Control Commanders in 2024

[TheGildedGoose]

Now that The Necrobloom exists and my Lands core is moving that way, Slogurk, the Overslime is defunct and I am without a blue-based control deck.

I've tried going back through my old control lists and none of them are really doing it for me now. With what I've learned about control in the past year or so, those old lists feel antiquated, and updating them is like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Of course, I don't have any problem using old Commanders, I just want to start from scratch and approach it with a fresh perspective.

That said, I'm struggling. Since each color has its own strengths and weaknesses when combined with blue, each color identity has a unique set of requirements for a control Commander, since the deck can be built complementary to it. On top of that, I personally have a few unique preferences, limiting my selection even further.

Control really needs access to three colors to shore up any weaknesses any two color may have. White is obviously the best color to pair with blue, as its removal suite far exceeds every other's, which leaves us with the third color to determine, each with their own strengths:

Black gets tutors, additional removal, and additional card draw.
Green gets fogs, ramp, lands-elements, and additional removal.
Red gets Blasphemous Act.

Red sucks, but some URx commanders are actually pretty okay, which may make up for red's lack of contributions. Personally, I want to avoid green, because it has significant overlap in removal with white, I don't want to be lands-adjacent, and ramp is generally unnecessary with control decks.

This leaves us with Esper and Jeskai.

For Esper, there aren't too many options. Tivit, Seller of Secrets is the clear winner, but is obnoxious to play against so I couldn't bring myself to build him. In that case, Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign seems like the only real option. Even without building around her attack trigger, she can provide a steady stream of card advantage, blocks well, and can in theory chip away at someone's life total, though that seems optimistic. To that end, with double evasion, she holds Runechanter's Pike or Glamdring particularly well, and if I go down the dark side I can do stupid stuff with Expropriate or Rise of the Dark Realms or Mnemonic Deluge or something.

As for Jeskai, as much as it pains me to say this because of how much I like the art, Kykar, Wind's Fury is the most popular Jeskai commander and even if I wasn't a shameless special snowflake playing popular, threatening commanders is overall detrimental to control's gameplan. Elsha of the Infinite is solid as a card advantage and utility card, as well as an easy combo enabler, even though I don't particularly like combo finishes. Aragorn, King of Gondor is okay, if a bit boring, since he protects our life total well, generates card advantage, and can in theory be a very good finisher.

That's... it?

Not a lot of confidence in the selection. I like Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign the most so far, but I worry about being run over if I'm consistently threatened.

[pokken]

My one control deck right now is Ephara. My main reason for sticking to that is that I've found sweepers again to be the main way to win control games and Ephara surviving my marquee sweepers is nice. Also she benefits from the construction of a modest board state which also helps bridge to the late game.

I feel like I am likely to stick to azorius for my control shells going forward because I don't care for Vampiric Tutor and I think Toxic Deluge is overrated (games are so fast now that paying 12 life to sweep is often untenable).

Kykar and Tivit both struggle from the being fairly vulnerable to your own sweepers and tivit is expensive. I don't care for either of them as control decks.

Red brings Blasphemous Act and some early game smoothing - and a potential combo finish with Reiterate or Underworld Breach lines which is cool. But not much else.

Black brings more smooth card draw and tutors and a few sweepers. Of them tbh I have had fun resolving Decree of Pain lately.

In general I have found a light token theme to be great in Ephara so that's an angle I do like about Kykar. Kykar also brings Divergent Transformations lines which are nice.

So that brings me to an actual suggestion. If I were building control for the modern world I would play Shorikai, Genesis Engine. It brings consistent card advantage that also fuels graveyard stuff and makes bodies and provides an easy endgame plan. There are a few modest pieces of vehicle synergy like smuggalo copter etc.

Being able to Vanquish the Horde freely and still accrue advantage is super nice.

I don't think shorikai needs a third color since it has brown synergies (with the lockdown Academy Ruins lines) and also brings endgame seedborn muse strategies with Unwinding Clock if desired and a legit infinite in Isochron Scepter as well.

[TheGildedGoose]

I feel like I am likely to stick to azorius for my control shells going forward because I don't care for Vampiric Tutor and I think Toxic Deluge is overrated (games are so fast now that paying 12 life to sweep is often untenable).

If games are quick, Deluge improves in quality. Its lower mana value is even more relevant, and while paying 12 life to wrath is steep, you're even less likely to be in that position (or if you are, the game is over anyway).

