My brutally honest opinion about the Esper deck is that it's an extremely solid Tier 2 contender. It will never be tier 1 because of the inherent weaknesses of the archetype--namely, it's a reactive control deck in a proactive format. The true advantage to esper is that it's extremely powerful in the majority of your perennial tier 1 matches:
The "BIG" decks: Affinity and BGx
I used to include twin here as part of the holy trinity, but the long and short of it is that these three matchups were the reason to play esper--70-30 or better against BGx, similar for affinity, and probably no worse than 50-50 against even the best twin pilots.
The flexibility: Esper draw-go has the ability to answer ANYTHING your opponent can throw at you. If, like many of the other players in the thread, you have taken the time to jam a bunch of games with the original, unaltered list (I recommend this in the primer), it shouldn't take you very long to realize that the original deck, from July of 2014, does in fact have game against EVERYTHING in the modern format today INCLUDING eldrazi. That's a deck ported straight from the pod era, pre-treasure cruise, pre-dig through time, pre-amulet bloom and twin ban. If you look at the original list, most of us still play about 28-30 of the same 34 mainboard spell slots. The only truly horrendous matchups are RG tron and infect, and those are both winnable.
The metagaming power: We play White, Black, and Blue. This means we not only have access to both primary disruption tools in modern (discard and countermagic), we also have access to white for the best hate cards in the format. One thing the pilots who've done well at modern PT's have credited UWR with is the fact that it gets SO much better after sideboarding against everybody. This is even more true of esper. I would go so far as to say that the ONLY matchup we are not actually favored in post board (by a significant margin) is RG tron, because that matchup is so miserable on a fundamental level. How many decks could boast a 60-40 or better matchup post board against Burn, BGx, Twin, Scapeshift, Ad Nauseum, Storm, AND affinity? The only matchups we're not favored in post board are against some tron builds, and decks we choose to under-prepare for at the expense of making other matchups better. More than 50% of your games are played sideboarded--If you assume the worst possible matchup game one against a tier 1/2 deck is like a 30-70, and every matchup is 60-40 postboard, then our worst match win percentage is about 50.4% starting out. How many people have actually played this deck in a premiere play event, like a GP or an Open? I'd hazard a guess that it's fairly low--probably 10 or 12 times at best. Piotrowiak went 12-3 at a GP. Just recently we had someone NEARLY make day 2 in this eldrazi-overrun format. I 6-0'd a GP day 1 but could not play day 2, so I conceded my next three matches to my opponents, despite winning all three. If the deck had even as much prevalence as UWR control, or hell, even BOGGLES, you would hear about it far more frequently.
Now, while we have these upsides, we also have some big downsides:
We are extremely weak to "limited magic" style decks. Creatures and pump spells and combat tricks are a nightmare for us to deal with. Infect is a fundamentally terrible matchup, something that won't change until we get another solid removal spell in our colors at cmc 1. Their deck is just designed to give us fits. This extends to decks like boggles--they're winnable, but not favorable.
We are an extremely "math based" deck--I mean this in the sense that we play a mix of "stuff", similar to storm, and because WOTC has seen fit to reduce the consistency and card selection power of blue to a mere shadow of what it should be, and because we opt not to run the terrible options for card selection that are available because they clash fundamentally with our strategy, we will lose games because we just didn't draw the right half of our deck. It's something you live with. Affinity players mulligan into oblivion all the time. Sometimes we just draw 6 lands off the top from what was a previously commanding position--we can't help that unless they give us something like sensei's divining top back.
We don't get "free wins". Player fatigue is a very real thing with this deck, because we will go nearly to time pretty much every round. To be clear, I go to time nearly every time I play this deck. Oftentimes, it's because my line of play is a 1-0-1 victory, or the result of cautious play into a 2-0 victory at time--it's much easier to sequence in a manner that forces your opponents to play into your hands when they're forced into playing for the win in a set number of turns. I actually draw rounds extremely rarely--going to time is a conscious decision of time management on my part in the majority of cases.
Our gameplan is very "linear" in some senses--we play a strategy that is predicated on the idea that our opponents can't really present more than one threat a turn after a certain point in the game. This makes dealing with the collected company decks in modern somewhat difficult because of their ability to threaten an instant-speed combo win/clock while also playing a grindy midrange game. Unlike most decks, we don't have a way to "switch gears"--we can't change our gameplan from match to match or game to game, we're locked into a slow, plodding card advantage based war. This makes us weaker in general against the random lower-tier decks.
