UW Control to stomp the meta decks at my LGS
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Feb. 19, 2022, 8:22 p.m. by KL185
So I've been having this problem where my entire creature based budget deck gets stomped by all the 1000 dollar grindy MH2 tribal midrange decks and combo decks that pop off on turn 3 and all I can do is just sit and stare while they reorganize their entire library for 10 minutes and nothing in between. My deck worked really well the first couple of times but now the burnout is getting to me already. I'm a major control aficionado myself but still kind of newer to Modern so I'm looking for advice on how to tweak my own 1000 dollar deck (exact budget) to actually be able to interact with my opponents. Would also like to receive some advice on how to optimize a mana base since all I did was google "azorius lands" and add in everything I thought would work. So anyways, here's the list with a lot of questionable design choices (they are my pet cards, I'm not removing Subtlety unless proven that he's a sad sack of dead weight): Pubstomp Supreme. Goldfishing would feel like compromising my dignity so this is just my twist to add a bit of spicy flavor. I've already caved in after playing against Sagavan Jund for the first time and decided I would use a companion but that's as far as I will go to degrade my character. Really just looking for some sort of affirmation before I go all in and buy a fortune of cards that I didn't even playtest beforehand.
Portable Hole.. I never remember it exists. You're also very right about how many boardwipes I have, 4 seems a bit much if I'm not always going to see very creature based decks. I'm going to cut my Fateful Absence in favor of that since I don't even really see creatures over 3 mana anyways. I've just been thinking idealistically out of spite, but I really freakin' hope I can get back in the game at least. Thanks for taking the time out to respond
February 19, 2022 9:24 p.m.
Walkers I meant, not boardwipes. But I'm also going to have less boardwipes
February 19, 2022 9:29 p.m.
wallisface says... #5
What's your reasoning behind wanting to keep Subtlety? Generally speaking, its a pretty weak card, and will certainly lower your win-percentage. If your intention is to increase your win percentage through playing a stronger deck, these "pet cards" seem to be going against that goal.
February 19, 2022 11:27 p.m.
If you're looking for another edge against Lurrus decks you might want to consider Chalice of the Void since a Chalice on 1 tends to lock them out. When Control was big a few months back I think it was getting there on the back of Chalice of the Void+T3feri being good against that meta.
February 19, 2022 11:43 p.m.
lagotripha says... #7
"My deck worked really well the first couple of times"
This is the important part.
Control is all about understanding and adapting to the meta faster and more accurately than your opponents. Universal answers are too slow in modern, so you need to pick what to disrupt.
Rather than suggesting specific swaps, I'm going to talk the strategy you need to make that happen.
If people know what you are playing, then they can plan for you and take calculated risks. This seems to be what your opponents are doing - people should be scared of counterspell/Surgical Extraction instantly killing their combo, not just going for it turn 3.
You need to turn that 'correct line' into a trap, at least some of the time.
Figure out a 'maindeck' of 50 cards, then treat the remaining 25 as sideboard against what you expect to face.
As a rule of thumb if the meta is grindy, wide sideboards. If the meta is aggressive, tall sideboards.
Don't be scared to go to 4 copies of a specific answer - singleton golden bullets are great if you stall and search for them, but people will just try and race you to stop that. This sounds like what is happening with your wide sidboard.
In specific, they've figured out you're trying to stall and hit the perfect answer from a sideboard, so you need to punish the response to that - either up the answer count so you reliably hit it before they kill you (more card selection can help), punish the way they are racing (eg, earlier wraths or combo disruption) or commit to a delay (eg timely reinforcments).
If you're stuck for ideas look up a metagame site and see how other people are doing it, thinking through what their card choices are meant to respond to. Control has a lot of variety because of its need to respond to local conditions, but its not too tricky to pull out the patterns.
February 20, 2022 7:15 a.m.
Thanks lagotripha for your insight. I'll be completely changing my deck around to be fit against what my current metagame is at the LGS. If combo decks are literally most of what I see for some reason then changing my deck up to go against that a lot better would be a wiser choice than trying to have equal advantage to every type of deck to exist.
I do stall a lot when playing control and that makes an unpleasant experience for the both of us if I don't draw my silver bullet and I will probably never ever use fracturing gust anyways. (Wrote on mobile)
Grubbernaut says... #2
Between the budget and insistence on playing pet cards, you're probably not going to be crushing meta decks, my man.
Fateful Absence is pretty bad in a world of 1cmc threats; you could consider Portable Hole. Doomskar isn't very good, but Terminus could be "okay" if you definitely want maindeck sweepers. 6 walkers is also a lot, you might cut that some.
Some general cards to consider: manabase, Fire / Ice splashing red, Shark Typhoon, Castle Vantress
Overall, control feels like it's in a fairly rough spot in the current meta.
February 19, 2022 9:11 p.m.