Kykar and Tivit both struggle from the being fairly vulnerable to your own sweepers and tivit is expensive. I don't care for either of them as control decks.

Kykar doesn't need to consistently wrath as much because of the board presence you generate just from doing your thing. If you don't have to protect your life total as much, you can shift away from wrathing every turn to accruing value and taking out key pieces.

So that brings me to an actual suggestion. If I were building control for the modern world I would play Shorikai, Genesis Engine. It brings consistent card advantage that also fuels graveyard stuff and makes bodies and provides an easy endgame plan. There are a few modest pieces of vehicle synergy like smuggalo copter etc.

Being able to Vanquish the Horde freely and still accrue advantage is super nice.

I don't think shorikai needs a third color since it has brown synergies (with the lockdown Academy Ruins lines) and also brings endgame seedborn muse strategies with Unwinding Clock if desired and a legit infinite in Isochron Scepter as well.

I had considered Shorikai, but it's by far the most popular Azorius commander and it's too telegraphed. You're either playing durdley vehicles.dec or literally 10 wraths. Certainly, it's popular for a reason, but raw power level alone isn't the only factor. As a MBC player with years of experience playing Erebos, God of the Dead, I'm well aware of the power of asymmetrical wipes that leave your card advantage engine alone, but it's not subtle.

Can't really argue with you in terms of power level though. Love commanders that draw cards and generate board presence and are self-contained win conditions and...

[pokken]

I don't think Kykar is a good control deck. It brings a finisher but it's brittle. Its not particular subtle to play Rhystic Study or Skullclamp and remove everyone's card advantage engines as a gameplan and that's pretty much what it does. It's just so much worse than a kraum based deck unless you're looking at the combo finish (divergent or stormy stuff).

You don't need to play 10 sweepers in Shorikai. Just a couple cheap ones and synergistic ones (eg big elspeth)

If you're looking at like kykar or tivit I feel like you gotta take a long look at shorikai. He's lower power level than either of them just more consistent but more constrained.

If you wanna run Jeskai another strong option is Hinata, Dawn-Crowned in my opinion. She has her own combo finish with stupid crap like Soulfire Eruption and doesn't need to be deployed early (you can just hold her until you can cast her and a game winning bomb before passing priority).

Honestly I think Ux is going to be the most fun and provide a challenge in deck building. UW would be my vote. there are a few other options like --

Elminster - pretty solid card advantage and ramp engine
Heliod, the Radiant Dawn // Heliod, the Warped Eclipse - brings a solid ramp engine and the ability to suppot a minor enchantment subtheme
Niambi, Esteemed Speaker - cheap with flash and some minor synergies, fairly strong card advantage engine
Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Candlekeep Sage is clunky as hell but has a number of compact infinite combos and some synergy availability
Yorion, Sky Nomad - has a lot of interesting synergies and generates a game ending DIY Seedborn Muse effect pretty easily with any fast blink creature

My buddy did have a really cool control shell with UG rashmi top control but I'm not sure that's it these days.

But fundamentally control is about Farewell for me now :D So that's where I'd start, something that works great with Farewell. Slow blinking Tivit, Seller of Secrets could be a good angle there I guess, but that feels like it would drift to another deck pretty fast.

Bottom line I don't think if you're thinking about playing tivit you should concern yourself with subtlety :D

--

Thoughts on Esper Control
- hear me out...Soundwave, Sonic Spy // Soundwave, Superior Captain is actually a really cool control commander, can flip into not dying to other people's or instant speed sweepers. brings card advantage and an army.
- Marneus Calgar is actually a pretty great option there I think. Deck can just play Training Grounds and make its own army that draws cards.
- Tymna the Weaver + Esior, Wardwing Familiar provides a compact x-2-3 curve that starts drawing cards on turn 3 and needs no real further commitment, but relies on you to play spot removal to block. Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces are also options but less consistent at drawing cards on turn 3.


--

Thoughts on Jeskai control

Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and literally anyone is a pretty solid plan but it commits you to ramping into Kraum most of the time. Kraum is probably best with 4c control with Tymna the Weaver. This is pretty incredibly obviously a CEDH deck a lot of times.

As noted Hinata, Dawn-Crowned has some really compact combo packages and benefits from a lot of commonly played cards. Infinite combos with Sublime Epiphany and Dockside Extortionist / Archaeomancer are pretty cool. Just ending the game with Soulfire Eruption also an option at 7 mana :D

Aragorn, King of Gondor has a pretty solid control gameplan of "I am the monarch every turn and I'm a pretty big vigilant boy." Doesn't require super much support, gains some life. It's...chill and lower power. might be worth a thought.

oof that's all I got on jeskai.

