The Introduction

You know what planeswalker I really like from Ixalan? Huatli. I positively adored the Huatli cards, they were powerful, but not gamebreaking, and even if your opponent managed to resolve a Huatli, it didn't feel like you were losing immediately.

So naturally, I decided to make a deck with Huatli, Warrior Poet in it. Just cuz.

So what we have here is a Mardu control build.

Why not Jeskai? Because I don't feel like playing with Teferis.

Why not regular Boros? Not spicy enough. We need more spice.

Why not Naya? ... the answer to that one should be obvious (Naya is not good)

Since we decided to be in Mardu, I figured we could also throw in another of my favorite planeswalkers, Angrath, the Flame-Chained.

So, with the intro out of the way,

Welcome. To Angrath and Huatli Control

The Gameplan: 

The gameplan's pretty simple, since we're running a pretty basic control deck - remove your opponent's stuff and then drop a big threat and try to run away with the game.

There's not really much else to say, so uhh...

The Removal Core:

We're a control deck. What else are we supposed to do, actually be proactive? Nah, nah, nah. We're playing board wipes and removal galore.

Kaya's Wrath: Starting off strong, we have slightly-harder-to-cast Wrath of God. It's a 4 mana unconditional wrath, and that's usually pretty good against creature decks. Yeah, we could be running Shatter the Sky. but that draws our opponents a card, and I have yet to really suffer from the prohibitive cost of Kaya's Wrath.

Mythos of Snapdax: I really want to see this card work, so I'm jamming it in here. You'de be surprised how often it can do great things. The decks you really want a wipe against usually play small creatures, so for the small cost of RBWW, we can make them lose all their indestructible stuff (like Heliod, Sun-Crowned) and leave them with a 1/1 token or an Arboreal Grazer. Should I probably just be running other unconditional wraths? mmm... probably. Am I going to? Not yet.

Deafening Clarion: More wraths. And also lifelink if we really need it. Lets us somewhat deal with the insane Gruul starts, and also lets us take out a Soulwarden -> Ajani's Pridemate opener when on the play so that things don't get out of hand. Basically, we just want some early wraths, and Clarion fits the bill.

Heartless Act: This is our Doomblade equivalent. Yes, it's pretty yikes against Riot creatures, and yes, Heliod, Sun-Crowned basically makes their creatures immune to it. But it's still a 2 mana removal spell that can hit Questing Beast, Kenrith, the Returned King, and Lurrus of the Dream-Den. It's no Doomblade, but I think it's close enough. I'd consider Cast Down instead if Questing Beast and Kenrith, the Returned King didn't give us such a hard time.

Despark: meh. Random 1-of I threw in here to get rid of random big stuff. Not really special, but it gets the job done when it needs to.

Ruinous Ultimatum: It's like Planar Cleansing. But for your opponents. Yeah. This thing's cool. Great for removing some really crazy boardstates. Not much else to say except our removal is the ultimate removal of removal.

The Utility Stuff:

Alright. So we've gotten through our main removal. Now here's the glue that keeps our deck afloat.

Bonecrusher Giant: Bonecrusher Giant's really just a solid card in any red deck. A 2 mana Shock isn't that great, but when you can then staple on a 4/3 body with upside for 3 mana, the card becomes pretty damn good. Stomp can act as an extra way to kill a small creature or a way to target an opponent's planeswalker, and the Giant itself can be used on the offensive to beat down our opponents or as a decently sized wall to try to stall an un-cleaved Gruul Spellbreaker or Questing Beast.

Mind Stone: Because every deck needs more ramp. A 2 mana artifact that taps for C isn't anything to rave about, but we can also crack it late game to draw us a card, and it's this flexibility of letting us get to our important stuff earlier and then drawing us more important stuff that makes Mind Stone an inclusion in this deck.

Agonizing Remorse: Some hand/graveyard hate. Against most decks, we're fine not drawing any, but against decks like control, Remorse can really help us get something big through by exiling a counterspell or some removal. Not particularly a fan on this card in the deck, but you do what you can with what you have, and Remorse has been a fine inclusion in the deck so far.

Elspeth Conquers Death: ECD fills multiple roles here. The first chapter lets us exile a big threat (including planeswalkers), the second chapter lets us hopefully resolve and untap with a planeswalker through countermagic, and the final chapter can return a Bonecrusher Giant or said planeswalker if they die. ECD isn't a particularly strong card here (not enough planeswalkers to make including it as a 4-of worth it) but it's still a very strong card, and I don't mind including it as a 2-of.

The Finishers:

So this is where we have the cards that come in and win the game once the board's been cleared. I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to say here, honestly. I know what a finisher is, you know what a finisher is...

Outlaws' Merriment: "Huh? IL2L! This isn't a planeswalker!" I know, dear reader, but god damn do I love Outlaws' Merriment. It's not a strong card by any means, but boy oh boy does it feel fun to make a random creature every turn. I basically included this because I want to. If you don't want to use Merriment, I'd go with a planeswalker. Probably Sarkhan, the Masterless.

Angrath, the Flame-Chained: I've been trying to make Angrath work, and he never has. He still kind of doesn't, but screw that. This is a win-con, and it's a decent one if we can get Angrath to stick on the field. His +1 lets us attack their hand and pre-emptively get rid of their threats. His -3 lets us steal something and swing with it, and if it's small enough (or a Hydroid Krasis), we even get to sac it on the endstep. So it's basically removal for any creature with CMC 3 or less.

