i usually hate baked in sponsor ads for youtube videos but when the creator does a little work and makes a skit or something with them they are a lot more bearable, also cute lizard!
but tbh they need to make money as we watch for free, i assume on patreon he has no ad/sponsor versions :) For the ultra big creators they can do without im just impressed he has sponsors already tbh
I personally like the longer videos, they're great to watch/listentoo when im at work or driving to and from work.Your videos always bring me so much joy and knowledge. And that advertisement was awesome!
I love control decks, nothing brings me better joy than removing the one ring with a breaking down the door. One thing I value a lot in control deck is to have removal engines or cards that can do more than just 1 to 1 trade, a lot of 5 mana counter spells are great for this, but cards like collective resistance that can let you scale up are excellent
15:06 Red has lots of cards that change the targets of target spell, which are sorta like counterspells in a way. Also you forgot Mages Contest, the funniest counterspell
Yeah wdym non-blue decks can't have counterspells... There's pyroblast, red elemental blast, burnout, gutteral response, mana tithe, aven interrupter, withering boon, deathgrip, lifeforce, null brooch, null elemental blast, warping wail, reprieve, mage's attendant, sundial of the infinite, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, and lapse of certainty are all pretty... decent, anyway.
@@thatonefirekestral I said red and green lack counters. I don't quite count red ele and pyroblast for casual edh they are very niche. and guttural response is too niche even for cedh... Those color hate cards are not something I would recommend in a control deck.
Before fully watching: Control decks are sort of a necessary evil in most Commander pods, HOWEVER it requires a person willing to - hopefully - be seen and watched constantly. I'm fine with a control deck at my table, but not when I'm the only person seeing their 2 Smothering Tithes as a problem BEFORE they resolve a Faerie Mastermind. That game made me focus my Jund deck further into harsh attrition plus anti-Blue.
cant agree more that the best answer to the commander arm's race is to play control, you save the table from never being fun again by playing as a sentient speedbump to the fast decks in your pod
Personally I find spot removal isn't so useful but I hate wipes. So many commanders/higher power decks are snowball-y, win-more that you can't interact with enough. I like my Yasharn deck that's made to work around 'rule of law' effects that stop people going crazy until I'm set up
11/10 on this longform video, bonus for the cute sketch ad That was a solid description of deck archetypes in EDH, Im looking forward to using this framework to evaluate cards
As a kid in the 90s I had like one gruul stompy deck (it used winter orb and mana dorks to run out stuff like Ernham Djinn), and then a goblin sleigh deck. And after than I've pretty much only ever played control decks in one form or another. Being able to have the answer to a situation or having to use your deck to solve the puzzle of the game state is the best part of the game. I love counter spells and will always have at least one in a deck if I can get it in the color pie. Yes mana tithe and lapse of certainty are my pet cards, fight me.
Yes! As a fellow control player, I encounter the misconception that I am just countering every spell and preventing anyone from doing anything all the time. In reality I wait to the last possible chance to react to stuff or only remove/counter things that are specifically threats to me. I let everyone do their thing and only step in if it will adversely effect me too badly for me to ignore. While I have made many control decks, my favorite is my Queza, Augur of Agonies list. While I have a couple backup spells, I just let everyone beat each other up and and then mop up with Queza at the end, quite effective. And it let's just fill my deck with draw and removal, a few utility cards, and the aforementioned backup wincons, making for a very strong control list. Also, since you asked for tips and tricks from seasoned control players, I have two: sorcery speed card draw is the devil and we shall not heed him. Sorcery speed in general is the devil, but one that is sadly unavoidable at times. Repeated draw like Rhystic Study or Phyrexian Arena is great, but there is almost no better feeling as a control player (at least in my opinion) than to draw five or six cards on the end phase before your turn and then untap with a full hand of cards, and all your mana open. Second tip/trick, my all-time favorite control card is actually Leyline of Anticipation (and to a lesser extent Vedalkan Orrorery). Giving all your spells flash is about the best thing you can do for a control deck (again in my opinion). It may not seem like it at first, but now you essentially no longer have to choose between playing that good card you wanted to play and leaving mana open like a responsible control player should. Also, turning every boardwipe into basically another Rift style effect is great (you can never have enough instant-speed boardwipes).
Hi trinket mage, your heliod control deck has inspired me to finall rebuilt build oketra the true draw go control(which I've failed many times), and with your deck list's guidance, I've finally built something that is equipted to win the game, thank you so much, the deck has been a blast to play with.
@thetrinketmage well I'm no longer one of them, I suppose, lol. I put it in my locust god deck to tutor for skull clamp, library of leng, and elixir of immortality
Lol meanwhile the combo deck is going infinite and I can’t spare the mana for a counterspell since the aggro player can’t stop seeing red. Figure I might as well king-make and let the combo player win if I’m dead either way 😂😂
Fun addition here for actually _picking_ your removal; find pieces that let you get away with riding the line between single target and board wipe, hitting multiple pieces at once. Card draw is obviously an essential, but multi-target removal lets you greed to have more fun and interesting cards, because your removal hits multiple threats (and so don't need to draw as much to compensate). Beast Within is in about 40% of all EDH decks, and there are similar numbers for all the top pieces of single target removal at that mana cost - Chaos Warp, Generous Gift. For one mana more, a simple Decimate can easily 4-for-1, and the only downside is that you can't hit planeswalkers. You know what _is_ good at hitting planeswalkers? The creature-full boardstates everywhere else on the table. Let them do the hard work for you and watch them spend their combat damage for the turn on the "threat", then cackle maniacally when you thank them for their efforts, and Blasphemous Act for 1 red mana because you waited to pull the trigger - for once, not for pure greed, but because your Decimate kept the big threats away from you, buying you time to _be_ greedy without letting the full range of a Great Henge + Rhystic Study + Esper Sentinel + Cabal Coffers have a full extra turn cycle to run away with.
I really like the Council of Four as a control deck. I do run some of the group draw stuff like Kami of the Crescent Moon and Howling Mine, but that deck really takes advantage of those. It's also an extremely compact deck because of how much value is stuffed into the council. It's an army in a can *and* a powerful draw engine. Combine it with other draw engines like Tocasia's Welcome or Ephara, god of the polis and it goes absolutely nuts. I actually think a sneaky upside of playing the group draw effects in this specific deck is that it makes people want to cast more spells. Overfilling their hands early silently incentivizes them to double spell and give me knights. I mean, who wants to discard cards?
In all seriousness, yes, burn is a control hybrid. I'd say it's less controlley than attrition and UW/UB lists, as it cares to control the game only for so long until it builds up enough cards and mana to blast everyone out, burn doesn't make a goal to attack enemy value or attack all the scary threats.
CounterBurn is absolutely an established archetype. It came about in a metagame where you had to run a couple of fastcraetres to get the turn 4 burn win (because of the low quality of the worst burn spells). Some people saw this, and asked "what if we survive two turns longer?". They cut the creatures and the bad burn spells, but still ran enough good burn spells to count to 20, and added 4-8 counterspells as well as some amount of card draw, since the density of damage was lower.
For a controlling Boros commander I recommend Othari, Sun's Glory. Immense inevitibility so long as you pack a ton of mass board protection to ensure victory.
