ORA12154

Hmm good point about the artifact hate, I'll play around with the numbers and will likely be running at least one Stony Silence.

I'll pay attention to how long games go and what mana I have available in further testing, maybe see if it is worth throwing one or two Celestial Colonnades in, or even have them in the SB to bring in for games I know will go longer.

Spellskite is good, I could try that out. Stony Silence is good, though I was going with Kataki since I could use him as a beater and not sacrafice spots for cards that flip Delver. I could try it though and see. Cryptic and Colonnade seem pretty slow for this deck, they go great in a midrange or slow control deck but with only 19 lands it seems like Colonnade especially would never be able to come online until the game was over. Cryptic maybe could work as a 1-2 of maybe, though I was trying to keep the curve low. Right now Cryptic is out of my price range but if I manage to get a couple at some point I'll try it out.
I'll look for Spellskite for sure in the sideboard and test out Stony Silence as well.

Thanks for the input!

10 sample hands on a digital generator like that doesn't seem like a very large or accurate sample size to me. I can say from personal experience that similar deck curves with even 20 land has mana screwed me pretty regularly. I've only seen decks running mostly 1 and 2 drops run consistently on this little mana.

I'm not saying he can't run 18 lands in this deck if he wants. If he plays in a casual kitchen table environment where its ok to mulligan multiple times to get a decent hand this could work ok for him. I'm just trying to point out a problem so he isn't surprised if he has mana issues consistently.

18 lands with over half of your spells 3 mana cost or over is going to cause issues. It is hard to win games if you can't cast the spells in your hand...

How is Heliod giving +1/+1? He makes all other creatures have Vigilance and you can pay 2WW to create a 2/1 token but not seeing how he gives a combat bonus.

They do different things, Heliod might still be better because of the Vigilance grant, being harder to remove, and the ability to pop out tokens.

First off, just to be clear this is a Modern legal deck but it is not meant to be tournament quality. It is just a fun casual deck I built to play with my friends. You are right the format can be expensive, and I don't have the money to compete against the Tarmagoyfs and the Trons, etc. in competitive Modern.

Path to Exile, Remand, Venser Shaper Savant, Wrath of God are all good cards and might make my deck better but I don't currently have access to those cards.

I play a lot of control (mostly U/W or Bant) so I'm very familiar with the usual 25-27 lands in control decks, this is just a starting point in a casual/fun deck and may very well add in a couple more land if I find cards I want to cut as I playtest it further.

Some of my card choices in the decklist may have 'better' options but were used instead because of personal playstyle preference.

Thank you for the ideas though, if I wanted to make this a competitive deck in Modern I would want to make a lot of the changes you suggested.

Knight-Errant is a little cheaper I think but its still a little out of my price range. After thinking about it more I think even though Knight-Errant may be a little better in most cases, because this is more of a control deck without much token pump Sun's Champion might actually be slightly better here anyway. Idk, if I manage to find a couple Knight-Errants for cheap I may get them and give her a try.

I really like the look of Ashiok my only concern is what to pull out...I'm not sure if I'd be ok pulling a few control spells for Ashiok or not.

I fully realize Thoughtsieize is the preferred and popular card for that type of effect but seeing how it is a lot more expensive and i don't currently have any I am choosing to stick with Duress for now. If I get lucky enough to pull a few of them from Theros packs I will replace Duress.

Thanks for the input.

Tamiyo is good and I wouldn't mind fitting her in if I could but I'm trying not to overload on the high mana cost cards and I wouldn't know what to pull out for her and I really like the synergies of the walkers I currently have so I don't want to lose any of those.

Knight-Errant might be better but since she is fairly expensive and not in standard so I have not chance of pulling her in a pack, my chances of getting her are low.

No problem, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I happen to play a lot of control and mostly in Azorius and Bant colors so that is what I'm most familiar with. Midrange is a viable option to build towards as well but I'm not as experienced with building tournament quality decks in that archetype.

I'm still getting familiar with how the new Theros cards play but cards like Prognostic Sphinx, Horizon Chimera, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion may be worth a look too.

Your title says 'Control' but the main decklist has more of a midrange feel to it. Are you trying to build control, midrange, or just whatever Bant list you like playing? Either option is fine but it helps to have an archetype to build towards, if you are going for a control deck you have too many creatures and not enough 'control'.

Personally, I would consider maindecking the Selesnya Charms, Detention Spheres, AEtherling, and Celestial Flares. Also I would consider adding other cards like Syncopate, Plasm Capture, Mystic Genesis, Cyclonic Rift and at least one more Jace, Architect. I like Fleecemane Lion because if you can make it monstrous before sweeping with Supreme Verdict it can deal some easy damage, and Prime Speaker is fine, but I would pull the other creatures and Path of Bravery in favor of a mix of some of the cards I listed above.

