Welcome to Esper Frustration and may you never end up on the other side of the table from it.
I've only recently looked at control play. I began playing on a competitive level back in Dark Ascension and at that time there was never a control deck I couldn't outsmart and beat down with my extremely aggressive and persistent zombie deck. This is my first real attempt at moving from all out aggressive play to calculated and controlled play. This is not to say my aggressive decks aren't calculated but with the right player behind a good control deck there is not much that can beat it.
Now for the part you guys actually came here for, the rundown of how and why this deck works.
Lands(The Boring Part) - This should be pretty straight forward. This deck runs 25 lands because as a control player we always want to hit our land drops. The more mana we have the more options are available to us and when more options are available to us, less are available to the enemy. We have 5 scry lands for early game to make sure we draw into what we need. 2 gain lands just help keep our mana fixing consistent and pay for the fetches. 8 fetch lands ensure a good amount of deck thinning and consistent, fast mana of whatever color we need. Basics are here for continuity. They give us our fetch targets and are split according to colors we need more than others. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth allows us to hold onto our fetches and use them as black sources until we need other colors. Haven of the Spirit Dragon just gives us ways to recycle our fairly small creature base if the opposition somehow finds a way to kill it.
The Exciting Part - How we control the enemy.
Control: Make them cry!
Dissolve
- Very strong counter spell. Not much they can do except try to play around us not having 2 blue sources open at all times which is something that almost never happens. The scry also helps us keep drawing answers we need.
Silumgar's Scorn - With all the draw and dig in this deck we will almost never not have a dragon in our hand unless it is in play. One nice thing about this spell though is that if the opponent is tapped out we can keep our hand close to our vest and still counter their spell.
Removal: Tear them down piece by piece!
Bile Blight
- This spell works great as spot removal on a lot of creatures but can also double a Pseudo-Wrath.
Foul-Tongue Invocation - Without this card I would not have made this deck. This is our bread and butter. As mentioned earlier we will never not be able to use the reveal/control a dragon option so this card gives us great removal(make them rage when you hit their
Sylvan Caryatid
) as well as a huge stabilization.
Hero's Downfall - Generally we want to hold this to use on walkers but it is just all around great removal.
Murderous Cut - Unbiased removal for 1 black....um yes! We only run one though so that we can make smart choices with our delves and keep Dig Through Time cheap.
Wrath: What board state?
Crux of Fate - We only run dragons and generally don't have problems against other dragons so this is a pretty safe wrath to hit the enemy board state and keep ours intact.
Languish - Use at your own risk. This hits our Dragonlord Ojutai and misses Siege Rhino. This can save games and that is why we run it but if you don't really need it, put it on the bottom and dig for something better.
Draw: Maintain the advantage!
Anticipate - Mini Dig Through Time. This helps us dig through our deck to find answers we need and sift through the cards we don't.
Dig Through Time - Quite possibly the most overpowered spell in magic. This gives us card advantage and full control over what advantages we want.
Narset Transcendent - A fairly highly debated walker. In this deck we maintain enough control to ensure her safety and with all our scry she provides a fairly reliable draw mechanic. This is of course just until we emblem her. If we get into a bit of trouble late we can also cast her and use her -2 on Foul-Tongue Invocation to ensure the deaths of 2 creatures and gain 8 life. Her -2 is also very useful with a multitude of other spells in the deck depending on the circumstances.
Dragonlord Ojutai - Anticipate on a 5/4 flying stick. Not much else to say.
Win Conditions: In case they don't scoop.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Speaks for himself quite well. This walker just ends games. We generally don't want to cast him until about turn 15 or so when we have 12+ mana open and can protect him but depending on the circumstances he can come in earlier. He can also be recycled with Haven of the Spirit Dragon and being extremely hard to kill in the first place, this makes him a huge and nearly unanswerable threat.
Dragonlord Silumgar - I love this guy. If we see the opportunity, then rather than killing it, we can take control of someone else's win condition and use it against them.
Silumgar, the Drifting Death - 3/7 evasive hexproof is enough but used in conjunction with another dragon he can swing through and keep the board clear of possible counterattacks or even bring large creatures into range for Languish and
Bile Blight
.
Dragonlord Ojutai - Hexproof while he is untapped makes this guy a very good defender in a match vs a lot of removal then once we have the counter spells to protect him we can swing for the fence and draw into more protection and more ways to end the game or tighten our grip on it.
Palace Siege
- Don't listen to the haters! This is a good spell! In a mirror match this gives us the edge to just sit back and watch our life increase as theirs decreases. Just sit back and protect it and keep the board clear and this will end the game for you. It is a slow and painful kill but a reliable one. This is also great against decks that have ways to come back in the mid-late game. This provides us with constant and reliable life gain to keep us away from death and gives us time to deal with the threats any other deck can pull out.
The Sideboard - You thought game 1 was bad? Wait until you see game 2.
Banishing Light
- This comes in against anything that was or could be hard to answer with our main deck. Things like enchantment and artifacts or indestructible gods.
Drown in Sorrow - Despite my bragging, this deck does have 1 weakness. Turbo small things. With mass amounts of single target removal and one a few wraths than don't hit until turn 4-6 we have issues dealing with things like white wienies and mass goblins. Especially Secure the Wastes. This spell just gives us 2 early answers in conjunction with
Bile Blight
we can generally remove small things faster than they can put them out in game 2 and 3.
Infinite Obliteration
- Perfect for mirror matches. Rip all the win conditions out of someone's deck or maybe just their counter spells. This card is great against a lot of decks and also gives us information because we search the opponents hand.
Dragonlord's Prerogative
- Full hand refill that can't be countered. This comes in against the mirror match or other grind matchups that have us low on cards at times.
Negate - Up against another control deck? We swap this out for wraths or kill spells to make sure we can counter the spells they are trying to use to get an advantage over us.
Self-Inflicted Wound
/
Surge of Righteousness
- Just good cheap kill spells that are biased towards certain colors. If we see those colors and need more removal we can add these in or go 1 for 1 with other removals that are maybe less effective(we don't want a
Bile Blight
in hand against a Sylvan Carytid but
Self-Inflicted Wound
is quite effective).
Virulent Plague - Cause F*ck tokens! Pardon the French.
Be sure to leave your thoughts and feedback is always welcome! +1 if you like it!