This was a super insightful video! It made me rethink my current control list and realize ways i can make it way better. My favorite deck ive ever made is an Inquisitor Greyfax deck that is a deck focused on clues. I loved the idea of being a sleuth and i wanted to make clues work well. The perk? clues can act as both my wincon as well as my draw engine! I have mixed aspects of tapping, boardwipes, and control magic to allow me to amass a massive amount of clues and use them to close out the game. This video has been super insightful! I received lots of good ideas as to cards i can change out as well as how to play efficiently to allow myself room to close out the game. Thank you so much for the video
I like control that speeds me up as my opponents do well. This way, they have fun, while I pull ahead. Cards like Compost, Insight, Carpet of Flowers, Ghostly Pilferer, Wedding Ring, Psychic Possession, Verity Circle, Archivist of Oghma, etc. all do well when my opponents are having fun, and they usually put me in a position to control the board without my opponents knowing that they're locked.
Solid video! When I first started playing magic and commander, control had me pretty salty. Flash forward a year and I've realized it's just someone else's version of fun and I need to respect that. I built a Zethi pseudo control deck as a dumping ground for my WU cards since I tend to play Jund and it's been a ton of fun! Thanks for helping down the path of more fun at the table and being a more mature player. As for longer form videos. I'm here for it. Took me to cracks to get through it but I love your content and will soak up shorts or 30 min videos alike :)
GReat vid, great ad, couple bucks for the effort. I still have a sour taste in my mouth about control because 3 guys out of a pod I had for a long time did the arm race thing...with control. People played less and less threat and more and more control pieces for a looooong time, and all game ended up 2h + and it was pointless to play any threat. I feel like control is very pod dependent somehow. If you have enough answer for the threat of 3 players, and one other play has enough answer for 3 players, you end up with 6 answer for basically every treat that comes out, and only 2 persons are producing treats. Thats really a playgroup thing though, I agree with all the points in the video :P
Thank you for the super chat! And I’m glad that this video resonated with you. That’s pretty unique to have the arms race be in the control direction not speed… but of an odd playgroup you got there
I liked the additional ad because it was creative and funny. I don't mind ads if they are entertaining to watch. Command Zone does entertaining ads to and I watch them most of the time. Accept for when they reuse them. Longer videos are really what I go for. My time is limited.
The second ad was one of the best I saw in a while! Thank you for the control guide as I learn to play better control. I bought a Gavi nest warden deck from a friend of mine and thats the deck i try to learn control with. Gavi is simply the draw enginge of the deck and over time I get some blokckers as well. By drawing throughh the deck I have most of the time a counterspell ready. I still need to figure out when to flicker/bounce/counter the threats my opponent have. I do struggle to evaluate if a certain choice was good. E.g. I played against Omnath locust of creation, ashling flame dance (forgot the fourth deck). When I removed the threats of one deck, another just pulled ahead just afterwards and I don´t know whether I made the right choice, as the other players didn´t do much. If you have tips for that, I´m glad to hear your oppinions. Also I´m unsure when I should counter a threat or just let it pass in hope the onother player has a counterspell, so I dont have to remove the threat. All in all it was great to hear your thoughts and I try to get better playing (and doing actual politics) with that playstyle
This couldn't have released at a better time. As I sit here building my first commander deck, with Niv Mizzet, Visionary. I've played control a long time but commander is a whole different beast, this video was very helpful.
The card disadvantage problem is why i will sing the praises of Nymris, Oonas Trickster until i die. It turns all of your counterspells and targeted removal into cantrips, actually even better since you dig two cards deep into your library to find your combos. I am always having a laugh when i play him and my friends cower in fear whenever they cast a spell
Great video and great argumentation for running removal or playing control in Commander, and interesting suggestions for playing control out of its traditional colors. I've been trying to wrap my head around it for a while and this video certainly helped. The scenario you described at 23:45 is exactly what happens most of the time someone plays turn 1 Sol Ring, so I don't understand why you say it's a good card for the format. I wish I could take my time back from those games, as either that player wins or is hated out of the game early, making it and unpleasant situation. And spending removal on it, even cheap one as Pick your Poison, can backfire by setting the other players back more than the one that already built a board.
Great vid, I prefer long ones with analytic point on things, so it's right up my alley. In terms of ads - I personally just don't mind and just skip 'em so a time-stamp in the video that marks it is always welcome but not neccessary. Content creators has to eat too, so be my guest and place it wherever and however you want.
Great video! I recently rebuilt my most successful deck which I've come to realize is a control deck, Drana Kalestria Bloodchief, and it's debut game was a success! Ultimately the goal is to make it to the 1 v 1 and have our beefy mana sink commander eat their face, but i find that for the rest of the game what i prefer to do is try to just keep to my corner and let other people be scary and point it out when they are doing so. The Skullbriar deck ran the table and was super scary and then i tutored up a Glacial Chasm and wrapped things up from there I guess if I have a point it's that if you're playing control you don't want to be obnoxious about it. Let the big scary cards people are slamming keep the threat detection off yourself while you sculpt your hand and plan out lines to murder them ^ _ ^
Personally I love control. Especially in none blue or black colors. You do miss out on a certain amount of interaction, but no one is expecting it. So you gain an element of surprise and you find fun and interesting ways to play colors. I have a neyith the dire hunt deck that 25-30 of the deck is meant to interact with the board while my commander draws me cards until I get enough value to put out a few big beaters to win the game. Great video as always, keep up the great work.
Really good video. No issues with the ads and length. Didn't know that control exists in edh since, as you say, you need to control 3 players to try reach the end game first. I would say it's the hardest strategy, simply because I see many people get it wrong. They cast removal after removal on non essential pieces and then eventually run out of cards. Then they complain why everyone goes against them. (Dictate of Erebos player, I'm looking at you)
I’ve been really impressed by Vren the Relentless as a control commander lately. I don’t play any rats besides Marrow-Gnawer; it's mainly removal, counterspells, and ramp.
My favorite I guess you could call it control is Gisa, the Hellraiser (3BB ward 2 from outlaws) who on crime makes two tapped 2/2 zombies and she gives zombies and skellies +1/+1 and menace. The deck is just monoblack removal dot dec but the thing that has kept it "OKd" by my group is that all my interaction (besides one plague wind for group memes) is targeted interaction for crime and that 3/3 menace zombies do be slapping rather hard so there is no the slow death sentence feeling that some too dedicated UW control players set up.
Huh. I finally understand your seemingly insane take on Arcane Denial! It really is one of the best counterspells you can run, if you're running it the way I generally do; 2 or 3 counters in the whole deck, which you're using strategically, only to protect your most important pieces or stop an opponent's win. But even if, mathematically, it puts you less far behind the rest of the table than other one for one counterspells, if you're actually playing control, giving that one opponent extra cards is always a bad thing, and you should be drawing enough cards yourself that you can afford to go down a few, relative to the other two players who you aren't countering. Thanks for clearing that up!
