Curious if esper charm discard mode should be a very rare choice. I've found if I do it during draw step to nail their last 2 cards, they'll often have 1 of the cards be an instant, or it'll be a removal spell that I don't care about (path, terminate, decay), or itll be a sandbagged land. I'll almost always use the draw mode except if I have a bunch of think twice or an imminent sphinx's rev where I don't need more cards in hand myself.
Just saw in earlier pages people saying the discard mode was "Secretly" the best mode - has not been my experience at all.
Also - what have people's experiences been with nephalia drownyard? I went from 2 down to 1 down to 0 - bringing in a shambling vent instead as a 5th manland. I found the drownyard was just way too slow at ending games and would make my other cards too pointless. "hrm, so I drew a WSZ that I can cast for 7 tokens, but I've spent the last 5 turns drownyarding..."
I guess we've just had different experiences with how much better rest in peace is than relic of progenitus vs graveyard decks. Especially in a control deck full of answers that basically just wants to not die on turn 2 or 3 so it can stabilize. I'll have to get burned a few times on relics not getting the job done to make the swap, cause as a long-time living end player it never mattered if it was relic or rest in peace - both were major problems. When I played grixis control it was similarly moot - I could get destroyed on CA trying to kolagan's command a relic, or I could just laugh off the rest in peace with a spell snare or inquisition.
So there's the thing - its not RiP in a vaccum, its RiP vs Relic and maybe even vs Leyline of the Void - we have options and it seems strange to pick the one that's symmetrical when it neuters 7-8 cards in our deck (sure, you can board 2 out - thats still a lot of dead weight in a deck that won't run thoughtseize because its a bad topdeck).
There's no question that in the abstract a rest in peace is higher impact on the graveyard than a relic - whenever I'm not using my graveyard for anything rest in peace is my weapon of choice for sure - but when I'm running 7-8 cards that need the graveyard I should have a really compelling reason for picking the one that crushes 10% of my deck as well over the one that I can play with negligible self-damage.
How bad are these graveyard matchups? Do we actually need that little bit of advantage rip gives in order to win? Especially once you factor in how bad it makes some of our own cards? If grixis control is an unwinnable nightmare otherwise - sure, but I've beaten this deck handily with no graveyard hate at all so this is not exactly RG tron we're talking about here.
As much as rest in peace hurts those decks, grixis has spell snare on the draw, remand/leak/snare on the play to stop it. Abzan has abrupt decay. Pyrostorm its more lights out but i havent seen that deck very much. Vs grishoalbrand I don't see it as any better than relic - half their deck is through the breach and half is goryos - we can actually spell snare any non-spliced goryo (i.e. early game goryo) so relic seems fine as a way to cut them off on their first attempt that you can't snare.
Meanwhile you turn your think twice into a card twice as bad as Reach Through Mists, your logic knot into a terrible Clash of Wills and snapcasters into ambush vipers... whatever you gain, is it really worth turning 7 cards in our deck into unplayable trash? At least with a relic we can time things to get value.
Saying grixis control can play through a relic is like saying living end can play through relic - its technically true, but they are not going to win very many more games vs turn 1 relic than vs turn 2 rest in peace.
RIP has the advantage of improving our Grixis Control matchup by completely killing all of their delve cards, their Snapcasters, and their ability to get value with Kolaghan's Command. If your meta doesn't have that much Grixis, Relic might be the better choice; if, as in my current meta there is a lot of Grixis, RIP is probably better.
You can't crack a relic in response to a delve, so it's worse against Grixis.
Is grixis control even a bad matchup in the first place though? They want to go late game for value, so do we. While they jerk around flashing back kolaghan command for +1 card advantage we revelation for 6 or whatever. Relic isn't lights out against them but its a serious problem when you're chewing up a card per turn and can counter a snap or command target at any time. They delve for a tasigur? whoop dee doo - path it or verdict it problem solved.
I see rest in peace almost universally, but seems a little strange when we could be playing relic of progenitus. WE use the GY for 4x think twice, 2-3x snapcaster mage, and 1-2x logic knot so nuking our own yard isn't crippling, but it's still not great. Relic lets us pick the time to nuke so its possible to get our think twice value before popping.
