All of these cards are very strong ways to interact with the opponent's game plan or to set ours up.
The number of Inquisitons vs Thoughtseizes could go to 3/3 or 2/4 depending on preference, but I wouldn't change anything else.
The cards beyond this 28 card core and reasons for inclusion are as follows:
One of my favorite cards. I have created numerous decks to try to make him work in Modern, and I think this is the most successful one. He will often win the game if left unanswered, and even if answered will usually net you some tokens. All of our cheap spells have synergy with him. Furthermore, Lingering Souls has extra synergy with him because you cast it twice. He is not usually played on turn 3 unless you know the opponent doesn't have removal, but on the following turns where you can combo multiple spells and get a bunch of monk tokens out of it. He (and lingering souls) also has very strong synergy with Sorin, Solemn Visitor.
Tasigur is a very solid threat that is capable of being played on turn 2 a good amount of the time with this deck. A thought scour plus another one mana spell or fetch land usually does the trick. Besides being a 4/5, his activated ability can take over the game by itself in the later turns. It's worth mentioning that I almost never wish he was a Gurmag Angler due to the extra mana cost and lack of activated ability.
Sorin has amazing synergy with Lingering Souls and Monastery Mentor. Giving all of your creatures +1/+0 and lifelink as well as having the option to make a 2/2 is very nice. This is a flexible slot. I can see the arguments for running Liliana of the Veil or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. If I had them, I would test them out and see which I liked the best.
This is another way to interact with our opponent on the early turns, and 2 mana spells are very plentiful in Modern. I don't like having too many counters in our deck because our removal and discard is already very good at getting rid of problematic cards on our opponent's side, but having a singleton is nice to catch them off guard and has extra value because it can cause them to play around other counters that we don't have.
I like having one of these because of the flexibility. It can act as a 5th Path to Exile or it can give us a way that we would otherwise lack to deal with artifacts, enchantments, or even planeswalkers.
Besides that, I think 22 lands is the sweet spot for this list. However, I am open to arguments for improving my mana base(example: changing number of Creeping Tar Pits or Shambling Vents. I wouldn't include Celestial Colonnade because it costs too much to activate).
Thanks for reading. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you guys have.
There were a couple awesome Esper Midrange decklists at GP Kobe. In the Top 8, Akibo Chiba had an interesting list with 4 Glory-Bound Initiates and 4 Painful Truths, but actually of interest to me more was Genta Sakamoto's 9-0 Day 1 list (11-5 overall) that had Monastery Mentor + Smuggler's Copter + Lingering Souls, which is the core of an Esper deck I've been working on for a while.
One thing I didn't like about his list was the 4 Jace Vryn's Prodigy, which is great (and is a good 2-drop to play on 2, unlike Snapcaster Mage) but doesn't crew Smuggler's Copter; whenever I play my build I don't feel like I have enough cards to crew Copter reliably on 3 (which is why I've added 2 Meddling Mage).
What matchups do you have in mind? I've had the most trouble with Eldrazi tron -- though the 5 counters in the board seem like they should help, and I like Gideon in that matchup as a way to clock them before they peel another haymaker.
One thing I didn't like about his list was the 4 Jace Vryn's Prodigy, which is great (and is a good 2-drop to play on 2, unlike Snapcaster Mage) but doesn't crew Smuggler's Copter; whenever I play my build I don't feel like I have enough cards to crew Copter reliably on 3 (which is why I've added 2 Meddling Mage).
I had the exact same thoughts about the deck -- it's a really cool combination of a lot of pet cards that I love, but Jace's inability to pilot Copter and the overall relatively low number of potential pilots bothered me. Beyond Meddling Mage, what other options have you explored?
EDIT: Upon further investigation there are 14 cards capable of crewing Copter here, 4 of which are at 4 CMC. This makes for an 83% chance of drawing one to play by T3 after a T2 Copter, or a 95% chance to find one to play T4. Critically, both of those calculations ignore the cantrip effect of Thoughtscour as well as the looting effect of Jace, so both probabilities are likely higher in practice. I'll have to play with the deck more, there may not actually be much of a problem with pilot reliability after all.
If anyone is interested, I'm currently testing a Esper Flash version of the deck, feat. Queller and Souls. So far, it has performed well. This is the decklist I opted for:
I was trying some Jeskai Flash/Jeskai Geist lists for a change, being mostly a Control/BlueShadow player. What I didn't like was the amount of cards which very often rotten in my hand (all the burn spells, tbh) because the meta is filled with bigger creatures, and we already do a great job in clocking the opponent while disrupting him. So, I choose to go a little more grindy (thanks to the LSouls inclusion) which let us have a change also against removal-heavy archetypes (Delver, Jund/k, Shadow). Push + Path + Snappy is the usual beating against so many strategies, and having some Cryptics it's always useful as a swiss army knife. I also find very useful the inclusion of Thoughtseizes in the board, because against combo decks having a wall composed by discard + counters + Queller/Vendilion + surgical is nearly unbeatable for them.