This was a good conversation - I'm not inexperienced in magic, and even after this conversation I'm not 100% sure the best way to do pure control in edh. I've been successful at it before, but in my experience it always either 1. Didn't work, or 2. It was a miserable experience. Even this conversation, though, highlights the problems that I have running pure control. . . I agree that it's not like people in general just cant stand a counterspell or something; It's those last 3-5 turns, where you've successfully locked everyone down, and now you remove their life totals with your threat while they wait. I've found that alt wincons usually go over better in pure control decks. Something like Approach of the Second Sun. Maybe that's the only way to do it without making people feel bad. 🤷♂ RIP Rashmi, at least you got to win once. Lol
Really cool video. I think I lean into control because a lot of stax cards just fall into inherent play patterns that I fundamentally dislike and control often handles that really well, at least for me. I've been enjoying Kykar, Winds Fury for my control as instead of directly refilling my hand, he rewards interaction with board presence that's also cashable mana. But when Foundations comes out, oh man. The new Kykar. A blink with every instant. I know itll fall in to "oh wow thats new Azorius blink *yawn*" territory for many but the trigger is really perfect for controlling while utilizing value engine etbs over and over so I'm pretty happy to see it. The full art being one of the most beautiful cards I've ever seen helps too.
Love the linger videos, feels like you can get your point across better. One thing I'd add is that for a control deck it's probably much more important for you to not rely on your commander. If you're relying on the commander for your card draw amd it gets removed a fee times, you're kinda screwed
As a bit of a control connoisseur myself, I have a few experiences to share. My Riku Landfall (midrange/ramp) and Niv-Mizzet Parun (control) decks probably serve as a good example of the distinction between inevitability and attrition. Both decks have inevitability (Riku can easily reach ten or more mana by turn 5 and oftens gets all lands out by turn ten or so, and NMP has a combo/draw engine waiting in the command zone) and have some level of attrition. However, NMP is better at attrition because he can generate more card draw than Riku (Riku serves as a mana sink) and is better at using counterspells and the commander offensively: The commander: mitigates the drawback of removal being card-disadvantageous; kills almost everything with enough Pillsbury Doughboy pokes, and if needed, he can easily finish players with cantrips and random draw spells. Knowing that Niv is coming and you can't really stop him (he can't be countered) plus the prospect of taking damage and possibly not getting your spells or creatures through puts a lot of pressure on people. To some extent, my current Riku deck also works like a control deck of sorts: it's packed with removal that can be used defensively or offensively, accumulates exponential value (cards and mana) just by playing the game, can fight against and through removal, and has solid plans of land-based combos (infinite value with either Kodama or Doppelgang) or whacking people with some random dudes. The closest deck comparison I can make is Pioneer's Niv to Light, a tap-out control deck that uses cheap removal early on, overwhelms the opponent with value, and goes over the top with sizable threats of its own. Most of Riku's top end are dangerous creatures: Tyrranax Rex (hasty uncounterable 8/8 trampler with ward 4 that three-shots players), Omnath Locus of Rage (explosive 5/5 that cranks out more explosive 5/5s and can end games), Beanstalk Giant (a literal giant on a ramp spell) and Avenger of Zendikar (5/5 that dumps out an army of chumps that can get swole with minimal effort) are the main ones, and many of the value engines are respectable beaters themselves with 4 or 5 power, like Mina and Denn or Ancient Greenwarden.
This is really making me want to rebrew my Silas Renn and Rebbec deck. It was built around recurring plenty of repeatable removal options using Silas, and making him unblockable with Rebbec along with some other big threats for finishers
As someone who’s weirdly passionate about building mono green control and spent endless time trying to perfect my shigeki brew and looking into things like six and thrun as other control commander options, rhonas is kinda genius. Like, the advantage of me going with something like thrun would’ve been big creature so this plenty of removal spells and draw spells now work. But rhonas just does that in every way but better, and more mana efficiently, and it’s not even hard to make him attack to start putting an early clock on opponents AND he can even give trample and extra dmg on demand to push further pressure. He’s actually so simple and so perfect for an easy mono green control build!!! Wtf!!!!! Conversely shigeki takes the opposite direction one similar but still noticeably very different than six and it’s been super complex to try and brew shigeki. Not having a commander that automatically triggers greens plentiful power based draw and removal spells makes things a lot trickier especially when your commander kinda sux until you get a lot of mana and it in your hand, but it’s super interesting. Definitely think I gotta take the lessens I’ve learned from shigeki and other mono green control options and try and combine those with rhonas and the ease of extremely efficient creature removal and draw spells he unlocks and then just play many creature tutors to tutor up all those high value green creature engines anyways like shigeki six and whatever else. So genius!
I am currently building my first control deck with Zacama as the commander, looking up builds is a bit difficult since a lot of players play her with infinite combos that I dont want to engage with, but trying to get into a control mage mindset is a fun new experience
This is why I called my cedh Xyris list a "Control/aggro" list. It bought time simply by having removal at the right opportunities before striking with a finisher. Even if the downside was that opponents could draw cards, I basically could force them to interact so I didn't have to
dont forget about spell re direction in red! doesn't work for everything, but sometimes you can stop someone's spell to kill your thing AND kill someone elses thing. so it doesn't work in every scenario but sometimes its a 2 for 1.
Hey just wanted to point out that if someone did hate control they probably wouldn't watch until the 22 minute mark to hear your case for why it's fun. Love the video overall though! Nice to see a long form video like this.
I’m hoping the part at the beginning of me saying I will tell you why you might want a control deck in the pod is enough to get people willing to learn to stick around. I think if they are so against control they refuse to change they wouldn’t click on the video at all
I have been playing control in EDH since day one always with my favorite commander, Oloro. Thousands and thousands of hours of fun. Also building as stax (artifact version and enchantment version), but my favorite way of playing Oloro is hard control, oldschool
I play mostly only control in 60 card and I always wish I could make it work in edh while being fun for the table to play with. Thanks for giving me some ideas. I'm definitely inspired by your Mr. Foxglove deck.
My favorite deck is a control deck based on manipulating the top of my library so I can win clashes with Marvo, Deep Operative. It feels very reminiscent of Lantern Control.
@jemm113 Yep, Counterbalance is in my deck too. A lot of the high mana value cards I run for my clash package control my opponents as well. Think cards like Decree of Silence, Jin-Gitaxias Progress Tyrant, Myojin of Night's Reach, and I'm thinking about adding Cabal Conditioning. I have a blast playing the deck. I highly recommend it.
@@Thoughtmage100 I would love to see a full list if you have one! Just be wary of youtube’s link scrubbing, the latter end of a moxfield link or similar would suffice.
@jemm113 I'm really new to using Moxfield, but here's the last part of the url for you. fplHCoT_TE2cNNjvlZV-GQ It's more of a cedh list, but you can always tune it to your desired power level. I'm also thinking about removing Phage for Cabal Conditioning and adding a Force of Negation somewhere in the list as well, if that's also to your liking.
Been playing Chromium for years. Fantastic commander. Great finisher that is difficult to remove, and the fact that he has flash means that people will avoid attacking you even if he is not on the board, just because he CAN be put on the board (and sometimes they forget he has flash and you get to just kill their commander lol)
I like having a commander that can win the game on its own in my control decks. I find having a deck full of removal and card draw is a lot easier to make work than a deck with more finishers, even if the commander draws cards or removes stuff
@@thetrinketmage I am really trying to brew it, but the more I try and imagine putting in cards that play to Sevinne's abilities I feel I'm just making my deck that much worse.
