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Dissecting and Constructing Commander Control

Welcome to another edition of Boosh’s Deck Box of Tricks, a column where I like to bring forth all of my johnnytastic knowledge of deck building and apply it to some facet of magic game play.

Last article, I focused entirely on classic tribal wars. I have a lot more tribal wars decks I’d like to discuss, but I thought today I’d take you into the world of commander, and specifically evaluate Commander Control.

Now, as a Johnny, I’m not much for control. Sometimes control decks can produce a fun combo or two, but ultimately they usually lessen the amount of fun your opponent has. I’m all about fun. I still like to win rather than lose-- but I’d rather Rite of Replication an Orchard Warden, get to watch that happen, and still lose the match rather than imprint an Isochron Scepter with a Boomerang, bouncing every land you play.

Spike loves Control, and even Timmy can view it favorably. I don’t speak for the whole Johnny community, but I’m pretty sure that Johnny has the least love for control decks. It’s been pointed out to me that even though I’m firmly planted in the church-of-johnny, that I can have Spike tendencies. I’ve channeled them as best I can into this article. You might be asking yourself right now, why is Johnnytastic AtomicBoosh writing about control?

I have a few answers for you.  It is said it is often fun to try out or try on new hats. I firmly wear the hat of Johnny, and today I’m trying out a new hat. It’s also said (to quote as many clichés as possible) to keep your friends close but your enemies closer. The best way to combat control is to know what you’re up against. Only by wearing your enemy’s hat and walking in his shoes do you truly know your opponent. It is with this in mind I embark upon my journey to make, dissect, and construct a control deck in the parameters of Commander.

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BEFORE WE BEGIN

Bear with me those of you who are experts already at Magic, but I wanted to make sure this article could be read by beginners and intermediate players as well. There’s no need to assume everyone knows everything, and I don’t think anyone ever should. With that in mind, let’s do some definitions that will help you with this article. For those of us too advanced for this, just scroll down to COLOR CHOICE.

	Allow me to quote the Wikipedia entry found here: Control decks avoid racing and attempt to slow the game down by executing an attrition plan. As the game progresses, control decks are able to take advantage of their slower, more powerful, cards. The primary strength of control decks is their ability to devalue the opponent’s cards. They do this in four ways: 1. Erasing threats at a reduced cost. Control decks given the opportunity can gain card advantage by answering multiple threats with one spell, stopping expensive threats with cheaper spells, and drawing multiple cards or forcing the opponent to discard multiple cards with one spell. 2. Not playing threats to be answered. By playing few proactive spells of their own, control decks gain virtual card advantage by reducing the usefulness of opposing removal cards. 3. Disrupting synergies. Even if control decks do not deal with every threat directly, they can leave out whichever ones stand poorly on their own; e.g., a creature enchantment which will never need attention if all enemy creatures are quickly removed. 4. Dragging the game out past opposing preparations. An opponent's faster, efficient cards will become less effective over time. This is essentially paraphrased from an old magic article from dailymtg.com, located here. Some of Control’s main essentials: Creature Removal, Permanent Removal, Counterspells, Bounce, discard, card advantage/draw, fog effects, and hard-to-get-rid-of creatures.

Allow me to link you to everything you need to know about commander.

Finally, in case you don't know, the abbreviation CMC, which I'll use a lot of, means "Converted Mana Cost" .

The term "griefer" was coined by Kelly Digges over at Wizards. It means particularly nasty, thorough, and awful. A good example of a griefer deck is a milling deck. A good example of a particularly griefer card is Hymn to Tourach.

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COLOR CHOICE

One can hardly speak about control without Blue automatically coming to mind. I know that a control deck can really be comprised of any color combination in magic during these days, but Blue and its various counterspells, bounce, and stealing are automatically linked with control. As such, my first color choice will be control’s legacy: Blue.

My second color choice is an easy one. White has tons of removal, both individual and mass. White has a lot of life gain, fog effects, and ways to deal with pretty much any type of permanent. It even has a few counterspells. My second choice: White.

I could stop there, but since I’m working with 100 cards, and since I’m working singleton, and just because it felt right, I decided I should find a third color. Red has a lot of burn, a lot o’ haste-granting, but overall did not fit my personal schema for control. Black very nearly was my third choice. Sen Triplets seemed like a fine control-y commander to build around. However, I chose green.

Green holds the key to mana-ramp; but another main reason I chose green was simply to use the card Bant Charm, which I will explain further down. Green also has a plethora of trollshroud, regular shroud, and ways to get rid of pesky noncreature permanents.

