MTG Salvation

@Lectrys: I am 100% sure that Loam + cycling lands will be the core of a modern deck, but I'm not sure that Astral Drift is in that deck. As soon as you want to play Ayula's Influence, why not just remove white and play the real Seismic Assault, Countryside Crusher, etc.?

What I do think Drift has going for it is that it is less dependent on Loam or its namesake card compared to a deck like GR Lands. This deck, at least running on the ideas that I presented in the first post, is trying to play multiple angles so that you don't just lose against Rest In Peace or Surgical. You won't just lose when you don't draw one of your 4 Seismic Assualt/Bearassault. You also won't just lose against combo and Tron like every standard green value deck does. Loam, Drift, and cycling are part of the deck, not the only way to wins.

The cycler count could absolutely increase, but we're quickly running out of decent cards that cycle. I'm thinking that I would rather just play good cards that don't cycle instead of bad cards that do. You're probably more concerned with staying alive for the first several turns compared to getting Loam online. Hall of Heliod's Generosity is a possibility, but in the dork version, I need more results on whether or not colorless lands affect the probability of a turn 1 dork. If colorless lands are acceptable, I doubt we're going to find any more important than Field of Ruins.

Hi arrogantAxolotl! I appreciate the detailed post on you and your friend's brainstorming. A few things need to be addressed though before we can make much progress on this deck:

-Path to Exile is an absolute must here. This is a midrange/control deck in all iterations and we need the outs Goblin Guide/Meddling Mage/Death's Shadow.
-Astral Drift can be a versatile stall piece and value engine, but it isn't gamebreaking in any sense and at the end of the day is a 3-mana do nothing in many cases; Drift is also weak against most creature-light decks and combo. Combined with the fact that we are GW and don't have access to counters or discard, we will most likely get trashed by Tron and combo without a speed boost and dedicated disruption. Even against a deck like humans, your plan of "t1 tapland, t2 wall/invader, t3 Drift" just isn't doing much to stop their gameplan of beating you to death.
-Because of this, I'm currently banking on mana dorks to HELP bridge the gap in speed. Speeding the deck up a full turn allows us to actually play magic and deploy defenders/disruption. Turn 2 Kitchen Finks buys time against aggro, Turn 2 Eldritch Evolution buys time against control/combo. Turn 2 Magus of the Moon can win the game. Untapping on Turn 3 with Drift in play can stall. While they are bad top-decks in the lategame, this deck already has a great late-game plan of drawing boatloads of cards and generating value with Drift. Furthermore, extra mana heading into the mid-late game can be sunk into cycling and Loam payments.
-The issue with having enough Turn 1 green sources to cast a dork needs to be addressed. I'm playing 26 lands currently as I would like to avoid playing cycle lands when possible, and it is also a good idea to monitor the number of hands that have to be mulliganed due to Field of Ruins not producing G. I like the idea of FoR because of its utility, especially against Tron and Amulet, but if the lack of green is a problem then they should be turned into green sources.
-Speaking on lands, I'm not keen on Scattered Grove, primarily because the cycling cost of 2 is likely just too much and the deck is already stocked with tapped lands. If the deck heads in a direction with out dorks and the need for T1 green then I can see them being more useful.
-Dissenter's Deliverance and Cast Out are two cards that are on my watch list. Deliverance could be a solid SB card, but is too narrow to include MD. Cast Out is a verstatile answer to a lot of problems, but 3W is a chunk of mana. If planeswalkers become an apparent problem, Cast Outs value increases. Besides these two and maybe cycling duals, I don't know of any cycling cards that are really up to par, with a notable exception of Censor. But that may be too blue for this.
-Edge of Autumn's cycling cost is very real. Sacrificing a land in the first 4 turns of the game is a significant setback. By the time the game progresses to the point that I am willing to sac a land to cycle, I would much rather instead just pay a mana instead. I can see it being necessary without mana dorks, but this just makes me want to play dorks even more to avoid having to play a rampant growth analog.