Have people tried relic and decided we need rip specifically? Is it there for very specific matchups? (living end? griselbrand?). There are often matchups where I feel like a relic would be acceptable but rest in peace would be too risky if I draw a bunch of think twice and they don't draw any goyf/kcommand etc. Relic is also nice to just come in as a cantrip in oddball matchups where we want to drop our removal count (i.e. lantern control).
Even keeping up 1 mana for relic is easy with this deck since we're on the draw-go plan anyways - its not like leaving 1 up on our turn is costing us tempo...
I went 2-1-1 last night with my esper control list - notable last minute change was -1 quarter -1 tar pit +2 nephalia drownyard.
Round 1: 2-0 vs grixis twin.
Round 2: 1-2 vs Ad Nauseum
Round 3: 1-1-1 vs temur twin
Round 4: 2-0 vs naya zoo
I sideboarded horrifically vs temur twin taking out the 2nd rev and 2 verdicts and then losing to exarch/bounding krasis beatdown. Highlight was setting runed halo on kernaos, god of storms forcing him to bolt himself or his own creatures since I had no creatures on board Unfortunately he flipped 4 lands out of 5 turns of keranos and I got buried in CA anyways.
Is ad nauseum a good or bad matchup? G1 he went prism, i went esper charm discard mode, he goes unlife with 2 cards left in hand, I go another charm mind rot mode, he pact of negations, untaps and casts ad nauseum with pact trigger on stack for gg. G2 I got early runed halo and nailed his echoing truth with drownyard. G3 we spent time sculpting hands until he finally resolved a lotus bloom - on his upkeep he goes silence-silence-combo, and I simply didn't have the counterspells. Had to snap-cryptic one silence, negate the other, and the only counter left at that point was spell snare
Heh, Arskog's list is basically the same as mine for the maindeck - the only differences are -1 cryptic -1 snare -1 knot -1 halo in favour of +1 elspeth suns champ +1 shadow of doubt +1 hallowed moonlight +1 negate. I believe in the negate and elspeth MD but I would gladly shave the two cantrips for a 4th cryptic and 4th snare if i had em. I'm still looking for other alternatives in the meantime - I did not like 2 logic knots as they are parasitic and drawing both in mid game can feel really bad.
Mana base I don't have the tangos and am a little skeptical - we have enough non-fetch and non-basic that laying a tango on t3 is not going to be untapped most of the time, and as the game goes on time is on our side and having to lay a tapped shock will rarely even matter (at that point we fetch basics if we need the untapped land since you should have all colours up by t4). I have ordered a pair of drownyards though as these seem much better than creeping tar pit and ghost quarter.
Nothing really spicy or crazy but here's the list I'm on atm. The main cards I would easily switch for other things right now are the twisted image and the shadow of doubt, everything else has felt really good and like the right #'s.
I'd like to test ashiok but just offhand I see three reasons she won't likely stick in this deck:
1) does nothing if we're on the back foot. Gideon, elspeth, and sorin all provide some kind of immediate relief to pressure on our life total.
2) gives them something to abrupt decay when otherwise we are completely immune to it
3) as a win con its like a 10-turn clock that doesn't synergize with anything else (e.g. colonnade).
On the flip side, at 3 mana its something we can lay down earlier than other walkers and more easily cast and protect in the mid game, is a win con vs the random infinite/high life total deck (melira company or just soul sisters) or something annoyingly goofy like 8rack/lantern with ensnaring bridges.
Nice result! Looks like a pretty stock list too, so that's actually kind of reassuring that the base list is indeed on the right path and we should maybe not get cute with stuff like hallowed moonlight and shadow of doubt.
I have two questions for you or the posters here in general:
1. Gideon vs elspeth, sun's champion? I noticed a few posts back someone singing the praises of elspeth so I've switched to 1 of her in the MD instead of a 1 gideon MD. While there aren't a tonne of removal spells that kill gideon, path and terminate are cards and even a vapor snag can hit him. We only have so many counterspells to work with so having elspeth flood the board with tokens while threatening to ultimate seems more stable to me as a win con. She also does have the removal mode should you be staring down goyfs/tasigurs or a plating'ed champion.
