howdy folks, welcome to a mystical land where answers are plenty, removal is cheap and opponents die by their own hand lol.
the basic premise of this deck is to stall the opponent as much as possible using a combination of broad removal and counter spells. until it becomes time to steal the opponent's resources while limiting their options and turn them against the opponent by using Villainous Wealth with counter back up.
CONTROL:
the All-Star control card is Sultai Charm, it digs, fuels delve, removes most of the most dangerous creatures, artifacts and enchantments in the format at instant speed so its basically a control player's wet dream and can be added as a playset to just about any of the following categories.
the removal package consists of 4xSultai Charm, 3xAbrupt Decay, 2xMaelstrom Pulse, 2x
Thoughtsieze
3xMurderous Cut, 1x Darkblast. with 15 mainboard removal spells most creature based strategies should find it difficult to deal damage in a timely manner. while 11 of the removal spells are still able to hit just about every other utility permanent except for manlands, which can be dealt with using Murderous Cut and Cryptic Command. as a side note there are 2xGhost Quarter mainboard, which although aren't "spells" are effectively extra removal for dreaded manlands bringing the number of land oriented removal to 8 cards.
Thoughtsieze
in the mainboardis relatively new along with Darkblast, these were mainly to give the deck more turn 1 plays as infect suddenly became popular at my LGS (yay new meta! :P)
the counter package consists of 2xRemand, 3xMana Leak, 3xCryptic Command plus 2xCountersquall in the sideboard.i chose the current split of 2 mana counters to provide a decent amount of early game permission that is still reasonably relevant in the later stages of the game when winning counter wars becomes critical. However you will probably want to side out the Remands or Mana Leaks for Countersquall according to preference on the draw. once you hit turn 4 though you should be able to use and abuse Cryptic Command to slam on the brakes and eek out a winning advantage.
to recap there are 15 removal spells (15 including
Tectonic Edge
and 8 counters, meaning there are 24 cards in the deck specifically for interacting with the opponent and generally ensuring that they're having a miserable time XD
Now that we've established our control suite, it time consider how to maintain velocity with a card draw package. And with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time out of the format there are no clear winners for this role. So far i have settled on 2xTelling Time, 4xSultai Charm and 3x
Careful Consideration
accompanied by the CAN-tripping power of Remand and Cryptic Command. considering how answer dense we need i feel the selection power of Telling Time is great at pulling what we need in a tight jam and digging towards our ultimate win-con of Villainous Wealth, while being able to ship later game cards to the bottom for when they're really needed, despite only cantriping. Also due to the nature of our draw&go game plan i feel that
Careful Consideration
gives us the most bang for our buck while functioning flawlessly to fuel our delve cards and Snapcaster Mages. this may be better with something along the lines of Compulsive Research but the sorcery speed is a real disincentive until i get a bit more data on when i most often cast
Careful Consideration
.
THE WIN-CONS
primary: Villainous Wealth, with us restricting what the opponent is doing on board they must be keeping all their most juicy spells in their library and this lets us pluck them from right under our opponent and bludgeon them in the face with them, otherwise we'll exile some utility and draw spells that the opponent has been waiting for and use them for our own nefarious purposes.
secondary: Snapcaster Mage, although these guys are effectively spells they do come with a pike and can potentially put the game away on a clear enough board.
tertiary: Elixir of Immortality, this is mostly just ensure that our library doesn't become too answer light and give us a nice little health boost to recover from the early beats we may receive. But it can also potentially be used in conjunction with Villainous Wealth to mill the opponent if they have literally nothing of use for us in their deck. (note this is highly unlikely since most modern decks like to win quickly and pack a lot of threats although some smart arses may try to get cute and force us to go to time this way). This card also has a nice interaction with delve spells letting you cull your library of cards with minimal late game impact while increasing your draw quality to answer any late game shenanigans your opponent might pull.
SIDEBOARD:
Countersquall: as discussed previously this spell is mostly for siding out Remands and Mana Leaks but is also a nice side in against burn, storm, control and ''superfriend'' style decks that over load on noncreature spells.
Bribery: this is for those decks that only run a few big fatties that will take too long to Villainous Wealth properly, I'm looking at you
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
. it basically lets us interrupt the opponents cheating mechanic and then steal their threat or lets us out race the opponents that are attempting to hardcast their win-cons.
Mistcutter Hydra: this is another alternate win-con for decks that are creature light or use more than 2 card combos, which are unlikely to be assembled via Villainous Wealth (atm i'm debating on making this the primary win-con as hasty uncounterable creatures which scale with the game seem good as a 2 of. and casting this as a hasty 4/4 isn't too shaby with counter/removal backup for opponent shenanigans. However i'm still going to test both options intensley and any extra data or opinions will be appreciated.)
Monastery Siege: the theory for this card is that it slows down burn spells and can also be an advantage engine for control matchups ie. UWR tempo/control
Thoughtsieze
: for when i feel particularly threatened by combo or creature rushes
Creeping Corrosion
: obligatory hate for affinity although depending on how horrendous the match up acutally is i may just give up on that match up and use these slots for another more fair match up
Damnation: what control deck is without at least one 4 mana Wrath of God? certainly not this one.(this is the most open SB slot for changing so any suggestions that you think might be better will be appreciated.)
if anyone decides to proxy/sleeve this up any results from your playtesting will be greatly appreciated as i'm trying to collate the data and i only have so many hours in my day XD
Happy hunting and hopefully you enjoy the deck or at least the how much bilious discharge your opponent will be excreting over the table after playing against this lol.
