I've spoken recently about my dislike for the standard "aggro/control/mid-range/combo" paradigm that we use, but given that the Magic community is still using it, I will continue to use it as well, if only to facilitate better communication. So, we'll begin our discussion of perhaps the widest strategic archetype – control.

Control decks, despite having so much written about them, are probably the most misunderstood breed of decks. They are extraordinarily hard to build because the archetype as a whole is surprisingly difficult to understand. I feel like very few Magic players "get" control; so few, in fact, that there are only three other people whose control decks I would trust, assuming I were playing them blind (nothing more than a cursory glance at the deck list). They are Wafo-Tapa, Chapin, and Nassif.

There is a fundamental approach to building control; a foundation for this style of deck, so to speak. Those three players I mentioned above understand this foundation. I have not seen any other player whose deck lists also demonstrate this knowledge. That's not to say the likes of LSV and PVDDR can't build control decks, but that they will occasionally miss. Chapin, Wafo-Tapa, and Nassif will never miss. Because they understand the foundation of control, every deck list they build will be solid, if not spectacular.

What I am going to look at over this next series is the construction of control decks, providing you with a fundamentally sound approach to building them. You can build a control deck without understanding this foundation (and many people do), but you will have your occasional misses if you do that. If you understand this foundation and how control decks as a whole work, you will never miss. Your decks might not always be the best, but they will always perform well.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

2 Serra Angel

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

1 Ancestral Recall

1 Time Walk

1 Timetwister

1 Braingeyser

1 Recall

4 Mana Drain

2 Counterspell

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Disenchant

2 Moat

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Mind Twist

2 Red Elemental Blast

1 Regrowth

1 Ivory Tower

1 Jayemdae Tome

2 Disrupting Scepter

1 Black Lotus

1 Mox Sapphire

1 Mox Ruby

1 Mox Pearl

1 Mox Emerald

1 Mox Jet

1 Sol Ring

[/Spells]

[Lands]

1 Library of Alexandria

2 Strip Mine

3 City of Brass

1 Plateau

1 Underground Sea

2 Volcanic Island

4 Tundra

3 Plains

4 Island

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

1 Plains

1 Disrupting Scepter

1 Jayemdae Tome

1 Tormod's Crypt

2 Control Magic

1 Counterspell

2 Blood Moon

3 Circle of Protection: Red

2 Divine Offering

1 Moat

[/Sideboard]

[/cardlist]

So, how many of you recognize that deck list? Kudos to those of you that do, shame on those of you that don't. This deck is "The Deck" by Brian Weissman, essentially the first in the line of what I will call "classical-style control."

So what is the fundamental strategy of this deck? Weissman-style control seeks to trade one card for one card repeatedly. It establishes an advantage simply by having "more cards." This was the Genesis of the idea of Card Advantage. If I simply have more cards than you, both of us discarding a card is profitable for me. Thus this deck has a few card advantage spells, a whole bunch of one-for-ones, and two win conditions (the Serra Angel). This is the classical-style mold for control decks.

You'll note that permission is not a huge part of this deck (there are only 8 Counterspell). As the archetype developed permission became much more central to the way classical-style control operated. Let's take a look at two examples in the evolution of classical-style control, one more recent and one much older.

"Forbidian by Jon Finkel"

• Spells (28)
• 4 Counterspell
• 4 Force of Will
• 3 Forbid
• 3 Annul
• 4 Powder Keg
• 2 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Impulse

• Creatures (7)
• 4 Ophidian
• 3 Morphling

• Lands (25)
• 4 Thawing Glaciers
• 4 Wasteland
• 2 Dust Bowl
• 15 Island

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"Dralnu du Louvre by Guillame Wafo-Tapa"

• Creatures (5)
• 1 Skeletal Vampire
• 1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
• 3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

• Spells (32)
• 1 Last Gasp
• 1 Cancel
• 1 Cremate
• 4 Mystical Teachings
• 3 Mana Leak
• 4 Remand
• 3 Spell Snare
• 4 Repeal
• 4 Rune Snag
• 1 Sieze the Soul
• 1 Shadow of Doubt
• 1 Sudden Death
• 4 Think Twice