Restoration Angel is definitely on my watch list; she plays better with more value creatures like Wall of Omens than the bullets and hatebears I'm playing with Evo. I'm also trying to keep the curve as low as possible right now.

@Pants_On_Head: Avalanche Riders is a definite possibility for the board. I started with one initially until realizing that at 4 mana and with a lack of two drops to sac to Eldritch Evo, its usually only going to come out after sacrificing a three drop. At that point, Acidic Slime just does the job better while being useful in matchups where the LD isn't valuable. Riders is better to actually draw against decks like Tron though as you can possibly ramp it out turn 3 on the play, and it gets better when you start playing more two drops to sac to Evo like Wall of Omens or Voice of Resurgence.

Started brewing up a list last night as soon as I saw the lonely sandbar in the spoilers. The draw of Astral drift is that, in combination with cycle lands and Life from the loam, you have repeatable blinking to either stall your opponents attacks and remove their tokens/counters, save your own creatures from removal and blink various creatures for profit. Loam + cycle lands is in itself a strong card advantage engine that can take over the game unchecked, and surprisingly resilient against Surgical Extraction. To power out Drift and other cards fast enough to survive, I've started with the mana dork package, along with a general value package of cards like Eternal Witness and Kitchen Finks to profit from blinking. Finally, since we have the green dude shell and the deck is inherently weak against combo and tron, I figure the most effective answer (outside of splashing a third color) to be Eldritch Evolution fetching bullets and bombs.

My rough draft follows:




The general gameplan against aggro/midrange is to stay alive long enough to get Drift + Loam going, taking over the game with more cards. All the lifegain the deck plays really gives you some padding to work with, and the MD Gearhulk is specifically there as a bomb to be tutored up against go-wide strategies. Against Control the plan is to apply pressure and take out the walkers at all cost; Drift can play against the removal and generate cards when possible. Side out Evos agaisnt control. Against combo try to Evo into a hatebear. Against Tron, pray for the disruption.

The land count seems outrageous, but remember that there are only 18 "real" lands and that the cyclers will hopefully be cycled. The deck needs at least 13 sources of green on t1, and even that may be too low. The creature base and toolbox is theorycrafting. Color splashes could be explored. Thoughts or ideas on where this could go? Am I going completely in the wrong direction with how Astral Drift should look? I don't expect Drift to be a tier 1 deck, but there is design space to be explored.

@Piotrowiak: My MD is the same numbers. For Humans I'm bringing in 2 Abrade, 2 Roast, 1 Entrancing Melody, and all my Anger of Gods, which is currently 3. I take out all Remands, 2 Vendillion, 1 Opt, and 1 Cyptic. Humans feels like the games can go either way; if you stumble or keep a hand with no early interaction you will likely get steam-rolled and the game gets to a point that even resolved Breach won't win because they have lethal on the table. On the flip side, Blood Moon stops them from playing Magic, and extra early removal can buy enough time to put the game away. I'm playing a lot of creature hate in the board right now so this might be tilting things. Abrade is so valuable right now that I might play 3 by cutting Entrancing Melody.

Playing a pretty standard UR Breach list with 3 MD Jace with a fourth in the SB that honestly gets brought in about half of the matches. He's without a doubt the missing piece this deck has needed since the Dig Through Time banning. He digs, generates card advantage, is disruptive/defensive, and is a completely independent win-con. Couple quick discussion points:

1. Jund and B/G in general are still difficult matchups because discard + efficient pressure makes comboing very difficult, but if you try to SB out your combo and play the value game against them you will likely get outclassed by the raw efficiency and power of their cards compared to ours, especially with BBE in the picture now. What are other Breach players SBing to combat this and how are you SBing? Are you taking out your combo to play the value game or are you still trying to combo out just with more targeted means against black decks? Jace is huge here but you really can't rely on him against Jund.

2. Other Jace decks and blue in general is overall favorable, but Jeskai decks have been giving me problems because of Geist of Saint Traft. Geist puts you in a position where you have to sb in subpar cards for the matchup such as Anger of the Gods otherwise you are put on a very quick clock that we don't have very many answers to. The few answers we do have are Cryptic tap-downs and Snap/Vendillion blocks but the former is a poor use of Cryptic in the matchup and the second is too unreliable against a deck that plays both Bolt and Path. Anybody else running into this problem?

