Fulton’s Control in an Eggshell
In a game full of chaos and powerful game breaking effects, there is also the capability to crush opponents with control. The goal of Fulton’s control is to bring order to the game, and to deny your opponents their most critical combos and effects. This deck is another preconstructed deck, but is not available for purchase anymore. I would like to take some time and explore the unique strategies of the deck, and hopefully inspire some of you to build the list and try it out for yourselves.
Decklist:
Tiny Print – 2
Smelt Together – 2
Spilled Coffee – 1
Out of T.P. – 2
Shrink Yo Head – 1
Blindside – 1
Scroll Eater – 2
Home Brew – 2
Recycle – 2
Cleanse – 1
Sneaky Spell Book – 2
Fizzle Out – 2
Wanna Trade – 2
Re-write the Deed – 1
Green Lightning – 2
Future Seer – 1
Terrible Hippogriff Song – 2
Overload – 1
Fulton’s Home – 1
Deep Study – 2
Magical Theft – 2
Altar Bearer – 1
The Mind’s Eye – 1
Fulton’s Beast – 1
Get Some Book Learnin’ – 1
Zee the Summoner – 2
Keara’s Crystal – 1
Most 4clans decks are built to grow a large army, whether it be rising up an army of realm warriors that create a sort of super-clan, or stacking up blessings and level bonuses to make your warriors huge. In order to understand the decisions behind the cards in Fulton’s control, you have to understand what other strategies exist in 4clans, and how those strategies can be thwarted. Let’s look at a couple of strategies to see how this control deck is able to mitigate them:
1. Blessings
The obvious cards here are Cleanse,Terrible Hippogriff Song, and Magical Theft. They are self explanatory for this section. But there are even better things you can do than remove blessings, as a good blessings deck will have backup strategies or ways to defend against these particular effects. Sneaky Spell Book gives you the chance to steal warriors from a clan group, which could lead to you stealing warriors that your opponents have placed blessings on, giving you whatever powerful effects are on the warrior. A unique thing about the blessing strategy is that you can’t really afford to give your warriors protection from direct spells with cards like Avian Mother. These decks NEED to be able to cast direct spells on their own warriors in order to grow their numbers most of the time. This also leaves them open to Shrink Yo’ Head, which could heavily punish them for trying to put too many blessings and bonuses on one warrior. Finally, Recycle allows you to take a critical blessing like Octo Ink or Prayers for the Fallen and move them to your own warriors. Using your opponent’s cards against them is a common theme for this deck!
2. Combo decks
“All games were meant to be broken” – Bobby Fischer, probably.
Don’t like it when other players get to do things? Do you hate it when your opponents get to have fun? Well, that is something that control players and combo players have in common! However, while combo players want to end the game quickly, control players like to bleed their opponents out slowly until their spirit is crushed and they realize there is no way they could possibly win with even half of their barracks and library still intact as they laugh maniacally and joke about how long its taking for the game to end, and how they should have conceded 10 rounds ago and… what was this section about again? Oh, this deck disrupts combo decks with spell interaction. Fizzle Out, Keara’s Crystal, and Re-Write the Dead allow you to counter or steal spells as they are being cast, which can completely ruin all of your opponent’s plans if timed right.
For example, if your opponent plays Multiplicity, you may hold on to Keara’s Crystal in case they follow up with Trident of Light, which you can then counter and place in your spell log to use against them on the following spell phase. Turning your opponent’s combos into your combos is oh, so satisfying. And lastly, disrupt any and all plans with Scroll Eater, Future Seer, Blindside, Get Some Book Learnin’, and Tiny Print. These will be frustrating for any deck to play against, but they have the most effect when your opponents have a specific combination of spells they need to use in order to win. I didn’t mention Altar Bearer here because that card is absolutely broken (rewritten card link) and I recommend running a second copy of Blindside in the interest of fairness. All you need to do with Altar Bearer is get a large army, and then remove all of your opponent’s spells every round until the game is over.
The “This Deck Also Does Proactive Things” Section
This deck is going to power through the spell log quickly, so you will need Deep Study to ensure you are able to continuously answer your opponent’s threats. Overload is another fantastic tool for this deck that you should definitely take the time to read and understand. There is so much you can do with Overload, I will leave most of it up for you to explore and experience for yourselves; but imagine combining it with Deep Study, or Sneaky Spell Book! Fulton’s Home is one of the namesake cards in the deck that allows you to bypass a lot of graveyard shenanigans that your opponents might try to use against you, and it also gives you some longevity if you happen to be struggling to win battles.
Preconstructed decks are built with imperfections, and there are always different directions that a player can take when modifying them. I would suggest sticking to the theme of answering all of your opponent’s threats, and trying to fill in the gaps that this deck has against certain strategies. You will want some more interaction against buildings and the best effects for that are:
· Rampage
I suggest replacing Spilled Coffee and Green Lighting with 1 Rampage and 2 Slippery Thieving. I also recommend using Shrinky Dink or Mini Size to deal with absurdly large warriors. A good hidden spell to add to your arsenal is Aim for the Chicken, which allows you to redirect spells instead of countering them. I would cut The Mind’s Eye for one of these cards since this deck does not make good use of the effect, and cut from either of the remaining curses or blessings in the deck.
I hope you enjoyed this dive into one of the game’s early preconstructed lists! As always, thanks for reading and exploring the game with me.
Until next time!
Logan LaBoube