kolaghan's in a heartbeat if it were not for the fact that we only run 3 creatures. Still, discard at instant speed plus 2 damage is solid, especially with a Liliana on the field. If were lucky enough to hit an artifact with it or pull a snapcaster out of our graveyard then we're in business.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Probably the most important card in this deck. This is the card we want to play after stabilizing to secure victory. Essentially gives us access to playing the top card of our deck (card advantage through card value yet again) or just ticks up to burn them down. Her +1 damage can also be redirected at Planeswalkers which definitely comes in handy. Her -3 can help us stabilize and her ult is usually a win.
Damnation - Boardwipe. Nuff said.
Cryptic Command - This card is pure value. If we're stabilized and holding a cryptic command we're feeling pretty good about our odds. Great top deck with a Liliana on the field. If their hand is empty you can bounce any permanent (lands and all) and +1 Lili to make them discard it. Running 3 of these gives us significant advantage in the later turns. We would run 4 if our 4 drop slot was not already so full.
Liliana, Death's Majesty - This card is the most iffy card in the deck. It does not synergize great with the +1 mill and the -3 only working well with our snapcasters. That being said this card is very powerful. She can protect herself with chump blockers/create a game ending army all on her own. -7 for a one sided board wipe is nothing to complain about either. And I'm not gonna lie, the times i have used her -3 to pull a snapcaster out of my graveyard the pure value almost made me cry. I find her to be a strong top end one of.
Sideboard:
Ceremonious Rejection - vs. Tron/Eldrazi or just heavy artifact decks this is a card you always want to have in your hand. Would like to run 3 just to guarantee I see them in these matchups. If I find myself playing these decks more than i would like I probably will.
Fatal Push - Some matchups this card is just stupidly good and we want another one of them in our deck. Here's another one.
Terminate - For matchups where they go tall with creatures and our pushes cant deal. We grab a second terminate, or against aggro where we just want all the removal we can get we bring this in on top of the removal we already pack.
Surgical Extraction - This card is so good in so many ways. I don't even know where to begin. Run two of these on your sideboard. Just do it.
Pyroclasm/Anger of the Gods - More boardwipes vs. Aggro. After boarding we are really set up to wipe out creatures as fast as the fastest decks can deal them out. Pyroclasm is especially good vs. Infinity/Tokens/Goblins/Elves and the like. Might see about adding a second pyroclasm possibly at the expense of the Anger of the Gods. I feel like the matchups where we would board these in pyroclasm is usually gonna be better than another anger anyways.
Crumble to Dust - This card is about our only out vs Valakut (besides getting a Valakut into their graveyard and hitting it with surgical extraction). It's also great vs. Tron.
Countersquall - Basically like a negate with a little kick. We bring this in vs. non creature decks where we will be needing to counter the opponents spells or anticipate getting into counterspell battles. Good vs. Tron, other control decks, misc. artifact/combo decks
Kolaghan's Command - I usually only bring this second Kolaghan's in against heavy artifacts. The value of being able to destroy an artifact and do something else with the same card is great in these matchups.
Rakdos Charm - Very underrated sideboard card imo. This card fills multiple roles. Artifact removal/graveyard nuking/punishment vs token decks. I have actually won a couple games on the brink of defeat by rakdos charm (deal one damage to each player for each creature)-snapcaster-rakdos charm the same effect to deal 15-20 + damage in one turn. Not saying that's a reason to play it, that's an unlikely scenario to be sure, but talk about living the dream. The graveyard nuke/artifact removal are the main reasons i run two of these on sideboard. Against heavy artifact decks if we bring in 2 Rakdos Charms, a second Kolaghan's Command, and 2 countersqualls, and 2 ceremonious rejections, we can really ruin their day.
If you've came this far I have to thank you for reading through my ramblings. I put a lot into this deck and I'm glad someone cares :D. If you enjoy control and have the collection/$$$ to play this deck I heavily recommend it. It is a lot of fun.
