Drafting control in Amonkhet: is it possible?
In many formats, the answer is a resounding no. Triple Zendikar or Tempest draft, for example, due to the landfall mechanic favouring the attacking player and the shadow mechanic opening two battle fronts, are two formats where you want to ABC (always be closing) but in this one it's a yes - provided the pieces fall correctly.
Yes, we saw a lot of aggressive drafting on the pro tour, with many of the competitors favouring R/W aggro or quad-Slither-Blade decks, but the tools are certainly there for control players - there's abundant removal, both cheap/restrictive (e.g. Magma Spray) and expensive/versatile (Cast Out, Final Reward) plus embalm creatures with inbuilt card advantage, some of which make great finishers - Glyph Keeper is one of the harder things to deal with in the format and Angel of Sanctions is nuts in a different way - and three different sweepers available in the rare slot between Sweltering Suns, Rags//Riches, and Dusk//Dawn. Aftermath cards are sometimes like drawing an extra card, and most of the end-game cards can be cycled early while they are uncastable
A lot of the things you'd really like in your control deck, however, share the problem of the last five cards mentioned - they are all rare or mythic rare! Draft decks, unlike "constructed.chaserare.dec" are reliant on commons to do a lot of the heavy lifting; as a general rule cards in control decks play specific roles (e.g. removal, card draw and/or incremental advantage, finisher) and if all the necessary parts of the deck don't come together, it's not going to be quite what you're looking for.
Here's the deck drafted by Victor Swarze at Wednesday night's (June 24th) Amonkhet draft - it's close to being a thing of beauty, but not quite there, because there's plenty of that heavy lifting, but precious little to lift
The card I'd like to highlight in the deck is the normally under-drafted Trespasser's Curse, which he managed to collect three of. While being a weak card on its own against many strategies (but great against Oketra's Monument) I saw several games where he had two or three deployed, and his opponent's offense ground to a near-halt as they realised that playing another creature would be near-lethal to them.
When your last onboard attacker meets a Gale Strike and you're on three life (mostly just from playing your creatures - how else are you supposed to win?) and facing down a triple curse, I promise you that cursing is precisely what you'll feel like doing as your hand clogs up with junk and the control player effectively takes four turns in a row while you can't actually DO anything, despite getting to untap and draw...yep, it's another creature. And another!
I'm not going to pretend that Tresspasser's Curse is actually a good card, but you aren't just drafting cards, you're drafting a deck, and they did an awful lot of work for Victor in this deck, buying him a lot of life and many additional turns.
The deck has plenty of removal, including a copy of one of the rare sweepers in Rags//Riches, some of those creatures with embalm that block and trade multiple times, plus counterspells, which combined with As Foretold could allow Victor to tap out almost without fear, knowing he could cast a free Cancel or Essence Scatter during his opponent's turn.
The deck is unfortunately missing a few things that made it difficult for him to close out games. Firstly, it has a bit of trouble in permanently dealing with a large indestructible creature, such as one of the gods or a Seraph of the Suns, with the Trial of Ambition or a counterspell being the only real answer. Picking up a Final Reward somewhere along the line would have been great. It could also use a large finisher; Lay Claim or Angler Drake could suffice in absence of any other broken rares, and perhaps a Trial of Knowledge would help with fuelling As Foretold, which has an unfortunate tendency - common to many decks that play free spells - to churn through cards at a remarkable pace.
Unlike many of the generic aggro piles I've seen drafted from Amonkhet, this is a deck with a solid plan. It's just a pity Victor couldn't pick up those last couple of cards that would have brought his deck from "not quite there" to great.
The draft ended up being taken out by Nathan, who drafted a blue & white embalm deck featuring multiple Oketra's Attendants and Anointer Priests, and was rewarded in pack three with two Aven Wind Guides and an Anointed Procession! The deck handily defeated my deck of hyper-aggressive black and red cows in round one, who beat him within an inch of his life multiple times, but yes, a pair of Anointer Priest tokens is great at stabilising a board.
I hope we can see a greater crowd down at Rabblemaster Games for next Wednesday's draft; you can experience decks like these and more, on both the giving and receiving end! Until then, may his return come quickly, and may we be found worthy
