After more than a week of intense hype, hints, and clues, Max Suffridge has finally unveiled the deck that brought him to this event, a deck he’s referred to as “CC.”
Right off the bat, it was clear that “CC” would not stand for “Cookie Cutter” or “Chaos Control”. Guesses and red herrings ranged from Gaia Soul the Combustible Collective to Canceller Control, a deck that revolved around controlling the opponent’s option with Spell Canceller and keeping it on the field with Cyber Phoenix. But in the end, no one came even close.
Max Suffridge’s newest deck, which may very well redefine the North American metagame, is Clockwork Control.
It can be broken down into four primary components. The first, and most important, is defense. Clock Tower Prison, perhaps the least-watched card from Enemy of Justice, forms the heart of the deck. Searchable with Terraforming, it renders Suffridge invulnerable to all battle damage once it’s been on the field for four turns. If the Clock Tower hits on turn one, the opponent only has four turns in which to try and muster offense enough for the win. During that time, defense is supplemented with Scapegoat, Nightmare’s Steelcage, Swords of Revealing Light, Level Limit - Area B, and Gravity Bind.
The deck’s second component is focused on keeping that defense on the table. Magic Reflector makes Clocktower Prison even more daunting, and Prohibition can be used to shut down Heavy Storm, Mobius the Frost Monarch, and other big threats to the deck’s on-field infrastructure. It’s also an important answer to a threat that Suffridge is hoping to see little of today: Giant Trunade. Trunade is the deck’s Achilles heal, because it gets around the protection offered by Magic Reflector. However, with very few duelists choosing Trunade over Mobius as a side deck choice, and with Cyber-Stein OTK being the only archetype to reliably main deck the card, it’s not currently a big concern. “I’m hoping to play good players with average decks,” said Suffridge, expecting to see little OTK in the field.
Prohibition is one of the deck’s hardest cards to use properly. Make no mistake—this deck isn’t easy. “Prohibition is never an automatic choice” remarked Suffridge when I asked him how complicated it was to use properly. “It can stop a lot of stuff, even Breaker, and if I get a read on Cyber-Stein I can lock out Trunade.” With what looks to be a surprisingly varied field here today, Suffridge’s calls won’t be easy.
The third component to the deck is thinning. Thunder Dragon, Magical Mallet, Toon Table of Contents, Upstart Goblin, and Card Destruction all dig towards the Prison and its support. More than a quarter of the deck is dedicated to doing so, so Suffridge should be able to get his defense going pretty quickly in every match. Consistency kills in a ten-round tournament, and his deck has been optimized to take that into account.
The fourth and final chief segment of the deck is the second half of its win condition: locking up the field is just the first of two necessary keys to success. Once the opponent is locked down, Suffridge needs a way to keep himself from decking out before the opponent does. That’s where Outstanding Dog Marron comes in. Discarded in the end phase when he has a hand of seven cards or more, Marron will jump back into Suffridge’s deck, providing at least one more draw even if the deck is empty. If the deck has no remaining cards Confiscation actually becomes an out for the opponent: it can prevent Suffridge from discarding in the end phase, leaving Marron trapped in his hand. In that case, Mass Driver hits the field and allows Marron to be sent from the field back to the deck. The burn damage is just gravy: the important thing is that Mass Driver gives Suffridge another way to abuse Marron.
From there, only a few cards remain in the deck. Of these, Offerings to the Doomed is perhaps the most interesting. One of the biggest problems Max faces is a Tsukuyomi loop with Magician of Faith, which could Recycle Heavy Storm or Mystical Space Typhoon every turn to pound away on Clock Tower Prison. While Prohibition can stop any part of the combo dead in its tracks, Offerings is an even better answer, destroying the Tsukuyomi or the Magician the moment the loop becomes evident. In a pinch, Offerings can even be used as emergency defense against a big threat in the early game. Once the deck’s lock is up and running it won’t really care about the last draw: it’s another turn of stall should something happen to Marron (you know, just in case Karma Cut somehow makes a showing and becomes killer tech . . .), and once the deck goes into passive-aggressive mode, it doesn’t usually have an urgent need for more cards.
Spell Reproduction mimicking Magic Reflector is just brutal, and often takes a game from a shaky position to an absolute win. The ideal board setup for this deck is multiple reflections on Clock Tower Prison, so Spell Reproduction is integral. It can grab a lock spell, Recycle Graceful Charity, and in case Suffridge sides into OTK burn, he can even use it to fetch back his single copy of Megamorph. While it’s a useless topdeck in most bad situations, it turns so-so play conditions into wins. Its power can’t be overstated.
While the deck list itself has been thoroughly tested by members of Suffridge’s team, he’s almost never played the deck himself, and that might end up costing him this weekend. His biggest challenge may very well be time: with all the decisions this deck demands, and with its inability to kick out damage without side decking, Suffridge might find himself in some harsh third games.
That said, regardless of how the deck performs this weekend, it’s deserving of further play. It’s the perfect answer to Chaos Return and, well, just about anything else in the current format. If Suffridge does well this weekend, Clock Tower Prison’s secondary market value is going to skyrocket, and his strategy will be mimicked across the globe.