alexnewtron
To learn how to build a deck in general, go to the page Deckbuilding 101.
So, you want to know how to make a control deck. Beware, for it might not fit your playstyle at all, and you may find it quite boring. However, a choice nonetheless.
Information[]
Control decks are decks that attempt to prevent the opponent from threatening you and stalling using mechanics such as locking and returning. Control decks leave themselves vulnerable early game to succeed late game.
In comparison to other decks, control decks:
- Are the slowest of all the deck types. It is a deadly weakness that nearly all control decks have.
- Gains power as the game goes on. They will constantly stall to draw the cards they need.
- Play either moderately good quality cards or effect-based cards. They want to be given as much time as possible to do a setup, and in doing so, must use cards that have unique beneficial effects or moderately good quality cards to catch up with the board.
- Play lots of denial and removal. They are very abundant as they will need to be able to react to any situation properly.
- Play a low amount of threats. Their goal is to play a threat that becomes very difficult to deal with. They sacrifice nearly all of their deck's speed and power for denial and versatility, so they won't be active enough to threaten the opponent until late game.
Types of Cards[]
We can split control cards to several categories:
- Stall Cards
Examples: SonozakiRaito, Korblox General, Teal Eyes Green Dragon
These cards are in your deck to give you time to do your setup. Korblox General and SonozakiRaito will both lock a target fighter for 2 turns, and Teal Eyes Green Dragon will do an AOE depower that affects ALL fighters (with the ability to exempt 1 fighter from the effect) while offering a decently big stat line of 800/500 (assuming you exempt it from its own effect). - Openers
Examples: Oozlebachr, WebGL3D, Script Robber
As a control deck, surviving the early game and transitioning into mid game is just as important as killing your opponent late game. Each of the openers are like pieces in your setup, and if you can develop your board well, you can win the game easily. - Denial and Utility
Examples: Razuatix, ZacAttackk, Depths of the Nether, Hallows Treats
These cards exist either to deny and/or counter plays. Hallows Treats acts as a finisher if your opponent takes risky plays and runs glass cannons, Depths of the Nether does AoE depower on top of returning a target fighter to its owners hand, and both ZacAttackk and Razuatix are hard target removals for getting rid of threats. - Win Conditions
Examples: Nevermore, Search the City, Unspeakable Summoning
These cards are your key to winning. While you won't be able to use them early game at all, they can prove to be very hard to defeat or counter. Nevermore is a card that infinitely gives itself and burns your opponent for a great amount, Search the City will shuffle a version of itself with stronger effects each time it levels up, and Unspeakable Summoning usually kills a target while summoning Lezus to your opponent's board for it to slowly hurt your opponent.
Example[]
To understand how a control deck works, we're going to look at this Monogreen Control deck.
| Fighters |
|---|
| SonozakiRaito x1 |
| Pirate x4 |
| WebGL3D x4 |
| WhoToTrus x3 |
| TigerCode x3 |
| MekaX x3 |
| Hoote x2 |
| IlIll x2 |
| Steel Chair x2 |
| Grand Meeboid Totem x2 |
| 1337 x1 |
| BandiheartYT x1 |
| Teal Eyes Green Dragon x1 |
| brickmason x1 |
| Razuatix x1 |
| Actions |
| Meebling Infestation x3 |
| Byte x2 |
| Search the City x2 |
| Infinite Wishes x1 |
| Mass Epidemic x1 |
How to Play[]
Ramping. The most important thing to do right from the beginning. Cards for achieving this are Stranglevines, WebGL3D and Infinite Wishes. Normally, you might want to use Oozlebachr instead of WebGL3D but in this case, thinning your deck while achieving the same thing is better because your win condition is Search the City, and because this deck is NOT a dust deck. Also, in a deck type such as this, 400/400 is better than 600/300 to be able to deal with better fighters. Try to play Grand Meeboid Totem as soon as you can because it turns essentially effectless once you already draw your Infinite Wishes.
You may commonly observe players completely disregarding the life gain part of cards like TigerCode. They aren't wrong, but the Life starts to truly matter when they stack. It's especially useful because your goal is to stall and live as long as you can. Hoote, TigerCode, Infinite Wishes and Search the City fall to this category. Reaching 10000 Life when playing this deck is not rare. Hoote offers you a nice body of 800/400 on top of 800 Life, TigerCode gives you 400 Life and reduces the Power of a target fighter by 400, Infinite Wishes makes you baseplate ramp with 100 Life attached, and Search the City gives you 500 Life along with all the other effects it does.
Every single card that hasn't been mentioned yet are for denial and stalling (except 1337) to give Search the City the time to level up. Teal Eyes Green Dragon is your go-to AOE depower. Brickmason is essentially your second Teal Eyes Green Dragon that can be both worse or better depending on your opponent's board state because the stud generation can help them. Byte, Mass Epidemic and Razuatix are hard removals and should be saved for removing much more dangerous threats. BandiheartYT is a great stall card that offers a whopping 3000 health split between 4 "lives". Meebling Infestation and Pirate are awesome target depowers that are cheap by default, useful in early to mid-game. IlIll and MekaX are your AOE damage removals for dealing with wide boards and glass cannons. Steel Chair is a cheap transform, a situationally strong utility effect. Good transform targets include VetexGames, Death-Defying Demon and SolarCrane. SonozakiRaito is a target 2-turn lock that generates you colorless studs, useful for when you are running out of Colourless Studs.
Try to make plays that leave you with 3 Green Studs, in order to play an Infinite Wishes as it is usually the best option. Once you reach late game, you have effectively won (unless your opponent is also running control) and can now control the entire game's outcome against your opponent with a leveled up Search the City, so have fun.
Conclusion[]
So, what can we learn from this?
- A control deck needs time to set up.
- A control deck needs to manipulate and control its board carefully in order to win.
- Most cards in a control deck serve to delay the opponent's threats to answer later.
- Control decks need to have a reliable wincon(s).
Here are some well known control cards for each colors: