Control Decks Are Fun

[@airsoftingwrong]

Virtual card advantage is a very cool way of illustrating your point about value

[@pajurr]

Damn, it makes me wanna learn me about the different control archetypes Great video, have a nice day

[@thetrinketmage]

You know… what’s not a bad idea. I might make some videos about draw go vs tappout control

[@pajurr]

@@thetrinketmage heck yes, I am not interested in learning a lot about stax because of other's enjoyment, but you made me want to discover control, without 2 cards combo, it seems like you help the table more than other archetypes. But the late big payoff that you are going towards must be pretty strong to beat 3 people (and not be a torment of hailfire, type of card)

[@thetrinketmage]

@@pajurr that’s the trick is finding what your payoff is without it being something boring like just a big torment! It really depends on the deck but there are options! Like Mizzix’s mastery! Also don’t rule out stax just yet I think it has a place in casual, especially if you don’t like combo. I’ve got a few videos on stax out on channel

[@pajurr]

@@thetrinketmage I watched one ! But limiting the ressources of the other players, or group slug aka punishing the other players for playing the game, meh, ya know, maybe not for me right now. At maximum maybe a Yurlock deck, giving too much and taking life as a payment. But yeah control seems interesting, plus other players need to play around it and so on

[@furnace6441]

My favorite control commander is by far Nymris, Oona's Trickster. It turns your counterspells/instant speed removal into cantrips, so you're almost never down on cards. He is also a 1/6 Flyer so he blocks most of the mid-game threats that your opponents try to swing at you.

[@1TrashCrap]

The prismatic bridge is low key a great draw-go control commander. 5 color and card advantage where instead of cheating out big beaters like eldrazi like most bridge decks go for, you run a small control engine that you know you will eventually see one of per turn. Every upkeep will see you snowballing the advantage with things like consecrated sphinx, seedborn muse, and various creature/planeswalker combos that give you repeated removal on a stick

[@nickalasmontano1496]

I find it surprising that people think 10+ pieces of removal is control. If you want to remove one thing per player in 12 turns, you need at least 13 to get that on average. Card draw reduces the amount you'd need, obviously, but 10 pieces of removal is not going to make your deck interaction heavy

[@seanedgar164]

MY deck that's intended to be control has 15, and it's 7 counters, 6 murders and 2 wipes. I'd say most chill games don't need removal every turn but this is for my lgs 😂 LOOOTS of "win-more" high power decks

[@beckhamjenkins4798]

There is so much to say. I currently have a mono black sheoldred, mono blue baral(guile polymorph) and Kellen(sun forger) control decks and I love them all. Guile and Farrell are deff my favorite control cards. Your videos have made me try more draw go in commander and it’s been a lot of fun. I love building a deck where I can one for one 4 people and just shut the table down. When my atraxa resolves it’s just over, I end most games with unused free counter spells in hand.

[@jemm113]

