Building a strong control deck in Magic: The Gathering starts with identifying the right cards—ones that stall the opponent, generate card advantage, and ultimately secure a win through superior resources.

Standard control decks typically rely on efficient removal, versatile counterspells, and reliable win conditions. Players must choose cards that not only answer immediate threats but also scale well into the late game, ensuring they aren’t overwhelmed early or outpaced late.

First, quality removal is critical. Cards like Go for the Throat or Cut Down are prized for their efficiency and flexibility, offering cheap answers to many creatures. Sweepers like Day of Judgment or Sunfall are equally vital, allowing a control player to reset the board against aggressive strategies. The best removal in Standard often balances mana cost with broad application, ensuring that control decks can keep up with faster archetypes without sacrificing long-term value.

Second, counterspells are a control deck’s backbone. Cards such as No More Lies provide early-game coverage against threats while scaling into mid-to-late game utility. A good Standard control deck typically mixes cheap, conditional counters with heavier, unconditional ones like Three Steps Ahead or Disdainful Stroke to handle larger spells. Versatile counters protect the deck’s own plays while disrupting the opponent’s key moments, maintaining tempo and resource advantage.

Third, control decks need solid card advantage engines. Draw spells like Stock Up or planeswalkers like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares help maintain a steady flow of resources while applying subtle pressure. Identifying cards that generate more than a one-for-one exchange—whether through repeated draw, token creation, or recursion—is essential for ensuring the control player can outlast their opponent once both sides run low on immediate threats.

Finally, choosing the right win conditions ties the deck together. In Standard, cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, or planeswalkers like Nissa, Ascended Animist serve as durable, hard-to-answer finishers that don’t require overextension.

A control deck wins not by overwhelming with quantity, but by presenting singular, resilient threats the opponent can’t efficiently remove. Identifying cards that double as both threats and resource generators maximizes efficiency and closes out games cleanly after the control player has established dominance.