Commander

Weapon of Choice: Life Among the Pod People – Part 2

Cilck here for Part 1.

I had originally conceived of this article as one – very large – piece. As I wrote more and more of it, I realized that trying to explain all of the Big 3 at once was going to result in a 20-page essay, which isn’t exactly what most people want from their Magic articles. The reason why it all worked as one piece is because there was a very strong thematic through-line:

When you are building a Commander deck, you need your spells to do as much as possible.

Last time, I talked about how Aggro decks have to play cards that widen the utility of their cards. This week I will be looking at Control and how it has to tweak its thinking in order to successfully adapt to life among the Commander-playing body snatchers.

Good News, Everyone!

If you are a fan of playing Control decks, you should know that you are starting from a much better position than the unfortunate fans of Aggro; many of the cards you would play in 60-card decks remain staples of the Commander scene. Cards like [card]Counterspell[/card], [card]Wrath of God[/card], and [card]Necropotence[/card] are all still excellent choices. They will be just as good – if not better – in Commander as they were in 60-card.

To show you what I mean, let’s take a look at this article’s deck:

Old New Ghost Council – Dan H.

[deck]
[Commander]
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
[/Commander]
[Lands]
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
1 Godless Shrine
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Leechridden Swamp
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Orzhov Guildgate
14 Plains
1 Reliquary Tower
8 Swamp
1 Tainted Field
1 Temple of Silence
1 Temple of the False God
1 Thespian’s Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vivid Marsh
[/Lands]
[Spells]
1 Ashes to Ashes
1 Blind Obedience
1 Damnation
1 Debt to the Deathless
1 Debtors’ Knell
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Fated Retribution
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Gild
1 Glaring Spotlight
1 In Garruk’s Wake
1 Makeshift Mannequin
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Mortify
1 No Mercy
1 Norn’s Annex
1 Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
1 Obzedat’s Aid
1 Path to Exile
1 Perilous Vault
1 Plague Wind
1 Return to Dust
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Sol Ring
1 Sorin Markov
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Terminus
1 Test of Endurance
1 Tragic Slip
1 Unburial Rites
1 Underworld Connections
1 Utter End
1 Vindicate
1 Wrath of God
[/Spells]
[Creatures]
1 Archon of Justice
1 Ashen Rider
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Basilica Screecher
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Indulgent Tormentor
1 Kingpin’s Pet
1 Magus of the Coffers
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Pontiff of Blight
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Sun Titan
1 Syndic of Tithes
1 Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
1 Thrull Parasite
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Vizkopa Guildmage
1 Windborn Muse
[/Creatures]
[/deck]

Dan, my good friend and podcast co-host, has a real love of spooky things. I discussed his Shade Tribal monstrosity when I was talking about mono-black decks, and now we’re looking at a deck headed by everyone’s favourite ghostly mafioso.

I’m sure that if you comb through the list above, you can see that a lot of the cards in there would be right at home in a Control deck no matter the format. Dan is packing powerful spot removal in the form of cards like [card]Vindicate[/card], [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card], and [card]Ashes to Ashes[/card]. He has cards that rein in out-of-control boards in the form of [card]Wrath of God[/card], [card]Damnation[/card], and [card]Merciless Eviction[/card]. He has win conditions in the form of [card]Felidar Sovereign[/card], [card]Test of Endurance[/card], and the Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo.

The heart of the deck beats to the same rhythm as RWU in Modern or Esper Dragons in Standard: exhaust the resources of each opponent and win when they can’t fight back.

Extorting an Advantage

The differences between building Control in 60-card constructed and building it in Commander are subtle. Doing a break down piece-by-piece or card-by-card wouldn’t be very helpful. Instead, I think it’s best to approach with broader strokes. To that end, let’s take a look at a mechanic which helps communicate what you want from your Control deck in Commander. The mechanic I want to examine plays a key part in Dan’s list.

Everyone, meet Extort.

Syndic of Tithes

Okay, I lied. If we want to frame the discussion of extort properly, we do have to do a card-to-card comparison. We’re also stepping away from B/W for a moment. Let’s take a breather and contrast [card]Cancel[/card] and [card]Counterflux[/card].

On the surface, both of these cards are very similar. They are both permission spells, they both have a converted mana cost of three, and both of them can only really be played by decks with a heavy blue component. In most games of Magic, the two will likely be interchangeable.

The reason I am pulling out this comparison before discussing extort is a because of a key line of text on [card]Counterflux[/card]: “each spell you don’t control” (yes, I am paraphrasing the exact wording of the card a bit). Casting [card]Counterflux[/card] for its overload cost transforms it from a precise instrument into a blunt object. Instead of being [card]Terminate[/card], it becomes [card]Plague Wind[/card].

