Eternal Warrior #4: Exploring Blue Control in Classic

Posted on August 27, 2013 by RexDart

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  1. Welcome and it’ll be great to have some regular content in those vintage/classic lines as I used to be heavy into those + Legacy, but I got to say as fun as these decks look (esp the cobra one) as I scroll down to each one I’m immediately depressed and put off by the sets of FoW tbh

  2. @JustSin: Blue-based control lists in Classic tend to run a playset of FoWs if they’re playing enough blue to support them (and they usually are), but the card has lost a lot of power in the format since the printing of Cavern of Souls. I find myself boarding out between two to four FoWs in a number of different matchups just because suffering the card disadvantage of pitching something to FoW is worse than casting a Swords to Plowshares or even sometimes a Dismember or Abrupt Decay. That’s not to say that FoW is bad, but just that it’s not absolutely pervasive in the format.

  3. Well, let’s not get TOO ahead of ourselves here!

    Force is still the only out to the top two archetypes for decks that aren’t, well, running the top two archetypes. Any control or blue-based creature deck will need Force when it comes to Oath, Tinker, etc. Further, blue-based has precious little against some of the crippling Turn 1 plays of Shops. And since those decks make up approximately 95% of the field, I’d say Force is still pretty pervasive.

  4. @huffy henry: Yes, but every time you cast FoW in those matchups, you’re 2-for-1-ing yourself just to have the opportunity to cross you fingers and hope they don’t play something even more horrible next turn (e.g., Trinisphere, another Sphere of Resistance, etc.). It’s true that FoW helps in these situations, but it’s not ideal; it’s only flexible enough to be decent against almost every deck.

    The better solutions to Shop-based decks like Stax and Affinity are playing lots of lands, playing extra mana sources (like Noble Hierarch/Elvish Spirit Guide), and playing permanents you can force through which disrupt their game plan (Hammer Mage, Shapesharer, etc.). I’m not saying not to run Force, just that playing a 2-card answer to a single threat isn’t sufficient.

  5. Thanks for the comments!

    If I were playing control against a creature-heavy deck in Legacy, I would often suggest boarding out Force of Will, as would many Legacy players. But I think Classic is a bit less forgiving in that regard. I concede I’m not a great control player, so I could be wrong about all this. In theory, I agree with PlanetWalls, in that most creatures are best dealt with by cheap removal spells rather than by 2-for-1′ing yourself, and the control deck doesn’t usually mind the very slight tempo loss that occasionally entails. OTOH, Classic (and present Vintage) doesn’t seem to place that much value on attrition and raw card advantage, at least not compared to when I played Type 1 in the 90′s, so the theorycrafting about control decks may be a bit off.

    If we were talking aggro-control or Fish, I would almost never board them out, because I generally want to use all my mana to deploy threats and still be able to protect my board.

    For any blue deck in Classic or Legacy that can support it, I think playing four FoW in the main deck is the correct choice. I think if you looked at my finals against Enderfall earlier this summer, which he featured in his article and I featured in Eternal Warrior #1, you’d have to say that FoW was extremely important against Shops even if Noble Hierarch and Trygon Predator were just as crucial. FoW isn’t as good in control as it is in Fish, but still it’s never a dead card and it pulls your bacon out of the fire quite a bit.

  6. The old adage about eternal formats is still essentially true: either you’re the person winning turn one, turn two, or essentially winning by then, or you’re the person who has Force of Will.

    The 2-for-1 aspect of Force is true and it’s been debated many times over the years. And I definitely concede that Swords is more efficient at removing a creature from the game. However, there are many situations in Classic, especially, where Force is simply the card. The fact that Force is still what it is despite the 2-for-1 disadvantage shows how powerful it really is.

    For example, it is certainly less efficient at removing a Lodestone Golem. However, as a blue player, I cannot tell you how many times I have seen Golem come down on turn one in addition to some sort of sphere effect. Toss in the other weapons – more spheres, Wasteland, etc – and all of a sudden you never get the chance to hit Golem with Swords. Let alone the second one they play. Especially if you are on the draw, Force is sometimes the only way you can combat that opening.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love the artifact hate you guys have been bringing lately. Blue even has some cards that can help. But that only works if you can play them. Shops can hit 6 mana on turn one at times. On the draw, Force is infinitely greater than Swords, even at 2-for-1.

    Against Oath, Swords is nearly meaningless. They will just get another creature. Force is much better here as well. It is certainly nice to remove a Blightsteel from the game, but you’ve just given your opponent 12 life and, unless they used Tinker, they have Emrakul coming next. I would rather Force the Oath.

    I think the main difference comes in the type of deck you’re playing. If you play a bant build or Fish with red, then other options are certainly available. In mono-blue Force of Will is hands down the best card in the deck. In blue-based, it is still the powerhouse against many of the best decks. I find the ability to tap out to actually play a threat with the ability to Force is well worth the 2-for-1. Strictly it is a 2-for-1, but in tapped out situations, it can often serve as a huge blowout in your favor, as the opponent sometimes alters a game plan to force something down while you’re tapped out. One that happens, it’s off to the races.

    If I’m playing against a Fish deck, then yeah, Force can come out. That’s the difference in deck philosophy. Fish decks win by aggregate force, not sheer power. I feel dirty if I have to Force a Noble Hierarch. I don’t feel dirty at all Forcing Golem or Wurmcoil. When the Fish guy adds two more creatures to the board next turn, the Force looks horrible. I’ll agree with you there for sure.

  7. “The old adage about eternal formats is still essentially true: either you’re the person winning turn one, turn two, or essentially winning by then, or you’re the person who has Force of Will.”

    I just don’t like playing a strategy where your only out is to draw Force and blue, especially when that only happens ~45% of the time. While I love Force nonetheless, my point is that you’re already relying on the natural variance in your opponent’s deck to cause it to fail some of the time. I’d rather play a deck that capitalizes on my opponents’ bad draws than cross my fingers and hope to draw FoW, even if I’m running FoW in the same deck that aims to do this. In this sense, I’d rather play some consistent answers that permit my opponent to flat-out beat me some of the time while giving me greater power when they stumble. And Classic players stumble a lot (few mana sources, a large number of combo pieces that do little to nothing when in hand, etc.).

  8. >>where Classic is basically Vintage without Power Nine

    Is it just me alone that feels Classic’s power level with the different unrestricted list and mana bases already makes it actually equal higher powered then vintage?