Things We Lost in the Fire: Playing Control in Post-Rotation Standard, part I
To say that this past rotation to the Standard format was long overdue would be an understatement, to say the least. Featuring sets that were released over three years ago alongside complete powerhouses that even went so far as to define other formats like Pioneer, it is safe to say we were all eager for a change. In this article, I'd like to discuss what exactly this change brings to my favorite archetype to play, control — what is lost in the fire of rotation and why might replace what has to be left behind. Without further ado, let's get started. I have separated the cards I want to discuss into four categories: interaction, card draw, win conditions and mana base. I decided to look at the cards found in the two most prominent builds of control: Dimir (blue-black, or U/B) and Azorius (blue-white, or U/W).
In the first part of this post, I'll cover all the interaction spells that rotated alongside a few suggestions to replace them. All cards will have their Scryfall links when they are first mentioned in the article.
Hope it helps! Let me know if you have any suggestions or if I have missed anything.
March of Otherworldly Light
With Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty leaving Standard, White loses its most versatile removal spell. The ability to remove an artifact or enchantment at instant speed while also being efficient creature removal made very easy to run this card as at least a 2-of in most UW Control shells. Also, we don't destroy the permanent, but rather exile it. It is quite difficult to justify allocating a slot in the 60 to a Disenchant effect, but with March of Otherworldly Light we rarely felt as if we had a dead card in our hand depending on the match up, as there were most of the time something that we would want to remove out of a creature, an enchantment or an artifact.
The sheer versatility of this card did not only lie at types of permanents it could answer, but also in its ability to pitch white cards from hand as a reducing effect. While you, in theory, were always mana-negative in trading resources with your opponent in order to answer their threats (like, for example, paying 4 mana to exile the 3-mana Urabrask's Forge), you could trade up card advantage in order to surprise your opponent when leaving only one single white mana up.
Finally, I will certainly miss perhaps the most efficient way to remove creature lands that we had in Standard for a while, as their X cost was always 0. The combination of March of Otherwordly Light + Get Lost meant that UW Control had, in game 1, answers to every single type of nonland permanent at instant-speed at very little cost in terms of deck building.
Now, besides the aforementioned OG, Disenchant, we have a few options:
Bovine Intervention: An instant-speed removal spells that hits both artifacts and creatures, but leaves out enchantments and has the drawback of giving them a 2/2. While the 2/2 is certainly something, the biggest downside of this card is certainly its versatility, as cards like Virtue of Persistence and Virtue of Loyalty are still very powerful and can win the game by themselves if left unchecked for a few turns. Bloomburrow also gave us very strong enchantments in Bandit's Talent and Innkeeper's Talent that we also want to remove as soon as possible. I have my doubts that this can be played in the main deck as March of Otherworldly Light was.
Make Your Move: While three-mana can seem like quite a lot, I am much more of a fan of this card than Bovine Intervention, as it does deal with all permanent types that March of Otherworldly Light did, albeit with a not so insignificant restriction: having the ability to remove only creatures with 4 or more power. This excludes very important creatures like Preacher of the Schism and the newly-released powerhouse Zoraline, Cosmos Caller, but it does answer something like an Atraxa or a Sheoldred and also most of the creatures from the Prowess decks once they are properly powered up. I can see UW Control running perhaps a copy or two of this in the main deck in some of their flex slots if they expect a lot of artifacts or enchantments.
Requisition Reid: There is not getting over the fact: this is sorcery-speed removal and it does not deal with creatures, but only artifacts and enchantments. This alone makes me consider this card only as a sideboard piece to bring in certain match ups, as the non-removal mode for a control player (placing a +1/+1 counter on all of our creatures) is rarely something we want to invest mana on, specially at sorcery-speed. Yet, I'm very intrigued by the possibility of this card being able to 2–1 our opponents as we pay the spree cost in order to destroy, let's say, both a Bandit’s Talent and a Phyrexian Fleshgorger by the low price of 1 card and 3 mana, only one of them having to be white. Sideboard only, sure, but definitely something to consider in order to complement Get Lost.
Banishing Light: I choose Banishing Light as an example for these 3-mana (sometimes more) removal spells that hit nonland permanents and are enchantments themselves. I don't like them very much, as they can always be removed/bounced themselves and then you lose a card and have to deal with the problem you had dealt with once again. They are also usually either sorcery-speed or prohibitively expensive to be cast with flash.
Loran of the Third Path: Well, this is a creature. This comes with upsides and downsides, obviously. It is sorcery-speed removal, but it leaves a 2/1 body with an interesting ability behind. It dodges Negate, but its ETB effect can be answered by Tishana's Tidebinder's and it turns on our opponent's dead removal. I feel like Loran of the Third Path needs somewhat of a build around to be more efficient, and that means playing bad cards in order to make your good cards better. While it's hard to call cards like Elesh-Norn, Mother of Machines bad, they certainly can steer-away from the deck's focus — the same can be said for Bloomburrow's new removal spell in Parting Gust.
Path of Peril
While Black still has access to the best removal suite for creatures in Standard (as it should have), the loss of its three-mana sweeper might be one that pushes Dimir Control out of the picture and leaves Azorius as the de-facto choice for Control players in Standard, as UW didn't lose theirs in Temporary Lockdown (with most recent lists even playing a full set in the main deck, with the rise of more aggressive decks, which is always common for new Standard environments). Is Dimir Control dead? We can only wait and ponder our options as the metagame settles.