2. Mystic Gate vs (and?) Calciform Pools vs (and?) ghost quarter?
With esper charm I find I can't run too many colourless sources, so I'm not sure how to count the mix of gate/pool/quarter. At most I want 1 gate and 1 pool but if I put both in the deck am I going to get into too many awkward land situations? Esp if I then add 1-2 ghost quarters, casting that t3 esper charm just looks sketchier and sketchier. We can even get into trouble when we want to cast a snare and path early on. I find the gate crucial to being able to cast cryptic, charm, verdict, and WSZ - I've had awkward situations where I rip the WSZ with 6 lands out and realize I don't have triple white :S Similarly pools gives us another EoT mana dump to ratchet up those zeniths/revelations or keep cryptic mana up while attacking with a colonnade, but its colourless early on.
And maybe just one more thought:
3. Planeswalkers are very hard for this deck to deal with, esp t3 liliana resolving. We have nothing to beat them down with and no way to remove them until the singleton tar pit or colonnades come online, and then we're going to have to basically tap out for 2 turns to kill her. The only "out" is to bounce her to hand with a cryptic and try to counter the next time around (or in dreamland they go hellbent and +1 her and we have cryptic to bounce her and make them discard? XD) It's fine to say just negate/knot it, but sometimes you simply don't have it in hand. Luckily not too many walkers see play, but I also had fits against a resolved Garruk Wildspeaker and noticed this feels like a pretty big weakness for esper control.
In general its that you can't afford to tap out t3 for a geist unless you've confirmed its safe with probe/discard or are a tempo/aggro deck treating geist as a 3 mana 6/6. The later the game goes the more options you get for what finisher to use, and in most cases its just easier/safer to delve a tasigur or angler than pay 3 for a geist.
Geist is horrible when you're losing, whereas a tasigur/angler is an immediate swiftspear/nacatl-stopping wall.
The geist advantage obviously is not being dismembered/pathd/terminated - the disadvantage is that he needs a clear path to swing so you need to remove literally everything from opponents board to connect, or give geist evasion somehow (elspeth knight errant, shizo deaths storehouse, angelic destiny, etc).
Thus the only place you really see geists is jeskai, with their helix, bolt path vapor snag mix alongside snapcasters, spell snares and remands working to keep the path clear for mr. taft.
I could see playing 1 less shapeshifter as they're a little risky, but every attempt at adding a mirror entity or harabaz druid or 4th envoy has felt worse so far. the 3/3 split of vials and cocos feels correct - you want to see 1 in every game but never 2. Well, 2 coco would be okay but not in your opening hand.
I moved away from scales/champion of the parish to maximize the use of the battlesinger and shapeshifter. Mutavaults and vials give us more game against decks like tron since we can come back after the board wipe with a couple of bodies and hopefully knock away their ugin or just kill them. Vs other decks we simply have to out-race them since our interaction is nonexistent (4 paths). If combo decks go off on turn 3 or 4 on the play there's basically nothing we can do about it g1.
Sideboard is a stock/mess right now - takes more games to figure out specific cards. I could see adding more hatebears like gaddock teeg or qasali pridemage there to synergize with vial and coco. I did live the dream and cast ghostway in response to a damnation vs jund recently. The card is there for sweepers, but especially ugin.
Man I feel like all the cards are there for this to be a decent or even good deck and its just a matter of putting in the hours to find the best list. I think that aggressive is the way to go - so expedition envoy and akoum battlesinger need attention. I was high on black for thoughtseize and bojuka brigand, but the deck plays out painfully slow and feels like a lame midrange deck.
The core of the deck is white, everything else is up for grabs. I'm not even sure collected company is sacred anymore, good as it is. It limits our slots for interaction really heavily and its not necessarily correct ofr an aggro deck to run 4-drops.
Ally encampment, cavern, and aether vial can let us play whatever mix of coloured allies we like. Vial and encampment also go togehter like peanut butter n jam.
A bunch mroe testing and I'm just going to say that this combination of cards is freaking insane:
The missing link here is the shapeshifter which usually acts as battlesinger 5-8 but is perfectly acceptable as a blademaster or survivalist. Being able to company reliably into 1 or even 2 battlesingers is just lights out fast.
