Sultai Control vs U/B Control (STD)
Standard forum
Posted on April 3, 2015, 10:47 a.m. by Zaiato
Sultai Control vs U/B Control for standard no budget restrictions which deck is better?
I'm playing Sultai Control at them moment, but both are very good decks. Before DTK, I'd argue that Sultai was better, but now I give the edge to U/B (thanks to Anticipate and Ultimate Price).
U/B is probably more consistent, but Sultai is more fun to play (in my opinion), if that means anything to you. Sultai can also win much faster, especially post-board.
I think it's close, but U/B is probably the stronger deck.
April 3, 2015 1:19 p.m.
Advantages of playing U/B:
- A better mana base which gives access to: lifegain (Dismal Backwater + Radiant Fountain ), the possibility to run Dissolve (running Dissolve in Sultai is a mistake), and about 2-3 less ETB tapped lands.
- Running 4x Dissolve implies that U/B is less weak to planeswalkers or impact cards like Siege Rhino and Genesis Hydra.
- Running 4x Dissolve makes U/B be able to run fewer win cons. Running fewer win cons means more of other spells (mostly card draw). In the end, U/B plays a much more draw-go card advantage game than Sultai and deploys its win cons very carefully.
- Satyr Wayfinder. Oh man it's a good card in control. It lets the deck run 25 lands instead of 27-28. It fuels Dig Through Time, Murderous Cut and Tasigur, the Golden Fang very fast. It finds the 3rd land drop about everytime, which implies less mulligans and less mana screwed situations. It chump blocks and saves life points while putting an additional card in the graveryard.
- Sultai Charm. Enchantment hate is a must must in the meta right now, Mastery of the Unseen, Outpost Siege, Jeskai Ascendancy are a plague!
- The heavy planeswalker package helps the deck stabilize better against any deck that applies pressure. It also makes your sideboarding a real mind game for opponents, much like Gerard Fabiano including 4-5 creatures post-side. Opponent's have to guess whether their removal is good or not game 2.
- In the end, Sultai plays out more of a tapout style than U/B. Running Satyr Wayfinder and a lot of PW helps the deck stabilize faster, but without Dissolve the deck is weaker to high impact cards.
Advantages of running Sultai
I have played both U/B and Sultai and for my part I'm definitely running Sultai for game day, mostly for the enchantment hating. I also plan on using a transformative sideboard just like Fabiano, it has thrown people off guard a lot of times. Here's my list if you wanna have a look! Sultai control.
Arvail says... #2
That's a pretty loaded question. For starters, U/B occupies a larger section of the meta, but that means more people are ready to face it and may have dedicated slots in their side boards against it. Then there's the fact that lists for these two archetypes vary wildly. Some U/B decks chose not to run Pearl Lake Ancient, you'll often see at least one Silumgar, the Drifting Death in U/B, both archetypes usually have at least one copy of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Sultai sometimes has one or two copies of Garruk, Apex Predator.
Neither deck is bad by any means. The call is entirely meta dependent. Sultai has more high-value cards whereas U/B tends to try to bury you in card advantage. Because of the high variance between lists that people run, I have no idea what the true potential of either deck is. I'd recommend U/B because it's easier to start honing a list in 2 colors and the more consistent manabase is appealing.
April 3, 2015 11:16 a.m.