The deck looks really sweet Kamahl.
A couple questions though:
How do you feel about the upside on scatter vs void shatter? (For eg. Jace, den protector, world breaker)
Do you ever wish prerogative was another confirm or vice versa?
You kind of have to have Scatter to the Winds. You can get through World Breaker loops with tight play easier than you can if you simply get stripped of DLS's. If Breaker loops are difficult for you to manage, you best just play Infinite Obliteration out of the board, but I have not had too much of an issue with it unless I was already super behind. As for Jace and Protector, meh. I have actually killed a good number of people with an Awoken lands, especially post board.
I love Perogative, sometimes I want a second before realizing that I sometimes come really close to decking myself. Confirm is great and all, but having it stuck in your hand turns 1-4 can really suck. I don't want a second copy adding to that.
I have settled on my main 60 for States this coming weekend.
Out of curiosity is the lack of 2-mana Jace budgetary? I'm fairly new to this deck as this Standard.
I took a break before Oath came out.
I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
The meta can be pretty quick, if you are cutting it when you need speed - you should just cut it entirely imo. There is not really any reason to be giving up a game 1 by running clunky cards that are fair in some matches. Your finishing package is the meat of your deck, you should not be siding it out to be faster. Instead you should just streamline it.
As for UR Control, the match has been fine. You just have to pick your spots, I also play my DLS's aggressively and you can force a Jace emblem fairly easily. Out of the board I will bring in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to get more pressure during the mid game, he also coincidentally allows you to gain back life which is nice. Silumgar's Command is rather handy for getting a FV off the board for a counter play. Overall, I would not say that the match is easy or anything, but it is fair and it really seems to come down to technicals.
Scorn is to protect DLS from a removal spell after you steal it.
I don't think you really need to be getting into tech cards to deal with him, I have not had a problem with him at all. Like, ever.
As for the comments about the lands and Frank's analysis, I have not had an issue with that either. Depending on your removal suite and counts, you shouldn't have to actually worry about needing 3 open mana on turn 3 and you can still sequence your lands easily enough to have it open on turn 3 if you need to. The format is slow enough to where you can give up turn 1 or 2 for your t3 play and not get buried.
Good to hear about your results with Titans. If you're now thinking Alhammaret, maybe a route could be Sphinx control - as I mentioned earlier, I'm a little intrigued as to whether Sphinx of Magosi could fit in here. Yes, it's got UUU in the cost, but if it survives the turn, you have 6 mana up to protect it, which if not needed gets dumped EOT into it to give 2 counters and 2 cards.
Running a pair of Alhammaret and a pair of Magosi could be not a bad thing, with Alhammaret clearing the way to protect Magosi for a turn.
One other question - how to deal with something like a flipped Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey...?
I most certainly do not want to pay 6 mana for a creature that has 0 impact upon being played. The issue is that you need it to produce some kind of value in the face of removal, or you need it to have an incredibly high ceiling for if it sticks around. Sphinx of Magosi is not really that card. I am sold that Dragonlord Silumgar is hands down your best option. He has board presence, can swing a game when he hits play, can be looped with excess lands, and has DT + X/5 body for being defensive. Alhammarret, High Arbiter is 7 mana, but a potentially unkillable evasive body. I likely will just stick with DLS, I think it is more than enough.
As for dealing with Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey, I have not had an issue. It is pretty easy to keep the board down at those stages, at least enough to keep an edict online so if they do get Ormendahl out, he is dead. I also have just taken it with DLS + Scorn a couple of times.
Been testing with Mage-Ring Network + Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and I must say... even with the ability to add charge counters to the land, casting Ulamog is tricky - especially if you are trying to combat a ramp deck and it is too big and clunky to keep up with aggro. It required me to add an additional land to make sure I could set up successful casts for it, and it led to a lot of flooding, weaker Anticipate options, and a big fatty in the early game that should have just been something else, almost anything else.
Overall, getting to cast it is strong. Getting to protect it is quite rare. Getting to attack with it to win is beyond slow.
I will pass on it. I value more interactive cards that allow me to prep for faster wins and stable boards earlier. 1 Ulamog amounted to 2 lost card slots and it just has not been worth it in testing. I think it would be better to just run Alhammarret, High Arbiter. At least with him I can cast him and get away with 26 lands + MRN and have the ability to negate a late game removal option from my opponent to protect him a bit longer.
Why remain UB when both grixis and esper would open up a slew of options and most importantly make painful truth playable. Shard mana is pretty good.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
Just because you're going esper doesn't mean you have to go dragons, I personally tested with 3 Avacyn's, a single Ojutai and single Silumgar. Languish killing your own win cons is what makes Gideon so good. And the primary win con in anything black can easily be Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet after a single activation he survives Languish and nets you tokens in the process.