I can definitely say that my Orvar and Elminster decks are two of my favorites AND are my main control decks. The former focuses on building resilient infinite combos while totally outvaluing everyone else. The fact that my commander can EASILY just make token lands, including for ones with utility like mystic sanctuary or the lifegain locus land, is far and away one of my greatest advantages. Plus the fact that I can easily copy all of my most useful and powerful permanents at instant speed is not to be trifled with. Plus my suite of Archaeomancer effects allows me to easily loop my spells, especially Ghostly Flicker, to always have ways to deal with troublesome boards (and thank the stars for Amphibious Mutineer for being blinkable spot removal in blue!) As for Elminster, it's a deck focused on drawing and scrying to totally outvalue everyone else. Plus since my scrying helps me cast big spells, I can pump out dangerous instants and sorceries far too many turns before they should be. Plus with so many cards that let you scry and draw, especially big ones that have large scry numbers attached, I can essentially chain my spells for super cheap, refill my hand like nobody's business, AND end up casting a game-changing spell while still keeping up mana for counterspells and removal. The deck mainly wins one of two ways: using extra turns to beat everyone down with the army of faerie dragons Elminster can just dump onto my board (thanks to the sheer number of 6+ mana spells), or by Approach of the Second Sun, which I can EASILY cast twice in one turn thanks to my copious amounts of draw and scrying to dig 7+ cards AND those same scry effects allowing me to reduce the cost of the spell itself! The actual engine is split into two strategies: UW superfriends and Blink. Most of the planeswalkers (actually all of them sans the commander if I remember right) are various Teferis and Jaces that help me scry, draw, or otherwise control the board like with Te5ri's land untapping or the kicker Jace's Scry 2 and clones. Blink is useful for multiple reasons: it lets me reuse Archaeomancer effects to get back removal or value spells, Cryptic Annelid and a few others give me effectively free scrying (and A LOT at that) when I use blinking triggers, Oji does what I mentioned previously with free scrying as he has a built-in blinking trigger off of your second spell cast each turn and has his own lifegain and scry etb, etc. etc. The package of both blinking and superfriends comes together thanks to Oath of Teferi, which is a must-include anyways thanks to your commander being a UW planeswalker! While the blink for it is more secondary to the card itself, it never hurts to have a relevant permanent (which does include lands!) to take advantage of the etb and so many etbs greatly benefit Elminster!

[@Garl_Vinland]

I honestly think that “Drawing tons of cards, making tons of mana” is the biggest problem with Commander. People complain about tutors, but what’s better than tutors? Drawing 12 cards with Skull clamp in a turn. Not only are you getting your win come, you’re just out drawing your opponent with answers. Broken af. I’d rather people run tutors.

[@vTesseracTv]

paying 12 mana and losing 12 creatures is a pretty fair tradeoff for 12 cards. you can pay 15 into Pull From Tomorrow or any of the blue X draw spells and get the same result without sacrificing anything else. I don't like running tutors because it makes games feel samey and too easy.

[@Garl_Vinland]

@@vTesseracTv Skull clamp draws you two cards, dude. So you're paying 6 mana and losing 6 1/1 tokens for 12 cards lmao

[@PaulissVegan]

a player in our group complains about me playing black with black tutors but at the same time gets angry when I TRY to stop him resolving consecrated sphinx... I just tried, I wasn't even successful but got punished by attacks the very next turn. He drew more than 20 cards in the meantime, still attacks me because I tried. Commander is hilarious

[@DarkDealer666]

I am indeed one of the control aficionados you mentioned. I do think in some ways I differ greatly in how I play/think about control. But over all, I agree with you and think multiple methods are valuable. One of the things I love most to put in my control decks are the instant speed wipes such as blue's many bounce wipes (Aetherize, Aetherspouts, etc.) or Settle the Wreckage. That or some other combat tricks like Tefari's Protection. Point is, I like cards that mean you only need to answer the threats if they come your way. Or alternatively, you can focus on answering the threats to you (like you said, card draw engines, cards that shut down your instant speed interaction etc.) I also love the x cost card draw spells and stuff like Rhystic Study and Magic Mirror (all though my favorite card in all of magic is still Greed because I am a black mage at heart). But I think my favorite card in control decks is Leyline of Anticipation. Being able to do everything at instant speed is just such a huge buff for a control deck, since it essentially eliminates the need to choose between playing stuff and holding up many for potential answers. And finally, while I totally see your point with Arcane Denial, I am actually a big fan of the card. The specific reason I like it is that part of my main strategy is when playing is to not do things that piss off or scare the table. I sit back with mana up for interaction but don't play much that is threatening (or much at all frankly), doing your "draw land go" style of control deck that you mentioned primarily. I like cards like Arcane Denial that let me answer a threat but give my opponent something to soften the blow so to speak. But that's just personal preference and how I play control generally in Commander.