I’ve decided my Commander control deck will be firmly nestled in Bant, previously known as Sunscape (see invasion): White, Blue, and Green.

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PICKING THE COMMANDER

Doing a search for bant-colored legends yielded the following results:

Angus Mackenzie – 12 cents for this bad boy firmly places him in the “budgeted resources” slot, and might make him more appealing to you. He’s got a repeatable fog effect, which fits control. He’s only 2/2, and I doubt he’ll be killing your opponent off with commander damage. UGW for his ability seems a bit steep, and I feel like he’ll draw a lot of lightning bolts and Sorin Markov +2 effects (and so on). He might be a good choice, but I think he’s not really what I’m particularly looking for.

Arcades Sabboth – So many magic cards are better than him. He is not commander potential, especially considering his upkeep cost. He's a big dragon, but doesn't bring much to the table when compared to other cards.

Jenara, Asura of War – This is a pretty awesome card. Cheap to cast; Flying-evasion included, perma-pumpable with your excess mana when you don’t use it to cast your control spells. It’s high up there in the running.

Phelddagrif – This flying hippo is really more trouble than its worth. His converted mana cost is the same as Rafiq of the Many, and he gives continued advantages to your opponent every time his abilities are activated. I know it has a cult following and I have fought it on the fields of commander games, but if I feel the need to satisfy my cult-following cravings, I’ll just pop Army of Darkness in my DVD player while I play MTGO.

Rafiq of the Many – Here’s another contender for the commander slot. A powerhouse at CMC 4, he can often-times come out swinging and potentially kill one of your opponents with 21-commander-damage if you get the ball rolling right. He’ll give your other fattie creatures double strike if they attack alone, and at one more for your CMC than Jenara, he’s not terrible to recast from Exile should you need to.

Ragnar – another cheapo commander in terms of $ or tix, but really not the most viable guy out there. He doesn’t even warrant inclusion in your deck as a non-commander, as regenerating other creatures can often be accomplished for cheaper with better cards.

Rubinia Soulsinger – Now here’s another possibility. She can steal your opponent’s commander, and stealing is definitely a facet of control. However, I really think a whole commander deck built on her actual theme of stealing would better serve her prowess. I envision Ray of Command, Ooze Garden, Claws of Gix, Bribery, Preacher, and a host of other cards in that deck. Rubinia’s being tabled for the time being.

Treva, the Renewer – Our last choice is Treva, and whereas Treva is a fine specimen of legendary dragon, obliterating Arcades Sabboth in terms of awesome, and having a much better power ration for the mana you spend on her, she's really just yet another big beefy creature, and not quite the creature I'm looking for to be this particular deck's commander. Her CMC is too high to allow repeated re-casts from the exiled-zone, and just didn't stack up to the winner, who is:

WINNER:

The ability to pump her with leftover mana and the fact she’s an easy recast once or twice from your exile-zone seems to fit the bill nicely.  This is just my choice, though, and many of the commanders listed above might suit your deck needs further, and some could even be potential inclusions as non-commander creatures in your deck’s creature-pool. A 3/3 with flying for 3 mana is pretty nice on its own, and even if she becomes a target of your opponent’s spells to get rid of her, she’s not your only way to win.

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SOME PRELIMINARY SIDENOTES

I highly recommend you go out and purchase the Rubinia Soulsinger theme deck set for commander. For $19.99 you get a host of useful cards both for any commander deck sporting those colors, as well as for any deck you might own in general sporting any of those colors. It’s really a budget-magic-player’s dream. It has a slew of cards in it that, if you add them up in cost individually, work out to be far more expensive than the 20 smackaroons you spend on this theme deck. I do not normally play control. I know about it, but I am not its master nor am I even an expert. I am perhaps at best a Journeyman of Control, and have learned much about this particular deck through trial and error. I am mentioning this for two reasons: So you all cut me some slack if you feel like you could build a better control card-base for your deck, and so others who have never tried control realize, even though it can be intimidating, that it’s never too late to give it a try. I do a ratio of 35 land to 65 cards in Commander. Some of you might think that’s too little land, but with mana-ramp, land-searchers, card-draw, and enough low CMC cards peppered in there, I find it works well for me. By all means cut some cards and pop in more land if that’s how you like your commander decks.

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CARD CHOICES:

ANTI-COMMANDER

These are cards that are especially effective towards opposing commanders. They can be used against any number of creatures you might find on the ‘field, but are tailor-made to be the control deck’s ammo against rival commanders.

