In the last six weeks, Classic has had three Top 8 tournaments; the North American and European arms of the Ham on Wry tournament and the Classic League Season 4. The results of these three tournaments are quite telling for the current metagame. Here is a breakdown of the 24 decks that placed across these three tournaments:
Notice anything peculiar? Where are all the Jace, the Mind Sculptors? What about Tinkers, Time Vaults, and Mana Drains? Where have all the Control decks gone?
The number of Aggro decks that have placed in the Top 8 of these tournaments is quite astounding. I’m lumping Affinity decks in as Aggro decks, though I suppose you could consider them Combo decks like Goblins and Elves, etc. Regardless, nearly 60% of the decks in these Top 8s were designed to win in the red zone as fast as possible. Granted, two of these tournaments were filled with causal players supporting the cause to celebrate Erik Friborg’s birthday, but 80+ player tournaments are larger than any Classic event that I’ve heard of. The attrition rates for these events were quite high, regardless of whether you faced two casual decks in the first two rounds of the tournament. The fact remains that making the Top 8 of any of these tournaments is a testament to the skill of all of these players… and by extension, a testament to how well these decks are constructed to succeed.
Looking at these results raises the following questions:
1. Were control decks simply underrepresented as a whole?
2. Are control decks not well positioned, or were they ill-prepared to handle the Aggro metagame?
3. Are control decks a dying breed? What advantages do creature-based decks have over control decks?
Were Control decks simply underrepresented as a whole?
It’s impossible to definitively answer this question without having seen each and every deck in each of these tournaments. The Classic League decklists were posted in their entirety, however. For the 24 decks that participated in the Classic League, here is the breakdown of the total metagame:
As you can see, control decks represented 21% of the decks in the League (a respectable number), yet, only one control deck managed to proceed to the Top 8. The Oath deck that managed to Top 8 was in fact the only control deck among the 24 decks making the Top 8 of the three tournaments taken altogether! Let’s take a look at this deck, piloted by fellow Clan mate, abstrakt66:
Elesh Oath by abstrakt66 for Season 4 of the Classic League
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This Oath list looks like it is capable of winning games against creature-based strategies simply through the use of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Having heard abstrakt66 discuss his deck on his weekly podcast, there is some variance pre-board, as there were times when he was looking for Elesh Norn only to flip up Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with Oath instead. This can be remedied post-board, but it still retains too much variance in Game 1 to consistently beat creature decks. I can understand the initial 1/1 split of Elesh and Emrakul, though. In many match-ups, Emrakul (especially on Turn 2 or 3) simply wins the game. In other match-ups, Elesh Norn simply wins the game (think creature decks without Tarmogoyf). The problem with Elesh Norn against ‘Goyf is that achieving a 3 toughness ‘Goyf is rather easy, needing only a creature and a land in the graveyard, something most decks should achieve by Turn 2. Thus, ‘Goyf can survive Elesh Norn’s -2/-2 ability, turning ‘Goyf into a fantastic wall. I’ve had a game where my opponent flipped over ‘Goyf in 4 of 5 turns, prolonging the game by 7 turns! This extra time can allow creature decks to find an answer (often with countermagic protection) to Elesh Norn, such as a Swords to Plowshares . Realistically though, it is game over against creature decks once Elesh Norn hits the battlefield, but Elesh Norn’s lack of evasion can simply permit the opponent to stall the game longer than most Oath decks would probably prefer.
That being said, I think it’s safe to say that control decks were fairly well-represented in these tournaments, but not nearly as many of them were being played as were Aggro decks. Perhaps this represents a fundamental shift in which regular control players are switching to pilot other decks as they recognize how poor control is these days?
Were control decks not well positioned, or were they ill prepared to handle the aggro metagame?
This seems more plausible. The Oath list above looks tuned to fight the aggro decks, and thus it was unsurprising to see the deck make the Top 8 in the Classic League. So, the question then must be: Why are such decks not prepared, and if they are prepared, are the tools efficient enough or powerful enough to solve the issues control decks have to face when matched up with today’s aggro strategies in Classic?
Let’s examine some of the options control decks have to manage creatures. Sweepers such as Pyroclasm, Firespout, Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, and Terminus are great options for removing a large number of creatures.
Pyroclasm is the most efficient option, costing only 2 mana and capable of wiping out every creature not named Trygon Predator, ‘Goyf, and Knight of the Reliquary, as well as most Workshop robots. Firespout can wipe out nearly every creature aside from Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, and 4-toughness or higher ‘Goyfs.
