So after a disastrous week playing UB control at last week’s FNM, back at my local store this week I made a few changes to the deck and gave it another shot. Most significantly my friend had acquired a Karn Liberated so I now had another Planeswalker in my arsenal.

I’ll kick of with my decklist.

Creatures:
1 Consecrated Sphinx, 1 Grave Titan, 1 Frost Titan, 2 Snapcaster Mage
Spells:
Removal – 2 Black Sun’s Zenith, 3 Tragic Slip, 1 Sever the Bloodline, 2 Tribute to Hunger, 1 Go for the Throat
Draw – 3 Think Twice, 2 Forbidden Alchemy, 1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
Counter – 4 Mana Leak, 3 Dissipate, 2 Negate
Other – 1 Curse of Death’s Hold, 1 Ratchet Bomb,
1 Liliana of the Veil, 1 Karn Liberated, 1 Sorin’s Vengeance
Land:
4 Darkslick Shores, 4 Drowned Catacomb, 2 Ghost Quarter,
2 Nephalia Drownyard, 7 Island, 7 Swamp

Sideboard:
2 Witchbane Orb, 1 Nihil Spellbomb, 2 Surgical Extraction,
1 Go for the Throat, 1 Curse of Death’s Hold, 3 Steel Sabotage,
2 Flashfreeze, 1 Increasing Confusion, 2 Phyrexian Metamorph

The most crucial changes to the deck since last week were obviously the inclusion of Karn, but I also removed a Snapcaster Mage; having been rather underwhelmed by him in previous weeks I think two are adequate. I’d acquired an Increasing Confusion for the sideboard, which turned out to be a key card, and my counterspell count was increased a little since I’d been having problems not seeing enough counters in past weeks. Finally, a Grave Titan was added in place of a Sphinx.

And so, onto the games!

Round 1 vs UWb aggro.
In game 1 I managed to shut down everything my opponent tried to do. Lingering Souls tokens were met with Black Sun’s Zeniths and his Dungeon Geists had no targets. I won with Sorin’s Vengeance, flashed back with Snapcaster Mage. Exactly the reason fro including that card in the first place, I’m glad I was finally able to make that play. In game 2 I managed to Surgically Extract his Lingering Souls early on. From there my counters and removal kept his deck locked down as I took the round. 2-0.

Round 2 vs Br Zombies (David Remon, whose report of this FNM can be found here)
Zombies is perhaps my least favourite match-up. Still, I managed to win game 1 almost out of nowhere! It was close, but down to 3 life a perfectly timed Tribute to Hunger to get rid of a Phyrexian Obliterator helped me stabilise and I was able to ride out the game ti victory. Dave even complimented me on how well I played my deck in game 1 Game 2 was equally fantastic, and unfortunately for me I was unable to answer Dave’s super secret sideboard tech… Manabarbs! This locked me out of the game and I died to some direct damage. Game 3 was a disappointing end to the round. I mulliganed. Three times. Only seeing 1 land each time. I wish I could have given Dave a better game but I think he was happy with the end result as he took the round. 1-2.

Round 3 vs Tempered Township
As the name suggests, this was essentially a Tempered Steel deck backed up by Gavony Township. My opponent came into the round saying that he expected to lose, which is never a good attitude. I probably should have mentioned that fact, and will be sure to remember to do so in future. In the first game my deck worked smoothly an I took the artifact offense apart piece by piece and Consecrated Sphinx got on with the beatdown. Again I suffered from mana problems in game 2, but in game 3 my deck was back on form and a barrage of counter magic held my opponents’ deck at bay. A large Chimeric Mass made it a close game, but both Nephalia Drownyards milled my opponent’s deck faster. 2-1.

Round 4 vs Bant Pod
A very interesting match up. Ive played with Pod a lot before, as well as against it, so I had a good idea what I wanted to be focusing my control on. Game 1 was ended as I battled against a Venser, the Sojourner who had gone ultimate no less than twice! Once again, Snappy and Sorin’s Vengeance teamed up for a satisfying win.
Game 2 I found myself mana screwed AGAIN! I really don’t get how this seems to happen so often with this deck, I’m running 26 land. Perhaps I need to shuffle more but we are short on round time (only 45 mins) as it is Anyway, I basically scooped that one.
Onto game three. My early countermagic played out smoothly, as I hit my opponent with a few Drownyard activations, a very key card in this match-up since once my opponent did manage to stick a Birthing Pod he found himself accidentally podding away creatures with nothing left to find! I closed the game with Increasing Confusion, first for 8 and then 16 the following turn to reduce my opponents library size to exactly zero! Passing the turn he tried to draw and died.
Afterwards he flipped over the last card in his hand, none other than Purify the Grave! Fortunately for me it happened that in his penultimate turn my opponent had tapped out for a Moldgraf Monstrosity and forgot to leave the W mana open. Still, I had backup in hand from Blue Sun’s Zenith and in play from my Drownyards, so either way was good for me A fantastic way to end a fantastic night. 2-1.

And with that, I came 3rd! My best result in weeks (ever since my last victory with GB Heartless Pod I believe..) Dave finished in 2nd. I was a bit disappointed not to receive an FNM Promo Dismember, since I hadn’t got one yet and tonight was my last chance, so now it’s missing from my collection. But never mind, I didn’t really want one for any reason other than it being pretty anyway, lol. On the plus side I did a load more trading tonight, acquiring another 12 artifacts which will now be having to compete for slots in my EDH decks.

On Sunday of course there is the Avacyn Restored Pre-Release which I am very much looking forward to. Whether UB control will be viable in the coming weeks is to be seen, although I’m considering turning to some form of BW control anyway so I’ll see what I can come up with there…

As ever, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a reply or drop me a message on twitter

@EdGuise88