I'll add more impressions after further testing, if anyone is interested in it.
I like the idea and i've also looked at the Esper list that Top8'ed at the GP and I think it can be improved.
One or two pack rat's would look good in this deck.
It's always nice to discard your discard spells in the late game, and your topdecks are more powerful.
Hey guys, I figured I would brew some type of midrange Esper deck cuz I was bored. I actually have everything for this deck, and I just want advice as of now. Thanks!
I dont think that deck works. You've got 12 3's and 2 4's on 22 lands, which seems a little light to me. I also think Smuggler's Copter is key if you're running Souls + Mentor in order to speed up the clock / smooth your draws. 3 Tasigur without any thought scour also seems like a lot, and unnecessary with the rest of your late game. Also not a fan of Mana Leak + Path to Exile together.
Also, sideboards are so important in Modern I think it makes more sense to design 75 at a time than 60.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I've been messing around with decks that could play Jace and Geist and ended up revisiting this archetype that I used to play a lot. I was thinking something along the lines of this for the decklist. There has been a lot of discussion in the Bant Knightfall forum about whether Jace is "worth it" in the deck. The consensus and my opinion as well was along the lines of - "When the format unbans one of the best midrange grind tools in the colours of your midrange deck, you should probably try to play it." I think that same logic works with this archetype as well.
I know most pros would disagree with me, but ive always been a fan of mixing discard with permission, have been since my days brewing sultai. As such im a fan of your list @thedougler1, couple of questions though
4 quellers: being that they are the only real creature worth removing, have you found them to survive long enough to impact game favorably?
2 Snaps: is this a budget/availability decision? I run 3, dont own a fourth yet but not sure id go up to four if i did. Has 2 seemed like enough?
2 spell snare: great when it lines up, horrid when it doesnt. Is this a meta choice? How has it performed?
3 timely reinforcements: i used to run them as well as side against burn and aggro, but have since moved to blessed alliance. My rationale being that its cheaper to snap back and has versatile utility against bogles, infect, and decks that run a few big beaters at a time (eldrazi, midrange) How would you compare the two competing for the same side slots?
Sorry for the wall of text, ive been building esper geist for a couple months now, with stark silence in this thread, and im happy to see some life here. Perhaps we can turn this into a thing in the meta, cuz while 'bolt-snap-bolt' may end games, 'IoK-snap-IoK' hamstrings the opp before they can even start one.
I havent tested the list much past just jamming a few games against a proxy gauntlet, so I'm not really certain about a lot of the list yet, but I had some similar concerns for a couple of the cards.
Queller: Coming from bant where this guy is awesome, I figured he would slot in nicely, but like you mentioned as one of the only good targets for removal in the deck, my opponent would usually have something for it. It might be better in a smaller number, as it has still been good in the late game in grindy matches, where it can last for a while after catching someones only card with it. Maybe the answer is shaving a couple for another Geist or two instead and focusing on pushing geist damage through.
Snaps: 2 was intentional because I wasnt sure I had enough high value targets to flash back, though I can definitely see wanting a third just for consistency after playing the deck a bit.
Snare: I really like playing with spell snare, it catches a lot in the early game that you can let slip through hand disruption to focus on taking higher impact cards, if you have a mana up for the snare. Some of my favorite turn 2's are a hand disruption spell seeing a 2-drop and taking something else, then snaring it right after. In the late game it does a good job of protecting colonnade from terminate in Jund/Grixis matchups which are always big in my local meta at least, though with field of ruin seeing more play, people have other answers for creature lands too right now. Also catches a lot of annoyances like Thalia and red Eidolon in the first couple turns.
Reinforcements: I didnt put a lot of thought into the board yet to be honest, and these are definitely cards I'm not fully tied to having here. At the same time though, in bant at least, I have always been underwhelemed by Blessed Alliance. Maybe if boggles sees a rise in popularity or is common in your meta, but I don't like it much for the lifegain mode.
As a side note for the sidebaord, I've also been considering Zealous Persecution for the Pyromancer matchups, my friend playing Abzan has been loving having 2-3 in his board.
