Pillow Talk - Competitive MtG Podcast
Join Team Pillow Fort on their quest to reinvigorate the competitive Magic the Gathering space and keep you informed on the latest tech on your journey to qualifying for the Pro Tour!
Hosts: Jonathan Johnson & Austin Walker
Pillow Talk - Competitive MtG Podcast
Pillow Talk MtG 17: All About Control
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Welcome to Pillow Talk, the official competitive Magic the Gathering podcast of Team Pillow Fort! This week, Ellison joins us fresh off his top 16 finish at RC Cinci and his first PT invite to talk to us about all things control. Thank you as always for listening!
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Welcome to Pillow Talk, the official podcast of Team PillowFort MTG. I'm your host, Jonathan Johnson, and with me as always, Austin Walker. Alright, Austin, we have another special episode today. We are going to talk a little bit about Cincinnati, which we just came from and went super well for me. But uh not really. It went really well for some friends though, including uh our guest today. So we're going through our series talking about different archetypes and kinds of decks that you can play. So we we talked about mid-range. Now we're going to talk about control, and we have none other than Ellison Berryhill, one of our team Pillow Fort members. And Ellison, welcome to the podcast, fresh off your first Pro Tour qualification.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Excited to go to the Pro Tour. Um yeah, it's a good, exciting time.
SPEAKER_03And you I think your your switch to control was relatively late, right? You you're I would say Ellison has a pretty good range, but if it there is a good control deck, you're probably playing that. And at what point did you see that there was a good control deck and said, yeah, forget these other decks?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to play in the event, and nothing was really speaking to me. Like the prowess deck was fine. The I I thought Landfall was really good. Obviously it had the finalists of the Pro Tour, but I thought people might be targeting a little bit, but I still thought that deck would be really strong. And uh so I played it a bit and I kinda got sideboard plans figured out, and then on Tuesday of the week of the tournament, I saw the control the four-color control deck with the tablet as the kind of card advantage and mana advantage engine, and thought that that looked great and had a bunch of good hopefully good matchups, and it fit how I like to play. You could cheat on mana a little bit, and it it just kind of spoke to me. So I fired it up on Arena, played a bunch of games, felt really strong about it, uh, and so it was like a Tuesday decision going into the tournament. I managed to scramble the deck together by a bunch of friends letting me borrow cards and it went from there.
SPEAKER_03She just said, screw it, let's cast some seven drops.
SPEAKER_00On turn five.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you get to play Jess Guy Revelation and on turn five, and that wins a lot of games. So I heard people talking about it's kind of like Blue Tron, where you're playing kind of a control deck, but you're cheating on mana, and it definitely has some of those vibes where if you have just a t you're having mana advantage on your opponent and your spells are bigger and better, it winning the game is kind of trivial.
SPEAKER_03So I know this deck was I I relatively prevalent online. I'd been playing against it uh I for quite a while. I was even complaining to my wife that I wanted to test against other stuff because every time I queued into a league or or the latter, it was always that control deck. What was it about this version that kind of puts you back on the control train instead of something like a blue white or just guy from from previous formats?
SPEAKER_04I think the mana was good enough. I'm not I'm I don't come up with mana bases very well, but it looked like people had solved the mana. And uh if you are are able to have the mana advantage from having the the tablet, then playing four mana removal spells or seven mana uh big spells is not that difficult. Because if you have to hit seven land drops to cast your seven mana spell, it it obviously comes in the late game. But if you can cheat on the mana a little bit with the tablet, you can play the the big expensive spells earlier. You can afford to play the inevitable defeat, which is obviously a really good removal spell, gains you some life, deals with anything uncounterable, but that's if you're just making your land drops, that's a hard spell to really play because you're tapping out on turn four, what do they get to do? But if you are able to use the tablet to get more mana, you can play that and have another interactive spell, or hold a counter spell up, or draw some other cards, or whatever you can do, um, you're able to play these really powerful cards without the disadvantage that you normally have, and the tablet is really helpful with that. And so that's kind of what motivated me to play this deck, specifically the way the tablet worked. There was conversation about the loot, the new mana thing that doubled all of the lands, and you can play that with the X spells from the new set, the Math Magics, the one that if you have seven lands and the loot, you just make them draw their whole deck, or the I don't remember what the name of the card is. The oh the traumatic critique. If you have the traumatic critique and a bunch of mana, you can kill that way. Um but that felt like tapping out on turn four for the loot that could get spell pierced or blown up or interacted with in some way. You didn't really need all of that mana. Just having the little bit of advantage of mana from the l the tablet was enough to get you over the edge where you could play these expensive cards, play these maybe not as efficient as you would want in a regular deck kind of cards, because you just get that little bit of mana advantage. So you don't need to go crazy on mana with a loot, you can just kind of get the little bit of jump up with the tablet.
SPEAKER_03So have you always been drawn to control decks, or was there a point in time that you just realized that you were better than everybody else?
SPEAKER_04Um I've kind of known that most of my life. That's like a a pretty standard thing for me. That's just kind of how I how I operate. But no, I uh I like control decks. I remember kind of one of my first memories of a control deck was a blue-white control deck that had uh Eternal Dragon and Mana Leak. This is showing my age a little bit. Um But I loved that you could pass, you played land on turn two, pass, and then if they play something, you could mana leak it, and if they don't play something, you could cycle eternal dragon and get a land, and then late in the game you could get the eternal dragon back and win with that. And that was just like I don't know why that stuck in my brain as like having that option of being really cool and really powerful, of being able to like, if they do something, you can interact with it, if not, you can advance your gameplay in another way. I really like doing that, and I really like having those choices, and that was kind of the first instinct of or the first instance that I experienced that. And now every time there's a control deck that gives me a lot of decisions and kind of can win a late game, I really want to play that style, and I really don't like playing against that as other decks. Like if I'm playing a mid-range deck and I get paired against a control deck, I I kind of feel this like tension in my chest because I know I'm gonna have to play through a bunch of interaction, and I just kind of am jealous that they get to do that. They get to play the long game deck while I don't. So now I like do I like playing the long game deck if I can.
