See I'll buy annul as a good card against twin, bogles, and affinity, and to the extent it matters stuff like lantern control. To board it I'd want to know though:
1) Are these bad matchups that need a sideboard slot?
2) If they are bad, is this doing enough to help shore up those matchups?
3) Is saving 1 mana worth giving up the ability to hit resolved permanents? (i.e. compare to disenchant)
See I'll buy annul as a good card against twin, bogles, and affinity, and to the extent it matters stuff like lantern control. To board it I'd want to know though:
1) Are these bad matchups that need a sideboard slot?
2) If they are bad, is this doing enough to help shore up those matchups?
3) Is saving 1 mana worth giving up the ability to hit resolved permanents? (i.e. compare to disenchant)
You need to look at what annul is hitting, and then ask yourself whether you actually need what it does - imo the answer is no, it is not doing anything the deck actually needs as the things it provides are not even weaknesses:
It's a one mana counterspell against affinity that also interacts with amulet bloom, blood moon, keranos, and wurmcoil engine. It's super flexible.
Affinity: already a good match. Better off with stony silence if you want something here.
Amulet: stops 1 card? Amulet - and won't even do that if you're on the draw and they cast it t1 - nor will it hit any other card once they've resolved an amulet.
Blood moon: we have 4 esper charms main, and purge in the board, and various counterspells and 6 basics with 6-7 fetches
keranos: sure I guess but at that point we're countering 5 mana spells and it might as well be deprive or another logic knot.
Wurmcoil: most decks with wurmcoil this is actually your only path to exile target anyways (i.e. tron) so adding counters for it doesn't really make sense.
um, we have a bunch of counterspells and 4 esper charms to kill moons (float mana before it resolves). Out of the board I'd recommend celestial purge. I havent tried d-sphere but im not keen on a card that gets abrupt decayed or karn/o-ringd as my catch-all. I'd probably cough up the 1 more mana for utter end instead.
thanks for the comments - some were saying stony silence isnt even needed because affinity is such a good matchup anyways - worth it regardless as a 1/2 of to bring in vs both affinity and tron (and i guess lantern)?
Interesting idea on shaving a wrath effect or two for more spot removal - the merfolk thing may just be the tip of the iceberg if its more about good vs bad players and who walks into the verdict and who doesn't (rather than being about this deck or that deck)
And since I'm getting lots of testing in and have lots of questions for those more experienced here's another one:
Do you often find yourself discarding due to hand size? Sometimes I'm fishing for something specific so I'll revelation for maximum even though I have 5 cards in hand, or my tempo/control opponent taps out on their EoT and I have a window so I'll rev for way more than I can possibly use just to max the filtering/life gain.
It doesn't happen every game or anything, but its not unusual for me to revelation and then discard 2-4 cards. Should I revelation for less to avoid discarding? Or sandbag the revelation until my hand is lower? It seems like the right play when I do it but I don't know if more experienced pilots would have a different view about turning the "Draw" from revelation or esper charm into "loots". Exception is of course when I need 1 specific answer (e.g. verdict) to get me out of the current board state.
10-12 games with it - confirmed aetherling is not a maindeck card (some of you may have already known this but I had to try ;p).
I was trying it over elspeth, sun's champion as my 2nd maindeck nonland win con (WSZ being the other) to see if it had legs. While it is indeed a strong win condition that can't be stopped, its painfully bad versus fast decks where an elspeth or WSZ can actually stabilize you by tapping out on t6 (if you live that long either way).
I believe its equally good as elspeth versus most midrange/control decks and phenomenally better than our other win cons vs tron (they can't karn/ugin/stone it and it can decimate those planeswalkers in 1-2 hits). But if it doesn't belong in the MD is it enough of a tron beater to earn a sb slot? It's another haymaker to consider in that teferi/blood baron/baneslayer/grave titan/gideon/elspeth wedge but I'm not sure it does enough in turning the tron match to displace any of those. Others here suggested the key to breaking tron is just stopping their emrakul loop with eye of ugin - that points to surgical extraction or mindbreak trap as being better aces-in-the-hole for tron. And others have said its better to just toss in the towel on tron as it takes too much effort to make the matchup favourable.