In general, I would say the major strength of our deck is that, given perfect play, we are advantaged in every current tier 1 matchup except infect, which is probably closer to a 40-60 overall with 50-50 sideboarded games, and probably about 50-50 with the Tier 0 deck (eldrazi, in case you're living under a rock). It's certainly not a bad choice, when you consider that 25% of the metagame is probably a coinflip (eldrazi) and the next 15% is heavily favored overall, with tight play (affinity and burn). Infect is rough, but merfolk and abzan company are both firmly in the positive matchups category as well.
I'd say the major weakness of our deck is just the learning curve--you HAVE to be extremely proficient with the deck to do even halfway decently with it.
If you play legacy at all, this is the lands deck of the format--it's quirky, it does different things from the rest of the format, it's extremely powerful with only a very few lopsided matchups, but it's damned unforgiving of misplays and none of the wins are free, and a lot of the grindy games will come down to whether you see enough of the right resource in the cards you're able to dig through.
Based on the last weekend and surrounding metagame stats, this is where I'd be at:
Notes: cut down on basic island in mana base for mystic gate--casting wraths on-curve is a priority in this format. Wrath count increased to 5/75--shaved spell snare to accommodate because of reduced 2-drop presence in metagame at-large. 4 mainboard flex slots altered to 3 runed halo and an Elspeth--metagame is solid for mainboard planeswalker, she stabilizes hard/acts as a back-up wrath. Runed halo is excellent as it provides mainboard tech against infect, burn, and is useful against the pile-of-playsets eldrazi deck. Also serves as a backdoor out to avoid infinite damage combo from melira in game one, after we deal with the lone qasali pride mage.
Cons: Infect unwinnable outside of sticking runed halo + protecting it from their nature's claims. tightened focus in the sideboard reduces effectiveness in sideboarded matches against UWR control/midrange, less outs to liliana of the veil in BGx matchups, and fewer generic answers for random brews. Tron matchup absolutely miserable still, because our only hope is ghost quarter + extraction. Deck absolutely destroyed by blood moon, with more double cost spells in the 75, fewer islands and fewer outs to blood moon itself. Reduced turn 1 interaction makes matchups with linear all-in decks like death's shadow or infect even more miserable in game one.
Thanks for taking the time to provide all this input. I learned early on time with the deck was most important. Would definitely not think of going to the GP without playing the deck a fair amount prior to now. Mostly played the deck during the previous Modern PPTQ season but had moved away from it for playing for fun at FNMs (just need to test against these eldrazi decks).
If I decide to play the deck - will make sure to write up a report rather than lurking ^^
Game One:
I mulled to five, kept a marginal hand that couldn’t do anything against the horde. (0-1)
Game Two
Kept a decent hand, got to wrath his board twice in the game before I played a Batterskull, followed by Baneslayer Angel, and equipping Slayer with said Batterskull. Lol. (1-1)
Game Three:
We played a longer game involving Paths and Condemns into Wraths before Esper Charm began to slowly clear away his hand. After he began aggressively activating Mutavaults into snap-blocks and Condemn, he was on 3 lands and no cards in hand. Time was about to be called in 10 mins, so I picked up the pace and got there with Colonnade beats. (2-1)
1-0 overall
Thinking about this match makes me laugh even now.
Game One:
Game one took 40 mins, which is pretty good considering I had no cards left in deck by the end of it. After a long stint of draw-go action, we started to get into some fights. He’d cast Restoration Angel, and I’d Path it. The issue was that he had threeGhost Quarters on the field, so I couldn’t try to win by Colonnades – and all of my wincons were in the bottom 4 cards of my deck. I was casting Revs for 4-5, which he let resolve because he believed I would deck myself – which I did. However, I kept casting White Sun’s Zenith for 3-4 while holding up counter backup to have a card left in deck. I did this about three times. We even had to have a judge randomize my 2 card deck of Colonnade and Zenith since neither he nor I could shuffle it in good conscience. He got pummeled to death by cats. I had always heard about using Zenith to stop yourself from decking, but I never thought it would actually happen. Best. Game. Ever. (1-0)
Game Two:
Draw-go for a little while, until I Surgical Extraction’d his Resto Angels (so I could save my few paths for his Colonnades). He was stuck on lands for a while, so I thoughtseized him seeing Rest in Peace, Kitchen Finks, Mana Leak, and Cryptic Command. I took Leak, and main-phased an arbitrarily large Zenith. He scooped. (2-0)
2-0 overall
Game One:
We hit the grind for a while, with counters and removal flying, but at the end of the day I lost to the combo with no answers left. (0-1)
Game Two:
It was grindy again. I remember I cut most of my counters in sideboarding (except Logic Knot, so I could counter Chord of Calling) so that I could race in a topdeck war. It eventually came to my Ghostly Prison and Baneslayer Angel against his Blood Baron of Vizkopa and useless board of creatures. An eventual White Sun’s Zenith ensured I had enough damage for lethal. (1-1)
Game Three:
After a Ghostly Prison on turn 3, the game came to a screeching halt. He was getting in for chip damage while I was drawing blanks (lands). I played a Baneslayer that got path’d, had to activate my Colonnades into Ghost Quarters and Paths to block. In the end, he had enough removal to get through – even with both Ghostly Prisons on board at the end of the game. My buddy, who was watching from my opponent’s side, said he got really lucky by topdecking 2 Paths to stop me from blocking with Colonnades. (1-2)
2-1 Overall
I’ve already talked at length about this match, but I’ll put a small summary here anyways.
