How do control decks win?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on June 29, 2017, 12:01 a.m. by SteelSentry
I am working on building a new commander deck, and seeing as the two I have are both group slug decks (The commanders are Iroas, God of Victory and Grenzo, Havoc Raiser), I wanted to build something less aggressive, and also without red. No matter who I pick as my commander, when I start framing out the deck, I can't figure out what my win condition is (Note: I am on a budget, and most of the lists I find play things like Omniscience, Ulamog, or some expensive combo like Mind over Matter in Azami). I'll admit, I am straight trash at Magic, but at my LGS, when Mizzix, Rashmi, or Lavinia win a game, I sit there after the game and cannot figure out how they won without summoning a million guys and swinging or making a 500 mana fireball. What control lists do you enjoy playing, and how does your deck actually win?
Raging_Squiggle says... #3
It depends on the severity of control decks for me.
My Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck wins with Laboratory Maniac and Mind Over Matter.
My Grand Arbiter Augustin IV deck wins by creating such a hard lock, Azor's Elocutors is the win condition. Also, everyone scooping is a win condition for this deck.
My Damia, Sage of Stone deck wins with an infinite mana combo via Tooth and Nail, and forcing my opponent to lose by over-drawing their deck with Blue Sun's Zenith.
June 29, 2017 12:38 a.m.
Most commander decks just win with the "out-value" plan. The idea is that if you can do everything more efficiently than everyone else, you will win. I have a Queen Marchesa deck that tries to keep everything other than my own stuff off the board so that I can chip away my opponents' life totals with a large threat turn after turn. My Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck slowly drains eveybody with Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat effects so I eventually win. My Sygg, River Cutthroat deck establishes an early board presence with an evasive threat or three, gives it something broken to hold like a Quietus Spike, then controls the long game with countermagic and removal. There are tons of options. Also, remember that your commander can be your win condition if you build it right.
June 29, 2017 12:47 a.m.
Depends what colours you are in, but blue can win out of nowhere for example by making 5 copies of the best creature at the table with Rite of Replication. If you can chain spells together Aetherflux Reservoir can kill at least one player off (but it's a bit difficult in multiplayer to beat the table).
My Mizzix deck attempts to win by making a bunch of experience counters and using this cost reduction to chain a couple spells together. This allows my tokens producers to flood the board. It can also win through burn and can use Firemind's Foresight to tutor up Fall of the Titans, Comet Storm and Urza's Rage for some heavy damage.
With blue I usually feel they don't win by playing a "I win card" but by stopping other players in their track and slowing the game down until they're ready to win... so I guess counterspells are a wincon.
June 29, 2017 1:43 a.m.
Winterblast says... #6
The main problem with control in commander is, that you usually can't answer everything with counterspells on a table with 3 or 4 players. Eventually you will have to decide what is an important threat and what can resolve, then you can get rid of permanents again but also probably not of all permanents and not every time. Therefore people often play control as a method to disrupt other players while trying to get a combo assembled or at least a trick that will end the game quickly even though it's not an infinite loop. This is opposed to "real" combo decks, which aim at killing as quickly as possible, with a lucky opening hand maybe even on turn 1 or 2.
Playing classic control as it's possible in other formats is only working in commander when there's no combo deck around and I would also say there mustn't be really fast aggro either. I try to play aggro myself, for example with Rhonas the Indomitable (RIP), and I need a shitload of disruption to even have a slight chance against real combo decks. However, I haven't had big problems with the sort of control decks, which try to drag the game out and then win by slowly putting more value on the board...in a multiplayer setting they would have to counter every single spell, from the first mana dork over Null Rod to the last killing Berserk or Triumph of the Hordes. And you can be sure that the aggro player will direct all his damage output on the control player first, because he wants him out of the game before the first mass removal shows up.
June 29, 2017 2:36 a.m.
First off, not being agro does not automatically mean you are playing control. You could do group hug, pillow fort, or combo....or anything in between.