SPEAKER_03So what about the card flicking? I notice control players are really good at flicking the cards a little bit of a slight head tilt when somebody does something to decide if you're gonna counter it or not. Did that come early or was that later?
SPEAKER_04The flick in the cards, I think that was kind of a peer pressure thing. If like everybody else does it, I've got to do it. Um but I I do think it is there's some posturing there that you have to do where it maybe more with with a control deck than with other decks of like you have to not give away that your hand doesn't have a control uh have a counter spell. So like they'll play something and you're looking at four lands and you're like flick them around and you're like, hmm, thinking about it, and then like you touch your lands a little bit, and they're like, oh no, that resolves. And you kinda are more supposed to do that with a control deck because you need your opponent to play around things and maybe make some inefficient plays because they might think something is in your hand.
SPEAKER_03And you ha you have to do that with a control deck, and so you do have to do the the card flicking and the posturing and did you get anybody this weekend with in the tournament where you were like flicking three lands or some nonsense and you know you they played around something you didn't have?
SPEAKER_04I don't think so. I don't I don't think that actually came up where somebody that I knew of changed their play. Like I I don't know what's in their hands sometimes, but I don't I don't think I got anybody by the posturing. And I sometimes it feels silly.
SPEAKER_00Ellison just always had it all.
SPEAKER_04I just had it, yeah. That's what that's how you qualify for the PT. You never have to you you just always have it.
SPEAKER_00Talk to me about what a control deck is. Because I think people have kind of uh a lot of different ideas about what a control deck is, you know. People think, well, if you have counter spells in your deck, then you're a control deck, right? Um that's kind of like the the base level of what people kind of uh associate control decks with. But give us your definition of what a control deck really is.
SPEAKER_04I think a control deck is a deck that is trying to win the game through card advantage instead of winning the game through just attacking and blocking. Where like a lot of like most of magic is you play creatures, you attack, you try to get your opponent's life total to zero. Um this a control deck is a deck that is trying to survive the early game, um, through it could be counter spells, it could be removal spells, it could be discard spells, whatever, of just interacting early, y stopping themselves from dying, and then in the middle game and the late game, kind of turning the corner, running your opponent out of resources, and uh winning the game kind of trivially with whatever whatever you have lying around. Like my four my the deck I played this weekend had no creatures in it, it made creatures with Jessica Revelation, which makes the two tokens, and it has some creature lands that you sometimes activate and turn into creatures. But winning the game through like actually dealing damage to your opponent is not at all prioritized in a control deck. The control deck is trying to interact early, stop your opponent's game plan, whatever their game plan is, you're trying to stop them from doing their plan, and you move into the mid-game and the late game where you turn the corner and you have more cards in them, and you get to kind of spiral from there. I think of it as in you're not the li the life totals kind of matter, like your life total matters, but generally the way to tell if a control deck is winning or losing is kind of the number of pieces of cardboard that they have. Like if the opponent has not many cards in hand, not much on the board, while the control deck has a bunch of cards in hand and a bunch of lands in play, the control deck is probably winning. So it's more about the card advantage than the actual life total.
SPEAKER_03So you're putting win conditions in your deck?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean sometimes. I I prefer to not play win conditions. One of my favorite control decks was the when you had Teferi 5.
SPEAKER_01Just tuck it. Yeah, nail them out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you don't you don't have to put any control win conditions in your deck. You just have the Teferi, you ultimate it, so every time you draw a card, you destroy one of their permanents, eventually they have no lands, and you're not gonna deck because you can always minus your Teferi to tuck it, and you're never gonna deck. They have no card they have no lands, they have no permanents, and they just will eventually deck out. And that is that's living. That's the dream.
SPEAKER_03So the win condition is is truly just the anguish of your opponents knowing they're they're slowly losing all hope.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. You win when your opponent loses. Like that's the Yeah, they don't they can lose on their own terms, they can just concede. I mean I have you have plenty of times where like you don't actually kill them. I've I've had plenty of games playing control where my opponent either sees the writing on the wall or I show them, like there was a game this past weekend, I showed them three Jeska revelations in my hand, and they didn't have much going on, and I was like, Are we good? And they agreed that we were good and went on to the next game.
SPEAKER_03That's smart though. I mean, one of the techniques to play against control and not get caught up with time is you you do sometimes have to know when you've lost, so you can move on and try to get two more games, and that that matters.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, for sure. So uh I I think I think we we have some blurred lines sometimes between what a control deck is and what a mid-range deck is. Um I think a lot of times they're they're both trying to uh you know out card advantage their opponent and you know stick a big threat somewhere in the late game. Um what would you say is like the big difference between a mid-range deck and a control deck?
SPEAKER_04I think a mid-range deck and I I listened to the episode that you all had about mid-range, and I think it mid-range can much more easily choose its role, like who's the beatdown, who's the control. I think a mid-range deck can more often be the beatdown. They may have cheap creatures, they may have more threats, they may have things that are more s more kind of dedicated to winning the game than a control deck, while the control deck is really it's not gonna win quickly. It's not going to have the ability a lot of the time to really win a game super quickly and to put pressure on on an opponent in actual like pressuring their life total while you you have a lot of way to pressure the card advantage and pressure the board state, but you don't have a lot of actual ability to pressure their life total. Well, I think a mid-range deck has the tools to put on an aggressive plan or a a semi-aggressive plan, while a control deck is is less able to do that. I mean obviously there I think you're right that there is some some blurring of those lines, because would you say that a turn 5 Jeskai Revelation, turn six Jeskai Revelation, f dealing four damage to the opponent, and making the monks that have haste is that a mid-range game? Kind of. And I think all of these things are kind of a spectrum, but I think we really a control deck is when you look at the deck list and you think about how the games play out, the plan is I'm gonna make this game against nearly any opponent go for a long time and just grind up a bunch of card advantage, get way ahead on the card advantage battle, and then figure out how to win the game. While the mid-range deck is like, depending on what I'm playing, I will choose to either play the control role, try to win on a mid-range b uh win on a control card advantage axis, or try to be more aggressive, try to do the beatdown, and try to finish the game quickly. I think a mid-range has those options and has the tools to pick a lane while the control deck is on the deck list choosing its lane.