Currently building an azorius control list with the new kykar at the helm. His effect paired with Archeomancer type creatures gives you a bunch of virtual card advantage. If you have 1 counterspell and 6 mana up? You have a counterspell for every opponents turn
For some reason my play groups actually enjoy when I play my Reality Chip list, despite it being hard control into a combo win with chip and sensei's divining top. I'm often the only person playing interaction at the table(slowly getting players to add more) but this is my most interactive list and players like playing against it lol. I've also found that letting people borrow it has helped them learn that assessment as well as make them more likely to add removal to their own lists. Having a control deck on my arsenal had lead to making my playgroup better overall
My biggest problem when building control decks has been the wincon... I never know what is enough and when I should deploy it, if I get it in my hand in the early turns should I just hold it off until everything is under control? I guess I'm just used to more midrange decks and just want to play my cool cards ASAP...
For the most part, you want to wait on casting your win conditions. But as usual, this depends on what your win conditions are as well as the board state. I play a Council of Four deck where the primary wincon is combat damage, facilitated by Herald of Hoofbeats and Knowledge is Power. That wincon is quite fragile and realistically, both pieces should be held in hand until I have enough knights for it to be lethal. But in stronger decks, with stronger wincons, just windmill-slamming them if you find them early and have protection might make sense. I had a game recently where I ramped a lot in that deck and had access to Solitary Confinement and Approach of the Second Sun early. I played Approach, used knights as blockers, cast solitary on my next turn, but I ended up dying because they had removal for it. I still think going for it early was the right play (because my hand was crap and they were playing around the Council very well) despite the fact that I lost.
@@andrewb378 hmm, i see. My control deck is a jeskai list with gnostro as my commander, its a pretty janky commander but i like it, having consistent removal every turn feels nice i build the deck with the intent of having a spellslinger deck with a bunch of the "create a token when you cast a instant/sorcery", cause they always appealed to me. But most of the time what actually felt powerful were singular cards, like Invasion of new phyrexia and the niv mizzets that ping stuff when i draw. the token producers rarely did anything. i just upgraded my list to have more efficient cantrips and token producers and im gonna test it. But if the idea is to deploy the wincons as late as possible, those cards are a lot less powerful, since i would need to have a bunch of spells left to cast after playing them, and that sounds tough, and will probably make me turn the list less control oriented
This is why I have two EDH decks. First is control so I can learn how the pod prefers to play and actually have fun. Second is fast combo, since if no one else plays interaction and just gold fishes their own combos all game... Well, Im gonna do that too and just be faster than them.
I will say that arcane denial is good in wheel/group draw decks like Nekusar or Xyris - not only do you counter an opponents scary threat but you also force them to draw
I think TTM's hate boner for arcane denial is strongly influenced by his love for control. Imo Arcane Denial is at its best when used by a deck that is a couple of these; Struggles to hit its colours, Reduces the costs of its spells, Is NOT the archenemy, Is fast, or Wants to protect a mid power or below combo deck. Now to be fair it's not a great card even in these decks but it's got a niche. You want to either be casting it so late the card draw doesn't matter, or so early the other players can help you gang up on the now-archenemy for trying to resolve a very spooky spell.
My current pet deck is a Mardu spiky pillow fort where I shuffle damage around to indestructible creatures and control the board with damage based wipes until I can punch myself in the face so hard everyone else dies. Pariah and pariah shield are the key pieces for the final combo, but it's a ridiculous deck that's fun to play.
I think this are all correct takes. The problem of modern control decks is that draw engines are so vast and spread over different types that it's generally hard to lock everyone out of their value. Moreover, better decks would be able to survive AoE discards or boardwipes better. Understanding threat priority is the hardest skill when piloting a control deck.
Preaching with that arcane denial analysis. I’ll never understand why people think it’s a good deal to give the player that’s causing you problems more resources
Great video!!! Whats your favourite Sultai Commander? I think this colours check all things you want in commander. What do you think about Glarb Calamitys Augur? Thanks a lot 😊
I usually play the kiki-jiki + felidar combo and similars. The games I find the most fun is the ones I play against people with interaction bc I can use the combo defensively and try to reasemble it when broken instead of insta winning.
Control deck can surely benefit from some stax pieces in general, it kinda answer the card parity problem of control decks. With stax pieces on board, you are essentially answering the board with just 1 or 2 cards, and you can keep your removals/counters for other stuffs. A lot of the times, the most effective way to beat a control deck is to go fast, and so my idea is to incorporate some anti creature stax pieces in the deck, this way, you are already covering up 1 weakness of a control deck, save your counters and removals for their card advantage cards, use the boardwipes and stax pieces to deal with their creatures, and then finally when they are out of gas or locked out, you take over with your wincon. I run cards like humility, tainted aether, spreading plague, overburden, and tabernacle in the deck just to name a few. And this is where I kinda agree with prof when it comes to inevitability being the key to a control deck, with how little wincon you can put into the deck, it is important that the wincon can always deliver the win whenever it hits the board, and my favorite way to do this is using PW, especially with how many creature hates you are packing, you want to avoid creature wincons as much as possible. To strengthen this inevitability, I run some infinite turn combos.
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i usually hate baked in sponsor ads for youtube videos but when the creator does a little work and makes a skit or something with them they are a lot more bearable, also cute lizard!
I’ll make sure JoJo knows you think he is cute 🥰
but tbh they need to make money as we watch for free, i assume on patreon he has no ad/sponsor versions :) For the ultra big creators they can do without im just impressed he has sponsors already tbh
You should get sponsorblock
TTM calmly explaining the sponsorship while the the kavu eats a guy is the funniest thing I've seen in a while
I personally like the longer videos, they're great to watch/listentoo when im at work or driving to and from work.Your videos always bring me so much joy and knowledge. And that advertisement was awesome!
I love control decks, nothing brings me better joy than removing the one ring with a breaking down the door. One thing I value a lot in control deck is to have removal engines or cards that can do more than just 1 to 1 trade, a lot of 5 mana counter spells are great for this, but cards like collective resistance that can let you scale up are excellent
15:06 Red has lots of cards that change the targets of target spell, which are sorta like counterspells in a way.
Also you forgot Mages Contest, the funniest counterspell
I did miss the redirection spells my bad. Also mages contest is hilarious
Yeah wdym non-blue decks can't have counterspells...
There's pyroblast, red elemental blast, burnout, gutteral response, mana tithe, aven interrupter, withering boon, deathgrip, lifeforce, null brooch, null elemental blast, warping wail, reprieve, mage's attendant, sundial of the infinite, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, and lapse of certainty are all pretty... decent, anyway.
@@thatonefirekestral I said red and green lack counters. I don't quite count red ele and pyroblast for casual edh they are very niche. and guttural response is too niche even for cedh... Those color hate cards are not something I would recommend in a control deck.
Before fully watching: Control decks are sort of a necessary evil in most Commander pods, HOWEVER it requires a person willing to - hopefully - be seen and watched constantly.
I'm fine with a control deck at my table, but not when I'm the only person seeing their 2 Smothering Tithes as a problem BEFORE they resolve a Faerie Mastermind. That game made me focus my Jund deck further into harsh attrition plus anti-Blue.
Imo any red deck should contain anti-blue tech.
@@granite_4576 you're thinking far too narrow. Every deck should have at least one Silver Bullet for their bad match-ups
@@thered1s276 genuinely very few things in magic can beat the feeling of responding to a counterspell with a boil.