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Modern : RGTitanshiftGR / UGWKnightfallWGU
Another option on the burn sideboard slots is kabal. Has additional hate towards storm, though with discard and permission that shouldnt be TOO bad a matchup.
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4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Monastery Mentor
3x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Instants and Sorceries (26):
4x Thought Scour
4x Serum Visions
4x Path to Exile
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
2x Fatal Push
1x Spell Snare
4x Lingering Souls
1x Anguished Unmaking
Planeswalkers (2):
2x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
3x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
2x Shambling Vent
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Darkslick Shores
1x Seachrome Coast
1x Concealed Courtyard
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Plains
3x Ravenous Trap
2x Stony Silence
2x Spreading Seas
2x Detention Sphere
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Dispel
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Sun Droplet
1x Timely Reinforcements
1x Anguished Unmaking
The core of this deck that I would almost never change is as follows:
4x Serum Visions
4x Path to Exile
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
2x Fatal Push
4x Lingering Souls
All of these cards are very strong ways to interact with the opponent's game plan or to set ours up.
The number of Inquisitons vs Thoughtseizes could go to 3/3 or 2/4 depending on preference, but I wouldn't change anything else.
The cards beyond this 28 card core and reasons for inclusion are as follows:
One of my favorite cards. I have created numerous decks to try to make him work in Modern, and I think this is the most successful one. He will often win the game if left unanswered, and even if answered will usually net you some tokens. All of our cheap spells have synergy with him. Furthermore, Lingering Souls has extra synergy with him because you cast it twice. He is not usually played on turn 3 unless you know the opponent doesn't have removal, but on the following turns where you can combo multiple spells and get a bunch of monk tokens out of it. He (and lingering souls) also has very strong synergy with Sorin, Solemn Visitor.
Tasigur is a very solid threat that is capable of being played on turn 2 a good amount of the time with this deck. A thought scour plus another one mana spell or fetch land usually does the trick. Besides being a 4/5, his activated ability can take over the game by itself in the later turns. It's worth mentioning that I almost never wish he was a Gurmag Angler due to the extra mana cost and lack of activated ability.
Sorin has amazing synergy with Lingering Souls and Monastery Mentor. Giving all of your creatures +1/+0 and lifelink as well as having the option to make a 2/2 is very nice. This is a flexible slot. I can see the arguments for running Liliana of the Veil or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. If I had them, I would test them out and see which I liked the best.
This is another way to interact with our opponent on the early turns, and 2 mana spells are very plentiful in Modern. I don't like having too many counters in our deck because our removal and discard is already very good at getting rid of problematic cards on our opponent's side, but having a singleton is nice to catch them off guard and has extra value because it can cause them to play around other counters that we don't have.
I like having one of these because of the flexibility. It can act as a 5th Path to Exile or it can give us a way that we would otherwise lack to deal with artifacts, enchantments, or even planeswalkers.
Besides that, I think 22 lands is the sweet spot for this list. However, I am open to arguments for improving my mana base(example: changing number of Creeping Tar Pits or Shambling Vents. I wouldn't include Celestial Colonnade because it costs too much to activate).
Thanks for reading. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you guys have.
One thing I didn't like about his list was the 4 Jace Vryn's Prodigy, which is great (and is a good 2-drop to play on 2, unlike Snapcaster Mage) but doesn't crew Smuggler's Copter; whenever I play my build I don't feel like I have enough cards to crew Copter reliably on 3 (which is why I've added 2 Meddling Mage).
Anyone have any thoughts on these decks?
EDIT: Upon further investigation there are 14 cards capable of crewing Copter here, 4 of which are at 4 CMC. This makes for an 83% chance of drawing one to play by T3 after a T2 Copter, or a 95% chance to find one to play T4. Critically, both of those calculations ignore the cantrip effect of Thoughtscour as well as the looting effect of Jace, so both probabilities are likely higher in practice. I'll have to play with the deck more, there may not actually be much of a problem with pilot reliability after all.
http://docker2.deckedbuilder.com:3001/d/306126
I like the idea and i've also looked at the Esper list that Top8'ed at the GP and I think it can be improved.
#Spell Queller should be very good in the deck (much better than Glory-Bound Initiate) but otherwise I don't really like Logic Knot/Spell Snare and prefer the mainboard discard spells.
#Esper Charm is very good and one of the main reasons to play these colors imho (much better than Painful Truths).
Here is my idea for the deck:
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Spell Queller
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Sorcery (16)
4x Serum Visions
3x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Collective Brutality
3x Lingering Souls
Instant (12)
3x Fatal Push
3x Path to Exile
4x Esper Charm
2x Cryptic Command
4x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Darkslick Shores
1x Watery Grave
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Godless Shrine
3x Shambling Vent
1x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
3x Countersquall
2x Anguished Unmaking
2x Supreme Verdict
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Timely Reinforcements
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Stony Silence
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Batterskull
It's always nice to discard your discard spells in the late game, and your topdecks are more powerful.
