dknight27

Right now this deck is a little 3-drop heavy. Control decks like this need a good saturation of 1 and 2-drops so that you can basically always respond to whatever opponent is doing. Even with 23 lands, you are going to have a lot of games where opponent fields something before you can deal with it and smacks you to death.

Evolving wilds, abrade, blink of an eye, censor, chandra's pyrohelix, lightning strike, negate are all cards to look at.

But, fair warning, standard is about to be in a new rotation

This build is a little 3-drop heavy. Even with the utopia sprawl to speed things up, this build will have quite a difficult time getting off the ground, and realistically won't hit a strong stride until the late middle game.

On top of this, you have extremely limited interaction for anything fielded (especially since assassin's trophy works antithetically if used on critters).

My advice would be to trim down on the 3 drops and ramp up the 1 drop interactions (lightning bolt, fatal push, etc)

Sultai is quickly becoming my favorite color combo in modern. It's just so deadly.


I like two 1-drop blue sorcery tactics cards like sleight of hand or serum visions in place of two search for azcantas for 3 reasons.

1- right now you're only at 6 sorceries for goyf food, and upping the count (especially 1-drops) makes goyf run better and more quickly.

2- you're currently running ten 1-drops, 2 of which are conditional reactions, and if you up the sorcery 1-drop count, you give the deck twelve 1-drops, which should guarantee (basically) a turn 1 play (and speed is delicious).

3- you're currently running 13 critters and 22 lands, so 35 of your cards aren't fetchable with flip-azcanta, and by upping the 1-drop sorceries you swing that further in the fetchable direction.



I would personally consider dropping to 1 tasigur in favor of another sorcery (maybe the third 1-drop or another maelstrom pulse), because I don't want to see tasigur in the opening hand, or realistically until the late middlegame (where he won't interfere with goyf but has enough material to hit the field fast and hard). Plus it speeds things up and feeds goyf as mentioned above.


Also maybe drop 1 darkslick shores for a creeping tar pit. The loss in tempo might be worth the extra muscle, and you have a decent chance of the darkslick entering tapped anyway.

Just my thoughts.

I would cut down chemister's insight to 2. You don't really want it in the opening hand, and it will help throw down the curve a little

Perhaps some 1 drop tactics like opt?

This looks fantastic. I love the built in synergy of the etb elves. My only real concern is that you have no direct interaction at all (opposition is indirect), and a set of swords to plowshares looks mighty tempting

I see some areas that could still be smoothed out. This is how I would build this deck.

https://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/modern-grull-value/

https://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/modern-sultai-control-budget/

This is sort of what that would look like. Take a look then I can go over the details and how its all fits together

I see some major problems in this build.

Firstly, the mana curve is way too high, especially with the concentration of 3-drops. The majority of the time, you want most of your cards to be 1 and 2-drops with a healthy dose of 3-drops. The reason for this is because speed is basically the most important thing in magic. If you have an excellent combo to pull off, or a big critter to field, if opponent gets it done quicker than you it doesn't matter.

Next, DoR doesn't really have a place in here, as you aren't running any red. The 5 black cost is going to be a pain, even with the duel and fetch lands you are running. I know you like the idea of mirror imaging one back, but waiting around for the 5 black mana takes away any gain you get from his speed and power.

You also are running very little in the way of direct interaction, meaning dealing with stuff once it resolves. You have 9 counterspells (all of which cost 3, so they are slow), 4 sultai charms to murder stuff, and 2 unsummons. So, only 6 cards to deal with critters that have already hit the field. Meaning, if opponent fields something turn 1 or 2, (or 3 if he goes first), he will basically smack you to death for the rest of the game, which is the plan for around 66% of decks in modern.




The good news is, sultai is an excellent color combo for builds like this, if we can straighten a few things out.

The first thing we have to decide is if you want to make this a proactive or reactive control deck. Proactive control hits the field running, disrupts opponent's game plan, and grinds out a mid-game win. Reactive control plays for the counterpunch, holding lots of counterspells and murder effects, escapes the middle game unscathed, and then fields a win condition and sneaks a late game win.

Sultai is good at both, so which way do you want to go?

