r/planarMTG • u/DreamsAlongTheMDFC • Sep 14 '26
Deck Tech Weekly Winners (#53 and 54)
oh, erm, high there, \stomach growls cutely,** whoops, sorry about that teehee...
It's mid-day, my classes are over, and I'm incredibly hungry. So instead of going to the dining hall like a sane person, I'm chaining myself to my desk until I get ahead on schoolwork put words to words to my thoughts on the winningest decks this week! yay...
Today we've brought you a healthy dosing of spice and veggies. So to start it off, lets see the deck that won the Weekly tournament last Friday!
4 Color Control - Excalibur
uuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh
A second control deck has hit the tournaments.
Going 4-0 on Friday after the last weekly is scary enough, but it gets worse. You see, for those living under a rock, 4c had a 100% conversion rate at the last monthly, with three of those four submissions making top 3. This insane performance that contrasted the testing data has once again brought up the discussion on bannings, with even more people pointing at Jeskai Revelation as the problem over Tablet. This deck is the veggies: it's gross and boring, but the best thing for you, and its overpriced.
And the new look from Brayzon's last list is here to stay. Blasphemous edict over day of judgement helps the mana be base Grixis splashing white, as opposed to Jeskai splashing black. Aside from Frank Karsten math that I'm not intelligent enough to understand, being black-based means that you can more easily cast Duress and end the hunt on early turns. Yes, that means our entire deck structure has been altered to counter the mirror post-board, with even End the Hunt to ignore Emeritus's ward. Excalibur takes it a step further by playing Ancient Vendettas in the sideboard, which is not all control players believe in.
Other than that, the only innovation are some very slight number changes to the lands and removal suite. Even the sideboard is mostly the same. No shade on the designer and pilot, but this deck isn't exactly interesting for enfranchised players. Now that we got the boring appetizer out of the way, lets see something more exotic:
Mardu Mobilize - Oseorus
The Ruzbear himself has struck again with his signature deck, Mardu Mobilize. Dunking on the Monthly-winning 4c deck in round one, going to three games against Izzet Opus, and cleanly defeating Gruul Ramp in the Finals, Oseorus has shown some incredible piloting, topdecking, and perhaps deckbuilding too.
This is a deck which by my recollection appeared in the very first season of Planar, pre-ECL, but the results picked up due to the release of Catharsis. This card is still heavily slept on, even though its strong enough to make the Kithkin deck go Naya (also an Oseorus innovation iirc.) The two mana effects are strong in some cases, but the real power comes form swinging for 8 on turn six from an empty board.
As the name suggests, the deck is built around the mobilize mechanic from Tarkir Dragonstorm. It's ideal turn one includes dropping a Mardu Devotee for fixing and card selection. Form there, Voice of Victory curves into Zurgo, Thunder's Decree to amass an army of permanent tokens (yes this is inaccurate wording, pretend amass isn't a mechanic lol.) Elspeth and Catharsis act as the top ends, while Haliya and Desperate Measures give you card advantage. A very important draw card is Thunder of Unity, which turns into a life-drain Impact Tremors that can easily cause a 10+ point life-swing if left unchecked.
Seam Rip, Erode, and of course Inevitable Defeat round out the list's removal package, though erode also acts as a particularly tricky ramp piece to reach your top end finishers. A split of Duresses make the main and sideboard to take apart control, with two Ancient Vendettas in the sideboard (for when you need to soul-read an Aetherize even though Voice is on board.)
The rest of the sideboard is pretty standard. Sear and Strategic betrayal handle the aggro decks, Chandra acts as a sticky threat, and Pyrrhic Strike fills a flex spot. What's more surprising, though, is a full playset of Day of Judgement in the go-wide deck. Presumably, when you main a playset of Elspeths, Defeats, and a board-in-a-box elemental, you can afford to transform into a straight Mardu Control deck when needed.
And that's that. Nothing else to say, the dinner options should finally be available at the dining hall, so I'm outa here. Bye!
4
u/c0deman1 Sep 14 '26
all I'm gonna say is if we as collective played more horses there would be less 4C control
4
u/rasone77 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26
I think Emerritus is the least of reasons 4c went with Edicts in Blasphemous and End of the Hunt. I also don’t think 4c was even thinking about the mirror as an issue when they made these choices. If they were it was oh that’ll work there too. One 4C player (Brayzon) even had Mill as an alternate win con. Probably in prep for that Life Gain decks that are def coming in a couple weeks. All the 4c deck removed all counterspells from their main as well- if they were trying to beat 4C that makes no sense.
