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There's not a single control deck that can operate without destroy effects. Counterspelling and bounce can be avoided, and still a control deck - but no destroy...no, that's just not possible. For that matter, its extremely difficult to make anything but combo without a destroy effect.

Anyways, here's a pair of decks that are control, and neither one has a single counterspell or bounce spell.

Deck Parfait - Mono-white Control
Drawing Engine:
3x Land Tax
2x Scroll Rack
2x Zuran Orb

Survival Spells/Silver Bullets:
1x Balance
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Moat
1x Wrath of God
3x Aura of Silence
1x Story Circle
1x Ivory Mask
1x Ivory Tower

Utility Spells:
1x Enlightened Tutor
4x Abeyance
1x Planar Birth
4x Argivian Find
1x Replenish

The Kill
3x Sacred Mesa
1x Jester's Cap
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Soldevi Digger

Mana Sources & Lands
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Serra's Sanctum
13x Plains
1x Strip Mine
3x Wasteland

1x Lotus Petal
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sol Ring

Sideboard
1x Powder Keg
2x Replenish
2x Spirit Link
2x Abolish
1x Wrath of God
1x Story Circle
1x Swords to Plowshares
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Cursed Totem
1x Ivory Mask
1x Sacred Ground

The closest it gets to a counterspell is Abeyance - which is just one turn prevention, and against permission decks (decks loaded with counterspells), they often get played on the Parfait player's turn, so the Parfait player can continue playing without interference.
The Tax/Rack combo generates tons of card advantage, essentially drawing the deck 4 cards/turn - making it race ahead of most permission decks, which are lucky to average 2.
Card advantage is also generated by Ivory Mask and Story Circle, both of which can negate burn spells, and stay around to negate more.
No counters, no bounce.

Deck 2 - Stax
Artifacts
1 Black Lotus (Restricted in Vintage)
3 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mana Vault (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Memory Jar (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mox Emerald (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mox Jet (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mox Pearl (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mox Ruby (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Mox Sapphire (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Pithing Needle
4 Smokestack
1 Sol Ring (Restricted in Vintage)
3 Sphere Of Resistance
3 Tangle Wire
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere (Restricted in Vintage)

Artifact Creatures
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion

Creatures
4 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Crop Rotation (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Vampiric Tutor (Restricted in Vintage)

Legendary Artifact Creatures
1 Karn, Silver Golem

Sorceries
1 Balance (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Demonic Tutor (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Imperial Seal (Restricted in Vintage)
1 Tinker (Restricted in Vintage)

Lands
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Bazaar Of Baghdad
4 City Of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine (Restricted in Vintage)
4 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy (Restricted in Vintage)

Sideboard:
3 Chalice Of The Void
1 Jester's Cap
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Choke
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Pyroblast
2 Ray Of Revelation

In this deck, the only "counterspells" are in the sideboard - and they're Chalice of the Void and Pyroblast, hardly powerful counterspells like Force of Will or Mana Drain, the flagship counters of Vintage.
This deck achieves control by playing an early Smokestack, and forcing you to sacrifice your lands early on, crippling you, while it plays a Crucible of Worlds, and negates the land loss by replaying the land over and over, until it decides to sacrifice the Smokestack and add lands to play. In this case, its using 1 card to get rid of as many of your permanents as possible, which, usually, turns out to be lands, because you're unable to play more than 1-2 cards without a decent supply of mana.

Both of those decks have histories of placing 1st - Stax also was strong enough that for a short time, you played Oath or you played Stax if you wanted to compete in Vintage. And yet...no counters (or bounce) in Stax.

I could post a 3rd deck, one that was Mirage/Tempest Standard, that is Green/White control (defensive control, no less), that also did not have counterspells or bounce spells. Obviously, it'd be legacy legal now, and could use some improvements - but, it still exists.

Regardless, the bottom line still stands: counters and/or bounce =/= control.

So MBC lookds kinda hot. I really, really love Korlash very much. If not for his hot mana accel effects alone.

Heres what im trying at the time.

Creatures: 9
4 Korlash, Heir To Blackblade
3 Nightmares (Don't laugh, they're pretty)
2 Skeletal Vampire

Removal: 9
3 Damnation
4 Tendrils Of Corruption
2 Sudden Death

Udder Spells: 12
3 Infernal Tutor(Gets more Korlash for Grandeur or more Consume Spirit late game to finish off)
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Consume Spirit
2 Shrouded Lore

Monos Accel: 7
4 Coldsteel Heart
3 Phyrexian Totem

Monos: 23
23 Swamp

What I always hope for is to get 2 korlash in opening hand, or a Korlash and a Tutor to get out 6 mana on turn 4 and swing with the Korlash and drop a Nightmare or Skelevamp and just start throwing lots of big consume Spirits after that. But I could still do stuff even if that doesn't happen.

I should probably fit in more removal, or some kind of hand disruption. I'm just not sure what to drop for more removal and none of the hand disruption really wows me at the moment. I was thinking maybe Extirpates if anything.

Anywho, suggestions are always wellcums. Thanks

Soo...for those of you who didn't notice in the TT forum, I'm trying to build a defensive deck in Standard. Here's the current list:

Enchantments (basically the backbone)
1 Peace of Mind
2 Sacred Mesa
4 Spirit Link
2 Story Circle
1 Worship

Instants/Sorceries
4 Dawn Charm
2 Disenchant
1 Evolution Charm
3 Gaea's Blessings
4 Sprout Swarm
2 Wrath of God

Creatures - the meat of the deck
2 Essence Warden
4 Fa'adiyah Seer
2 Golgari Brownscale
1 Groundbreaker
1 Serra Avenger
2 Spike Feeder

Lands
11 Plains
11 Forest

Currently, Life from the Loam + Peace of Mind seems like the best engine to activate all parts of the deck - dredging the Blessings into the yard, discarding lands for life without losing much, and still being able to get the lands for use. The G/W draw land (from FS - name currently forgotten) will probably appear with four copies to assist with this.

