Wouldn't mind some advice on my control deck

Modern Deck Help forum

Posted on Dec. 8, 2017, 3:33 a.m. by INS4N3PREDATOR

Red/blue Control

Boza says... #2

Commented honestly on the deck itself, but TLDR is "counterspells do not maketh control".

December 8, 2017 4:28 a.m.

sylvannos says... #3

You're already playing what's basically a Delver deck. You only need to make a few changes to have a pretty solid list. I'd change the following:

-4x Temple of Epiphany

We need to cut some lands to improve the speed of the deck and lower the curve. Temple of Epiphany always comes into play tapped, so it's the most obvious candidate.

-2x Cryptic Command
-2x Disallow
-3x Enigma Drake

These just cost too much mana in comparison to some more efficient cards you could be using.

-2x Goblin Electromancer
-2x Guttersnipe

These don't help you fast enough and get nuked by every removal spell in the format, not to mention their mana cost.

-1x Mana Leak
-1x Magma Spray

These are good cards, but not necessarily stuff you want in excess. Mana Leak falls off after turn 3 or 4. Magma Spray is useful for dealing with Kitchen Finks, but 2 maindeck gets clunky when facing off midrange and control. As a side note, you may want to swap out Magma Spray completely for Pillar of Flame. You lose the ability to play it as an instant, but it means you can shoot planeswalkers or just burn people to death.

So what do we add?

+2x Thing in the Ice  Flip
+1x Delver of Secrets
+2x Opt

You'll want multiple copies of each of these every game, so we should bump the number of each to 4.

+3x Young Pyromancer

This helps with the game plan of building up incremental value vs. your opponent's spells. Counter something? Get a 1/1. Draw a card? Get a 1/1. Unfortunately, Gitaxian Probe got banned, so this isn't a 4-of anymore like it was. Still, a really solid card.

+4x Monastery Swiftspear

This is probably stronger than Delver of Secrets as far as turn 1 plays go.

+4x Vapor Snag

Gets rid of big threats so you can counter them back on the way down. Alternatively, can be used to save one of your creatures from getting bamboozeled.

+1x Dispel

Really powerful to have in the main, whether it's protecting your creatures or stopping your opponent from killing you via Lightning Bolt. We don't want too many, however, because some decks it can be really clunky against.

-1x Mountain
+1x Desolate Lighthouse

Desolate Lighthouse is really good if the game starts to drag on and you need a specific win condition. It dumps extra lands, Mana Leaks, etc. to help find threats/answers to close out the game.

As for your sideboard, I'd switch it around to look more like:

2x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Deprive
2x Dispel
2x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Izzet Staticaster
3x Molten Rain/Blood Moon
1x Negate
1x Squelch
2x Vandalblast

If you have the budget, you may find Snapcaster Mage + Thought Scour is better than Thing in the Ice  Flip + Opt. Adding another color also goes a long way.

Hope this helps!

December 9, 2017 7:36 a.m.

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