Is Control Light Viable?

Control Light?

For many years I've wanted Control Light to be a viable archetype. Unfortunately it just doesn't come close to the other domains in terms of raw stopping power (Light is the only domain without a single board wipe) and late game (Light got a 9 drop for the first time in Divine Order! Unfortunately it is underwhelming and has never seen play, nor should it when you could just play an indestructible Poly instead!)

Well, as I recently posted my Aggro Light Order deck, the truth was when I started building it I wanted it to be a control deck! All roads led me to the aggro deck as I was building it however, and I quickly abandoned control.

Then yesterday I raided a streamer named SpryGuy who was playing an Order Light Control deck! And while his list is extremely greedy it reignited my desire to make Light Control happen!

SpryGuy's original decklist

SpryGuy's Decklist - What I'd Cut

As I said, his version seemed really good but too greedy. So I am going to attempt (big question mark??) to bring it slightly in-line with something that can beat Aggro decks as well as control decks!

For starters, let's look at Excommunicate.

5 Mana to remove one creature is expensive vs an aggro deck, and harmful against a control deck since the creature will eventually make it's way back out again! This gives up card advantage, using one of our cards and destroying none of theirs. To compensate you gain 7 favor, which is roughly 50% the cost of a card from the Sanctum. Maybe this is good if we can still manage to win before our opponent draws all their cards, but against control they are likely going to drag us out to 9 mana where it will be decided. As this deck is already expensive, I'm cutting both Excommunicates.

Writ of Law is extremely powerful when combo'd with Archpriest. That said, it's a bit awkward, stealing your relic slot (of which he ran two, but we might run more!). So this 1-of is also getting cut.

Next on the chopping block is Radiant Embalmber. This card exists in this deck purely to combo with Jason. You get to play Jason 3 times!! While this is a hell of fun when it works, it's just too slow against fast aggro. The meme side of me is tempted to leave 1x in by I gotta go with my gut here and say this is never gonna work for real against top players, or any aggro deck.

My Deck (So Far!)

I played 9 matches with it on stream tonight, and won 8. That being said it still felt very dodgy against aggro war and will need more tweaks.

I added Golden Sabres for an additional 8 healing, however, I was eating too much damage against war. Added Highborn Knights as they are the best Frontliners in the game. These two cards alone are in part responsible for the decks price tag of 2.15 ETH!

I added one Trial of the First Pillar which I only got to really play 1 time. I believe a better substitute would be to run only 1x Lysander's Mercy and 2x First Pillars instead, as getting to 7 mana is tough and is the goal.

I never got to 9 mana to play the Anvil, though I was 1 turn away a few times. I still think this is required if facing another control deck. Perhaps I would replace it with Alexis, who is a similarly powerful 8 mana drop.

Did We Succeed?

No. Ultimately I do not believe we cracked the code. I don't think my deck is any better than SpryGuy's, though I do think some of the cards do improve the deck (namely Highborn Knight and Trial of the First Pillar). Light is just too weak when it comes to dealing with wide boards. If your opponent doesn't go wide, it's a pretty easy path to victory. But anyone who understands how to beat Light will probably cause some serious issues, especially with Slayer war.

I will keep working to crack the code, though I don't think it exists yet as Light is missing a few key cards.

Let me know in the comments if you have any ideas!!

~Copper

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