As I said I used to be on the grindy plan, but I think the deck must play battlesinger for explosiveness. Encampmemnt, vial, and company should let us play 4 colours with impunity if our only red/blue cards are allies!
It's almost as if you didn't read anything I typed. I addressed the bolt issue. I also said, I don't want to add cards just for the burn MU. Also Ooze, Rhino and Vault are already part of our main-board, I'm talking about sideboard...
You said you think nighthawk will be good vs burn. I'm telling you it won't be. The fact it won't be as bad as feed the clan in other matchups is completely irrelevant if you're running the nighthawk in the board because you shouldn't be boarding in mediocre cards for other matchups. If you're running it maindeck then my point still stands - abzan has an unusually high amount of lifegain in the main with ooze and rhino and excellent blockers for guide/swiftspear in goyf and tasigur. Adding a 3 drop that dies to bolt is not how you shore up your burn match. Finks or even singleton timely reinforcements are way better ways to shore up burn with a MD card.
Just saw in earlier pages people saying the discard mode was "Secretly" the best mode - has not been my experience at all.
Also - what have people's experiences been with nephalia drownyard? I went from 2 down to 1 down to 0 - bringing in a shambling vent instead as a 5th manland. I found the drownyard was just way too slow at ending games and would make my other cards too pointless. "hrm, so I drew a WSZ that I can cast for 7 tokens, but I've spent the last 5 turns drownyarding..."
There's no question that in the abstract a rest in peace is higher impact on the graveyard than a relic - whenever I'm not using my graveyard for anything rest in peace is my weapon of choice for sure - but when I'm running 7-8 cards that need the graveyard I should have a really compelling reason for picking the one that crushes 10% of my deck as well over the one that I can play with negligible self-damage.
How bad are these graveyard matchups? Do we actually need that little bit of advantage rip gives in order to win? Especially once you factor in how bad it makes some of our own cards? If grixis control is an unwinnable nightmare otherwise - sure, but I've beaten this deck handily with no graveyard hate at all so this is not exactly RG tron we're talking about here.
Meanwhile you turn your think twice into a card twice as bad as Reach Through Mists, your logic knot into a terrible Clash of Wills and snapcasters into ambush vipers... whatever you gain, is it really worth turning 7 cards in our deck into unplayable trash? At least with a relic we can time things to get value.
Saying grixis control can play through a relic is like saying living end can play through relic - its technically true, but they are not going to win very many more games vs turn 1 relic than vs turn 2 rest in peace.
Is grixis control even a bad matchup in the first place though? They want to go late game for value, so do we. While they jerk around flashing back kolaghan command for +1 card advantage we revelation for 6 or whatever. Relic isn't lights out against them but its a serious problem when you're chewing up a card per turn and can counter a snap or command target at any time. They delve for a tasigur? whoop dee doo - path it or verdict it problem solved.
I see rest in peace almost universally, but seems a little strange when we could be playing relic of progenitus. WE use the GY for 4x think twice, 2-3x snapcaster mage, and 1-2x logic knot so nuking our own yard isn't crippling, but it's still not great. Relic lets us pick the time to nuke so its possible to get our think twice value before popping.
Have people tried relic and decided we need rip specifically? Is it there for very specific matchups? (living end? griselbrand?). There are often matchups where I feel like a relic would be acceptable but rest in peace would be too risky if I draw a bunch of think twice and they don't draw any goyf/kcommand etc. Relic is also nice to just come in as a cantrip in oddball matchups where we want to drop our removal count (i.e. lantern control).
Even keeping up 1 mana for relic is easy with this deck since we're on the draw-go plan anyways - its not like leaving 1 up on our turn is costing us tempo...
Round 1: 2-0 vs grixis twin.
