As all the Pro Tour hopefuls are no doubt aware, the Onslaught Block Constructed PTQ season is almost upon us.
This is one of the more interesting blocks I’ve seen from a deck design standpoint; the lack of good countermagic makes strategies that would not have worked in any other blocks possible. My only complaint about this block is the abusive power of the Astral Slide/Lightning Rift decks (especially with the addition of Eternal Dragon) combined with the existence of Stabilizer. If cycling were an interesting side note, Stabilizer would be a fine card – but with what’s arguably the most powerful deck in the format relying so heavily on cycling, its City in a Bottle-like effect is just bad card interaction. It would have been far better to have not printed Astral Slide and Lightning Rift, or just made them weaker.
I will be writing a lot of articles in the coming months about Block Constructed. Given that my playtesting time is currently being used for Worlds formats, the decks in these articles will be based on theory and intuition. If you are thinking about running one of my decks for the Qs, the playtesting and deck tweaking will be up to you (and the StarCityGames Forums, of course). For those of you who want to keep up with all my block musings, I wrote a Block Constructed article on Zombie Bidding that you may want to check out.
This week’s deck falls into the control category. Historically, many control decks have relied on blue’s countermagic to keep their opponent locked down. Prison, Tog, and Wake are classic examples of control decks that have used blue to lock their opponents out of the game. And yet other colors have occasionally had successful control decks – Mono Black Control, Wildfire, and Burning Bridge are some examples that come to mind.
In this block, the current king of the control decks is the Red-White Astral Slide deck. It uses Starstorm, Akroma’s Vengeance, Slice and Dice, Astral Slide, and Lighting Rift to control the board allowing a single Angel (or just a lot of Rift cycles) to put it’s opponent away.
Since looking at Scourge, I’ve been excited about the potential power of Decree of Pain, so I wanted to attempt a control deck with Black. In examining the other colors, it soon became apparent that White had many aspects crucial to the kind of lockdown I want to achieve.
BWC (Black White Control)
4 Smother
2 Withered Wretch
2 Undead Gladiator
4 Infest
4 Cruel Revival
2 Head Games
4 Exalted Angel
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
4 Twisted Abomination
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Decree of Pain
8 Plains
10 Swamps
4 Grand Coliseum
The idea behind BWC is to shut down your opponents while gaining card advantage, eventually killing them with an Angel, Dragon, or Abomination. If they try to rush you, punish them with the deck’s twelve global removal spells. If they try and hold back, you one-for-one them (or two-for-one them with Cruel Revival) until you can drop one of your fatties or destroy their hand with Head Games.
Card Analysis:
4 Smother:
This deck wants to kill everything that moves, especially in the early game when it doesn’t yet have the mana online for its power cards. This makes Smother a perfect fit for BWC.
2 Withered Wretch:
Though the early blocker can be nice, a 2/2 for two doesn’t really go with what BWC is trying to do. The Wretch’s special ability, however, is essential to the kind of control the deck is shooting for. The current environment has several graveyard-based cards that make late-game control impossible if they are left unchecked – namely, Oversold Cemetery, Patriarch’s Bidding, Unholy Grotto, and Eternal Dragon. If you want to take control of the late game, you need the Wretch to deal with the opponent’s graveyard.
2 Undead Gladiator:
In the early game, you can play the Gladiator as a blocker, or cycle him to dig deeper in your deck and put a Zombie in your Graveyard for use with Cruel Revival. In the late game, the Gladiator allows you to effectively cycle away your dead cards to get you to the things you need.
4 Infest:
Infest is the best defense against early rush decks like Goblins. Having four of these in your deck will encourage the Goblin player not to overcommit to the board in an attempt to swam you. That kind of slow playing feeds right into your late game plans. Infest can be useful even against big creature archetypes in that they tend to have mana-accelerating small creatures, morph creatures, or both.
4 Cruel Revival
As spot removal and card advantage rolled into one, Cruel Revival fits perfectly into what BWC is trying to do. If your opponent is trying to conserve their resources in their hand to avoid a devastating Vengeance, Cruel Revival will deal with their threat and give you back a Wretch, Gladiator – or, best of all, a previously-cycled Twisted Abomination.
2 Head Games
In decks like this where you have single cards that answer multiple opposing threats, your opponent will naturally want to hold back resources in their hand. Without countermagic to nullify cards from their hand, you need to attack their hand itself to defeat that strategy.
MBC fills this vital role with Mind Sludge. BWC does it with Head Games.
If they drop all their cards onto the board, you can sweep them away with Vengeance. If they hold them in their hand, they are opening themselves up to a devastating Head Games. This puts your opponent into a”damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation.
An additional selling point for Head Games is its power against Slide/Rift. In addition to encouraging them to play their extra enchantments (allowing you to Vengeance them away), it takes away all their cycling cards, leaving them with nothing but basic land, thereby depowering their enchantments.
4 Exalted Angel
Besides having a severely undercosted morph, as a 4/5 Spirit Linked flyer, Exalted Angel is the most amazing comeback card since Balance. In short, she’s just too good not to play if you have reasonable amounts of White mana.
4 Akroma’s Vengeance
Vengeance’s global removal is the cornerstone of BWC.
4 Twisted Abomination
This type of deck needs a lot of mana to function. The Abomination and Eternal Dragon’s landcycling allows this build to have the equivalent of thirty mana sources while only running twenty-two land. This, combined with the other cycling cards in the deck, allows you to ramp up to the amount of land you need, but then not have flood problems once you’re there.
The Abomination in particular has some nice qualities for this deck. In the early game, he cycles away to get you land – then, on turn 5, you can get him back with a Cruel Revival while killing an opposing creature. His regeneration ability allows him to survive Vengeance, hopefully leaving you with the only creature on the board.