SPEAKER_00So when you're looking at building these control decks, and I I know that you know, like you you said that you're you're not great with building mana bases and and all of that, and and I would assume that probably a lot of the control decks that you've picked up are probably you know lists that you've found, and and I'm sure that you've had some innovations and stuff too. But when when you're looking at putting together a control deck, um what are you looking at for your deck composition? Like what what is your what is your deck consist of and and how many numbers, you know, how many win conditions, what types of uh pieces of removal are you looking for? Like what is what does that deck composition look like?
SPEAKER_04I think that the on the win condition, ideally zero. Ideally nothing in the deck is dedicated as a win condition. But sometimes you have to play some, sometimes you have to play a few just based on what's available in the format. Um the win conditions I really like are like I played at Baltimore in the V format and I had some Elspeths in my main deck. They were on the one hand, they make tokens that attack and win the game, but they also kill something. They all they give you some card advantage. They're not just win conditions. So that's how you're you're picking your win conditions, hopefully with a card that can give you multiple options, multiple fits multiple roles within your deck. The another thing you want to think about when building a control deck is you have to have a lot of lands. Because you want to make almost all your land drops for almost the whole game. And you don't want to get to about four or five lands and stop making land drops, because you want to be able to play a land every turn, play your bigger spells, two spell earlier than your opponents. You really want to have a mana advantage as the game goes into that mid and late game. While your opponent is missing land drops, you're not, you have more ability to cast spells. And in order to accomplish that, you have to play a lot of lands in your deck. I played 27 lands in my deck this weekend, plus the four tablets, which make mana as well. So it's it wa it's a lot of mana. And I think twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-six is a more normal amount. Twenty-seven was kind of a lot, but you really just you have to make your land drops, you have to get ahead on on the mana, and so you have to have a lot of lands. So you have more lands, not that many win conditions, you have to have cheap interaction. I I tend to build my control decks with a lot of cheap interaction because my philosophy is if I can get to the middle mid-game, get to the late game, if I can just survive, then hopefully I've drawn enough card advantage in sources to get ahead of get ahead of them. But I need to be able to interact early. I added some more uh another lightning helix, another sear to the stock four color control list this weekend because I just wanted to be able to kill my opponent's stuff and get to that that middle and late game. So that was a that's a big focus for me is really putting a lot of emphasis on the early interaction. You do want interaction that's good in the mid-game. That's what this this four color deck is really good about, because it has the uh inevitable defeat, and it has I have two day of judgments in my deck, and that are obviously very good at clearing up a board. Like if I I can stock up on turn three, knowing that I can day of judgment the next turn, clean up whatever they played, and we get the board empty again, and I can start moving into the late game. So the sweepers are a big part of control decks. That was the back in the day. You play Wrath of God, you played Supreme Verdict, you played Terminus in the Miracles deck in Legacy, when that was my baby, and I played that deck forever. Uh Terminus is great because obviously it's one mana, g get rid of all of the all of the creatures. So you want to have some sort of sweepers that's part of your card advantage strategy, is by having sweepers that can kill multiple of your opponent's creatures for one card. So you spend one you spend four mana on one day of judgment, you destroy three creatures, that's kind of a three for one. And depending on how much your opponent plays around it, maybe they put a lot of creatures in play, and you get a lot of advantage that way. So sweepers are pretty fundamental to a control strategy, whether it's the Wrath of God effects or some sort of like Pyroclasm or Slagstorm or something to deal a bunch of uh a bunch of damage to a bunch of creatures. And then you want your card advantage engines. You want ideally there's something like Sphinx's Revelation, where you draw a million cards, gain a million life, and that cements your win, but they don't give us stuff like that as much these days. So we have to do things like stock up or consult the star charts or Jessica Revelation to draw a couple cards, and then you use those cards to move yourself into the late game of having more card advantage. So you kind of often I will stock up and want like a land and another stock up, or an interactive piece and another stock up, where you can chain them into a huge advantage. So you have your your card advantage engines as well. And then counter spells, I think I I we talked about removal spells. You want some number of counter spells in a lot of your control decks because you don't want everything to resolve. Like o often you have a bunch of removal spells that can blow up something that's in play, but often th cards these days have enter the battlefield effects or hexproof, like with the leather head it has hexproof, and so you want to be able to counter these things and not let them come in play and do their effects. So you have to stop things on the stack sometimes. Uh and so you want to have some number of counter spells. I played four this weekend and with two of the mana leaks, uh normalize, and two uh three steps ahead. Just as a way to like interact on the stack some without overcommitting to that aspect. Because you really don't want something to resolve and then you're holding three counter spells in your hand while it beats you to death and you want a removal spell. So there's a balance on all of that, on how much counter spell, how much removal you want in your interaction suite.
SPEAKER_03Plus, we have cavern of souls in the format, so it's kinda rough to be sitting on a normal wise and somebody says Cavern of Souls on elemental lol and play their deceit and take cards.
