Last weekend, Grand Prix Boston-Worcester drew well over two-thousand competitors to play Modern. With Pro Tour Magic 2015 starting this Friday, many foreign Pros treated the Grand Prix as a layover on their journey to Portland. These guests filled the Grand Prix with talent, which made it extra special for the fans at home.

One player everyone had their eyes on in Worcester was Guillaume Wafo-Tapa, who was likely voted into the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame just this year (he got my vote). He is a control deck connoisseur and widely regarded as the best control deck builder on the planet. Finishes include a victory with Mystical Teachings Control in Time Spiral Block at Pro Tour Yokohama, and a Top 8 finish with his Esper Control deck at Pro Tour Theros last fall.

Blue control decks have lived on the edge of Modern since the beginning, disenfranchised since the bannings of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Ancestral Visions neutered the color with the format's inception. Popular advice is to just stay away from control, and as such proactive decks rule the kingdom.

Wafo-Tapa brought a control deck to the Grand Prix, and he piloted it all the way to a cash finish. He went undefeated with a draw on day one, and, with a little more luck on day two, he could have been within striking distance of Top 8.

I have the list and a dissection of the card choices to share today.

The List

Observing how someone like Wafo-Tapa approaches control in Modern can serve as a framework for thinking about control in Modern and Magic in general.

Wafo's deck is a true control deck, full of card advantage and disruption. This deck should feel familiar to anyone used to playing old-school control decks. This deck does not deviate from the model.

The defining feature of this deck is its three board sweepers maindeck, a Wrath of God and a pair of Supreme Verdicts. A set of Path to Exile imitates Swords to Plowshares and gives this deck the ability to keep pace with fast opponents.

The deck has plenty of card drawing velocity with a pair of Goremand and a full set of Cryptic Command. Shadow of Doubt also provides an element of maindeck hate for cards like Birthing Pod and Scapeshift, and it carries the opponent-crippling ability to snag fetchlands at huge value.

Raw card advantage comes from Think Twice and a pair of Sphinx's Revelation, giving this deck ability to grind out any opponent.

The splashed Esper Charm is card draw that doubles as a discard spell reminiscent of Blightning. This is the reason Wafo splashed Black, so it's some insight into how good he thinks the card really is. It does have some utility for removing enchantments, including Splinter Twin and Blood Moon.

A full playset of Spell Snares generate tempo in the early game when it's most important, and it's still a hard counter late game. It's a direct answer to many of the format's most important cards, a selection from the top decks include:

Paired with fetch lands and one-drop disruption, Logic Knot does a great job of imitating Mana Leak in the early turns, but it has big upside later in the game when it's a bonafide Counterspell. It's this sort of attention to practical detail that makes Wafo the master.

This list plays a pair of Snapcaster Mages to add some utility and the ability to recycle important spells. It can be a bit clunky, and it's not necessarily reliably early on, so Wafo only plays two compared to the typical full set of four seen in decks like UWr. Also note that this deck doesn't have the ability to use the card as proactively without Lightning Bolt.

The only dedicated win condition is White Sun's Zenith, which generates board presence scaling through the game. It shuffles back into the deck when it resolves, so it also gives Wafo a way to stave off decking naturally in drawn-out games, so he never has a reason to hold back on casting card drawing spells.

Celestial Colonnade is very important as a win condition in addition to being a great blocker. Wafo clearly wants to hit land drops and cast spells, and he has little interest in mana screwing the opponent, so he plays just one Tectonic Edge as a concession to utility lands.

The sideboard here is great, and it contains the usual powerful white suspects like Stony Silence for artifacts and Celestial Purge for Liliana of the Veil. Disenchant is efficient and widely-useful, while Detention Sphere takes things a step further against permanents. Grim Roustabout is interesting as a way to combat creature decks and a great way to maintain a grip on tempo.

The pair of planeswalkers in the sideboard allow the deck to be proactive and maintain some board presence against susceptible opponents as a miniature sideboard transformation. This also helps the deck win more quickly when time is an issue, and overall it's a great sideboard move by Wafo. I'd be comfortable trying different cards in these slots, but I'd stick to the pair of Elspeth without good reason to change.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is lights-out against other blue decks, and it has value against combo decks, even Burn. Wafo said this was his favorite sideboard card and it's one of my favorite cards of all time. It's exciting to see it in Modern. Again, this is also a mini-transformation because most opponents will cut creature removal after sideboard.

The maindeck black splash also enables Thoughtseize from the sideboard. This is a catch-all card that is valuable against many opponents. It can be thought of as very broad hate that works against every possible combo deck and any sort of synergy. It's also great against control opponents. It allows Wafo to tune his deck with sideboarding to become more disruptive when necessary.

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I have played some games with this deck already, and it is a treat. It has been a while since I have played such a pure control deck and this brings me back to another time.

As far as playing it goes, this deck seeks to disrupt the opponent in any and every way possible, all while generating card advantage to win the war of attrition. The deck grinds the opponent down to nothing and wins as an afterthought.

Wafo proved the strategy is at the very least viable, and I expect it to only get better as the Modern metagame grows more stable and thus easier to control.

Share your experiences with the deck or control in Modern in the comments!

-Adam