Disclaimer: The article focuses on the commons that are often seen in the deck, and can be drafted with relative ease compared to uncommons or rares.

One of the less drafted, and not quite obvious, archetypes is Blue/Black Control. It’s not incredibly easy to draft, and not quite easy to play either, but when you do, the deck can be quite effective.

For any good control deck, removal is key. So, first off, we have

The Removal

Black has the only unconditional removal spell in the format in Flesh to Dust, although it’s a little on the expensive side. Often, I found, that the price is one I’m willing to pay for a removal spell that potent. It has some upside in that it is one of the two cards in the format that can effectively remove an Ancient Silverback from the field entirely, the other being Pillar of Light.

Covenant of Blood is one of the better removal spells you can draft in M15, and 4 damage takes out most creatures in the format, save a few bombs and a Siege Wurm here or there. The extra life also lends survivability in the long run, and rewards you for using your creatures to convoke the card. An added bonus is that it can go to your opponent’s dome, and close out games in that manner.

Necrobite is probably the weakest of the three, but makes up for it’s weakness by being rather cheap. It’s a combat specific removal spell, which limits its use, and is more of a combat trick than an honest removal spell. We take what we can get, I suppose.

Peel from Reality is an interesting card. It’s not simply a bounce spell, such as Unsummon or Vapor Snag, since it requires a player to bounce one of his own creatures as well. This means that you can save your own creature in response to removal, giving you card advantage in that manner, while setting your opponent back a turn to recast their creature. It also enables you to reuse strong ETB triggers, such as Frost Lynx’s for added value. Peel is better in M15 because it’s an Instant, a reactionary spell in blue which is lacking in quick tempo plays.

Blue doesn’t have much in the way of true removal except Encrust, which often does the job you need it to do. Unfortunately, unlike its cousin, Claustrophobia, it doesn’t tap the creature when it enters the battlefield, but it has added upside in that it can target artifacts, and prevents activated abilities from being activated. This leads to some interesting scenarios during matches, because people often don’t read the card very well. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen at the highest levels of play, and the player must understand the card inside and out to really get the most out of it. Sadly, you might have to take a few points of damage before Encrust does any real work. Preemptively playing Encrust on an untapped creature may also dissuade your opponent from swinging, and lets you use your mana fully.

Typhoid Rats may not be technically removal, but it slows your opponent’s progress on the ground pretty well. However, don’t expect to get the most out of Rats in terms of removal, as they may just choose to throw a lesser creature under the bus and then cast a bigger threat. Of course, evasive creatures get the better of your Rats, but there’s not much better you can do on turn 1 other than dropping a Typhoid Rats.

Festergloom is a card that has been creeping ever higher in card quality for me, in M15. A black Holy Light effect, Festergloom skips over all your black creatures, affecting (mostly) your opponent’s board. The prevalence of 2/1s for 2 and other X/1s, such as Oreskos Swiftclaw and Geist of the Moors makes Festergloom quite potent. It also singlehandedly takes out Triplicate Spirits and Raise the Alarm, with no trouble. It looks to be a potent sideboard card, but I’ve increasingly found myself wanting a copy in the mainboard to at least 1-for-1 with those pesky X/1s.

Stalling the Board in the Early Game

2/1s for 2 mana often make early game a pain for most decks. These critters like Torch Fiend, Altac Bloodseeker and crew often make early combat tough, and get in points of damage before you can react. In M15, increasingly, people have started noticing a breed of cards that deal with early attackers with ease. Those are the 2/3s for 3 mana, a good response to a lot of early aggressive creatures. The ones available for a blue/black control deck are:

2/3s generally stuff bears quite readily, as well as 2/1s. These cards shore up your early game quite well, and a high toughness figure is often required as a control deck. Of course, they don’t do much better than chump blocks against 3/3s for 3, but only one exists in this format in Invasive Species, so you’re quite safe in running these two against almost any deck. Aeronaut Tinkerer can also turn into a 2/3 with Flying, and that evasion can help you close out games.

Coral Barrier is a card that has crept up in quality for me over time. The 1/3 body is good on its own, and the added 1/1 Squid token is gravy. Often, the Islandwalk won’t be relevant, but it’s another warm body for your board. Coral Barrier also helps you Convoke out your Covenant of Bloods and your Unmake the Graves, so the extra body is never irrelevant. The Barrier also plays well with Peel from Reality.

When the cards were first spoiled for M15, I thought that Research Assistant would be terrible. Four mana for a loot effect? That’s far too much for a 2 point boost in toughness. How often would I rather have a Merfolk Looter instead of this subpar Wizard? Turns out, not that often. Sure, the early dig of the Merfolk Looter is all well and good, but the board stall that the Research Assistant provides far more than makes up for it. During the mid to late game, you can start sculpting your hand, and the Assistant really starts to shine once you’ve stalled the board enough.

While not really an early game card, I thought that Rotfeaster Maggot really deserved a few lines all to itself. It performs much the same function as I talked about in a dredge list, but is far, far more efficacious here. Your opponents really can’t beat 5 toughness with ease, and the life gain lets you survive a bit longer, and gums up the board like a champ. Every so often you might even exile a Phytotitan and smile all the way to the bank.

