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It has been a long time since I did anything in standard and I enjoy Control. Play several Theros prerelease events and has me wanting to do some FNM. Any suggestions on improvements I would appreciate it.
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NOTE: Set by owner when deck was made.
a few things i have learned making and studying the control deck.1. you need less variety to get the consistency you want. 2. your victory should be inevitable if the game goes long. your threats should be extremely hard to deal with.3. you need to make sure the game goes long.4. resource denial is the name of the game. you need to block card draw or mana hopefully both.5. positive resource trades. you will be trading life for the card
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I'd agree with bakaburger1, in this sort of strategy the long game is your goal. I, personally and obviously your mileage may vary, would drop Vexing Gull completely and go for something that allowed you quicker play, control or mill. Some examples might be:https://www.mtgvault.com/card/god-eternal-kefnet/WAR/Kefnet allows you to double tap your spells, obviously on your turn.When you combine it with stuff like:https://www.mtgvault.com/card/cry-of-the-carnarium/RNA/Or Chemisters Insighthttps://www.mtgvault.com/card/chemisters-insight/GRN/You can get card advantage or board control.Or if you want to go Mill then cards like:https://www.mtgvault.com/card/thought-erasure/GRN/Andhttps://www.mtgvault.com/card/merfolk-secretkeeper-venture-deeper/ELD/Can help. Guess it just depends on where you're looking to go.
Going to seperate my advice into a couple posts:You currently have only 22 lands in the deck. That is not enough for your current mana curve. https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspxyou only have a 13% chance of being able to cast your 7 cmc card on turn 7.The rule of thumb I use for building decks is to set lands = 19 + (highest cmc in the deck). In this case, you need 26 lands.
Second, you need to dedicate more fully to either a control or aggro decks (building effective mid-range, tempo and combo decks are far more complicated).If you are going for aggro, the highest costs card in the deck shouldn't be more than 4 cmc and you should be able to consistently deal 20+ total damage no later than turn 6. This generally requires sacrificing land and interaction (ie removal) in exchange for overwhelming your opponent with threatsIf you are going for control, your goal is to be extremely defensive for the first 4-5 turns, and put only a handful of win conditions in the deck. The win conditions tend to be the expensive cmc cards and you do not play them until you are confident your oppoent has run out of "gas".Also, synergy and consistancy is key. the reason people tend to put 4x of cards in decks is because they can make their decks extremely efficient and good at a specifically designed theme/task. You don't seem to have enough dedication to a theme right now. Your biggest themes right now seem to be:(1) Mill(2) "enters the battlefield"However, neither of those seem to lead into a win conditions and you don't have enough cards to create a consistent effect (consistently doing something would require at least 15% of your decks cards to do "it").
Third,Ashiok, Nightmare Muse is a powerful card. It could very easily be a win condition (and the highest cmc card in the deck). However it is not strong enough to win the game on it own, you would need to design the deck around it.Take note of the ultimate (-7) ability. that ability is NOT exclusive to cards exiled only with ashiok. If you dedicate your deck to exiling the opponents spells, creatures and hand (face up) you can win the game by playing the best cards in the opponents deck against them. I did a key word search for "exile target" under standard legal cards, there is more than enough there to entirely build a control deck around.Hand Destruction:Unmoored Ego (3cmc)Never happened (3cmc)Spectors Shirek (1cmc)Agonizing Remorse (2cmc)Covetous Urge (4cmc)Creature Removal:Ob Nixilis's Cruelty (3cmc)Epic Downfall (2cmc)Final Death (5cmc)Grotesque Demise (3cmc)Legion's End (2cmc)Cry of the Carnarium (3cmc)Eat to Extinction (4cmc)Counterspells:No Escape (3cmc)Deny the Divine (cmc)Devious Cover-Up (4cmc)Covetous Urge (4cmc)Ashiok's Erasure (4cmc) **enchantment**Use Covetous Urge and Ashiok, Nightmare Muse as your win conditions (6-8 total in your deck). Everything else in the deck can be fully devoted to getting rid of the opponents stuff until you are ready to use it against them. the Black/blue combination excels at this (but cant really deal with enchantments and artifacts once they are on the battlefield). If you limit yourself to 24 lands and not using cards with more than 5cmc, you should have the resources to slow down aggressive opponents as well as remove key cards from other control players.You wont be ideal in every matchup, but that's what a sideboard is for. Edit:in this case, "draw cards" spells should be the more expensive cmc versions on the curve. This is because you will be removing the dangerous cards from the control oppoents hand early on, and you are going to be tapping out every turn (in the early game) against aggro players.
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