I miss California. Specifically, my hometown of Cupertino, dwarfed by San Jose on one side and Oakland on the other.

Of course, when I say "little," I mean "60,000 people and three to four hobby shops," which is by no means small by most peoples' standards. There was no shortage of Friday Night Magic, Saturday afternoon drafts, and Sunday night type one. There was no need to wander into other cities except for pre-releases and the sort.

Then I graduated and moved to college out of state. The mighty cougars of Washington State University know football and boozing... But Magic is nearly alien to them, and there are no shops that host tournaments or even sell singles. However, on Friday afternoons after classes but before parties, there is a relatively small group of players who gather in the dormitory lobby.

Let me look back for a moment, on my chaos Magic days of yore - back in the days where U/G, Wake, and Wake ran amuck and Astral Slide was becoming the new big contender. The games then were fairly casual, just the group sitting around, turning creatures sideways, blowing them up, trying to combo out, trying to stop it.

But over the years I have noticed that threatening, powerful decks are often cut down immediately. Once your decks have earned a reputation as a major power in a group, your chances of winning actually decrease. God help you if you lay down a Mox on your first turn, because it will be an uphill battle from there. I have seen my friend's fully-powered Goblin Welder deck obliterated by a flurry of Disenchants, Naturalizes, elves, soldiers, and little red goblins. It was a valiant struggle for him - and he might have been able to fend of the beatings long enough to start blowing away players with Goblin Charbelcher if I had not stabbed him in the back with a well-placed Stifle.

Hee!

Anyway, I looked at my wonderful, beautiful, expensive cards... and then flipped the pages to the more mundane ones. I wanted to fit in the group, not be ostracized on my first day. Knowing how random a new casual multiplayer metagame could be, I sought to build the control deck (my preferred Type One deck was old-school, Four-Color Control) that would keep the game balanced long enough for me to kill at least two to three hours before evening set in. The primary purpose was not just to keep me alive as long as possible, but to keep others alive without sacrificing too much of my position. I was there to make friends, not trash them.

So without further ado, I present Utility Control!

Utility Control Featured by Tom Lillibridge on 2005-09-18 As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10476.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 1 Oblivion Stone Creatures 2 Eternal Dragon 2 Wall of Blossoms Instants 2 Arcane Denial 4 Brainstorm 4 Counterspell 3 Cunning Wish 1 Fact or Fiction 2 Impulse 1 Mystical Tutor 2 Repulse 1 Stroke of Genius 3 Swords to Plowshares 1 Tithe	Sorceries 2 Decree of Justice 3 Gaea's Blessing 1 Merchant Scroll 1 Rout 1 Wrath of God Basic Lands 6 Island 2 Plains Lands 4 Flooded Strand 1 Savannah 1 Stalking Stones 4 Tundra 4 Volcanic Island Legendary Lands 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All	Sideboard: 1 Brain Freeze 1 Capsize 1 Congregate 1 Disenchant 1 Echoing Truth 1 Forbid 1 Moment's Peace 1 Opportunity 1 Pulse of the Fields 1 Second Sunrise 1 Stifle 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Tempest of Light 1 Time Stop 1 Wing Shards
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How does this deck win in multiplayer? This deck cannot quickly deal one hundred damage, combo out, or lock down the game. Let me answer that with another question:

How does this deck lose in multiplayer?

It has the tools, efficiency, and the card advantage to stop about anything. However, politics can be your greatest ally and you have the cards to back your campaign promises. You can weave strong political ties, particularly with people piloting single-minded aggro decks, when you remind them that you are can all that can stop player X's combo or save his creatures from player Y's Terror. Call it diplomatic immunity if you will, or perhaps benevolent dictatorship.

Since the deck actually commits very few resources to the board, you can deal with threats while maintaining an optimal hand size. It is my choice to bring in to any relatively unknown or ever-changing casual multiplayer environment.

The design allows it to be relatively non-threatening without giving off the danger sense of "non-threatening" combo deck. It reinforces this strategy by making it very apparent that it is a control deck, but does not have an annoying lock such as Stasis. Often enough when curious players try to take a potshot at a seemingly defenseless player, there creature gets Swords to Plowshared or bounced (or worse) in response, discouraging future attempts. If said player becomes repeatedly belligerent, you can wipe the board clean and claim the aggro guy made you do it. This usually gets several others upset at the trigger-happy player for provoking such retaliation, even after being warned. Playing Oblivion Stone with five mana open is not unlike Korea claiming it has nukes.

While the permission may be a little light for the typical control player, it is the generally accepted rule that Counterspells are card disadvantage and prove rather annoying to the more casual groups. Force of Will is practically taboo in that sense. As a remedy, the inclusion of Arcane Denials serves as a political tool to say, "No, you can not have your Serra Avatar, but go ahead and draw a couple of cards." Must players shrug it off and draw their cards knowing that their creature would probably draw out a Terror anyway - and the other players breathe a sigh of relief because none of them had drawn removal. And all that for a measly two mana!