I found shards easy enough to get Jace out turn 2 consistently being able to cast grasp of darkness turn 2 consistently depending on needs as well as converge 3 for painful truths.
Why Blighted Cataract over Blighted Fen? Why 3 Havens? Why a dragon-centric build but only 4 dragons to enable 7 (8 if counting Perogative) dragons-matter cards? Why no baby Jaces? Why Learn? Why no Ob Nixilis?
Blighted Fen was not selected because boards last weekend were going wide. I would rather just draw two cards to get to a targeted removal spell or two, than to let them just sac fodder. While I like Fen, I severely dislike it when most boards are going wide and your removal is good enough to handle boards that are using single threats.
Why not 3 Havens? The mana base can support them and it means you can aggressively play Dragonlord more often. There is a lot of opportunity to play him aggressively and start exhausting removal and chaining him until he sticks.
Esper ran 5 Dragons at first, and was fine. You don't always need the Dragon value out of the spells. Force Spike is a strong card when people are focusing hard on curving out. In fact, I remember people having to be reminded about that when Esper Dragons first hit the scene.
As for baby Jace, he was eating removal and costing me tempo to play. He is not as good as he was before rotation, by a fairly substantial margin. It was pretty evident if you were watching coverage or communicating with people actually playing him at the open.
Ob Nixilis Reignited vs Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is a pretty hot topic it seems. I would rather be able to -2, -2 and still have my walker on the board. With Ob Nixilis, Reignited, I have to -3 then immediately tick up. I do not like not having the option to use a disruption mode for a consecutive turn. I get that just killing the creature means it is not coming back, but people really underestimate how much that extra loyalty cost actually is. In addition, scrying before a draw is a huge game. Jace does a ton of work in this deck and he does not make me nickel and dime my life for it.
Why remain UB when both grixis and esper would open up a slew of options and most importantly make painful truth playable. Shard mana is pretty good.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
wait wait...UB is possible? HA!!! SWEET, this is like my Favorite color combination eva! Win cons, Daddy Toothless eh? I can dig it, but 4 dragons to turn on Scorn's? How has this been playing out? Last Season's Esper Dragons had DTT and baby jace to dig for answers. Is this deck turning Scorn on reliably?
I have had little issue turning on the dragon spells when I need to. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is more than workable. This deck is pretty deceptive... it sees a lot of cards without DTT and baby Jace.
UB is where I want to be as well - I've only been splashing white in my deck for a while to get O Com, Utter End and Narset (oh, and a pair of Gideon), but that was basically because it was "free" to do so. I've been thinking of going back, but my one main concern is a lack of win-cons, other than the DL Silumgar route. Rise from the Tides is answered by one Declaration in Stone, or in the control mirror, by a Hallowed Moonlight. The route I've been considering is to play UB Eldrazi control. Run several Mage-Ring Networks, then ramp up to, say, 2 each of Newlamog/Kozilek at the top end. After all - exiling, counter magic and card draw is what we want, right? The aim would be to keep the board in check through countering/killing, increase the Network when you can, then turn the corner by dropping a Titan with counter magic.
I thought about the Eldrazi, and I may run a single Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, the Great Distortion alongside the 4 Dragons. I have been contemplating it, but I mostly have voided it just because it is pretty dependent on how fast the format remains in the coming weeks. More often than not, I am tapping down my mana - just on my opponent's turn instead of mine, and it means that I need something cheaper to start closing the game out.
Shadows over Innistrad is here, and it is a brewer's paradise in Standard right now. This thread is dedicated to the competitive development of UB Control and will provide some of my experience, card choices, and strategies for the deck. I have been working with Control lists since early on in the spoiler season, and while I feel like I have tested a ton of different configurations for the archetype, much of my experience is with Esper Control and a bit of UB Control lately. I feel like of what I have tested, UB is one of the stronger lists I have played and I am excited to document its development here in this thread. So without further ado.
Why Play UB Control?
In the current Standard card pool, UB has a lot of solid removal and counter for a steady draw go game. Without much in the way of Hyper aggro decks right out of the gate, these cards give us a lot of play against all three major archetypes. In addition, there is a lot of options to make efficient plays in tight corners during the course of a game to allow you to work out some potential kinks as the format actually unfolds. Having the ability to be flexible as you play into the mid and late game, means you can stock up on value cards within these colors.
Why Not Play UB Control?
Games can sometimes get pretty long. While there are some ways to create a lot of pressure on an opponent, sometimes securing those methods can just take time. This is not the slowest deck that I have tested, but it is not as fast as some of the UW lists I have tried when quickly looking to close a game. If you are looking for something faster, this deck may not be for you. But if you want solid inevitability - give UB Control a try.