• Lands (24)
• 4 Desert
• 3 Dimir Aqueduct
• 2 Dreadship Reef
• 4 Watery Grave
• 4 Underground River
• 7 Islands

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cancel
• 1 Darkblast
• 2 Moonlight Bargain
• 1 Sieze the Soul
• 1 Shadow of Doubt
• 1 Spell Snare
• 2 Trickbind
• 4 Deathmark
• 2 Dreadship Reef

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As you can see both of these are more permission-centric builds, and decks like these are probably what most people think of when they think of classical-style blue control. When most people think of blue control they probably have Visions of a blue mage sitting there with a bunch of untapped mana and a hand of Counterspell. Decks like these have been highly successful throughout the history of Magic because they are extremely fundamentally sound.

Why are they so sound? The fundamental strategy of trading card for card and simply "having more cards" is flawless. There is absolutely no fundamental Weakness in the strategy. There are weaknesses that tend to show up in execution, mainly because this strategy tends to rely heavily on permission, but the idea behind it is rock-solid.

So why is permission so often associated with this strategy? The answer is simple. Permission is the most efficient form of one-for-one ever printed. This is for two reasons. First, it can stop every kind of spell. Secondly, it actually causes the card to do nothing. The problem with individual answers like Disenchant or Doom Blade is that your opponent can still get value out of the card. Permission doesn't even let the spell resolve, so it's just like both players discarding a card.

Permission isn't without its problems however. The biggest problem it has is that it can only deal with spells while they are on the stack. This means that permission doesn't help you if you are already behind on the board, which is why all of these decks supplement their permission suite with removal. The most common avenue of establishing an on-the-board presence is through creatures, and thus it's good to have an answer to the ones that you don't counter.

As far as the baseline is concerned, this is the core of the classical-style control strategy, Weissman-style control if you will. The basic principle is to trade one for one repeatedly and come out ahead by having more cards. This is the basic principle of Card Advantage and its execution.

The deck has a mold too – devote almost all your slots to defense, because winning the game is academic once you have your opponent in a position where he cannot win. This is what classical-style control decks seek to do. It is more important to achieve a game state where your opponent cannot win than it is to actively win the game. After you reach that state, it really doesn't matter how you actually win, since you have effectively won already.

Evolving Card Advantage – The pro-active answer

Classical-style control has remained basically unchanged across the years. This is largely because the central strategy is so sound and so applicable that it doesn't have to change. It works everywhere. However, this style of deck did undergo one major evolution by a man you may have heard of – Mike Flores.

Back during Kamigawa block Mike Flores was a very active Magic player and writer, even more so than he is today. He was, in my opinion, at the peak of his "game" back then, coming out with a variety of innovative decks and ideas, advancing the boundaries of what we knew about Magic, both on a practical and theoretical front. His list of accomplishments is a long one, but this deck should be very close to the top. For those of you who care about Magic history, you should definitely remember it.

"Jushi Blue by Mike Flores"

• Creatures (10)
• 4 Jushi Apprentice
• 3 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
• 3 Keiga, the Tide Star

• Spells (25)
• 4 Boomerang
• 3 Disrupting Shoal
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Remand
• 4 Hinder
• 2 Rewind
• 4 Threads of Disloyalty

• Lands (25)
• 1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 2 Dimir Acqueduct
• 4 Watery Grave
• 4 Quicksand
• 10 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Drift of Phantasm
• 4 Execute
• 3 Cranial Extraction
• 2 Dimir Aqueduct
• 2 Rewind

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You'll see that this deck still has a very strong permission suite. What should strike you as odd is the 6 "win conditions." Three of each of Keiga, the Tide Star and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror should seem a bit heavy to you. Forbidian devoted 3 slots to a win condition (Morphling), Weissman devoted 2, and Wafo-Tapa devoted 1 (Skeletal Vampire). Flores devotes a whopping 6 slots to "win conditions."

