It is known as permission because an opponent playing against a control deck full of counterspells feels as if he or she needs to ask for permission to play any spell. Permission is the act of threatening Counterspell or any card with a similar effect. By repeatedly casting card drawing spells throughout the game, the control deck can gain huge amounts of long-term card advantage over the opponent. Card drawing spells range from Divination, a net gain of one card, to Stroke of Genius, a spell that can provide tens of cards' worth of card advantage. These are generally used in the later portions of the game due to the fact that card drawing spells do not affect the board state. The other major way control decks gain card advantage is through card drawing spells. By trading this way multiple times throughout the game, the control deck gains significant card advantage since it will have only used two to four cards to trade for an opponent's five to ten cards. The control deck takes advantage of this and uses board sweeping spells, or "wraths", such as Day of Judgment, to destroy multiple opponent creatures while only expending one card. Because most decks in Magic try to win through creature damage, during most portions of a game, the aggressive or midrange deck will have more than one creature on the board. Two main ways control decks gain card advantage are board "sweepers" and card drawing. This exchange can be called a "two for one" for short. For example, if a player casts a Terminate on an opponent creature that has an enchantment attached to it, the player has traded one card for two of the opponent's. To gain card advantage, one must trade advantageously against an opponent. Though these features are not limited to only control decks, they are features that are commonly thought of when speaking about a control deck.Ĭard advantage refers to the term of having access to more cards than the opponent.
Control decks generally have some combination or all of these features or strategies: card advantage, permission, resource denial, and inevitability.