One of the most impressive things one can do in Constructed formats is have a tiny bit of tech.

There are a lot of people who think that in this day and age, tech is dead. It's been almost ten years since I wrote about the power of collective intelligence in the game of Magic, and these days, what I said then is even more true: the small edges we get from creative card choices disseminate far more rapidly than ever - and this without the full access to information that some writers like Jeff Hoogland advocate for!

I think it's worth explicitly sharing the ancient exchange that I shared in that older article, which dates back even further yet, with two luminaries of the game, Paul Barclay and Aaron Forsythe, in strong disagreement.

Well, we don't fully live in that world anymore. Now, there still is tech, but it exists like the needle in the haystack, rather than hoarded in basements. Now, there is simply so much information (even if it is "not enough"), that to find tech requires scouring through list after list after list after list.

And sometimes, even in so doing, what you're really seeing isn't tech. Sometimes decks do well despite having a card in them. For example, personally I love Worship in the sideboard of decks with hard-to-kill creatures, and it can even be fine in decks that simply have a fair number of creatures, if only so that they can demand that you kill all of their creatures before they will respectfully keel over. But, recently Ond?ej Stráský noted that he'd removed it from his Bant Spirits list because it was no longer functioning in the role it was intended.

To be good, tech has to be relevant, and it also has to be worth the space. If we had 30 card sideboards, we could have nearly every narrow card we could imagine (and perhaps access to very powerful switcheroo games), the cost of using up a sideboard slot wouldn't matter. At 15 slots, the real estate goes very quickly.

In my preparation for #GPDetroit, I spent a lot of time working on my favorite control deck in Modern, and found a few gems of tech I think are worth paying attention to.

The Sidestepping Dragon

Jérémy Dezani didn't make Top 8 at the GP Prague, but he did sneak into the Top 16 with his mostly Control deck.

(Mostly) U/W Control | Modern | Jérémy Dezani, 16th GP Prague

• Creatures (4)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Instants (14)
• 2 Logic Knot
• 2 Negate
• 3 Cryptic Command
• 3 Opt
• 4 Path to Exile

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Oust
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 2 Serum Visions
• 4 Terminus

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 2 Search for Azcanta

• Lands (25)
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Plains
• 6 Island
• 2 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Porphyry Nodes
• 1 Damping Sphere
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Negate
• 3 Rest in Peace
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Timely Reinforcements
• 1 Lyra Dawnbringer
• 2 Chromium, the Mutable

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One of my major complaints about the mirror match is that it doesn't much feel like a classic control mirror. If both players are relatively good, it feels less like it is about a player leveraging their control skills and more like it is about the specific ways that cards interplay. If you aren't marching foolishly into a Cryptic Command so that you're tapped out in the face of their Teferi, Hero of Dominaria or Jace, the Mind Sculptor, it's quite likely that what the match will come down to is simply having more cards that are relevant enter your hands.

Ancestral Vision is one of those relevant cards, if only because it starts a counterspell war for zero mana, and if it resolves, can swing a game. One important factor in the "relevance war" are all of the countermagic that continue to stay meaningful.

Chromium, the Mutable utterly devastates an opponent in this kind of fight simply because it makes none of the countermagic meaningful. Instead, it makes a very narrow line of cards, mass removal, relevant. Importantly, these cards are otherwise quite bad.

Is it worth it?

Maybe. It could be worth it if you expect a lot of or other control mirrors and near mirrors. It is very hard to get rid of a Chromium. One of the best ways is to block it with a Celestial Colonnade and then use a removal spell on Chromium, but this is incredibly likely to go poorly. Mass removal does the trick, but sets one up on the wrong side of a classic game theory problem of threat-vs-answer, where the person with the removal is only even if they have the removal, and down ever other way.

In a heavy world, this card makes a lot of sense, provided your metagame is small enough to support the slots. I might consider a fetchable Black source for those Flooded Strand to find Chromium mana, though.

Adding Some Flavor

Stepping out of the purity of only , we have Jeskai Control, which features two bits of tech that could easily be placed in an pure Control deck.

Jeskai Control | Modern | Benjamin Nikolich, 4th SCG Modern Open Baltimore

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

• Instants (25)
• 1 Negate
• 2 Electrolyze
• 2 Peek
• 3 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Lightning Helix
• 3 Logic Knot
• 3 Settle the Wreckage
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Path to Exile

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Search for Azcanta

• Lands (25)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 3 Island
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 2 Celestial Colonnade
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Steam Vents
• 3 Field of Ruin
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn

• Sideboard (13)
• 2 Ceremonious Rejection
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Negate
• 1 Timely Reinforcements
• 2 Vendilion Clique
• 1 Baneslayer Angel
• 1 Lyra Dawnbringer
• 1 Wear // Tear

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One of the first things of note is just how much this deck is able to operate at the end step. But that isn't tech.

Peek. Peek is an incredibly intriguing card to me. Being able to know when the opponent's shields are secretly down is huge, especially in control wars that are so remarkable for being based on a tiny amount of relevant cards. I know I've played many Game 1s holding onto a mittful of meaninglessness, but stuck it out long enough that I've beaten my control opponent because they dared not act.