My idea was to pull the Golgari Brownscales, the Groundbreaker, and the Serra Avenger to add in 3 Life from the Loam and 1 Peace of Mind. Pull a Fa'adiyah Seer for the 3rd Peace of Mind.

But I'm still worried about fast swarms. This deck needs to hold down the fort until mid-game, at which point, it can seriously take over. Same goes for counterspell decks. Suggestions?

Okay, so here's the new version:

Enchantments (basically the backbone) - 12
3 Peace of Mind
2 Sacred Mesa
4 Spirit Link
2 Story Circle
1 Worship

Instants/Sorceries - 17
4 Dawn Charm
2 Disenchant
3 Gaea's Blessings
3 Life from the Loam
2 Sprout Swarm
2 Wrath of God

Creatures - the meat of the deck - 8
2 Essence Warden
3 Fa'adiyah Seer
1 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Spike Feeder

Lands - 24
8 Plains
8 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Vitu-Ghazi

Perhaps pull a Spike Feeder for another Hierarch? Now, unfortunately, my mana's going to be fairly tied up, especially late game.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to suggest this, but I wanted to mention it again.

I personally still think it would be a lot better if we made something like a "decks for critique" subforum in here. That way people could post their decks, and each deck would have its own thread. People could get more focused responses on their decks, and wouldn't have to worry about someone else posting their deck afterwards and having their cards lost in the shuffle (eww, I didn't even mean to make that pun sad ).

It'd make it easier for the people who are responding to the decks as well, as we could look at each deck 1 at a time, rather then having to scroll through to find the deck we wanted to talk about.

Anywho, totally sorry if Im bugging anyone with the suggestion. I love the guild, I just thought it might be easier if we had something like that.

I would love to put Akroma in the deck, but, unfortunately, without any way to put her in the deck from my hand (should I draw her too early), I'm kinda in trouble. Same goes for the Sacred Mesa, though I'd probably have 2 in the board against heavy disenchant decks.

The reason for Spirit Link is the speed - at W, its first turn possible, so can handle a Stomping Grounds->Kird Ape, and also works better than Condemn in that it can hit Prodigal Sorcerers and their kind. However, Temporal Isolation and Spirit Loop did come to mind as alternates.

Edge of Autumn could indeed be interesting.... I might try that instead of the Fa'adiyah Seers.

Okay, now that sounds like a good combo.

Hmm...time to revise the mana base. I'm sadly thinking that a few of the Vitu-Ghazis need to come out.

I'd have to agree with this. I've had far more experience at forum reviewing than is entirely healthy and I definitely prefer forum to a thread for deck reveiwing.



It's still an improvement over a thread in that regard.

Also, a forum removes the problem of epistle length posts. When someone tries to do a comprehensive review on a thread like this they almost always end up either having to double/triple post or to cut the review short to get on to the next one.

A forum would remove the space constraints and let people who have the time review as much as they wanted. It would also let us start up things like archetype threads as they do in the MTG.com forums. Extended discussion on a deck type rather than a specific deck is pretty much impossible in this thread and it seems a bit off to start new threads for that purpose in the forum as it is now.

If money's an issue I'd be willing to contribute.

Anyway, on Lia's Deck:

Gelid Shackles is probably superior to Spirit Link for a similar cost. Temporal Isolation works too, though differently. Also, Martyr of Sands will fill the same role in another way. Instead of neutralizing an early threat you pad your life total until a story circle/ WoG can come down and fix the problem. I would say MoS is the most effective and versatile of the 1 drop options.

I just realized you aren't playing faith's fetters. Any reason for that? They shut down all sorts of useful things pretty effectively and extend your clock to boot.

A few things look sub optimal. The Dawn Charms don't seem worth the slots main deck. They'll not matter at all in many matchups and another story circle/ WoG/ Lifegain/ Removal would often serve better when they are relevant.

Worship is generally only going to win you games you would have won anyway. I don't see it being very effective as a main deck card.

Gaea's Blessing is a little underwhelming. Card draw is nice but I don't see you needing the rushffule effect very often or ever even. With 3 you have a serious risk of dredging it with a LftL which looks like it'd screw you over pretty good.

On the subject of card draw, why on earth aren't you running Harmonize? It's pretty much God's Gift to this decktype.

I'd also switch disenchant for somthing. Either Krosan Grip or Seed Spark depending on emphasis. They're both more expensive but you won't really need enchantment/artifact removal until the mid/late game.

On your win conditions: Do you have a post Sulfur Elemental game plan? Looks like that would shut down your Mesas fairly completely.

I'm not sure I'm sold on sprout swarm as a win con here. You don't have any sort of insane mana potential so you're talking 1 token per turn for most of the game. I don't know that that will build to an inevitable win quickly enough (time constraints may be an issue if nothing else).

Have you considered Glare of Subdual? Probably only one as a lock breaker but it might be worthwhile late game.

I wonder if Nacatl Warband would work out here. Might be a good lock breaker, esp since you have no really effective creature removal save wrath.

On the Manabase: I think you may be right about the Ghazis. Maybe keep 2. You may want to look into some sort of acceleration. Given that you're good at discarding stuff and you like making tokens maybe Llanowar Mentor.