A Mardu control shell designed to last until the late game where you can drop your planeswalkers as wincons. The mainboard is creatureless so that Rally and Bant players are left with dead Reflector Mages and Dromoka's Commands and so that Abzan players of all varieties have no targets for kill spells. In aggro matchups I like to board in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Linvala, the Preserver. I've been trying to make a successful //x control deck, hoping that I get it right with this one because I think its the most fun. Here's the Grixis version and the Jund version.
Rally the Ancestors
Hate them out with
Hallowed Moonlight
and sweepers like
Radiant Flames
.
Radiant Flames
is a nice happy medium between Flaying Tendrils, which doesn't kill all their stuff and Languish, which costs too much. Duress is a great way to shut down
Rally the Ancestors
and Collected Company at a mana discount. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon a pretty solid way to sweep the board as always.
Bant Coco
Almost the same game plan as Rally. They run a lot of the same value creatures plus manlands, Collected Company is their value engine and again we have Duress to steal that, plus lots of removal to kill their stuff. Crumble to Dust is in the sideboard specifically for this matchup because sometimes I've run out of instant removal and therefore out of ways to deal with Lumbering Falls, which has killed me numerous times.
Mardu Green
Turn of their mass of removal just by virtue of not having creatures, and kill off their threats w/ one on one removal like Grasp of Darkness and Crackling Doom.
Eldrazi Green
Kill their mana creatures to slow them down, remove their threats with
Transgress the Mind
which you have more of in the board, and save unconditional removal for big monsters. Not the greatest matchup.
Atarka Red
Arashin Clerics and Flaying Tendrils out of the board will bury them. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Linvala, the Preserver are both golden if you draw them, I take out the Painful Truths too. Against smaller creatures,
Radiant Flames
for one or two is sometimes correct to take minimal pain off of painlands.
Abzan Aggro
Another untested matchup. To be updated.
Rakdos Dragons
Also untested. Sorry, I'm getting there.
Control
I haven't done a ton with this kind of matchup, mostly because nobody local plays it. However,
Ob Nixilis Reignited
puts in serious work against opponents who go for the long game, and the synergy between his ultimate and Chandra, Flamecaller's second ability is real and disgustingly good.
Further testing to come, hopefully I'll find the time to try some burn options to get those last few points of damage. All suggestions are welcome.
