Many control deck players love to, well... be in control. However, often they get so excited about their countermagic, creature destruction, and card drawing, they forget about the most important part of the control deck: the win conditions. The win conditions are what separate the good control decks from the bad ones.

Let's look at one of the best Standard control decks in recent memory, Psychatog. Why was this a good deck? Sure, there were a lot of quality control cards: Chainer's Edict, Innocent Blood, Counterspell, and Circular Logic, to name but a few. The real reason it was good was because of its win condition: Upheaval followed by Psychatog. Upheaval ensured you would have absolutely no way to stop the Psychatog's attack for lethal damage on the following turn, and it was this reliability that made the deck superb.

With the release of Guildpact, a similar degree of reliability has been made possible. The card that makes this possible is Gigadrowse.

Giga-Lighning Featured by Michael Grubb on 2006-03-12 (Standard) As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11468.html Print this deck!
Maindeck: Artifacts 4 Icy Manipulator Creatures 4 Giant Solifuge Instants 4 Boomerang 2 Cerebral Vortex 4 Gigadrowse 4 Mana Leak 4 Rewind 4 Telling Time	Sorceries 4 Exhaustion 2 Feral Lightning Basic Lands 8 Island 6 Mountain Lands 2 Izzet Boilerworks 4 Shivan Reef 4 Steam Vents	Sideboard: 3 Copy Enchantment 4 Dream Leash 4 Pyroclasm 4 Shattering Spree
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Gigadrowse is a powerful, powerful common. In every single matchup, it has a key use. Versus control decks, Gigadrowse is an uncounterable way to tap your opponent out of mana, leaving you free to resolve whatever spell you choose on your next turn. Combine this with Exhaustion, and you have bought yourself two full turns. Versus aggro decks, Gigadrowse lets you tap your enemy's entire defense, leaving you a turn to attack with your fast, high power/low toughness creatures. Again, Exhaustion amplifies the effect of Gigadrowse onto the next turn. Gigadrowse can also be used to keep fast decks in check by tapping all of their land during their upkeep, destroying the tempo they desperately need to win.

How do we abuse Gigadrowse? How do we turn it from a stall card to an “Upheaval”? Well, if Gigadrowse is this deck's “Upheaval,” then Giant Solifuge and Feral Lightning are its Psychatog. The interaction between these cards is obvious: Gigadrowse provides a clear path for these normally easy to kill creatures. However, this combo is not the only reason they are useful.

Think about the current format. Targeted removal is at a huge high right now: Putrefy, Mortify, Faith's Fetters, Last Gasp, Char, and Lightning Helix are all present in abundance. This is annoying, but also highly abuseable. Giant Solifuge cannot be stopped by any of these cards, leaving most of them dead in your opponent's hand. The Solifuge also cannot be targeted with bounce like Boomerang or Repeal, which means against a Blue control deck there is no way to stop him. Giant Solifuge also has the useful benefit of haste, so he can be very surprising for an opponent waiting on a slow Keiga, the Tide Star or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind.

Feral Lightning is a highly situational card, but when it works it deals nine damage for six mana. That is very, very efficient. In most games, you will cast this after tapping out your opponent with Gigadrowse and Icy Manipulator. Sometimes however, you will just get an open opportunity. Maybe your opponent just tapped his mana for a spell that you countered, or maybe he just swung with all his creatures leaving you a clear path. A sudden nine damage really turns the game around.

Tips on playing the Deck:

• Cerebral Vortex is not just a good draw card: if you need to deal a little more damage to your opponent you can use it as burn.
  
• Don't tap creatures with Icy Manipulator until the beginning of the combat step. This way they can't pull any tricks such as dropping a Moldervine Cloak or Umezawa's Jitte on the creature you didn't tap.
  
• Use Icy Manipulator on their mana. Since there are many two- and three-color decks in the format, the Manipulator can disable crucial colors. Remember, Ghost Council of Orzhova requires WWBB, Rumbling Slum requires 1RGG, and Niv-Mizzet costs 2UURR. If you can't stop them from playing these cards, you can usually at least make them use their pain lands. Every point of damage helps.
  