Round 2: 1-2 vs Ad Nauseum
Round 3: 1-1-1 vs temur twin
Round 4: 2-0 vs naya zoo
I sideboarded horrifically vs temur twin taking out the 2nd rev and 2 verdicts and then losing to exarch/bounding krasis beatdown. Highlight was setting runed halo on kernaos, god of storms forcing him to bolt himself or his own creatures since I had no creatures on board
Is ad nauseum a good or bad matchup? G1 he went prism, i went esper charm discard mode, he goes unlife with 2 cards left in hand, I go another charm mind rot mode, he pact of negations, untaps and casts ad nauseum with pact trigger on stack for gg. G2 I got early runed halo and nailed his echoing truth with drownyard. G3 we spent time sculpting hands until he finally resolved a lotus bloom - on his upkeep he goes silence-silence-combo, and I simply didn't have the counterspells. Had to snap-cryptic one silence, negate the other, and the only counter left at that point was spell snare
Mana base I don't have the tangos and am a little skeptical - we have enough non-fetch and non-basic that laying a tango on t3 is not going to be untapped most of the time, and as the game goes on time is on our side and having to lay a tapped shock will rarely even matter (at that point we fetch basics if we need the untapped land since you should have all colours up by t4). I have ordered a pair of drownyards though as these seem much better than creeping tar pit and ghost quarter.
2 snapcaster mage
1 elspeth, sun's champion
1 white sun's zenith
Removal (8)
4 path to exile
3 supreme verdict
1 runed halo
Counters (10)
3 cryptic command
3 spell snare
2 remand
1 logic knot
1 negate
Draw (8)
4 think twice
2 sphinx's revelation
1 shadow of doubt
1 twisted image
4 celestial colonnade
1 creeping tar pit
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
2 watery grave
2 hallowed fountain
1 godless shrine
1 calciform pools
1 mystic gate
1 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacomb
1 glacial fortress
1 baneslayer angel
1 blood baron of vizkopa
1 teferi, mage of zhalfir
1 bribery
1 engineered explosives
1 porphyry nodes
1 wrath of god
1 runed halo
1 hallowed moonlight
2 celestial purge
2 dispel
2 rest in peace
Board is obviously a work-in-progress as I sort out what matchups my maindeck needs help with.
1) does nothing if we're on the back foot. Gideon, elspeth, and sorin all provide some kind of immediate relief to pressure on our life total.
2) gives them something to abrupt decay when otherwise we are completely immune to it
3) as a win con its like a 10-turn clock that doesn't synergize with anything else (e.g. colonnade).
On the flip side, at 3 mana its something we can lay down earlier than other walkers and more easily cast and protect in the mid game, is a win con vs the random infinite/high life total deck (melira company or just soul sisters) or something annoyingly goofy like 8rack/lantern with ensnaring bridges.
I have two questions for you or the posters here in general:
1. Gideon vs elspeth, sun's champion? I noticed a few posts back someone singing the praises of elspeth so I've switched to 1 of her in the MD instead of a 1 gideon MD. While there aren't a tonne of removal spells that kill gideon, path and terminate are cards and even a vapor snag can hit him. We only have so many counterspells to work with so having elspeth flood the board with tokens while threatening to ultimate seems more stable to me as a win con. She also does have the removal mode should you be staring down goyfs/tasigurs or a plating'ed champion.
2. Mystic Gate vs (and?) Calciform Pools vs (and?) ghost quarter?
With esper charm I find I can't run too many colourless sources, so I'm not sure how to count the mix of gate/pool/quarter. At most I want 1 gate and 1 pool but if I put both in the deck am I going to get into too many awkward land situations? Esp if I then add 1-2 ghost quarters, casting that t3 esper charm just looks sketchier and sketchier. We can even get into trouble when we want to cast a snare and path early on. I find the gate crucial to being able to cast cryptic, charm, verdict, and WSZ - I've had awkward situations where I rip the WSZ with 6 lands out and realize I don't have triple white :S Similarly pools gives us another EoT mana dump to ratchet up those zeniths/revelations or keep cryptic mana up while attacking with a colonnade, but its colourless early on.
And maybe just one more thought:
3. Planeswalkers are very hard for this deck to deal with, esp t3 liliana resolving. We have nothing to beat them down with and no way to remove them until the singleton tar pit or colonnades come online, and then we're going to have to basically tap out for 2 turns to kill her. The only "out" is to bounce her to hand with a cryptic and try to counter the next time around (or in dreamland they go hellbent and +1 her and we have cryptic to bounce her and make them discard? XD) It's fine to say just negate/knot it, but sometimes you simply don't have it in hand. Luckily not too many walkers see play, but I also had fits against a resolved Garruk Wildspeaker and noticed this feels like a pretty big weakness for esper control.