3. Anybody else having problems with Hollow One decks? The black one is slower than the green one but makes up for it with discard, and the green one is just fast and mostly bolt-proof. Neither deck really cares about grave-hate or Anger of the Gods. If they get a good draw I just get steam-rolled.

Overall, I feel this deck is well positioned, if only because of a solid matchup against opposing Jace decks with the cheese-factor of playing a Moon deck also. The sheer volume of Jace/Snapcaster decks being played right now makes it too difficult for other decks to discern what we're playing and that makes them either play right into a Breach or Moon blow-out, or potentially play sub-optimally when expecting a Moon. Great stuff.

Tron is not that hard - in fact its one of favourite match-ups

@IslandsareBroken: you're going to need to explain this one, because this deck has one of the slowest kills in the format and has no real "lockdown" or game-ending cards against the decks that play Tron lands, yet they play ridiculous one-card wincons like Karn and Ugin. I legitimately have no idea whatsoever how regular Green Tron is a remotely favorable matchup. We're not playing Jeskai where we can close out the game with Bolt-Snap-Bolt. I don't play Ceremonious Rejection although its a great card, but even that doesn't give us a fast clock in the face of the massive bombs that come from Tron decks. While Affinity isn't a bad matchup, it certainly is one that I'm worried about if only because of how prevalent the deck is the metagame; why wouldn't you want insurance against the most played deck in the format, especially one that can easily kill you if you stumble?

Of the cards that I'm not playing in my SB that I would like to be playing, a singleton Timely Reinforcements tops the list as I feel the deck needs more hate against red. Otherwise, there really isn't a glut of cards that I want to add to the SB; I've been pretty satisfied by what most people are posting. I'm interested in what cards you can't play due to space concerns but are worth adding where you'd be willing to cut Stony to make an extra couple slots.

@IslandsareBroken: Lantern Control is a real deck that folds to Stony. Affinity is dangerous enough to kill you by on turn 3-4 when we stumble so regardless of Verdicts and Paths, insurance is a worth investment considering Affinity is almost guaranteed to be the most played deck at any Modern event you play in, especially online. Regular Tron is one of the decks worst matchups and Stony does a good job on the play, although it certainly is worse on the draw. What would you replace it with is a pretty relevant question.

@tlhunter07: What is Dispel doing for you here? Insurance against Burn and other control? I don't see 2 being as valuable as playing 4 total GY hate pieces and would trade the second Dispel for a second RIP. Even if you're only going to play 3 pieces of GY hate, play 2 RIP before 2 Surgical. RIP is just THE card against GY decks. Glimmer and TT don't occupy the same slot, as stated above. TT gives you something to do on turn 2-3 and helps you hit land drops while Glimmer is a mid-game CA spell. I'm not saying Glimmer is a bad card, but that it and a 2+3 mana draw spell aren't exactly comparable.

Was going to give a better explanation about Runed Halo but Bloodrabbit_01 explained it all. Important to note that you can't name tokens, only card. This is important so that you don't SB it in against Storm (trying to name Goblin) or Lingering Souls tokens. It is very strong against Valakut as they hardly play outs to it and the outs they play aren't cards they'd want against UW.

EDIT: So not to double post, @Yuzenn84: what were your weakest SB cards and why? What were the strongest in those 15 matches? My MD is exactly the same as yours with Farmland for the Temple, but my SB is a slightly different as I like Spell Queller and Relic and I don't think Surgical Extraction is more valuable than Relic. For reference the only difference in SB is I play 3 Queller, 2 Relic to your 1 Dispel, 2 Surgical, 1 Geist, 1 Timely. Can you give me some input on your SB? Have you played Queller?