But of course, that isn't really the case. What Flores has done here is introduce the concept of the pro-active answer. In essence, a threat that also serves as an answer to existing threats. The basic idea behind it was that there wasn't anything better than Keiga on turn 6, so no matter what the opponent was doing on Turn 6 it was perfectly okay to put a Keiga on the table, because you would always make up ground.

While this seems like common sense, it was a completely revolutionary idea at the time. For the longest time, tapping out was the death knell of any blue mage, since it was giving the opponent a license to do whatever he wanted. You didn't tap out for anything, except maybe when the opponent had no cards in hand. Thus Flores suggesting that it was okay to tap out in the mid-game for a card was completely revolutionary.

You know what, he was right. As a control mage it is perfectly fine to tap out as long as that play is able to make up enough ground to justify it. As far as implementation is concerned, this idea has had a huge effect on card selection. For blue mages all around, the idea that that tapping out was okay meant that "value" creatures like the titans in M11 become much stronger, even as control components. Control mages can be more aggressive because with the proper deck construction, the cards facilitate the approach. Pro-active answers provide both an on-board presence offensively and defensively, and thus open up more aggressive lines.

This evolution saw its strategic culmination in the recent tap-out style of UW control. No permission was necessary in those decks because the two-way cards were so strong that the UW deck could simply deal with everything once it hit. Martial Coup, Elspeth, Gideon Jura, Jace, Baneslayer Angel, and Ajani Vengeant among others provided a multitude of ways to deal with on-board problems, removing the need for countermagic.

Planeswalkers in particular are a huge portion of this evolution. Many planeswalkers have defensive abilities, and are thus able to defend both you and themselves. However, given the fact that they have "ultimate" abilities, many of them also act as potent threats that will win the game all by themselves. Before, as you can see, even this idea was supported by a permission suite. With planeswalkers in play, no permission necessary.

This is one of the many effects that planeswalkers have had on Magic. They are probably the third most important card time (the first being lands, the second being creatures). Their uniqueness in having both an immediate effect on the board and being a long-term, persistent advantage makes them much like typical "value" creatures. However, their difficulty to Remove makes them far more durable. Planeswalkers have really changed the game a lot.

Practical Applications

So where do we take this information? Based on the model, constructing control decks should be easy right? Just stuff a bunch of good defensive spells and call it a deck. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. The various pieces of your control suite have to interact well together. So, how do we accomplish this? Let's take a look at your control suite piece by piece.

Permission

This is perhaps the most important part of your control suite. It is the glue that holds your defense together. Permission is capable of interacting profitably with your opponent in the early and late game, with the same cards, giving you a lot of equity, handling threats both big and small, both creature and non-creature. The versatility of permission is by far its greatest strength.

The role of permission is to fill any holes in your draw. This is why it's so important for it to be cheap and non-conditional. You can only have so many Negate, Essence Scatter, and Flashfreeze in your permission suite before it falls apart. Having the wrong counter at the wrong time is absolutely horrible, and will be a death knell for your deck. This is the main reason Mana Leak was such an important printing.

Removal

Removal is what you use to deal with on-board permanents, things you either let resolve or that slip through the cracks. It's an important part of your defensive suite, since most of the time you can't counter everything (although you can make a valiant effort J). There are essentially three categories of removal – creature removal, non-creature removal, and universal removal.

Of the three, creature removal is the most important, but universal removal is the best to have. Ideally you have spells like Oblivion Ring that can handle every type of permanent, because they serve as a safety net. If you have an Oblivion Ring in hand, it doesn't matter what your opponent does, because O-Ring can deal with it.

Barring spells like O-Ring that can handle anything, creature removal is the most important, mainly because creatures are by far the most prevalent permanent type that you as the control player will need to interact with. The order of importance is the same as with other items – versatility and cost, then speed.

Versatility and cost are roughly equally important. It is important that your answers be cheap, but also that they handle a wide variety of permanents. Speed (instant or sorcery) is really secondary. This is why sweepers are so central to the success of many control decks. Sweepers normally deal with multiple permanents at a very efficient price. Even though they are sorceries, they have been critical to the success of control as an archetype for many years. But I wrote about sweepers earlier, so I'll just stop here with them.

