Let us begin with a point of reference.  Here is the WotC definition of red mages: “Red mages have no patience for talk or subtlety. They act quickly and recklessly…. At their best, red mages are dynamic, passionate, and unbound. At their worst, they are shortsighted, temperamental, and destructive.” About what you would expect and true for the most part.  Now here is Aaron Forsythe’s admittedly broad explanation of ‘control’: “Your plan is to prevent your opponent from achieving his plan. When he is stifled at every turn, when his deck can’t gain any sort of positional advantage, then you will win the game.” See the connection?  Of course not, these are totally conflicting ideals.

has red settled down?

Not any more.  Red has quickly become a favorite splash color for control Wizards everywhere.  Due to a laundry list of red control cards currently legal in Standard, a new crop of rose-colored control builds have begun sprouting up out of the soil.   M10 and Zendikar are littered with spot removal and sweeps, while Alara has one key sweep (Volcanic Fallout) and several potent control spells with a dash of crimson. Certainly red has always offered duelists the option to clear the board, Pyroclasm isn’t a new print.  But a plethora of non-sweep control cards have facilitated a marriage of calm control with red burn.

During the recent Zendikar Game Day players showed up with two types of decks: Jund and decks they hoped could beat Jund.  Creativity, and a sense of desperation has caused players to build outside their color-pie comfort zone. At this point Cruel Control is considered old school in comparison to most standard builds, since it has been around in various forms since Shards of Alara.  Red is used in CC builds for more than providing mana for that final spell, including creature sweeps and spot removal.  The most red-dominated current archetype is Red-White control, a build that uses red planeswalkers (like Ajani Vengeant, and Chandra Nalaar) or Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle as finishers instead of Cruel Ultimatum.  Red-Blue control is a slightly altered version of Cruel Control using Chandra and counterspells like Swerve.  Typical RU control is an anti-Jund focused deck that uses counter-magic and spot removal to deny Jund the card advantage it normally creates.  Pyromancers Ascension,  a combo deck with subtle control, uses red to sweep and for spot removal to allow enough time for PA to go off, then cards like Time Warp as win conditions.  Finally, the elephant in the MTG room, Jund uses red for most of its control elements.  Specifically for Blightning, Bituminous Blast and Terminate.

chandra in control

Because it is so versatile red has more cards being used in as control elements or in control archetypes than any other color.  Take a look:

• Sweep – There are currently four effective sweeps (five if you count an anti-token Maelstrom Pulse) in Standard and three of them are red.  Pyroclasm is the classic standby that can stunt an opposing army early for only two mana.  The revolutionary Pyroclasm, Volcanic Fallout, has seen extended life after faeries for its instant speed and direct player damage.  The grand-daddy of red sweep is Earthquake, both in age and power.  Easily capable of wiping the board for four mana, or providing that last jab at an opponent’s life total.

• Spot Removal – Magic 2010 is the set most responsible for red’s emergence as a control color and the best red card in M10 is Lightning Bolt.  It saw immediate tournament action when fae players began splashing it to take out Great Sable Stag.  Lightning Bolt remains the most efficient creature/planeswalker killer out there.  Now Burst Lightning offers players another removal/burn option to pair with LB or terminate.  Also, red has the market cornered on land destruction, and Goblin Ruinblaster carries the torch in that category as a sideboard in almost any deck that runs the color.

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  blightning this!

  Countermagic – Perhaps the most surprising element of red’s game right now is the fact there are two red counterspells.  Yes, they are more blue than red (to keep our color pie sanity) but Swerve and Double Negative still need red to cast.  Double Negative is basically a Cancel that can stymie Cascade mechanics, thus making it perfect against Jund.

• Finishers – Planeswalkers have been popular since their inception, but Chandra Nalaar is making more Top 8 lists that ever before.  As a cheaper alternative to Cruel Ultimatum or as two-for-one creature removal Chandra is winning over duelists who used to considered her unplayable.  Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle can be ran in combo decks, but can lock down an opponent in the late game when you might otherwise play Cruel Ultimatum.  Of course lets not forget that CU takes red mana to cast as well.

Post-Zendikar control is tainted heavily with red, that has been established.  But what does that mean and how did we get here?  We got here because there are so few solid permission spells in Standard.  WotC has gone on record saying that counter/bounce decks ‘aren’t any fun’ which may explain the recent dirge. Even with the counter-magic available players are timid to rely to heavily on blue without a backup plan.  Sleep is a tragically poor replacement for Evacuation, leaving blue without any form of sweep.  White is the king of sweep, but with Cascade and Blightning decks so popular, poor white can’t keep up in card advantage.  That leaves green (green is not a control color and may never be), black (same pitfalls as white, without the sweep) and red.  What does this mean?  This means that ‘control’ as a style is changing.  Decks are aggressive and fast in every other facet, why not in control?  Call it ‘aggressive control’ or using a color known for being “shortsighted and destructive” to “prevent your opponent from achieving his plan.” As players our job is to understand this shift and embrace the new face of control: Red!

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