SPEAKER_04That happened to me tonight. I played a local event tonight, and I sat there with a disdainful stroke and that I brought out of my sideboard, and he played a cavern of souls, and I looked at the I I showed him the disdainful stroke as he deceited me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, those are those are tough. Uh I I feel like anytime I am playing any type of counter spell and I'm looking at a cavern of souls, like anytime my Opponent gives me the opportunity to get that card out of my hand, even if it's not a good opportunity, just any opportunity at all. I I just jump at it, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And that's flexibility on your cards is important. Uh in a c in anything. Like we like flexible cards, but that's one of the things about three steps ahead is it has three different modes. And so if you can't counter anything or it's awkward, like sometimes you hit it off a tablet and you just do the draw to discard mode. Or you can make a copy of something. Like you can make I made a copy of an emeritus of ideation this weekend, which was a really good use for that card when the counterspell mode was not very good. So I think having the flexibility to use having your counter spell do something else, or if you have a discard, draw a discard spell, you can discard your counter spells, um, all of these things are useful in using your cards to the best of the ability, because if you're trying to win by card advantage, the the way you do that is by having good useful cards. And if you have a bunch of cards that are not doing anything because they have a cavern or they have a mystery village or something, then you're losing that advantage that you would have had otherwise.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's all really good stuff. Um and and it's it's a good way to think about like cards like cavern of souls too, uh, as the opponent to the control deck, you know, like if if my opponent has four cards in hand and I have one card in hand, uh, but I have a cavern of souls and my opponent has four counter spells, then like sure my opponent has more pieces of cardboard in hand, but I'm really up on cards because you know, as long as I'm not playing into those counter spells and I have my cavernous souls, then um, you know, my my opponent really can't get much use out of those anyway. So we talked a little bit about that last weekend, and and I I think that's something that is easy to overlook uh when you're you know when you're talking about card advantage, and it's like yes, sometimes a a card on the hand is not actually worth a full card because of cards like cavern of souls.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, and I think that you've got to think about when we talk about winning by card advantage. I think we w we would be amiss talking about control decks without talking about the The Deck by Brian Weisman. And that, if anybody hasn't heard of it, that was 1996, early days of magic. It was kind of the first control deck that existed. And one of the cards in it that was that was really good was mote. And if you don't know mote, it says creatures without flying can't attack. And uh so that is a way of getting card advantage over your opponents who have creatures without flying. Because if you have your moat in play, which is uh two white white enchantment, then all of their creatures without flying are useless. And uh you don't play any creatures without flying because your only creatures are two Sarah Angel. So Moat is a good example of pseudo-card advantage where it is you it is one card, and they may have way more pieces of cardboard, but their pieces of cardboard are useless because you have a moat in play and they can't attack you.
SPEAKER_03So what's the draw to this kind of playstyle? When when somebody's trying to figure out sort of their identity in magic, why a control deck over other options? What what would what do you think would be the the pitch if you're trying to sell somebody on being a control player?
SPEAKER_04Well, I kind of the spiky way of thinking about it is you don't really want to have like a thing that you always do. You want to play whatever's good. But I think that if I'm pitching somebody on a specific control deck, the way I'm gonna pitch them is to look at what other people are doing in the metagame. Like what are they, how are they trying to win the game, what cards are they using, what are their threats, what are their um what are their game plans? And then are there tools to build a control deck that specifically attacks what they are doing? Not just because you don't build a control deck in a vacuum. Like you don't just like, yep, I'm gonna put my four mana leaks and my four wrath of gods, and this is gonna be a good deck. It doesn't it is you're building your control deck because you think the format is open to attack by a control deck. Like, I played it in the the V V format. And the reason uh one, I didn't want to play a million VV mirrors, which is probably a leak on my part, but I also thought that if the format is gonna be 60% V V, then I can build a control deck that aims for that, that has rest in peace, the main deck, that it has planeswalkers that are sometimes hard for them to deal with. Like I have I can build my deck in a way that tries to beat that specific deck. And I would think that control if I'm pitching somebody on a control deck, the way I would be talking about is not about what's in the control deck, but about what's in the other people's decks. What are our opponents gonna be playing? What are their what are their threats? What are their what are their game plans, and here are the cards in the format that I can put in my control deck to attack their plan. And that if the cards that I can put in my deck line up well against those plans that a majority of the format is gonna play, then I think a control deck is a good option. But it is really about what are other people gonna be doing. That's why I think often control is not very good in modern, because modern is not a format where there's gonna be two or three decks that make up 60% of the format. It's a format that is broad, and there's people attacking you from different angles. There are people trying to neoform you, there's people trying to borrow synergy you, there's amulet titan, or there was amulet Titan, and the they're coming at you from all different angles. So if you it's hard to have generic hate pieces, generic card advantage and generic interaction that's good against all of that. So you're unlikely to build your control deck in a way that can handle everything in modern. While if there's a standard format that like this weekend, I was thinking that they would be about 60%, maybe 50% of the format on some sort of prowess version prowess deck or landfall deck, or like subsistence of that having like spell mentals and Celestia Cub. And so it's like, okay, if these are gonna be 60% of the format, I can build my deck to aim at them. Versus if the format's wide open and there's a bunch of decks that are at 5%, I'm less likely to be able to play a control deck because I'm not gonna be able to target them.
SPEAKER_03That makes sense. Yeah. So it's it's it's less necessarily about your deck specifically, but the the draw is that you can sort of target a meta and find ways to exploit it. Is that sort of what you're saying?
SPEAKER_04Yes, exactly. You'd want to play a control deck when you have you can predict what a lot of your opponents are gonna be playing and play the cards that are good against them. Because they're gonna try to they're gonna off most of the time they're trying to build up a good board of creatures or attack you or build up and if you can play the right cards that target that and stop them from executing their game plan, then you can successfully control the board, stop yourself from dying, and move to the mid-game. So yeah, it's about if you can predict the metagame and build your deck in a way that can attack that metagame.
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SPEAKER_03Their full event schedule, updated every month, and you can see everything happening at gameighttn.com.
SPEAKER_00That's game night in Columbia, Tennessee, where the community actually shows up. So I want to switch gears a little bit. Um there's there's probably some people that have not really played a whole lot of control decks or they've kind of dipped their toes in it and haven't been successful. Um, and uh I want to just ask like some general questions about uh maybe like some mindsets when it comes to different decision making. Because with control with control decks, there are a lot of decisions throughout the entire game, pretty much no matter what game you play. What types of things are you looking for in a game for you to want to either hold a counter spell or use your counterspell on a particular threat or you know s some other uh spell?