In general its that you can't afford to tap out t3 for a geist unless you've confirmed its safe with probe/discard or are a tempo/aggro deck treating geist as a 3 mana 6/6. The later the game goes the more options you get for what finisher to use, and in most cases its just easier/safer to delve a tasigur or angler than pay 3 for a geist.
Geist is horrible when you're losing, whereas a tasigur/angler is an immediate swiftspear/nacatl-stopping wall.
The geist advantage obviously is not being dismembered/pathd/terminated - the disadvantage is that he needs a clear path to swing so you need to remove literally everything from opponents board to connect, or give geist evasion somehow (elspeth knight errant, shizo deaths storehouse, angelic destiny, etc).
Thus the only place you really see geists is jeskai, with their helix, bolt path vapor snag mix alongside snapcasters, spell snares and remands working to keep the path clear for mr. taft.
4 hada freeblade
3 expedition envoy
4 kazandu blademaster
4 akoum battlesinger
4 jwari shapeshifter
4 oran-rief survivalist
4 kabira evangel
1 lantern scout
Spells (10)
3 aether vial
3 collected company
4 path to exile
4 ally encampment
2 cavern of souls
3 mutavault
3 razorverge thicket
4 windswept heath
1 temple garden
1 sacred foundry
1 hallowed fountain
2 plains
1 forest
2 rest in peace
1 stony silence
1 kataki, war's wage
1 disenchant
2 ghostly prison
2 spellskite
2 ethersworn canonist
2 ondu cleric
1 lantern scout
1 ghostway
I could see playing 1 less shapeshifter as they're a little risky, but every attempt at adding a mirror entity or harabaz druid or 4th envoy has felt worse so far. the 3/3 split of vials and cocos feels correct - you want to see 1 in every game but never 2. Well, 2 coco would be okay but not in your opening hand.
I moved away from scales/champion of the parish to maximize the use of the battlesinger and shapeshifter. Mutavaults and vials give us more game against decks like tron since we can come back after the board wipe with a couple of bodies and hopefully knock away their ugin or just kill them. Vs other decks we simply have to out-race them since our interaction is nonexistent (4 paths). If combo decks go off on turn 3 or 4 on the play there's basically nothing we can do about it g1.
Sideboard is a stock/mess right now - takes more games to figure out specific cards. I could see adding more hatebears like gaddock teeg or qasali pridemage there to synergize with vial and coco. I did live the dream and cast ghostway in response to a damnation vs jund recently. The card is there for sweepers, but especially ugin.
The core of the deck is white, everything else is up for grabs. I'm not even sure collected company is sacred anymore, good as it is. It limits our slots for interaction really heavily and its not necessarily correct ofr an aggro deck to run 4-drops.
Ally encampment, cavern, and aether vial can let us play whatever mix of coloured allies we like. Vial and encampment also go togehter like peanut butter n jam.
A bunch mroe testing and I'm just going to say that this combination of cards is freaking insane:
1 Jwari Shapeshifter
1 Kabira Evangel
1 Collected Company
The missing link here is the shapeshifter which usually acts as battlesinger 5-8 but is perfectly acceptable as a blademaster or survivalist. Being able to company reliably into 1 or even 2 battlesingers is just lights out fast.
As I said I used to be on the grindy plan, but I think the deck must play battlesinger for explosiveness. Encampmemnt, vial, and company should let us play 4 colours with impunity if our only red/blue cards are allies!
On 4C allies atm (no black).
You said you think nighthawk will be good vs burn. I'm telling you it won't be. The fact it won't be as bad as feed the clan in other matchups is completely irrelevant if you're running the nighthawk in the board because you shouldn't be boarding in mediocre cards for other matchups. If you're running it maindeck then my point still stands - abzan has an unusually high amount of lifegain in the main with ooze and rhino and excellent blockers for guide/swiftspear in goyf and tasigur. Adding a 3 drop that dies to bolt is not how you shore up your burn match. Finks or even singleton timely reinforcements are way better ways to shore up burn with a MD card.