I agree, I think it needs the ingots. I've played about 10 games with this deck and I've only lost once. The ingots help cast Kozilek faster and he's been the game winner for me in most of those games.

On a side note, I just won a match with this deck by milling my opponent He gained a ton of life and had a decent board most of the game, but I managed to cast Planar Cleansing four times and was saved twice by the angel that brings your life total back to 20. It was a really good game, and this deck is a ton of fun!

But does the deck need to have all that red mana for just Anger and Titan? Don't get me wrong, I think the UW base of the deck is great, but you're making your mana a lot worse for three red cards and you're wasting additional slots on Ingots that could be more counterspells, bounce, and card draw. JMHO.

I see what you're saying. I mostly like them because I can usually play Kozilek on land drop 8. And occasionally it has helped me get the double red and triple white when I couldn't draw the right land or gate. You should build it the way it's posted, play a few games with it and see how good it is. If you feel you need to make changes, go for it! I'm happy with how it's running right now, but if you change it up and test it out, let us know. I'm open to mixing it up a bit.

How would the deck look with your changes? Would you leave the manabase the same as it is now, just dropping the ingots? What would you add as far as bounce and counter? I think it has enough draw with the Walls, Think Twice, and Inspiration, don't you?

I will eventually get around to building a more traditional blue-based UW control list and I think it will look a lot like this except -3 Ingot, -2 Anger, -1 Titan, +4 Voyage's End, +1 Nullify, and +1 land. That is where I would start, anyway, and tweak based on experience.

Anger is almost never a dead card. I find it and the early removal of shock a GREAT reason to run this control build. There are all types of ways to run control. However one of the good things about this deck is that it has several ways to clear the board all at once. That is a powerful ability in a generation where aggro/token builds rule.

Lastly, shock is great at maintaining control of the board during the early rounds as well. When I consider red in a deck, GENERALLY it is because of shock and anger. Cards like inferno are just the icing on the cake for me .

I respect your opinions Hakeem, you do know your stuff and I fully can see the value in what you say here.

I'm sorry, I missed the Shock in the decklist; it is an extremely relevant card in the metagame and definitely worth the red splash.

I'm a non-premium player, and with the cards available, I'm leaning towards American or Grixis control since Shock and Anger of the Gods are so relevant in this meta. Here is my current list:

Lands
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Boros Guildgate
6 Island
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Mountain
4 Plains

Spells
2 Angelic Edict
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Bolt of Keranos
3 Dissolve
1 Elixir of Immortality
4 Inspiration
2 Negate
2 Nullify
2 Planar Cleansing
2 Quicken
4 Shock
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand
1 Time Warp

Creatures
2 Archaeomancer
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Resolute Archangel

So, my issues with control decks in this meta, is that you are missing a lot of the components of traditional control decks. Typically you'd weather the storm the first few turns, maybe sweep T4 and 5, then start going over the top with Spinx's Revelation, Planeswalkers, or Morphling, and holding up counter backup to close the game out. Here the only sweepers available are Anger and Cleansing, both of which have significant limitations, you have weak card draw, no Planeswalkers, and most of your options for finishers don't exactly translate into immediate doom for the opponent.

So, instead, we have this deck that grinds out a victory with incremental advantage. I think the deck is effective, but it does entail a long game which isn't for everyone, and definitely isn't for me in more than like, 25% of my games. I opt for R and W so I can get a "full" 4 sweepers, classic card draw and permission from U, a handful of potential finishers that require an answer, and an Elixir for the long game. I tried out Ior Ruin Expedition to get card draw spells 5+, but found them very lackluster - if you have premium cards, I'd add some Think Twice. I opt out of cards like Voyage's End because I'm not able to make up the card disadvantage very well, and I'm not able to use the tempo effectively. The mana is awkward, but manageable.

Comments, questions, and tweaks welcome - obviously this could be better with some premium cards, but I figure I'm not the only player going non-premium, so hopefully this is helpful.

