The Apprentice's Workshop - Episode 18

The Apprentice's Workshop

KrazyCaley

25 May 2013

1107 views

Hello.

Today's deck is...

RW Control?!

Modern DaShPrime

SCORE: 5 | 2115 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS

So what is this deck?

This deck is, as the title implies, a red/white control deck. It's rather unusual in its approach to both control tools and win conditions, though. It's kind of a fun, zany R/W control deck. It uses no creatures and instead relies on Form of the Dragon and other damage as its main win conditions. Mostly the deck is well put-together and I see no need for a systematic breakdown of the deck, but I do see a few small problems that could use some minor fixes. Let's have a look:

Manabarbs

Yep, Manabarbs makes an appearance in a control deck, which is usually a recipe for disaster. But not to fear, our deckbuilder has combo'd it with Personal Sanctuary, thus breaking the symmetry. I have to ask, though - is this combo worth it? First of all, we have more copies of Manabarbs than we do Personal Sanctuary. In a creatureless control deck, this is extraordinarily dangerous. If we find ourselves with Manabarbs but no Sanctuary, as we often will, we'll be in trouble, because we will suffer more than our opponents will from dropping the life, most likely. Of course, we have four copies of Idyllic Tutor, so the danger is very minimized, but still- I MIGHT consider cutting this combo from the deck if I were the deckbuilder. But far be it from me, of all people, to tell someone that they can't have a janky, insane combo in their deck. Instead, let's just make the combo a bit more sane and proportional. Let's cut one copy of Manabarbs, giving us 3 each of Sanctuary and Barbs. This will hopefully make the combo work a little less dangerously and not so often put us in a position of holding Barbs with no Sanctuary. Also, with Idyllic Tutor, we hardly need to spend seven card slots on this combo anyway - six will get us there most of the time, and we can spend the card profitably elsewhere.

Land

Form of the Dragon and Staff of Nin are expensive. We have no mana artifacts. We definitely need 25 land, so let's allocate a slot to that.

Also, the land itself gives me significant pause. Boros Garrison does not make much sense for this deck. It would be better as, on the more expensive side, Sacred Foundry, Rugged Prairie, Arid Mesa, or Clifftop Retreat, but failing that, any ordinary tap R/W land will work fine, like Boros Guildgate, Ancient Amphitheater, or even Jungle Shrine. Let's use the commonly-available Boros Guildgate instead of Boros Garrison and add a Plains with the card slot from cutting a Manabarbs.

Control Tools

Our control tools are heavily built on direct damage, and to a lesser extent on Ghostly Prison. Ghostly Prison itself is suspect here - at four copies, and with no similar effects in the deck, it's hardly going to be an unstoppable roadblock unless our opponent is using many small creatures, which our deck is already effective against. Instead of the Prison, why not cut it (and an expensive, 3-of-is-totally-overkill Comet Storm while we're at it), and add 2x Day of Judgment and 3x Oblivion Ring? Now our deck has a little bit more flexibility.

That actually looks pretty good. It would also be acceptable to go down to 2x Staff of Nin, but this deck loves to deal damage and draw cards, so I think I can see my way clear to keeping three copies now that we have 25 land. Let's take a look at the sideboard.

Sideboard

We have three slots, having moved 3x Oblivion Ring to the mainboard. The other existing cards I'm leaving alone, including the 2x Day of Judgment, in case we need to go up to 4. There are a lot of options here, but among my favorites are Blood Moon and Luminarch Ascension, which provide effective tools against non-basic abusers and control decks, respectively. Personally I prefer the Blood Moon because it's hilarious.

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes:

-1x Manabarbs

-4x Ghostly Prison

-1x Comet Storm

-4x Boros Garrison

+2x Day of Judgment

+3x Oblivion Ring

+4x Boros Guildgate (or superior R/W land, preferably Sacred Foundry)

+1x Plains

Sideboard

-3x Oblivion Ring

+3x Blood Moon

And that's what I think. Share your thoughts in the comments below or on the deck's page. Good hunting.