Controls are the reward for going out there and *collecting* souls.

Admittedly, my APs are never so awesome to reach this point, but my
understanding is thus:

Controls are attained after obtaining certain thresholds of souls
*VIA* killing someone. These counts are cumulative, and do not go
away if you die, lose your weapon, etc.

Leeching someone else's weapon does NOT count towards controls.

As for kills vs. souls, I *believe* souls, but am not certain enough
to guarantee that.

My advice for playing an AP, go out and mix it up. APs are an odd
jack-of-all-trades in that you have *an* answer for generally every
matchup you face, but you're rarely *dominant* over anyone.

I personally feel that at this point, the playerbase generally fully
expects APs to be overly cautious and conservative, so I say make a
name for yourself, mix it up, die horribly and often, but make
yourself interesting to interact with and most importantly, have fun.