Control has a lot of good cards with a lot of overlap right now so there are plenty of options and a lot of it comes down to personal preference of play style so these are just some ideas to consider. My advice, pick what looks like the most fun and playtest/tweak accordingly.

Just to make sure you are aware, only one Detention Sphere can be used in that cycle since a Detention Sphere can not be played on another Detention Sphere. There are always ways to beat such decks but yes, concepts like this can be fun.

Thought about that when making this deck but was trying to keep the flash/instant speed creature feel to it as much as possible so left it out. It's a really good card still so maybe I'll look to at least side-boarding it.

Rootborn Defenses will make your creatures indesctructible but won't be able to popluate copies of anything as you don't have any tokens in this deck. Also, you might want to take a look at your mana curve you have a lot of high mana cost cards which is going to slow down your play a lot and no dual lands to help with mana usage. Replacing some of the higher mana cost cards with a few more lower cost cards as well as adding a few Glacial Fortress and Hallowed Fountains should help. If you are trying to keep this a low dollar budget deck then just a couple dual lands added would still help but definitely need to alter the mana curve.

Looks good, I agree with HarbingerJK above about the dual lands those will help, also since you'll be giving all your merfolk Islandwalk with Master of the Pearl Trident you might consider Quicksilver Fountain or Aquitect's Will instead of Blustersquall. Either one will give your opponents islands, making your merfolk unblockable. The Aquitect's Will would actually be cheaper mana cost than paying the overload for Blustersquall and Quicksilver Fountain might be better in multi-player environments. Another thing, since you have mostly low cost cards you could probably ditch a couple land for a couple more 1 or 2 cost spells and still have plenty of mana. Just a couple thoughts, overall good deck.

Something you can consider if you do end up drawing too many cards is to throw in Psychic Spiral, it will throw back in your whole graveyard giving you a guaranteed total of more than 200 and it might also give you an additional win condition if you have drawn the game out long enough that it might just mill your opponent out.

Not saying you have to do all, or even any of what I'm saying to put in here but below are some changes that I personally would make with this deck.

Pull the mother of runes and replace with a few Champion of the Parish they are a great one drop lead in that gets pumped by each following human creature coming in. Also maybe have a Loyal Sentry thrown in there as well, even one of those is enough to have your opponents hesitate about attacking in a lot of cases.

I would probably also replace either Ballyrush Banneret or the Preemptive Captain with some Precinct Captain and an Odric, Master Tactician or two. Ballyrush and Preemptive Captain are both getting your soldiers in cheaper so 4 of both are probably not necessary. Also, Precinct Captain is great and with just three other Soldiers out Odric will be unstoppable, deciding which of your opponent's creatures to kill off by assigning blocking or just say no blockers and deal all damage directly to your opponent.

Captain of the Watch and Vigilance are both vastly underestimated. Vigilance and First Strike are staples of Soldiers and so are pretty easy to build into a Soldier deck, the combo is pretty powerful allowing you to attack well and then still defend whatever the opponent throws your way. With Ballyrush Banneret or Preemptive Captain you are bringing in Soldiers cheap or free so the high mana cost of Captain of the Watch is negligible and having her in will give all of your soldiers Vigilance, pumping all your soldiers with another +1/+1, as well as adding in three more. Also, the combination of Preemptive Captain and Captain of the Watch is pretty cool since swinging will bring in 4 total creatures for free and immediately will increase the damage inflicted of whatever your attacking with.

One or two Emeria, the Sky Ruin is also worth looking at so that if the game does last long enough to get 7 plains out you can start bringing back Soldiers from your graveyard for free each upkeep. Also, Door of Destinies might be strongest in a more token oriented Soldier deck but may be worth consideration here as well since it can pump your Soldiers pretty fast.

Just a few options to consider in case you haven't thought of some of these.


My Soldier deck is a bit different as it is more of a token deck than yours but if you want to see what I've done with it here's the link.

http://mtgvault.com/ora12154/decks/soldiers-muster/

I wasn't super familiar with this card but took a look, it might be pretty good. Although, for that mana cost I might just prefer putting a second Venser in instead. Still, its a cheap rare so I may pick it up and play test. Thanks for the input.

http://mtgvault.com/ora12154/decks/ideas-for-vampires/

My Red vampire deck, if anybody has advice there as well.

I originally was building a Black/Red Vampire deck and decided I should split them up into two decks because I was just trying to pack in too many different things that didn't mesh as well as I hoped. So now I have a mono-Black and mono-Red vampire deck that are a little more focused on their strengths. I will probably take another look at a Black/Red deck again in the future but for now I'm working on these.