Card Selection
Black has a lot of removal at its fingertips right now, and it is very reasonably priced. Running 2 colors lets you take advantage of more of these spells without having to really sacrifice much, if anything. The removal can scale into the mid and late game and is more than playable in the early game. Having access to Ultimate Price and Grasp of Darkness means you are not tapping out for white removal in the early game, and you have stipulations that allow you to get around a number of situations that white removal is not going to let you. Languish gives you a lot of play against creature heavy decks and being able to cast it on turn 4 as opposed to turn 5 means you are much more likely to stabilize into pressure.
Your mid and late game comes with a lot of value cards that give you closing power, stability, and control over how the game progresses after your removal suite has gotten you this far. Silumgar's Command packs a big punch when you are looking to turn a corner and it means you can let some pesky cards resolve and do a soft reset into a Dragonlord Silumgar to create immense pressure on an opponent who is wearing down, and you can use Confirm Suspicions to start filling up on gas again and pave the way for a win or keep digging for the card you need to gain control of the match. You can use Dragonlord Silumgar to great effect when your opponent tries to hail mary with a win condition, and having access to Silumgar's Scorn and Foul-Tongue Invocation means you can make use of him from your hand as you work towards your endgame.
There is not really a lot of effective draw options in UB unless you are willing to pay a lot of mana, or a good chunk of life. While the black draw spells Painful Truths and Read the Bones are popular cards, they cost life and I am not entirely sold on the fact that they are necessary. Between Anticipate, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, and Dragon Lord's Prerogative, you should be able to see enough cards to keep you going. A copy or two of Read the Bones isn't something I would completely rule out, but if I can minimize the life I have to spend looking for answers by simply just running more answers - I am okay with that.
Black also affords us a lot of anti aggro tools out of the board, from extra copies of cards already in the main, to powerful mini sweeps for boards to going wide. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet also gives you the ability to create more pressure or a larger safety net as needed and can soak up removal to give your Dragonlord Silumgar more staying power in the late game. Black can also give you some utility options for the midrange and control match as well, adding cards like Duress and Transgress the Mind to the mix for even more flexibility.
@Kamahl, the Fallen - Has your deck changed any based off the recent SCG Open? Seeing the amount of Human/x aggro decks and the W/B eldrazi decks?
And why are people using dragons in this dragonless esper thread
It is going to change. I am not sure to what exactly. There are some important things to note after this weekend though. First and foremost, The deck needs to be built to not utterly fall behind. This 2 Languish nonsense is just that. Decks can be fast right now, and if they are not being fast, they are highly disruptive to control. It is interesting that people would play Dragonlord Ojutai at all, considering that there is a lot of stuff that shuts him down. From edict effects and discard, to Archangel Avacyn, the card is just less than stellar in my opinion - and the dragon value cards are not good enough to really justify running him. There are likely only 2 finishers I would consider playing right now that are creatures.
Dragonlord Silumgar has a bigger ass on him than Dragonlord Ojutai and Ojutai is remarkably brittle these days. If you want a dragon that has roughly the same amount of risk, I think Dragonlord Silumgar has a lot more built in power right now and having Haven of the Spirit Dragon means you can still get that dragon recursion value. As for Alhammarret, High Arbiter, his ability being As he inters the battlefield, means you can scout for lat game removal that might stop you from closing the game and just shut it down on the spot. His body is otherwise less than stellar, but his body means you get the perks of being able to get around edict effects and spot removal depending on the situation. If we are being completely honest though, I am not really a fan of either of them - nor am I a fan of any creature atm.
The trade off here is that relying on planeswalkers is remarkably slow, and you run the risk of just decking yourself. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is just not fun on the 3 color mana base, and Narset Transcendent might as well just be Sorin, Grim Nemesis because he can actually draw you the card if it is a land... but once again, he is just slow and clunky at killing an opponent when you need to be able to put real pressure on them.
Running a straight UW or UB deck might just be better right now. You will be able to run Gideon more consistently and you still have access to a ton of great spot removal spells in W for a decent draw go game if you manage to get your foot in the door. Your other option of straight UB means you are getting access to some great disruption options at the cost of missing out on Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Anguished Unmaking, but you get to use more life to draw cards with black draw spells instead - and you can still get Dragonlord Silumgar in there at the 6 mana slot. The biggest appeal of UB is Flaying Tendrils, but UW gets Declaration in Stone
I feel like Esper is just needing to do way too much at once, so it is likely best to just focus on a UW or UB shell right now. It is a damn shame that Madness is such a trash control mechanic for now :(, but in the mean time I think the key should be to focus on building around having access to more sweepers. Going two colors even opens you up to exploring Corrupted Grafstone and Brain in a Jar to get to a bigger game faster, either by ramping or letting you get in some free spells while leaving mana up so you can use virtual mana as you move into the later stages of the game.
