Alright! This deck has been tweaked, torqued, and rebuilt at least half a dozen times over the past 2 months I've been working on it. It used to go by I See Pain in Your Future back when I was running
Pain Seer
. It's been a slow process, but I think it's finally where I want it to be. The motivation behind it is to make a competitive UB control deck without making use of mill as a win con.
Why you ask?
Because I hate mill. Simple as that.
The strategy isn't really anything revolutionary. You stall for time, controlling the state of the board, removing threats and breaking combos until you can pull your own threats and then continue to use some nasty control to keep them alive and dealing damage. Now without further ado, the cards!
Creatures
Given that this is a control deck, the creature base is rather low. Grand total of 5 creatures main board.
Desecration Demon - If I can drop him turn 4, then things are going very well for me. In addition to being a rather large threat, he doubles as a form of control, often forcing the opponent to sac all of their creatures.
AEtherling - No longer co-primary win con, but now my primary win con. It's been my experience that Desecration Demon is just too unreliable. AEtherling gives me literally everything I want in a creature. Power, durability, and flexibility. Only running two though cause I would prefer not to draw into too many too quickly.
Instants
Alright, so this is obviously where the bulk of the deck goes. Given I typically want to cast my stuff during their turn, it only makes sense.
Warped Physique
- This is arguably one of my favorite UB instants. Need a bit more damage to kill them with the Desecration Demon? Done. Need a cheap way to remove that creature? Done. Need some way to get rid of that god that just became a creature? If you've got the cards in hand, then you've got your answer. Really versatile card in my opinion.
Bile Blight
- I can't not run this card. It just creates so many fun scenarios. Red devotion, G/R monsters early game, G/W tokens, etc. get chumped pretty hard by
Bile Blight
. (I'm looking at you triple Burning-Tree Emissary into Madcap Skills).
Hero's Downfall - Possibly the best piece of direct removal in the game. Drop a dangerous creature, or a dangerous planeswalker and do it during their turn. Fun stuff.
Far / Away - Great bit of control/removal. These are nice answers to the turn two Sylvan Caryatid, as well as double removal during the late game.
Cyclonic Rift - Basically a finishing move during late game. If I've got a Desecration Demon or an AEtherling out, and I overload this bad boy during your turn, it's probably game over for you. Great as an emergency early game removal as well. Incidentally, this is the deck's only hope of dealing with non-creature non-planeswalker permanents, so that's something.
Dissolve
- Counter their stuff, and I get a scry out of it as well. Not much I can say about this card, it's just lovely to have in hand.
Syncopate
- Turn two counter (Once again, looking at you Madcap Skills) that can scale into late game if Im willing to pay the mana for it. Can potentially be nice against graveyard play as well.
Inspiration
- I've surprisingly gotten a few odd responses to this card as well. Most people ask why I don't run
Divination
or
Pilfered Plans
. I actually used to run
Pilfered Plans
. Dasistgutja suggested
Inspiration
to me so I decided to try it. Despite the extra cost, drawing two cards at the end of their turn while keeping a bunch of mana untapped is awesome. Best case scenario I play a scry land into a counter spell with the mana to draw two cards during their turn and then counter their spell (actually happened once).
Sorceries
Thoughtseize - I've been wanting to main this for a while, I just couldn't figure out what to drop for it. After lots of play testing, it turns out that
Vortex Elemental
, though awesome, wasn't really helping me at all. In fact he killed me once due to a Searing Blood. So now I've got a new optimal turn 1 play.
Planeswalkers
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - I'm not a big planeswalker guy, but Ashiok is just fun to me. He's a three drop which seems ludicrous given the damage he can potentially do. Lets me remove and play my opponent's win cons a little more reliably than Nightveil Specter, and potentially empties my opponents hand of threats. Probably something my opponent wants to deal with at some point, so he doubles as some stall to take the pressure off of me while I draw answers.
Jace, Architect of Thought - I came into a couple Jace's and decided to try running them in the deck. The extra momentum digging through my library was great, and it helps me dig for answers even more efficiently.
Sideboard
Dark Betrayal
- Cheaper than Hero's Downfall for black matchups, specifically mono black devotion.
Devour Flesh - Good for heavy hexproof decks. Also nice in a pinch to gain some life off of Desecration Demon.
Lifebane Zombie - Excellent card against G/W. Good card in its own right against any non-black deck.
Gainsay
- Great as a replacement for
Syncopate
against other control matchups, as well as mono blue devotion.
Soul Ransom
- One of my best hopes of dealing with Big Green Monsters and G/R monsters (which are for some reason the hardest matchups I've run into). Either I block one of their more dangerous creatures, use one of their more dangerous creatures, or gain card advantage. No matter how it goes, I typically end up on top.
Notion Thief - Pretty hard counter against control matchups. Basically the anti Sphinx's Revelation. Thanks to FangedRamen for the suggestion.
And that's it! I hope you guys like the deck. I'm always open to feedback and critique, as I wanna make my decks as competitive as they can be. As always, +1's are appreciated, and any comments you have are appreciated even more so!