Looking at recent discussion about whether or not to play Sphinx's Revalation, or the numbers on specific cards like Supreme Verdict or Elspeth, I feel something needs to constantly be kept in mind regarding these 1-2 slot changes to our decks: the deck plays a lot of cantrips. I think most all of us can agree that UW needs 4 Serum Visions for consistency and early plays and 4 Spreading Seas in order to combat big-mana decks and man-lands, in addition to some number of Wall of Omens. That core alone is between 8-10 cantrips minimum played in every UW deck. In addition, all of us are playing between 2-4 Cryptic Command, which in 90% of all situations will use the "Draw a Card" mode, plus MD flex cards like a Think Twice or two and possibly Relic of Progenitus from the SB. What I'm getting at is that we can't evaluate cards like a BGx control deck with no card draw does; our cantrips combined w/ our extremely slow style of play will lead us to see a good portion of our deck most games. A card like singleton Sphinx Rev is played as a massive bomb because we won't open it very often yet we have a reasonable chance to draw it late into the game where we need it most. It's also the only instant-speed bomb I see this deck playing, which is crucial against Tron, Storm, Valakut, and other control-ish decks.

I haven't been a fan of Sphinx Rev in the past but I feel that the singleton that most of us play now is well worth the slot considering we'll ideally go to the long-game every game. If you need to SB out cards to fit in more cards to survive the early game against aggro and fast decks, then SB Rev out. It seems really simple to me.

I don't think the fourth Verdict in the MD is the correct call for the reason I made above regarding cantrips: I usually see one of my 3 Verdicts in time to cast it against the decks that I actually want it against, and I absolutely don't want Verdict against matchups that I'm actually worried about, such as any sort of combo. Another way of putting it would be: I don't want to draw multiple Verdicts in the first 4-5 turns against almost anything. I'd rather have the fourth in the board when I need it and know that my cantrips will allow me to see one of the 3 with consistency.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion is a card that kinda confuses me because I've kept it in my SB for months while SBing it in not very often, and still being unimpressed by it. The primary reason for this is that at 6 mana, we'll only be casting it in the long game. So against any deck were we need interaction desperately in the early game, we probably won't be siding her in. Now she's only viable against decks that aren't pressuring us early game, and she's our massive 6-mana sorcery-speed bomb. Well, against regular Tron, she's blank because she's too slow and too loo impact. Against Eldrazi Tron, her sweep mode is relevant but they play 4 Walking Ballista and they can actually put out a lot of pressure mid game to make her irrelevant. Against BGx, she's 6 freaking mana against a deck that doensn't play bombs over 4 mana and always has 3-4 Lili to ensure we don't get to play her, in addition to Lingering Souls making Elspeth look like a joke. Against other control decks like the mirror or Jeskai, you have to be out of your mind to try and resolve a 6-mana sorcery-speed planeswalker against a blue deck. Sure, she'll win the game if she hits, but she probably won't hit, and even if she does, the possibility of a D-Sphere is common.

I've been playing Chippy's idea of Crucible recently and I feel that its a much better use of the bomby SB slot than Elspeth, primarily because anytime you're SBing in Elspeth, its against decks that can't kill you immediately, and thats where walkers and cards like Crucible shine. More importantly, Crucible is much more practical to cast with a greater utility than Elspeth. Turn 4-5 Crucible against Valakut decks or Tron means that they have to end the game soon before they lose their lands. Same in the mirror, except recurring Colonades and Stands for mana is also powerful. With a card like Crucible, you're trading raw power for practicality and utility.

Speaking on utility, I also like the singleton Irrigated Farmland much more than the Temple of Enlightenment in a 25 land build. I play 1 Hallowed Fountain and 1 Farmland with the standard 4 Flooded Strand. I primarily like Farmland because if its not my first or 3rd land drop, it instead gets cycled for more action. Considering this deck can't play Horizon Canopy and doesn't have very many raw card-advantage spells, being able to trade excess lands in for more gas is a significant plus. As mentioned above me, it also turns on Glacial Fortress.