Huatli, Warrior Poet: Ohboyohboyohboyohboyohboy. What's a 5 mana planeswalker that can make a 3/3 every turn? No, not Nissa, Who Shakes the World, but Huatli! Her +2 gets us life, her 0 makes 3/3s forever, and her -X can potentially wipe a bunch of little annoying creatures. Sure, we're usually going to be 0ing her to the end of time, but it's nice to have some emergency lifegain, ya?

Disclaimer: Now don't get me wrong, none of these planeswalkers are particularly good, but boy oh boy are they fun to try and make work. And frankly, that's what MtG should be, having fun throwing pieces of painted cardboard around.

The Manabase:

I mean... this is pretty standard. We got most of the shocks, some checks, two Savai Triomes for the mana consistency, and a couple Temples. I'm throwing in some basics to not get caught in the Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter collateral.

I don't really want any colorless lands, since Kaya's Wrath and Ruinous Ultimatum are so color-intensive, so all of our lands are colored.

The Sideboard:

Alrighty then. The sideboard.

So right now, the only way to Bo3 Historic is to to an event. So I don't really have that much experience playing this deck with the sideboard. So uhh... take the sideboard with a grain of salt, would ya?

Rekindling Phoenix: So Rekindling Phoenix here is mostly to provide a hard-to-remove-threat that slower decks are gpomg to have trouble answering. This includes stuff like Esper Control (although Elspeth Conquers Death, Despark, and Teferi, Time Raveler answer this thing pretty handily), and Nexus of Fate. My main reason for this is I wanted a recursive threat, but it might just be better to get something hasty like Skarrgan Hellkite or Legion Warboss. I dunno, dude. Fire bird is fire bird. Can you blame me?

Cry of the Carnarium: Errr... Lurrus of the Dream-Den hate. These could probably be Ritual of Soots instead, for some extra wipes against Gruul/Soul Sisters, or something like Justice Strike for some more spot removal. This is a meta call, since one of my friends has been having great success with Lurrus in Historic, and I don't want to get caught in an endless cat-oven loop.

Duress: For control/non-creature based combo. Not very original, but what can you do. Duress is Duress.

Oath of Kaya: To not die as quickly to things that want to kill you. 3 damage lets you kill Zhurr-Taa Goblin, a hastery Gruul Spellbreaker, Anax, Hardened in the Forge, and an Ajani's Pridmate buffed once.

Virulent Plague: Hate for Field of the Dead, and not much else.

Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage: Just some more discard against slower decks. This one's mostly for fun, so I could definitely see cutting it. Maybe Hypnotic Spectre or such is where you want to be.

Kaya, Orzhov Usurper: Graveyard hate, mainly for cat-oven, Kethis combo, or Underworld Breach combos. This could also probably be Ashiok, Dream Render.

The Matchups:

This essentially boils down to: everything that is creature-based is favorable. Everything not is... well... not.

add Duress, Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage, Rekindling Phoenix

Nexus of Fate and hard control are not particularly good matchups for us given our propensity for board wipes, but post-board, we want to get a bit more aggressive with Rekindling Phoenix, and we want to do some disruption with some more discard.

Drop Kaya's Wraths and Deafening Clarions.

- add Oath of Kaya, Rekindling Phoenix

We already do pretty well against Gruul, since we're like, 20% board wipes, so I don't feel the need to sideboard much for it, but basically, we put in some more removal and lifegain in the form of Oath of Kaya].

Drop the Agonizing Remorses and an Outlaws' Merriment

- add Virulent Plague, Rekindling Phoenix

A pretty tough matchup. We're basically hoping to boardwipe them enough to eventually fly over them with a Phoenix.

Drop the Outlaws' Merriments, Huatlis, and Heartless Acts

- add Kaya, Orzhov Ursurper, one Oath of Kaya. Cry of the Carnarium, in the case of Lurrus.

We just throw in some graveyard hate so that we can beat up their strategy a bit.

Drop the Elspeth Conquers Deaths and Mythos of Snapdaxs

- add Rekindling Phoenix

Soul siblings is pretty easy, since we can usually just hard wipe their board and then leave them floundering.

Drop Despark.

Final Considerations:

And finally, some cards I was thinking of that didn't make the cut, and why

Legion Warboss: I was thinking of Legion Warboss instead of Phoenix, but decided at the last moment to go with the Phoenix. The reason was that I could also play Phoenix against Soul Sisters pretty handily, whereas Legion Warboss was usually just a 2/2 against them.

Justice Strike or Cast Down: I eventually settled on Heartless Act over these two since it was less conditional. Both are better against Gruul, yes. But that's not a matchup I'm aching to improve on.

Settle the Wreckage: I dunno. I just prefer unconditional 4 mana wraths over a conditional 4 mana wrath that can be played around. Also, Settle just straight up loses to Gruul Spellbreaker, whereas the other wraths don't.

Ritual of Soot: I'm seriously considering this one. Since it's better against Gruul and Soul Sisters than Cry is, if Lurrus decks don't take off, I'll probably switch this one in.

Final Words:

Thanks for reading! If you have any suggestions, just let me know. Remember: this is not a 100% tuned deck, and this was mainly built to add some spice to the format, so feel free to mess around with the list as you like.