• If you don't have enough mana to tap all of their permanents with Gigadrowse, be smart about which ones you choose to tap. If you are about to play Feral Lightning you obviously want to tap all their creatures, but as far as their mana goes there is no need to tap it all. Against U/X decks you only really need to tap their Blue mana. If the deck plays creature kill, tapping their Black mana is usually sufficient. The cards your opponent plays are very predictable right now, since each color combination's style has been provided for us with the guilds.
  
• Although the control nature of this deck will make you want to play defensively, in many matchups it plays incredibly well offensively. For instance, if you force a turn 4 Solifuge you can often ride it to victory with only an Icy Manipulator or some Boomerangs for support.
  
• If there is a permanent you really need tapped with Gigadrowse, or an artifact you really want destroyed with Shattering Spree, and you have extra mana, target it twice in case they counter one of your replicates.

Overcoming Weaknesses:

Night of Souls Betrayal: As far as I am aware, this card is rarely played. If it is resolved however, it completely neutralizes both of your win conditions. This is not a huge problem: you are a control deck, and will definitely want to counter this card. If you miss the opportunity when it's played, you can always use Boomerang on it later. After sideboard, Copy Enchantment will also destroy Night of Souls Betrayal.

Umezawa's Jitte: Most decks worry about the creature killing aspect of this card. This is not a problem for the Solifuge. However, the lifegain aspect can make it really difficult for you to win. The best way to deal with Jitte is to tap the creature it is equipped on every turn with Icy Manipulator. Until you can set this up, stall with Boomerang and Gigadrowse, or just straight out counter the Jitte.

Eminent Domain: Don't let your opponent get land advantage. Keep its Annexes and Dream Leashes countered, or Boomerang the lands they enchant. If Wildfire is symmetrical it is much less efficient. However Eminent Domain also gains mana advantage by using mana producing artifacts like the Signets and Spectral Searchlight. These you also want to Boomerang, to mess up their tempo. After sideboarding, bring in the essentially uncounterable Shattering Spree to completely remove this advantage for them. Icy Manipulator is a great way to stop their win condition (usually one of the legendary dragons in most deck lists I've seen), since they can only play one at a time. Another good card to side in is Copy Enchantment. That way you only have to spend three mana to acquire their lands, while they have to spend four or five.

Really Fast Beatdown: Kird Apes, Watchwolfs, Birds of Paradise followed by any number of horrible three-mana drops can all be really bad news for a Blue control deck. These cards usually hit the table before you have the mana available to deal with them. There are a couple of tricks you can use... If you have no Mana Leak, Gigadrowse their lands during their upkeep on turn 2. Or, on turn 3, if they just tapped out to play a creature, play Exhaustion to buy yourself a turn. Using little tricks like this can give you time to recover. After sideboarding, if it is a high toughness fast beatdown deck, you want all your Dream Leashes and two of your Copy Enchantments to give yourself some board presence. Against weenie decks, Pyroclasm will easily take care off all your problems.

Untargetable Creatures: There are only three playable untargetable creatures in Standard right now: Kodama of the North Tree, Giant Solifuge, and possibly Silhana Ledgewalker. Luckily, Kodama of the North Tree is costly, and you can most likely counter him. If he does hit the table, you have little choice but trade one of your creatures with him. The playability of Giant Solifuge and Silhana Ledgewalker are yet to be seen. Giant Solifuge is unnecessary in R/G beatdown decks, as he is fragile and there are many better creatures to choose from. My deck is the only deck I have heard of so far that would want to play him. [This article was submitted before Mark Herberholtz's Pro Tour win last weekend. — Craig] Silhana Ledgewalker is not very efficient for beatdown, and not fast enough for control, but I have seen it in some U/G ninja decks online. Luckily, you will probably want to side in Pyroclasm against these sorts of decks anyway.

Budget Version:

There are only two maindeck non-land rares, which would make this a budget deck already if it weren't for all the dual lands. Unfortunately, the duals lands are very necessary. Gigadrowse needs all the blue mana you can muster, and the double and triple red costs in Giant Solifuge and Feral Lightning make them very hard to play without the duals. As for the non-land rares, Giant Solifuge is obviously irreplaceable. Cerebral Vortex, on the other hand, could be replaced by a number of things. Originally, that slot was filled by Electrolyze, which in many match-ups is more useful anyway. In testing, I found in most cases I would rather have a Vortex in my hand, so I replaced the Electrolyze. Either card functions well.