There are many cheap, non-card advantage draw spells and tutors here, with their goal being to make sure you're playing a land every turn and have the right spell for the job. While normal Vintage control deck tries to tutor up Ancestral Recall as soon as possible, that really is not an option - but Fact or Fiction or a Cunning Wish for Opportunity will serve the early- to mid-game. In his recent columns, Ben Kowal has made good mention of the obvious synergy between Brainstorm and Flooded Strand, powerful but often overlooked by non-competitive Vintage players. Impulse lets you look four cards deep, usually for the next land in the early game or a counter when you really need it. I usually end up shuffling Stroke of Genius away until I need to refill my hand but sometimes I get that old-school craving and end up using it to deck someone late in the game.

The seemingly threatening Eternal Dragon and Decree of Justice are used for land searching and instant-speed blockers as response to an opponent's unprovoked bum rush. As long as you don't cast big Decrees or turn your dragons sideways, most players will dismiss them. They will serve as versatile late-game win conditions when you finally want to start going aggro.

I found the inclusion of Green to be necessary. General consensus yields green as the best color for multiplayer for many, many reasons. One of them - and perhaps one of the most important - is the rather innocuous Wall of Blossoms. It costs next to nothing, replaces itself immediately, and has a big enough butt for the first half of the game.... What's not to love? I would play more but no one is willing to part with any of them. (You can get those remaining two for a mere $6.00 at StarCityGames.com, at last check - The Ferrett)

Another innocuous (if questionable), card is Gaea's Blessing. It does not do really much, but it does it well. It's mostly for recycling counters, removal, and utility spells, it also serves as the decking countermeasure (and with so many draw spells and long games, this becomes a problem) along with stopping graveyard abusers, all the while not serving as card disadvantage. Look for the synergy between that and Fact or Fiction. The color also allows Moment's Peace to be a very useful Wish target.

Many would scoff at the sideboard I have selected. I almost scoff every time I see it too, but ultimately yield my disgust to metagame reasoning. Most consider Cunning Wish as the "get out of jail free card," and it is mostly pinpoint removal in the form of Swords, Echoing Truth, and Disenchant. Others have big effects like Congregate (often for fifty to a hundred life), Tempest of Light, or a devastating Wing Shards. I have used Moment's Peace to save others' lives as much as my own in a touching gesture of good will; just make sure that player is worth saving.

There are, however, certain cards that have reusable functions that I do not require until after I've built up my mana a little - cards like Capsize, Forbid, and Pulse of the Fields. Stifle is always a good utility spell, whereas Second Sunrise is a necessary slot against decks packing Obliterate, which happens just often enough for me to include it.

Brain Freeze is an interesting choice in that it offers a seemingly random alternate win condition; if someone gained an arbitrarily large amount of life or somehow made himself unassailable (however, this deck, given time, can potentially break down such defenses) a flurry of spells ending with a Cunning Wish for Brain Freeze can finish off such a nuisance. It is easier to build a catastrophic Freeze off of a great exchange of spells between opponents than just doing it during your turn. Try to use it only in the direst of circumstances, remembering that the point of the deck is not to appear like a threatening combo deck. The first Cunning Wish more often than not goes immediately towards an Opportunity unless you're under pressure.

The mana base, with its inclusion of so many dual lands, may be a little intimidating to budget players, but I have not had that problem with any group. Running just one of each would be acceptable because they can be easily searched for, but go ahead and play as many copies as you have. Consider getting some of those new dual lands coming out. I had the one Stalking Stones in because it was a foil, but you could potentially squeeze other manlands in. There has been enough need for Boseiju to either combat other control decks or to eliminate another's Boseiju to warrant a slot.

So it wins... by not dying. More importantly, when you have survived long enough that there are only two other players left, you'll usually have attained enough resources to disable both. I find it best to protect the white weenie player long enough for his Crusades to power up your Decree of Justice, but you can probably think of many other examples to keep certain people alive. Remember however, these players are your friends, not tools, and should be treated as such. At the very least, make them feel as if they are your friend; it makes it much easier to use them as tools.

The overall weaknesses of the deck are apparent - but rather than focusing on one or more of your specific metagame decks, it would be best to keep a broader perspective, as the purpose of this exercise is not to build a hate deck, but a peace deck, quietly engineering the environment to your liking. In essence, the strategy sacrifices a lot of speed for utility and card advantage. If multiple opponents (or an extremely suicidal aggro deck like Ravager Affinity, which is rather rare in multiplayer) start attacking you right out of the gates, you may be in a little trouble. Not everyone has read The New Rules of Multiplayer, so there will be enough aggro to occasionally give you a headache. Given the nature of chaos magic, speed is not necessarily a problem - but most of the spells are cheap enough to help you survive an early-game rush. A Cunning Wish for Pulse of the Fields will help you recover.

I have been playing this deck for the better part of a year now, even returning to California and putting it up against the higher-caliber players. It has served me so well for such a diverse variety of play groups, as the deck is built to have a fair chance against all the decks that I can conceive of, playing against without getting too hate-specific. There are better builds (I built this mostly from cards out of my trade binder), but if you attempt yours, try to concentrate on the general concept of the deck with some consideration to your metagame. Try it in other colors if you like. Adapt it to different formats. If you like long, casual games with plenty of chit-chat and a delicate touch of diplomacy, toolbox control is definitely for you.