I wish I got to see more tron games to have a better sense of how powerful aetherling is in that match - because I can see how it could be too slow, we would want 7-8 mana to cast it, and at that point tron could be swimming in mana and ready to start emrakul loop - at which point we might just rather have the aetherling be a mindbreak trap anyways. Just not sure how this will usually play out.
But on that note - have people tried mindbreak trap? Does it have any other meaningful applications? It used to be the anti-storm card but storm is not very popular anymore, could you use it vs other blue decks as a way to trump the counterspell wars? Not sure how often those come down to opponent casting 3 spells in a turn but I could see it.
Okay I just got in a match vs merfolk and I have to ask what exactly the game plan is vs a competent merfolk player. I always assumed supreme verdict blowout for the win, but a good player will just go adept+lord and force you to 1-for-1 by verdicting that board or else taking 5 per turn. Or even worse, mutavault(s) + lord. The 4 caverns and 4 viles mean counterspells no longer count as removal, so we seem stuck playing 4x path 3x verdict as our 7 pieces of removal against a deck fronting something like 30 threats (esp if you count mutas). They have spreading seas to shut down colonades, although we can certainly 2-for-1 ourselves and esper charm those out of the way.
Runed halo does great work vs mutavault in particular, but then that gets real awkward if you're planning to e.explosives for 2 coming out of the board.
Just wondering if this is actually not a very good matchup and/or what we should be running to deal with it. I feel like if they slow-roll their threats and draw a decent mix of mutavault/cavern/vial we're in tough to handle everything in time. Game 3 I tried to value by turn 4 cryptic tapdown mode instead of just verdicting lord+adept and then take 4 from mutavaults - yeah he had spell pierce so instead I just died :S Like was I supposed to do the 1-for-1 verdict play and then take 4?
I had porphyry nodes in the board at one point but not sure thats even that good since its a slow ass 2-for-1 against them while you take beats, and when it dies they can then vial or flash in a dude at your EoT anyways to immediately apply more pressure.
it blows my mind that people think stony silence is good against tron. They're just going to karn or ugin it and will probably have already mapped or scrying'd into their tron by the time you play it. Post board they are also just going to nature's claim it. Also our deck runs 3-4 actual legit counterspells against tron: 3-4 cryptic, 0-1 negate. Good luck stopping all their karns and ugins and o-stones with your 4 counterspells - this game is probably going to turn 12+ where they're going to have 15+ mana.
I'm going to test aetherling myself before arguing too heavily in favour of it, but the idea its "too expensive" for a deck that has a game plan of playing a win con when its at 10+ mana seems like a joke. It is unkillable and unblockable and a 3 turn clock and has vigilance if you need it to and it can block-flicker vs lifelink. Do I want it vs twin? No. Burn? No. Other midrange/cotnrol decks? yes. tron? **** yes. But thats magic - few cards are good against everything.
Also can someone describe for me how teferi works for this deck? I understand it in twin and scapeshift where you untap combo and that's the game. But for esper they are going to have a glut of spot removal in hand a lot of the time since we have no other targets for it. We flash in teferi, untap, do nothing, pass turn, they terminate terminate snap-terminate and we try to blow 3 counterspells protecting teferi. If we don't, he failed. If we do, all we really did was turned on their 3 removal spells in a way white sun's zenith, elspeth, blood baron, or aetherling never would.
In the matchups where he "wins the counterspell wars" you will struggle bigtime to resolve it because 5 mana might as well be a million against a bunch of dispels. Is the idea simply that he lets us "last word" other combo decks with our negate/cryptics (this assumes they don't have removal to point at teferi himself and that we will still have our countermagic to disrupt their combos)?
I've been scratching my head on how to make tron beatable and this seriously feels like a legit answer that isn't super narrow. They can't o-stone, karn, or ugin it, it can block wurmcoils and flicker, it can go unblockable and whack their planeswalkers for 8, and hits hard enough that with a couple of cryptics and verdicts you may even be able to race a late game emrakul.