Pernicious Deed, while more mana intensive, can wipe out nearly everything. It’s best to play Deed the turn that you can wipe the board just in case your opponent draws into a Nature’s Claim or a Qasali Pridemage. This would require as much as 5 mana, something usually only possible when powered up by a Mana Drain, unless the game goes long. It does have collateral damage in destroying your own permanents, but most times, it’s worth the tradeoff to stabilize your board position. Similarly, Engineered Explosives (EE) can wipe a board, but only a specific converted mana cost. EE can be a great option for decks that are hard pressed to be able to cast a black-green enchantment. EE is also less mana intensive for wiping out permanents with converted mana cost 2 or less, and especially adept at killing off tokens or Insectile Aberrations.
Terminus is a new option, and one I admittedly haven’t had enough time to properly test, but can be a good option as a silver bullet in decks with Mystical Tutor and/or Vampiric Tutor. While it is ineffective against Oath decks, most creature decks will not be able quickly recover from a Terminus unless they are expecting it and are sand-bagging a creature or two.
In addition to sweepers, there are lots of options for creature removal, notably Swords to Plowshares. Dismember is another good option for decks that do not have access to white mana. Lightning Bolt can hit most creatures in decks that have access to red mana, and can double as win conditions, especially when paired with Snapcaster. Ultimately, though, Plow is a superior option as it can hit every relevant creature in Classic not named Emrakul. Innocent Blood is another strong option for a 1-mana removal spell if you are not playing with many creatures. Its tradeoff is that your opponent gets to choose which creature dies if they have more than one in play.
Perhaps it’s time that control decks take a similar approach to Dredge hate in their sideboards and pack some combination of sweepers and targeted removal. Unfortunately, Delver/Fish decks run a full complement of countermagic, so perhaps switching to Flusterstorm to win the counter war is the only countermagic needed in your sideboard. Perhaps something along the lines of 7 Dredge hate cards, 2 sweepers, 2 targeted removal, and 2 Flusterstorm with 2 other cards to shore up other poor match-ups (more creature removal?). That sideboard configuration should provide enough flexibility to adapt to specific shifts among creature decks as well as to leverage Tutors and other card draw/filtering options in your deck to find the right tool at the right time.
Are control decks a dying breed? What advantages do creature decks have against control decks?
I have a hard time believing that control decks cannot adapt accordingly. As evidenced by the Elesh-Oath deck, the tools are in place for each control deck to deal with the creature decks in the format. So, if the tools are there and it’s still not getting the job done, what could be the issue that control decks haven’t fully faced that could explain their absence from Top 8s?
Perhaps one should look no further than their own mana bases. It’s long been observed that control decks are usually very greedy in their mana bases, often stretching to 3, 4, or even 5 colors. The only way to do this is to play with nonbasic lands, which is a recipe for disaster against Wastelands. Control decks need their lands as much as any other deck, so perhaps it’s time to reign in those obscene 4 color manabases and start packing more basic lands. Just 3 or 4 basic lands should be able to cast every spell in your deck. Even 3-color decks can be possible with a 2/1/1 split of Islands and two other basics. This means that an 18-land mana base with ~7 Fetch lands would include only 7 nonbasic lands. That would still give you a 3/2/2 split in Dual lands if forgoing specialty nonbasics such as Library of Alexandria, etc. While it may seem like a downgrade, being able to keep your lands in play is worth the tradeoff!
Another mana base fix to consider is packing more lands. Despite having access to artifact mana acceleration, control decks having problems with Wasteland might want to consider adding just 1-2 more lands to help balance out being mana screwed. While there are lots of free counters available to control decks, sometimes you will find yourself in desperate need to counter a spell that Mental Misstep can’t counter or lacking the second blue card to pitch to a Force of Will.
What other advantages do aggro decks have against control decks?
Snapcaster Mage is a problem for control decks to face. Taigo can utilize spent countermagic to continue to win the battle on the stack. Fighting fire with fire sounds like a great plan for control decks to start shifting to. It used to be that Dark Confidant was a great creature for control decks, but Taigo trumps Bob in several key areas. Adding Taigo provides flexibility and doubles as a win condition for control decks, much like Bob does. Where Taigo shines is his ability to 1) gain value immediately, while Bob takes a couple turns to realize his power, 2) be played at the end of your opponent’s turn to surprise a tapped out opponent and drop a threat when your mana is available, and 3) not negatively affect your life total against an opponent trying to do the same to you. The last point is key; in a land of aggro decks, you don’t need to be helping them out by whittling your own life total. Flipping just one Force when staring down an Insectile Aberration is probably a game ender.
Above all else, I think that control decks require tight play in light of these aggro-control decks running around. Gone are the days that you could simply force a Tinker through and coast to victory behind Blightsteel Colossus. The amount of countermagic being played (and subsequently rebought by Snapcaster) is possibly near an all-time high. Winning the battle on the stack should be the most important goal for control decks these days. For that matter, Spell Pierce is back en vogue! My recent Blue-Black-Green Control decklist is as follows:
Blue-Black-Green Control by enderfall for Classic
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A few things about this deck:
-I’ve been playing with a couple extra Ponders and am liking the extra card filtering they offer.