Game Two:
Again, we grind for a while until all he has left are a few Spirit tokens, a Viscera Seer, and a Voice of Resurgence against my Baneslayer Angel. After swinging in with the Slayer and going to 18, he sacs his Voice for an Elemental token, plays three (!) more Lingering Souls while commenting how badly he’s overextending into a wrath, and swings for exact lethal against my open one mana (I played a Path and flashbacked Think Twice on my turn to avoid Voice triggers). My top card was a Verdict. (0-2)
2-2 Overall
Game One:
I kept a sketchy hand of Logic Knot, Esper Charm, Gideon, and lands on the draw. It went from bad to worse when he played Windswept Heath, fetched into a Forest, and a Noble Hierarch. I knew instantly in my mind that he was on Infect, and I was in bad shape. He played an Infect dude (Viridian Emissary), pumped it up, and I died. (0-1)
Game Two:
I mulled to 5 and kept a hand with two lands (Watery Grave and Ghost Quarter) because it had T1 Thoughtseize into Spell Snare. I cast Thoughtseize, and he said his hand was "Thoughtseize-proof" as he smiled and showed me this: 2x Inkmoth Nexus, Forest, Breeding Pool, Vines of Vastwood, Glistener Elf, and Blighted Agent. I took the Glistener and passed. He plays Inkmoth and says go. I untap, draw Watery Grave #2 and play it tapped before passing. He plays Blighted Agent, which I Snare, and I topdeck… SURGICAL EXTRACTION. Hell yeah. I play GQ and destroy his Inkmoth, then Extraction it mainphase (to avoid counters) getting the other one out of his hand. He’s left with no threats, and I topdeck lands into Baneslayer on turn 5. He can’t come back from it. Thoughtseize-proof indeed. (1-1)
Game Three:
I mulled again, getting stuck on lands, but this time I didn’t have everything I needed. After some back and forth, I'm at 9 infect while he has a Blighted Agent and 2 Noble Hierarchs on the field. It was really frustrating, because I had a Thoughtseize and Go for the Throat (but not enough black mana to cast both – I was on Island, Mystic Gate, Watery Grave), so I had to try the Go for the Throat without any protection for it. He had the Vines. Even more frustrating, I also had a Supreme Verdict in hand but I couldn’t get another land. Even my opponent said it was extremely lucky that he faded a land for multiple turns, since he'd seen my hand via Gitaxian Probe. (1-2)
Overall 2-3
Game One:
My opponent had a weird mix up with seating arrangements and got a game loss for being at the wrong table. (1-0)
Game Two
I kept a 2 land hand with a Godless Shrine and a fetch on the draw, but he plays a turn 2 Suppression Field. Long story short, he’s making 6 mana with a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx before I hit a 2nd usable land while he also has a Sigil of the Empty Throne on the field. I couldn’t recover. (1-1)
Game Three:
I’m on the play with Remand, Thoughtseize, Spell Snare (I kept them in due to Luminarch Ascension and Runed Halo; I knew he had them even though I didn’t see them G1 since I’ve seen QTwelve’s video against W Enchantments – thank you Q!) and lands. I Thoughtseize away a Sigil and draw a Surgical Extraction to take care of it. I then Snare his Luminarch Ascension, and Snap-Surgical that too. A bunch of remands later, I draw another Surg and counter+Surg his Runed Halos. He was so pissed. I played a Baneslayer Angel, and Cryptic -- bounce Baneslayer and draw -- in response to 2 different Supreme Verdicts. Swinging in with it through 3 Ghostly Prisons got me the win. (2-1)
Overall 3-3
My opponent didn’t show up after 10 mins, so the judges told me I got it 2-0. Having the break was definitely nice.