I've been running an elspeth suns champion main and am going to try aetherling in that slot - it just seems very good in that matchup and probably an equally resilient and powerful in con elsewhere as well. As long as we're coughing up a few slots in the main/sb for alternate win conditions I feel like this one has to be worth a slot somewhere.
the deck only wants like 1-2 max non-land win conditions. A major advantage of esper control is that you are always drawing cantrips and answers and can just wait patiently to hit your win con. When you only want 1 or 2 max win conditions, geist is a bad choice - it can't attack if there are any blockers, non-bo's with runed halo and supreme verdict and is generally a tempo card not a control card. Correct win conditions are hard to stop cards like white sun's zenith, blood baron of vizkopa or elspeth, sun's champion. Most decks have no answer to those things, whereas geist gets brick walled by something as silly as a kitchen finks. I;ve seen geist in sideboard occasionally but I really do not see why - there are better more resilient win conditions to put there.
Thoughtseize and targeted discard in general are weak because they are mediocre or awful topdecks in the mid and late game which is where esper control is designed to go. It also doesn't help that black is really a splash for esper charm and that we'd rather have a tapped land turn 1 or a fetch to enable spellsnare if needed. Some put thoughtseize in the board as a way to stop combo decks in the early game, but I'm not sure that's a great plan myself.
Shadow will occasionally bite you when you're trying to make land drops, they have a ghost quarter, and you can't even just fire it off on EoT for a card without letting them strip mine you. Won't come up that often, but boy does it feel rotten when it does.
I went 3-1 for 2nd of 11 at LGS with this last night:
Round 1: 2-0 win vs grixis faeries (faeries with snap+command+bolt).
pretty favourable matchup as long as I get to resolve a zenith or revelation. G2 saw a wild sequence where I cast night of soul's betrayal on 8 mana. I have negate and 2 spell snares. He cryptics with 1 land up, I negate and with him on one land and me with 2 mana left I'm comfortable that its resolving - nope - fetch and dispel!. I got my revenge with a rest in peace though where I spell snared his sprite and then spell snared his snap getting it to resolve.
Round 2: 2-1 win vs grixis midrange/control
G1 I play an early runed halo on delver of secrets - too bad once it flips it becomes insectile aberration. This derp costs me 2 life (i verdict it 1 turn after it flips) which ends up being the game when at 8 life I go down to bolt snap bolt command.
G2 I land a t2 rest in peace. gg.
G3 I struggle huge to make land drops sitting on a fist full of spell snares and dispels. He gets an angler down and the next turn I hit my 6th mana and throw down a blood baron with dispel backup. 2 turns later I hit my 7th land and go for a baneslayer with double-dispel backup. he's toast with about 4 mins left on the clock.
Round 3: 2-0 vs bogles.
G1: he mulls to 5 and I spell snare his first creature, logic knot the next, and then cryptic the next and he just sits there with a hand full of auras while I end it.
G2: he goes t1 scout, t2 double umbra, I let him go t3 spirit mantle before dropping a runed halo on scout. Pretty sure he has no answer since he shouldnt really board in enchant hate blind. He fetches an arbor and auras it, I path it. From there its controlly time until I hit 12 mana then elspeth and zenith mop it up.
Round 4: 0-2 vs GR tron. Unwinnable match is unwinnable.
G1: I amazingly get in what looks like the driver's seat by negate on karn, then path and snap-path on back to back wurmcoils. I peek and see he has just 2 lands in hand against my snapcaster (i have colonade but he has 2 ghost quarters). I've got some action left - charm cryptic verdict, he topdecks eye of ugin and grabs emrakul and while I can cryptic tap and verdict, he just re-fetches it with the ******* eye and he has 2 sandbagged lands so I can't even bounce the eye and then charm it and then wrath,
G2: I actually manage to spell snare, negate, and then snap negate his scrying and 2 maps leaving him on 4 lands no tron. Sadly on my end I'm missing land drops left right and center. When I hit my 6th land I tapout for elspeth and make 3 dudes. He untaps, topdecks sylvan scrying to go get 3rd tron piece and casts wurmcoil - no biggie as I have 2 paths. I untap and decide to go for it since I have no counterspell in hand anyways and bring him from 18 to 9 and make 3 more tokens. He untaps and ugins -6. I cant even use the colonade anymore because of ******* ghost quarter. I eventually rev for 6 finding bribery but ugin is at 11 counters and karn is at 10 counters. I can cryptic the karn, untap and bribery for emrakul and hope I draw a snap or a counter for the karn - but his ugin draw 7 gets his emrakul anyways and that's that.
