Hold the presses! Control is back, Standard is doomed, and you may as well pack it in until next season or get ready for Esper Mirrors all day! No? You mean the format isn’t ruined? But why is control almost all of the Top 8?

It seems that once control has been solved, a great deal of the competitive population migrates that way, and though that can be an issue in some cases—see Caw-Blade or Sphinx's Revelation—I do not believe control has the end game closer it needs to completely shut the door on the rest of the format.

So from what angle do we attack the menace? I could sit here and talk about the G/W Warriors brew I had going, but considering I have shelved that deck for later based on this exact matchup, that seems relatively useless for this week. Much like Heroic, I do expect to pull this out again in the future, but for now, it is time to assess the threat at hand.

The major strength and boost in control is the added ability to run creatures for both card advantage and pressure. The fact that these creatures also circumvent your on-color Wrath effect means tapping out for a Dragon is not as scary knowing you can reset and keep your threat next turn if needed. I believe this is one way to attack the deck—there seems to be a pivotal turn in every matchup, when the control player must decide if he or she has the tools in hand to drop the shields for a turn. If you can capitalize on this turn, you may have one approach. This is probably the riskiest of the options, but it does give you a wider array of decks to play than just going under control with Mono-Red.

The idea here is to find a Whip deck that can both throw enough haymakers to keep control on its heels and still be fast enough to stop the tidal wave of aggro we may see in the coming weeks. Against control, we ideally want to blank as many cards as possible, meaning the fewer targets we have for Bile Blight or Ultimate Price, the better. Both Sultai and Abzan have appealing arguments, though whipping back a Dragonlord Atarka is appealing for me as well—and it’s also easily splashable.

I have not had enough experience with either archetype, but I would start with one of these two lists and tweak from there as you see fit.

Abzan Whip ? Dragons of Tarkir Standard | Jakub Havelka, Eleventh Place, Grand Prix Krakow

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 2 Doomwake Giant
• 2 Wingmate Roc
• 3 Elvish Mystic
• 3 Sylvan Caryatid
• 4 Courser of Kruphix
• 4 Siege Rhino
• 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

• Spells (10)
• 1 Utter End
• 2 Hero's Downfall
• 2 Murderous Cut
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 2 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (23)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Forest
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Temple of Plenty
• 2 Llanowar Wastes
• 2 Temple of Silence
• 4 Sandsteppe Citadel
• 4 Temple of Malady
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Other (3)
• 3 Unkown Cards

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Ultimate Price
• 1 Soul of Innistrad
• 1 Bile Blight
• 1 Duress
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 2 Drown in Sorrow
• 2 Read the Bones
• 1 Archfiend of Depravity
• 1 Nissa, Worldwaker
• 1 Deicide
• 1 Crux of Fate

Buy This Deck

I feel that I may add a few top-end threats in as well as some number of copies of Mastery of the Unseen to the board just to overload the enchantment hate after board, but I am more than happy to see Wingmate Roc coming back around. A few of the mythics from Khans of Tarkir have been neglected long enough, and Wingmate Roc may finally start to see the boost from no longer being in the Draft rotation.

Sidisi Whip ? Dragons of Tarkir | Richard Hofmeister, Mid-Michigan Grinder Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier Winner

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Hornet Queen
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 2 Torrent Elemental
• 4 Courser of Kruphix
• 4 Satyr Wayfinder
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid
• 1 Silumgar, the Drifting Death
• 2 Dragonlord Atarka
• 2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 4 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

• Spells (11)
• 2 Hero's Downfall
• 4 Murderous Cut
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 3 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (22)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 2 Llanowar Wastes
• 2 Mana Confluence
• 2 Yavimaya Coast
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Opulent Palace
• 4 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck

A local friend of mine is piloting this sixty (plus or minus a few tweaks) and an undetermined board this weekend at the regional PTQ. I like the overall position of the Whip decks, and he has been on this archetype for a good while now. As I was watching him test the other day, he stated that the Whip resolving allowed you the card advantage and tempo combined with the life-gain that you needed for the match. It certainly did not look like a cakewalk by any means, but it is a start, and it should overall be fairly well-positioned for the rest of the meta as well.

The board is still undetermined, but currently, it appears it will contain some number of the following according to where his testing is currently:

• Sultai Charm
• Doomwake Giant
• Pharika, God of Affliction
• Drown in Sorrow
• Bile Blight
• Thoughtseize

I really like the interaction between Torrent Elemental and Whip of Erebos—it seems to be a great way to break through the Green Devotion matches and is a recurrable threat against control, both of which I imagine will be in full force.

Is aggro a bit more your speed? Jeskai Tokens and Mono-Red have already proven they have what it takes to compete against control. Though I am not sure on the optimal list for the upcoming weeks, I imagine you may want to board a few ways to deal with Siege Rhinos and Whips going into the Regional PTQs. The Top 8 list from the same Grand Prix is probably the best place to start with tokens, while the Pro Tour–winning list has still been relatively unchanged from what I have seen.

Jeskai Tokens ? Dragons of Tarkir | Bartlomie Lewandowski, Top 8, Grand Prix Krakow

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Mantis Rider
• 4 Seeker of the Way

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

• Spells (30)
• 2 Lightning Strike
• 2 Secure the Wastes
• 2 Valorous Stance
• 3 Raise the Alarm
• 4 Stoke the Flames
• 4 Wild Slash
• 1 Dragon Fodder
• 4 Hordeling Outburst
• 4 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Jeskai Ascendancy

• Lands (24)
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 3 Battlefield Forge
• 3 Shivan Reef
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Mystic Monastery
• 4 Temple of Triumph

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Ojutai Exemplars
• 1 Glare of Heresy
• 4 Disdainful Stroke
• 2 Negate
• 2 End Hostilities
• 2 Seismic Rupture
• 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Buy This Deck

I just have not been able to make this archetype work for me, but as made clear by the continued results, it is still a major metagame factor—probably more so since it has a fairly good control matchup.

I have a couple other ideas on how to go forward, including some ramp variants, but considering we have another major weekend ahead of us with a plethora of incoming results, I think it is best to approach the metagame after the control-only meta has either evaporated or solidified itself. Of course, if you feel you have the patience and time to learn the mirror, you may always choose to join the dark side and play control this weekend as well—it does have great positioning and may be able to compensate for some of the weaker matches through some main-deck tweaks before the weekend. As always, it seems next week will provide us a different window to look through, so until then, enjoy the week. And best of luck to anyone playing this weekend.