Sultai Control at the Great Lakes SCG Regional

The Band is back together


    

    Last weekend Nerd Rage Gaming hosted the Great Lakes SCG Regional event. I found myself in a predicament the night before, as I could not decide on a deck to play. I had previously been playing a lot with Abzan Aggro and the Four Color Soul of Theros deck. I was certain that I didn’t want to play Abzan Aggro so I started playing some games with 4C Soul against a deck I expected to see a lot of in Regionals, RW Aggro. I was getting stomped in this matchup and I was not feeling good about playing a deck that was negative against the most popular deck on Magic Online and the deck that had the highest day 2 penetration percentage in the Washington, D.C. Open. Next I started to think about playing the Abzan Midrage list that features zero Caryatids, a pile of removal, and a wealth of Divination effects to stay up on cards. If I was going to play a deck that functioned on casting divination style effects I figured I should just play the best one, that being Dig Through Time. Gerard Fabiano just so happened to win the Washinton, D.C. Standard Open with a Sultai list that I liked which featured 4 Dig Through Time along with the interesting choice of 4 Satyr Wayfinder to make sure you were Digging early and often. After tinkering with it I ended up registering this list for the event.


Lands


4 Opulent Palace

4 Temple of Malady

2 Temple of Mystery

1 Temple of Deceit

2 Yavimaya Coast

2 Lllanowar Wastes

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Polluted Delta

3 Swamp

2 Island


Creatures


4 Satyr Wayfinder

3 Courser of Kruphix


Planeswalkers


3 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver

2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

1 Liliana Vess

2 Garruk, Apex Predator

1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon


Instants


2 Disdainful Stroke

3 Bile Blight

3 Hero’s Downfall

3 Sultai Charm

2 Murderous Cut

4 Dig Through Time


Sorceries


2 Crux of Fate


Sideboard


3 Thoughtseize

1 Hero’s Downfall

2 Negate

1 Disdainful Stroke

2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death

2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

2 Drown in Sorrow

1 Pharika’s Cure



The only real difference between Gerard’s list and what I played was that I moved the Thoughtseizes to the sideboard in order to play 3 copies of Courser of Kruphix in the main where Gerard was playing zero anywhere in the deck. Gerard made a comment in his article leading up to the Open that he won that he did not want to play creatures like Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix because they do not play well with Crux of Fate. With only two Crux of Fate, I don’t think we want to forgo playing Courser which I feel is the best green card in the format not named Siege Rhino. In a slower control deck like this, I feel Courser is exceptional against both the aggressive strategies and the slower midrange/control decks. It is a good blocker and provides valuable points of life against the fast aggro decks and in the slower matchups allows a little bit of early pressure while improving the quality of your average draw step. This information isn’t new though, as Courser of Kruphix has been a standard staple for a year now. Over the course(er) of the Regionals event it was my best card, and I don’t think I would play this deck again without it.


The event ended up having exactly 300 players which was an awesome turnout in my eyes, definitely exceeding what I expected going in. 300 players meant nine rounds and I fell just short of top 8, going 7-2. I played against a good variety of matchups over the day, playing against 6 different archetypes. My matchups and results were:


Round 1: Win vs Mardu Aggro

Round 2: Win vs RW Aggro

Round 3: Win vs Jeskai Tokens

Round 4: Win vs UB Control

Round 5: Win vs Abzan Aggro

Round 6: Loss vs Abzan Aggro (Joe Bernal, winner of the event)

Round 7: Win vs Sultai Control (also with Courser of Kruphix)

