Commander Collection: Control Freak

Commander / EDH WU (Azorius)

Jurrane

Instant (23)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Disdainful Stroke
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Negate
• 1x Orim's Chant
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection P

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Deafening Silence
• 1x Frozen Aether
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Rule of Law

Land (37)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Halls of Mist
• 1x Hengegate Pathway  ^Flip
• 11x Island
• 1x Kor Haven
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 10x Plains
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rivendell
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Skycloud Expanse
• 1x Urza's Cave

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Hour of Revelation
• 1x Ravenform
• 1x Solve the Equation
• 1x Starnheim Unleashed
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Wrath of God

Commander (1)

Creature (11)

• 1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Fatespinner
• 1x Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Scalelord Reckoner
• 1x Silent Arbiter
• 1x Sphinx of the Final Word
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Zetalpa, Primal Dawn

Artifact (7)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Norn's Annex
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Thought Vessel

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Introduction

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Welcome to my primer for “Control Freak”, the first of two Azorius decks in my collection (trivia fans: it’s also the only deck that has a different naming convention to the others – PM me what it is and I’ll send you a prize). It’s a reworked attempt of an Azorius deck as its first iteration (Spirits tribal) turned out to be a bit one dimensional. There seems to be a shortage of interesting Azorius commanders at the moment, so until one gets printed, I've gone full control with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV.

I already have a Stax deck (mono-green Titania), so I mostly stayed away from the typical Grand Arbiter mana denial/lock build and turned it into an old-school control deck with a medium amount of Stax-y elements, with plenty of board control and answers for nearly everything, with the aim of stalling the game and grinding out card advantage. Once the board is secure, it wants to use its various tutor and dig effects to find Approach of the Second Sun and cast it twice, winning the game.

As a secondary win condition, the deck has the option of playing its creatures that are hard to deal with, or creating a host of Angels with a foretold Starnheim Unleashed.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would categorise this deck as one of my Tier 3 builds. It's pretty well optimised for a casual control deck, features powerful cards in most categories but doesn't use the hard Stax lock cards often found in more competitive decks. It can hold its own against a variety of opponents up to around mid-power casual but faster, aggressive or more competitive decks might overwhelm it. It's a good choice against most unknown opponents but be warned, it wants to play the long game so if you're looking for a quick match at the end of a Commander night, this probably isn't the deck to go for. But it's fun to play if you're looking for a more controlling style and can be pretty effective at locking down the game.

Budget

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The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is around $400. That puts it at the higher side of casual, largely due to premium card selections including Rhystic Study, Fierce Guardianship and Cyclonic Rift. Most of the other cards - such as Stax pieces, counterspells, removal and creatures - aren't that expensive in themselves so, if you're looking to build Azorius control on a budget, it can definitely be done. It's straightforward to upgrade into more expensive cards later if needed.

Does Control Work?

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I’ve seen quite a few articles questioning whether hard UW control is a viable strategy in EDH. Based on my experience with this deck, I think it is but, like many of my decks, it probably only works at lower/mid-powered tables and you have to get lucky with the opponents you’re facing. I find this deck surprisingly fun and interactive to play as it definitely forces you to think and to manage your resources properly. We’re not a counterspell-heavy deck (I already have one of those), so we can’t counter everything, especially when we’re facing three other players. We have to think strategically about what we can allow to hit the board; we have to consider which threats we want to remove and how; and we have to be patient enough to go for the right win condition when the time is right. If you enjoy these sort of decisions, then this is a really good deck to play.

Our Game Plan

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We’re a classic control deck, so we want to control the board and stop other players doing their thing. We stop them casting spells that are likely to impact us and we remove permanents that are likely to cause us problems. The longer the game goes, the stronger we are so we’re like legendary snooker player Cliff Thorburn, grinding away in a war of attrition until we’re finally in a position to press the advantage and go for the win.

The great irony of being a control deck, however, is that we’re not going to be in control all the time. We’ll usually have three opponents, so responding to everything they do is not an option, and there will be plenty of times when our removal effects or counterspells don’t line up with our enemies’ actions. During those times, control seems like a bit of a misnomer: we’re barely in control at all, we’re being attacked by creatures, our life total is shrinking rapidy and we’re often hanging on to find the right card at the right time, hoping our opponents focus their attacks on each other rather than us.

Because of this, our game plan usually focuses around three key stages: stall for time, develop a presence and take over the game. These stages – particularly the first two – aren’t distinct in and of themselves, and often blur together, and the final stage will usually only happen when our opponents are low on threats, perhaps one or two players have already been removed, and we’ve built up enough of a critical mass of defensive measures that we’re able to shift our emphasis from reactive to proactive measures.

Each of these stages is covered in a bit more detail below.