UW Azorius Control
The real selling point of UW is going to be the ability to EOT Secure the Wastes into Ormendahl, Profane Prince, but what makes blue appealing is the ability to use counter magic for disruption and you can back it up with some great removal options in white. There are so many white removal spells on the cheap, and they should not be that difficult to get online. Another payout is the ability to mitigate damage using Gideon, Ally of Zendikar tokens and clean the board up with Planar Outburst to start laying in beats for a quick close. Overall, UW is going to give you a faster closing game at the cost of having to tap out in some spots that might be generally unfavorable no matter how you swing it. Getting to use counter magic like Clash of Wills, Scatter to the Winds, and even Confirm Suspicions can make for a solid game when backed by Celestial Flare, Swift Reckoning, Immolating Glare - can make for a solid draw go game, only tapping out to start putting pressure on or to seize an opportunity to stabilize. Having access to Declaration in Stone is also utterly fantastic.
UB Dimir Control
I think there is a lot more to have with UB, mainly your cheap instant speed removal options to add to your counter suite. There is less need to tap out and you are less restricted in the early game on what your removal is hitting or what other casting stipulations may exist. Silumgar's Command seems like a really powerful card here, giving you the ability to punish their mana base in addition to answering planeswalkers or creatures. There is not a lot of 2 for 1 value in Control right now, and that means this card is capable of doing an incredible amount of work. Focusing on Dragonlord Silumgar means you can quickly close a game with proper set up, and also gives you access to the dragon cards - making your draw go game a bit stronger. Sure, UW can run Dragonlord Ojutai but I just think there are better things to be doing if you are on white. Their ability to close the game is much more efficient, where UB is not and it needs those dragon cards.
Personally, I will likely be focusing on UB Control for now.
I think you just play through Ulamog and Breaker. It is not hard to play through them. Playing an aggressive Esper deck just seems sketch. You are going to find yourself in a position where you are set up to be aggressive, and if you slip behind, you have to give up what was invested in being aggressive in the first place. I would rather just focus on a stable set up.
Some things to note, our team gauntlet has been shortlisted and this is the Esper list I have been on for the last few days. Nothing had really changed. Our shortlist is:
GW Humans
BW Orzhov Control
GWU Collected Company
WUB Esper Control
GWR Planeswalker Tokens
There are some outlier decks that we were happy with in testing, but these were the 5 that we had the best results overall with as a group. Some decks that we were super hypes for, fell flat in the long run and could not hold their numbers, others drastically improved as we started tuning various lists. I do not think the decks we have on the short list are spot on, but the cores are stable enough that we were happy with all of them during testing.
GR Atarka Red
This deck could really hit the ground running. We had this deck as a top pick for a while, but it had some issues that started becoming more evident as lists were updated and new decks came to the table. The first, and probably the biggest problem in my eyes, was that Reflector Mage is one of the best cards in the format for any deck that can run it and our top pick for most of the gauntlet was GWU Collected company. Our White weenie decks ran it, our Control lists tried running it, our Eldrazi Aggro decks ran it... the card was a problem for RDW and Languish did not really help. We tried packing in Goldnight Castigator and it helped a bit, but the controlling decks had an enormous amount of removal for it and the aggro decks going wide did not do you any favors by having you leave her in blocking mode. Overall, the deck was just in a weird spot. I suspect that a list has yet to have been discovered, but we did feel that there were just too many situations where you could run out of steam.
BR Vampires
This was another of our original top picks. The deck has a lot of different things it can do, and it was inevitably its own downfall. We had super aggressive lists, grindy attrition lists, and even synergistic lists that used a lot of card interactions to keep going. Most of the problems were similar to the Atarka Red lists. Reflector Mage was a doozie if you were trying to have any kind of board presence and using the discard outlets would just snowball over the course of the game in the face of bounces and removal. Languish was back breaking after you discarded a few cards for triggers, and you were quickly left floundering. The advantage that this deck had over Atarka Red was that it had a lot of evasion, which would let you get over other aggro decks trying to gum up the ground, and you could mix different strategies together to play a weird tempo game if you needed to. In the end, the deck either had a super linear game plan that had a glass cannon feel to it, or it was too slow to do anything to beat a deck with a solid midrange or control plan. This deck is still pretty good, and I would not fault anyone for running it... but there is a lot of heartbreak in this story.
GR Ramp
I liked this deck, but it was not really a top pick. Early on it had some solid results, but as black decks picked up more steam and white became the go-to color, the deck started to suffer. The game plan ends up revolving around cycling World Breaker and hoping it does not keep eating removal. When you are cycling it, you get in this really odd trade off where you keep trading one of your lands to bring back World Breaker to get rid of one of their lands and you are hoping they just skip a beat. The aggro decks were able to either get big enough to stay out of the way of Kozilek's Return after they already went wide and hit you for a bunch, or they kill you before you can sweep the board. The control matches get to make a lot of 1 for 1 trades that are almost always up trades, and Declaration in Stone really hampers your plan of recurring your threats. The deck started to feel more like a bad land destruction deck as the dust started to settle. The great thing about the deck is that against aggressive strategies, if they miss a beat you can be in a pretty good position - but it is kind of dependent on not missing a beat of your own in return.
