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BeJoSe's Deck Garage
B/R Control
March 16, 2009

I realize I haven't written an article in awhile, but uni (college in America?) has started and trying to find a balance between that and work has been a bit tough, nonetheless I'm back now.
 
Hey I have read your articles for a while and now it seems that I might need your help.

I have build the deck shown below its for casual play:

 

4 Innocent blood  B
2 Barter in blood  2BB
4 Nevinyral's disk  4
4 Tendrils of corruption  3B
2 Snuff out   3B / 4 life
 
4 hymn to tourach  BB
4 Mind twist   XB
4 Rise/Fall   RB/BU
4 Blightning   1RB
 
2 Yukora, the prisoner  2BB
4 Animate dead   1B
 
4 Tainted peak
4 Crumbling Necropolis
16 Swamps
 
The strategy is slowing the opponent down with barter in blood, innocent blood  and the targeted removal while ripping the hand apart with the discard spells. 

When my opponent is down my goal is to drop a Yukora or animate dead one of his discarded guys for a hopefully clean kill.

nevinyrral's disk covers enchantments or artifacts that might otherwise prove troublesome and can help deal with rushes.

Against some decks it works well. most combo decks cannot deal with my discard and a lot of control decks has the same issues. most aggro decks are kept down by my creature kill. My main issue is planeswalkers. They are not hit by creature kill, they are not eaten by disc and they can win the game on their own.

Luckily most planeswalkers are a bit expensive meaning that i can often eat them before they get into play but when one sticks it is often a troublesome process to get rid of it. sometimes yukora can take it sometimes something else is needed but what?
  
I have considered the rack , but it seems kind of slow and every extra top deck chance my opponent gets is a bad thing, Animate dead is good if I can rip some useful dude from my opponents hand what I usually can, but when I can't I need to draw my Yukora which can take time living my opponents more chances.
I'm on a budget, mind twist is the most expensive card in my deck and I'll prefer to keep it that way.
 
Thanx for your help
 
- Michael


B/R control can be hard to pull off at times, but this deck looks like it does it fairly well.
Your mana base is constructed fairly well with a good number of lands and 8 sources of red means you should be able to fairly reliably cast your red spells.
You say your having a problem with planeswalkers, that shouldn't be too hard to fix.
 
In order to deal with the planeswalkers I'm going to suggest adding in some more red cards. As such you'll need to devote more of your manabase to producing red, Sulfurous Springs fits the bill nicely. A set of Solemn Simulacrum is another card you might want to consider, it accelerates your mana and doesn't mind dying, a nice control card (just remember to add in some basic mountains)

Another problem that I've found with B/R decks is that they tend to suffer from a lack of card advantage, that is they have to play from the top of their deck. I'm going to suggest a few ways around this.

  • Titan's revenge allows you to repeatedly deal with creatures or burn your opponent, the chances of winning the clash arn't terrible and it gives you a slight form of library manipulation (even if it gives your oppoent the same advantage)
  • The previously mentioned Solemn Simulacrum
  • Beacon Of Unrest could replace animate dead. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that shuffles itself back into your deck, obviously meaning you have the chance to draw it again. Secondly it recur any relevant artifacts your opponent may have used. Lastly if your opponent manages to destroy animate dead you also lose your creature, not the case with beacon of unrest
  • Arc-Slogger, a very powerful card in my opinion providing you not only with a reasonable sized 4/5 creature but also on average 8 points of burn, that can often end the game right there.
  • Phyrexian Arena, if your willing to incur the life loss the arena can quickly let you get ahead on card advantage.

Cards to cut

  • You have a lot of solid cards in this deck, but there are a few I can see you removing
  • Since you'll have fewer swamps in your deck the tendrils loses a lot of its power and can go
  • I've never found Rise/Fall to be that powerful of a card and between blightning, mind twist and hymn you still have quite a powerful discard suite to disrupt control and combo decks.

 
Between titan's revenge, blightning and arc-slogger you should easily have enough brun to destroy most planeswalkers.

A possible replacement for batter in blood is damnation. Unless your group features a lot of indestructible creatures or similar, damnation basically does a better job than barter in blood for the same cost.

  • The disk is an excellent addition to a deck like this allowing B/R to deal with their typical weakness, enchantments. If you decide to add in the phyrexian arena then the disk also gives you a way to destroy it if the lifeloss is getting to much.
  • You've got the right idea in only including 2 creatures in your deck, because you have some many board sweeping effects. However I still recommend the slogger and Solemn Simulacrum, slogger because of its raw power and the simulacrum because it doesn't mind dying.
  • Anther creature you might want to consider is Undead Gladiator. It cycles through your deck, trades with x/3 creatures and of course recurs itself over and over, perfect after just playing a board clearing spell.

 
Good luck killing those 'walkers!


 

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