Can't be too sad about losing a 90/10 tron matchup but it was a little annoying to feel like I could actually pull it off only to have sick topdecks on the critical turns crush me. Bribery is - as expected - useless against tron. Probably good vs the tooth and nail version but GR has too many outs to it and you can't realistically get the ~9 mana to bribery and then protect it with a cryptic so you get to swing. Commandeer is probably more likely to win the game but in general I just can't see winning this match unless they draw nothing but wurmcoils. esper doesnt care much about karn but ugin and emrakul are too stronk.
general consensus is battle lands are not correct for this deck. We have too many non-basic lands and too heavy mana requirements on t3/4 as you mentioned. It's not worth saving 2 life on the rare turn 5+ where we absolutely need a shock and need it untapped. The scenarios where I've needed to shock myself against aggro would never be helped by a battle land because I almost always have 1 non basic on the first 2 turns anyways.
I run 6 fetches and have never felt the need for a 7th - that last slot can be a 5th manland perhaps? I was also wondering if there is any logic behind the double drowned catacomb instead of a 1/1 split between glacial fortress and drowned catacomb.
Maindeck is the same as mine (I also do 2 halos) except I have -1 cryptic -1 spell snare -1 logic knot; +1 negate, +1 elspeth sun's champion, +1 peek. I have not tried the 4th snare/cryptic but I've never really felt like I wished I had more - snare is often awkward and cryptic is often too slow/expensive/vulnerable. I also think 2 knots is wrong - if you draw both you're going to be very unhappy, or even if you fire off one for a heavy delve and then draw another.
Sideboard always depends on what your meta is like I guess, but I like having a wrath of god as my extra sweeper in the board instead of a 4th verdict - that gives you the option to even just swap a wrath in for a verdict if you expect sideboarded thrun or are up against ezuri or welding jar. I think 4 alternate finishers is the right amount in the board (wurmcoil, elspeth, teferi, baneslayer, wurmcoil, blood baron, gideon). I do not think shadow of doubt hits hard enough to be an SB card. I also do 2 dispels and would consider boarding a 3rd as decks like twin and ad nauseum will overload on dispels themselves to force through their combo, and in that situation spell snares and cryptic commands do not get the job done.
How has night of soul's betrayal been? Not a card I have tried myself but I can see it. I like having engineered explosives and/or detention sphere in the board as catch-alls for random things you bump into too. Celestial Purge can also go a long ways to killing random nuisances and takes out liliana!
I know its normally better in something like twin to see if you can resolve your combo or not, but sometimes with esper the opponent has a grip of 5 cards and you have no idea if its something you need to respect or a bunch of garbage - peek for 1 mana can let you know its safe to tapout for a rev or wsz, or early on whether or not you're going to need an untapped land next turn, and in general whether or not its a good time for esper charm discard mode.
Been running it over my single shadow of doubt and been reasonably happy so far - nailing a fetchland with shadow is cool, but we're a path deck so depriving them of 1 mana in the long run is pretty meh.
1) Are these bad matchups that need a sideboard slot?
2) If they are bad, is this doing enough to help shore up those matchups?
3) Is saving 1 mana worth giving up the ability to hit resolved permanents? (i.e. compare to disenchant)
1) Are these bad matchups that need a sideboard slot?
2) If they are bad, is this doing enough to help shore up those matchups?
3) Is saving 1 mana worth giving up the ability to hit resolved permanents? (i.e. compare to disenchant)
Affinity: already a good match. Better off with stony silence if you want something here.