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4x Lingering Souls
4x Serum Visions
3x Thoughtseize
2x Countersquall
2x Cryptic Command
4x Esper Charm
3x Fatal Push
1x Mana Leak
4x Path to Exile
4x Flooded Strand
2x Glacial Fortress
1x Godless Shrine
2x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
1x Plains
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
It's still in the early stages, so no SB yet.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
Also, sideboards are so important in Modern I think it makes more sense to design 75 at a time than 60.
Just my two cents! Good luck.
1x Concealed Courtyard
3x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Darkslick Shores
2x Flooded Strand
1x Godless Shrine
2x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
2x Marsh Flats
1x Plains
4x Polluted Delta
1x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
Instant (10)
1x Dismember
2x Esper Charm
3x Fatal Push
4x Path to Exile
2x Collective Brutality
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
Enchantment (3)
3x Spreading Seas
Planeswalker (3)
3x Liliana of the Veil
Creature (11)
3x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Celestial Purge
1x Disenchant
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Stony Silence
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Wrath of God
2-0 Against Bant Knightfall
2-0 Against Eldrazi Tron
2-0 Against Affinity
2-1 Against UB Mill
Any suggestions?
bit.ly/thecezare
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Lingering Souls
2 Serum Visions
1 Collective Brutality
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Opt
2 Spell Pierce
4 Thought Scour
3 Fatal Push
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
60 Cards
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I don't think we want JTMS in this deck, but I do think we need more MB answers to him and BBE after the unbanning
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
2 Spell Snare
2 Collective Brutality
2 Logic Knot
4 Lingering Souls
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Island
1 Field of Ruin
1 Vault of the Archangel
3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Notion Thief
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Stony Silence
1 Detention Sphere
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Modern : RGTitanshiftGR / UGWKnightfallWGU
4 quellers: being that they are the only real creature worth removing, have you found them to survive long enough to impact game favorably?
2 Snaps: is this a budget/availability decision? I run 3, dont own a fourth yet but not sure id go up to four if i did. Has 2 seemed like enough?
2 spell snare: great when it lines up, horrid when it doesnt. Is this a meta choice? How has it performed?
3 timely reinforcements: i used to run them as well as side against burn and aggro, but have since moved to blessed alliance. My rationale being that its cheaper to snap back and has versatile utility against bogles, infect, and decks that run a few big beaters at a time (eldrazi, midrange) How would you compare the two competing for the same side slots?
Sorry for the wall of text, ive been building esper geist for a couple months now, with stark silence in this thread, and im happy to see some life here. Perhaps we can turn this into a thing in the meta, cuz while 'bolt-snap-bolt' may end games, 'IoK-snap-IoK' hamstrings the opp before they can even start one.
Queller: Coming from bant where this guy is awesome, I figured he would slot in nicely, but like you mentioned as one of the only good targets for removal in the deck, my opponent would usually have something for it. It might be better in a smaller number, as it has still been good in the late game in grindy matches, where it can last for a while after catching someones only card with it. Maybe the answer is shaving a couple for another Geist or two instead and focusing on pushing geist damage through.
Snaps: 2 was intentional because I wasnt sure I had enough high value targets to flash back, though I can definitely see wanting a third just for consistency after playing the deck a bit.
Snare: I really like playing with spell snare, it catches a lot in the early game that you can let slip through hand disruption to focus on taking higher impact cards, if you have a mana up for the snare. Some of my favorite turn 2's are a hand disruption spell seeing a 2-drop and taking something else, then snaring it right after. In the late game it does a good job of protecting colonnade from terminate in Jund/Grixis matchups which are always big in my local meta at least, though with field of ruin seeing more play, people have other answers for creature lands too right now. Also catches a lot of annoyances like Thalia and red Eidolon in the first couple turns.
Reinforcements: I didnt put a lot of thought into the board yet to be honest, and these are definitely cards I'm not fully tied to having here. At the same time though, in bant at least, I have always been underwhelemed by Blessed Alliance. Maybe if boggles sees a rise in popularity or is common in your meta, but I don't like it much for the lifegain mode.
As a side note for the sidebaord, I've also been considering Zealous Persecution for the Pyromancer matchups, my friend playing Abzan has been loving having 2-3 in his board.
Modern : RGTitanshiftGR / UGWKnightfallWGU