--

Grixis control with Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen is reasonable but also...awkward manawise.

--

We mostly ruled out bant control, but I think it's worth considering Thrasios, Triton Hero x <any white creature> as an option. The compact Training Grounds / Awakening approaches are pretty hard to top and deceptive. You can combine with Prava of the Steel Legion and Training Grounds to make a comical number of buddies as well in a fairly compact package. Pretty easy W with a modal pump spell or something.

[TheGildedGoose]

If you're looking at like kykar or tivit I feel like you gotta take a long look at shorikai. He's lower power level than either of them just more consistent but more constrained.

I mean, I explicitly ruled out Tivit, and I'm not really enamored with Kykar.

Honestly I think Ux is going to be the most fun and provide a challenge in deck building. UW would be my vote.

I'm not interested in deckbuilding challenges with this deck. Unless there is a particularly powerful reason to stay in a limited color identity (like Shorikai) it's not of concern for this deck.

But fundamentally control is about Farewell for me now :D

Pretty much. Card is dumb. Just sit back, sculpt your hand, then set everyone back to the Stone Age.

[pokken]

as I noodle on it, I think the first thing I'd do is sit down and think hard about what you want the command zone to do in the deck. Trickle card advantage like Shorikai, Genesis Engine and Thrasios, Triton Hero or Tymna the Weaver based builds is going to create a much different game than wincondition in the zone like Yorion, Sky Nomad / Hinata, Dawn-Crowned / Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward bs.

I actually wonder if doing something different and just having your commander try to win the game for you and then everything else is interaction/draw might be a fun way to build. But it's tricky because a lot of those types of cards have strong synergies and encourage you in a particular path (E.g. Tivit → Blink as discussed, but also Hinata, Dawn-Crowned and cost reduction bonus spells).

[Ruiner]

Just going to throw out a quick suggestion of Kotori, Pilot Prodigy. You get the whole "vehicles + sweepers + other good answers" like Shorikai, Genesis Engine decks would have, but Kotori lets you go more aggressive. I've definitely enjoyed playing my deck and it tends to be solid in most games. Being able to start swinging fast and then downshift into relaxed control later can be pretty fun.

I don't really see much UBR discussion above, but Kess, Dissident Mage is a classic for a reason. It can be built in a pretty wide variety of ways, depending on how you feel like trying to win. Even if you go with some other commander in this color combo, you main weakness is just enchantment removal because you aren't in white.

Could always go for a commander that just is your primary win condition. Chromium, the Mutable is pretty solid in that regard if you are leaning UWB, and I'm sure there are other similar options in other color combos.

[Jemolk]

Personally, I always like having a commander that's just a win con. In Esper, there's Chromium, the Mutable, but my favorite is definitely Nicol Bolas. The OG still beats out his flipwalker form as a commander in my opinion. Kills in three hits and makes the struck player discard their hand. Very effective to this day. If you use Dragon Tempest, you can give him haste and also make someone else pitch their hand, and Chandra's Ignition can make everyone else discard their hands while mostly wrathing the board. But even just on his own with only boots or greaves for support, he makes it so once you've started attacking with him, your opponents won't get a chance to get back into the game.

If you want an engine, though, Shorikai is probably the best option by a pretty solid margin. The two best control colors, draws cards, generates an army, isn't a creature when you don't want it to be. No evasion, but an 8/8 still kills in three hits if you can get them to connect. Just a thoroughly stupid card.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I actually wonder if doing something different and just having your commander try to win the game for you and then everything else is interaction/draw might be a fun way to build.

This is basically Dirk's Phelddagrif strategy and it extrapolates pretty well in my experience. Slap together 45 lands and ~40 answers (wraths, counters, spot removal, etc) and then fill the rest with some card advantage and wham, you're good to go. I think a sufficiently skilled player could run Gosta Dirk with that skeleton and still kick some ass.

On the flip side, I have not been impressed with control decks that need a ton of permanents to carry them. Things like onboard stax draw a ton of hate and they only really hinder your opponents until they have the removal to kill you out of the blue. Even in the best case scenario when you're winning with a deck like that, the game slows to a miserable crawl if you can't capitalize quickly. It sucks because I love things like Humility and Lethal Vapors but they just don't get the job done as well as draw-go.