@yoshencranz: Legacy DnT is an entirely different animal with much more powerful tools in comparison to its Modern counterpart, although that legitimately extends to every Legacy vs Modern deck. The biggest difference is that Legacy DnT has more powerful proactive options that aren't just tempo related such as Stoneforge and that there aren't nearly as many big-mana decks in Legacy as there are in Modern. Modern DnT is basically a meta deck; it simply doesn't have the raw power to compete in a completely open field, but when certain strategies show up, such as big mana Tron decks, this deck gains significant power to counter those strats. We also have tools to beat other decks, but on the whole, DnT is a meta deck. If lots of people around you are playing Affinity and U/R Storm or Valakut decks, you will not see much success playing a stock DnT list there, because the deck just doesn't have raw power in mind. It pretty popular right now because we have a lot of answers to the omnipresent Death Shadow decks and are a natural predator of Tron decks, both of which are pretty popular right now. That said, counters to our deck are also abundant, such as Affinity.

This decks ground game really comes down to flyers breaking stalemates. Opponents will drop a big dude that you don't have a Path for and will stall the board. Flickerwisp, Resto, and optional cards like Serra Avenger and Smuggler's Copter help break those stalemates and apply pressure. As you stated, some games just come down to whether you draw a flyer or not and can chip them down until an alpha strike.

@Chalupacabra: the idea behind Flagstones wasn't that it was better than Plains, just that in 98% of situations, a singleton Flagstones is identical to Plains, but gives you an upside when you have to GQ yourself in order to find a second white source. This comes up reasonably often for me as I play 3 Crusader and 2 Serra Avenger. The Plains from Flagstones CIPT is irrelevant at that point: you already tapped your Flagstones for W, and the Plains you get from GQ is untapped, so with a third random land, you would at least have 1WW from 3 lands. Plus you now have double W for the rest of the game. I'm only playing the singleton Flagstones now because the double-Flagstones > Arbiter play will come up and you will cry, but otherwise I can't think of a realistic downside other than Blood Moon.

@ Shefet Dunes: Been playing w/ 2 Copies in in the Plains slots since deathandcatmix posted, and I think its a great find. Might swap Eiganjo Castle for the the second copy and bring back a Plains because I can't remember the last time I've profitably activated Castle. Being a utility land that is only painful if its your only W source is very nice. The ability doesn't come up very often, but when it's relevant, its relevant. Can really open up the board and make plays when things are stalemated. Unless you're playing it as a substitute for Canopy (can't blame you as Canopy is ridiculous $), I can't see going above three, as you'll never activate 2 in one turn, at 5 mana you probably won't activate more than one a game, and it doesn't benefit you to have multiples in play. Two seems like a fine number when played with 4 Canopies and the usual 4 GQ/4 Tec Edge package. Three would make it much more likely to see one in a protracted, grindy game.

Unrelated, but Shefet Dunes is probably the truth in B/W Tokens. Anthem on a land to push for almost no cost is amazing in a tokens deck.

@HugeElfBoy: I feel the primary reason to splash black without going full W/B Eldrazi is to take advantage of Fatal Push, as it solves many issues this deck has such as cheap combo critters like Electromancer/Baral, Vizier/Devoted Druid, and Steel Overseer, in addition to nuking big blockers like Goyf and Death Shadow. I think you should prioritize playing a 2-3 between the main and side. Kambal seems like a strong card in a few matchups such as Burn and Storm, both of which we could use help with, so I'm not going to argue with him there, but I question his appeal in the MD.

I also don't think jamming Lingering Souls into the deck is going to fix the issues it has, especially if you're removing power cards like Thalia and Resto. Cutting a flex slot like Crusader could be worth a try, but Thalia wins games by herself and has tremendous value against bad matchups like burn and Storm in addition to pretty much every deck that isn't filled to the brim with dudes. You're slowing the deck down to try and play the long, grindy game and the cards you're trying to do it with, Souls, have little synergy with the rest of the deck. Granted, you're playing a less tempo-oriented gameplan by choosing to omit Tec Edge, so slower cards like Souls might make more sense for your long game. I feel cutting Tec Edge is a mistake in itself right now considering the prevalence of Valakut decks and various Tron builds, including Eldrazi, floating around. Its also strong against various control builds and BGx decks like Abzan. I guess what I really mean is that you start to turn into a different deck, for better or for worse.