SPEAKER_04I think that's a really good question because in your in your control deck, you're gonna play a long game. And so what you kind of want to think about doing is laying out their whole deck, laying out your whole deck, and lining up here are the th here are the answers that work best against their threats in their deck. And you don't want to spend a good res a g really good removal spell on a not very good creature if the you know that their deck has this other creature that is only targeted by that removal spell. Leatherhead is a good example. If I have a counter spell, like say I my opponent plays a normal three-drop creature, some sort of uh just some normal creature, and I have a sweeper, a spot removal spell, and a counter spell, and I know they have Leatherhead in their deck, which is the 5-4 that has a hexproof counter on it. I am not gonna want to spend my uh counter spell or sweeper answering their random 3 mana beater, because I can use the spot removal spell to kill it most of the time, and then save my counterspell and my sweeper to deal with the leatherhead. Because the leatherhead has a more narrow number of answers that can deal with it versus just the random 3-4 beater. Or like Suroc. You cannot counter that. And you don't want to spend a removal a spot removal spell on it, you want to spend a sweeper on Suroc. So if you know they have a Siroc in their deck, then you may want to spend your counter spells and your spot removal spells earlier on other things, they play their Surok, you play your sweeper, you get that one on one-to-one interaction, versus giving them the card that you would give them if you targeted it or if you like countered another spell while the Siroc was in play. So it's really about trying to think through what threats your opponent could have in their deck that you have to answer, because you're gonna have to answer a lot of things. The game is not gonna be fast. So you're gonna have to answer many, many threats out of your opponent's deck, and you have to do it in the way that is efficient on mana and also efficient on cards. Like the reason you don't want to target a Surak is it gives them a card, so you're getting two for one when you use a spot removal spell on Suroc, versus if you use a sweeper, it's a one for one. And so, and then Leatherhead, you can't target it, so you have to save the sweeper or the counter spell for the leatherhead. So you just have to be ready with the long game of I know I have a s idea of what threats they're gonna play, and I don't want to waste spells on something that are necessary to answer a different threat down the road because I'm not ending this game quickly, they're gonna have time to draw them. So it's really one of the things that's really nice about open deck lists is you know exactly what's in their deck, at least in game ones. You know, like I would look at my deck this weekend, my opponent's deck list this weekend on it in the open deck list tournament and say, oh, they have one leatherhead, or they have one spell pierce, or they have whatever. Like you just know exactly what threats, you know exactly what interaction, and you can really make your game plan of I need to lay out their whole deck and get a sense of how much how many threats they have and how my removal lines up best against that and play that way. Um obviously sometimes you just have to kill something. Like tonight my opponent had a Hydroman, the thing that turns into a land on their turn, and I used a sear on that, and then they played the horse, made a copy of the horse, the color storm stallion, made a copy of it and just killed me. And if I had saved my sear, I could have killed the color storm stallion. But it's just like I don't want to give them the extra mana, so I'm just gonna go ahead and use my removal spell on the the hydroman. And I don't know if that was right or wrong, but it is sometimes you just have to clean the board up and kill things, but sometimes you have to really be kind of surgical about this is the spell I have to say for this threat. I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Um kind of along the same lines, but uh a a different uh a little bit different question. How often are you countering the card draw spell from your opponent? Let's say that you're playing the four-color control deck and you're playing against, you know, Demir X Cruciator, for example, right? Uh, and they cast a stock up on three. Um, you know, I've I've heard oftentimes that you are not supposed to counter the card draw spell, uh, but I think that it's also sometimes so tempting to want to just, you know, get the value from from countering it to make sure that your opponent doesn't get ahead on cards. And, you know, obviously as the control deck you want to stay ahead on cards. Um so when when are you trying to counter the card draw spell and when are you not?
SPEAKER_04That's a it's always a really interesting decision, and I think it's contextual because like game one, they probably have a bunch of air in their deck, because one of the things of your control deck is you don't have creatures, so most mid-range decks will have a bunch of air of by air I mean creature removal spells, and so even if they're getting card advantage, it doesn't really matter that much, because it's they probably don't like their deck has like twenty twenty cards, fifteen cards that don't do anything against you, so it's not they're not gonna get that much advantage from that. So game one, I'm less likely to counter it. Game two and three, I'm more likely to counter it because the individual cards are higher value in the postboard games, so they're the the draw to is more likely to get them to relevant piece of interaction versus a game one where it's less likely to. Um It also matters where, like how good is their like how what other things could you counter? Like if the card like my opponent tonight on uh was playing Elementals and had a I had a counterspell in my hand and they played a stock up, and I just snap countered it, because I'm not gonna be able to counter other stuff in their deck because they have Cavern of Souls. So I need to use my counterspell, in order to use my counterspell effectively, it's really only gonna be able to counter this stock up, so I'm gonna do that, because that's the that's the efficient way of using my interaction, otherwise this card's just gonna sit in my h hand and be useless. So it's like it really it really depends on a lot of the context of your hand, of like, is this counter spell gonna be useful another way? Is this just something has my po do I think my opponent's like gonna miss land drops? If they're missing land drops, you really want to counter the card advantage spell because you want them to continue missing land drops. Um, because the more land drops they miss, the more mana advantage you have, the more likely it is that you're gonna be able to survive to the mid and late game. So it is really context dependent, which I know is not a very uh clear answer, but it really depends on how what your opponent's plan is, how good your hand is, whether you have other ways of interacting, how good their deck is, how many relevant pieces is is in their deck. Um It also, like, if they're a combo deck, it's an interesting question, because you don't want them to draw their combo pieces. Like if it say they're a combo deck that has some something that doesn't let your counter spells work. Like you really don't want them to draw their Mysteries Village or something like that, that your counter spell won't work, so you want to counter the card draw spell to keep them from getting there. So it's a really context dependent and decklist dependent thing. I think it's you don't want to have a hard and fast rule. I know that the in the psychotog days, that was their hard and fast rule. Like you let all the card advantage resolve, you counter the like four threats they have. But I think it's more complicated now and is really dependent on your hand, their hand, your deck list, their deck list, how the game is played out, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like you kind of have to really know the format well to understand what's gonna matter. You know, if you don't have open deck lists, obviously you you you have to be able to make a pretty quick determination. One, what's my opponent doing, and two, what are the cards that are gonna matter in this matchup? Because you know, if you don't have the the benefit of looking at that deck list beforehand, like it you you do with an RC, you you just have to, I assume, have a pretty good idea of what a typical decklist would look like for anything you're playing against.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. And you have and obviously I think control decks are better in open deck lists, but the yeah, you have to have some sense of what they might do and what what you have to play around and what you have to worry about. And so keeping up on the metagame, keeping up on what the deck lists look like. I mean, if you're playing a control deck, the reason you're playing the control deck is because you know that stuff already. Because you know what their deck list is, that's why you have your control deck the built the way you have. Like you're not building your control deck in a vacuum, you're building it based on what other people's deck lists are. So you should you should know that if you're playing the control deck at all. Um, so yeah, you definitely have to know that stuff.