[3drinks]

Honestly for control if I'm not grixis (and I really do love me some grixis then my go-to control is Sunforger Zedruu the Greathearted. No trix, just the ability to draw extra cards in exchange for people holding my spreading seas or extra land.

Dragonlord Ojutai if you're bent on 2c is my vote, though.

[Sinis]

I'm firmly in Esper for this, for no particular reason.

Just play a decade old favourite: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. It buffers your life total, and can do... stuff.

Alternatively, try some partners or friends forever. Tymna the Weaver/Esior, Wardwing Familiar seems like an okay pair of Ophidian-style generals, while Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker/Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools creates a vague double bind of "do something and give me a big flying guy" vs. "do nothing and I'll tick up Tevesh Szat forever". In the friends forever camp, you could play Wernog, Rider's Chaplain/Hargilde, Kindly Runechanter, which sounds like a card advantage engine if you can find some Blink effects.

[TheGildedGoose]

Any questions?

[Mookie]

I currently have two control decks, Tasigur and Kess. Both are tapout control decks - they do have a little countermagic and instant-speed interaction, but it's not a focus.

• Tasigur is base green and heavy on both land-based ramp and stuff like Pernicious Deed to blow up all nonlands. Let opponents exhaust their resources, nuke their board, then dominate the game with Tasigur value.
• Kess is much more attrition-based, relying on her ability to flash back spells to reuse removal and card advantage. The strategy is often similar, but different colors mean the interaction suite is a bit different (less enchantment removal, for one).

I don't think you particularly need to run White, especially if you're three colors - every shard / wedge has some form of interaction for every card type. Enchantments are a bit trickier because black's interaction is weak, but there are options in blue and red if you're desperate.

More broadly though... I think control decks generally need to be tuned for their meta, which means it's hard for an out-of-date list to function at full capacity. If your meta has lots of combo, you'll probably want more instant-speed interaction. If there are a lot of spell-based win conditions, you'll want more stack interaction. If games tend to be creature-focused, more board wipes. You can just toss in an off-the-shelf interaction suite, but I think most decks will require some amount of tuning.

Other than the interaction suite, the other thing worth calling out is how much inevitability is provided by the commander. For example, commanders like Muldrotha, the Gravetide and Karador, Ghost Chieftain that can recycle resources tend to have high inevitability, while I would expect something like Kykar, Wind's Fury to run out of gas. It's possible to run a less-inevitable commander at the head of a control deck, but it will impose more deckbuilding requirements - you'll probably want to lean into combo or voltron to close out games before you're exhausted, for example. On the flip side, commanders with high inevitability can just make card advantage into their win condition - if they have a full grip and their opponents have nothing, then they've effectively already won.

[yeti1069]

Control in what way? You can do board-based control, mostly removing creatures and other permanents to slow people down, but not have much stack interaction. You could do the reverse, with a ton of counterspells and such, backed up by some sweepers to take care of the stuff you let through. You can employ stax or resource denial to minimize what opponents are able to do in the first place.

I had a Kess, Dissident Mage discard control deck for a while that I really liked. Had a lot of universal discard and wheels with the usual discard or draw punishers, using Kess' ability to utilize the graveyard to break parity on all the universal pitching. Threw in a Keldon Firebombers to keep the lands decks down, too. Only took it apart because I had other Grixis decks I wanted the cards for.

I've been noodling with a Tameshi, Reality Architect land denial deck with cards like Overburden, Mana Breach, and Storm Cauldron alongside a bunch of the various options for putting additional lands in play (Patron of the Moon, Walking Atlas, etc...). Just haven't pulled the trigger because I feel like no one is going to like it. Shocking, I know.

I had a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter control deck that leaned more on counterspells and in particular sought to achieve a soft lock with some combination of ETB counter creature (Mystic Snake) and something like Deadeye Navigator, plus Seedborn Muse. Otherwise, it finished out the game with some green or blue top end bombs. I hadn't tuned it for cEDH, but it was able to hold its own there as well as in casual games.

I play a Queen Marchesa politics/goad deck that plays largely like control in that it dissuades or turns aside any real pressure going my way and has plenty of tools to fizzle other decks' strategies.

[pokken]

Any questions?

Infinite mana sinks are a pretty straightforward approach. So thrasiosx might work or tasigur.