I was reading about how to counter the meta, and having seen some sweet combos take out my Izzet, I've rigged this up with great success!

I am weak on land balance and am open to criticism without sobbing or sulking.

"I SHALL PASS!" [premium reliant]
(Named after the Balrog that Gandalf brings down...the Kiln Fiends are just baby Balrogs, aren't they?)

Lands:
3x Azorius Guildgate
3x Izzet Guildgate
3x Boros Guildgate
3x Plains
6x Mountain
6x Island

Cost 1:
3x Cloudshift
3x Gods Willing
3x Vapor Snag
3x Artful Dodger
4x Shock

Cost 2:
3x Think Twice
2x Negate
3x Skullcrack
4x Kiln Fiend

Cost 3:
3x Guttersnipe
3x Scroll Thief
2x Act of Treason

Strategy:
While capable of winning in turn 4, you should be looking realistically at 5-8.
If your opponent is playing any red or black, be sure you have a "save spell" handy before throwing down a precious creature. Otherwise, a turn 2-3 creature is fine.

Once down it's hard for an opponent to kill your creature. Cloudshift, Vapor Snag, Gods Willing, and Negate (if desperate...this is better to prevent game clinching Enchantments) all do the trick. Against white, NEVER attack or block with the Guttersnipe if your opponent has 1 plains untapped...unless you have Gods Willing handy.

Win with double castings of each Artful Dodger with Kiln Fiends, sniping as usual, and using act of Treason then Cloudshift on game-clinching creatures. Don't let the low mana spells fool you, 4 mana can net you usually +9 per Kiln Fiend or +12 if your opponent is tapped out and your don't need to hold a save spell.

P.S. the Flashback nature of the Dodger might call for it to be upped to 4 at the reduction of a shock...?

I was actually playing in the editor with a similar build but was thinking of adding archeomancer to the mix for the amazing combo with cloudshift. That is great with something that takes advantage of casting spells. (Like gutter or maybe even sphinx-bone.)

I got beat by a loop involving archaeomancer, who was cloned by nemesis of mortals, who would fetch time warp, and the nun summon himself. I watched about ten turns sitting on about 15 spiders with summoning sickness thinking, "he's going to mill himself." Nope... When he had enough land and Voyages End, he wiped the board with planar cleansing, and brought his guys back out to continue the loop. I didn't stuck around to see archaeomancer ping my remaining life over the 7 turns he needed.

The only thing I'm worried about is his steep cost and the two islands needed. I originally had Talrand but switched him out for the pair of scroll thieves.

I can see the concern. But the upside seems great in theory. i have something I am now testing.

Hey guys, I'm new here but I've followed these games as well as paper magic on forums at gamefaqs.com and mtgsalvation.com for a long time. But there's a lot of great discussion for this iteration in particular going on here, so after lurking for awhile I finally decided to break down and register.

Anyway, I've made several control decks and I'll probably post my lists for all of them in the respective threads. America Control is definitely one of my favorites, though, so I'll post this one first. I just want to contribute and see what you guys think, but it's not really a whole lot different than what's already been posted. It is straight up, pure control, no gimmicks. It uses premium cards.

America Control (61)

Removal/Sweepers (16)
4 Shock
3 Righteous Blow
3 Reprisal
2 Angelic Edict
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Planar Cleansing

Permission (7)
3 Dissolve
2 Negate
2 Nullify

Card Draw (8)
4 Think Twice
4 Inspiration

Finishers (6)
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Inferno Titan
2 Charmbreaker Devils
2 Resolute Archangel

Land (24)
5 Plains
5 Island
5 Mountain
3 Azorius Guildgate
3 Izzet Guildgate
3 Boros Guildgate

A couple notes on choices...