[@thetrinketmage]

Interesting you mentioned arcane denial. Working on a longer video about the card right now

[@seanedgar164]

I agree with and like to operate with a focus on removing anything I can't keep parity with. I'm not a fan of the kind of control this video suggests because I don't see it as being a social style for a Saturday night with the guys, especially aetherize effects are ROUGH. My Marvo deck is what I consider control, getting shroud flyers and Ætherling-s into play for free with mana up. I protect my board from wipes and remove what I can't match otherwise. I like my friends being active participants. I just want to have enough of a lead to close it out late game.

[@dontblamepeopleblamethegov559]

I run several commanders that provide value themselves - Nymris control and Karador attrition. Nymris requires your deck to be built a certain way, but when she's in, you get 1-3 cards per turn by playing efficient spot removal. Karador is giving you the ability to constantly play the most obnoxious creature removal piece, 1 per turn. Or creature stax piece. Whatever is more relevant. It doesn't matter how many times Karador is killed, he costs 3.

[@blazetrinity9462]

My idea of a control deck is also to incorporate stax pieces, this concept is similar to how a boardwipe functions, it is virtual card advantages, you lock/answer the board with 1 or 2 cards. These stax pieces don't have to be like static/winter orb type effects ofc. It can be as simple as rhystic study, or tithe. It gains you advantage just by being on board. My main deck is an esper control deck, it is an anti-creature stax/control deck, it punishes the table very hard for playing creatures at all, with cards like tabernacle, tainted aether, overburden, humility etc. The deck only runs 6 creatures including commander (sheoldred the apocalypse, drannith magistrate, archaeomancer, god-eternal kefnet, consecrated sphinx, and Oloro as commander). The deck has multiple ways of achieving infinite turn combos and win from there, either through inevitability with PWs, second sun or my favorite, just looping extra turn spells with blind obedience on board lol, extort the table to death.

[@andrasalu9537]

I was once excited about making a deck with an infinite combos, but my group is casual and it wouldn't be cool to use an almost cedh list. So I weakened the list and the combo, the commanders are "wernog" and "hargilde", it's a deck of clues and blinks. Instead of using several cards to look for a "time sieve" and win with extra turns, I replaced it with "Inspiring statuary" to have an explosion of mana and finish with "Debt to the deathless". It also has a combo with the "archaeomancer", "wernog" and the "ghostly Flicker", along with the "inspiring statuary" that can drip damage until its blue mana runs out, it's a deck with near infinite combos. In the end your opponents don't will cry a lot, its only ""30 damage combo""... Portuguese to english text translation

[@seanedgar164]

I don't really like big spell finishers because you can only stop them in blue. Mine was inspired by cube control, cheating many sphinx with shroud in whole countering or removing what I can't beat with my board

[@peterd8251]

I recently found your channel and have been really enjoying your deckbuilding advice! I recently rebuilt my Galea deck to run a lot of goad / "vow of ..." / frogify type enchantments and it felt very smooth in the two games I played with it this weekend. no wins, but I was a consistent threat and the control I put out was fun for everybody, to my surprise. Control is very different than my usual big stompy naya style, but I really enjoyed it! This video is giving me a lot of food for thought as I build a new Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir deck. Thanks!

[@thetrinketmage]

I’m glad I inspired you! That’s what I aim to do!

[@geoffreywampach2588]

My favorite deck is a mono-red control deck (Orthion). Because my commander is giving mild value, I am never the big threat to the table until I have 9+ mana on board- at which point I start knocking people out. The best part is that it cost less than $100 and has on of my highest win percentages of 30+ decks.