I like shorikai the best for this por que no los dos approach though. Because it pretty much can just win with an army of pilots.

Raffine can play a really respectable control game too.

[TheGildedGoose]

I actually wonder if doing something different and just having your commander try to win the game for you and then everything else is interaction/draw might be a fun way to build. But it's tricky because a lot of those types of cards have strong synergies and encourage you in a particular path (E.g. Tivit → Blink as discussed, but also Hinata, Dawn-Crowned and cost reduction bonus spells).

This is basically Dirk's Phelddagrif strategy and it extrapolates pretty well in my experience. Slap together 45 lands and ~40 answers (wraths, counters, spot removal, etc) and then fill the rest with some card advantage and wham, you're good to go. I think a sufficiently skilled player could run Gosta Dirk with that skeleton and still kick some ass.

This is, of course, the ideal. Not having to devote precious deck slots to "do nothing" cards your win condition is tied to a card you have to have, anyway. What sets Phelddy apart is its immortality (and Bant being the best control colors). Other decks that rely solely on their commander to win with commanders that can be easily neutralized have a singular fracture point point that makes them very fragile, so the ability to dodge commander tax and be incredibly sticky is important.

In reality, sometimes games gotta end, and durdling around killing the remaining player over 12 turns with commander damage sounds like an absolute slog that makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Certainly, having a reasonable Plan B or Plan C of commander damage is something every control deck should consider in my opinion, but it's here that I run into a personal problem: I don't really like comboing out. More on this later.

I don't really see much UBR discussion above, but Kess, Dissident Mage is a classic for a reason. It can be built in a pretty wide variety of ways, depending on how you feel like trying to win. Even if you go with some other commander in this color combo, you main weakness is just enchantment removal because you aren't in white.

Honestly for control if I'm not grixis (and I really do love me some grixis then my go-to control is Sunforger Zedruu the Greathearted. No trix, just the ability to draw extra cards in exchange for people holding my spreading seas or extra land.

I've played Nicol Bolas, the Ravager before and he's a remarkably good control commander, probably on par with Kess, Dissident Mage. There's something particularly satisfying about boiling the game down to a 1v1 and ticking up Nicol Bolas, the Arisen with Forbid in hand.

That said, I think Grixis is a little too limited. Black has fantastic wipes, especially lately, but nothing on par with Farewell or Hour of Revelation or even Final Showdown now, and red sucks. Red is far and away the worst color for control in the format. In personal experience, I also think people tend to have a subconscious bias against Grixis. How many nice Grixis decks have you played against?

I'm firmly in Esper for this, for no particular reason.

Just play a decade old favourite: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. It buffers your life total, and can do... stuff.

Alternatively, try some partners or friends forever. Tymna the Weaver/Esior, Wardwing Familiar seems like an okay pair of Ophidian-style generals, while Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker/Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools creates a vague double bind of "do something and give me a big flying guy" vs. "do nothing and I'll tick up Tevesh Szat forever". In the friends forever camp, you could play Wernog, Rider's Chaplain/Hargilde, Kindly Runechanter, which sounds like a card advantage engine if you can find some Blink effects.

Overall I think Bant is a little stronger because green is just a bit too versatile these days, but I have all these sweet black cards and goddamnit I want to play them.

I have a personal bias against Oloro, Ageless Ascetic for reasons both rational and irrational, so I'm going to leave that one be. I looked at Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools/Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker because a beater + card advantage source in the command zone is very strong, but I didn't consider that tension. I'll give that one a good think because I love imposing those sorts of quandaries on opponents.

Make them make mistakes.

More broadly though... I think control decks generally need to be tuned for their meta, which means it's hard for an out-of-date list to function at full capacity. If your meta has lots of combo, you'll probably want more instant-speed interaction. If there are a lot of spell-based win conditions, you'll want more stack interaction. If games tend to be creature-focused, more board wipes. You can just toss in an off-the-shelf interaction suite, but I think most decks will require some amount of tuning.

This is excellent advice, but unfortunately I don't have a personal meta so I have to try and build as generally as possible. It's an impossible task, but the same is generally true for others in FLGSs as well. This is slightly disadvantageous as a control player, because to an extent they rely on anticipating your opponents, but building generally and knowing your outs helps shore it up.

Which actually brings me to issue: I haven't been playing EDH in person much this past year, and not at all within the past six months, so I'm a little out of touch. I keep reading and hearing about how much faster the format has gotten, and I find this exciting. If everyone is trying to outrace everyone else, control players can trend in the other direction, where it's even easier for them to wear opponents down because they've all overextended.