Example Matches

Match 1: Greater Good

Game 1: Turn 3, my opponent casts Compulsive Research, which I let resolve since I had no Mana Leak. At the end of his turn, I cast Telling Time, fetching a Mana Leak and setting up a Solifuge to be drawn. On his next turn he plays a Birds of Paradise, and then tries to play a Sakura Tribe Elder. I use Mana Leak, because I don't want him fixing his mana further (it is a three color deck), and also I want to attack with Solifuge next turn. I do, to put him at sixteen. I feel safe tapping out since he only has the mana to play either Yosei or Greater Good, not both. He plays Yosei. I hold back my Solifuge because I know he will attack next turn, so there is no need for me to waste a Gigadrowse this turn. Besides, I need to keep mana open for counterspells, as a resolved Greater Good right now is probably game over. He attacks and puts me at fifteen, and then ends his turn. At the end of his turn I cast Cerebral Vortex on myself to get a Rewind (which I really needed as insurance). On my turn I put him at twelve, and pass. He attacks with Yosei again putting me at eight, and then tries to cast Compulsive Research which I Rewind. On my turn I attack, and we are tied at eight. At the end of the first main phase on his turn, I Gigadrowse Yosei. I attack again, to put him at four. He draws nothing to help him, and on my turn I topdeck a Gigadrowse and swing for the win.

This is a good representative game of how the deck usually wins, an unstoppable Solifuge attacking over five turns. 1-0

Game 2: Game 2 I get a very strange draw: four counterspells and three lands. In the following turns all I seem to draw are counterspells and lands, so the first half of this game is just me denying his cards. I counter a Compulsive Research, a Gifts Ungiven, a Greater Good, a Kokusho, a Yosei, and I Boomerang the next Yosei. By this time I have accumulated a large amount of lands. I cast Telling Time and to put a Solifuge in my hand, and a Feral Lightning on top of my library. Finally, I've drawn my win conditions. By this time I am out of countermagic, so I have no choice but to blitz him. I tap out to play Solifuge and Lightning, putting him at 7. Luckily, he doesn't have enough mana to replay the Yosei I bounced and reanimate the one in his Graveyard too, so instead he Zombifies a Kokusho and Vigor Mortises a Yosei. I have one Gigadrowse, but only enough damage on the table to take him to three. In a brilliant display of luck, I draw another Solifuge, and that is game. Twenty to zero in only two attack phases. Although I would rather have drawn a Solifuge earlier, this scenario demonstrates how fast this deck can steal a win. 2-0

Match 2: B/W Discard

This guy's deck was based around creatures with discard effects, and Dark Confidant to get them out faster. A pretty solid deck, as it can apply offensive pressure and get rid of your hand at the same time.

Game 1: I start the game with a decent opening hand, but I stall at two lands for four turns. Luckily however I do draw a couple of Mana Leaks and am able to counter a Ravenous Rats and - more importantly - a Hypnotic Specter. Turn 5, I draw my third land, and he drops Ghost Council of Orzhova. At this point I have run out of Mana Leaks, and I don't have enough land to cast Rewind yet, so I Boomerang the Council at the end of his turn hoping I'll draw another land. I don't, but I do draw a Telling Time that finds my fourth land and sets me up for a Cerebral Vortex on my next turn. Unfortunately, this means he gets to resolve his Ghost Council. On his next turn he tries to play both a Dark Confidant and a Mourning Thrull. I Rewind the former, and then Cerebral Vortex myself, which draws me two lands. I play a Giant Solifuge and Gigadrowse his Thrull to attack for four. I figure this will make him hold back some of his creatures to block my Solifuge. Unexpectedly, the next turn he plays Shadow Lance on his Thrull and attacks for a total of nine damage, gaining five life back from the Thrull. This is a devastating fourteen point lifeswing, and I give up trying to out race him in damage. I lose soon afterwards. 2-1