SPEAKER_00So uh another question too that um comes to mind a lot whenever I'm trying to pilot a control deck, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. When you are playing against an aggressive deck or a mid-range deck, uh I know that oftentimes it's it's very tempting when you see your opponent play two drop, three drop, and then you untap on four with a wrath in hand, you want to just go ahead and fire it off and reset the board. But if your options are playing a wrath or playing a removal spell and trying to bait your opponent into playing more creatures out, then what types of things are you thinking about uh as far as when to fire off your wrath and and when to just kind of keep the pace with your removal spells?
SPEAKER_04This is another thing that uh it depends on their deck list. If they have a bunch of reach, and by reach I mean the ability to like deal you a bunch of damage out of nowhere, burn spells, haste creatures, stuff like that, then uh you because one of the the balances of playing a control deck is using your life total as a resource. And I think this is what this question is getting to, where they have two creatures, do you want to use the sweeper and kill both of them, or use a removal spell, kill one of them, take some more damage from the one that lives, in the hope that your opponent will extend more and maybe overextend, you play your sweeper, it kills three creatures, and then you're more stable. And that a lot depends on what your life total is already, how much you think you can use your life total as a resource in the matchup, and uh how like good your interaction is. Because if you are if you're just gonna die by killing the one creature because the other creat they have a bunch of pump spells in their hand or something like that, then you don't want to leave any creature around. But if they don't have reach and they're just gonna have to play creatures and pass, and then you're gonna be able to use your sweeper and b kill everything, then you would want to do what you're saying of try to bait them into playing more stuff. And often it it also depends on how good the creatures are. Like, if you have a your opponent has a 1-1 and an 8-8, you probably can just kill the 8-8 and take some hits from the 1-1. But if it's like two 4-4s, you're less likely to do that. You're more likely to just kill them both. So it it depends on how much you're leaving your opponent with after the single removal spell versus the sweeper. Because if you're leaving them with a potent board and you're kind of tapping out for a a removal spell, then that's not great when you could just sweep everything and move on. So I think it it depends on the reach, it depends on the quality of the creatures, how good your hand is. Like I'm more likely to do that with an inevitable defeat, where I'm gonna gain some life and kind of stabilize a bit more, versus a uh like just a Doomblade or something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think that's always an interesting uh kind of debate with you know understanding what threats matter and and when you can take the damage versus the reach. And like you said, in in modern as an example earlier, if they've got a tribal flame so they can just five you out of nowhere, you have to be mindful of sort of where they can kill you or the the standard deck right now with the burn together fling. They can do a lot of damage in a pretty quick hurry to where it may not be safe to tap out for a wrath when they could just play a haste creature and kill you.
SPEAKER_04That happened to me tonight uh against that deck, and I did not know it was that deck because they had played as just a normal prowess deck. So I was like, okay, I'll just kill their stuff. I d I played a sweeper. And then they played a a Stormchaser talent, got a token, wild rider it, gave it haste, pumped it up again, hit me for eight, and then flung it at me. And I died at it from sixteen. And I don't know if I had a way to deal with it anyway, but the fact that that was something that their deck could do, I didn't know about because I didn't know that that's what deck they were playing, and then in the next few games I could play around it. But it was i if I had known that I probably would not have cast the sweeper and tried to hold up more interaction.
SPEAKER_03It it always feels terrible when you make the decision to tap out and then just get immediately punished for it, thinking I should have known better. Um some of those reads are are tough to make, but I think it's one of the the arts, right, of of being a good control player.
SPEAKER_04Because sometimes they don't have the punish. Sometimes you play your sweeper and then they go land pass, and then in the back of your mind you're like, alright, I won the game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So this is this is I think a topic that uh some people don't like to talk about, but I I think it's important. Um with control, obviously you you get the jokes, right? Uh if you're good against control, do you ID the first round so you can just get into the control bracket for all the unintentional draws? Talk to us about pace of play and sort of what are the tricks to being able to do well as a control player? And you know, secondly, are there some people you think just shouldn't play the decks be because of pace of play if if they're not good at keeping that up?
SPEAKER_04I think pace of play is critical, and I think you you just gotta play fast. You have to make like if you're not gonna do anything, make your land drop pass. And you gotta be really fast with the decisions that don't matter that much, and you have to kind of have a sense of how the game is gonna play out, so that you can think really hard about the decisions that do matter and take your time on the decisions that do matter, not rush yourself. But you want to take your time you want to play quickly on the decisions that don't matter as much. And I think this is I don't want to say people shouldn't play control decks. I want I want to say that if you're playing a control deck, you should be playing it because you have a sense of what the metagame is and you kinda have a sense of how the games go. So you can make a lot of decisions a lot of the easy decisions quickly. If you're gonna play in a big tournament, you should have played on Arena, played on Magic Online, and g have a good sense of how these games go so that you can make the decisions really quickly and move through the game and progress the game in an efficient way. Like you don't want to be thinking really hard on turn two about what land to play. Because one, it probably doesn't matter that much. Two, you just gotta get a land and a go. Like I played plenty of control mirrors with people who know what's up and we're just we're lightning speed until the the mid-game and the late game when the decisions are really impactful, really consequential, and we have to decide on them. So I w I don't think it's like if you're a slow player you shouldn't play a control deck. It's one, you probably gotta get faster generally, or you're gonna get draws with anything. And then two, if you're playing a control deck, you should know how you want the game to go and know how you're trying to navigate the game to get there and be able to manage it that way. Um and be able to play quickly in order to manage that. The it is also, I think, pretty important to be nice while you're playing a control deck, because there's a n non-zero number of times you're gonna be where you are way ahead and your opponent is they are dead, but they're not actually dead and you would really like them to concede because you are way ahead. And in a in a lot oftentimes they're they're not going to because it doesn't make sense to, and they're in a you're in a high-stakes match, but it it does come up where if you're nice and pleasant to play with, people are going to make the decision to concede to you, versus if you're being a jerk to the whole them the whole time. So I think that's part of it is you just gotta be you gotta play fast, you gotta think about the decisions that matter, but not think that hard about the decisions that don't matter, and then be a pleasant person when you're playing these games. And sometimes that's hard when like they're gonna be mad because you're countering everything they're doing. I had plenty of times where I when I was playing Miracles in Legacy, where my opponent was locked out with counterbalance Sensei's divining top lock and uh the game just lasted a long time and it was like this is not fun for them, but is I'm gonna win this game and I just need them to concede. And so like having being pleasant at the table throughout that is really helpful if you're in the end gonna be saying, Hey, I'm way ahead, can you can you concede instead of us getting a draw? Um but yeah, I think it's a big part of it, and you have to be you have to be cognizant of that, you have to be thinking about the timer and thinking about your pace of play constantly while you're playing control decks.