UW Eldrazi Aggro
I like this deck, but nobody else seemed to. The problems with it were that sometimes you just didn't really do anything and you needed to get tokens online but there was never much of a solid plan B. It is what it is, and I hope something comes from it, but This deck was pretty quickly dismissed by almost everyone in the group.
Back to Esper Control
Aggro decks are fast and wide, making 4 sweeper effects incredibly valuable, but also making Gideon, Ally of Zendikar a hit or miss card. 13-15 removal spells seems optimal. Trading 1 for 1 to land a walker in a safe zone is how Esper is going to build card advantage to make up for the 1 for 1 trades, but you need to make sure you have enough ways to make those early trades. Fortunately, the removal is pretty damn good and most of it can hit the slow decks as well, making it pretty easy to land a walker into a safe zone and ride out activations for cards. You do not need a way to quickly close the game, walkers and a single shuffle effect is good enough. If your opponent is not a slouch, you will get a concession. If not, setting up a game 1 soft lock is not very hard to do if you stabilize. It is really hard to get out of either Jace emblem and Sorin will just kill them from +1 activations eventually. Keeping your inevitability should be good enough, much like the days of Sphinx's Revelation + Elixir of Immortality, Esper has the best inevitability in the format. Just be aware that there are a lot of ways to kill walkers if you are not stable. They are going to die, so play them as win conditions and not opportunity cards. Hearts will be broken, I promise. If you want a faster way to win slow and grindy games - I enjoy Startled Awake + Jace, Telepath Unbound for 26 cards + 13 from a 3rd Startled Awake. Alternatively, you can just try to get an emblem to mill them out or you can recur Startled Awake and try to attack if your Jaces burned up removal.
Dragons were just dying to edicts or getting flash blocked by Avacyn, or ripped out with discard spells... they were just way too much work in my opinion. It was not that they were dying or being removed, it was that the shell to set them up had little that you could actually leverage. At you can leverage Jace + Sorin as removal alongside your sweepers.
As I said earlier, the difference between 2 and 4 is substantial. I have played with him, without him, as a 1 of, as a 2 of, 4 of, and am happy at a 3/3 split of the Jaces.
As I said about the new big Jace, if you are running him and not liking him or finding that he is dying too much, it is because your control plan is soft - not because he is bad.
I will echo that statement to a degree, with little Jace. If you are not liking him as a 2 of, it is because you are not running him as a 3 or 4 of - not because he is bad, but because you are not able to actually leverage him enough - resulting in an unimpressive slot.
If I am being honest, it took a lot to get you to come around to Thing in the Ice. I think you are just being stubborn for illegitimate reasons.
You kind of have to have Scatter to the Winds. You can get through World Breaker loops with tight play easier than you can if you simply get stripped of DLS's. If Breaker loops are difficult for you to manage, you best just play Infinite Obliteration out of the board, but I have not had too much of an issue with it unless I was already super behind. As for Jace and Protector, meh. I have actually killed a good number of people with an Awoken lands, especially post board.
I love Perogative, sometimes I want a second before realizing that I sometimes come really close to decking myself. Confirm is great and all, but having it stuck in your hand turns 1-4 can really suck. I don't want a second copy adding to that.
I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
As for UR Control, the match has been fine. You just have to pick your spots, I also play my DLS's aggressively and you can force a Jace emblem fairly easily. Out of the board I will bring in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to get more pressure during the mid game, he also coincidentally allows you to gain back life which is nice. Silumgar's Command is rather handy for getting a FV off the board for a counter play. Overall, I would not say that the match is easy or anything, but it is fair and it really seems to come down to technicals.
I don't think you really need to be getting into tech cards to deal with him, I have not had a problem with him at all. Like, ever.
As for the comments about the lands and Frank's analysis, I have not had an issue with that either. Depending on your removal suite and counts, you shouldn't have to actually worry about needing 3 open mana on turn 3 and you can still sequence your lands easily enough to have it open on turn 3 if you need to. The format is slow enough to where you can give up turn 1 or 2 for your t3 play and not get buried.
I most certainly do not want to pay 6 mana for a creature that has 0 impact upon being played. The issue is that you need it to produce some kind of value in the face of removal, or you need it to have an incredibly high ceiling for if it sticks around. Sphinx of Magosi is not really that card. I am sold that Dragonlord Silumgar is hands down your best option. He has board presence, can swing a game when he hits play, can be looped with excess lands, and has DT + X/5 body for being defensive. Alhammarret, High Arbiter is 7 mana, but a potentially unkillable evasive body. I likely will just stick with DLS, I think it is more than enough.