Amulet: stops 1 card? Amulet - and won't even do that if you're on the draw and they cast it t1 - nor will it hit any other card once they've resolved an amulet.
Blood moon: we have 4 esper charms main, and purge in the board, and various counterspells and 6 basics with 6-7 fetches
keranos: sure I guess but at that point we're countering 5 mana spells and it might as well be deprive or another logic knot.
Wurmcoil: most decks with wurmcoil this is actually your only path to exile target anyways (i.e. tron) so adding counters for it doesn't really make sense.
Interesting idea on shaving a wrath effect or two for more spot removal - the merfolk thing may just be the tip of the iceberg if its more about good vs bad players and who walks into the verdict and who doesn't (rather than being about this deck or that deck)
Do you often find yourself discarding due to hand size? Sometimes I'm fishing for something specific so I'll revelation for maximum even though I have 5 cards in hand, or my tempo/control opponent taps out on their EoT and I have a window so I'll rev for way more than I can possibly use just to max the filtering/life gain.
It doesn't happen every game or anything, but its not unusual for me to revelation and then discard 2-4 cards. Should I revelation for less to avoid discarding? Or sandbag the revelation until my hand is lower? It seems like the right play when I do it but I don't know if more experienced pilots would have a different view about turning the "Draw" from revelation or esper charm into "loots". Exception is of course when I need 1 specific answer (e.g. verdict) to get me out of the current board state.
I was trying it over elspeth, sun's champion as my 2nd maindeck nonland win con (WSZ being the other) to see if it had legs. While it is indeed a strong win condition that can't be stopped, its painfully bad versus fast decks where an elspeth or WSZ can actually stabilize you by tapping out on t6 (if you live that long either way).
I believe its equally good as elspeth versus most midrange/control decks and phenomenally better than our other win cons vs tron (they can't karn/ugin/stone it and it can decimate those planeswalkers in 1-2 hits). But if it doesn't belong in the MD is it enough of a tron beater to earn a sb slot? It's another haymaker to consider in that teferi/blood baron/baneslayer/grave titan/gideon/elspeth wedge but I'm not sure it does enough in turning the tron match to displace any of those. Others here suggested the key to breaking tron is just stopping their emrakul loop with eye of ugin - that points to surgical extraction or mindbreak trap as being better aces-in-the-hole for tron. And others have said its better to just toss in the towel on tron as it takes too much effort to make the matchup favourable.
I wish I got to see more tron games to have a better sense of how powerful aetherling is in that match - because I can see how it could be too slow, we would want 7-8 mana to cast it, and at that point tron could be swimming in mana and ready to start emrakul loop - at which point we might just rather have the aetherling be a mindbreak trap anyways. Just not sure how this will usually play out.
But on that note - have people tried mindbreak trap? Does it have any other meaningful applications? It used to be the anti-storm card but storm is not very popular anymore, could you use it vs other blue decks as a way to trump the counterspell wars? Not sure how often those come down to opponent casting 3 spells in a turn but I could see it.
Runed halo does great work vs mutavault in particular, but then that gets real awkward if you're planning to e.explosives for 2 coming out of the board.
Just wondering if this is actually not a very good matchup and/or what we should be running to deal with it. I feel like if they slow-roll their threats and draw a decent mix of mutavault/cavern/vial we're in tough to handle everything in time. Game 3 I tried to value by turn 4 cryptic tapdown mode instead of just verdicting lord+adept and then take 4 from mutavaults - yeah he had spell pierce so instead I just died :S Like was I supposed to do the 1-for-1 verdict play and then take 4?
I had porphyry nodes in the board at one point but not sure thats even that good since its a slow ass 2-for-1 against them while you take beats, and when it dies they can then vial or flash in a dude at your EoT anyways to immediately apply more pressure.
I'm going to test aetherling myself before arguing too heavily in favour of it, but the idea its "too expensive" for a deck that has a game plan of playing a win con when its at 10+ mana seems like a joke. It is unkillable and unblockable and a 3 turn clock and has vigilance if you need it to and it can block-flicker vs lifelink. Do I want it vs twin? No. Burn? No. Other midrange/cotnrol decks? yes. tron? **** yes. But thats magic - few cards are good against everything.
