4 Color Control

Modern Competitive Control Four Color

Cevni

Land (24)

• 1x Celestial Colonnade
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 2x Hallowed Fountain
• 3x Island
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Plains
• 4x Polluted Delta
• 2x Scalding Tarn
• 2x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Watery Grave

Instant (22)

• 4x Cryptic Command
• 3x Kolaghan's Command
• 4x Lightning Helix
• 2x Logic Knot
• 4x Opt
• 4x Path to Exile
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Terminus

Creature (6)

• 1x Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  ^Flip
• 4x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 2x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

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Sideboard

Instant (5)

• 2x Celestial Purge
• 1x Dispel
• 2x Negate

Artifact (1)

• 1x Engineered Explosives

Creature (2)

• 2x Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Leyline of the Void

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Unmoored Ego

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Kaya, Orzhov Usurper

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My take at Control in Modern. I previously played Grixis but concluded that cards like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Lightning Helix were simply too powerful to pass on, while I feel that UW(x) control is rather stale as you don't play with Kolaghan's Command + Snapcaster Mage

The upside of playing 4 Color Control is that you get to play with all the most busted (not that there are very many) control cards in the format that otherwise couldn't go in the same deck, such as Card:Lightning Helix, Card:Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Tasigur, the Golden Fang , Card:Kolaghan's Command and Snapcaster Mage

The downside is that your manabase is very painful and fetching is a balancing act where you need to consider carefully what to fetch, more so than Jeskai/Grixis/Mardu decks do.This ties into the next downside which is the lack of utility lands, we only run 1 card:Celestial Collonade and not even a single Field of Ruin , this is however a necessary evil for a deck that might wanna do Thought Scour => Lightning Helix => Card:Kolaghan's Command => Cryptic Command => Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , just as an example, we play a lot of multicolor cards, and a lot of cards like Logic Knot and Cryptic Command which are very color weighted.

Updated for GRN: Supreme Verdict Feels terrible in the current modern meta. I have replaced it with Terminus as that card is much better versus Spirits and all decks that potentially kill you before turn 4, graveyard decks such as dredge and Arclight Phoenix decks. So far I am very happy with the switch. The games where Supreme Verdict would have been significantly better have been happening very seldom. The potential to get lucky and slam a 1 mana boardwipe on t2/3 aren't the main reasons I picked it up, but are very nice when it happens.

Card List Explaination

Planeswalkers Show

2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria One of the strongest additions to Modern Control decks in a long while. A resolved Teferi, Hero of Dominaria might not mean you win the game then and there, but it is pretty close if the game before then was anywhere near even.

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor This is not the strongest Jace, the Mind Sculptor shell by far, but the power of this planeswalker is still hard to deny as he can quickly win the game on his own, or quickly dig for answers, our relative high density of fetchlands and our diverse set of answers play well with him, but not well enough for me to want to go above 1 or maybe 2 of him.

Card Selection Show

4 Opt Has taken the place of Thought Scour as I am now playing with Terminus . This switch has many downsides but just as many upsides. In light of this switch I cut down to only 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang .

2 Search for Azcanta   This card is one of the reasons control is currently viable in modern. Before it flips it helps filter your draws and after you flip it, it can fetch many of your wincons and answers while providing card advantage, I never feel bad about having on in my opening hand.

1 Sphinx's Revelation This does not fit under card selection exactly but either way. This card is an excellent lategame topdeck to take over the game while being a decent midgame card to stabilize. It is however clunky and as such I think 1 is the correct number.

Removal Show

1 Lightning Bolt While not as strong as it once was, it is still one of the best removal spells in the format, being able to both remove early threats and quickly turn the table with Snapcaster Mage

3 Lightning Helix In the current meta I would say this card is even better than Lightning Bolt due to the abundance of aggro decks such as Hollow One decks and Human decks.

4 Path to Exile standard white removal that can deal with any threat in a very "clean" way, has a big downside when used early in the game however by ramping your opponent, can also very rarely be used on your own Snapcaster Mage to ramp

3 Terminus The best boardwipe in modern by far. Card: Supreme Verdictis virtually only better against merfolk. While the 6 mana cost is brutal you miracle it fairly often if you use Opt on opponent's turn only which you should be doing anyway (outside of trying to hit landdrops). In modern there are very few decent draw card effects which means that the miracle will be triggered most of the time you draw this card outside of starting hand or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , and in the second case you generally have the mana to cast Terminus. Meaning it is only really worse in the starting hand, which is of course a bummer but Supreme Verdict is also often a very bad card in the starting hand.