Did you say 2 smothering tithe’s ? In a singleton format?
cant agree more that the best answer to the commander arm's race is to play control, you save the table from never being fun again by playing as a sentient speedbump to the fast decks in your pod
Personally I find spot removal isn't so useful but I hate wipes. So many commanders/higher power decks are snowball-y, win-more that you can't interact with enough. I like my Yasharn deck that's made to work around 'rule of law' effects that stop people going crazy until I'm set up
11/10 on this longform video, bonus for the cute sketch ad
That was a solid description of deck archetypes in EDH, Im looking forward to using this framework to evaluate cards
14:30 DA GOAT WE LOVE JOJO
As a kid in the 90s I had like one gruul stompy deck (it used winter orb and mana dorks to run out stuff like Ernham Djinn), and then a goblin sleigh deck. And after than I've pretty much only ever played control decks in one form or another. Being able to have the answer to a situation or having to use your deck to solve the puzzle of the game state is the best part of the game. I love counter spells and will always have at least one in a deck if I can get it in the color pie. Yes mana tithe and lapse of certainty are my pet cards, fight me.
Yes I love mana tithe and lapse of certainty! Reprieve, aven interrupter, and mages attendant are pretty cool too.
Yes! As a fellow control player, I encounter the misconception that I am just countering every spell and preventing anyone from doing anything all the time. In reality I wait to the last possible chance to react to stuff or only remove/counter things that are specifically threats to me. I let everyone do their thing and only step in if it will adversely effect me too badly for me to ignore.
While I have made many control decks, my favorite is my Queza, Augur of Agonies list. While I have a couple backup spells, I just let everyone beat each other up and and then mop up with Queza at the end, quite effective. And it let's just fill my deck with draw and removal, a few utility cards, and the aforementioned backup wincons, making for a very strong control list.
Also, since you asked for tips and tricks from seasoned control players, I have two: sorcery speed card draw is the devil and we shall not heed him. Sorcery speed in general is the devil, but one that is sadly unavoidable at times. Repeated draw like Rhystic Study or Phyrexian Arena is great, but there is almost no better feeling as a control player (at least in my opinion) than to draw five or six cards on the end phase before your turn and then untap with a full hand of cards, and all your mana open. Second tip/trick, my all-time favorite control card is actually Leyline of Anticipation (and to a lesser extent Vedalkan Orrorery). Giving all your spells flash is about the best thing you can do for a control deck (again in my opinion). It may not seem like it at first, but now you essentially no longer have to choose between playing that good card you wanted to play and leaving mana open like a responsible control player should. Also, turning every boardwipe into basically another Rift style effect is great (you can never have enough instant-speed boardwipes).
you have spoke to my heart this day mentioning render silent. Simply my favorite card.
14:06 THE BEAST!!!
Hi trinket mage, your heliod control deck has inspired me to finall rebuilt build oketra the true draw go control(which I've failed many times), and with your deck list's guidance, I've finally built something that is equipted to win the game, thank you so much, the deck has been a blast to play with.
Yooo trinket mage, just found out there's a card named trinket mage 😂
I wonder how many viewers I have that don’t know my channel is named after a card
@thetrinketmage well I'm no longer one of them, I suppose, lol. I put it in my locust god deck to tutor for skull clamp, library of leng, and elixir of immortality
@@thetrinketmage also, happy halloween!
@@thetrinketmagecant belive wizards named a card after you
Just wait until you understand 3/3 Elk
Oh boy, I needed a way to avoid getting devoured mid trade, thanks Trinket Mage! Also cute lizard!
I don't mind playing against control decks. Just know I'm attacking you all game.
That’s the spirit! Make us have it or we’re psyoping our way to victory.
Lol meanwhile the combo deck is going infinite and I can’t spare the mana for a counterspell since the aggro player can’t stop seeing red. Figure I might as well king-make and let the combo player win if I’m dead either way 😂😂
Clown
Fun addition here for actually _picking_ your removal; find pieces that let you get away with riding the line between single target and board wipe, hitting multiple pieces at once. Card draw is obviously an essential, but multi-target removal lets you greed to have more fun and interesting cards, because your removal hits multiple threats (and so don't need to draw as much to compensate). Beast Within is in about 40% of all EDH decks, and there are similar numbers for all the top pieces of single target removal at that mana cost - Chaos Warp, Generous Gift. For one mana more, a simple Decimate can easily 4-for-1, and the only downside is that you can't hit planeswalkers.
You know what _is_ good at hitting planeswalkers? The creature-full boardstates everywhere else on the table. Let them do the hard work for you and watch them spend their combat damage for the turn on the "threat", then cackle maniacally when you thank them for their efforts, and Blasphemous Act for 1 red mana because you waited to pull the trigger - for once, not for pure greed, but because your Decimate kept the big threats away from you, buying you time to _be_ greedy without letting the full range of a Great Henge + Rhystic Study + Esper Sentinel + Cabal Coffers have a full extra turn cycle to run away with.
I really like the Council of Four as a control deck. I do run some of the group draw stuff like Kami of the Crescent Moon and Howling Mine, but that deck really takes advantage of those. It's also an extremely compact deck because of how much value is stuffed into the council. It's an army in a can *and* a powerful draw engine. Combine it with other draw engines like Tocasia's Welcome or Ephara, god of the polis and it goes absolutely nuts.
I actually think a sneaky upside of playing the group draw effects in this specific deck is that it makes people want to cast more spells. Overfilling their hands early silently incentivizes them to double spell and give me knights. I mean, who wants to discard cards?
JOJO CAMEO GOES CRAZY 10/10 sponsorship segment
I like the longer video. Listen to most of these videos while driving to school. Ads are fine. The video's free, makes sense.
Hot Take: Burn is a type of control, it just aims to control the board in the early game and win then. (Not every deck, but many can operate this way)
I agree with this, but it is funny to me how blue and red are such opposite colors, and yet are similar in this way
In all seriousness, yes, burn is a control hybrid. I'd say it's less controlley than attrition and UW/UB lists, as it cares to control the game only for so long until it builds up enough cards and mana to blast everyone out, burn doesn't make a goal to attack enemy value or attack all the scary threats.
CounterBurn is absolutely an established archetype. It came about in a metagame where you had to run a couple of fastcraetres to get the turn 4 burn win (because of the low quality of the worst burn spells). Some people saw this, and asked "what if we survive two turns longer?". They cut the creatures and the bad burn spells, but still ran enough good burn spells to count to 20, and added 4-8 counterspells as well as some amount of card draw, since the density of damage was lower.
Player Removal acts as threat removal and counterspells, but only if you believe in yourself
@@Crushanator1 Lmao what is that supposed to mean 😭
For a controlling Boros commander I recommend Othari, Sun's Glory. Immense inevitibility so long as you pack a ton of mass board protection to ensure victory.
This was a super insightful video! It made me rethink my current control list and realize ways i can make it way better.
My favorite deck ive ever made is an Inquisitor Greyfax deck that is a deck focused on clues. I loved the idea of being a sleuth and i wanted to make clues work well. The perk? clues can act as both my wincon as well as my draw engine! I have mixed aspects of tapping, boardwipes, and control magic to allow me to amass a massive amount of clues and use them to close out the game. This video has been super insightful! I received lots of good ideas as to cards i can change out as well as how to play efficiently to allow myself room to close out the game. Thank you so much for the video
I like control that speeds me up as my opponents do well. This way, they have fun, while I pull ahead. Cards like Compost, Insight, Carpet of Flowers, Ghostly Pilferer, Wedding Ring, Psychic Possession, Verity Circle, Archivist of Oghma, etc. all do well when my opponents are having fun, and they usually put me in a position to control the board without my opponents knowing that they're locked.
