It's all about the deck thinning. Lockhammer is running max copies of Evolving Wilds in his list for even more thinning.. I'm probably gonna test it, as it amplifies a part of the deck that's already a strength. I think my worst matchup here would be Mill..

@Rattleclaw: So.. how does it actually win the game besides flipping the two planeswalkers? Graveblade and the singleton Bellower? There's not a lot of damage dealers.

Five win conditions aren’t enough? I think you’re under estimating the amount of damage Graveblade Marauder can do but that’s fine. Beat your opponent down with an Elvish Visionary. Drain them out with Shadows of the Past. It really doesn’t matter what you use to kill your opponent with. This deck is all about 2-for-1s and gaining incremental card advantage. Eventually your opponent just falls behind and then you take over the game – that’s the premise of all grindy decks and there’s a lot of tools to get you there. Just build it and play it.

Wouldn't comment in this manne without playtesting vs humans.

I told you my experiences , maybe my sample was too small. I got ravaged by thopters three times. Lots one to gruul because he had colossus before me and I sat on 2 bonesplinter which I couldn't use since he had twinbolted all the wheenies 1-4
bonesplinter isn't unconditional removal, no matter how good it can be sometimes.

I have been looking to build a planeswalker-focused control deck so I finally got around to that this morning. Nissa is one of the best control win conditions in the game, and black has an excellent suite of removal and card draw so I built it in Golgari colors. Liliana is also an excellent control card so we get to play her, too. My deck is quite different than the Beast/Lockhammer deck but is pretty close to what Rattleclaw posted. After about 10 games of messing around, here's where I am:

4 x Golgari Guildgate
2 x Woodland Cemetery
1 x Foundry of the Consuls
9 x Swamp
8 x Forest

1 x Bone Splinters

4 x Perilous Myr
4 x Gatecreeper Vine
4 x Elvish Visionary
2 x Shadows of the Past
2 x Evolutionary Leap
4 x Reave Soul

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 x Reclamation Sage

1 x Gravedigger
2 x Languish
3 x Bitter Revelation

2 x Cruel Revival

1 x Woodland Bellower


Some thoughts on the choices:

Foundry of the Consuls - We're playing a two-color deck with Gatecreeper Vines so I think one of these is basically an auto-include. It's probably correct to play two but I don't want to sacrifice too many of my lands. These little fliers can get at opposing Planeswalkers (since we have no way to deal with flipped 'Walkers outside of combat), they can chump block, and they can let us draw cards through Evolutionary Leap.

Bone Splinters - This deck is running 20 creatures so we should always have something available to sac to it. I don't want to play too many copies of this thing because I would much rather sacrifice my creatures to Evolutionary Leap, but sometimes you just gotta kill something and this has no restrictions on what it can hit, unlike my other removal spells.

Perilous Myr - A great card for a control deck looking to buy time and a great card to sacrifice to Evolutionary Leap.

Gatecreeper Vine - This card replaces itself and ensures we don't miss any early land drops. Once we've done that we just sacrifice it to Evolutionary Leap to find our Planeswalkers or kill something via Bone Splinters.

Elvish Visionary - Much the same as Gatecreeper, this card replaces itself and is great sacrifice fodder.

Shadows of the Past - I'm running both copies because it is a core card in this deck. The scry is great because stuff is always dying and this is also our backup win condition. We can scry away the extra copy, discard it to Liliana if we want to, or replay it in the event someone blows it up. With 20 creatures and Evolutionary Leap in the deck, the activated ability will always be on.

Evolutionary Leap - The core engine of the deck, so we're playing both. This card keeps us ahead of our opponents in the card advantage game and cycles through the deck to find our Planeswalkers. It also lets us flip Liliana immediately. Amazing card.

Reave Soul - The format's standard removal spell, kills a large percentage of the creatures in the format for just two mana. Not much else to say.

Liliana, Heretical Healer - We can flip this gal very easily and she's well worth it. Her +2 is really good and we don't mind discarding because we often have plenty of cards in hand. And even though we're playing control, we still have a large package of utility creatures so her -X can help us get those back and just grind out the game once the +2 has done its job. She can even get back our Nissa if we managed to lose it. Her ultimate is strong, but I haven't found it necessary yet.

Fleshbag Marauder - It's an edict in a deck stocked with removal, it's obviously great. If you have no creatures on board you can sacrifice this to your Evo Leap before its own trigger resolves and you will draw a card, which is amazing. Then we get to recur it with Cruel Revival and do it all over again.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer - The deck's primary win condition. Her ultimate wins the game on the spot and her +1 is awesome. You'll rarely make a token, but hey, you can.

Reclamation Sage - We need to have some answer to non-land permanents so a cheap creature that we can find and recycle with Evo Leap is the obvious choice. A nice target for Liliana's -X.

Gravedigger - Lets us get back anything we sacrificed early to use again. Then when it dies we can get it back through Cruel Revival or Liliana's -X and do it all over again.

Languish - Sometimes you just gotta clear the board and this does the trick. Fleshbag cleans up the stragglers.

Bitter Revelation - We don't need much extra card draw in this deck, but digging deep to find pieces like Evo Leap and Planeswalkers is pretty strong if you don't draw into them fairly early. We have some lifegain available through Shadows of the Past to offset the loss.

Cruel Revival - Almost unconditional removal but it costs five mana so I don't want to play all three. We have four utility zombies in the deck, so we can usually get good value out of this card.

Woodland Bellower - This guy is pretty much just the second copy of Reclamation Sage. If we can't (or don't want) to fetch the Sage he brings along a Visionary friend so we can draw a card, sacrifice the Elf to Evo Leap, and draw another. Pretty good value. He also has a decent-sized body that lives through Languish, so there will be times where you just kill your opponent's stuff and beat them in the face with this.

Nice list Hakeem. Do you think it would be feasible to splash for flame conjuring? You can create virtually infinite card advantage with gravediggers, creating 2 and picking up another that died earlier plus a creature of your choice.

I haven't got the game to test myself yet but it seems sweet. The mana could definitely support it with a couple of red gates.

It guarantees that you see four cards deep and it doesn't hurt the curve. Revelation is the better card in almost every way (unless you don't want stuff in the graveyard for some weird reason) but it costs four instead of three so that usually means I'll lead toward Reading dem Bones. But this deck has such a low curve that I can get away with playing Revelation. I also have the Liliana, Gravedigger, and Cruel Revival graveyard synergies at play so dumping cards in there can get me more value than shipping them to the bottom.

Whenever people resort to the 'just build it and play it' argument.. it tends not to go over too well. People aren't going to commit an hour of their life just to prove some random dude on the internet wrong.. and even if they did, said dude probably wouldn't admit he was wrong anyway.

Why no Gaea's Revenge or Kothophed? I haven't been feeling Bellower.. he doesn't do enough for me. What are you using him to tutor up? Graveblade? Yeah.. I know the card puts out serious damage.

Beast has a point. It's all weenie creatures that have no auras to back them up. Languish, Displacement Wave, and Chandra's Ignition all wipe you board with no answer. There is no threat there a halfway built control deck can't handle.