As for dealing with Ormendahl/Westvale Abbey, I have not had an issue. It is pretty easy to keep the board down at those stages, at least enough to keep an edict online so if they do get Ormendahl out, he is dead. I also have just taken it with DLS + Scorn a couple of times.
Overall, getting to cast it is strong. Getting to protect it is quite rare. Getting to attack with it to win is beyond slow.
I will pass on it. I value more interactive cards that allow me to prep for faster wins and stable boards earlier. 1 Ulamog amounted to 2 lost card slots and it just has not been worth it in testing. I think it would be better to just run Alhammarret, High Arbiter. At least with him I can cast him and get away with 26 lands + MRN and have the ability to negate a late game removal option from my opponent to protect him a bit longer.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/681695-dragonless-esper-control?page=4
Been there, done that.
Blighted Fen was not selected because boards last weekend were going wide. I would rather just draw two cards to get to a targeted removal spell or two, than to let them just sac fodder. While I like Fen, I severely dislike it when most boards are going wide and your removal is good enough to handle boards that are using single threats.
Why not 3 Havens? The mana base can support them and it means you can aggressively play Dragonlord more often. There is a lot of opportunity to play him aggressively and start exhausting removal and chaining him until he sticks.
Esper ran 5 Dragons at first, and was fine. You don't always need the Dragon value out of the spells. Force Spike is a strong card when people are focusing hard on curving out. In fact, I remember people having to be reminded about that when Esper Dragons first hit the scene.
As for baby Jace, he was eating removal and costing me tempo to play. He is not as good as he was before rotation, by a fairly substantial margin. It was pretty evident if you were watching coverage or communicating with people actually playing him at the open.
Ob Nixilis Reignited vs Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is a pretty hot topic it seems. I would rather be able to -2, -2 and still have my walker on the board. With Ob Nixilis, Reignited, I have to -3 then immediately tick up. I do not like not having the option to use a disruption mode for a consecutive turn. I get that just killing the creature means it is not coming back, but people really underestimate how much that extra loyalty cost actually is. In addition, scrying before a draw is a huge game. Jace does a ton of work in this deck and he does not make me nickel and dime my life for it.
3 colors is not easy. I have contributed a lot to the Esper thread, as well as given my thoughts on how utterly sad Dragonlord Ojutai is in the current meta. You need to be running 3-4 Languish, and you cannot be killing your win conditions with it. Not having a single Crux of Fate is a game changer, because you cannot leverage your Ojutai against an aggressive board anymore. Not to mention Archangel Avacyn is a format defining card and can really throw a wrench into the Ojutai plan. He is just not worth the paper he is printed on these days.
I have had little issue turning on the dragon spells when I need to. Sometimes it is inconvenient, but it is more than workable. This deck is pretty deceptive... it sees a lot of cards without DTT and baby Jace.
I thought about the Eldrazi, and I may run a single Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, the Great Distortion alongside the 4 Dragons. I have been contemplating it, but I mostly have voided it just because it is pretty dependent on how fast the format remains in the coming weeks. More often than not, I am tapping down my mana - just on my opponent's turn instead of mine, and it means that I need something cheaper to start closing the game out.
Shadows over Innistrad is here, and it is a brewer's paradise in Standard right now. This thread is dedicated to the competitive development of UB Control and will provide some of my experience, card choices, and strategies for the deck. I have been working with Control lists since early on in the spoiler season, and while I feel like I have tested a ton of different configurations for the archetype, much of my experience is with Esper Control and a bit of UB Control lately. I feel like of what I have tested, UB is one of the stronger lists I have played and I am excited to document its development here in this thread. So without further ado.
Dragonlord Silumgar has a bigger ass on him than Dragonlord Ojutai and Ojutai is remarkably brittle these days. If you want a dragon that has roughly the same amount of risk, I think Dragonlord Silumgar has a lot more built in power right now and having Haven of the Spirit Dragon means you can still get that dragon recursion value. As for Alhammarret, High Arbiter, his ability being As he inters the battlefield, means you can scout for lat game removal that might stop you from closing the game and just shut it down on the spot. His body is otherwise less than stellar, but his body means you get the perks of being able to get around edict effects and spot removal depending on the situation. If we are being completely honest though, I am not really a fan of either of them - nor am I a fan of any creature atm.
The trade off here is that relying on planeswalkers is remarkably slow, and you run the risk of just decking yourself. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is just not fun on the 3 color mana base, and Narset Transcendent might as well just be Sorin, Grim Nemesis because he can actually draw you the card if it is a land... but once again, he is just slow and clunky at killing an opponent when you need to be able to put real pressure on them.