[@godi8628]

9:20 Feather the redeemed (as commander) + Sunforger(as tutor) + any token generator + intimidation Bolt, kill your own 1/1 token so you don't get attacked, first one is to avoid a big alpha strike until a way to thin them out is presented afterwards they will be forced to not attack or not attack you, and that will thin them out and get time for a Voltron kill

[@skywalker-xm2ik]

I recently made my first control deck and its way more fun than i expected although it did end up kinda stomping my playgroups decks

[@thetrinketmage]

Control usually has a lot of decisions so I think it’s a lot of fun

[@AwwhHex]

I mostly play brawl, but I love running Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter in my rakdos superfriends control shell. It has all the card advantage and removal one could ask for and has some quirky interactions with big powerhouse artifacts like wishclaw talisman and the one ring

[@ry7hym]

I heavily recommend watching The Salubrious Snail's video on the Erinis, Gloom Stalker + Street Urchin , Gruul control deck . it reimagined control for me. I always thought control was blue black white and that's it. but this gave me a new insight and made me realize my King Macar deck was actually pretty similar to that playstyle

[@MstrCorrin]

Been playing Oloro a long time and play it more standard control rather than huge lifegain focus, But cards like Witch of the Moors and Great Unclean one are some of the best for gumming up the board to push for that longer game. Karlov and Amalia get down early and put in some great work off of the passive heals too providing removal and draw smoothing.

[@potatogrease2420]

i’m thinking of building a top control deck as a love letter to lantern control, and it seems like it Could get difficult to keep card advantage that way but hopefully it works

[@volosguidetomonsters3440]

I built a Combo/Control deck and the Eldrazi/Dinosaurs player told me to change my deck :'(

[@blackstab3913]

Then you did it right

[@volosguidetomonsters3440]

@@blackstab3913 I agree, I told him to get better

[@tertmemelur1880]

I'm brewing around Xolatoyac just because it's cute af and was struggling on which direction to take it ... draw-go might be fun (since you can actually play at sorcery speed and maintain interaction mana) just gotta find a fun wincon now (also with the untapping on end step draw X spells are gonna be FUN)

[@yugioh1870]

This is by far the best video to descibe my carth list

[@mikemcconeghy4658]

Closest I've gotten is a deck with a lot of walls. I have a hard time saving untapped mana for instants on my opponent's turn.

[@ry7hym]

I tried building Noyan Dar as my control commander deck. But I don't really know how to build him / how to play him. I am used to playing more pro-actively so maybe I am playing him wrong / he's not the right commander for a control deck. He's one of the oldest decks I own and I am hesitant to take him apart, but lately I've been tempted to do so, even though I just ordered some new cards for him to try out. Right now I built him combo-ish with generating land tokens and untapping those lands with untap-creatures effects. But this plays really slow and doesn't really do anything. I also have this King Macar, the Gold Cursed vehicles / artifacts deck that makes for a pretty controlling playstyle since King Macar is a removal tool and value engine (generating gold tokens) himself. I will probably keep this deck because I often lend it out to one friend and it plays pretty decent. Then I have the Faceless Menace pre-con but I am thinking about taking this one apart as well. I did see a pretty neat cEDH decklist with Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer recently. however, my playgroup isn't interested in cEDH. I am looking for opinions: what decks should I keep / change / take apart?

[@JakeTheJay]

This makes want to turn either my Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge or Mirrodin Besieged into wincons for my Silas Renn and Armix deck. Right now my wincon is Master of Etherium, Metalwork Colossus, and a couple other big beaters

[@voodoochild1990]

Lord of the Nazgul. Play tons of instants, counters, and removal along with hate cards like Notion Thief and Opposition Agent. Acrue value for casting control spells with commander swing with 9/9 wraiths.

[@Mandus_The_Mad]

Part of the reason I'm interested in making a control deck is that the majority of decks between both me and my pod are either midrange but mostly turbo which means whenever anyone wants to play midrange they simply cannot. This is especially upsetting when we play with strangers as midrange is the most popular commander archetype. If our games don't want to last more than 5-7 turns then I'll make them last.

[@vlmoua]

Love control decks in a 1 vs 1 format, but it’s hard in a 4 player game.