SPEAKER_03As someone who doesn't play control decks very often, you know, I played a lot of like Delver against those miracle stacks. You you do I think if you're not the control player, you have to know when you're dead and when to concede so you you don't get that time issue. So there's there it plays on both sides. Um I didn't think about having to be nice to play control, so I guess Austin and I are just gonna have to keep playing other archetypes.
SPEAKER_04Y'all are y'all are lovely to play against. I think y'all y'all should lean into control. I think you I think you would you'd be able to be to get those scoops in those hard moments.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm teasing. I'm teasing. But you know, that's it is a good point, though. One, I think that's a sort of a core principle of our team is is trying to be you know good members of the magic community. But also there's there's just some reality that it it can be frustrating, probably, to have all your stuff countered and killed and blown up, and you think you've got the game one and they stabilize it five life and you know, five for one you with the wrath of God. It can it could be a little frustrating to lose that way. And I think you know, being a pleasant person in in those moments and and trying to keep things moving along, but it it's a little bit sounds like when you're preparing for an exam. You know, you should take your control play like you're preparing for an exam. You've done your homework beforehand, so when you see the question, you already know the answer and and what you actually have to deal with it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, you should know the that like that's why you're playing the control deck, is because you know what threats they're gonna play and you know how to interact with them. It you do have to come in with some knowledge, and I I definitely agree with that.
SPEAKER_03So for those that are listening, and you you let's give them one one last pitch. So tell the people at home, you know, why they should consider control, why why you love the archetype, and and why you think it's uh you know a really fun part of magic.
SPEAKER_04So if you like playing games that take 30 minutes where you never play a threat and you never actually turn the corner in the game, and all you're doing is making the your opponent fail, if you like that, you would like control decks. If you just like stopping them from from progressing the game without progressing the game at all yourself, if you like that, you would like control.
SPEAKER_02So if you're a sadist, basically, is that what you're telling me?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like if you just like like causing unpleasant causing people to feel unhappy, then this is the deck for you. Um, I think if you like thinking about long games and thinking about decklist versus decklist instead of just like my hand and m the top ten cards of my deck versus your hand and the top ten cards of your deck, if you like thinking about magic in like the long game of like how everything is gonna line up over the the the twenty turns that I want this game to last, if you like thinking that way, then control is a good deck for you. Or if you like thinking about formats kind of holistically, where instead of just like what deck do I like because I like this deck, instead of thinking that way, if you like thinking about here's what this format does, and here's what my opponents are gonna try to do and how I want how and I can think of how to stop them from doing that, whether it's counter spells, removal spells, sweepers, whatever, and if you like thinking about how to attack metagames that way, and instead of just like developing your own game plan, I think you like controlled decks. And it's some of the most fun magic you can play too. When you like have a game plan and you have you execute your game plan and you get a matchup where I know what this person's gonna try to do, I know what I need to do to stop them, and then you do that, that is so satisfying in a way that uh I don't know, playing creatures and attacking isn't as satisfying. So I think it's you if you have that mindset and you like kind of doing your homework and getting a sense of how everybody's gonna play out and going after them, then play control decks.
SPEAKER_03That's a really interesting point. I mean, it's also a deck where when you're playing control, you get to play a lot of magic. Oh, yeah. So your wins feel really fun because you're you're playing for 45 out of 50 minutes in the round, and you you got to experience 45 minutes of winning. Where maybe if you're you're winning much faster than that or or losing much faster than that, it it's not quite as enjoyable. So um I have heard that from control players too, that you you get to really feel those wins and you get to play a lot of magic, which obviously it's why we play the game.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you defin you definitely get to I I've often struggled when I play like a aggro deck, like a especially like a burn deck or something, where I felt like I didn't have any agency in the games, where it didn't matter what I did because I drew too many lands and I was I died, or whatever. You rarely feel that in control decks. Like I often when I lose in a control deck, I can think back, like what I was talking about earlier about whether I use the sear on the Hydra Man. It's like that was a decision I made, and I can think, if I make this decision different, would I win the game? And what is my decision making process and all that. You get that in a control deck in almost every game, in a way that you don't as much in other other formats. So it's kind of maybe you kind of have that masochistic thing too, not just sadism, you have masochism too, where I want to make myself feel bad because I know all my losses are my fault. So that's so you kind of get it going both ways that way.
SPEAKER_03Alright, y'all. You heard it here on Pillow Talk. Uh sadomasochists, control decks are for you.
SPEAKER_04There it's great. It's it's it's exactly what I want out of life.
SPEAKER_03Um alright. So with that, it's closing time. And we we play the game here where we've got some pillow talk, we've got to take a deck home. Uh give us your your choice in standard uh and in modern if you've got a tournament for for each this weekend. Uh what what deck are you taking home, Ellison?