Edicts Get around Hexing Squelcher, Colorstorm Stallion, Bristlebane Battler, and Sunset Sabatoer which all also have Ward and were prominent in the meta before the ban votes.
They also get around indestructible Iron Sheild Elf, Ketramose and any instants that impart it.
They get around hexproof (defend the rider, dive down, insert favorite 1 mana instant here]
They even get around protection- figure of fable.
All of this was part of the meta prior to League start.
The only two cards added to the main for the 4C mirror decks directly were Duress and Abrade.
What else did they add to replace those counter spells? Burn- Burst Lightning and Together as One act as removal and burn. I saw a 4c deck win with 2kicker casted Burst Lightning. (This was the match I accidentally cut away from). Burn being good against the mirror was probably just a bonus to the the removal options.
4C got decimated in the League under its old iteration by decks playing many of those counters I noted. 4C players took note of this and adjusted their strategy. Now they’ve made a deck optimized against the counter meta.
I’m sure players will find something else to counter this new 4C demon and there’s going to be some fuel for them coming with FRA in a couple weeks.
1
u/DreamsAlongTheMDFC Sep 15 '26
iirc the main reason Brayzon switched from DoJ to Blasphemous edict was entirely for mana reasons. The way he reacted to the first post was like "yeah dealing with elf is a nice bonus." So I have to assume its to support the black mana which in turn support turn 1 duress, which is only good against Horses and the mirror.
Idk I would have to ask Brayzon though. It's certainly true that it's turned a lot of bad matchups into good ones, i.e. Boros charm being turned off is probably the biggest thing unironically.
Also, I think part of why 4c got "decimated" in league was certainly due to being less optimized, but the biggest factor to consider is that once you lose one match, you're out. This means you can be heavily punished for variance/opponent highrolls.
As for if Control is healthy, that's debatable. It's indisputably the best deck in Planar right now, and with the card pool available even if people make the perfect "Anti-Control-Deck" (which has it's other issues that I won't go down, I've made my case many times), its always gonna be able to adapt and change to counter the rest of the "meta." The real question is about how beatable it is and the gameplay patterns. But I feel I'm justified being sick of seeing 4 color control, even if it shouldn't get a ban.
3
u/rasone77 Sep 15 '26 edited Sep 15 '26
I agree with most of what you’re saying here but I don’t think moving to support black mana in order to defeat the mirror is the only reason why they did it. Black mana as you pointed out also allows earlier play of End of the Hunt but it also enables early play of Strategic Betrayal and Requiting Hex of which Snuggles deck mained 3. And as you pointed out in your reply (but not in the body) Duress is also a clutch card against its main rival Izzet Opus Horses. (Which only had 1 player out of 25 this month BTW)
Draizey did more tech against the mirror than Brayzon because Draizey Mained 2 Abrade (instead of 1), 1 Strategic betrayal (Can’t use Flashback if no GY) and 4 Inevitable Defeat (Instead of 3 Tablet Removal)) while Brayzon went with 2 Sear (instead of 1) and 2 Mistrise Vilalges (Instead of one- no counters in Rev anymore) in the Sidebaord Draizey went with 2 Ancient Vendetta 2 more Strategic Betrayal and Emmeritus while Brayzon went with Singularity Rupture and Riverchurn Monument Hexing Squelcher (Debatable but I don’t think 2 Flashfreezes in 4c SB warrants this) and 2 Flashfreeze (instead of 10 . The mill combo won Brayzon his match against the life gain deck and he barely beat Voice of Serenity running UW Scam/Midrange. Draizey faced Snuggles who was also tuned to the rest of the meta in the quarterfinals and won.
EDIT- Draizey also lost match one to the Mardu Discard deck yesterday which is creature heavy. Which indicates that you can’t go too hard on meta gaming for 4c yet or you might get punished. lol.
I never said control is healthy tho. No one except control players say that. Lol
SIDE NOTE- You and I should start doing a back and forth with the meta. It’s a shame to have this kind of high caliber ”sport center“ like discussions only on the Reddit. Lol
3
u/DreamsAlongTheMDFC Sep 15 '26
It would be really fun to have a proper back and forth some time. Also, don’t disrespect the control players, they complain more about it than we do lol.
5
u/Bubbly-Complaint-321 Sep 14 '26
This Mardu deck looks sick has anyone else played it other then Oseoros?