Stalling For Time

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Time is our most important resource. The longer the game goes, the greater the chance we have of gaining an advantage. Our biggest fear is getting removed early as nearly every other deck is more aggressive than us. Our strategy therefore is to buy ourselves as much time as possible in the early/mid game, in order to be able to develop later on. We do this by countering and removing threats generated by our opponents, and by putting up barriers that make us difficult to interact with.

To achieve these goals, we run the strongest possible removal package. Our spot removal is efficient, flexible and versatile, using the best 1-for-1 cards that blue and white has. This is backed up by a series of mass removal cards that enable us to gain card advantage by taking out multiple threats at once: Cleansing Nova, Day of Judgment, Hour of Revelation, Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God. In addition, we have numerous counterspells to deal with threats that our spot or mass removal cards can’t answer.

We also have a series of permanents intended to make life difficult for our opponents. Their principal purpose is to slow things down and prevent stuff happening. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV of course falls into this category, and we also have Authority of the Consuls, Aura of Silence, Ghostly Prison, Deafening Silence, Propaganda, Norn's Annex, Frozen Aether and Rule of Law. Maze of Ith, Kor Haven, Halls of Mist and Glacial Chasm are handy ways of nullifying attacks against us.

Developing A Presence

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While we’re stalling for time, we’re also quietly trying to develop a presence in the game. In the case of a control deck like this, developing a presence is a bit of an abstract concept as we’re not running many permanents that hit the board. Instead, we’re developing our hand by drawing cards and finding the right cards that will allow us to shift from defence to attack later on. Developing a presence can also mean stopping our opponents from doing things, or running them out of threats by destroying their stuff, especially with mass removal that trades one of our cards for many of theirs.

We want to be regularly drawing cards to ensure we don’t run out of the answers we need to deal with our opponents’ stuff. Hitting our land drops is absolutely essential for this deck, so we want to make sure we’re drawing enough cards to achieve this. We love to see Sphinx's Revelation, Mystic Remora or Rhystic Study, especially in the mid/late game, and two of our creatures – Archmage Emeritus and Baral, Chief of Compliance – are great sources of card draw for us.

Taking Over The Game

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Through a combination of patient play, stalling for time and (sometimes) dumb luck, if we make it into the late game, we’re usually in a good position to try and take over, by shifting from defence to attack. You’ll know this is happening if the board has few or no threats to harm us, our opponents are top decking and/or we have a hand full of counterspells and removals ready to deal with whatever comes our way. If one or more of these conditions are true then it’s all systems go and we can try for the win.

The roots of this deck – and a myriad of control decks in every MtG format before it – go all the way back to Brian Weissman’s seminal “The Deck" in the late 90s. Weissman recognised a control deck, of which “The Deck" was the first, didn’t need to run many ‘finisher’ cards at all, as it only needed to draw them in the late game and therefore multiple copies were redundant at most other times. This deck takes the same approach: out of its 100 cards, only seven or eight can really be called ‘finishers’. We don’t want to draw them until the very end (although Starnheim Unleashed works a little bit differently) and if we do, we’ll just hang on to them until the time is right.

Our finisher cards are as follows:

- Big Creatures: Very late in the game, if we’ve done a good enough job of controlling the board that there are very few threats left, we can play one of our own game-ending creatures that will finish off opponents quickly if left unopposed. These are Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Nezahal, Primal Tide, Scalelord Reckoner, Sphinx of the Final Word and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn. Each of these is great for putting our enemies on a clock and, as we shift our tactics from defence to offence, we can use our removal spells to deal with opposing blockers, allowing our own threats to attack unimpeded.

- Starnheim Unleashed: This is the perfect card for our gameplan. We can foretell it for {2} any time and then cast it for its far more efficient cost later on when it benefits us. Staring down a host of Angels is rarely ideal for any opponent, especially if we have enough counterspells in hand to protect them and/or removal cards to ensure they can force through the damage.

- Approach of the Second Sun: This has become the classic control finisher. Once we’ve successfully cast it the first time (protecting it with counterspells if needed), we only need its cast trigger once more to win the game. We have several cards to help dig for it when it goes back to our library seven cards down, and we can use Mystical Tutor or Solve the Equation to find it either for the first or second time.

So far, in the handful of games I’ve played with this deck, all three of thse have definitely been viable win strategies and I now have my first Approach of the Second Sun win :)

Thanks for reading this primer!

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All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Talrand, Sky Summoner {U}
Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff

{B} Syr Konrad, the Grim {B}
Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IV {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Hallar, the Firefletcher {R}{G}
Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Heron's Grace {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Prime Speaker Zegana {U}{G}
Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Kess, Dissident Mage {U}{B}{R}
Mindbender: Grixis Discard

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	4 years
Last updated	6 hours
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Angel Warrior 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Ape 3/3 G, Bird 1/1 U, Boar 2/2 G, Elephant 3-3 G, Foretell, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Treasure