Hey everyone Josh here with WizardDen.com to talk about a new deck I've picked up; it's ups and downs a long with my ups and downs that have come a long with it. I hope this helps out in deciding if it is right for you to be Khaned into control as well.
This season I have decided to throw everything I know about Magic away and made the decision that I wanted to learn to play control. Anyone who has played with or against me for the last few years knows this is a far cry from the midrangey decks I generally play but a change that was needed to shake things up and to keep my drive of progress satisfied.
I've tinkered with many ideas after having seen the UB Control list in action at the Pro Tour. One iteration I want to be good simply to have access to good mana is Jeskai control. Cards like End Hostilities and Elspeth look really good in a control shell and both blue and red aren't lacking in cards that could fit the bill either. After beating my head against a wall for several weeks I'm not convinced the card quality to build an efficient control deck is there and have consequently jumped ship on my: "'Murica, controller of the free world" deck.
There is a deck I have put faith in. After playing an FNM with the deck I realized the lands are in fact scary when you dip in to a shard, but the rewards can be HUGE. There's no Pack Rat's but I suppose this will do for now:
3x Hero's Downfall
2x Anger of the Gods
3x Magma Jet
2x Murderous Cut
1x Silence the Believers
3x Perilous Vault
2x Dissolve
3x Disdainful Stroke
3x Mindswipe
3x Steam Augury
3x Dig Through Time
1x Jace's Ingenuity
2x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1x Keranos, God of Storms
1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
3x Temple of Epiphany
2x Temple of Deceit
2x Temple of Malice
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Polluted Delta
1x Evolving Wilds
3x Dismal Backwater
3x Swiftwater Cliffs
1x Bloodfell Caves
2x Shivan Reef
2x Island
2x Mountain
1x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
The Sideboard I have built I must be honest is a little thrown together and hence I will not post with the rest of the list a few cards that have performed fairly well are: Negate, Jiroubai Murk Lurker, Despise and Crater's Claws. All of these cards interact positively with the bigger decks of the format, Abzan and Jeskai with Murk Lurker and Negate preventing burn and shifting your opponents burn spells elsewhere. Despise can take the threats out of your Abzan opponent's hand and Crater's Claws serves double duty in the match-up, filling the role of a removal spell to a threat that sneaks on to the board and can also kill off your opponent if you can play into it late. I generally don't recommend boarding into more than one Crater's Claws but it is a great card that gives some excellent depth to this deck.
Grixis is an insanely sweet color combination with the addition of Khans of Tarkir. The color combination is very powerful as is and that is without the additional gold cards a majority of the other decks in the format are playing. I can hardly imagine what this deck would be like with the addition of something like a Grixis Charm, Countersquall, Terminate, or even Recoil at this point. I have noticed while playing with this deck I get this overwhelming feeling of: "Wow this card is super strong, too bad I don't have a Tri-Land to match my opponent curving out." It's amazing how important the Tri-Lands are and I must say you can definitely notice the lack of it in this deck.
The deck isn't all bad though, like I said before: Grixis is an INSANELY sweet color combination. Dig Through Time is an amazing card and in my opinion the most important part of this deck. Playing three colors is the reason there are only three in the deck and rarely do you need the fourth. Another reason you can get away with only playing three copies of Dig Through Time is the three copies of Steam Augury. Steam Augury is an excellent source of early card draw that can also in the late game put your opponent in a position to make some less than optimal decisions. Do they give you the Dig Through Time and removal spell or the counter spell, land, removal spell? These are the kinds of questions your opponent doesn't want to answer, making Steam Augury a great reason to look in to Grixis. Another great part of playing Grixis or any three color control deck is that you gain access to a great deal of scry lands and gain life lands. Being able to smooth out your draws often in the game as well as gaining life here and there is a great recipe to making sure you hit the late game, when you are at your best. This really is just scratching the surface on all of the benefits that come with this deck.