Control decks win by attrition. They gradually build up their own advantages and grind away those of their foes. In Commander, you are usually going to be faced by multiple opponents, so the most efficient path to victory is to grind all of them away at the same time. Every precise instrument you employ puts you ahead of one or two specific people – but every blunt object you wield puts you ahead of everyone else, all at once.

You want all of your spells to have a little bit of [card]Plague Wind[/card] in them.

Extort is a great tool for discussing Control in Commander because it puts that pinch of extra trauma into everything you cast; it is the perfect example of the kind of thing you should be looking for in your Commander Control decks.

Cards like [card]Thrull Parasite[/card] and [card]Basilica Screecher[/card] may seem weak, but by the end of most games they will have dealt more damage than most [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card]s and [card]Grave Titan[/card]s. They make sure that every [card]Utter End[/card] or [card]Norn’s Annex[/card] you cast also reads “jump ahead of the table by 2-6 life”, which is a pretty good line of text on cards that are already making sure your position looks better than that of your enemies.

Put a Little Fence Around It

Cards like [card]Blind Obedience[/card], No Mercy, and [card]Norn’s Annex[/card] are included in Dan’s list for the same reasons that cards with extort are.

Four mana is generally considered a fair price for some really good spot removal ([card]Utter End[/card], [card]Return to Dust[/card], [card]Silence the Believers[/card]). Really good spot removal still only kills one threat. For the same investment, No Mercy kills things that belong to each opponent, indiscriminately. Cards like the ones listed above not only provide a far more profitable investment than the kind that are only cast once, they also have the added benefit of forcing opponents to play the game on the Control player’s terms.

Considering how the cards you play will make you look to your rivals is a very important part of successfully piloting Control in Commander. In regular constructed, your opponent is forced to run everything they have into your defenses if they want to win. Sustained pressure makes passive cards like [card]Windborn Muse[/card] much less effective.

In Commander, passive cards are unlikely to draw immediate attention. In fact, they will often encourage other players to commit their resources elsewhere. Pressing against the player that has their shields up will often leave the aggressor vulnerable to the rest of the table, which is not a position everyone is eager to be in.

Group psychology is an inescapable part of the Commander world. You won’t always want to jam your deck full of cards that mostly just buy you time, but take a look at your list and think about how you plan to win – time might be more valuable than you think.

Making Hard Choices

While Control decks adapt to Commander much more readily than Aggro decks do, no archetype is without weakness. The Achilles Heel of the Control deck lies less in its strategy and more in the player trying to implement that strategy. Learning how to properly react to threats is one of the most important lessons that a Control player has to master, and sadly – it is not something that can be truly mastered in Commander.

The ability to react as one should comes from understanding the threat posed by a given card, and much of that understanding comes from knowing why and how a card is used in certain decks. An experienced Modern or Legacy player likely has a pretty good idea of what the must-counter and must-kill cards are in a given match-up. An experienced Commander player will still be surprised every game.

There is a nearly limitless card pool and an overwhelming number of potential Commanders. Within that pool of Commanders, there are many that can be built in dozens of effective ways. Once you also factor in playing against many of those Commanders all at once, it becomes easy to see why assessing threats can be hard. You may think that throwing your [card]Path to Exile[/card] at the Ojutai player’s Heliod is the best thing you can do, but you might be leaving yourself open for when the Daretti player powers out a [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card] off of their [card]Gilded Lotus[/card] and its [card]Sculpting Steel[/card] copy.

Eventually, you will develop a good idea of what the big threats are in your play group. But whenever you sit down with new players, there is always going to be that moment where you second-guess your play and it ends up costing you dearly.

Information and time are probably the two most valuable resources for Control decks in Commander. Circling back to playing defensive cards – every turn that [card]Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts[/card] makes an opponent attack someone else is another turn you learn more about each deck at the table and get better at assessing the threats they might pose.

To live amongst the pod people, the Control player must be ever vigilant. For every card you draw, the opposition gets three – so you best make sure that you’re using yours wisely. React when you have to, but learn as much as possible before doing so. One wrong move, and you’ll never make it out alive.

2 Down

Aggro actively seeks victory; Control aims to keep it out of the opponent’s reach. The two approach winning Magic so differently that they are often compared as opposites. While the two archetypes definitely approach playing the game very differently, they have more in common than one might think.

The big similarity between both archetypes is that they require interaction with the opponent. Aggro decks have to bicker with opposing creatures and throw removal spells at blockers. Control decks focus almost entirely on meddling with their opponent right from the start.

I started with these two of the Big 3 precisely because they have the common ground of interaction. Aggro and Control can be discussed on similar terms. What I could say about one archetype, I could use to talk about the other. Next time I throw all of that interaction garbage out of the window to focus on the last, and most iconoclast, of the Big 3 – Combo.

So tune in next time for more inaccurate generalizations and half-baked advice. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am.

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