For a large part of this Standard season, true control decks have been pushed out of the format by the presence of Rally the Ancestors. Even if you are able to trade resources at parity in the early turns and resolve a Painful Truths or Dig Through Time along the way, a single resolved Rally or Collected Company can absolutely bury you in card advantage. Enter Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. This card single-handedly changes the texture of the matchup by giving you an enormous amount of inevitability as long as you can profitably fight against the likes of Reflector Mage. This week, Dakonovitch has taken advantage of this new angle of attack and put together an exciting Grixis Control deck. Let’s take a look:

Grixis Control ? Oath of the Gatewatch Standard | Dakonovitch, 5-0 Standard League

• Creatures (6)
• 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
• 2 Chandra, Flamecaller

• Spells (25)
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Grasp of Darkness
• 2 Void Shatter
• 3 Fiery Impulse
• 4 Dig Through Time
• 1 Painful Truths
• 2 Duress
• 2 Roast
• 2 Ruinous Path
• 3 Transgress the Mind

• Lands (26)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 2 Flooded Strand
• 2 Smoldering Marsh
• 3 Sunken Hollow
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 4 Wandering Fumarole

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Murderous Cut
• 1 Painful Truths
• 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
• 2 Horribly Awry
• 2 Infinite Obliteration
• 1 Languish
• 3 Negate
• 2 Radiant Flames

Buy This Deck

This is a true control deck, the likes of which we haven’t really seen this Standard season. The recipe is largely the same as any other Grixis deck: efficient creature removal backed by counterspells and discard. With Oath of the Gatewatch in the format, this deck is particularly well-equipped to play games where you just trade resources. Cards like Wandering Fumarole, Kalitas, and powerful Planeswalkers give you an enormous advantage if you spend the early turns trading resources.

It’s important to notice all of the spells were chosen with Rally the Ancestors in mind, efficient removal included. Duress may be more efficient than Transgress the Mind, but it whiffs on cards like Reflector Mage and doesn't allow you to exile Collected Company so Jace can’t rebuy them. Similarly, the presence of main deck Dispel and Void Shatter allow you to fight against the powerful pair of instants. In the same vein, Dig Through Time helps to find Kalitas so your removal can be used to prevent the Rally deck from assembling a potent graveyard.

What is most exciting about this deck is the sheer flexibility of the shell. If you’re worried about swarms, you can make space for Languish and Radiant Flames in addition to Chandra, Flamecaller. If you’re worried about midrange, Ob Nixilis Reignited and other unconditional removal spells like Murderous Cut and Ruinous Path are more valuable. The raw power of these answers backed by the ability of Dig Through Time to help you find the ones you need at the appropriate times is enormously powerful, and something we haven’t had many opportunities to leverage in the last few months.

Is now the time for Control to make a big comeback in Standard? I don’t know, but this build by Dakonovitch is certainly encouraging, and I can’t wait to see new attempts in the coming weeks.