Maybe I'm just looking at things from a strictly-online and online-data-driven outlook though. If you happen to play against a lot of BGx in your area, then your decisions would be more reasonable. Regardless, I think a pair of Fatal Push should be somewhere in any list playing black right now. Its almost strictly better than Sunlance, and I side Sunlance in quite often.

@SavageGaul, regarding your flex spots, you're going to get the most mileage out of the following currently: Wayfarer, Avenger, Revoker, Crusader, and possibly Finks but he's more of a SB card for red decks and grind matchups. A brief explanation of the dismals on the other cards you mentioned: most of them either aren't very disruptive, are too mana intensive, lack synergy with the rest of the deck, or just plain don't do very much/enough. Considering all these cards are used in the 5-6 flex-spots, synergy or raw power have to be pretty high on the list.

Wayfarer is a fine one-of because he nearly ensured to replace himself with a useful card, be it a tec edge/GQ or Canopy, and if he sticks around too long you can either bury your opponent in card advantage or land nuke them out of the game. He's not aggressive but his utility makes him occasionally game-breaking and never terrible unless you're already on the defensive.

I'm not a fan of Revoker right now, but he is versatile hate in certain bad matchups like Counters Company or Affinity and has uses in many matchups. I feel he is just way too fragile but nonetheless has value, especially if you're metagaming against certain cards.

Serra Avenger is just a power drop that I play because she breaks board stalemates when you have a couple guys on the table but your opponent has a Goyf or something that prevents you from attacking profitably. Having a critical mass of flyers is important in creature matchups because you simply don't have the removal or the big creatures necessary to brute-force your way to their life-total. I play 2 copies but usually SB them out against any deck where I need disruption more than power or don't have the time to reasonably cast her.

You didn't mention Mirran Crusader but I will because I don't see a reason why at least a pair shouldn't be in everyone's 75. He beats Death Shadow decks by himself if they can't find a red-only removal spell and is a strong presence against BGx decks or green decks. I play more because I expect to play against these types of decks pretty consistnetly but he can be pretty mediocre or downright poor against decks where you need serious pressure and disruption like UR Storm. I play 3 in the MD and I find that I either keep all 3 in because they are strong or SB all 3 out because they are subpar.

Finks I go back and forth with because while he's strong against red-decks and has applications against any deck where you think the game will go long, a single Finks probably isn't enough to win you the burn matchup and there may be better cards to bring in against grindy decks like Dusk/Dawn. I think a pair in the board are fine but in the MD you want more proactive cards and the 3 slot is often pretty clogged as it is.

EDIT: @lurplez, nice. How many times did you find Copter conflicted with Thalia, because that came up enough in my playing that it became a turn-off, but I also play 2 Serra Avenger to keep my flyer count high. Otherwise, I do agree that Copter can sometimes carry you to a win in grindy matchups with stalemated boards. Fragmentize deserves more testing also. There are a lot of enchantments and artifacts without activated abilities like Ensnaring Bridge floating around. It's good insurance against randomness.

To bring up another topic for discussion, recently I've been experimenting with between 1 and 2 Flagstones of Trokair in place of 1/2 Plains in my pretty standard list and I feel that it is a subtle but occasionally relevant and positive change. I'm not suggesting any LD shenanigans or anything, and I know that it is stricktly worse against Blood Moon than Plains, but I've often found myself in a scenario where GQ'ing myself to get another white source to play something like Flickerwisp or Crusader makes sense.

Picture this: its turn 3/4, you have a plains, a GQ, and a TecEdge/another GQ. You're holding a Flickerwisp, Crusader, Finks, or some other double-white spell. You could tap your plains for w, then GQ your tec edge for another white source, but you just lost a land, a card, and tempo here. With a simple change like 1/2 Flagstones, you could trade your GQ and your Flagstones for 2 plains at no card disadvantage or tempo loss. There are also some other upsides like preventing RG Ponza from destroying your only white source and a few other corner cases but on the whole I just don't see much downside to playing a single Flagstones. If you choose to play 2 then you run into the possibility of drawing both while having an Arbiter in play which admittedly sucks. Just a minor change I've utilized that has been overall positive in my playing.

