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Author
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Topic: This is Blue-White Control
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sugarv
Member
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posted October 17, 2001 09:27 PM
      
This is Blue-White Control
With the release of Odyssey, many people are talking about which decks are dead and which can now be played. I have also heard that, now, any archetype is viable in tournament play. There is some contradiction here, then. Blue-white control is thought to be dead since cards like Accumulated Knowledge, Story Circle, Blinding Angel, etc. are being booted out. Another disadvantage is the addition of some anti-control cards to the environment—most notably: Price of Glory. If any archetype is viable (and I believe this to be true), then blue-white control must be viable and you will find no disagreement here. I will attempt to explain my reasoning here as to why I am not going to stop playing this deck type.
What is blue/white control? To answer this question, a definition of control must be decided upon. Control, simply put, is a method of playing that allows one player to pseudo-direct the course of a game. However, the method is not the entirety of control; the cards chosen are a huge factor in affecting how one must play control. Blue has long been the color of control. What makes blue so appropriate? The first, and perhaps most common answer, is Counterspell. Obviously, the ability to say “no, you can’t do that” in a game is powerful. But, what else makes blue-white control decks so powerful and flexible.
With the loss of some famous creatures and card drawing, (those I stated above) one must ask, “how is blue-white control going to draw enough cards and how is it going to kill?” Odyssey has given blue a few new card drawing tricks. The first of these being Standstill; it’s perfect! Control doesn’t mind standing still (it never did). Plus, one can draw three cards even with Price of Glory on the table. One doesn’t have to Fact or Fiction at the end of an opponent’s turn; an opponent can just give three cards if they do anything. If they don’t, one doesn’t need to draw anything at that time anyway. Cephalid Coliseum is another great addition; I don’t even want to begin counting the damage control has taken from lands to cast it’s spells! Why not include another as, when threshold is achieved (and it will be), it becomes a powerful, hand-tuning tool. Concentrate, also, should not be overlooked; while it is a sorcery, it is not overcosted by a lot and provides extreme card advantage when used properly. So, we have lost four Accumulated Knowledges and gained four Standstills and four Coliseums (both of which can get around Price of Glory relatively easily) and some Concentrates. No problems there!
On the subject of card drawing, Thieving Magpie is very nice. As it is a reasonably costed flier, it will not be difficult to protect and will net a few cards at least in its travels. Good creature, card drawing, and protectability all in one are definitely a good thing.
Filter Lands – WOW! Okay, so maybe they aren’t the best ever, but they’ve got there uses. Granted dropping one on turn two prevents one from Counterspelling, but drop one on turn three and one can still Absorb. The only problem these come with for blue-white control, then, is that one must play them carefully—on the proper turn. Also, it may not be necessary to include four in a deck, although many decks will without issue.
Divert is our replacement for Misdirection and I think we’re quite happy with it. It can be cast first turn and can really mess with some decks (i.e. Ponza, Counterburn, Machine Head). Plus, it is the new way of stopping the dreaded Rage with Kicker.
Now for the white part. Granted we don’t have Story Circle and we can’t include every CoP, but what are these cards for? (Actually, some CoP’s like green and red may be considered for the sideboard.) Control must keep itself alive until it can gain control of the game. Story Circle and cards like it, prevent damage, keeping blue-white alive. However, there are other ways of keeping oneself alive. Gaining life is an easy means to the same end and Gerrard’s Wisdom is excellent at serving this purpose. (Even Reviving Dose might be considered, as it is a cantrip.) Also, reviving vapors gains us life while providing good card advantage. These spells are just another means to our end—staying alive until we can Wrath. In the face of Price of Glory, Wisdom laughs as it gets cast during the main phase and no mana must be spent during the opponent’s next turn. Although it is blue, Hibernation can help fill white’s purpose of keeping us alive and when many green token creatures are on the board, it’s a blue wrath—devastating to green flashback decks.
So we’ve solved the problem of drawing cards and staying alive; now we must decide how we are going to kill our opponent. Three words: Djinn, Angel and Traumatize. Iridescent Angel will serve up many a point of damage while never being targeted by anything noteworthy except two Barbarian Rings. Once she hits the board, she’s unstoppable as an attacker or a defender. Precious few ways of dealing with her exist and blue-white control can handle them all. Meanwhile, the ever popular Mahamoti is finding its way back into type II and still packing the same punch. Although expensive, the djinn swings for 5 in the air at 6 mana and blue-white can wait until late game to cast it. While I wouldn't run 4 in a deck, 2 are easily playable. And to add a little injury to injury, we can put half of our opponent’s deck into their graveyard. Then again, once we do that, we can just let our opponent deck him or herself while holding back counters to deal with only must-counter spells. (In fact Howling Mine is a wonderful card to use in this deck type!)
I should also mention that disenchants still exist in many forms, so blue-white won't be bothered by pesky hate cards. Cards like Dismantling Blow are especially nice as they can net cards in the deal.
Let’s play a sample game:Turn One – Island
Turn Two – Standstill
Turn Three – wait and Absorb
Turn Four – Gerrard’s Wisdom
Turn Five – wait and counter
Turn Six – Traumatize
Turn Seven – Angel
Get the idea?
Having solved all of our problems, we can throw together a nice pool of cards to build from; one can go from here depending on your metagame. Counterspell
Absorb
Fact or Fiction
Standstill
Wrath of God
Concentrate
Traumatize
Iridescent Angel
Gerrard’s Wisdom
Divert
Mahamoti Djinn
Dismantling Blow
Teferi's Moat
Thieving Magpie
Skycloud Expanse
Adarkar Wastes
Coastal Tower
Cephalid Coliseum
Islands
Plains Sideboard Cards:
CoP Green/Red
Sacred Ground
Hibernation
Etc. (consider your metagame) Remember, this is only a skeleton and not a deck to build. You can see that there are no disenchants or other utility-type spells. The list is a starting point or set of concepts to use to begin building a deck. Experiment, add cards and lose cards as you see fit. Base it on the field of opposition in your area. Blue White control isn't dead, it just doesn't look the same anymore. Expect to see it in one guise or another at a tournament near you. See you next match!
- sugarv
[Edited 3 times, lastly by sugarv on October 19, 2001]
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British Kavu
Banned
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posted October 18, 2001 08:38 PM
dont you love one drops...but noone plays with those...__________________
EMAIL
cxbmwz3@hotmail.com
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disruptive_student_404
Member
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posted October 19, 2001 12:41 AM
noteworthy but unimportant:domain might be able to take on the angel, with maybe a tek (?!) or legacy weapon in play... but then domain isn't the most powerful decktype arouind anyway, since u/w seems to have a field day with it...
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da-odd-templar
Member
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posted October 20, 2001 04:30 PM
What was the point of using the traumatize before the angel? It didn't help you at all, and if you have an angel out you won't be killing them by decking them anyway.__________________
Stinky cheese is still cheese.Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died. - Stephen Wright Rice Cube - The next Azn Sensation! Proud member of The Rice Collective! Valmtg is my Goddess.
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sugarv
Member
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posted October 20, 2001 06:27 PM
Granted that was a sample game, but:It is okay to use the traumatize first because it does help you. I am sure getting rid of half of my opponents remaining cards is not trivial. Also, I am trying to show that the deck can be aggro-control. Not only can the deck attempt to run the opponent out of cards while maintaining control, it can play angel and swing heavily to give the opponent and added headache. Dealing with two critical situations is much more difficult than one.
Also, when to play things depends on the matchup and the current game situation. I would never play angel on turn seven against another control deck, or when I need to Wrath away a lot of weenies.
Hope that clears things up. __________________
- sugarv
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