The corollary to this is that it seems now more than ever it's important for a control deck to have cheap/free interaction as the critical turn of the format gets lower and lower. Unfortunately, this also means your engines and card advantage sources have to be cheap, as well. You can't tap out for an engine piece on turn 4 when two people have risky board states that you need to keep an eye on.

A while back, @Dunadain posted a Liesa list that had a very simple gameplan: Wrath on turn 4 every game and go from there. Consistently punishing people who overextend - even with ostensibly mediocre cards like Sublime Exhalation and Day of Judgment - is a great way to restart the game to your advantage. I rather like this novel approach to building a control deck. I've had great success with building more towards consistency, and now I'm thinking about how to apply that to control.

Running a critical density of 4 mana wipes naturally makes 5mv commanders more attractive, but also more vulnerable to interaction since you would likely tap out to cast them, and it's not like your opponents will have removal targets. Still, I think this is a good place to start.

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, Elsha of the Infinite, Marneus Calgar, and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools/Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker strike me as the most viable options with this in mind. I think I'm actually partial to Szat/Ishai, even though I don't like partners because of a weird aesthetic aversion, but dropping Szat on turn 5 with an empty board sounds delightful.

Why the %$#% doesn't Ishai have a nonfoil printing?

[pokken]

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, Elsha of the Infinite, Marneus Calgar, and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools/Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker strike me as the most viable options with this in mind. I think I'm actually partial to Szat/Ishai, even though I don't like partners because of a weird aesthetic aversion, but dropping Szat on turn 5 with an empty board sounds delightful.

Man I almost suggested Tevesh but I have a major bias against Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker because she's just so damn awkward. Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is *really* good at closing a game out; an ultimate resolution is almost always a decisive GG.

In a control shell I could see Ishai actually being OK the more I think about it. So put me on that bandwagon, if you don't go Shorikai, Genesis Engine - who I think is still the best option for an unknown meta.

That said, doing something far less common but still powerful is going to probably go well.

The curve of sweeper on 3/4 into Tevesh is really nuts.

[Dunadain]

I have been summoned!

If the choices are Grixis or Jeskai, my vote goes to Zurgo and Ojutai. Been sitting on this commander for awhile, but haven't done anything with him yet.

He's got good colors, he draws cards, and he bounces himself whenever you decide to cast a boardwipe.

The other two control commanders I've been stewing on are Dragonlord Ojutai and Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but they don't meet the color reqs

[yeti1069]

I've had a cleric tribal Tymna+Tevesh Szat deck for a while, where Tevesh is there in place of Ravos, Soultender because Tevesh just does so much more at the same mana value. It's by no means a control deck, BUT I used Tevesh is a kind of way that would work in a control shell, which is presenting a threat that draws attention, but is difficult to deal with, and therefore diverts a lot of focus from whatever else I'm doing.

I also run Martyr's Cause, which is hilarious alongside Tevesh. If players are really gunning for it, and I have other draw, it can just keep spitting out thrulls that then can be used to keep Tevesh alive.

[TheGildedGoose]

Here's a prototype list I threw together for the sake of having something to work with.

Head's Up: I'm Wrathing on Turn Four

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commanders:

1 Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker

1 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Lands:

42 Command Tower

Board Wipes: 9

1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Damn

1 Damnation

1 Devastating Mastery

1 Farewell

1 Final Showdown

1 Supreme Verdict

1 Toxic Deluge

1 Wrath of God

Spot Removal: 14

1 Amphibian Downpour

1 Anguished Unmaking

1 Baleful Mastery

1 Bitter Triumph

1 Eaten by Piranhas

1 Echoing Truth

1 Generous Gift

1 Get Lost

1 Infernal Grasp

1 Path to Exile

1 Stroke of Midnight

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Utter Insignificance

1 Void Rend

Counterspells: 13

1 An Offer You Can't Refuse

1 Arcane Denial

1 Archmage's Charm

1 Counterspell

1 Dovin's Veto

1 Fierce Guardianship

1 Forbid

1 Force of Negation

1 Mana Drain

1 Muddle the Mixture

1 Negate

1 Swan Song

1 Wash Away

Card Draw: 13

1 Brainstorm

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Farsight Ritual

1 Hostile Negotiations

1 Impulse

1 Lórien Revealed

1 Memory Deluge

1 Night's Whisper

1 Painful Truths

1 Ponder

1 Preordain

1 Serum Visions

1 Stinging Study

Tutors: 6

1 Insatiable Avarice

1 Imperial Seal

1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Solve the Equation

Nope: 1

1 Teferi's Protection

Approximate Total Cost:

That's 6 4mv or less wraths, 7* tutors to find them with on turn 3 or earlier, and a suite of cantrips to dig for them. According to my calculations, that's a 100% chance of having a board wipe available on turn 4. Follow that up with a turn 5 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and start taking over the game. Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker is our primary win condition, though of course a Szat ultimate is basically game over as well.