[@Balcamion79]

I built a deck around Alela Cunning Conquerer, so I get a creature the first time I play something off my turn. Not only can I control a lot, but I'm building my board state with evasive attackers that goad one of my opponents' creatures and serve as cheap and renewable chump blockers. It's a fun deck to play. Very pesky. 🧚‍♂️🧚‍♀️

[@kaykz885]

Not a deck but I want to know what do you think about the card Telepathy? In general.

[@thetrinketmage]

It’s pretty ok. A funny card but not that useful I think. Maybe in a politics deck it could be good!

[@colinlynch6491]

Im a big fan of mono color control decks, my 3 favoritea rn are patron of the moon, vilis broker of blood, and minn wily illusionist. Each has a unique way to win. But when i play i have a slightly different view, i only care about 2, maybe 3 spells i truly care about all game

[@austinpotts7346]

I mostly run control or at least interaction heavy decks but the problem is tou have to rely on combos to win then people complain because youre answering them and winning with a combo

[@ManicLink]

My new favourite control deck is Vren the relentless with as many fleshbag marauders and instant speed edicts as I can fit

[@AbbySalazar-l7j]

I'm also building a Vren deck, but I'm worried it's going to be very annoying to play against. Let me know how your group feels about it if you decide to build it.

[@AleksPanferov]

I play Ghyrson Starn burn/control list that punishes people for "i have 40+ life, what can go wrong" mindset. The main wincon is Niv-Mizzet+Curiosity but i have never got to it because i don't have many tutors in izzet for enchantments and creatures and it doesn't stop me from winning "fair way" with noncombat damage. And my opponents don't like it 😁It's full of counters and pingers for whatever they do so they more often concede after my goblin sharpshooter + basilisk collar + Ghyrson "you can't have creatures" lock.

[@darlucian7467]

One of my commanders is an instant speed 6dmg to any targetable creature

[@miguelfreitas5343]

6:28 all those examples are actually a great way to show why I dislike control as an archetype, both playing it and playing against it. Sure, you describe them as "value engines", but in reality all you're doing is stopping everyone else from playing the game. You basically spend the game preventing the game from happening. And sure, that "Fork + Insurrection" final turn might be a cool moment, but the half an hour leading up to it feels absolutely miserable for the whole table. And if your deck is dedicated to doing that and then win with the same two or three win cons, it's gonna get old *very* fast. I'd rather lose in a cool way than have a game where it lasts extra long someone's doing nothing but stop what everyone else is doing

[@SwedeRacerDC]

Who needs control? I just play slivers with a tutoring commander and all my slivers have flash and... Nevermind, I play Sliver control. I play a lot of decks control style. Drawing is not necessary when your commander is a tutor, but I definitely still use draw, even in Slivers. As best as possible, I attempt to play control in a lot of my decks. You're absolutely right that the typical pod should see a decent degree of control in each deck so that you're not completely beholden to the whims of "the" control player lol. I do think there's pods that would be fine with very limited control. The decks need to be balanced to really make this possible, so it's not best to just design a single deck like this

[@scribdfukkyu9630]

I disguised my Control deck as a Group Hug deck🤫

[@quantumperception]

I'm trying to do that now. Any advice?

[@scribdfukkyu9630]

@@quantumperception depends on your commander, I play Kenrith so I have access to all 5 colors, usually go for alternative wincons so they don't suspect me based on boardstate

[@ethanhughes3515]

I think control can be a lot of fun but it easily can be miserable to play against. Too often it’s I get to play while stopping you from doing anything. Modern commander has every commander be a value engine so if you need to out value that it can often lead to just continually removing commanders. You can effectively have won the game because you have way more resources and answers to anything the table wants to do. So they can be fun to play but I think the stated goal is often miserable. There is a fine line between too little and too much removal that makes a game miserable. Maybe if people were willing to be unoptimized and give opponents more breathing room to do something even if it risks losing rather than shutting them off immediately but it’s hard to see enough players following through with that.

[@raedien]

Too much stigma around the phrase "play more removal." I find more success when saying, "Interact more." This is nice because it covers not only instants, but sorceries, stax, defensive spells, and attacking/defeating players as a form of interaction.