Game 2: This game is a good example of how fast my deck can win. After Mana Leaking a pair of Shrieking Grotesques on turns 3 and 4, I play an aggressive turn 5 Solifuge and attack for four. On his turn, he drops a Mourning Thrull and says go. Wary of another Shadow Lance, I decide to hold back and keep mana open for the Rewind I have in my hand. He plays another Thrull and a Cry of Contrition which I Rewind. At the end of his turn, I Gigadrowse his Thrulls, and then on my turn cast another Solifuge and attack for eight. The next turn I draw Feral Lightning, which I cast, and then swing with everything. He blocks 2 tokens with his Thrulls and Mortifies the other, but he loses his Thrulls and then loses the game on the next turn. 3-1

Game 3: After getting no lands in my first hand, I kept my second, which was a big mistake. It contained two painlands (the only lands), two Feral Lightnings, and some Boomerangs. This is a very, very bad combination, but I kept it out of fear of getting no lands after a second mulligan. He resolves a turn 2 Dark Confidant, and my new strategy became surviving till turn six and killing him with the Feral Lightnings (after he had been weakened by the Confidant). Unfortunately, the Confidant gives him loads of discard, and by the time I have six mana he has taken both of my Lightnings. I lose. 3-2

Match 3: W/B/G Debtors Knell

This deck features Loxodon Hierarch, various Dragons, Angel of Despair, and Ghost Council. These cards are all annoying for my deck, but luckily they are slow and I can counter many of them. Another good thing about this match was that he plays four Putrefy and four Mortify main, which do nothing versus Giant Solifuge.

Game 1: I counter a third turn Phyrexian Arena, but after that things go downhill. Turn 4, he casts Nightmare Void which I counter, but for the next few turns he dredges it until I run out of threatening cards. I hope for a Solifuge to apply some pressure, but do not get one. When my hand is clean of everything but Boomerangs and lands, he casts Loxodon Hierarch. I draw am Icy Manipulator, but it is Putrified. He plays a second Loxodon, and after stalling a turn with my Boomerangs, I lose. 3-3

Side in: 4x Dream Leash, 2x Copy Enchantment Side out: 4x Icy Manipulator, 2x Boomerang

Game 2: The start of this game had me very worried. He drops two Leyline of Lifeforces from his opening hand, leaving the use of my countermagic extremely diminished. Not useless, however. Turn 2, he casts Castigate which I Leak. Turn 3, he casts Farseek which I let resolve, because I need to Telling Time for my fourth land, as I want to play Solifuge next turn. I play it, attack, and he drops to sixteen. On his turn he casts Phyrexian Arena. After I get another couple of attacks in, he plays a Loxodon Hierarch to go up to eight. I Gigadrowse the Hierarch, and then play Exhaustion. He loses the following turn. 4-3

Game 3: This game goes almost perfectly for me. He gets a third turn Phyrexian Arena, but I get a fourth turn Solifuge. He then plays a Hierarch, regaining his life. On the next turn I cast a second Solifuge, and trade one of them with the Hierarch. Next, he taps out to play Leyline of Lifeforce, and two Exhaustions later, I have won. 5-3

Conclusion

The reason I included these match-up descriptions is not to display the deck's win percentages, but to show how the deck performs in normal games. What can we tell from these eight games I described? Giant Solifuge is everything I thought it was. The games I got it down early I usually ended up winning. It negates enemy removal, and with tapping support from Gigadrowse, Icy Manipulator, and Exhaustion, the low toughness factor is not a problem. There are two things I regret about these three matches I decided to document, and that is the performance of Icy Manipulator and Feral Lightning. I played many more matches than I documented here, and in most of those games both of these cards performed very well. Feral Lightning I am confident about; the only reason it did not win me games in these matches is because I didn't draw it often. However, examining these three matches closely did give me some doubts about Icy Manipulator. Since their Putrefies and Faith's Fetters can't hit any creatures, they always go straight to the Manipulator.

Would I take the Manipulator out of the maindeck knowing this? I don't know. I'd say it comes through for me about half the time. Nothing else really serves the same function as Icy Manipulator, so for now I will board it out games 2 and 3 if it is seeing too much hate.

Earlier, I compared this deck to Psychatog. In some cases, yes: it works very much like Psychatog. However, most of the time it plays much more like an aggro deck. I think that is important to note if you want to play this deck well.

It is difficult to tell how “good” this deck is, but it is definitely playable. It is fun, and it takes advantage of a lot of the current trends in the format. The deck rewards smart players, and I know I personally learned a lot about the strategy of control playing it.

Thanks for reading,
Michael Grubb