Creatures Show

1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang The Banana King is one of the biggest reasons to play black in this kind of deck, "frequently" comes down as early as turn 2-3 and stonewalls Hollow One s and similar creatures, while being able to go on the offensive if your opponent is stumbling. I only run 1 as I do not have Thought Scour .

1 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager   Excellent card, unless countered always at least 2 for 1s with the only efficient way of dealing with him being Fatal Push and Terminate and when Path to Exile d he is a 3 for 1. Once resolved he can block Lingering Souls and provide inevitability, if flipped to Nicol Bolas, the Arisen he quickly wins the game on his own. Plays very well with Kolaghan's Command .

4 Snapcaster Mage The best blue card in the format, and even better in this deck than in most control decks as it can target a very wide variety of effects. Has very strong synergy with Kolaghan's Command , Cryptic Command and Lightning Helix . This is arguably the deck in modern that makes the "best" use of snapcaster as we have all the best targets for it.

Counterspells Show

2 Logic Knot Very flexible answer to almost any threat, but heavily taxes the graveyard. I believe 2 is the highest this deck can go up to without needing to put in more cantrips and/or more selfmill.

4 Cryptic Command The most flexible of cards, all 4 modes have a lot of use while the most common one might be Counter+Draw, Fog+Draw is often used while digging for Supreme Verdict or enough other removal to stabilize. I think running less than 4 is a mistake as this kind of flexibility+card advantage is what makes control work.

Lands Show

1 Celestial Colonnade 1 tapped land is all the deck can really afford, Celestial Colonnade is imo the best manland. It can block in a pinch and most importantly make sure you don't lose to time on MTGO.

1 Godless Shrine Enables turn 2 Lightning Helix when used together with Steam Vents , generally playing non-blue sources is a big no in this deck, but the flexibility of getting both of these colors from 1 land really helps. Not fetchable with Scalding Tarn which is sad, but we got 8 fetches that can fetch it. Playing this allows us to fetch a lot more basics.

4 Polluted Delta and 4 Flooded Strand and 2 Scalding Tarn Fetchlands are obviously needed to support a 4 mana color base, the reasoning for the split is that Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand fares better against Blood Moon and You could prolly go even higher on fetchlands but I feel 10 is a good number

2 each of Steam Vents and Hallowed Fountain Shocklands going together with Fetchlands can't come as a surprise for this kind of deck. and but I feel that with 4 Cryptic Command you really wanna have a lot of blue sources.

1 Watery Grave Black is the splash color and with Godless Shrine there is enough sources of it.

1 Sulfur Falls Red mana is very good to get untapped for early removal.

3 Island To be able to play Cryptic Command through Blood Moon

1 Plains 1 Swamp to be able to play past Blood Moon and to be able to painlessly fetch in case of emergency

1 Mountain to be able to painlessly fetch versus very aggressive deck and to play around Field of Ruin targeting Steam Vents

Sideboard Show

1 Engineered Explosives Flexible boardwipe that can hit many different things, better the more colors we have.

1 Dispel There for fighting against Control, but also is effective versus Burn and several other Decks. Also brought in to protect Leyline of the Void .

2 Celestial Purge Deals with Blood Moon , Liliana of the Veil , Card:Card:Death's Shadow and Card:Arclight Phoenix amongst many other hard to deal with threats.

2 Negate Very flexible and efficient answer versus a lot of decks, but laughably bad against decks such as Humans, Hollow One variants and similar decks. Also brought in to protect Leyline of the Void .

4 Leyline of the Void is imo the best graveyard hate in modern, needed to have any game against Dredge, also comes in vs Hollow One decks, Storm decks, GDS etc.

1 Stony Silence Hates on Tron and Hardened Scales, I am on the fence about this card as Hardened Scales is a fantastic matchup and Tron is almost unsalvageable. Especially as it is a non-bo with Engineered Explosives

Maybeboard Show

1 Duress As we play black we get the ability to play discard in our sideboard, I thought long and hard on which discard was the best for this sideboard and arrived on Duress . My reasoning for this is that out of the 3 modern targeted discard spells they all have a few types of decks they hate upon. Duress ends up being "hate" against Burn, Control, Combo, Tron, Blood Moon decks, all of which are otherwise rather bad matchups. Against creaturebased matchups I would rather not board in bad topdeck cards such as targeted discard anyway.

1 Urgent Exorcism Answers blood moon and can be slotted in against spirits, viable option to 1 of the purges depending on how the metagame shapes up.

Top Ranked	Achieved #57 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	8 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 1 Mythic Rares 31 - 9 Rares 8 - 2 Uncommons 6 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.75
Tokens	Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Folders	Modern