A lot of PPTQ are coming near my area and here's the list I thought I would run.

If you're playing in ptqs then I feel you should expect a large portion of Death Shadow decks right now, as they are without doubt the highest performing decks in the meta currently, regardless of variant. Mirran Crusader will pay dividends here as he's nearly unkillable against Grixis and Jund doesn't have very many tools to deal with him. As you said, many decks are dropping bolt since it doesn't kill very many things right now. Gisella is not a weak card and I could totally see her value, but I think sticking to the standard list with your flex spots including 2-4 Crusader between md and sb allowing you to go farther than her. I'm playing the standard 54 card mono-W list as played by Brian Coval with 3 md Crusader, 2 md Serra Avenger, and with my 23rd land/60th card being Weathered Wayfarer and I've had a very favorable matchup vs all Death Shadow decks. I feel like that is the best approach in such an open tournament with people looking to play the best deck.

On the other hand, cards like Gisella and Brimaz shine against red decks, which will also be plentiful in a PTQ enviroment and I've had a lot of problems with them with the standard white list. Linvala could be changed into something like Kitchen Finks to help here. I've also like a 2/3 split with 2 Cage/3 Relic because Vizer/Druid combo is difficult. Good luck. (Sorry for my formatting, been a couple years since I last posted and forgot all the card hotlinks and whatnot).

Before anyone gets salty, myself included, I want to say that the last page has been great discussion and I was too defensive in my last 2 posts. Some solid points being made and I want to keep riding this train of thought. My initial post was not me barging in here saying "all yalls deck suck, needs more souls". I legitimately don't believe that "draw-go" in any color combination is not able to compete at anything more than a local level with the current Modern card pool. Wafo-Tapa is an amazing deckbuilder and probably one of the best control players to ever tap an island. That said, Wafo's signature-style of deck has not put up any significant results since early 2014, even when Wafo himself (known for extremely tight play) is piloting.

I don't necessarily believe that "tap-out" Soorani-style control variants with more permanents are the answer also, as targeted discard like Thoughtseisze is significantly less effective without pressure to back it up. I think that BGx variants are just better at playing that role.

This is a rough draft of where I think we should look to go. I play primarily online, so I adjust things to the online metagame which currently has Grixis Delver, UR Twin, Junk, Jund, Robots, and Burn making up at least +40% of the field. This is followed by a healty presense of Infect, Amulet, Tron and other tier 2 decks. Combo is very poorly positioned. I build to beat the decks I will most likely face; I don't have any problem sacrificing against decks that are already poor matchups like Tron and Amulet if it means more game against fast decks and midrange.





A starting point. The manabase is rough but I do know that I want at least 8 fetchs while minimising the number of shocks. This deck is very color-intensive so I really don't want to play Tec Edge or GQ. They are primarily used against decks that are less common in the meta anyways.

Tasigur is a fantastic addition. He is a general role player that acts as a difficult to removal wall, an efficient threat, and a source of late-game card advantage. He should be considered even in "draw-go" style decks because of the ability to easily cast him for defense while still holding up counter/removal/cantrip mana. This is significant on turn 4 against aggro or midrange and is usually a key stabilization play. Two feels like the correct number as you don't want to see multiples and he can turn a slow opener into an even slower opener.

Anticipate trades the CA of Think Twice for significantly upgraded card-quality. Anticipate is much better at finding your 3rd or 4th land or digging for an emergency removal spell. Late-game, a topdecked Anticipate still feels better than a top-decked TT as you can get straight to your gas/removal and continue playing rather than chance3UU to draw 2. On the whole I lose more games stumbling around due to not seeing enough land or not seeing an early removal/counter before they kill me than I do by being out-grinded by my opponent. So Anticipate provides more real-time value than TT IMO.