[3drinks]

That said, I think Grixis is a little too limited. Black has fantastic wipes, especially lately, but nothing on par with Farewell or Hour of Revelation or even Final Showdown now, and red sucks. Red is far and away the worst color for control in the format. In personal experience, I also think people tend to have a subconscious bias against Grixis. How many nice Grixis decks have you played against?

Precisely zero.

[pokken]

- Vanquish the Horde is significantly better than, well, most magic cards.
- Excise the Imperfect has been exceptional for me
- Tithe will outperform most of those card selection spells
- This is probably a Dig Through Time deck
- Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn is slam dunk in these shells
- I think you should run Hour of Revelation as discussed
- Sensei's Divining Top has always served me well in these shells
- Deadly Rollick is another free spell that has never done me wrong.
- You can support Force of Will and probably should.
- Solve the Equation sucks. Merchant Scroll will do most of the things it does for cheaper and merchant scroll sucks. :D


More out there stuff--
- Archaeomancer's Map is likely something you can support that has been a solid way to get ahead on mana and also card advantage. It usually just takes one turn cycle to catch you up to the land leader. It does require running around 3 basic plains, but I think running 5/3/2 is supportable. just me though.
- Mystic Sanctuary is baller in these shells of course
- Field of the Dead / Cosmic Intervention / Sevinne's Reclamation / Brought Back package has been fairly good for me and I think it's worth running. The ability to ramp just a little bit and then occasionally blast like 10 zombies with an intervention is reasonable. Plus the deck loves to sandbag fetchlands because of top/brainstorm/ponder.
- Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Teferi, Master of Time have been bananas control finishers for me personally and tend to do double duty. Worth thinking on as they can speed the clock up quite a bit and also have mid-game applications.
- If you play Top, Terminus is great.

[benjameenbear]

Someone says "Control in EDH" and I come a-runnin'.

I'd like to make a case for Kalamax, the Stormsire and my own specific decklist. As I see it, there's two main problems that Control players have to somehow solve in order to succeed at Control in a multi-player format:

1) How do you Control the table to create your window of opportunity to win WITHOUT drawing undue attention to yourself until it's too late?

2) How do you maintain card advantage when trying to balance 1-to-1 answers in a mana efficient way?

To me, Kalamax satisfies both of these things in one package while also being a built-in win condition (I win 100% of my games through combat damage, sometimes via an inordinate number of extra turns).

Because of its copying ability, all of the 1-to-1 answers that would normally cause you to run out of cards in a multiplayer game are doubled up for free. This represents both virtual card advantage and mana advantage that scales well into a multiplayer format. A single Nature's Claim can now destroy 2 problem permanents for the same mana cost and without expending more cards. This solves the second problem of Control in EDH neatly IMO.

Due to the nature of my specific decklist and how Kalamax reads, it's intentionally light on mass removal options. This helps the deck to feel less oppressive than Dirk's Pheldagriff list and other control lists (no offense, Dirk). Because other Commanders don't have the same built-in card and mana advantage that Kalamax does, they have to bridge that gap through a usually extensive number of board wipes. While it's indeed necessary to have board wipes for when you're behind, too many board wipes calls too much attention to itself and creates a bleak feeling amongst a regular playgroup IMO. Why develop a board state when you know a Wrath effect is coming in just a few turns to reset your board development and waste all the mana and cards you spent deploying? My current Kalamax iteration takes a more scalpel-like approach in being able to have single-target removal effects FEEL like mass removal without overtly destroying entire board states due to its copying ability. This creates more windows of opportunity for me to eventually take each player out one at a time or find that critical turn where I can cast Nexus of Fate to take the pole position and turn the corner. This solves the main problem of Control in EDH.