4 Eternal Dragon
It just won’t stay dead. You can let it die in combat, or to your Vengeances or Decrees, and just get it back later. The dragon works nicely with your global removal in that his presence on the board will force your opponent to commit more forces to the board, and you don’t care that he dies when you sweep the board clean.
Don’t forget the Dragon’s equally, perhaps more important, previously-mentioned landcycling role.
4 Decree of Pain
Decree of Pain’s cycling Infest effect will no doubt save you from many a Siege-Gang Commander. As good as the cycling ability is, the gloves come off when you get to eight mana: Wrath of God, draw a card for each creature killed. The effect is a control deck’s dream.
Admittedly, 8 mana is a very high price to pay. If it weren’t for the cycling effect, I would probably consider the card unplayable – but as it is, the Decree is ideal.
8 Plains
10 Swamps
4 Grand Coliseum
The land balance may need some work, but this number felt right to me. Including the landcyclers, this gives you eighteen sources of black and sixteen sources of white, which should be enough to fill BWC’s heavy color-specific needs. Obviously, if your playtesting proves otherwise, feel free to mess with the mana mix.
The Obvious Exclusion: Pacifism.
At first, I was very excited about Pacifism in the deck. It is a cheap and effective answer to any attacking creature. It has only one white in the casting cost, making it even more mana friendly. As an added bonus, the creature sits helplessly on the board until you Decree, allowing you to draw an extra card.
So with all that goodness, why didn’t I include it in the deck? It came down to what decks I expected to be popular. My feeling is that Goblin and Slide/Rift decks will be two of the most-played archetypes – and against both of those decks, Pacifism is less than stellar. The Goblin decks can use the Pacified creature to feed Clickslither, Skirk Prospector, Goblin Sledder, or Siege-Gang Commander. The Slide/Rift decks simply Slide out the creature and Pacifism tumbles to the graveyard.
With all of the high-quality cards vying for space in the deck, Pacifism’s weakness in those matchups pushed it out of consideration.
The Sideboard
4 Wipe Clean
1 Demystify
2 Withered Wretch
4 Wall of Hope
4 Wing Shards
Sideboard Card Analysis:
4 Wipe Clean
1 Demystify
Enchantment removal is the plan of attack against Slide, given that BWC’s mana is too dependent on landcyclers to bring in Stabilizer. With five targeted enchantment removal spells and four Vengeances you should be able to effectively keep their Slides and Rifts off the table. Without their enchantments, they have little hope against BWC.
I have the four Wipe Cleans and only one Demystify for two reasons: First, I don’t think the one extra mana in the casting cost is a big deal in that matchup. Secondly, if they don’t draw their enchantments or have some form of transformational sideboard, you won’t get stuck with a bunch of reactive cards in your hand (as Wipe Clean has cycling).
2 Withered Wretch
For the decks that have the cards the Wretch is designed to stop, you’re going to want more Wretches to ensure you draw one.
4 Wall of Hope
Against Goblins and other fast ground pressure decks, the Walls will buy you the time you need to get to the late game, where BWC starts to take over.
4 Wing Shards
Some of the deck’s removal is less-than-optimal in certain match-ups (like Cruel Revival against Zombies). Wing Shards are there to swap in for the sub-optimal removal.
Sideboarding Plans
Against Goblins:
Out: 2 Withered Wretch, 2 Head Games, 4 Akroma’s Vengeance
In: 4 Wall of Hope, 4 Wing Shards
You don’t need the Wretches against Goblins and Head Games is way to slow for the matchup, so those are easy cuts. The Vengeance is a tough call. Six mana is a lot against such a fast opponent, so I think they are the right cut. Bringing in the Walls and Wing Shards should make it much easier to stay alive till you can get an Angel working.
Against R/G Beasts
Out: 2 Withered Wretch, 4 Infest
In: 4 Wing Shards, 2 Wall of Hope
Again, the Wretch has no real targets in this matchup, so he can take the day off. While Beasts’ mana accelerators are susceptible to Infest, they are unlikely to have multiple targets out at once. Testing may reveal that their mana accelerators are crucial enough to justify both Smothers and Infests, but my gut says the Smothers will be enough.
Wing Shards are good against these big Beasts, and the Walls come in just to buy a little more time to get to the”Cruel Revival, Akroma’s Vengeance” portion of the game.
Against Slide:
Out: 4 Infest, 3 Smother
In: 4 Wipe Clean, 1 Demystify, 2 Withered Wretch
Given your hordes of cheap removal, they are unlikely to throw a morphed Angel on the table without a Slide to back it up. For this reason, I advocate taking out the four Infests and three Smothers. If they are on to you and get more brazen with their Angels, then go ahead and leave in more Smothers.
The enchantment removal has an obvious job, and the Wretches come in to deal with those pesky Eternal Dragons.
Against Zombies:
Out: 4 Cruel Revival, 2 Undead Gladiator, 1 Head Games
In: 4 Wing Shards, 2 Withered Wretch, 1 Wall of Hope
Revival is an obvious cut, and the Gladiator is much less interesting without them in the deck, so he can go to. Depending on the build of Zombies, they may be fast enough that you want to take a Head Games out.
Wing Shards comes in to fill the gap left by the Revivals. The Wall is there, as always, to buy time. Against more aggro versions of Zombies, you will want to bring in more Walls. While cards like Grotto, Revival, Bidding, and Soulless One keep the Withered Wretches busy, keep in mind they don’t combo well with your opponent having a Rotlung in play.
Playtest.
Remember – I didn’t. These decks and boards are untested concepts. If you are interested in them for the PTQs, do your homework and figure out what needs to be changed to make them work in your local metagame. This is especially true of the sideboard cards and plans.