In playing the UB control deck for a week on paper and for a few months on Magic Online I would always feel like the games I lost were really close, one more counter or a better removal or wrath and I would have had the game locked down. Grixis helps avoid this as you gain access to a counter spell that not only helps smooth out your colors, but also helps give you the extra edge you need to win the game. Mindswipe. This is a card that looked exciting then was really un-exciting now is REALLY exciting in my book. After receiving a beating due to what was initially a poorly built mana base and some more than questionable card choices a good friend of mine was screaming to me how good Mindswipe is. I originally only had two in the deck but after looking at the deck's current composition and the card a little more I finally came to my senses and moved up to three. In the early game where your opponent is still tapping out for their threats, this serves as a great counter spell that can add a little to the pain a lot of decks are already taking from their lands. It does it in style too, making your colors a little less intensive, which is very important without a tri-land. Once the late game hits this card gets very dangerous in that you have now probably dealt some damage in the form of a Sarkhan, Keranos, or even Mogis and now all of the sudden your opponent has to beat any combination of the three cards mentioned with what they have on the board as any spell your opponent plays gives you the ability to Blaze your opponent at instant speed. Playing Mindswipe also lets you go down on the number of Dissolve in the main deck which improves your mana requirements as well. Disdainful Stroke is also in the main deck as a way to counter big threats, Planeswalkers, and Hornet Queen but is one I have thought about shaving to go back up to three Dissolve. Disdainful Stroke is a narrow counter and is really good when it is good but is also very bad when it is bad.
As for the removal and win conditions of the deck. There are a few pretty nifty things happening that UB just can't quite compete with. Sure, we lose Bile Blight, a very important removal spell in the current format but is it really that bad when you get access to Anger of the Gods? The format isn't so fast you're dead if you kill everything turn three instead of one creature on turn two. Hero's Downfall is still in as the premier kill everything spell with support from the downed hero's little brother - Murderous Cut. The two copies of Murderous Cut may seem crazy to most, especially in a deck with Dig Through Time, it is fueled entirely by Steam Augury and an excellent addition to the deck. You feed quite a few cards in to the graveyard and rarely do I cast Dig Through Time for UU making Murderous Cut a great way to get some value out of your opponent giving you a two card Steam Augury pile by exiling the other three cards sent to the graveyard to kill their big nasty creature on board. Perilous Vault still makes the cut but I think it will only bee until January when Crux of Fate becomes legal. Perilous Vault serves as a necessary evil in this deck in the sense that it kills your win conditions too. This adds a whole different realm of complexity of play in this deck and makes certain lines a lot more narrow giving less wiggle room on when you can pull the trigger to win the game. The win conditions all do the trick particularly well and all serve a dual purpose, other than just winning the game. Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker kills your opponent with force as a 4/4 in the air every turn brings the smell of death unless your opponent has a quick way to react to it. While it isn't serving up the smackdown in the air, he is making your opponents life miserable by killing most of the creatures that could pose a threat to him. Keranos is kind of not fair in the deck and I thing the single copy of Mogis will become a second Keranos because of this. Imagine this: you play your one copy of Jace's Ingenuity at the end of your opponents turn, reveal a land on your draw and get a fifth card due to Keranos' trigger. Now imagine that land you showed is a Temple of Epiphany and you now can dig even deeper if the card doesn't interact in a positive way with Keranos next turn. This is a great way to solidify your control of the game and kill your opponent along the way. Mogis currently serves as a way to consistently drain your opponent or force them to lose a creature but the loss of only two life makes me a little less happy to play him. Rarely does your opponent sacrifice a creature unless they are hip to your Mindswipe's and the two damage puts them in range of burn or unless they have a huge swarm of creatures or tokens. He is still versatile and a way to get an additional edge off of one card, the same can be done with Keranos, God of Storms which has me believe either choice of card to play is probably fine.
This deck is a lot of fun to play and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to play something new in this format that is still in the air. I would love to hear if anyone does decide to pick up the deck or if you are already playing something similar. Big thanks to Christian Rasmussen for subconsciously motivating me to build and play this deck!!!
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