It’s clear to everyone that Standard is in a particularly dire situation. Vivi Cauldron combo has turned the format into a game of Archenemy and, despite having weeks to combat it, the deck’s vicegrip over the format has remained. After completely ruining the recent Arena Championship, and ruling over a subsequent NRG Top 8, the format became much more binary. There is mostly just Vivi, and decks trying to beat it.
One deck type that thrives in a narrow format like this current Standard is control. Control excels at beating just a select few game plans that it’s prepared to take down, which means that, in theory, this should be a good strategy since there’s only a few viable decks. That’s why we saw UW control make a ridiculous run at the last US Regional Championships. It focused on beating UR Prowess, another broken problem deck, and succeeded.
Now, a few different control variants are starting to achieve some smaller successes in the Standard. One, in particular, is a rather wacky brew that is beginning to show up on Magic Online. It’s not enough to defeat Vivi Cauldron right now, but the idea is compelling.
Four-Colored Control
Securing two Standard Challenge top eights and multiple 5-0 League finishes, many Standard MTG players are starting to experiment with a new four-color control build. Jeskai Control has existed in recent formats, but Four-color Control has never really been a thing in Standard. By splashing black, players gain access to two key cards: Inevitable Defeat and Mystical Teachings. Edge of Eternities’ Shock Land reprints have made Verges more consistent, unlocking a stronger manabse for this strategy.
Upon the reveal of Inevitable Defeat, we were quick, perhaps a little too excited, to sing its praises. A card can’t be countered, exiles any threat, and drains the table of three life is absolutely incredible, so long as this is reasonably easy to cast, and four mana isn’t too slow. Mardu has proven rather unpopular up to this point, but it appears that this control deck can consistently cast the powerful spell in a succinct game plan.
Inevitable Defeat has a ton of things going for it in the current meta. Being able to remove anything is very valuable in a format where artifacts, enchantments, creatures, and Planeswalkers are all remove-on-sight threats. Vivi Cauldron presents both Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Proft’s Eidetic Memory, which need to be removed as soon as possible. Once they create too much value, the game just ends. Dimir Midrange presents Kaito, Bane of Nightmares as another threat that’s bad to leave sitting. The life swing lets this card perform better against another Standard deck that seems to be putting up consistent, satisfactory results: Mono-Red Dragons.
Being able to answer anything with Inevitable Defeat means that your other removal spells can do their jobs better. Remove an enchantment with Inevitable Defeat, and clear artifacts and creatures with Ultima. Alternatively, you can remove an artifact with Inevitable Defeat if your other answer is a Get Lost.
Inevitable Defeat is clearly the main reason to go into black, but what about the rest of the deck? This control brew has several components that support a strategy that may ultimately become necessary due to Vivi Cauldron’s nature.
You Can’t Tap Out
Vivi Cauldron combo is not a deck you can tap out against, especially as the game goes late. If you allow them to establish a Vivi Orniter under Agatha’s Soul Cauldron with even just one creature in play, they can generate so much advantage that getting back into the game is impossible. Sometimes, they’ll just outright kill you.
As a result, this Four-Color Control deck’s main win condition is Jeskai Revelation. This card can slow down the Vivi Cauldron strategy significantly and establish a threat at the same time. While you’ll generally be dealing damage to threats instead of opponents, Jeskai Revelation can pair well with Inevitable Defeat to burn an opponent out.
A lot of other adjustments allow this Four-Color Control list to tap out as little as possible. Stock Up has almost completely been replaced by Consult the Star Charts. These card advantage tools are comparable, but Consult being instant speed allows the deck to react to the opponent as consistently as possible. There’s even a Final Showdown being played over a third Ultima to shut down creature abilities in a pinch, but also function as an instant speed boardwipe. Mystical Teachings allows one-of cards like this to be much more effective.
In the main deck, there are only three cards that only work at Sorcery speed, and two of them are board wipes. Even in the sideboard, a majority of the cards are instants or threats with Flash. Only a few sorcery speed hard counters to certain strategies, like Rest in Peace, appear in the sideboard.
A Core Control Package is Here
The fringe success of control decks across larger Standard tournaments makes it clear that, while a good deck hasn’t quite been figured out yet, the potential for a standout control deck is there. This four-color Control deck has all the format mainstays for the archetype seen across its variants. No More Lies and Three Steps Ahead are both powerful counterspells that can keep parity with your opponents in the early and the lategame. Get Lost is a versatile answer that can deal with multiple problem cards. Lightning Helix can remove creatures while buying extra time, and Marang River Regent doubles as an exceptional win condition that can turn into additional card draw when needed. That, plus a very versatile sideboard that takes advantage of the main deck’s powerful card advantage, makes up this control strategy.
While the deck has some decent results, it just doesn’t compare to Vivi Cauldron Combo right now. That’s going to be the truth with any Standard MTG deck at the moment, and looking at recent results, that’s not going to change. Regardless, this deck does give players an opportunity to play with some very powerful spells in a competitive way.