[Article] Control Ain't Dead

[Dozer]

It's here.

Finally SCG has put it up (even if it's Food for Thought only): My SCG-article about the U/B control deck I made T8 with at the Melbourne Mox tournament. Take a look and say what you want to say.

Dozer

[Whatever Works]

Living in New England I find it very hard to argue against your statement. I enjoyed your report it was fun, and entertaining to read. Your list is interesting and original which is nice to see when its hard to see a decklist that does not run welder at the moment. Do you believe that you really need the Cranial Extractions in the maindeck??? Also do you consider this deck on the same level (or close) to any of the other viable options for control decks.

[apoc7k]

I really do whole-heartedly support him using extractions. The truth is that it isn't very difficult to decide what an opponent is playing, which leads to an extraction, which if anything will get you a peek at their deck. For a while I've been testing a deck that runs lobotomys MD and extractions SB, but in all actuallity i do like extractions better in many ways.

Really nice report though. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Dozer]

Extractions are extremely strong, but also very vulnerable. Originally, with three Extractions, they always got stuck. With two, I was happy. Alas, Extraction does nothing to improve a board position against aggro decks, so I went down to one (and I would have loved a second one in the SB). Having it maindeck is very, very good. It usually takes opponents by surprise, you rarely miss, and it gives you a huge information advantage in the second/third game.

Only one "blind" Extraction I played missed completely all weekend. Don't hold on too long to them. Extracting right when the midgame starts is a powerful play, putting you ahead. But remember that although solid, Extraction does not win the game for you (except against some combo decks). It's often better to take out support cards that you know will be in there (Ritual, FoW, Drain, Duress, AK's etc.) instead of gunning for the win condition which might not be only one card.

For example, in my quarterfinal match vs. Tog I extracted FoWs first, and replaying it with Will I took AKs. Naming "Psychatog" for the first one would not have been a good move, since he had Tinker/Colossus as backup. If you want to go for a win condition, do it only when you know that one Extraction gets them all.

I digress... however, maindecking one Extraction (or two, if you can support it) is very solid. Right now I prefer Extraction over Mind Twist (which you might have noticed is not in the list), because it evades graveyard recursion and Welder tricks. It also gets about the same number of cards as a Mind Twist for 3, sometimes more.

Also do you consider this deck on the same level (or close) to any of the other viable options for control decks?

Well, what are the viable options? Basically, Control Slaver and Mono-U. I made the deck to get away from 4CC. Control Slaver is stronger than this deck, Mono-U is about the same but worse in a random or aggro metagame.

Dozer

[[supa_t(im)]]

Great report, I loved it.

How did scrying work for you throughout the tournaments you attended?  It seemed that often you were winning with only a few life points left, and by no fault of your own.  I'm just wondering if you wanted a different draw engine after playing with it.

Also, if people were worried about aggro showing up why did you keep extraction?  I always thought it wasn't good against aggro.  Perhaps I don't know how to properly use it.

Good job man!

[Dozer]

Extraction IS sub-par against aggro. As I said above, it does nothing to improve the board position. That's why I swapped the second extraction with Night of Soul's Betrayal. However, I expected some combo to be there, Doomsday and Oath in particular. While it is difficult to resolve Extraction against Oath, it pretty much kills them.

Concerning Scrying, yes, it lost me a lot of life. On the other hand, it also drew me a slew of cards. I was not as comfortable with it as in 4CC, without the life-gain of Exalted Angel. The alternatives were AK/Intuition, which I mentioned in the article already, and Thirst for Knowledge. To be honest, I did not test TFK sufficiently. It might be a good alternative, since I have plenty of artifacts to discard. Scrying has flexibility that TFK is lacking, and in general I consider it the better card-drawer. TFK uses a resource that is far more scarce than your life: cards in hand. Scrying also has the power to match AK/Intuition, which TFK cannot.

Scrying worked fine during the tournament. You could probably run a mix between the two to reduce the loss of life, but I would not play without Scrying.

Dozer

[crazedpenguinman]

I loved the report, mainly becasue it mentioned me (Matt Dunne is the name). Did you solve the initial problems you had against agrro (ie Keiga build) because it still seemed a bad match for you, unless platinum angel hits the board.

I think I will have to agree with you the masticore is MUCH better than razormane. I tested the razormane in crappitypile and it never did anything. It is just a shame we have never got the chance to play in a tournament or causually. Testing, or when people show up, is Thursdays at CH for future referance.

Nice paladins :lol:

[Pern]

This is the first deck I've been interested in in a long time.
I ran it today in a 13-man Hadley with a few changes.
I dropped the Mystical, one Scrying and one Keg for
one Crucible of The Worlds and one Honden of Seeing Winds,
putting me at 60 cards.
Both of my new cards treated me very well.

Oath was a tough matchup.
Night Of Soul's Betrayal is excellent,
but if they resolve Oath,
I still have to play a guy to kill them,
and that means they likely get a guy.
This build was also packing four Swords, so it was tough.
Game One of the Swiss I Cranial Extractioned both of his guys via Will.
Game Two he resolved turn one double Oath with Forbidden Orchard.
Game Three I Extracted the Oaths,
and he just ramped up to hardcast Pristine and Iridescent Angels.
He scooped in the top because he had to go.
Our games were close but I'd say he had me.
I want to find an alternate creatureless kill.

Have you played this against any of the Tendrils decks?
There was an unpowered Draw 7 and a Deathwish build.
I beat the unpowered with a Crucible/Strip lock,
but I had to count on the Death Wish build crapping on its own shoes.
We split in the finals with games at 1-1.
Chalice for 0 or 1 would wreck my acceleration and Duresses,
and those are key, so what do you do?

The Abyss was great all day, as was Night of Soul's Betrayal.
I never brought in the Chalice or the Hurkyll's.
There were no Workshop decks.