Disfigure is played as the primary cheap removal spell. I'm not going to say its a Bolt by any stretch, but it is as close as we can get to the efficiency of red's early-game removal. Wrath effects are poorly positioned MD currently. Wraths only have value against Robots and some tier 2 strategies like Zoo, Abzan Aggro, and Merfolk, and Boggles while being subpar or simply too slow against Delver, Burn, Twin, Infect. The biggest issue with wraths are the cost: 4 mana. This means that you have to hit all first 4 turns land drops in order to cast your stabilizer. This is way too risky to me and leaves the deck even more vulnerale to manascrew. On top of this too many decks including Robots can easily kill you before you get a turn 4.

Looking at a lot of recent lists posted, most people here scoop to first turn Goblin Guide or Delver of Secrets unless they hit path. Post-board their answer is "more wraths". This is unacceptable. I keep saying that loading your deck with expensive value spells does nothing if you die before you can cast them. Disfigure trades at mana parity with almost every non-Tarmogoyf threat commonly played before turn 4. For a single mana it kills every dude in Delver, almost every dude in Robots, every non-Deceiver Exarch dude against Twin, everything in Infect, and still trades against Confidants, Scoozes, or Huntmasters from Jund. I've tested several different black removal spells (Dismember, Slaughter Pact, Murderous Cut, GftT) and they all have pros and cons. But nothing beats 1-mana early game removal.

I've also found that outside of Mefolk, Abzan Aggro, and Zoo, everything that you would want a sweeper against you would actually rather have something like Zealous Persecution or Night of Souls Betrayal. I still see merit in a copy or two of Supereme Verdict in the SB but I see no place for them MD.

Lingering Souls, along with Esper Charm of course, are the primary reasons to splash black over Red and what seperates Esper from the rest of control decks. Souls is a general purpose role player that ranges from recurring fog, to stabilizer, to removal spell, to pressure source and win-con. I'm seeing people discuss Souls solely in regard to it as a turn-3 play. This is one of many applications for it. One of Souls major strengths is that it even though it is a sorcery, it still costs a reasonable 3 mana. So at 5 lands you have option to cast souls and hold up mana. Next turn you can pay 2 to cast souls again and still hold up mana. Or if the situation calls for it just pay 5 and put 4 flying bodies on the table. Stuck on 3 lands? Cast souls and buy some time. Souls greatest asset is its versatility without sacrificing value and efficiency.

Souls is one of the few cards Esper has available that allow us to take initiative and be the beat-down when necessary. Late-game a single top-decked souls puts 4 flying power on the table without being susceptible to (most) removal, discard, counters. It does this for the same mana as a single Colonnade activation while requiring no further imput. Against decks that have inevitability over us, souls turns into serious pressure so you can close the game quickly. Multiple souls take over a game can outrace most non-Wurmcoil threats. On top of this any counter to Souls that your opponent could SB into is a weak card against our deck overall. Nobody wants to be forced into SBing Staticaster or Illness in the Ranks or sweepers against control.
I could write a full page on Souls alone but I would rather get more reasoned opinions on why Souls is such a poor choice.

There are other cards like MD Negate and specific numbers on Leaks, Snares etc that deserve explanations. I'm not going to defend every choice at this second because these are ideas on a slightly different direction that hasn't been explored enough, especially with some recent printings added to the mix. The SB is a mashup but after seeing Curse of Death's Hold in amaleks SB and the reasoning behind it I agree it is a powerhouse and IMO much more valuable than a wrath. Geists are my answer to opposing blue decks (Delver, Twin, Sultai) or decks that have inevitability over us like Tron, Scapeshift, Burn, Amulet. Allocating those slots to other matchups is totally fine, this is just a test. Jace has been a solid comprimise of CA and a way to alleviate pressure. As someone else noted, very nice against Twin.

This really doesn't seem radically different to "draw-go". I wouldn't call it "EsperGoodstuf.dec". This is a blue-control deck, taking advantage of some of the best cards suited to it's strategy. Any suggestions for the mana-base, SB, whatever are welcome. If there is anything that requires further explanation, I would be happy to give one.