EDIT: But I forgot to mention one of the last elements of Control: emotional management of your opponents. If you are too oppressive in your Control elements, it creates a negative emotional bias towards yourself that can result in an inordinate amount of targeting against your resources for FUTURE games. I experienced this when I played a back-to-back game with Kalamax. 2 of the 4 players called out my board development explicitly and tried politicking the table to spend more answers on my Kalamax when other threats were more overt. I was able to talk back and get the table aligned with the REAL threats, but it was interesting to note.

I've played my Kalamax deck 5-6 times at my current LGS and it currently has a 100% win rate (not impressive statistically, but fun to say lol). And each time I've played it I've received the feedback that it was fun to play against because it kept board states intact and felt like they could have meaningful chances to execute their gameplan and receive emotional satisfaction that way (I'm obviously paraphrasing comments).

Learning to play Control in EDH is a delicate balancing act of managing emotional expectations, resource parity, and timing. For me, Kalamax has been my most successful deck in navigating this and I've successfully won the majority of the games I play with it.

[TheGildedGoose]

- Vanquish the Horde is significantly better than, well, most magic cards.
- Excise the Imperfect has been exceptional for me
- Tithe will outperform most of those card selection spells
- This is probably a Dig Through Time deck
- Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn is slam dunk in these shells
- I think you should run Hour of Revelation as discussed
- Sensei's Divining Top has always served me well in these shells
- Deadly Rollick is another free spell that has never done me wrong.
- You can support Force of Will and probably should.
- Solve the Equation sucks. Merchant Scroll will do most of the things it does for cheaper and merchant scroll sucks. :D

Top/Rollick/Force/Excise/Dig (and Cruise): yeah

Horde doesn't consistently come down on turn 4, and the 3 other wipes outclass it. It's good, but Blasphemous Act is good because it's cheap in a color that doesn't really get mass creature removal, not strictly speaking because it always costs 1 mana (though that certainly helps). A 5 mana Act is much, much better than a 5 mana Vanquish.

The card selection spells also help us dig for the T4W, something Tithe doesn't do. Also, I don't have a Tithe.

Sea Gate is a land to me, along with Fell Mire and Soporific Springs.

Hour of Revelation is in an awkward spot for me. Is it an absolutely fantastic wipe? Yes, no question about it. However, the other mass wipes (Cyclonic Rift, Farewell, and Devastating Mastery) are just ever so slightly better in this deck. If I wasn't trying to hit that turn 4 wrath as often as possible it would easily go in over Mastery, but that alt cost elevates it. It would be the next wipe to add if I was in the market for it.

I'll defend Solve. Scroll doesn't find the T4W, it doesn't find Demonic Tutor (which then finds anything), and it only finds one universal removal spell. It's not great, but this is a control deck. It would be the first tutor cut, but I wouldn't replace it with Scroll.

Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker is the world's worst Landstill clone, and I love her.

[Mookie]

EDIT: But I forgot to mention one of the last elements of Control: emotional management of your opponents. If you are too oppressive in your Control elements, it creates a negative emotional bias towards yourself that can result in an inordinate amount of targeting against your resources. <...> I was able to talk back and get the table aligned with the REAL threats, but it was interesting to note.

Yeah, I'll second this. Removal spells and countermagic should be your last resort - the strongest tool in any control deck's pocket is diplomancy. Your job will be much easier if your opponents are throwing their interaction at each other instead of at your stuff... and simultaneously, you don't want them to be in a state of learned helplessness where they expect you to deal with every problem that pops up and just focus on building up their own boards.

...diplomacy is interesting in the context of you not having a regular playgroup though. On one hand, opponents won't know you're running a control deck, so they may not play around your interaction. On the flip side, they may be less receptive to negotiations if they're unfamiliar with your deck and are expecting a sudden combo win or something.

I'll call out stuff like Propaganda, Maze of Ith, and Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca as nice tools - they don't entirely stop opponents from attacking you, but they add enough friction for opponents to have to think twice. Defensive manlands like Cactus Preserve can also be useful - you can threaten a block, or spend that mana on a draw spell when opponents don't attack. I've grown to appreciate Tasigur and Kess's statlines for a similar reason - a 4/5 or 3/4 flyer isn't quite threatening enough to force opponents to use removal, but they're big enough to make attacking into them awkward.

On the flip side, attacking into a 0/1 thrull from Tevesh is pretty free, while Ishai will often be large enough to attract opposing removal. I would be concerned about using them as defensive tools as a result.