Second, given your budget you want some cheap win cons. Something like assembling a mass of mana followed by a large x-spell that hits all opponents, such as Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or Mind Grind. Or a mass of creatures (probably tokens) with Triumph of the Hordes, Beastmaster Ascension, or Overrun effects. Maybe a cheap-ish combo like Deadeye Navigator plus Peregrine Drake, Halimar Excavator plus Rite of Replication, or Turntimber Ranger plus Inexorable Tide. Since you are not sure what your win cons will be, pick them first and build the deck around them.
June 29, 2017 11:46 a.m.
So many wincons that don't require midrange/early aggression (Although I usually prefer aggressive style)
1) Go with voltron & commander dmg? Sram, Senior Edificer2) Seen people win in diverse ways with Karlov of the Ghost Council - hybrid control, extort, flat commander dmg3) Toolbox commander can easily win Captain Sisay or Zur the Enchanter both cripple people with a heavy mix of static effects, stax, & plain old dmg... I find that Zur wins a bit slower... but tends to be a bit more controlling, Captain Sisay has so many options for protecting your board presence, nullifying opponent's ability to cast on your turn, & then 1 turn swinging out at them
June 29, 2017 12:10 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #9
I would like to thank everyone for the thorough responses, between this and asking RL people, I like the idea of building a "value" deck, I've only ever played combo and aggro across formats. I was already looking at making either a golgari or Sidisi, Brood Tyrant reanimator deck, and I will keep these ideas in mind when I work on the list.
June 29, 2017 2:24 p.m.
Control is different in multiplayer edh. It's not the easiest way to play. Combo is more accepted and allows for quicker defeats of an entire table. Control is in for a longer drawn out grindy game of politics. Aggro/voltron is even harder to ultimately defeat a table with, though since you will take out only one at a time while most likely leaving yourself open and likely overcommitting resources into board wipes.
Blue depends more on psyching people out. Hold up enough deterrents and open Island to make them pick the other guy and do work for you. This doesn't hold up against a table of focused hate. It's hard to pull off. You can't appear threatening or draw attention. Card draw is a benefit of running blue.
Golgari has boardwipes and is more resilient or even feeds off of destruction and any player's boardwipe. The green has ramp and the black has awesome tutoring.
I have a reanimator list Teneb, the Harvesterthat is slow starting. I don't play it a lot because having multiple graveyard interaction decks gets complicated and irritating after the novelty dies (and tons of people run reanimator).
I have mono blue counter-bounce Talrand, Sky Summoner control. It can be entertaining to play but challenges political skills increasingly with every additional player at the table.
I have Roon of the Hidden Realm etb that acts a bit like control. I have won with it but only by sandbagging my best threats until after a rivalry was heatedly underway and at least one player was out.
Good luck. Control becomes a super political thing in multiplayer edh. Why wipe the board if you can watch your enemies defeat each other? Things like Cyclonic Rift at instant speed let you make this kind of risk. Counterspells (mostly) can hold off combos if you hold on to them for the right moment.
June 29, 2017 2:52 p.m.
Oops. I See I put up Turntimber Ranger plus Inexorable Tide as a combo, I meant the Ranger plus Xenograft.
June 29, 2017 4:25 p.m.
Winterblast says... #12
Wait for Ixalan, you get an even better version of xenograft for 3 mana :)
June 29, 2017 5:11 p.m.
You can also check out the lab maniacs series on youtube that include Tasigur. He does play classic control to drag the game to midgame and then win with tasigur and infinite mana. The rest is just proper threat assesment and politics.
June 30, 2017 5:08 a.m.
BonkRipper119 says... #14
My jhoira deck just board wipes to the point where no one has any permanents and then my huge eldrazi that was suspended comes into play and because of anhilalator they can't play land which means they can't play any creatures to block my giant creature.
DrukenReaps says... #2
I have a Queen Marchesa deck, Divine Decree, that builds tokens and continuously pokes away at opponents with those tokens while padding myself with pillows. some of the win cons are Sublime Archangel, Pontiff of Blight, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Westvale Abbey, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. I don't generally think of it as control but the amount of creature kill I can do without a field wipe I suppose it may as well be control.
A friend of mine runs Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and usually combos off but sometimes he just recycles his grave into his library so many times he is able to kill everyone without comboing. he just pokes everyone over and over and over and over... well you get the idea, those games go really long though.
June 29, 2017 12:19 a.m.