Running a straight UW or UB deck might just be better right now. You will be able to run Gideon more consistently and you still have access to a ton of great spot removal spells in W for a decent draw go game if you manage to get your foot in the door. Your other option of straight UB means you are getting access to some great disruption options at the cost of missing out on Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Anguished Unmaking, but you get to use more life to draw cards with black draw spells instead - and you can still get Dragonlord Silumgar in there at the 6 mana slot. The biggest appeal of UB is Flaying Tendrils, but UW gets Declaration in Stone
I feel like Esper is just needing to do way too much at once, so it is likely best to just focus on a UW or UB shell right now. It is a damn shame that Madness is such a trash control mechanic for now :(, but in the mean time I think the key should be to focus on building around having access to more sweepers. Going two colors even opens you up to exploring Corrupted Grafstone and Brain in a Jar to get to a bigger game faster, either by ramping or letting you get in some free spells while leaving mana up so you can use virtual mana as you move into the later stages of the game.
UW Azorius Control
The real selling point of UW is going to be the ability to EOT Secure the Wastes into Ormendahl, Profane Prince, but what makes blue appealing is the ability to use counter magic for disruption and you can back it up with some great removal options in white. There are so many white removal spells on the cheap, and they should not be that difficult to get online. Another payout is the ability to mitigate damage using Gideon, Ally of Zendikar tokens and clean the board up with Planar Outburst to start laying in beats for a quick close. Overall, UW is going to give you a faster closing game at the cost of having to tap out in some spots that might be generally unfavorable no matter how you swing it. Getting to use counter magic like Clash of Wills, Scatter to the Winds, and even Confirm Suspicions can make for a solid game when backed by Celestial Flare, Swift Reckoning, Immolating Glare - can make for a solid draw go game, only tapping out to start putting pressure on or to seize an opportunity to stabilize. Having access to Declaration in Stone is also utterly fantastic.
UB Dimir Control
I think there is a lot more to have with UB, mainly your cheap instant speed removal options to add to your counter suite. There is less need to tap out and you are less restricted in the early game on what your removal is hitting or what other casting stipulations may exist. Silumgar's Command seems like a really powerful card here, giving you the ability to punish their mana base in addition to answering planeswalkers or creatures. There is not a lot of 2 for 1 value in Control right now, and that means this card is capable of doing an incredible amount of work. Focusing on Dragonlord Silumgar means you can quickly close a game with proper set up, and also gives you access to the dragon cards - making your draw go game a bit stronger. Sure, UW can run Dragonlord Ojutai but I just think there are better things to be doing if you are on white. Their ability to close the game is much more efficient, where UB is not and it needs those dragon cards.
Personally, I will likely be focusing on UB Control for now.
4 Dragonlord Silumgar
Planeswalker
3 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Removal
2 Ruinous Path
2 Grasp of Darkness
4 Languish
3 Foul-Tongue Invocation
2 Ultimate Price
Disruption
4 Silumgar's Scorn
2 Scatter to the Winds
1 Confirm Suspicions
2 Silumgar's Command
3 Anticipate
1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
1 Learn from the Past
Land
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Blighted Cataract
3 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
5 Island
5 Swamp
2 Negate
1 Dispel
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Duress
1 Transgress the Mind
3 Flaying Tendrils
1 Ultimate Price
2 Foul Renewal
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Planeswalker
3 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
2 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Disruption
2 Scatter to the Winds
1 Confirm Suspicions
1 Displacement Wave
2 Engulf the Shore
3 Clash of Wills
Removal
3 Declaration in Stone
3 To the Slaughter
3 Anguished Unmaking
1 Languish
Other
4 Anticipate
2 Epiphany at the Drownyard
1 Learn from the Past
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Prairie Stream
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Blighted Cataract
1 Shambling Vent
2 Choked Estuary
2 Port Town
3 Negate
2 Virulent Plague
2 Startled Awake
2 Pick the Brain
2 Surge of Righteousness
2 Flaying Tendrils
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Confirm Suspicions
Some things to note, our team gauntlet has been shortlisted and this is the Esper list I have been on for the last few days. Nothing had really changed. Our shortlist is:
There are some outlier decks that we were happy with in testing, but these were the 5 that we had the best results overall with as a group. Some decks that we were super hypes for, fell flat in the long run and could not hold their numbers, others drastically improved as we started tuning various lists. I do not think the decks we have on the short list are spot on, but the cores are stable enough that we were happy with all of them during testing.