Bant Charm: Here’s the first of many cards that pop a creature onto the bottom of its owner’s library. As we all know commander decks rely often-times on being able to recast your commander if things go awry. Many times, the commander is an integral part of the stratagem of that particular deck. Other times, it’s just a pain-in-the-neck to have to deal with a commander over and over since it can be re-cast. There’s really no reason, while playing control (or even the commander archetype in general) that you wouldn’t want a host of cards that can plop an opponent’s creature/commander on the bottom of their library.

Condemn: After reading Bant Charm, this card should pretty much be self-explanatory. This is found in the Rubinia theme deck, if you purchase it.

Spin into Myth: Yet another card, like Bant charm, to get rid of a pesky Commander.

Hinder: A wonderful counterspell that can slap your opponent’s commander on the bottom of their library. Again, this is found in the Rubinia theme deck, if you purchase it.

Hallowed Burial: Mass removal, akin to Wrath of God. Unlike Wrath, this board-sweeper does to all creatures what Bant Charm does to one. This card can remove all commanders currently on the battlefield, seriously changing the dynamic of the game and your opponents’ future choices.

Meddling Mage: Just name the one commander you don’t want to see hit the battlefield. Sliver Legion can just rot in your opponent’s exiled-zone.

Faith’s Fetters, Prison Term, Arrest: Just because you can’t slap your opponent’s commander on the bottom of your library, doesn’t mean you can’t render it useless. I specifically chose cards that disallow abilities being activated, in addition to not allowing them to participate in combat. For example, putting just a Pacifism on a Rhys the Redeemed isn't nearly as effective at stopping his commander shenanigans as an arrest.

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CREATURE REMOVAL

Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Oust: Three great one-mana ways to get rid of a pesky creature, commander or not.

Wrath of God: you could throw in Day of Judgment in a pinch, but I prefer Wrath, the quintessential mass creature removal spell—you always need a contingency plan.

Winds of Rath: This is a great inclusion, and unexpected. Detailed further down in this article are some Auras that steal creatures. Why not steal your opponent’s best creature with a Mind Control and then kill everything else? Why not slap Prison term on your opponent’s commander, then cast Winds of Rath and make sure he can’t recast it from the exiled-zone? It has some fun synergies that warrant its inclusion. I’m still a Johnny dammit, I crave synergy.

Treva's Charm: Exiling is always preferable to just straight up destroying, and this card even has a few extra options thrown in.

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OTHER PERMANENTS REMOVAL

Qasali Pridemage: one of my favorite commons from the alara block, this guy grants Exalted and serves as a disenchant.

Return to Dust: being able to remove two enchantments/artifacts for the price of one spell is always amazing.

Saltblast: this removal spell can even deal with creatures, and it’s only limitation is the color white.

Quiet Disrepair: I prefer this to another naturalize-effect simply for the potential of gaining life if you don’t need the enchantment/artifact destruction.

Terastodon: here’s a big beefy elephant that can be used to get rid of noncreature permanents, or just be a big beefy elephant.

Acidic Slime: deathtouch and a creeping mold all in one creature? Sold!

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THIEVERY

Mind Control + Persuasion: Stealing your opponent’s creatures is always a great idea if blue is in your deck.

Bribery: why not cut out the middle man (aura) and just search up something fantastic, without worrying about a well placed disenchant to ruin your thievery. This card especially tickles my fancy with high casting cost and highly power eldrazi floating around in a lot of opponents’ decks.

Blatant Thievery: Man-o-man, do I love this card name. It’s a bit pricey in terms of CMC, but with 3 opponents it nets you three permanents. You can even use it to steal a pesky land like Creeping Tar Pit or a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that’s giving you trouble. 

Thada Adel, Acquisitor – I know many of you might think there are far better cards to include in this deck than Thada, but I love this card. So many times it’s netted me an awesome artifact that is either extremely helpful, or really annoying for your opponent to lose from his stratagem. With three opponents, the odds of their being islands on the ‘field of on them is much greater than if you were playing a 1 v 1 game.

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I DEFY YOU TO ATTACK ME

Ghostly Prison, Collective Restraint, Propaganda: These pretty much make it that much more difficult to be overrun by enemy forces.

Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer: a nifty creature that can you can repeatedly use to pacify eldrazi or other pesky creatures.