Card Advantage

All good control decks need sources of card advantage, a way to keep your hand as full as possible. M15 has a few cards that help a deck like this get its due in cards, pictured below:

Sign in Blood and Divination are mainstays of core set drafting, and are pretty self-explanatory. You probably don’t want more than two copies of Sign in Blood in your deck, however, as the loss of life may prove relevant later in the game. It is important to note that Sign in Blood can go off on turn 2, so it doesn’t compete with your three drops on your third turn. Generally Divination and Sign in Blood don’t go very late, so picking up one of each is a victory for your control deck.

Unmake the Graves is a much different form of card advantage than Sign or Divination, and often not included in control decks, but I like to play them, especially if I have some number of Typhoid Rats in the main deck. After the trades fly and the dust settles, the player with the Unmake the Graves in hand comes out on top. It may not be a great card, but it does help control decks survive a few turns longer, so ideally I have between 0 to 1 copy of Unmake in my blue/black deck. It also helps you grab your win conditions from the graveyard if they bite the dust.

The Win Conditions

All control decks need cards that win the game, and in Limited, the case is much the same.

Amphin Pathmage is a very hit or miss card outside of control decks. However, in control decks, you play it late, and use most, if not all your mana into striking with large chunks of damage every turn. Especially in gummed up board states, an Amphin Pathmage can just run away with games and force your opponent to find ways of dealing with it. The best part about the Pathmage is that it doesn’t need to swing itself, but can simply make your larger creatures unblockable, and you can eat away at your opponent’s life total.

Often in control decks, you find yourself swinging with a solitary evasive creature while making the board state as uncomfortable for your opponent as possible, making attacks difficult and trades inevitable. Accursed Spirit is that solitary evasive threat that gnaws 3 life chunks out of your opponent’s life total, while you shore up your defense.

Shadowcloak Vampire is a bit iffy, and requires a decently sized life total for you to make complete use of him. A 4/3 for 5 isn’t often the best, but converting one into a flyer for no mana input is pretty great. It won’t often be outmatched in the sky, and it can be the finisher you need to close out a game. I like to keep the Vampire in the 0 to 2 range, but the numbers you can run without suffering too much relies on your curve.

Caustic Tar has also done a great deal for me in control matchups, and a Bump in the Night every turn without spending any mana really makes your opponent need to rush and deal with the card to begin recklessly trying to race. Either way, you come out on top. The enchantment really does give a control deck the inevitability it needs to finish a match.

Drafting the Deck

Often, you won’t find yourself battling much for the blue in the pack, but black is sometimes an issue, it being a sought-after color. Generally, on a table, there would be on average two blue drafters, but getting cut on black is a problem. If you can fight for black and get the removal you need, you can move into this archetype. Generally, I place removal at a premium, but only after I find my bomb uncommons or rares. Often, Caustic Tar will wheel, as it really doesn’t fit well into aggressive or midrange based black decks, so letting one go isn’t really going to be much of an issue. During the mid pack, I look for as much removal and cards that can gum up the early boards as I can find. Card advantage cards aren’t incredibly important, but picking up a couple in the absence of good curve fillers is fine. A point of note: Welkin Tern isn’t very good in this sort of strategy, and it usually doesn’t fit in well with the rest of the deck. When the rest of your deck is geared towards the late game, and aggressive 2 drop isn’t quite the best thing, unless you land it on turn 2.

Edits:

Cards I missed on the first go around:

Statute of Denial is often seen as awkwardly costed, and rightly so. Four mana counterspells often compete with your curve, and leaving mana up for a counterspell generally prevents you from developing your board. However, in this type of control deck, that drawback doesn’t really hurt the deck too much. The counterspell itself is solid, and more often than not, the loot effect occurs. The power of that loot effect is often underrated, and especially in control, sculpting your hand is of more importance than in other decks. I generally try to fit in between 0 and 1 copy of this card in the mainboard, and will sideboard another if I see bombs I need more answers to than I already have.

Nimbus of the Isles is a solid card that most other aggressive blue decks don’t want, so finding a couple of these to go in your deck isn’t hard. It’s as simple as a card can get, a 3/3 flyer for 5. It closes out games well enough, and can usually nullify your opponents’ offense in the air. It eats Triplicate Spirits tokens for lunch and can block Welkin Terns with ease. There’s usually not much bigger in the sky than a 3/3, save Soul of Ravnica, so you’re safe using it defensively or offensively. I generally keep it between 1 to 2 in my control lists as it usually sits at the top of my curve, and I don’t want it clogging up my hand if I draw too many.

Sample list

1 Typhoid Rats

2 Void Snare

2 Research Assistant

1 Carrion Crow

2 Accursed Spirit

1 Into the Void

2 Rotfeaster Maggot

1 Paragon of Open Graves

1 Frost Lynx

1 Haunted Plate Mail

1 Xathrid Slyblade

2 Witch’s Familiar

2 Sign in Blood

1 Amphin Pathmage

1 Peel from Reality

1 Child of Night

8 Island

9 Swamp

1 Nimbus of the Isles

SB: 2 Tyrant’s Machine

SB: 1 Festergloom

SB: 1 Bronze Sable

SB: 1 Radiant Fountain

SB: 1 Negate

SB: 1 Void Snare

SB: 1 Tormod’s Crypt

SB: 1 Welkin Tern

SB: 1 Shadowcloak Vampire

I did leave the third Void Snare in my board, because I already had four bounce spells in the mainboard, Into the Void was plain better, and Peel from Reality was my only instant speed bounce spell, so I couldn’t cut those in favor of more creatures.

That’s all for now,

Cheers, Brick.