We've got some conflicting themes going on in this deck. 35 1-drops and 4 3-drops with a triple red cost just doesn't fit with the way you have your lands currently structured. There's no way you will play ball lightning turn 3 without duel lands and fetch lands, and you don't need 21 lands to run a deck that is almost entirely 1 drops (especially with no fetch lands to thin the deck out).

What sort of budget are we working with here?

The big problem is confidant isn't friends with the delve guys or reveler, so you have to keep them in proportion, or choose to run 1 over the other. with 2 delve/revelers I would max out the confidants, with any more than 2, I wouldn't run more than 3 confidants.

As it sits right now, I would trim the angler and put in the 4th confidant, but that's me. She should run perfectly fine as is

I like running 19 lands, cutting 1 tasigur (you don't want him or bedlam reveler in the opening hand) (maybe cut both as you can't hit the green/blue abil, and swap him out for a reveler), maxing out kolaghan's command, and look into inquisition of kozilek

If you've got the cash, dark confidant would feel right at home in here as well

I prefer lingering souls over butcher in here. Immune to boardwipes, triggers your token generators, and hits a turn earlier

This deck is crying for 1 drops. Opt goes for like 30 cents these days, so I highly recommend putting 4 of those in, as well as taking a look at other 1-drop options to give this deck some speed

20 lands, especially with 4 colonnades is too low for this curve. I wouldn't run fewer than 23

Looks pretty solid to me

I'm not really a fan of the 2 treetop villages in here. I know they stop the bleeding of confidant, but if you swap em out for some 1 drops, like fatal push, they will only hit you for 1 more damage (should be inconsequential), but will speed things up nicely (the village eats tempo like a mofo)

Here's how I would build the deck I described above, just as something to look at.

https://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/modern-demicontrol/

No problem. What build did you use for blue/red?

Gotcha

Well, the general problem here is that this build is halfway between a combo deck which only throws DoR at opponent's face, and a proactive control deck which uses DoR as a win condition. As its sort of half way between 2 builds, it won't be very good at either idea.

In modern, it will be very hard to pull off a combo build for DoR, as there aren't very many good ways to throw it quickly in the grave from the deck and fetch it back, so I advise going with the proactive control build.


Basically how those work is a TON of cheap/cost effective disruption spells and ways to get through the deck more quickly, so you can stop opponent from doing anything until you find and field your win condition/s.


So, right now we need to pull out all the stuff that doesn't:

a- stop opponent from doing stuff
b- move through the deck quickly
c- directly work to win the game


So, take out- tyrannize, desperate ritual, fists of the demigod, and vessel of vitality off the bat.
-tyrannize gives opponent a choice and there are better ways to win
-fists of the demigod is redundant, as DoR is a badass on his own and its a card that doesn't do anything without a critter
-desperate ritual and vessel of vitality are for fielding the DoR faster, but are useless if you don't have one in hand and we aren't aiming to sling them as fast as possible anyway in this build.


Then, we have to look at the mechanics by which you are finding and fielding your DoR's.

Infernal tutor and disentomb are bad options because they are highly conditional (neither does anything without a copy of DoR already), and there are better ways to go about doing what you're doing in here.

The best option for this is Kolaghan's command, which will fetch back DoR from the grave and take care of another problem as well. Only problem there is that it's about 15 bucks a pop. Still, a gamechanging card and basically never a dead draw.

I've never been personally fond of dash hopes, as its harder to cast (2 black) than other options, gives opponent an easy out (I will eat 5 life all day to keep your from fielding a DoR), and can't solve anything that has already resolved.

Instead, I would focus on cards like: lightning bolt (excellent removal that doubles as a way to finish out close games), fatal push (excellent removal), inquisition of kozilek (slows down opponent in the opening, removes responses later (drop 1 before you drop DoR to get rid of their removal)), blightning (slows down opponent and bleeds them), max out the terminates to 4 (pretty much the best removal in modern), and collective brutality (cost effective way to use wasted cards (extra lands), ditch a DoR to the grave if you have multiples so you can pull it back, and as a bleeding effect).

Also, I would take the land count up to 21 so you won't be stalled out, and if possible (budgetary concerns) add in the fetch lands like bloodstained mire.