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COUNTERSPELLS

Arcane Denial: my personal favorite counter, it nets you a card, can easily be cast in a multi-color deck, and the cards it gives your opponent help soften the blow of countering their hard-cast Godsire.

Counterspell: the classic archetype-defining counter.

Dawn Charm: Choices, choices! I love choices. Counter a spell that targets you, fog, or regen. What a great common.

Glen Elendra Archmage: Once again, here are two counters for the price of one spell. Who doesn’t love double their mana’s worth?

Soulsworn Jury: A nifty little common that can serve as either defense or be sac’ed to counter a creature.

Desertion: I wasn’t sure if I should place this in the stealing section or counters section, but since you can still use it to counter anything, I plopped it here. Its CMC may be too high for you but it’s the equivalent of Bribery, I like the advantage of both countering a spell that you opponent tapped out to cast and then watching it enter the battlefield on your side.

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MANA RAMP

Kodama’s Reach – The best basic land searcher in the game besides Sakura-Tribe Elder.

Explosive Vegetation – Another great basic land searcher.

Sakura-Tribe Elder – quite possibly the best land-searching creature printed @ common.

Solemn Simulacrum – one of my all time favorite cards, he does quite a lot for 4 mana.

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THE BEST OF THE REST: NON-CREATURE

Isochron Scepter: With all the counters and instants floating around in this deck, I figured Why not be able to repeat some of them?

Silence – a great card for one mana, it can be cast during your upkeep to prevent anyone from countering your important spells and machinations, and it can be used to shut down an opponent’s spell-casting during their own turn.

Brainstorm – If Isochron’s in the mix, this card is a great addition both as a way to work through your deck more and as a potentially repeatable instant.

Behemoth Sledge – an armadillo cloak that doesn’t go to the graveyard when your creature does is an awesome way to score some more damage and/or life over time.

Privileged Position – Who doesn’t love giving all of their permanents trollshroud (trollshroud is magic slang for "can't be the target or spells or abilities your opponents control)?

Sterling Grove – make those thieving-auras and your position completely shrouded from your opponent. If the position and this are out, nothing on your side is targetable by opponents. If not, you can always sac it to find that enchantment you really need.

Sylvan Library – I chose this over (Sensei’s Divining top), because the top slows down game-play to a halt during a 4-man game, and even though it’s better than the library it’s not worth the complaints I get during multiplayer games.

All Suns’ Dawn: A nice way to net three cards back from your graveyard to your hand.

Recurring Insight – one of my new favorite card-draw cards; with 3 opponents you are sure to net some additional cards.

Luminarch Ascension – by locking down your opponents with control, you can usually get this ascension full of quest counters and popping out a
slew of angels before your opponent knows what hit the battlefield.

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THE BEST OF THE REST: CREATURES

Vigor – an expensive creature to cast, it’s effect, when it lasts on the ‘field, can be a real killer to try and work around.

Sphinx of Jwar Isle – when playing control, I really like big fattie creatures with shroud. A 5/5 flying shroud for 6 mana feels like a nice fit for this deck.

Kalonian Behemoth – Another big fattie with shroud. Shroud makes all your opponents' removal spells useless cards in their hands.

Eternal Dragon – A great plains-cycler in the early game, he can be snagged back from your graveyard later on when you have more plentiful mana, and thus can be a recurring flying threat.

Wall of Reverence – one of the best defenders in the game, at 1/6 + flying it can stop a lot of attackers without dying and it nets you at bare minimum 1 life during your end step.

Mossbridge Troll – a huge fattie that auto-regenerates; if you pump him up +20/+20 and have out the wall of reverence, it equals a lot of life gain shenanigans. Synergy is the way to go, always.

Lu Xun, Scholar General – I prefer this guy to ohran viper because no one really expects horsemanship, so you usually get the card draw.

Sun Quan, Lord of Wu – There’s nothing quite like giving that unexpected horsemanship ability to all of your creatures and watching your opponents’ collective jaws drop when you stomp them.

Totem-Guide Hartebeest – you have quite a few choice auras in this deck, and this guy can be a nice 2/5 chump-blocker on the field in addition to searching up whatever aura you need at that stage of the game.

Kazandu Tuskcaller – a highly underrated card, in my honest opinion—the tuskcaller can help spit out a veritable army of elephants to help you win the day while (after it’s leveled) freeing your mana to continue playing your counter-magic and control.

Mulldrifter – quite possibly my favorite blue common creature of all time, and I’m quite sure a lot of folks would agree with me. A 2/2 flier that also serves as a Divination in an evoked pinch.

