Baral: Commanding Control

Commander / EDH Mono-Blue

snysly

Instant (32)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Archmage's Charm
• 1x Arrester's Admonition
• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x Chemister's Insight
• 1x Countermand
• 1x Devious Cover-Up
• 1x Disdainful Stroke
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dissolve
• 1x Essence Scatter
• 1x Foil
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Neutralizing Blast
• 1x No Escape
• 1x Opt
• 1x Rain of Revelation
• 1x Rakshasa's Disdain
• 1x Rebuild
• 1x Sinister Sabotage
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Spell Snuff
• 1x String of Disappearances
• 1x Syncopate
• 1x Tale's End
• 1x Thought Collapse
• 1x Unwind
• 1x Wizard's Retort

Artifact (9)

• 1x Bag of Holding
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Perpetual Timepiece
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Skullcage
• 1x Unstable Obelisk
• 1x Wand of Vertebrae

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Aether Gale
• 1x Bond of Insight
• 1x Flood of Tears
• 1x Pieces of the Puzzle
• 1x Scour All Possibilities
• 1x Shimmer of Possibility
• 1x Sleep
• 1x Stream of Thought
• 1x Treasure Cruise

Planeswalker (5)

• 1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Ugin, the Ineffable

Commander (1)

Land (34)

• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 29x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Nephalia Academy

Creature (5)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x God-Eternal Kefnet
• 1x Murmuring Mystic
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Drowned Secrets
• 1x Kasmina's Transmutation
• 1x Metallurgic Summonings
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 1x Verity Circle

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Sideboard

Instant (2)

• 1x Convolute
• 1x Quench

Artifact (1)

• 1x Worn Powerstone

Land (1)

• 1x Island

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Eyes Everywhere

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Baral EDH control deck. Goal of the deck is to counter all your opponents things and eventually out card quality them through Baral's looting combined with a few graveyard recursion effects.

The deck runs multiple counterspells to try and control what threats actually hit the table. For threats that slip through, bounce spells are used.

One of the nice things about Baral is that he lets you filter your hand by looting whenever you counter a spell. However with this method it is easy to run out of gas, and go through your deck. Also if you hit a pocket of lands it is easy to lose control of the game.

This is avoided with a graveyard recursion subtheme. Using Drowned Secrets Perpetual Timepiece Wand of Vertebrae you want to put a lot of you deck into your bin. Then using Perpetual Timepiece Wand of Vertebrae Stream of Thought Devious Cover-Up and a few other cards, you put the cards you want back into your deck, increasing the average quality of the cards in your deck.

How do you win the game. First you need to control the game, then you can win it. Politics is your friend here, so use the other people in the pod to help you win. Make deals, let them cast spells, etc, but get them on your side. Then there are a few ways to win. 1. Kefnet: Difficult to kill (nearly impossible), flying, big, gives value. Its just a good card and can hopefully win for you eventually. Also works really well with the first loot you do on each opponent's turn. 2. Murmuring Mystic: slow value, but an army of birds should eventually take the game over. 3. Skullcage: Its a weird card, but its incremental damange. Your opponents won't notice until its too late, but it puts in a bunch of work for you for no upkeep cost. 4. Random creature beats. 5. Self mill with Jace: Not recommended as Jace could just die 6. I'm sure theres some other way to win.

You probably won't win, but you'll have fun interactive games along the way. The deck is a blast to play

Updates [7/15]

Out

• Convolute
• Quench These two counter spells were just a little too conditional for their mana cost

Replaced with

• Archmage's Charm
• Tale's End

Out

• Island
• Worn Powerstone
• Eye's Everwhere The mana in this deck isn't usually an issue and you aren't typically looking to go shields down for colorless mana on turn 3, so Worn Powerstone was an easy cut. Eye's Everywhere was just too slow and also required you to tap out a little too much.

Replaced with

• Flood of Tears
• Metallurgic Summonings
• Rebuild. The deck really needed mass Bounce, so the Flood of tears into Metallurgic Summonings combo should help both present a win condition and clean up the board. Metallurgic is really because ideally the deck has a way to win. Rebuild is an easy include to clear up pesky artifacts (which you don't have a lot of) and also cycles if you don't have any artifact players (the flexibility is very nice) -

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 18 - 0 Rares 20 - 2 Uncommons 30 - 2 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.98
Tokens	Bird Illusion 1/1 U, Construct X/X C, Emblem Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Spirit 2/2 C, Wizard 2/2 U
Folders	edh