Finishers - the only one I'm kind of ambivalent about is Resolute Archangel. I've only cast it a handful of times, and its ETB ability hasn't really made much of a difference any time I have. At the point in the game where I can cast it with some mana open to back it up with Negate, the game should be pretty much locked down and it won't really matter what my life total is. Still, the offerings in this color combination for finishers is somewhat lackluster compared to Grixis and Esper, so I'm not sure what else I would go. I'm open to any suggestions here. I was thinking about Kozilek, but that is a pretty dang steep mana cost.

Manabase - Haven't had too much difficulty here. I did have a couple of Ingots in the list, but I found myself being fine without them pretty much every game, so I dropped them. Haven't looked back since.

Angelic Edict - Most of the time you will be fine with the other removal in this list, but I have found use with Edict before for stuff like Sanguine Bond, and conceptually it would be better against Kozilek than anything that would destroy it, although I still have yet to encounter that situation. I've been thinking of dropping this to 1 though. Same with Planar Cleansing, with the Charmbreaker Devilses in here.

Wall of Omens - I think the card draw suite is pretty effective already without this, as is the defensive capabilities of the deck what with all the great removal and sweepers. Still, I recognize that this is a good card. I'll need some persuading though...

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and/or feedback.

Not much of a critic here, but since you have 61 cards there, how about removing Resolute archangel altogether?

I could see tokens and mass producers giving this a little trouble: a couple Sound the Alarms, Krenkos command, and a single squadron hawk could be a pain...just a thought here; what about switching up some low level removal for sound the alarm? Even if they come in just to block a kiln Fiend and die, or knock off some goblins that have had their power inflated by instants or the goblin enchantment...

I dunno, when weenies swing early, I exchange 1-1's before the weenies get pumped into 2-2s or higher and there's plenty of noob deck copiers (who don't need to be great players to win with aggro who will not expect two soldiers out of nowhere).

Unless you are going Kor Cartographer, Kozilek belongs in a green deck, especially a green/black or green/white deck. The 4 card draw from casting is his greatest feature sometimes but it's unlikely you'll have 10 lands in 10 turns...of course, if mill decks become more popular, chuck him in!

This could be added as a possible counter-the-meta deck in other thread.

I thank you for your suggestions, but I must say I haven't had much problems with token decks. Anger of the Gods has performed amazingly against them. That with the other low-costing removal staves off pretty much any small creature threat until I am able to stabilize and lock down the board. If anything, I might put in Wall of Omens, but I'm still debating on that even.

Also I may be a little crazy for this, but I always run 61 cards in a deck that has card draw, especially control decks. The 1 extra card really has a minuscule impact if any on the stability of the deck, and if you are gonna be drawing a bunch of cards anyway, why not have 1 more card that owns in there? As for taking out a Resolute Archangel specifically to get it down to 60, I think 6 is pretty much the sweet spot for finishers, and that's the number I have dedicated to finishers in all my control decks. Any less and it often takes too long to draw one (not that you would lose the game because of it, but it may go on for longer than you'd want), and any more and you might be flooded with too many of them early game when you need to be stocked with answers to threats, not threats that you can't play.

Ugh, I've been getting fried by white weenies and tokens using this deck. Back to the meta weenie kill, I guess...
Good luck!

I dunno, you must be getting some bad draws or something. This deck has more than enough to take on smaller creatures. The thing with token generators especially is you want to take them out before they even have a chance to generate tokens. With Shocks, Righteous Blows and Anger of the Gods I'm not sure how you are having that much trouble. Maybe Wall of Omens will help stem the tide for you in this case, but Raise the Alarm doesn't really mesh with this deck. Putting out two 1/1s that will die from chump blocking or your own sweeper does nothing for this deck really.

Sorry for the vagueness; I was referring to my deck. I'll happily plagiarize yours and see if I get better results!

You love them charmbreakers lol

Yeah, they've been underused. I feel like I could hold a one mana saver and bring this guy out in turn 6 if I was getting nervous about baddies. 5 mana is a good deal as a reusable Archaeomacher who pumps like a Kiln fiend