Seedborn Muse – Untapping during three other turns in a multiplayer really helps you here. You can cast your big creatures during your turn and have all your mana untapped for control tomfoolery and shenanigans during each of your opponents turns—and you can use the extra mana to pump Jenara. Also, the muse more of less gives all your creatures vigilance, in a round-about way.

Oracle of Nectars – with seedborn in play, this card becomes a powerhouse at end-of-turns, and even without it, can be used with all your extra leftover mana to net you some definite lifegain advantage

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV – What’s better than making most of your deck cheaper to cast? Making all of your opponents’ spells harder to cast.

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After thoroughly researching and dissecting control in Commander, I made the deck using the reasons above, and took it for some test spins in the Commander room.

Sadly I failed to capture any screenshots as it was very late in the evening.

If anything this was very enlightening in terms of understanding my enemies (other control players) in commander. I usually enjoy building a deck around a commander and a particular theme, such as Teneb, the Harvester and a re-animation deck. As I stated above, I’m not much for control, but I figured I’d give it a shot and report the results.

It was incredibly hard to just sit there, so to speak-- waiting for your opportunity to foil or thwart your opponents’ machinations or combos; slowly building an army and slowly ruining your opponents’ strategies and ever-so-slowly beating down all three opponents—it’s a lot of clicking yes or hitting F2. It’s a lot of judgment calls and analyzing and there’s very little in terms of huge swings for the kill.

When you pop an opponent’s commander on the bottom of their library, there are groans and “boo”s and you overall make yourself a target of all your opponents’ collective wrath. This deck is pretty griefer, and it does invoke hostility.

I understand its appeal, I know the archetypes of magic players and I know there are a lot of people who love loading up a deck with bounce and land destruction, and then there are folks who love to play control. It’s satisfying to cast Hinder and pop your opponent’s Uril, The Miststalker on the bottom of their library—but for that player, it’s essentially game-over if their deck was only 5% creatures and 20% auras. I’ve been on the receiving end of control, and I personally get so frustrated hitting f6 and watching all of my stratagem countered or removed or dealt with at instant-speed—let’s face it, it’s awful. To explain myself further, I used to work for a supermarket once. Part of the job is collecting the various shopping carts left strewn about the parking lot, often-times in the hot, hot heat. When I go shopping now, I put my cart in an appropriate cart corral because I’ve been there. As hard as it is for me to leave a cart lazily next to my car out in the middle of the parking lot, it’s just as hard for me to counter, control, and eliminate every single important thing a player does.

That being said, this deck does work remarkably well, in terms of controlling the scope of the commander game. It does make you target numero uno, as I’ve said, and it does prolong the game with all of your “waiting to act,” and you certainly aren’t guaranteed to win when the other three realize if they eliminate you their game-flow will be smoother. It’s extremely satisfying to pump Jenara until she is a gigantic flying beast. It’s also extremely satisfying to cast Bant Charm on your opponent’s commander and then follow it up with Bribery, but expect a rage quit or two.

I have won a lot of commander games with this deck, and lost a few times only through luck of the draw or circumstance, or after fighting off two opponents who are angry with my control shenanigans only to have the third sweep in and finish me off. I have won with an army of elephants with horsemanship. I’ve killed off one opponent with a 25/25 Mossbridge Troll equipped with a behemoth sledge (making him 27/27 lifelink trample). I’ve used Jenara to take down a few with commander-damage. I’ve peppered the board with 4/4 angels and swept in for the kill. However many times I win, game-play using this deck is never as satisfying to me as building a Rhys the Redeemed deck chock full of tokens and overrun effects, or building out a completely complex Scion of the Ur-dragon deck. Sometimes tattoo artists are also piercers, and can pierce a lot of eyebrows in a day to make a lot of bank—but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prefer to just do a couple tattoos. MTGO, like so many other things, is all about preferences.

My goal was to take a singleton deck, a commander deck, and make it chock full of control. I’m positive I’ve done this. My other goal was to try out an archetype of deck that I don’t really experiment with or play with very much, and I did that. I learned what to expect when both playing with and playing against griefer-control, and I’ve shared my findings, reasons, research, and decklist with you all.  

What cards did I miss that you would include? What cards did I hit right on the money? How many of you play with specific anti-commander cards in your commander decks?

Tune in next time for much less spike and timmy, and much, much more johnny.

Thanks for reading!

~Boosh

(AtomicBoosh on MTGO; clan leader of The Guild of Calamitous Intent)