Hi guys.

A lot of you have asked me why I love U/W Control in Modern lately so I decided I’d come out of retirement and write about it for you. It’s certainly easier than explaining it a hundred times that’s for sure!

I’ve been a strong advocate of U/W control since Sphinx’s Revelation was printed. There was nothing better than resolving a Sphinx’s Revelation in standard and seeing your opponent reel back in their seat. In a world of Modern Midrange, the same applies except you have added bonus of back up cards like Snapcaster Mage, recasting it from the grave if your opponent feels the need to make you discard it.

Ok, so my love for the deck doesn’t just stem from one card. The deck itself has game against most decks because many people don’t expect it. The Blue White Red decks attack on a vastly different axis and are a lot more popular so people tend to focus on those decks rather than UW.

I will warn you however. If your meta has a lot of Infect this might not be the deck for you unless you are willing to heavily warp your sideboard. I’ll go into more detail about that a little later. Modern is such a broad format that the infect problem barely arises. It’s why Modern is such a marmite format. Some people love it while some people hate it. Before I found a deck I actually enjoy playing I was more on the hate it side. It was because the format is too large to properly playtest for. It made events too much of a free for all based on running well in the matchups you received rather than testing your skill.

Here is the list I played last weekend in a PPTQ to a very unlucky top 4 finish.

On the day the main deck was almost perfect. A couple of times I was left wishing I had 1 or 2 Wrath of God’s in the main and side. The matchups lined up perfectly. No infect and plenty of Jund to beat up on.

I guess now would be a good time to tell you why I think this deck is so good. It’s matchup vs Jund is as good as the matchup against Infect is bad. Jund is an extremely popular deck and most times I play against it I’m very happy with how the games play out. Without landing a Liliana of the Veil and having it stay in play until the ultimate happens, they can’t pressure you with enough discard and beat down to beat you to a resolved big spell. It’s the same with almost all the midrange decks.

Your wraths are especially good vs the non-Jund midrange and aggro decks. They aren’t quite as good vs Jund because that deck can attack you from so many angles. Sometimes a wrath isn’t what you need to stop them going where they want to. Weirdly, the much needed Wrath of Gods were a nod to Jund (and mainly Elves) as a way to get around Thrun, The Last Troll. He is quite annoying as a giant Abyss or 4 damage a turn creature. As it turned out Elspeth, Sun’s Champion got the better of Thrun the game he almost mattered, but still. Kitchen Finks also does a good job keeping him in check for a few turns. Be careful of Scavenging Ooze scuppering your plans though!

The Elves problem is all about Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Only having Supreme Verdict was silly in hindsight. Elves dumped me out of the event on the back of not being able to Wrath of God his team away because of the regeneration clause.

One final big reason I really like this deck……it’s aggro match isn’t terrible and in some cases is actually quite good. The death’s shadow deck can be a tad rough at times but Naya Zoo has proven to not be a problem, and in a lot of matches game 1 has been the easiest. Going forward this is the list I would play tomorrow.

Most of the changes come in the sideboard. The only main deck change I would make is changing one of the Supreme Verdicts to a Wrath of God. This is to give you some cover vs random regenerating creatures. The ‘can’t be countered’ clause on Supreme Verdict only really comes up vs Merfolk and as I said at the start, the format is so broad you might not even play against it, even in a small event. Modern isn’t like standard, where 4-5 decks make up the majority of the metagame. Modern is huge. There’s something for everyone. If you have a pet card that’s modern legal I guarantee there’s a deck for it somewhere.

The changes in the sideboard are to combat the not so popular, but great at the moment, Dark Confidant. Sunlance is surprisingly great against a lot of the better decks at the moment. Merfolk, Infect, Jund (Confidant), Elves, Mana Producers. The only thing it’s not great at killing is 4 toughness creatures, White creatures and creature lands. Teaming up with Snapcaster Mage can even kill a 4+ toughness creature so even that can be covered.

If you’re scared of a particular deck like Infect or Affinity you can change this sideboard more to your liking. Extra copies of Stony Silence or something like Chalice of the Void (for Infect). Combo killers like Ethersworn Cannonist and Eidolon of Rhetoric can be added. The sideboard is flexible because white has so many of the good sideboard cards available to it.

The sideboard I played in the first event was good vs the Red decks, Affinity and any graveyard decks we happened to play against (2 Rest in Peace is a lot). I completely sacked off the Infect match as I might not play it anyway. For bigger events I’d probably stick with the Sunlance but I’ll let you know how the sideboard performed next week.

I think I’ll be going in to a lot more detail about specific match ups and sideboard plans next week as today I’ve provided a brief overview of the deck and my thoughts on why I think you should give it a go.

As with all the articles on Troll Trader Cards we encourage you to get involved with discussion in the threads so if you have any questions or want to query a selection or omission please don’t hesitate to do so! I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading.

See you next week.