-The mana base is pretty solid, but there is hardly any acceleration in the form of Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox or the like. Where are the real Moxen when you need them?
-Vendilion Clique is a great complement to Snapcaster and is another creature that can be played at the end of your opponent’s turn, or even during their draw step after they play a topdeck tutor.
Wrap-up
I don’t know about all of you, but I’m certainly tired of Delver of Secrets being everywhere. Standard, Modern, Legacy, and even Classic, have been infiltrated by the little blue menace. It was one of my favorite decks earlier this year, but I’m not so sure I enjoy seeing it be as dominant as it has been.
Control decks should be represented in more than 1 of 24 decks finishing in the money. I’m determined to fix that ratio, so if you feel I missed anything in the article, please post your thoughts in the comment section below.
One more thing before I go; Wizards changed the Daily Event schedule at the end of May. The new Classic schedule is as follows (all times listed are EDT):
Monday 10:30:00 PM
Tuesday: 09:30:00 PM
Wednesday: 07:30:00 PM
Thursday: 08:30:00 PM
Friday: 04:30:00 PM
Friday: 11:30:00 PM
Saturday: 02:30:00 PM
Saturday: 09:30:00 PM
Sunday: 10:30:00 AM
Sunday: 07:30:00 PM
Make note of the changes, especially those on the weekends. Classic now has two events each day of the weekend! Let’s go out and show Wizards that the Classic community is ready to embrace the increased support and start firing these new event time slots!
enderfall
Clan Magic Eternal
Follow me on Twitter @enderfall
okey.
I’m new to MTGO (only a couple of weeks), and I have recently been trying to build a couple of decks, a Control deck and a Mill deck using Blue and White. Since my collection is quite limited, its no surprise that these two decks are not very successful.
Both decks are meant to be played for the Standard format. So far, both are a disappointment even with Tamiyo in play.
I don’t have Jace, the Mind Sculptor but I do have 3 copies of Jace’s Erasure.
Maybe I should pair blue with a different color other than white?
Good article, with interesting breakdowns. I don’t play classic/vintage but I enjoy watching vids of them and reading discussions on them so I enjoyed this. A couple of things:
1) Not sure how a one mana 3 power green creature is too good and gets banned (in modern), but a one mana 3 power *evasive* blue creature hasn’t been banned somewhere yet. Why wotc thought that guy was reasonable continues to confound me.
2) Tiago (not Taigo) Chan is the creator of Snapcaster, unless you are punning on something I am unaware of.
Had an interesting discussion on twitter the other day re: Sol Ring/Mana Crypt and whether they add anything other than variance to the classic format. Especially in light of control current difficulty in dealing with aggro, I would be interest in your thoughts on that topic.
@raymon: Thanks for commenting and welcome to MTGO! Most competitive Classic decks utilize the graveyard to their advantage. Thus a Mill strategy is not usually effective outside of casual purposes. Assuming that you want to build a casual Mill deck, I would not consider myself knowledgeable enough to advise of the “best” strategy, but there are cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable which can be powerful when paired with Isochron Scepter (both fairly cheap cards). You might also want to consider some of the mill artifacts like good old Millstone and the newest, Grindclock. Tamiyo would be a good option if you can get her to ultimate using things like Tome Scour. I’m sure there are other forums which would have better idea’s unfortunately.
@Robin: Thanks for your comment. I have a feeling that there will be some major changes on June 20th. I can’t say for sure that Tiago (it was a typo in the article) will be banned in Standard or if it’ll be Delver (or, maybe just Ponder?). For sure, Delver is everywhere, and there is a good chance that Delver gets the hook in Modern. I don’t play Modern right now, so I can’t say how oppressive it is at the moment, but having seen the winning decklists over the past several weeks, it’s definitely one of the top 2-3 decks in the format.
As for Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, they are important to Classic, but not nearly as useful these days with the number of aggro decks running around. Having Misstep as a back-up for playing Sol Ring on Turn 1 helps, but by no means does a Turn 1 Sol Ring lead to a blow-out Victory, unless you have Tinker in hand. Crypt is a little trickier to evaluate. I’ve probably lost just as many games as I have on on the back of Crypt due to it’s egregious upkeep. I remember one game in particular that I lost when my opponent did no damage to me while I was playing Workshop! Crypt is pure acceleration though on Turn 1. It allows you to cast 2-drops that have one and a colorless mana requirements. It can also lead to a Turn 2 Jace, which is about as fast as possible in Classic (A nut draw of Island, Petal, Crypt and Jace is just about the only way to reasonably get it out on Turn 1, but it’ll probably be countered). I am definitely careful about when I play my Crypt. I’ve lost too many games to it to not respect it’s drawback. If I think I can cheat out a victory I’ll play it on Turn 1, but there have also been games where I’ve left it in my hand, or shuffled it away with Brainstorm knowing that it’s not going to help me win the game.