SPEAKER_04I would probably I mean I like the four-color control deck. I think it's still good. Uh the I think it has more of a target on its back, and I think that the metagame is going to be broader. I don't think it's gonna be as narrow, and I think way fewer people are gonna play spellamentals, and I think that is like I'm talking about like this weekend or in DC. And so I would I think control is still good. It may not be the best thing to be doing, because spellamentals is gonna go down, that's a great matchup, people are gonna bring in more hate for it, you have more of a a target on your back. So it's either it would either be the four color control deck or some sort of prowess soup deck with maybe the fling deck, maybe the the one of those other decks. So but I'd probably play four color control just because I like it. Um modern, that's kinda that question's hitting me where it hurts. I've been an amulet titan player for about a year. Um I was excited to play Amulet at the Pro Tour, and then they told me that that's not allowed anymore.
SPEAKER_03And so I'm still Well, you can play Amulet of Vigor and Primeval Titan. That is that is allowed.
SPEAKER_04That's true. They didn't ban those cards, but they banned the loops. I I mean maybe we can valicate something, I don't know. We'll figure that out. But um I'm playing a modern RCQ tomorrow, and I'm playing Esper Stone Blade because they gave me GTA back, and I don't know if it's good, but I'm gonna play it in a tournament. So it's just like Frog, Stoneforge Mystic, Felia, Solitude, Thought Seas, just kind of a mid-range soup deck with uh GTA and uh the Cauldr Complete and the Meteor Sword, because if you flicker the Meteor Sword with Felia, you just get to blow up a land every turn, and that's livin'.
SPEAKER_02That's that's very rude. That's what I'm playing.
SPEAKER_04That is livin'.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, it's definitely um I I a hot take, which I don't think is that hot of a take. I think G-Tay is gonna be really meaningless and modern. I don't think it's gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_04It's good against Boros, though. The Boris decks without the without flage are much more like aggro decks. And GT very good against aggro creature decks. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_01Alright. Austin, closing time. We take it home.
SPEAKER_00So for standard, uh, I think I'm gonna go with the Is It Fling deck. I think that deck is really, really cool, and man, when your opponent taps out, you just feel like you have the the whole world at your fingertips. Uh super cool deck. I've been playing around with it a little bit, and it's been it's been a lot of fun. Uh so that's my pick for standard. And uh I can't believe that I finally get to say this, but for modern, man, I am so excited to cast two 4-4 rhinos for three mana again at instant speed. I I can't believe that they gave it back to me. I'm I'm just so happy that uh that I get to be crashing some footfalls again.
SPEAKER_03Amazing. That is true.
SPEAKER_00So I think we're gonna go with uh I think we're gonna go with probably the the domain uh the rainbow rhinos deck.
SPEAKER_03Domain Rhinos. That's what you played in uh what Denver like a couple years ago, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh so that was the breakout deck for that weekend, and I was not on the domain version. Uh I was just on the regular TR version. But yeah, I did play Rhinos in in Denver a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_03First first big tournament I played Rhinos. It wasn't even really that popular yet. It was the the the GP that wasn't a GP in Las Vegas, you know, right in the midst of COVID was like the first big event that we did, and uh ended up having uh a pretty good result. Uh and Rhinos was super fun, so very good deck, and glad to have that back uh living in on you know with violent outbursts on my upkeep with force subdigation backup. Maybe I'm a little less excited about that, but uh you know, there's there's stuff you can do about it. So for standard, I'm gonna pick the Azorius Momo deck. I think that practice defense is a super fun card. Um being able to just kind of like tempo daydream flicker a Riddler has been pretty fun. I think that deck is sneaky good, uh, except for against our Sado masochistic friends. I think it's pretty bad against control, but has a otherwise reasonable matchup spread. I think you could probably get some points in that matchup, but I I don't think it's even necessarily worth fixing, just depends on how popular you expect it to be. But you know, if the 10% of the room that's on control beats me up and you have a good matchup spread otherwise, I think that deck has uh you know potential to do well.
SPEAKER_04You just dodge them. Yeah, exactly. It'll be fine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just draw the good cards. Uh the modern deck that I would play is a little bit harder to answer. Um, I've I've really liked the Em Recutter deck. I do think that this unbanning of violent outburst, and then of course, like the banning of Lotus Field and Flagge is going to change things a lot. You do lose. I thought Blink was one of my better matchups, and I enjoyed playing against that. Um Boros was a more difficult matchup, so if that deck becomes less popular, I think that that's a good thing. So the Emery deck is probably still good, but I'm going to say that I'm going to brew a deck just to make Austin miserable with his Cascade Spells. I'm going to play four Teferi Time Raveler, four Vexing Bobble in my control deck that I'm going to brew at um at Ellison's prompting. So um, I think that's great. But I that that's my start is four vexing bobble, four teferi time raveler.
SPEAKER_00Sounds like a nightmare.
SPEAKER_04I love that. And they have flexibility, like we're talking about. Like you can draw cards with your vexing bobble, you can bounce things with Teferi, pitch it to Solitude, force negation. I like this deck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh Solitude seems like a bad combo with four Vexing Bobble, but I I guess you could uh sack your yeah.
SPEAKER_04You figure it out.
SPEAKER_03We'll figure it out. So we're gonna brew that. But uh in all seriousness, I would I would probably still play the gutter deck. Um I I do think that uh Living End will be pretty reasonable, but there's lots of cards with consigned to memory and vexing bobble that I think make Cascade far less oppressive than it used to be. And I personally don't even know how oppressive it really was when they banned it, but that's my two cents.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Alright.
SPEAKER_04And Fury was legal, and that made it pull of rest in peace.
SPEAKER_03Alrighty, Allison. We do appreciate you coming in and sharing your your knowledge with us. Um, we're super excited for you to be going to Amsterdam and playing in your first pro tour. Well earned. You've worked hard and super proud of uh what you've done, and we just really appreciate you taking the time and we thank you for coming to our pillow talk.
SPEAKER_04Appreciate y'all having a