The blue tongue kavu should definitely be an alter or renamed card with your skink as the artwork, absolutely adorable!
Solid video! When I first started playing magic and commander, control had me pretty salty. Flash forward a year and I've realized it's just someone else's version of fun and I need to respect that. I built a Zethi pseudo control deck as a dumping ground for my WU cards since I tend to play Jund and it's been a ton of fun! Thanks for helping down the path of more fun at the table and being a more mature player.
As for longer form videos. I'm here for it. Took me to cracks to get through it but I love your content and will soak up shorts or 30 min videos alike :)
Great longer video! And the ad in the middle was fantastic! Beautiful Skink! ❤️
Thanks!
GReat vid, great ad, couple bucks for the effort. I still have a sour taste in my mouth about control because 3 guys out of a pod I had for a long time did the arm race thing...with control. People played less and less threat and more and more control pieces for a looooong time, and all game ended up 2h + and it was pointless to play any threat. I feel like control is very pod dependent somehow. If you have enough answer for the threat of 3 players, and one other play has enough answer for 3 players, you end up with 6 answer for basically every treat that comes out, and only 2 persons are producing treats. Thats really a playgroup thing though, I agree with all the points in the video :P
Thank you for the super chat! And I’m glad that this video resonated with you. That’s pretty unique to have the arms race be in the control direction not speed… but of an odd playgroup you got there
I liked the additional ad because it was creative and funny. I don't mind ads if they are entertaining to watch. Command Zone does entertaining ads to and I watch them most of the time. Accept for when they reuse them.
Longer videos are really what I go for. My time is limited.
The second ad was one of the best I saw in a while!
Thank you for the control guide as I learn to play better control. I bought a Gavi nest warden deck from a friend of mine and thats the deck i try to learn control with. Gavi is simply the draw enginge of the deck and over time I get some blokckers as well. By drawing throughh the deck I have most of the time a counterspell ready. I still need to figure out when to flicker/bounce/counter the threats my opponent have. I do struggle to evaluate if a certain choice was good. E.g. I played against Omnath locust of creation, ashling flame dance (forgot the fourth deck). When I removed the threats of one deck, another just pulled ahead just afterwards and I don´t know whether I made the right choice, as the other players didn´t do much. If you have tips for that, I´m glad to hear your oppinions. Also I´m unsure when I should counter a threat or just let it pass in hope the onother player has a counterspell, so I dont have to remove the threat. All in all it was great to hear your thoughts and I try to get better playing (and doing actual politics) with that playstyle
This couldn't have released at a better time. As I sit here building my first commander deck, with Niv Mizzet, Visionary. I've played control a long time but commander is a whole different beast, this video was very helpful.
The card disadvantage problem is why i will sing the praises of Nymris, Oonas Trickster until i die. It turns all of your counterspells and targeted removal into cantrips, actually even better since you dig two cards deep into your library to find your combos. I am always having a laugh when i play him and my friends cower in fear whenever they cast a spell
Oof I failed to realize that one’s legendary! Pair it with displacer kitten + an Archaomancer effect to always have counterspells 😂
Great video and great argumentation for running removal or playing control in Commander, and interesting suggestions for playing control out of its traditional colors. I've been trying to wrap my head around it for a while and this video certainly helped.
The scenario you described at 23:45 is exactly what happens most of the time someone plays turn 1 Sol Ring, so I don't understand why you say it's a good card for the format. I wish I could take my time back from those games, as either that player wins or is hated out of the game early, making it and unpleasant situation. And spending removal on it, even cheap one as Pick your Poison, can backfire by setting the other players back more than the one that already built a board.
love your videos, no crazy editing and always well spoken and thought provoking. keep it up 🙏🏼
Great vid, I prefer long ones with analytic point on things, so it's right up my alley. In terms of ads - I personally just don't mind and just skip 'em so a time-stamp in the video that marks it is always welcome but not neccessary. Content creators has to eat too, so be my guest and place it wherever and however you want.
As someone with a low-budget monogreen Rhonas deck with like 15 fight spells and lots of creature-based card draw: YES!
Love the long videos. Love the lizard. Reminds me of pepperoni's birthday.
Tivit is my control deck. Evasive, huge beater that provides card and mana advantage in one.
0:41 I wasn’t expecting this image, LMAO!
One must imagine trinket mage as a trip mine
Great video! I recently rebuilt my most successful deck which I've come to realize is a control deck, Drana Kalestria Bloodchief, and it's debut game was a success! Ultimately the goal is to make it to the 1 v 1 and have our beefy mana sink commander eat their face, but i find that for the rest of the game what i prefer to do is try to just keep to my corner and let other people be scary and point it out when they are doing so. The Skullbriar deck ran the table and was super scary and then i tutored up a Glacial Chasm and wrapped things up from there
I guess if I have a point it's that if you're playing control you don't want to be obnoxious about it. Let the big scary cards people are slamming keep the threat detection off yourself while you sculpt your hand and plan out lines to murder them ^ _ ^
i really liked your sponsorship, hope the blue toungue kavu becomes a recurring character
I got will smith for the next one
one of the greatest videos ever, thank you!
Excellent overview. I just built a Baral deck and got some good tips. This is my first control deck. I haven't played it yet. It's in the mail.
15:14 "Red does have A counterspell"
"Mage's contest" cries in the forgettion corner once again
Personally I love control. Especially in none blue or black colors. You do miss out on a certain amount of interaction, but no one is expecting it. So you gain an element of surprise and you find fun and interesting ways to play colors. I have a neyith the dire hunt deck that 25-30 of the deck is meant to interact with the board while my commander draws me cards until I get enough value to put out a few big beaters to win the game. Great video as always, keep up the great work.
The algorithm knows that I craved more trinket mage. Thanks for making this!
The ad with the lizard was 10/10, made me smile :)
Really good video. No issues with the ads and length.
Didn't know that control exists in edh since, as you say, you need to control 3 players to try reach the end game first.
I would say it's the hardest strategy, simply because I see many people get it wrong. They cast removal after removal on non essential pieces and then eventually run out of cards. Then they complain why everyone goes against them. (Dictate of Erebos player, I'm looking at you)
I’ve been really impressed by Vren the Relentless as a control commander lately. I don’t play any rats besides Marrow-Gnawer; it's mainly removal, counterspells, and ramp.
My favorite I guess you could call it control is Gisa, the Hellraiser (3BB ward 2 from outlaws) who on crime makes two tapped 2/2 zombies and she gives zombies and skellies +1/+1 and menace. The deck is just monoblack removal dot dec but the thing that has kept it "OKd" by my group is that all my interaction (besides one plague wind for group memes) is targeted interaction for crime and that 3/3 menace zombies do be slapping rather hard so there is no the slow death sentence feeling that some too dedicated UW control players set up.
Huh. I finally understand your seemingly insane take on Arcane Denial! It really is one of the best counterspells you can run, if you're running it the way I generally do; 2 or 3 counters in the whole deck, which you're using strategically, only to protect your most important pieces or stop an opponent's win. But even if, mathematically, it puts you less far behind the rest of the table than other one for one counterspells, if you're actually playing control, giving that one opponent extra cards is always a bad thing, and you should be drawing enough cards yourself that you can afford to go down a few, relative to the other two players who you aren't countering. Thanks for clearing that up!