Speed matters less than people think with removal, especially if its low cost. Sure, instants are nice, but removal is there to solve problems, and solving more problems often takes precedence over instant speed. This is why Doom Blade is not substantially better than Journey to Nowhere. Journey simply deals with more problems at the same cost, even if it is sorcery speed.

Card Advantage

Every deck of this style will dedicate some slots to card advantage. Sometimes it will be one-shot card draw like Ancestral Recall, or Jace's Ingenuity. Other times it will be persistent card advantage engines like Jayemdae Tome or Jace Beleren. Here, instant speed is in fact very important, as the ability to play your card draw spell whenever you have free mana is vital.

Why is instant speed important here but not with removal? Simple. Removal is reactive. If you are using it that means there is already a threat on the board that you have to deal with. You frequently will not have the luxury of waiting to deal with the threat on your time table. If you are going to tap two mana to deal with it either this turn or on your opponent's turn, it makes little difference whether the spell you are casting is an instant or a sorcery.

Card Advantage spells, on the other hand, are pro-active. You can choose when you want to play them, and thus the instant speed is important to get maximum utility out of your mana. You can choose whether or not to use your mana on counters, removal, or card draw, depending on the situation. This is why instant speed card advantage is so good.

Of course, persistent card advantage engines are also important, and these are always permanents, sometimes with instant speed abilities, other times with sorcery speed abilities. Often, these are slower ways of cementing advantages, as you play your engine with the ability to use it or defend it immediately. In general, if these sit on the table for a few turns you will win.

A final word

I want to turn to a specific application in the modern format – Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This is, perhaps, the single most misplayed and misused card in T2. Its current dominance of the Standard format is a testament to Jace's unparalleled power and efficiency. This card should have never been printed as is, and I say that as an Island-loving spell-slinger.

Jace TMS is EVERYTHING a control mage could ask for, all in one card. It is a persistent card advantage engine, a board control spell, and a win condition all rolled into a tight 4-mana package. Jace is misused both in design and in actual game play so frequently I've lost count. I myself have misplayed this card many many times, only to see my mistakes after the game.

Here's the thing, as far as design is concerned. In a classical-style control deck, Jace is your win condition. You no longer have to devote slots to finishers, or cards that are there basically to win you the game. This means no Abyssal Persecutor or Sphinx of Jwar Isle. This means any permanents you play should be designed to impact the board in a primarily defensive capacity. If the primary job description of your dude is "to attack" then it should not be in your deck.

Jace also makes value cards like Mimic Vat a whole lot worse, mainly because it does every job you could ever want a value card to do. A control deck needs very few things, and Jace provides all of them. All you have to do is defend him. The difference between treating Jace as simply a "Brainstorm on a stick" and truly treating him as he deserves is a mistake a see very often.

If you need a card advantage engine or something to help defend yourself, Jace is your guy. He'll draw you cards and bounce creatures, pulling you out of some pretty massive holes on the way. But what happens when you get out? You continue drawing cards? NO.

At that point Jace transforms into your win condition. You use his +2 ability to stop your opponent from drawing relevant cards, and then remove his library from the game, winning the game a few turns later. People don't do this enough. I have seen many many a game that is ended by a Frost Titan, Sun Titan, Grave Titan, or Abyssal Persecutor that should have been ended by a Jace long ago. Simply put, you don't use his +2 ability enough.

Used properly, Jace, the Mind Sculptor is one of the most dominant permanents ever printed. Its play in Vintage shows this. Many people are not using it to its full potential, especially in Standard. Jace is on par with previous powerhouses like Survival of the Fittest. It may even be on par with long-restricted spells like Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Enjoy playing with 4x Jace, TMS while you can. I wouldn't be surprised to see the card hit a banned list sometime soon.

Conclusion

Understanding the identity of control is crucial to both playing and designing the deck. I hope this article serves as a useful primer as you think about control, playing it, playing against it, and building it.

Chingsung Chang

Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO

Khan32k5@gmail.com

Next time – Part 2 on non-blue control and hybrid control