Hey, my name is Marc Eric Vogt. I am 25 years old, am German, and live in Munich. I’ve played Magic since forever (or at least since seventh grade). I made the Top 8 at the German Legacy National Championship in 2010 and at Grand Prix Stuttgart back in 2007. I’ve always loved Eternal formats and blue control decks. Beating your opponent because you take control over the entire game is just the best thing I can imagine. If you love blue-based control decks as much as I do, this article is perfect for you since I am going to tell you about the stone cold BEST CONTROL DECK IN LEGACY. You are now probably thinking there is no “best” deck. True! But there is a definite best deck for the current metagame. Okay, so what do we want to crush?
RUG Delver? Check!
Elves? Check!
Storm Combo? Check!
Maverick? Double Check!!
The deck I am going to tell you about has it all covered!
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (31)
This is the exact list I played at Grand Prix Ghent.
What is so awesome about the deck, you ask? We have all the best answers in the format in our maindeck. They play creatures? We have Terminus, Entreat the Angels, and Swords to Plowshares. They want to combo us out? We have Counterbalance, Spell Pierce, and Force of Will. They want to control us? We have Counterbalance, Counterspell, Vendilion Clique, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
As you may have recognized by now, it is important to always draw the right cards in this deck. Let’s say our opponent is playing Maverick and our hand consists of Vendilion Clique, Counterbalance, and Spell Pierce; we will probably lose. So what can we do about it? Do we have to be lucky all the time to draw the right half of our deck? NO! Since we have:
Indeed, especially Brainstorm and Sensei’s Diving Top are the backbone of our deck. Not only do these cards help to find the right answers, but they also help set up our miracles. There is some strong synergy between Sensei’s Diving Top and the miracle mechanic. We just keep our miracle card floating on top of our library until we need it. Then we can activate our Sensei’s Diving Top during their turn in order to draw the miracle card and get the miracle trigger.
There are some nice tricks you can do. For example, your opposing Elves player has some dudes in play (as they always tend to have), and then they cast a Green Sun’s Zenith for seven. We let it resolve, and they search for their Regal Force. But then in response to the trigger of the Regal Force, we spin our Top in order to find a Terminus, leaving the opponent with no guys in play and no cards to draw from the trigger. Also, in about 80% of matches this deck wins by end of turn activating Sensei’s Diving Top to miracle Entreat the Angels. Attacking for lethal the following turn is about the fastest finisher a control deck can have. That is also the reason why this control deck is viable even for a big tournament since we can kill the opponent during extra turns even if they do have 20+ life.
Another thing that is great about this deck is the mana base. Against decks with Wastelands we have seven basic lands and eight fetchlands, which often gives us the option to play games where we never have to play a single nonbasic land that’s not a fetch. During the tournament, I had several opponents put their second Wasteland on table while looking quite frustrated.
Also, sideboarding is really sweet with this deck since we always have a bunch of cards in every matchup we actively do not want to draw. For example, Terminus and Swords to Plowshares against combo decks or Vendilion Clique and Spell Pierce against creature decks. This means most of our matchups get even better post-board. This is great since we already have good matchups against most of the field (I only lost one game 1 in the entire GP and that was due to mana screw).
A lot of people asked me why I was only playing two Snapcaster Mage. This card is simply not that good in this deck. It’s not like we have equipment or anything, so the body is mostly irrelevant. Would you play Swords to Plowshares if it costed three? Probably not. In this deck Snapcaster Mage is more like a Tutor in the late game. We will have a bunch of spells in our graveyard at some point, and we will be able to recast the spell we need the most.
Also, always play FOUR Terminus no matter what anyone else tells you. This card is the reason why this deck is so good! One mana instant Wrath of God? Sign me up!
Let’s get on with the Grand Prix Ghent report!
The Tournament
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Bye
Round 3: Bye
Round 4: Philip Helle, Maverick — 2:0 W
Round 5: Richard Armel, RUG Delver — 1:1:1 D
Round 6: Sebastian Ziesche, Esper Stoneblade — 1:1:1 D
Round 7: Timur Boese, Bant Control — 2:0 W
Round 8: Rood Gonzague, 2:0 W
Round 9: Dennis Allouchery, Miracles — 2:0 W
Round 10: Jonas Koester, RUG Delver — 2:1 W
Round 11: Robert Dersch, Esper Stoneblade — 1:1:1 D
Round 12: Andre Luff, U/B Delver — 2:0 W
Round 13: Match Loss
Round 14: Jan Erik Haefeker, Maverick — 2:1 W
Round 15: Alexander Holtzmann, Maverick — 2:0 W
Round 16: Nuno Miranda, RUG Delver — 2:1 W
UNDEFEATED! That’s right, I was undefeated. Three draws and one match loss because I talk too much, but nevertheless, not a single person at GP Ghent can say they beat me! I am not going to detail every match since it’s really tough to remember everything. It was such an eventful weekend. I did have a couple of interesting plays and experiences I’d like to share though.
