by Dan Lanthier
Dan Lanthier is the 2008 Canadian National Champion and we are happy to have him interested in working with Mana Deprived. The talent does not stop coming, does it? In his debut article, Dan shares his thoughts on the current state of UW control.
Hello everybody and welcome to my first article for ManaDeprived.com! I’m very happy to see that this website is off to such a booming start and I’m very excited that I can be a part of it. I think a focused strategy website such as this is exactly what this country has needed for a very long time, and to see it coming together so quickly and filled with the talent it is seeing already is a great start and a great sign of things to come.
I’d like to focus on the state of UW control in Standard for today. Where I feel we’re at, how I think it will need to adapt in the coming months, and how I would approach it myself. I know the format is old, and in about 2 months we’ll all be focusing on Scars of Mirrodin and the upcoming rotation, so for most of the readers out there, you probably don’t have many more tournaments to prepare for other than local FNM’s. There is however a large tournament taking place at the end of the month in Montreal for a good deal of cash and there is a lot to cover for that. So here we go…
For starters I think the versions of UW control decks found in the top 8 of France Nationals have it close to perfect. For Reference here is the winners decklist…
Maindeck:
1 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
5 Island
5 Plains
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Sejiri Refuge
3 Tectonic Edge
3 Sea Gate Oracle
2 Sun Titan
4 Wall of Omens
3 Day of Judgement
2 Deprive
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Jace Beleren
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Mana Leak
1 Martial Coup
2 Mind Spring
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
Sideboard:
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 Condemn
4 Flashfreeze
1 Jace Beleren
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Negate
Like I said, I think they have the right approach to building these decks, with the release of M11 and seeing the rise of Primeval Titan and the ‘fall’ of Jund from the top spot. I see a huge need for a real control deck to step up and take position. Before the release of M11 there really wasn’t anything you couldn’t solve with a removal spell, but allowing cards like the Titan or Destructive Force to resolve these days is a few steps short of game over. With that said, counterspells gain a lot more value then they previously had. Cards like Cancel and Essence Scatter, which at one time considered bad/narrow counterspells start to look a little more appealing when you have access to four Mana Leak right off the bat. Control decks start to have an actual defence plan rather than trying to throw your opponent off with Spreading Seas and pray for the best.
Win conditions like Sun Titan and Baneslayer Angel are quite effective when you get to untap with them in play, also considering the amount of counterspells we are throwing in here they begin to look a little more threatening. But they are not cards I typically want to be defending with counterspells , I’d rather protect my brain from Blightning, or a Destructive Force from resolving than worry about Doom Blade or Path to Exile. So I’m going to stick with Sphinx of Jwar Isle for that slot, he’s by far the safest way to both attack and block. He presents a very quick clock for every deck in the format, and everything short of a Day of Judgment is not going to be able to take this guy down. In testing I found myself boarding out Sun Titan against virtually everything, including the mirror match for this guy which is why I think he deserves the maindeck slot and I have not regretted the choice. As much as I like Sun Titan I don’t think he does enough for his cost in this list. There has never been a situation where I brought back anything more than a Tectonic Edge or fetch land. Jace never dies, and Oblivion Ring never gets blown up. I’m sure he has a home somewhere, but there isn’t enough need for an effect like his in a deck like this when you could just be playing cards that can steal games by themselves rather than him.
So what about our Planeswalkers? Well we all know how good Jace, the Mind Sculptor is, and Elspeth is unbelievably good at everything she does, but, I don’t really want very many of either of these guys… Hold on, hold on, keep reading, this isn’t a joke, this is my honest opinion, just let me defend it. First off, I think Jay Elarar had it right when we were building the UW control deck he took down Nationals with. The Mind Sculptor just isn’t as good as he used to be, turn four is a dangerous time to be tapping out for a planeswalker these days. It’s certainly not wrong to be playing more than two copies of this guy in your deck, but I’m not going to fault anyone on cutting this guy down to two considering the amount of Belerens out there. As far as Elspeth is concerned she is very good at holding off creatures, killing planeswalkers and beating down, but she rarely dies, and I am not a fan of seeing multiple copies so I’m more than happy to have only two. Jace Beleren is a card that gains a lot more value now that we are playing with counterspells. The main reason being that he only costs three, so depending on game situations he is able to be cast by the third turn and the fifth with counter backup. His card advantage is comparable to that of the Mind Sculptors, and while he can’t defend himself, I’m more than happy to be putting this guy into my deck right now.
Lastly before I move onto my current decklist, I want to talk about the removal package. Path to Exile is a card that I think is showing up too much, the above decklist has four copies of it in the maindeck which is very wrong. Path to Exile is not something you want to commit to early as it puts your opponent ahead in mana. Staying ahead is something that this deck struggles with already, and adding cards that actively put you behind is something I would like to minimize. That being said, Condemn is not something I’m a huge fan of either considering that it doesn’t do a good job of dealing with Fauna Shaman, Realm Razor, Primeval Titan or any other creature that creates an effect to the game without the need to attack. Journey to Nowhere is a card that I am very happy with at the moment as it is a two mana solution to any creature, it doesn’t put it in the graveyard and it doesn’t give your opponent any kind of benefit.
This is the list I am currently playing with based off of the lists that did well in France, I’m very happy with the results so far. No matchup seems unwinnable, which is a good sign and one I don’t find too surprising considering how the format is shaping up. Even Jund is starting to behave like a fair deck despite the history it’s had over the last two years.
Maindeck:
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Plains
5 Island
3 Sejiri Refuge
4 Wall of Omens
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Jace Beleren
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Mana Leak
2 Deprive
2 Essence Scatter
1 Cancel
2 Jace’s Ingenuity
2 Path to Exile
1 Condemn
2 Journey to Nowhere
2 Day of Judgment
2 Oblivion Ring
Sideboard:
1 Jace Beleren
3 Kor Firewalker
3 Negate
3 Celestial Purge
1 Condemn
1 Cancel
2 Flashfreeze
1 Day of Judgment
Lots of minor changes to the numbers on a lot of the cards from the deck above, also Journey to Nowhere does a good job of getting rid of early creatures that slip through your counterspells while remaining a relevant card later in the game. Jace’s Ingenuity fills the role of Mind Spring. Even though I think Mind Spring is very good right now, since we are playing with real counterspells it becomes very important to leave mana open all the time, so the first place I look to is instant speed sources of card draw.
There’s not a whole lot that can be said about the sideboard slots in this list. For the most part are just cards that will allow you to customise your deck in any way to shore up any weaknesses it had maindeck, with the obvious exception of Kor Firewalker. Each card in there is meant to be as flexible as possible and just be straight up replacements for cards that need to come out.
So there you have it, my first article for the site, I hope you enjoyed reading about what I had to say and any questions or comments can be left below, I’ll get back to them as soon as I can.
Until next time…
Dan Lanthier
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.