Community

3rd Place on October 21st 2007 at the GPT Krakau 2007 in Aachen, Germany.

' U/W Control ' by Patrick Collinet

Creatures [11]
2 Adarkar Valkyrie
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
3 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
4 Martyr of Sands

Instants [6]
4 Careful Consideration
2 Condemn

Sorceries [9]
4 Ponder
2 Resurrection
3 Wrath of God

Enchantments [6]
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Sacred Mesa

Artifacts [4]
4 Coldsteel Heart

land [24]
4 Boreal Shelf
4 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow-Covered Island
8 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Urza's Factory

Sideboard:
4 Crib Swap
4 Dodecapod
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Condemn
2 Porphyry Nodes
1 Sacred Mesa

Most of you guys are probably out at your states but over here in Ireland, mine is already over. And I tied for first (we split after the cut and I was equal on tiebreakers with the other guy on top). Here's the deck, which is a slightly modified version of the Snow Control deck from the Starcity Tournament last week:

4x Scrying Sheets
4x Boreal Shelf
2x Mouth of Ronom
1x Urza's Factory
6x Snow-Covered Island
8x Snow-Covered Plains

4x Martyr of Sands
4x Aeon Chronicler
1x Purity
1x Crovax, Ascendant Hero

4x Wrath of God
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Condemn
3x Porphyry Nodes
2x Sacred Mesa
2x Fathom Trawl
4x Coldsteel Heart
2x Jace Beleren
2x Ajani Goldmane

Sideboard
1x Urza's Factory
1x Condemn
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Porphyry Nodes
2x Austere Command
3x Take Possession
2x Pull from Eternity
2x Willbender
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1x Sacred Mesa

The turnout for the event was pretty poor (only about 15-20 people) so there were 4 rounds. I ended up 3-0-1 after the swiss.

1st Round - G/B Elves
Poor version of probably the Elf deck that won the same Starcity tournament. Wasn't running planeswalkers and so it was pretty cut and dried. Just ground him out both games by getting a bunch of lifegain and then killing him with Sacred Mesa.

2nd Round - G/B Elves
See above pretty much with a bit of Aeon Chroniclers being huge to crush through.

3rd Round - G/W Aggro
Not Kithkins at all and was a really interesting take on the archetype. It didn't play Tarmogoyf (I'm sure somebody is surprised) but it probably wouldn't have benefitted in the deck. Instead it ran Troll Ascetic, Masked Admirers and Ohran Viper for card advantage, Teeg, Spectral Force and Loxodon Warhammers plus accel.

Game 1 he came rushing out of the gates with plenty of acceleration the first two turns. Seeing a bunch of creatures in play, I slapped the nodes down. This held off 3 turns of creatures because he was afraid to overcommit to the board with Nodes in play. This gave me plenty of time to stabilise after the 2 Spectral Force he played. At one point he was on 42 life, but Crovax plus Pegasus ate through that life total.

Number of dead Spectral Force due to Pegasus Tokens - 2

Sideboard plan was:
-2 Jace
-2 Fathom Trawl
-1 Aeon Chronicler
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Condemn
+1 Porphyry Nodes
+2 Austere Command (Sure I'd seen Teeg, but he was playing Oblivion Ring and Warhammer. Warhammer was the most annoying card out of his entire deck)

Game 2 was a blowout. I mulliganed to 5 after getting a land glut and no land on consecutive draws. 5 card hand was 2 Martyrs, a plains, a wrath and a coldsteel heart. I did manage to get him down to 13 with the Martyrs (including a 3rd one), but I soon ran out of cards as soon as he dropped Spectral Forces.

Game 3 was really, really close. He went through all 3 Teegs in his deck, and for a while I had a feeling I wasn't going to get by him. The key was Scrying Sheets. It allowed me to draw so many cards that would have been dead draws otherwise. I stabilised at 4 after 3 Teegs, 3 Ascetics, 3 Forces. Awesome game that I really enjoyed and I was glad that I'd managed to play it as well as I did.