Round 4: Philip Helle, Maverick — 2:0 W
Maverick is really the best matchup we have. We basically cannot lose. The only card we need to be afraid of is
Always counter or Swords to Plowshares this guy since he will shut down more than half of our deck. There was an interesting situation against Philip when in game 1 I tried to find a Terminus to answer Thrun, the Last Troll. He had beaten me down to four life when I finally found my Terminus in my top three cards. I decided to draw it with a Sensei’s Diving Top activation during my opponent’s attack phase. What I had not considered was him playing a Karakas before, so he was able to bounce and replay his Thrun, the Last Troll. Thankfully, I found an Entreat the Angels on the following turn and soon enough the board was his lonely Thrun against five Angel tokens.
Round 5: Richard Armel, RUG Delver — 1:1:1 D
This match was a very typical. I won game 1 since I was able to trade one for one against his early drops. Then we had some draw go. At that point we basically cannot lose since we know they draw a lot of dead cards: lands, Spell Pierce, Daze, Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt while our draws are all awesome (even Spell Pierce is not that bad since the RUG players never tend to play out too many lands since their plan is to shuffle them away with Brainstorm). Also important to note here is against RUG, try to counter every Brainstorm they play, especially pre-board. After boarding the matchup gets a little tougher since they get to put in a lot more counterspells which stop our answers. They still can only stop a certain amount of them. That is why good RUG players will try to kill us with this bad boy
He is basically the only reason why we can lose this matchup. The problem here is the shroud. Our Swords to Plowshares do not work against him. If we have no answer at the ready, which means a Terminus on top of our library or an Engineered Explosives in hand, we should ALWAYS try to Force of Will this guy, even if they have an empty graveyard and it looks like they are just going to beat us for one since that will not be for long. As a matter of fact, I lost to Nimble Mongoose beatdown. Game 3 was very important to me since it woke me up. Basically, I was able to answer all his creatures. I played some Swords to Plowshares on his Tarmogoyfs, which put him to 26 life. At one point I had a Sensei’s Diving Top in play while his board was empty. I played an end of turn Vendilion Clique, and he showed me a bunch of lands and a Spell Pierce. I was 100% sure I was winning since I had a Counterbalance in hand and RUG Delver can never beat that.
Time was called, and I got three more hits with my Vendilion Clique in, putting him to seventeen life. There it was, the BIGGEST PROBLEM I had to face all weekend long: the clock. With so many options available to us in the late game, we still have to play VERY fast. Getting to finish three full games was difficult all weekend long, although some of my opponents told me I was a very fast Sensei’s Diving Top player. I try to plan my next turn while they are thinking about their turn. Of course, we sometimes have to change our plans since we just know the top two cards of our library until we look into our Sensei’s Diving Top at the end of their turn and since our opponent may perform some unexpected plays.
Round 6: Sebastian Ziesche, Esper Stoneblade — 1:1:1 D
Haha! I know. I was just telling you how I am a fast player and how the last round was a wakeup call for me. And there you have it, another draw! Okay, let me tell you: this is one of the few matchups we really don’t want to face with the miracles deck. They have it all: discard, counters, fast creatures, and planeswalkers. The problematic thing is that they attack us on two different fronts. We need to somehow handle their creatures while not letting them resolve a Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
The most important card for us in those long games is Sensei’s Diving Top. Basically, it guarantees that our draws are on average better than our opponent’s. Game 1 if they Brainstorm and we have the option to Spell Pierce or Counterspell it, we should just do it. Otherwise, they are just going to shuffle their Swords to Plowshares away, which would otherwise stick in their hand. Also, the games take forever and I am still not sure how you can ever get to play three full games in 50 minutes.
Round 9: Dennis Allouchery, Miracles — 2:0 W
When my opponent was sitting down, he had a big smile on his face. He told me, “The last couple of Grand Prix I played in I went 6:3 all the time, and I never made it to Day 2 so far. But now we both can draw into it with a score of 6-0-3”. Sorry, Dennis, that I had to dream crush you. Here is something important: if you are in a Grand Prix, always try to give yourself the best shot for Top 8. As we played the mirror, I was a little concerned that we would draw nevertheless, but as it turns out I am very good at blind flipping with my Counterbalance. What happened in game 2 was we both had a Counterbalance in play but no Sensei’s Diving Top. While in topdeck mode, he drew a Sensei’s Diving Top, played it, and I flipped:
Next turn I got to resolve mine. Good game, sir!
I was quite happy with my Day 1 performance of 7-0-2. Also, my friend and playtesting partner Lukas Maurer, who had zero byes, crushed everything with Elves on Day 1 to go 8-1.
