Deck of the Week: Modern U/B Control
With pre-releases taking the place of any large tournaments this last weekend, I took a spin through the MTGO decklists to find good candidates for this week’s Deck of the Week.
When I saw a 5-0 Modern list that included Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, my research was done.
Ashiok may be the card that is most often referred to with “why doesn’t that card see more Modern play?” While Modern is a format that rewards a super-low curve much more than Standard, three mana is not a lot for a planeswalker, especially one that can be as frustrating to your opponent as Ashiok.
Let’s dive into this nightmare and see what we can find. First, the list:
U/B Control, by Panoma
The first thing that jumps out about this list is what is not there: There isn’t a single copy of Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek in the entire 75, which is downright shocking for a black deck in Modern. The only hand disruption is in the form of two Collective Brutality in the sideboard, and it’s probably fair to say that the discard mode is often ignored in favor of killing a small creature and gaining a couple life while draining for two. There is also no Snapcaster Mage, which is less surprising given the spells in the deck.
What is here, though, is quite interesting. Let’s break it down.
Win Conditions
Even control decks need a way to win, and there are several of them here. Grave Titan is an absolute bomb in any format, and it punishes any deck that relies on Fatal Push or Lightning Bolt for removal. A Grave Titan on an empty board is a terrifying sight; even if it is removed immediately, it leaves four power on the board.
Creeping Tar Pit has been a Modern fixture for a long time, and the unblockable clause removes a lot of obstacles. It can still be Fatal Pushed, though, which calls for more caution than before that card shook up the format. While you never wanted to walk your Tar Pit into a Lightning Bolt, at least that was three less damage to the face.
Liliana of the Veil is Liliana of the Veil. Jace, Architect of Thought is fantastic against decks packing a lot of small creatures, and the mini Fact or Fiction is a nice bonus. The ultimate is potentially hilarious in a format that includes things such as Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. But, I would imagine the same rules apply to this Jace in Modern as applied in Standard: If there are creatures on the board, tick him up; if not, start diggin’.
As for Ashiok, she can certainly weave some nightmares. If you hit a cheap creature such as Tarmogoyf or Voice of Resurgence off of the first activation, you can run out a cheap blocker with the minus and keep Ashiok alive to annoy your opponent to death. Especially if you also have a Liliana that is emptying their hand at the same time. If nothing else, every plus-one gives you a chance to exile one of your opponent’s win conditions.
Card Advantage
Four Ancestral Vision is aggressive, but you can’t really run fewer than that because you want to be suspending it on turn 1 as often as possible. With Ashiok and Liliana, this deck would be entirely comfortable getting into a topdeck fight while waiting for an Ancestral Vision to reload. Serum Visions is “meh” as always, but we can’t have nice things, so it fills a spot that should really be filled by Preordain or Ponder. (Note: The preceding sentence was written before the Banned & Restricted List update in hopes that it might change the outcome of the announcement. Do not wager money on this proposition.)
Think Twice is just fine as a one-of; being able to spread out five mana over multiple turns to draw two cards is reasonable.
Removal, Permission and Disruption
While there are none of the classic hand disruption spells in the deck, Spreading Seas can certainly mess up a lot of plans. Basically every deck that doesn’t run blue would find itself quite disappointed to suddenly have an Island in play, and the big-mana decks like Tron or Scapeshift can be knocked off stride long enough by it to give an opening to take over the game with a Grave Titan or one of the planeswalkers. A full set of Tectonic Edge — one of the advantages of a two-color manabase — helps disrupt the ability of a lot of decks to stay on curve or even cast their most critical spells.
Four Damnation is a pretty clear sign that we’re not messin’ around when it comes to killing things. With only one creature in the deck, Damnation is pretty much always going to be advantageous, and being able to cast Damnation with a planeswalker in play can be the difference between getting to untap with it or not.
Fatal Push is quickly becoming the premium removal spell in Modern, and with good reason. While Revolt won’t get triggered much in this deck, Fatal Push still kills an awful lot. Go for the Throat is obviously dead against Affinity, but live against pretty much everything else, including creaturelands. I’d bet that a second one somewhere in the list would probably be just as good.
Rune Snag isn’t as good as Mana Leak on turn two, but it’s a lot better later on. An early Rune Snage can make it almost impossible to resolve anything of consequence against a second or even third copy.
Sideboard
There are a full four Leyline of the Void here, because if you’re going to hate on your opponent’s graveyard, you might as well go full-on Silky Johns-ton. Although you don’t use your own graveyard much, it’s still nice to have a hate effect be one-sided, especially when something like Relic of Progenitus would be harmful to your Rune Snags.
The rest of the sideboard is pretty stock, with the possible exception of the two Batterskull. Removal will be sided out against this deck, and there’s no indication in game 1 that artifact hate will be necessary after sideboarding.
End of the Nightmare
Control decks in Modern are still few and far between, even though this feature has now seen U/W and U/B control builds in the span of a few weeks. While neither may be a contender to break into Tier 1 right now, this deck adds an interesting element with Ashiok that could help it be a viable option going forward.
Deck of the Week is a breakdown of an interesting deck from the preceding week in Magic. Email deck suggestions to claughman@gmail.com.
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