Premodern UW Control Deck Guide

As a blue mage, I was always fascinated by control decks in “older” formats. Since I wrote a lot of articles on control piles here on the blog, I decided to test UW myself to see how it was. I recall playing the deck when Parallax Tide was a thing, but I never really vibed with the deck. In this current metagame, the allure of playing the deck is that you get a good matchup against Mono Black, and at least an even matchup vs Stiflenought and Replenish, making it a contender and a deck that frequently shows up in top8 of tournaments. With that in mind, I decided to dedicate some time to the archetype.

UW control is a grindy and slow machine that eventually gets there after trading resources with Counterspells, removals, and wraths. The main wincons are Mishra’s Factory and Decree of Justice, two cards that come with a little deckbuilding cost and can turn the advantage into winning positions. 

The two big issues with the deck are: 
- You’re often too slow / the mana might not work, especially OTD. Playing 26 lands, but 8 colorless sources, means you’re often short of UU - and less often of WW - to pay for your spells. 
- Turning a game from a disadvantaged position is really hard, especially vs decks that pressure your life total.

The first portion of the testing I jammed the “stock lists”, and despite having good results, I felt I was always losing in the same matchups / positions no matter what.
I decided to experiment and take a personal route, adding Mox Diamond and Enlightened Tutor to mitigate those problems.

But first, let’s take a look at the full deck

26 Lands seems like the right number, alongside two Moxen. I wouldn’t mind playing another one to make sure I hit my 4th land drop in time. I’d likely play a Skycloud Expanse to help with color fixing.

I am playing 7 counterspells, splitting 2 Mana Leak and 1 Prohibit. 
Prohibit is great in the early turns, and it’s usually a 5th Counterspell in the late game. Leak is great in the early turns, but it ends up being mediocre later, and I found myself in the situation where I was drawing useless counters while I still needed to solve issues on the stack.

2 Wraths + 2 Powder Keg are good enough to slow down / solve a board, while 3 Fact or Fiction + 2 Standstill is my card advantage engine.

Now, let’s address the elephants in the room

Mox Diamond

Mox was first suggested by Pascal Maynard after I 5- 0'd with a stock version. I have to say the card feels weird at first, since it’s card disadvantage and it’s often weird in winning / even positions; but it’s likely the best card you can have in your opener, and accelerating Wrath of God by a turn is a key play to win against some matchups. 

Imagine opening this hand (but with any spell besides Mox) OTD - you’re likely going to keep anyway, but it can be a swift loss if you’re facing Sligh / Goblins. Mox instead fixes your mana, smooths your curve, and allows you to accelerate into the midgame, that’s where you’re usually turning the corner.

Playing 2 seems the right number, mostly because the card tends to be horrible from a certain turn on, and I like to side them out in slower matchups or when my opponent is likely to interact. Viceversa tho, the card is really good against Armageddon / Land Destruction piles that tend to be popular right now. 
Notably, I cut two spells to make space for 2 Moxen, so the number of lands is the same (26).

Bonus T1 Standstill to heal your soul.

Enlightened Tutor

I have a special place in my heart for tutor decks, as I think it’s fun to playtest and metagame your decks with the cards you like, trying to solve the issues of each matchup.

But, as always, 90% of the cards you put in your deck to be tutored end up being too niche / weak to be worth a slot. I really tried a lot of cards, from Sacred Mesa to Ivory Mask, but (currently… and I won’t carve this into a tree) my deck looks like this.

Main Deck I have: 
1x Phyrexian Furnace
1x Seal of Cleansing
2x Standstill 
1x Humility
2x Mox Diamond
2x Powder Keg

I am generally less hyped on Standstill compared to the majority of players - the card tends to be better against bad players (but that’s how most cards in this deck work), and in a world of man lands it might be a liability. Most decks can usually slow down the pace to turn “Ancestral Recall” into a “Brainstorm”, forcing the draw effect in the end step so you have to discard three cards. Still, it’s likely a card that’s worth having, and sometimes it’s not horrible to tutor if you’re already ahead in the man land game, or you have some big Decree of Justice to follow. Just make sure not to T1 tutor for that, as often your opponent can punish you with a Mishra; this is mostly because most decks run Mishra despite not being in the stock lists, so be careful.

Furnace is surprisingly very good, since the opportunity cost is very low and the card tends to do wonders (or at least solves some annoying stuff) against most decks. I would like to add a second copy, but I am not sure what to cut. I can even see playing 61 cards, but I’d rather do some math first.

Powder Keg in two copies is still needed, as it’s your best card against Sligh and solves a lot of issues regarding manlands.

Mox Diamond I already talked about, but the card is surprisingly often a card I want to tutor to speed up my games when I keep a slow hand with Fact or Fiction.

Seal of Cleansing is a disenchant with some upsides and downsides, but I like to have the possibility of tutoring such an effect especially against Survival / Sylvan Library decks. It’s also something worth tutoring early game against green decks, since it’s really likely you’ll need it at some point and you can save a counter for something else. 
I am thinking about switching it with Aura of Silence, but I am not super sure how the card plays out, but I am feeling the tax won’t really matter because vs Replenish the scary card is the namesake, while against Enchantress they ramp hard with Wild Growths and can easily find a seal of their own / Serra’s Sanctum and still go off.

I roughly ran the numbers on Humility, and it’s really good only against a third of the meta. Still, it’s usually not bad to at least slow down what’s going on to either take less damage to the board or force your opponent to find an answer. I can see cutting the card completely from the deck, mostly because some decks that suffer humility are maindecking a number of disenchants, but for now I want to keep testing the card to see how often I am tutoring it. If you want to swap it, add a 2nd Furnace.

Sideboard ideas

The Enlightened Tutor package includes:
Cursed Totem for Elf, Psychatog/GAT, FEB, RecSurv and a couple more, 
Tormod’s Crypt for all the graveyard shenanigans, 
Presence of the Master for Enchantress and Replenish (and maybe Oath), 
Circle of Protection: Red for Goblins and Sligh
Arcane Laboratory against Brain Freeze sideboard plans, Storm, Stiflenought and a couple more issues;

The rest of the sideboard is built to beat bad matchups, which are mostly Sligh and enchantment decks. 
Exalted Angel seems like a great card against Mishra’s Factory decks, where Standstill is usually terrible. Here, your plan is to play a bit more tempo-wise, trying to push for a victory in the midgame after answering most of the issues in the early game.

Sideboard guide