Round 10: Jonas Koester, RUG Delver — 2:1 W
Jonas is a friend of mine and a very good player. I knew it was going to be a tough battle. Again game 1 went according to the plan, and game two I lost again to public enemy number one: Nimble Mongoose. We entered game 3 with fourteen minutes left on the clock. The game went very long. Although Jonas was playing at a reasonable speed, I had to ask him to play faster. He agreed, which was very kind of him. One minute before time was called I found an Entreat the Angels on top of my library while he had four cards in hand and I had nine lands in play. I decided to play around double Spell Pierce, making three Angels. It resolved! And I won from there. After the game Jonas told me he had double Spell Pierce in hand and he had shuffled a Daze away with a Brainstorm one turn earlier. Had he kept that Daze, it would have been another draw.
Round 12: Andre Luff, U/B Delver — 2:0 W
This was a very funny match since after game 1 I still could not tell what I was up against. I even saw his hand with a turn 3 Vendilion Clique. He played his own copy in reaction and then showed me:
I resolved Counterbalance and Sensei’s Diving Top on turn 4, and he scooped. I boarded as if I was playing against a control deck, but I kept all four Swords to Plowshares in. Game 2 I also won with the early combination of Counterbalance and Sensei’s Diving Top while having a Swords to Plowshares for his Creeping Tar pit. The only reason I had kept Swords to Plowshares in was because I knew there was an SCG Premium article from Sam Black called U/B Delver. I am being 100% honest when I tell you I kicked myself for not having access to SCG Premium since I really had no idea what was in his deck besides maybe Delver of Secrets. Had I read the article from Sam Black, I would have known my opponent’s entire 75!
Round 13: Match Loss
I know I talk too much, and I am stupid sometimes! Okay, you guys all know the situation when standing at the pairings for the next round and asking your friend: “Hey, do you maybe know which deck my opponent is playing?” Here is my friendly advice: do not do it when you are already sitting at the table.
Round 14: Jan Erik Haefeker, Maverick — 2:1 W
Round 15: Alexander Holtzmann, Maverick — 2:0 W
Now there you have it: FREE WINS. Okay, I lost one game to Jan Erik, since he Wastelanded me and I drew three Jace, the Mind Sculptor in four draw steps when I really needed to find a land. Nonetheless, this matchup is insane.
Getting ninth place at the end of the day was a little disappointing since I really felt like I had the best deck in the room and I tested enough to pilot it in a good fashion against the field. However, I was very happy for Lukas, who actually made it into the Top 8 with his Elves deck.
Sideboarding
Here is what I suggest sideboarding against the tier 1 decks. I think most of my sideboard plans are self-explanatory. If you have any further questions, please ask me in the comments.
Dredge
IN
OUT
You could argue for leaving in Entreat the Angels over the third Vendilion Clique. But I like the Faerie in this matchup since we can surprise block with it in order to remove their Bridge from Belows.
Miracle Control
IN
OUT
Do not make the mistake and leave Terminus in as potential out for their Entreat the Angels. The mirror is centered on resolving Sensei’s Divining Top, Counterbalance, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor and nothing else.
Reanimator
IN
OUT
The Humility are only good when they are bringing in the Show and Tell package. But in general, we can assume they do.
Stoneblade
IN
OUT
Here we have different options for what we want to board out. I am generally going for the 2-2-2 (Terminus-Swords-Force) package, but I think 1-1-4 would be fine as well.
Maverick
IN
OUT
I like the Disenchants post-board since a lot of Maverick lists board in Choke. Given the option, I like to fetch for two Plains since that means they can never Choke / Wasteland us from Disenchant mana.
RUG Delver
IN
OUT
This sideboard plan is easy: board out all the clunky cards we have and board in more solutions to their Nimble Mongoose.
Sneak and Show
IN
OUT
This matchup is probably the toughest one we have to face. We really have to stop them from playing their Sneak Attack. Against Show and Tell we board in Humility since a 1/1 Griselbrand / Emrakul, the Aeons Torn without any abilities is not that scary.
Going forward, I really liked my list. I was also happy with my sideboard since I felt like I had very good plans against each of the tier 1 decks. If I had to play in a big Legacy tournament tomorrow (such as the SCG Legacy Open in Kansas City), I would play one more Spell Pierce maindeck instead of a Counterspell and put a Moat in the sideboard. It is pretty good against a variety of decks including Merfolk, Goblins, Elves, and RUG Delver. Also, I like the idea of having one Vedalken Shackles in the sideboard since that card is just nuts against any Stoneforge Mystic deck. The last change I suggest is splashing three Thoughtseize in the sideboard. That helps our bad matchups a lot since it’s really good against any deck that tries to cheat Griselbrand into play. We can easily splash them with a single Underground Sea maindeck since all the decks we want them against do not have any Wastelands.
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (31)
I hope you had fun reading my (first) article. I can only advise you to play this deck since it’s AWESOME and SUPER-POWERFUL!
Marc Eric Vogt ([email protected])