Round 8: Loss vs Jeskai Tokens

Round 9: Win vs UB Control


    Against Hordeling Outburst strategies I went 2-1, defeating RW aggro and splitting matches against Jeskai Tokens. Their plan is to land an early threat such as Seeker of the Way or Goblin Rabblemaster and attack early and often before you get a chance to set up your defenses while having reach in the form of Stoke the Flames and Lightning Strike to close the game out after you start to stabilize. In these matchups you are leaning heavily on your Bile Blights, Wayfinders, and Coursers to give you the time you need to start pulling ahead while also staying at a reasonable life total. You definitely want to be doing something on turn 2 here, be it Satyr Wayfinder or Bile Blight. Nothing feels worse than having your third land come into play tapped and you had no two mana play while they have already started the clock with a turn 2 Seeker of the Way. After sideboarding we get to bring in Drown in Sorrow and Silumgur to help neutralize their token armies. Silumgar is more useful against RW though as it also blocks Stormbreath Dragon which is their largest threat. It also came up in my loss to Jeskai that Jeskai Ascendancy will make it a gamble every time you attack with Silumgar because every instant in their deck can effectively counter Silumgar’s trigger and while you thought you were clearing their board of Soldiers and Goblins you are actually clearing your hexproof blocker for them to alpha strike you on the following turn. Controlling their enchantments is very important, be it Outpost Siege from RW or Jeskai Ascendancy from Jeskai Tokens. I was holding my Sultai Charms for their Naturalize ability instead of using them to Catalog or kill Seekers when I had the ability to. Obviously sometimes you need to kill a Rabblemaster immediately and you don’t have any other way to do so but when afforded the opportunity I was holding my Charms. Another thing to note is blocking with Courser of Kruphix against Seeker of the Way. When being attacked with a Seeker of the Way after I am tapped out from playing Courser of Cruphix I generally never block. It’s possible that they have Raise the Alarm and are only trying to gain some life with the attack but the threat of Lightning Strike is far too great to warrant blocking. Just take the two damage, make them deal with the Courser via Stoke the Flames and if they don’t you can start blocking with mana up for removal if they try to attack through Courser again.


    I also played against UB/x Control strategies three times in this tournament and after playing them I feel this is the best matchup for Sultai. Against UB we are overloading their Hero’s Downfalls with all of our Planeswalkers and our Coursers of Kruphixes. Courser having four toughness is crucial as it does not “turn on” Bile Blight which is a dead card in this matchup meaning they need to draw one of their few Murderous Cuts or Silence the Believers if they have it in order to deal with it without burning a Hero’s Downfall. They are pressured to have Dissolve or Hero’s Downfall for every card you play and eventually you will catch them without one as you have near infinite time as they present no real clock. My UB opponents were on little to no Perilous Vaults however, which is the decks only real way to catch back up once Sultai starts to take control with its planeswalkers. If they do have Vaults though they risk losing it to Sultai Charm unless they play it with 9 mana available. Throughout my matches against UB I would not draw with my first Charm, holding it for Vaults and only Cataloging with superfluous copies. If you deny them the ability to clear your board in one fell swoop then you should be golden against them.


    Overall I was impressed with the deck, having not played it before Regionals. It has good answers to the threats that the popular decks are presenting and has a powerful endgame in snowballing planeswalkers. Ashiok was the worst card on the day, as it usually came down, activated once and then died, leaving me with no advantage from its +2 activation. I believe I was able to steal two creatures over the entire day (one of them being a Warden of the First Tree which I made an 8/8 but still lost). In the midrange/control matchups Ashiok can exile a good amount of cards but if it doesn’t ultimate and they deal with it it is just a one for one trade, their spell for my Ashiok. Unless they lose the game via decking, burning their cards does not provide you with an advantage and I just don’t like planeswalkers that can sit in play for turns and not provide you advantage. At some point in time decks like UB need to kill it because they have such a slow clock themselves so in that matchup it can be a lightning rod to protect your other planeswalkers, which is the only positive thing I felt about Ashiok as a card after the event. I would certainly test both with and without Ashiok before playing this deck in an event again. Courser was my best card by far, doing everything I wanted and more. You aren’t turning on that many spells that would otherwise be dead as cards like Bile Blight are still dead cards and Hero’s Downfall will always be live against you. The white aggressive decks can kill it with Valorous Stance but Valorous Stance would not have been otherwise dead as it protects their threats regardless of you presenting a creature to kill or not. You do allow decks a Chain to the Rocks target which is otherwise a completely dead card but we do have maindeck, instant speed enchantment removal which can allow us to engineer a favorable combat phase with a surprise chain-free Courser.


    I will be making the drive from Chicago to GP Memphis and while I’m not set on what deck I’m playing, this deck will certainly be on the short list. If you like control decks that have great answers, powerful planeswalkers, and are advantaged versus the other control decks I suggest you give this deck a spin.


- Peter Dean Tragos