GR Atarka Red
This deck could really hit the ground running. We had this deck as a top pick for a while, but it had some issues that started becoming more evident as lists were updated and new decks came to the table. The first, and probably the biggest problem in my eyes, was that Reflector Mage is one of the best cards in the format for any deck that can run it and our top pick for most of the gauntlet was GWU Collected company. Our White weenie decks ran it, our Control lists tried running it, our Eldrazi Aggro decks ran it... the card was a problem for RDW and Languish did not really help. We tried packing in Goldnight Castigator and it helped a bit, but the controlling decks had an enormous amount of removal for it and the aggro decks going wide did not do you any favors by having you leave her in blocking mode. Overall, the deck was just in a weird spot. I suspect that a list has yet to have been discovered, but we did feel that there were just too many situations where you could run out of steam.
BR Vampires
This was another of our original top picks. The deck has a lot of different things it can do, and it was inevitably its own downfall. We had super aggressive lists, grindy attrition lists, and even synergistic lists that used a lot of card interactions to keep going. Most of the problems were similar to the Atarka Red lists. Reflector Mage was a doozie if you were trying to have any kind of board presence and using the discard outlets would just snowball over the course of the game in the face of bounces and removal. Languish was back breaking after you discarded a few cards for triggers, and you were quickly left floundering. The advantage that this deck had over Atarka Red was that it had a lot of evasion, which would let you get over other aggro decks trying to gum up the ground, and you could mix different strategies together to play a weird tempo game if you needed to. In the end, the deck either had a super linear game plan that had a glass cannon feel to it, or it was too slow to do anything to beat a deck with a solid midrange or control plan. This deck is still pretty good, and I would not fault anyone for running it... but there is a lot of heartbreak in this story.
GR Ramp
I liked this deck, but it was not really a top pick. Early on it had some solid results, but as black decks picked up more steam and white became the go-to color, the deck started to suffer. The game plan ends up revolving around cycling World Breaker and hoping it does not keep eating removal. When you are cycling it, you get in this really odd trade off where you keep trading one of your lands to bring back World Breaker to get rid of one of their lands and you are hoping they just skip a beat. The aggro decks were able to either get big enough to stay out of the way of Kozilek's Return after they already went wide and hit you for a bunch, or they kill you before you can sweep the board. The control matches get to make a lot of 1 for 1 trades that are almost always up trades, and Declaration in Stone really hampers your plan of recurring your threats. The deck started to feel more like a bad land destruction deck as the dust started to settle. The great thing about the deck is that against aggressive strategies, if they miss a beat you can be in a pretty good position - but it is kind of dependent on not missing a beat of your own in return.
UW Eldrazi Aggro
I like this deck, but nobody else seemed to. The problems with it were that sometimes you just didn't really do anything and you needed to get tokens online but there was never much of a solid plan B. It is what it is, and I hope something comes from it, but This deck was pretty quickly dismissed by almost everyone in the group.
Back to Esper Control
Aggro decks are fast and wide, making 4 sweeper effects incredibly valuable, but also making Gideon, Ally of Zendikar a hit or miss card. 13-15 removal spells seems optimal. Trading 1 for 1 to land a walker in a safe zone is how Esper is going to build card advantage to make up for the 1 for 1 trades, but you need to make sure you have enough ways to make those early trades. Fortunately, the removal is pretty damn good and most of it can hit the slow decks as well, making it pretty easy to land a walker into a safe zone and ride out activations for cards. You do not need a way to quickly close the game, walkers and a single shuffle effect is good enough. If your opponent is not a slouch, you will get a concession. If not, setting up a game 1 soft lock is not very hard to do if you stabilize. It is really hard to get out of either Jace emblem and Sorin will just kill them from +1 activations eventually. Keeping your inevitability should be good enough, much like the days of Sphinx's Revelation + Elixir of Immortality, Esper has the best inevitability in the format. Just be aware that there are a lot of ways to kill walkers if you are not stable. They are going to die, so play them as win conditions and not opportunity cards. Hearts will be broken, I promise. If you want a faster way to win slow and grindy games - I enjoy Startled Awake + Jace, Telepath Unbound for 26 cards + 13 from a 3rd Startled Awake. Alternatively, you can just try to get an emblem to mill them out or you can recur Startled Awake and try to attack if your Jaces burned up removal.
Dragons were just dying to edicts or getting flash blocked by Avacyn, or ripped out with discard spells... they were just way too much work in my opinion. It was not that they were dying or being removed, it was that the shell to set them up had little that you could actually leverage. At you can leverage Jace + Sorin as removal alongside your sweepers.
As I said about the new big Jace, if you are running him and not liking him or finding that he is dying too much, it is because your control plan is soft - not because he is bad.
I will echo that statement to a degree, with little Jace. If you are not liking him as a 2 of, it is because you are not running him as a 3 or 4 of - not because he is bad, but because you are not able to actually leverage him enough - resulting in an unimpressive slot.
If I am being honest, it took a lot to get you to come around to Thing in the Ice. I think you are just being stubborn for illegitimate reasons.