This situation actually happens a lot.

To Peek at the opponent can easily mean the resolution of a critical game ending spell like Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Not every Peek will simply result in that outcome, but it can be a huge boon, and result in a shocking amount of good outcomes.

Settle the Wreckage takes the place of Terminus or other sorcery-speed removal, and this isn't a huge bit of tech, but combined with a deck that is otherwise nearly all on the end step, it is noteworthy. This card has a bit more power in a creature-heavy deck, but still, maintaining the instant-power in a deck like this makes every other card that behaves similarly more important. Settle the Wreckage is more powerful because Cryptic Command is a reasonable card to have held at the ready in hand.

All told, I think these two ideas alone are worthy for consideration in any Control deck.

See You at the Horizon

A tale of tech versus convention.

U/W Control | Modern | McWinSauce, 4th Magic Online PTQ

• Creatures (4)
• 1 Vendilion Clique
• 1 Wall of Omens
• 2 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Instants (12)
• 1 Logic Knot
• 1 Negate
• 1 Remand
• 2 Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 3 Cryptic Command
• 4 Path to Exile

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Ancestral Vision
• 1 Oust
• 1 Timely Reinforcements
• 2 Supreme Verdict
• 2 Terminus
• 4 Serum Visions

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 1 Search for Azcanta

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Crucible of Worlds

• Lands (25)
• 3 Plains
• 6 Island
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Dispel
• 1 Ceremonious Rejection
• 1 Damping Sphere
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Mana Leak
• 1 Settle the Wreckage
• 1 Negate
• 1 Surgical Extraction
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 2 Stony Silence
• 1 Timely Reinforcements
• 1 Lyra Dawnbringer

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Crucible of Worlds is one of the obvious inexorable plays from this deck. In the mirror, basics run out fairly quickly, and a Ghost Quarter can quickly become a Strip Mine (making a Field of Ruin occasionally into a super-charged Wasteland). These games can often eventually come down to the last Celestial Colonnade standing. Here, returning that first Colonnade is devastating, and things can quickly escalate out of control, with rarely a land drop being missed in a matchup that depends on it, and an endless supply of finishers for a control opponent to contend with.

It also happens to be good in other matchups, especially decks like Tron or those decks that run either very few basics or rely on creature-lands to finish a long game.

In a similar vein, we have Hieroglyphic Illumination. While numerous cards have been used for small dribs and drabs of card advantage in the past - Think Twice being one of my least favorite - one really potent part of Hieroglyphic Illumination is that it gets to play like a split card. The problem with cards like Glimmer of Genius and Sphinx's Revelation is that despite being more powerful, sometime you have no real time to actually cast the card. Modern is intense, and mana can be wildly precious. I love how Hieroglyphic Illumination gets around both problems.

Both of these cards take up space in the deck to think about a late game advantage. Crucible takes a bit more effort to make use of, from a mana perspective, but each considers the inevitable result of a game, and how it will function in that late stage. I really like both choices. Though, McWinSauce did lose the semifinals in the mirror to the next deck.

U/W Control | Modern | jhacer1, 1st Magic Online PTQ

• Creatures (4)
• 2 Snapcaster Mage
• 2 Vendilion Clique

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Instants (16)
• 1 Logic Knot
• 1 Mana Leak
• 1 Negate
• 1 Remand
• 1 Spell Snare
• 3 Cryptic Command
• 4 Opt
• 4 Path to Exile

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Oust
• 2 Ancestral Vision
• 4 Terminus

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 2 Search for Azcanta

• Lands (25)
• 2 Plains
• 6 Island
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Field of Ruin
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Negate
• 1 Baneslayer Angel
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 2 Dispel
• 1 Lyra Dawnbringer
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 1 Spell Queller
• 3 Stony Silence
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Timely Reinforcements

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Is there much in the way of tech here in the deck that beat McWinSauce? Not particularly. Really, what jhacer1 has going for them is just pure power. An extra Teferi, an extra Clique, an extra Search, an extra Dispel in the board.

Tech isn't necessarily the end-all be-all when you're dealing with raw power. In the world of collective intelligence, strong concepts just quickly become communicated and cease being tech. Remember when Baral, Chief of Compliance wasn't a ubiquitous sideboard card for Blue decks in Standard? At a certain point, that tech just became the accepted norm. So it is in Modern. Much of what we see in jhacer1's list is the culmination of the previously cutting edge ideas into a fully cohesive whole. Still, I bet that jhacer1 would have some problems with Dezani's build.

There will always be new cards and new metagames, and so there will always be new tech. Keeping an open mind to what is possible is a key to being on that cutting edge, and that is a place where many wins are waiting to be grasped.

What's my tech for Control? I don't have anything special. I just have been trying out a land I first saw used by Ray Perez, Jr., and I've been mostly liking it (and being rather conventional in my build besides that). Can you guess what it is?

- Adrian Sullivan

Follow me on Twitter! @AdrianLSullivan