[@seanedgar164]

While I think responsible interaction makes for healthy games, repetitive removal and stopping draw isn't exactly fun for opponents, let alone friends. MY control Marvo deck looks to cheat in Ætherling and shroud sphinxes while using my open mana to stop people running away with the game or stopping board wipes I don't want.

[@miguelfreitas5343]

3:34 I disagree. Control isn't how you beat stacks. The way to beat stacks is to leave the table the moment they announce that's what they're playing

[@GorillerViller]

The problem with controll is that it's fun..... for the person playing controll. Everyone else just gets annoyed cause someone is constantly throwing a spanner into their decks gears. That's why when you play controll you can prolly expect everyone else will at some point gang up on you cause they had enough of your shit.

[@tyrone3185]

I feel as if you forget that put simply non perminent decks are just less fun to most people. I agree most ppl should use removal but its just not sthm ppl like to fight

[@tehrik0020]

I agree that "Just play less creature-heavy decks" is not good advice and it's not an argument in favor of Control/Stax being fun, because some people just don't find amusement into playing something that isn't creature-centric. Maybe better advice would've been "Include more removal in your creature-oriented decks if they get beaten so hard by Stax/Control", but just telling people "Play things designed to beat Control/Stax" is tone-deaf at best. I don't want to play Control, I don't like it and Trinket Mage does not make a good enough argument to convince me to rethink it, I don't think it's unfair but I hate the design, I just need to know a way to deal with it semi-reliably so I actually get to play my Reanimator deck: if I need to cut on ETB creatures to reanimate and instead pack more removal no problem, but I'm not changing deck entirely just because the local Stax/Control aficionado sat at my table today.

[@timothye.2902]

@@tehrik0020 you can't have your cake and eat it too, though. If you enjoy creature based decks and want to play creature based decks, you have to accept that anti-creature cards are going to be a major problem. Just like the enchantment based deck considers anti-enchantment cards to be a major problem, or the artifact deck, or the graveyard deck, etc. Having a bad matchup is far from the end of the world and actually really important for the diversity of available playstyles that makes Magic so appealing.

[@tehrik0020]

@@timothye.2902 What if I beat the hell out of the Control/Stax player physically? They're all scrawny, twitchy and overconfident both in their intelligence and combat expertise anyway.

[@handfulloftrash]

So many words yet so little insight. This should have been a short.

[@thetrinketmage]

Yea old vid I was still working things out. Many of these old archetype breakdowns will get updated versions eventually

[@tyrone3185]

Also tutors r lame

[@thetrinketmage]

Gotta disagree here… I think they can be a lot of fun. I made a whole video about it too! Why do you dislike tutors?

[@tyrone3185]

didnt think ud resond but consistncy is just not what i like to see in my commander games I enjoy the variance between matches instead of just dead cards. @@thetrinketmage

[@Cybertech134]

This video is just "Here's why my pod shouldn't keep getting salty just because I'm unfun to play against." "Control decks are fun" If they're only fun for the person playing them in a 4-player game, then they're not fun.

[@devan9197]

Control decks are fun to play with and against. If you're losing to control just go under them or go over them.

[@Cybertech134]

@@devan9197 Found the control player.

[@devan9197]

@@Cybertech134 yeah but I also enjoy playing against it, I'm not the only control player in existence

[@Cybertech134]

@@devan9197 No, but you're unfun to play against, nonetheless. And I won't pretend like I don't also have control decks, but I won't pull them out when I'm in friendly company. I understand they are unfun to play against; they were designed with that explicit purpose, but I at least have the self-awareness to know that they're not enjoyable to fight.

[@devan9197]

@@Cybertech134 I'm curious to understand what about control decks makes them feel unfun for you. My control deck is maybe seen as powerful but no one I've played against has described it as unfun. Are you playing in a low powered meta or are your control decks insanely oppressive?