MTG: Road to Nationals - Control vs. Aggro (Decktest #2)

I had a friend drop by my place yesterday and decided to practice our decks for the upcoming Nationals Qualifiers. He’s using a fast mono-red deck consist of burn spells and winnie red creatures. As for myself, I’m piloting a U/B Teferi Control deck from John Kolos, US Nationals Top 8 player.

Here’s both deck list

Red Deck Wins
Lands (20)
20 Mountains

Creatures (24)
4x Scorched Rusalka
4x Mogg Fanatic
3x Keldon Marauders
3x Magus of the Scroll
2x Greater Gargadon
4x Giant Solifuge
2x Frenzied Goblin
2x Spark Elemental

Spells (16)
4x Incinerates
4x Char
4x Rift Bolt
2x Seal of Fire
2x Demonfire

U/B Teferi Control
Lands (26)
1x Faerie Conclave
2x Desert
2x Dimir Aqueduct
5x Islands
2x Swamps
2x River of Tears
1x Urborg
2x Tolaria West
3x Dreadship Reef
4x Watery Grave
2x Urza's Factory

Creatures (8)
1x Brine Elemental
1x Tombstalker
1x Skeletal Vampire
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1x Draining Whelk
3x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Spells (26)
1x Tendrils of Corruption
1x Haunting Hymn
1x Careful Consideration
1x Last Gasp1x Repeal
1x Damnation
1x Slaughter Pact
3x Mystical Teachings
3x Remove Soul
4x Spell Snare
4x Remand
4x Rune Snag
1x Dimir Signet

We played a lot of games that day, almost 3 hours of decktesting. Some games I loss and some games I won. Thru my decktesting that day, most of the games I won was with massive counterspell in my 1st draw hand. I remember I had like 4 lands, 1 Reman, 1 Spell Snare and 1 Rune Snag, this was enough counterspells to make trouble for a red aggro deck. I also remember, if Desert were out on your 1st turn, it will be all over.

Some wins also by using my creature to beatdown my opponent. Creatures such at Teferi, Mage of Zhalfri, Tombstalker and Skeletal Vampire. Sometimes, I even use Vesuvan Shapeshift and copy the Skeletal Vampire to make more creatures during my opponent EOT.

I found out that Remove Soul is so good in this deck. It works well in aggro deck but I will certainly sideboard it against mirror decks. Haunting Hymn also helps a lot, discarding 3 Giant Solifuge and 1 Incinerate is so sweet.

I still think that this deck still needs to tweak up a little. A single Dimir Signet, Damnation and Tendrils of Corruption is still not enough. I will be adding more creature removal spells such as an extra Damnation, Tendrils of Corruption, Terror and also perhaps more counterspells such as Delay and Cancel.

The reason I loss some games to the mono-red decks is due to lack of lands or too many lands and lack of counterspells. Even with a single mountain, my opponent can even finished me off will Greater Gargadon, Keldon Mauraders and some burn spells.

My next deckteast will be against Blink variants decks. The current meta at my area are mostly Blink and Rakdos decks. I will keep updating my blog on my decktesting. Stay tune.
Cheers