Also can someone describe for me how teferi works for this deck? I understand it in twin and scapeshift where you untap combo and that's the game. But for esper they are going to have a glut of spot removal in hand a lot of the time since we have no other targets for it. We flash in teferi, untap, do nothing, pass turn, they terminate terminate snap-terminate and we try to blow 3 counterspells protecting teferi. If we don't, he failed. If we do, all we really did was turned on their 3 removal spells in a way white sun's zenith, elspeth, blood baron, or aetherling never would.
In the matchups where he "wins the counterspell wars" you will struggle bigtime to resolve it because 5 mana might as well be a million against a bunch of dispels. Is the idea simply that he lets us "last word" other combo decks with our negate/cryptics (this assumes they don't have removal to point at teferi himself and that we will still have our countermagic to disrupt their combos)?
I've been scratching my head on how to make tron beatable and this seriously feels like a legit answer that isn't super narrow. They can't o-stone, karn, or ugin it, it can block wurmcoils and flicker, it can go unblockable and whack their planeswalkers for 8, and hits hard enough that with a couple of cryptics and verdicts you may even be able to race a late game emrakul.
I've been running an elspeth suns champion main and am going to try aetherling in that slot - it just seems very good in that matchup and probably an equally resilient and powerful in con elsewhere as well. As long as we're coughing up a few slots in the main/sb for alternate win conditions I feel like this one has to be worth a slot somewhere.
Thoughtseize and targeted discard in general are weak because they are mediocre or awful topdecks in the mid and late game which is where esper control is designed to go. It also doesn't help that black is really a splash for esper charm and that we'd rather have a tapped land turn 1 or a fetch to enable spellsnare if needed. Some put thoughtseize in the board as a way to stop combo decks in the early game, but I'm not sure that's a great plan myself.
I went 3-1 for 2nd of 11 at LGS with this last night:
1 elspeth, sun's champion
1 white sun's zenith
Card Advantage (13)
4 think twice
4 esper charm
2 snapcaster mage
1 peek
2 sphinx's revelation
Counterspells (10)
2 remand
1 negate
1 logic knot
3 spell snare
3 cryptic command
Removal (9)
4 path to exile
3 supreme verdict
2 runed halo
3 flooded strand
3 polluted delta
2 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
1 godless shrine
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
4 celestial colonnade
1 shambling vent
1 calciform pools
1 mystic gate
1 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacomb
2 rest in peace
2 dispel
2 celestial purge
1 teferi, mage of zhalfir
1 blood baron of vizkopa
1 baneslayer angel
1 bribery
1 engineered explosives
1 wrath of god
1 porphyry nodes
1 timely reinforcements
1 night of soul's betrayal
Round 1: 2-0 win vs grixis faeries (faeries with snap+command+bolt).
pretty favourable matchup as long as I get to resolve a zenith or revelation. G2 saw a wild sequence where I cast night of soul's betrayal on 8 mana. I have negate and 2 spell snares. He cryptics with 1 land up, I negate and with him on one land and me with 2 mana left I'm comfortable that its resolving - nope - fetch and dispel!. I got my revenge with a rest in peace though where I spell snared his sprite and then spell snared his snap getting it to resolve.
Round 2: 2-1 win vs grixis midrange/control
G1 I play an early runed halo on delver of secrets - too bad once it flips it becomes insectile aberration. This derp costs me 2 life (i verdict it 1 turn after it flips) which ends up being the game when at 8 life I go down to bolt snap bolt command.
G2 I land a t2 rest in peace. gg.
G3 I struggle huge to make land drops sitting on a fist full of spell snares and dispels. He gets an angler down and the next turn I hit my 6th mana and throw down a blood baron with dispel backup. 2 turns later I hit my 7th land and go for a baneslayer with double-dispel backup. he's toast with about 4 mins left on the clock.
Round 3: 2-0 vs bogles.
G1: he mulls to 5 and I spell snare his first creature, logic knot the next, and then cryptic the next and he just sits there with a hand full of auras while I end it.
