A friend asked for the list, so I'm sharing and very open to suggestions and criticisms. Very similar to feln control but shaded to be stronger against aggro and armory, with a slightly trickier control mirror. Long games involve setting up a loop of Vara, Harbinger, and Withering Witch to control the board. Short games against aggro can usually be solved with a harbinger that sticks and ideally you get to cudgel it up. There are few things better than turning a
Dawnwalker or
Inquisitor Maktointo a Cudgel
Some notes on matchups:
Against Stonescar and Skycrag aggro
Lightning Storm is obviously the most important card, followed by
Black-Sky Harbinger. You should be heavily favored although mana flood against their best draws can get you.
Against
Tavrod, Auric Broker you need to hold removal, don't let anyone draw cards on you if you can help it.
Permafrost and
Torch can usually handle other threats, try to cudgel up a
Black-Sky Harbinger so you won't get killed by a top deck weapon. This matchup is usually close but
Sabotage is crucial. Armory without Tavord is harder because they often have more recursion for the weapons, you'll need a creature heavy draw. If the meta shifts towards more armory and less go-wide aggro, I will start swapping out
Lightning Storm for
Rockslide.
Against Chalice and Dark Chalice you should be quite favored. Early
Azindel's Gift is great of course but you can grind them out by killing creatures that can be chaliced until you can set up a
Withering Witch/
Black-Sky Harbinger loop to keep their board clear.
The Feln mirror is difficult because they have
Channel the Tempest and
Yetipult and you don't. Whoever finds
Azindel's Gift first will almost always win, but you can win non-gift games by being very conservative with your resources. You are unlikely to be able to race a
Champion of Cunning so I wouldn't try to go under them unless you are mana starved. Try not to play
Feln Bloodcaster until 10 mana for ultimate. It's ok to
Permafrost a Champion since you'll need to keep their other creatures off the board anyway although it obviously isn't ideal. You really don't want to let them silence your void either since you are usually better at setting up a Vara loop and letting them take that away makes the game much harder.
Praxis and other midrange that lack silence is usually just a case of 1-for-1ing and grinding people out. Your value engine is almost always stronger than theirs since you eventually get to plague wind every turn.
I've recently seen some Big Bant lists on eternal and in the ladder that are variations on Owl Control with
The Great Parliament. If you get to fight about it with
Sabotage, that is the most important card to take. Don't worry about
Harsh Rule or
Vanquish. Just don't get out drawn by
Mystic Ascendant.
If I've been unclear, there's a matchup you want advice on, or you have suggestions to improve the list just let me know! I'll be keeping more detailed stats on my win rates and try to update when I have enough data worth sharing