It's hard to even think of potential replacements that even seem close to the power level of Path of Peril. Most of the three-mana sweepers in black would grant some sort of -2/-2 attribute, with each having some specific upside or particularity. The strength of Path of Peril was that it cared about the mana value of creatures, not their power, so counters or buffs of any kind would not be enough to keep the creature from being destroyed. A 20/20 Regal Bunnycore would die to a Path of Peril — it now has to dealt with with a single-targeted removal spell. With that being said, let's take a look at our only three choices to consider:
Malicious Eclipse: Perhaps our best choice as of now. If one must play Dimir (instead of Azorius), I wouldn't build a deck without at least 2 of these in my main deck, with perhaps even the other half of the set in the sideboard. Against the go-wide decks, Cut Down is simply not enough, as they have more creatures than we have removal. Unlike Path of Peril, I would suggest not trying to get the most value out of this card by waiting for the right moment, as your opponent might play a lord (in GW Rabbits) or an anthem effect and dodge our sweeper.
Chocking Miasma: The +1/+1 counter is pretty useless for a Control deck most of the time and I'd really not recommend attempting to play Golgari Control (or Sultai, for that matter). I see no practical use to choose this over Malicious Eclipse, since the exile clause might be relevant against Helping Hand decks. Leave Chocking Miasma for the Golgari Midrange sideboards.
Glistening Deluge: Most of the three-mana sweepers in black grant some sort of negative -2/-2 attribute to all creatures. Glistening Deluge, however, is able to be a -3/-3 if we are playing against a deck of any of Selesnya's colors. While a more narrow card by definition, that extra point of toughness might be key in certain matches, like against Boros Convoke or GW Rabbits. More of a meta call, really. If I'm playing Arena, I'd rather choose the less narrow sweeper.
Depopulate
The Azorius Control shell has always had its 4-mana removal spell. The OG, Wrath of God, is so famous that players sometimes refer to sweepers as "wraths" or even use "wrath" as a verb (e.g, "I need to wrath next turn or I lose). It's hard to think of a Standard in which we don't have a 4-mana, two white and two colorless spell that destroys all creatures on the board. Depopulate did come with an upside that only very rarely came up, so it was a nice addition as a 1-of or 2-of in some UW shells. Why so few, you ask? Well…
Sunfall: While it costs one more mana, Sunfall is such a disgusting upgrade over our various Wrath of God versions that I am honestly baffled that this card has left testing the way it is. For the price of a single more mana, we exile all creatures, making recursion a nightmare and avoiding any death triggers (looking at you, Mosswood Dreadnight). Not only that, but we also get to make a body for our troubles, which scales with the size of the board we just completely annihilated. I have won more than a few games hitting my opponent with a 7/7 token after getting rid of their entire board. Prior to rotation, due to the prevalence of aggressive decks, most Azorious players were on 3 Sunfall 1 Depopulate, as sometimes getting to turn 5 was too much to ask. Depending on the speed of the format (and with how many copies of Temporary Lockdown) are played, a full set of Sunfall might suffice.
No Witnesses: However, if one must have a 4-mana sweeper, No Witnesses is, for a few months, the only choice. The downside in this case is much steeper than with Depopulate, as we will almost for certain give our opponent a clue. Fear not, however: the recently announced Foundations has already spoiled the return to Standard of Day of Judgment, which in a format without regeneration is basically Wrath of God. Until November comes, I am on 3 copies of Sunfall and 2 copies of No Witnesses.
Farewell
During the time it was legal, no single card has won me more games than Farewell. I do admit that most of them was on behalf of my opponent conceding the game after I exile all of their nonland permanents and their graveyard with it, but the point remains. This card singlehandely made enchantress and affinity decks unviable. There is nothing like it currently in Standard, and I feel like it is for the best. Farewell.
Make Disappear
While No More Lies quickly took the place of Make Disappear in Azorius Control as the objectively superior card and one of the best cards in Standard, Dimir was left with Make Disappear as its choice of soft-counter spell. While a Quench-style effect is now pretty much common to see in most Standard sets, the abilty to sacrifice a token (usually a mite made by Mirrex) really set this Quench variant apart from the rest. Rather than list all of the variations of this effect here, I'll just tell you to play Phantom Interference if you are looking for replacement, as the ability to make a token as well makes this not a dead card in the late game. The newly released Long River's Pull is also worth considering as a 2-mana hard counter if you give them a card, although the double blue cost is tough to sell in a non fetch-land format.
Spell Pierce
A card more commonly-found in midrange or tempo shells, Spell Pierce was the only 1-mana counter played in Standard — and we are yet to receive another. If you were playing this card in your control deck, it's quite hard to replace it now, as something like Negate simply does not have the flexibility of only costing one mana. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that, now, the Control player does not have to play around Spell Pierce when taping out to sweep the board.
Unlicensed Hearse
A sideboard card for some very specific matchups, Unlicensed Hearse was perhaps for quite a long time Standard's premier form of graveyard hate. Being a colorless artifact meant that it could find a home in pretty much any deck. While Azorius recently got a reprint of Rest in Peace (which is even played in Pioneer sideboards), Dimir will have to make do with artifacts as of now, and I believe Agatha's Soul Cauldron to be the natural replacement for the deck. We really don't really care about the +1/+1 synergy here, although it can be a nice bonus to help us finish the game if we put them on a Sheoldred or something. We simply want a repeatable source of graveyard hate that is harder to remove than a creature (sorry, Skitter) and Agatha's Soul Caldron is the most viable options. I really dislike cards like Soul-Guide Lantern that are one-time uses for the most part, as they are card disavantadge, being one-use only and not even replacing themselves like the Pauper all-star Relic of Progenitus when popped.
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I believe this is all I have for now in terms of interaction spells for Control decks in Standard in the new Bloomburrow format. I hope this text was of some value to you. Check out the blog in the next few days for the next parts of the article!
Thanks,
Marc
