Playing Around Control Decks?
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 4, 2020, 12:24 a.m. by 77hi77
I made a post a few days ago about removal as it relates to the deck I've been working on: Wake Me Up Inside - Graveyard Edition.
In that post, I talked about how my biggest issues were certain decktypes like life-gain and Mutate (or Scute Swarm is another one that can get overwhelming real quick). Colour me corrected, I'm getting much better at handling those. I guess the game was ranking me against players about as new as I am. I started facing different decks, probably more experienced players, and most of what I'm seeing is control decks. Lots of counter spells, lots of removal and tapping, sending creatures back to the hand, etc.
This isn't a question about my specific deck, but maybe it'll give you context to see why I'm struggling. Basically, dump cards into the GY and bring them back, try to swarm, mid-range beatdown. Almost all my cards go at Sorcery speed, while most of the people I'm coming up against have built their decks in a way that shuts me down on my turn and increases their advantage on their turn. They're playing the game on their turn as well as mine, I can only play the game on my turn and then am getting shut down.
I don't like asking for help before I look for the answer myself, so I've done some searching, mid-range seems to naturally struggle against heavy control. I'm trying to think how I can adapt my building approach to handle all the counters and shut-downs. This deck specifically doesn't care about its creatures getting destroyed, because I'll just bring them back, but also it does care because it means another turn of Summoning Sickness. It's not uncommon for me to not be able to attack once all game with anything with Power 3 or greater.
So the question I'm now asking myself is how I can force my way into the game on my opponent's turn. Which Instant or Flash cards can I play that allow me to keep the pressure on, without deviating too from my main strategy (which, as a deck that wants to punch things to death, is to continue punching things to death)? Is speeding up my deck the way to counter counters? Or is the key to just learn how to draw out their counters so they don't have anything left for my meaningful cards?
plakjekaas says... #3
Discard spells from the sideboard, like Agonizing Remorse and Duress are traditionally the way to battle counterspells. Knowing what's in their hand helps tremendously with trying to play around it. If you're forcing your deck to play on their turf, you're probably going to keep losing, because their deck is designed to play on that turf. Take their toys away and make them come down to your level instead.
December 4, 2020 12:40 a.m.
Caran_Lyg yeah, I looked into that, Mardu Outrider is standard legal in Arena, but nowhere else it seems. I'll ease into the other gametypes eventually, but I'd like to get more comfortable in standard first.
December 4, 2020 2:27 a.m.
plakjekaas thanks! I was thinking of hand disruption, but I figured it would require its own dedicated deck to really work.
Now, would you suggest that I put any hand disruption in the main-deck, or just leave it all for the sideboard and focus on optimizing the main-deck's strategy until I run into a control? Not every mid-range deck I build will be a graveyard recursion deck, but I want this one to use the creatures in the graveyard as a toolbox. The only creature I see with hand disruption that I control is Kitesail Freebooter, but sprinkling a few of those into an aggressive attack deck won't do much of anything other than take up space. Like you said, that seems more like a half-hearted attempt to play on their turf. The smarter thing to do is probably to use the sorceries you mentioned.
So basically, is it worth building a true all-comers deck or does that spread you too thin?
December 4, 2020 3:22 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #6
If you're playing best of one only, it might be worth it to try a few copies in the main deck, see if that helps against your bad matchups, just having the option main deck to improve the games that you're not enjoying right now.
If however you'd consider playing best of three, it's way better to focus your main deck on executing its gameplan, and only "dilute" with answers from the sideboard in the games you can be sure they'll be good.
Best of luck!
December 4, 2020 3:48 a.m.
King_marchesa says... #7
If your deck had green in it I would strongly suggest Destiny Spinner. Maybe make the deck golgari colors?
December 4, 2020 7:54 a.m.
Rakdos midrange in standard right now runs 2 Liliana, Waker of the Dead. This is helpful as if a control deck is up on resources, making them discard repetitively can do a lot of work.
December 4, 2020 10:28 a.m.
All the comments above about hand disruption and discard are spot on, you have to think of control decks as working with their hand as a resource and not the board.
The other thing you can do is read a little bit on how to play against control decks. You're right in that midrange decks traditionally struggle and there's not a ton you can do about it; your gameplan of curving out big threats is just a bad matchup against 2 and 3-mana counterspells and draw spells.
What you can do is play strategically once you find out it's a control deck, by deploying your threats based on what you think they have. (That's why hand disruption is a good idea.) If you think they have a counterspell, it's best to try and run out two big threats in one turn, trying to "bait" the counterspell with your first threat and then following it up with another before they can untap.
But if you think they have a boardwipe, you want to just play one creature at a time and make them waste the card in a 1-for-1.
Or if you think they have a lot of spot removal in hand, go for your creatures that have an ETB trigger, or haste, or for your planeswalker - anything that will have an impact before they are able to remove it.
Sometimes they'll just have a great curve and you'll get out-controlled, there's not much you can do but go next. It's all about trying to make their answers line up poorly, and punishing them when they stumble on mana or cards.
December 4, 2020 11:01 a.m.
Thanks all for the advice! This is wonderful!
plakjekaas best of three is up next on my list, I just feel like best of one is good to start with because I get to be exposed to so many different styles so quickly. This topic is a prime example, one day I'm struggling with decks that build to big creatures, next day I'm looking at control. As I grow, absolutely, that sideboard is getting built.
King_marchesa green is exactly what I'm looking to expand into. I'm just a little low on wildcards right now. Destiny Spinner, noted.
gatotempo I actually decided to load up on 3 Liliana, Waker of the Deads just before I read your comment! Mainly because building the deck around her has allowed me to use her -7 which has been the whole point of the deck from the beginning (bring creatures back from the grave, and she gives them Haste yay), but it's so beautiful to see my opponents with an empty hand while I work towards that!
abby315 Thinking of their hand as the primary resource is really helpful, I'll keep that in mind. So it's hand disruption, target saturation (or under-saturation), or having an effect that goes off before the counter kicks in, or ideally a mix of all of the above against control.
Again, thanks everyone!
December 5, 2020 1:15 a.m.
Depends on the format.. If this is standard, I wouldn't have as much input. 1V1 can make control top-dog
Caran_Lyg says... #2
Says your decks isn’t even Standard. Just play Modern, standard is boring.
December 4, 2020 12:30 a.m.