G2: he goes t1 scout, t2 double umbra, I let him go t3 spirit mantle before dropping a runed halo on scout. Pretty sure he has no answer since he shouldnt really board in enchant hate blind. He fetches an arbor and auras it, I path it. From there its controlly time until I hit 12 mana then elspeth and zenith mop it up.
Round 4: 0-2 vs GR tron. Unwinnable match is unwinnable.
G1: I amazingly get in what looks like the driver's seat by negate on karn, then path and snap-path on back to back wurmcoils. I peek and see he has just 2 lands in hand against my snapcaster (i have colonade but he has 2 ghost quarters). I've got some action left - charm cryptic verdict, he topdecks eye of ugin and grabs emrakul and while I can cryptic tap and verdict, he just re-fetches it with the ******* eye and he has 2 sandbagged lands so I can't even bounce the eye and then charm it and then wrath,
G2: I actually manage to spell snare, negate, and then snap negate his scrying and 2 maps leaving him on 4 lands no tron. Sadly on my end I'm missing land drops left right and center. When I hit my 6th land I tapout for elspeth and make 3 dudes. He untaps, topdecks sylvan scrying to go get 3rd tron piece and casts wurmcoil - no biggie as I have 2 paths. I untap and decide to go for it since I have no counterspell in hand anyways and bring him from 18 to 9 and make 3 more tokens. He untaps and ugins -6. I cant even use the colonade anymore because of ******* ghost quarter. I eventually rev for 6 finding bribery but ugin is at 11 counters and karn is at 10 counters. I can cryptic the karn, untap and bribery for emrakul and hope I draw a snap or a counter for the karn - but his ugin draw 7 gets his emrakul anyways and that's that.
Can't be too sad about losing a 90/10 tron matchup but it was a little annoying to feel like I could actually pull it off only to have sick topdecks on the critical turns crush me. Bribery is - as expected - useless against tron. Probably good vs the tooth and nail version but GR has too many outs to it and you can't realistically get the ~9 mana to bribery and then protect it with a cryptic so you get to swing. Commandeer is probably more likely to win the game but in general I just can't see winning this match unless they draw nothing but wurmcoils. esper doesnt care much about karn but ugin and emrakul are too stronk.
Maindeck is the same as mine (I also do 2 halos) except I have -1 cryptic -1 spell snare -1 logic knot; +1 negate, +1 elspeth sun's champion, +1 peek. I have not tried the 4th snare/cryptic but I've never really felt like I wished I had more - snare is often awkward and cryptic is often too slow/expensive/vulnerable. I also think 2 knots is wrong - if you draw both you're going to be very unhappy, or even if you fire off one for a heavy delve and then draw another.
Sideboard always depends on what your meta is like I guess, but I like having a wrath of god as my extra sweeper in the board instead of a 4th verdict - that gives you the option to even just swap a wrath in for a verdict if you expect sideboarded thrun or are up against ezuri or welding jar. I think 4 alternate finishers is the right amount in the board (wurmcoil, elspeth, teferi, baneslayer, wurmcoil, blood baron, gideon). I do not think shadow of doubt hits hard enough to be an SB card. I also do 2 dispels and would consider boarding a 3rd as decks like twin and ad nauseum will overload on dispels themselves to force through their combo, and in that situation spell snares and cryptic commands do not get the job done.
How has night of soul's betrayal been? Not a card I have tried myself but I can see it. I like having engineered explosives and/or detention sphere in the board as catch-alls for random things you bump into too. Celestial Purge can also go a long ways to killing random nuisances and takes out liliana!
I know its normally better in something like twin to see if you can resolve your combo or not, but sometimes with esper the opponent has a grip of 5 cards and you have no idea if its something you need to respect or a bunch of garbage - peek for 1 mana can let you know its safe to tapout for a rev or wsz, or early on whether or not you're going to need an untapped land next turn, and in general whether or not its a good time for esper charm discard mode.
Been running it over my single shadow of doubt and been reasonably happy so far - nailing a fetchland with shadow is cool, but we're a path deck so depriving them of 1 mana in the long run is pretty meh.