Hey, everyone! I’m back with another Daily Arena deck tech with a gameplay video. After playing exclusively aggro for a few weeks, I decided to switch over to the control side of things and take a look at U/B Control.

The list I’m working on is one I got from Aetherhub, where it was posted by ZuBBy1986.

Here is the target deck list:



ZuBBy1986's U/B Control

Here is the list I’m actually playing at the moment:



U/B Control

As you can see, there are quite a few replacements of Rare and Mythic cards that I haven’t yet been able to collect.

Here is the gameplay/deck tech video I recorded. For oldsters like me who like to read, everything I talk about the video is written up after it.

The Scarab God is the main win condition of the deck. If your opponent doesn’t deal with it immediately by countering it, exiling it, or pacifying it, then it will get out of hand very quickly. If you are able to create even a single Zombie, then The Scarab God gives you real ineveitablity through your opponent slowly losing life which you can scry all the gas you need to the top of your deck. The Scarab God is probably the best win condition you’re going to get for this deck, but other finishers like Glyph Keeper and Nezahal, Primal Tide can substitute while you’re waiting for more Mythic Wildcards.

Champion of Wits gives you a double-loot when it enters the battlefield the first time, and if it dies it comes back and lets you draw four cards and keep two of them. This is a very high value creature, and watching this die and come back filling your hand with good spells can be very demoralizing to your opponent. Even if your opponent counters Champion of Wits, you get good value. It’s really only weak to exile and pacifism effects. If you don’t have four Champion of Wits, I’d use card draw spells as a temporary replacement, Spells like Pull from Tomorrow and Secrets of the Golden City.

Ravenous Chupacabra is probably the best Uncommon around, good in basically any deck that plays black. It’s a built-in 2-for-1, killing an opponent’s creature while netting you a 2/2 body (which, in turn becomes that much more fodder for The Scarab God, eventually). You’re going to want to prioritize instant-speed/exile removal over this one, but you probably want a couple in the deck.





Dusk Legion Zealot draws you a card for a single black mana plus one life. That’s a great deal in this deck already, and Dusk Legion Zealot has the added upside of being able to chump-block and eventually return as a 4/4 Zombie, thanks to The Scarab God.





Vraska’s Contempt is this deck’s premium removal spell. It deals with both Creatures and Planeswalkers permanently, at instant speed. You want a complete playset of Vraska’s Contempt in this deck once you are able, unfortunately it’s rare, so you might have a hard time collecting them. While you’re working on collecting the Wildcards to craft Vraska’s Contempt, you can put Impales and/or more Ravenous Chupacabras in this slot. Settle the Score is coming soon in Dominaria, as well, and makes a decent budget replacement for Vraska’s Contempt, although not hitting Planeswalkers is a real strike against any of these.

Supreme Will functions as a Mana Leak early in the game, and once Mana Leak becomes bad it replaces itself with your choice of card from the top 4 of your deck, which will frequently be a situational upgrade. The flexibility is what makes this card really good, as neither mode is great at 3 mana, and you probably don’t want to run more than a couple of them in the deck.





Essence Scatter‘s downside is that it only hits creatures. In the current MTGA environment, most of the threats you need to deal with via a counterspell are creatures, and Essence Scatter is so much easier to cast than Cancel, that I choose it every time. Some other flexible counters that can hit noncreature spells, like Censor, Supreme Will, and Commit // Memory are important to keep in the deck for when you need them, or when you need their other modes.

Hieroglyphic Illumination is a nice 2-for-1 when you cast it, and when you can’t afford to, it cycles away efficiently. This is exactly the kind of draw spell you want a couple of in this deck, and fits right in with the other cards that gain you incremental value over time.





Censor works as a decent counterspell for the first four or five turns of the game, and when it’s no good countering spells anymore, it cycles away on the cheap, helping you dig through your deck for the other cards you need to close out the game.





The Commit side of Commit // Memory kicks a threatening spell or permanent down the road, giving you time to find a hard counter or answer, or just win the game before it comes back. The Memory side refills your hand when you’ve run out of good cards, and can mess with your opponent’s plans when used carefully.





Moment of Craving is cheap removal that can take care of small utility creatures and blockers, as well as help deal with cards like Adanto Vanguard, as indestructibility doesn’t save a creature from getting -X/-X-ed to death. The life gain is a nice little bonus.





Arguel’s Blood Fast is a card draw engine. If you get this out in the first five turns and can just draw cards whenever you want to, it starts to feel like you can’t lose the game. If you transform it to Temple of Aclazotz, you can use it to get The Scarab God out from under a pacifism aura, as well. I don’t have two of these yet, so have replaced one temporarily with an Unsummon which serves a dual role of getting The Scarab God out from under pacifisms, and also killing tokens generated by embalm and eternalize-heavy token decks.

Liliana, Death’s Majesty can do really good work in this deck. She can make an army of Zombies to help The Scarab God finish off your opponent more quickly (they attack, as well), and she also allows you to get extra value out of Champion of Wits, Ravenous Chupacabra, and Dusk Legion Zealot. If that’s not enough, her ultimate can break board stalls against token decks (as long as the tokens aren’t all Zombies).





Field of Ruin basically does two things: a) Destroy rare transform lands once they’ve transformed, and b) Bait your opponent into shuffling their library after they’ve tutored something to the top. It has some edge utility in denying mana to your opponent if they only have one land they need for fixing, but that is rare.





Fetid Pools and Drowned Catacomb are the best mana fixing lands available in these colors. Fetid Pools comes in tapped, but you can cycle it away when you don’t need the land. The cycling ability on Fetid Pools more than makes up for coming in tapped in this deck. Drowned Catacomb comes in untapped if you already have an Island or Swamp, which is a really easy ask in this deck. Since I care less about coming in tapped in this deck, I’d prioritize Fetid Pools over Drowned Catacomb. Desert of the Mindful and Desert of the Glorified make decent budget replacements for Fetid Pools, and while you’re working on your collection of Drowned Catacombs, you can just play Submerged Boneyards instead.

And that’s basically the deck. I’ll be back later with more information on how this deck matches up against other decks in the meta once I have more games in. Until then, I’m off to play those games, and maybe I’ll see you on the battlefield!

As always, you can direct any comments, questions or criticisms to me here, on Reddit, on Twitter at @DailyArena or on Facebook via the @DailyArenaMTG page.

Peace.

Joseph Eddy is a Father, Husband, Son, Brother, Software Developer, and Gamer. Magic is his favorite hobby, and he’s looking forward to seeing you all on Arena. He streams Magic Arena on a weekly basis (or more), but currently is unable to keep to a set schedule.