Legit been trying to build my first control deck last two days and this video drops 🙌
11:32 abit is an understatment from what I saw
This was a good conversation - I'm not inexperienced in magic, and even after this conversation I'm not 100% sure the best way to do pure control in edh. I've been successful at it before, but in my experience it always either 1. Didn't work, or 2. It was a miserable experience. Even this conversation, though, highlights the problems that I have running pure control. . . I agree that it's not like people in general just cant stand a counterspell or something; It's those last 3-5 turns, where you've successfully locked everyone down, and now you remove their life totals with your threat while they wait. I've found that alt wincons usually go over better in pure control decks. Something like Approach of the Second Sun. Maybe that's the only way to do it without making people feel bad. 🤷♂
RIP Rashmi, at least you got to win once. Lol
Really cool video. I think I lean into control because a lot of stax cards just fall into inherent play patterns that I fundamentally dislike and control often handles that really well, at least for me. I've been enjoying Kykar, Winds Fury for my control as instead of directly refilling my hand, he rewards interaction with board presence that's also cashable mana. But when Foundations comes out, oh man. The new Kykar. A blink with every instant. I know itll fall in to "oh wow thats new Azorius blink *yawn*" territory for many but the trigger is really perfect for controlling while utilizing value engine etbs over and over so I'm pretty happy to see it.
The full art being one of the most beautiful cards I've ever seen helps too.
Love the linger videos, feels like you can get your point across better.
One thing I'd add is that for a control deck it's probably much more important for you to not rely on your commander. If you're relying on the commander for your card draw amd it gets removed a fee times, you're kinda screwed
I’ll take all the longer videos you can produce, thank you!
As a bit of a control connoisseur myself, I have a few experiences to share.
My Riku Landfall (midrange/ramp) and Niv-Mizzet Parun (control) decks probably serve as a good example of the distinction between inevitability and attrition. Both decks have inevitability (Riku can easily reach ten or more mana by turn 5 and oftens gets all lands out by turn ten or so, and NMP has a combo/draw engine waiting in the command zone) and have some level of attrition.
However, NMP is better at attrition because he can generate more card draw than Riku (Riku serves as a mana sink) and is better at using counterspells and the commander offensively: The commander: mitigates the drawback of removal being card-disadvantageous; kills almost everything with enough Pillsbury Doughboy pokes, and if needed, he can easily finish players with cantrips and random draw spells.
Knowing that Niv is coming and you can't really stop him (he can't be countered) plus the prospect of taking damage and possibly not getting your spells or creatures through puts a lot of pressure on people.
To some extent, my current Riku deck also works like a control deck of sorts: it's packed with removal that can be used defensively or offensively, accumulates exponential value (cards and mana) just by playing the game, can fight against and through removal, and has solid plans of land-based combos (infinite value with either Kodama or Doppelgang) or whacking people with some random dudes.
The closest deck comparison I can make is Pioneer's Niv to Light, a tap-out control deck that uses cheap removal early on, overwhelms the opponent with value, and goes over the top with sizable threats of its own. Most of Riku's top end are dangerous creatures: Tyrranax Rex (hasty uncounterable 8/8 trampler with ward 4 that three-shots players), Omnath Locus of Rage (explosive 5/5 that cranks out more explosive 5/5s and can end games), Beanstalk Giant (a literal giant on a ramp spell) and Avenger of Zendikar (5/5 that dumps out an army of chumps that can get swole with minimal effort) are the main ones, and many of the value engines are respectable beaters themselves with 4 or 5 power, like Mina and Denn or Ancient Greenwarden.
Always love longer vids keep it up!
Cool! I've been building control for a while and it's nice I've been doing it right lol. Got some good advice from this video.
This is really making me want to rebrew my Silas Renn and Rebbec deck. It was built around recurring plenty of repeatable removal options using Silas, and making him unblockable with Rebbec along with some other big threats for finishers
This is not just a great deckbuilding video, but also a great example of how to do sponsorship plugs right.
As someone who’s weirdly passionate about building mono green control and spent endless time trying to perfect my shigeki brew and looking into things like six and thrun as other control commander options, rhonas is kinda genius. Like, the advantage of me going with something like thrun would’ve been big creature so this plenty of removal spells and draw spells now work. But rhonas just does that in every way but better, and more mana efficiently, and it’s not even hard to make him attack to start putting an early clock on opponents AND he can even give trample and extra dmg on demand to push further pressure. He’s actually so simple and so perfect for an easy mono green control build!!! Wtf!!!!! Conversely shigeki takes the opposite direction one similar but still noticeably very different than six and it’s been super complex to try and brew shigeki. Not having a commander that automatically triggers greens plentiful power based draw and removal spells makes things a lot trickier especially when your commander kinda sux until you get a lot of mana and it in your hand, but it’s super interesting.
Definitely think I gotta take the lessens I’ve learned from shigeki and other mono green control options and try and combine those with rhonas and the ease of extremely efficient creature removal and draw spells he unlocks and then just play many creature tutors to tutor up all those high value green creature engines anyways like shigeki six and whatever else. So genius!
I am currently building my first control deck with Zacama as the commander, looking up builds is a bit difficult since a lot of players play her with infinite combos that I dont want to engage with, but trying to get into a control mage mindset is a fun new experience
This is why I called my cedh Xyris list a "Control/aggro" list. It bought time simply by having removal at the right opportunities before striking with a finisher. Even if the downside was that opponents could draw cards, I basically could force them to interact so I didn't have to
dont forget about spell re direction in red! doesn't work for everything, but sometimes you can stop someone's spell to kill your thing AND kill someone elses thing. so it doesn't work in every scenario but sometimes its a 2 for 1.
Dw, we love Jojo. Great video! The ad was fun
My extent of "control" is counterspells and removal so I'm looking forward to watching this 🙂
Hey just wanted to point out that if someone did hate control they probably wouldn't watch until the 22 minute mark to hear your case for why it's fun. Love the video overall though! Nice to see a long form video like this.
I’m hoping the part at the beginning of me saying I will tell you why you might want a control deck in the pod is enough to get people willing to learn to stick around. I think if they are so against control they refuse to change they wouldn’t click on the video at all
I love these longer videos
I can't believe TM called out the Professor!
No respect for his elders.
I have been playing control in EDH since day one always with my favorite commander, Oloro. Thousands and thousands of hours of fun. Also building as stax (artifact version and enchantment version), but my favorite way of playing Oloro is hard control, oldschool
This actually did inspire me to try to make a control deck
Also the deltarune music went hard
Watching your video make me realize why i love sunforger so much
I play mostly only control in 60 card and I always wish I could make it work in edh while being fun for the table to play with. Thanks for giving me some ideas. I'm definitely inspired by your Mr. Foxglove deck.
My favorite deck is a control deck based on manipulating the top of my library so I can win clashes with Marvo, Deep Operative. It feels very reminiscent of Lantern Control.
Benn wanting to build lantern control Marvo for a while, and imagine running counterbalance with it too! 😂
@jemm113 Yep, Counterbalance is in my deck too. A lot of the high mana value cards I run for my clash package control my opponents as well. Think cards like Decree of Silence, Jin-Gitaxias Progress Tyrant, Myojin of Night's Reach, and I'm thinking about adding Cabal Conditioning. I have a blast playing the deck. I highly recommend it.
