by Bones
Welcome to House Dimir. The following is a comprehensive guide on the UB control archetype within the Noble format. This deck aims to use cheap or free interaction in the early game in order to slow down your opponent and establish an unbeatable card advantage engine in the late game. UB trades the flexibility of removal that other control colors offer, in exchange for a consistent two color mana base. In doing so, the deck is able to support Mystic Sanctuary, which may be combined with cards like Gush to allow the deck to never truly run out of cards. This gives UB Control one of the strongest late games in the format.
An UB pilot’s goal should always be to extend the game long enough for them to establish full control from overwhelming card advantage.
This is the most recent iteration of the deck (although it should be noted that as a hard control deck running a tutor package, the deck should tailor itself to suit whatever the current metagame looks like):
The Opening Hand
When deciding whether or not to keep a hand, several factors come into play. Assuming that you are completely unaware of what your opponent is playing, typically you want your opening hand to have two or more lands, a few sources of interaction, and some card advantage. It should not be understated how important hitting your land drops is in this deck; you are looking to get Mystic Sanctuary online as soon as possible while also attempting to be able to cast spells using multiple black pips. As such, if you have an opportunity to play out or fetch for a Contaminated Aquifer you must do so as early as possible. You want to be able to hold up multiple low mana value spells or one large mana value spell, so making sure you have the right amount of mana to work with is imperative. However, you should make sure that you do not get run over too quickly if your opponent is playing a very aggressive deck or a fast combo deck, which means that you need to be able to interact quickly if the occasion calls for it.
Playing the Deck
With this deck, it is important to remember that your main goal is always to extend the game as long as you can. The vast majority of the time, you will win in the lategame, so you do not need to get too aggressive when trying to close out the game (unless you are low on time). Answer what you need to answer and hide behind Baleful Strix while you make land drops and draw cards with Fact or Fiction and Treasure Cruise. Prioritize leaving instants and sorceries in your graveyard when delving, as you are able to pretty easily use your spells multiple times between Mystic Sanctuary and Founding the Third Path. This is why the deck is able to make very good use out of Mystical Tutor; silver bullet answers can be reused multiple times in the matchups that they are relevant. When you are ready to win, Rise From the Tides is your finisher. Just be careful to not run it out too quickly; usually you want to cast it with Mana Drain up, or late enough in the game that you can hold up other interaction after you cast it.
The Sideboard
The sideboard of this deck is very customizable and built to target specific good decks within the Noble metagame. Mystical Tutor allows your sideboard to contain a large variety of one-of bullets that are very good in specific matchups. Here is what each card in the sideboard is targeting:
Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast: Three sideboard slots are currently dedicated to respecting aggressive red decks (or any red decks in general). Red aggro is very strong in Noble, and having extra ways to shut down your opponent’s early game aggression helps against some of our worse matchups.
Cling to Dust: A repeatable source of card advantage and life gain that also helps against any deck playing Reanimate. Good against graveyard-based midrange and control as well as reanimator and initiative decks playing reanimation spells.
Elixir of Immortality: Elixir is an out to our opponent exiling all of our win conditions. Running the 1-of sideboard elixir means we can never deck ourselves. It also gains five life against burn, if you feel the need to do so.
Nihil Spellbomb: More respect for decks that play with their graveyard. The graveyard is just as strong in Noble as it is in most other eternal formats.
Feed the Swarm: What looks like a very mediocre removal spell is actually UB’s best non-counter answer to annoying enchantments. Noble’s top tier is plagued by a number of very strong enchantments that can quickly spiral a game out of control, and Feed the Swarm gives us a lot more game against them. Examples are Abiding Grace and The Lost and the Damned.
Sheoldred’s Edict: An edict in the 75 helps against dangerous threats with ward/hexproof and gives us more removal against the many creature decks in the format. Sailor’s Bane is an example of a card that Sheoldred’s Edict is here to deal with.
Test of Talents: This card is here to help against combo. WitherSmog and High Tide do not function if you extract their namesake spells.
Narset, Parter of Veils: Narset is VERY good in the Noble format. Narset helps against a large amount of the metagame, including against control, combo decks like High Tide and KCI, and any deck playing Skullclamp.
Rebuild: Gives us a tutorable out to Tinker threats or a large affinity board.Energy Flux is another very powerful option for the same matchups, but I value my sideboard answers to be findable with Mystical Tutor. Besides, if you remember, being an instant/sorcery means that this spell adds to your count for Rise From the Tides and can be recurred with Mystic Sanctuary and Founding the Third Path.
Virtue’s Ruin: This card is brutal against white aggressive decks that would otherwise be very rough for us. Hi Leo <3
Rise From the Tides: A second Rise is included in my sideboard mostly if I need to win quicker or if I expect my opponent to attack my wincons. Otherwise, if the one-of Rise is exiled, we would be forced to win with Baleful Strix beats, which is not particularly optimal for us.
Afterword
Thank you for reading! If you have any further questions about the deck, feel free to reach out to me on the Noble discord (my @ is bones#0003). Noble being such a new format means that as the meta changes, control will change to accommodate it, and as such I don’t expect this article to be up to date forever. Speak to me and keep an eye on tournament decklists if you wanna see the current iteration of the deck!
Bones :)
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