Round 4 - R/G GreaterGoyf
We Id'ed to make sure we were in the top 4 (turnout was so small that we couldn't cut to top 8) since we were the only ones on 9 at this stage. We played it out and it was 2-1 to him but close. The crux of the match hinged on whether or not I drew Martyr when I had a bunch of white cards in my hand. If I did, he generally couldn't win. Still it's a close one.

Overall I was impressed with the deck and if you weren't sure of the some of the changes, here's the main ones:

+1/+1 Urza's Factory: Was definitely required for the deck. Cutting one snow card didn't really affect the probability of drawing out snow cards from the sheets and it was so necessary in control on control games. In those matches I found that you didn't want to play Mesa simply because they would steal it with Take Possession or just Oblivion Ring it. Factory was better because you could grind out their answers with other things and then drop the Factories for the win. I didn't play a control deck on the day as you saw, but in testing Factory was crucial.

+2 Fathom Trawl: Originally it was Foresee and I found that incredibly clunky. Sure the odd time it would set up an awesome draw where you'd get two decent cards and then scry another 2 lands off your deck but this didn't happen nearly as much as you'd think. Trawl is however an awesome card for both getting to your answers and also for building a hand for Martyr and Chronicler. This generally equalled an extra 9 life for a Martyr once I cast it.

I think the deck was decent and performed well against aggro as I expected it to do. It has so many answers to aggro that provided you hit the right cards for the right matchups, you simply cannot lose. I would've liked to have played more control matches to see how the deck fares there because I think that's the main area where it would need work. Still I'll take my result and the Doran/Playmat.

Akira_Everhate wrote:

Snip Show

' U/W Control ' by Patrick Collinet

Creatures [11]
2 Adarkar Valkyrie
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
3 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
4 Martyr of Sands

Instants [6]
4 Careful Consideration
2 Condemn

Sorceries [9]
4 Ponder
2 Resurrection
3 Wrath of God

Enchantments [6]
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Sacred Mesa

Artifacts [4]
4 Coldsteel Heart

land [24]
4 Boreal Shelf
4 Scrying Sheets
5 Snow-Covered Island
8 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Urza's Factory

Sideboard:
4 Crib Swap
4 Dodecapod
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Condemn
2 Porphyry Nodes
1 Sacred Mesa

That's not Control, it's a full-on Martyr deck.

Aldwyn wrote:

Snip Show

Most of you guys are probably out at your states but over here in Ireland, mine is already over. And I tied for first (we split after the cut and I was equal on tiebreakers with the other guy on top). Here's the deck, which is a slightly modified version of the Snow Control deck from the Starcity Tournament last week:

4x Scrying Sheets
4x Boreal Shelf
2x Mouth of Ronom
1x Urza's Factory
6x Snow-Covered Island
8x Snow-Covered Plains

4x Martyr of Sands
4x Aeon Chronicler
1x Purity
1x Crovax, Ascendant Hero

4x Wrath of God
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Condemn
3x Porphyry Nodes
2x Sacred Mesa
2x Fathom Trawl
4x Coldsteel Heart
2x Jace Beleren
2x Ajani Goldmane

Sideboard
1x Urza's Factory
1x Condemn
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Porphyry Nodes
2x Austere Command
3x Take Possession
2x Pull from Eternity
2x Willbender
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1x Sacred Mesa

Again, it's more of a Martyr deck.

Neither of these decks run a single Counter or any of Control's draw spells/engines (Except Aeon Chronicler / Jace , but those are widely played in Martyr decks as well.) The only thing that makes it anything like Control is that it plays removal and splashes for Blue. (Though the second list could arguably be called U/W Control. And by arguably, I mean that people vying for this Archetype t ostay in DtB will use this as an example, though it holds little to no similarity to any other decklist in the thread.)

BookWorm wrote:

...but the fact that she can't use her ability to prevent damage to herself the turn she is played makes her less attractive.

Not really; she is still very attractive.

But seriously, no, Oriss is far too clunky and card-consuming to get off the ground, even with Undertaker (which is by far the best way to recur her in T2).

BookWorm wrote:

For some reason, the artwork has always given me the impression that she has 4 arms.

At first glance, me too. But I still find her extraordinarily attractive

(We should go ahead and just turn this into the Official Say Creepy Things About Oriss thread)