@@Thoughtmage100 I would love to see a full list if you have one! Just be wary of youtube’s link scrubbing, the latter end of a moxfield link or similar would suffice.
@jemm113 I'm really new to using Moxfield, but here's the last part of the url for you.
fplHCoT_TE2cNNjvlZV-GQ
It's more of a cedh list, but you can always tune it to your desired power level. I'm also thinking about removing Phage for Cabal Conditioning and adding a Force of Negation somewhere in the list as well, if that's also to your liking.
Been playing Chromium for years. Fantastic commander. Great finisher that is difficult to remove, and the fact that he has flash means that people will avoid attacking you even if he is not on the board, just because he CAN be put on the board (and sometimes they forget he has flash and you get to just kill their commander lol)
I like having a commander that can win the game on its own in my control decks. I find having a deck full of removal and card draw is a lot easier to make work than a deck with more finishers, even if the commander draws cards or removes stuff
Oh, great and powerful Trinket Mage in the sky! What Jeskai commander should I pick for a budget controller deck?
Sevinne
@ Oh, I didn’t think I’d get this far. I was looking at Optimus Prime, Hero. But I can’t deny a direct order from the control master himself
@@thetrinketmage I am really trying to brew it, but the more I try and imagine putting in cards that play to Sevinne's abilities I feel I'm just making my deck that much worse.
Congrats on one of the most fun ad breaks ever haha
Sauron has been a crazy good control deck I've built, massive threat can refill your hand, and hard to kill, and in decent control colors
Currently building an azorius control list with the new kykar at the helm. His effect paired with Archeomancer type creatures gives you a bunch of virtual card advantage. If you have 1 counterspell and 6 mana up? You have a counterspell for every opponents turn
For some reason my play groups actually enjoy when I play my Reality Chip list, despite it being hard control into a combo win with chip and sensei's divining top. I'm often the only person playing interaction at the table(slowly getting players to add more) but this is my most interactive list and players like playing against it lol. I've also found that letting people borrow it has helped them learn that assessment as well as make them more likely to add removal to their own lists. Having a control deck on my arsenal had lead to making my playgroup better overall
The math on Arcane denial makes it the best counterspell for value in commander when you remember you have 3 opponents
My biggest problem when building control decks has been the wincon... I never know what is enough and when I should deploy it, if I get it in my hand in the early turns should I just hold it off until everything is under control? I guess I'm just used to more midrange decks and just want to play my cool cards ASAP...
For the most part, you want to wait on casting your win conditions. But as usual, this depends on what your win conditions are as well as the board state. I play a Council of Four deck where the primary wincon is combat damage, facilitated by Herald of Hoofbeats and Knowledge is Power. That wincon is quite fragile and realistically, both pieces should be held in hand until I have enough knights for it to be lethal. But in stronger decks, with stronger wincons, just windmill-slamming them if you find them early and have protection might make sense.
I had a game recently where I ramped a lot in that deck and had access to Solitary Confinement and Approach of the Second Sun early. I played Approach, used knights as blockers, cast solitary on my next turn, but I ended up dying because they had removal for it. I still think going for it early was the right play (because my hand was crap and they were playing around the Council very well) despite the fact that I lost.
@@andrewb378 hmm, i see. My control deck is a jeskai list with gnostro as my commander, its a pretty janky commander but i like it, having consistent removal every turn feels nice
i build the deck with the intent of having a spellslinger deck with a bunch of the "create a token when you cast a instant/sorcery", cause they always appealed to me. But most of the time what actually felt powerful were singular cards, like Invasion of new phyrexia and the niv mizzets that ping stuff when i draw. the token producers rarely did anything.
i just upgraded my list to have more efficient cantrips and token producers and im gonna test it.
But if the idea is to deploy the wincons as late as possible, those cards are a lot less powerful, since i would need to have a bunch of spells left to cast after playing them, and that sounds tough, and will probably make me turn the list less control oriented
This is why I have two EDH decks.
First is control so I can learn how the pod prefers to play and actually have fun.
Second is fast combo, since if no one else plays interaction and just gold fishes their own combos all game... Well, Im gonna do that too and just be faster than them.
The Card Castle ad was probably the best part because you had a creature
I don't know about you guys but Landmine fit so well in my bedroom. Definitely improve my room's Feng Shui.
me designing casual tripping hazards for intruders
hello! so excited for this
I will say that arcane denial is good in wheel/group draw decks like Nekusar or Xyris - not only do you counter an opponents scary threat but you also force them to draw
I think TTM's hate boner for arcane denial is strongly influenced by his love for control.
Imo Arcane Denial is at its best when used by a deck that is a couple of these;
Struggles to hit its colours,
Reduces the costs of its spells,
Is NOT the archenemy,
Is fast, or
Wants to protect a mid power or below combo deck.
Now to be fair it's not a great card even in these decks but it's got a niche. You want to either be casting it so late the card draw doesn't matter, or so early the other players can help you gang up on the now-archenemy for trying to resolve a very spooky spell.
Jojo? he's so cute! I'm more curious about the color of your nails, I loved them!
Suggestions for repeatable removal for a Jeskai combo deck? I have many untap permanent effects and no instant/sorcery recursion if that factors in.
My current pet deck is a Mardu spiky pillow fort where I shuffle damage around to indestructible creatures and control the board with damage based wipes until I can punch myself in the face so hard everyone else dies. Pariah and pariah shield are the key pieces for the final combo, but it's a ridiculous deck that's fun to play.
I think this are all correct takes. The problem of modern control decks is that draw engines are so vast and spread over different types that it's generally hard to lock everyone out of their value. Moreover, better decks would be able to survive AoE discards or boardwipes better. Understanding threat priority is the hardest skill when piloting a control deck.
Preaching with that arcane denial analysis. I’ll never understand why people think it’s a good deal to give the player that’s causing you problems more resources
Great video!!!
Whats your favourite Sultai Commander? I think this colours check all things you want in commander.
What do you think about Glarb Calamitys Augur?
Thanks a lot 😊
I usually play the kiki-jiki + felidar combo and similars. The games I find the most fun is the ones I play against people with interaction bc I can use the combo defensively and try to reasemble it when broken instead of insta winning.
Control deck can surely benefit from some stax pieces in general, it kinda answer the card parity problem of control decks. With stax pieces on board, you are essentially answering the board with just 1 or 2 cards, and you can keep your removals/counters for other stuffs. A lot of the times, the most effective way to beat a control deck is to go fast, and so my idea is to incorporate some anti creature stax pieces in the deck, this way, you are already covering up 1 weakness of a control deck, save your counters and removals for their card advantage cards, use the boardwipes and stax pieces to deal with their creatures, and then finally when they are out of gas or locked out, you take over with your wincon. I run cards like humility, tainted aether, spreading plague, overburden, and tabernacle in the deck just to name a few.
And this is where I kinda agree with prof when it comes to inevitability being the key to a control deck, with how little wincon you can put into the deck, it is important that the wincon can always deliver the win whenever it hits the board, and my favorite way to do this is using PW, especially with how many creature hates you are packing, you want to avoid creature wincons as much as possible. To strengthen this inevitability, I run some infinite turn combos.