Overall 4-3
Game One:
I had dodged the boogeyman up until this point, and was a little tense to see T1 Eldrazi temple. Little did I know that he’d kept a hand with T1 Matter Reshaper and a pile of Simian Spirit Guides/Dismembers thinking it would be good enough. I was able to deal with the Reshaper, three Mutavaults, and a Blinkmoth Nexus, then counter some really late game threats and play Batterskull three times, each time drawing out a Dismember and 4 life from my opponent. I saw that he had both Wastes out, so I used GQ proactively to keep him off of Eye of Ugin mana. I won G1 easily off of an arbitrarily large White Sun’s Zenith and Batterskull. Did you know that a 4/4 germ with lifelink favorably blocks Thought-Knot Seer, Matter Reshaper, Mutavualts, and the usual Eldrazi Mimic? =D (1-0)
Game Two:
He plays a T2 Thought-Knot Seer revealing lands, Ghostly Prison, 2x Baneslayer Angels, and a Cryptic (I kept the hand because I thought that Ghostly might slow him down enough for me to draw into it. He takes the Prison so I couldn’t untap and slam it during my turn 3, but he durdles a tiny bit with Relic of Progenitus and such and my Baneslayer double-team hits the board. I keep attacking with one Slayer while keeping the other up to block. He played an Endless One for five, triggering a mimic to attack with it into my open Baneslayer – he didn’t realize that Baneslayer has first strike. He couldn’t find an answer to either Slayer, so it was a very easy 2-0, which seemed extremely unusual to me. (2-0)
Overall 5-3
Game One:
It’s the usual grind into White Sun’s Zenith. I answered his Tarmogoyf on 2 with a Snare, Logic Knotted his Lingering Souls, and took beats from the other two Spirits while he had a pile of removal in hand (so he claimed after the match). I remembered the forum’s advice against mind rotting a BGx opponent in game one, so I used Charms to draw 2 instead. I got there off of the back of 3 Cat tokens and some disruption. (1-0)
Game Two:
We both got stuck on lands, but I drew out of it first. I was able to trick him into swinging with his 4th land (a Stirring Wildwood) by clicking my mechanical pencil like I was about to take the damage from it – my Condemn sent it away. From there, a Gideon Jura into a Baneslayer took it home, mopping up every creature he played and putting my life total far out of reach. (2-0)
Overall 6-3
Ironically, I never played against Affinity when I had decided to play 3x Stony Silence in my board specifically for that matchup. I didn’t side them in the whole day – not even against the Aether Vial deck (Slivers). I also elected not to play Elspeth, Sun’s Champion or Celestial Purge in the board, and I must admit that I don’t really miss them. Ghostly Prison seemed OK; it definitely shores up enough matchups (Kiki Chord, Eldrazi, Aggro) that I think I’ll keep using it. I was impressed very much with Batterskull, and not so impressed with Gideon Jura even though it was great against BGx. It felt like I would always cast Gideon into a lethal board to buy a turn, or he’d take 3-4 damage, and I couldn’t minus him if I wanted to keep him alive. He also has a non-bo with Ghosly, as the opponent doesn't have to pay 2 mana to attack Gideon (since Prison says "attacks you", not "you or a planeswalker you control") He was also terrible to have in the control mirror. I might start playing the 4th Wrath or a 2nd Batterskull over him.
This is why we play baneslayer. Elspeth is definitely not critical if you don't expect to face down Abzan midrange/Jund. It's not bad against company decks, but it's not the best card for that matchup either, so I definitely can see running without big Elspeth in this jacked up metagame.
Speaking of which, if you've never won a game before by decking your opponent with WSZ, you haven't played against abzan coco enough. I actually have never lost to the infinite life combo--they've either had to tutor up the damage combo, or they've been decked out. Something most people forget about that deck is that it costs a lot of resources to set up the lifegain combo, and if you can avoid death to the actual creature beats, zenith tokens gum up the ground pretty hard.
As far as kiki chord/naya chord goes/naya coco, that matchup actually can hinge on whether you have shadow of doubt mainboard or rest in peace in the board. If you have RIP available, collected company is pretty meh while chord is dangerous. In short, this matchup depends a lot on how each deck is teched out once sideboarding happens.
I used to play this deck (about 6 months ago) and am deciding whether I want to take this deck or Infect to GP Detroit. I was looking at the most recent list you posted and was surprised not to find Night of Soul's Betrayal. Was there a reason to not playing this in that list? I remember you being big on the card back when I was playing and it seems it would be good against Affinity/Infect/Eldrazi (mimics, obligaters, drowners become 5/5s for 6).
And would you make any modifications to that list going to a larger event like GP Detroit based on some of the Eldrazi decks that came out in Louisville?
What are your opinions on vapor snag in the deck as a cantrip (I would want to slot it instead of a Dismember)?
While I know it needs a creature - seems like its good gm1 against a potential elshnorn (pumping your creature in response to it coming down and snagging the eslhnorn away). Also provides a way out of Meleria for a turn. While a Dismember would kill something like a Meleria permanently - it lets you get around any creature for a turn.
It can double as psuedo removal counter too (bouncing your creature to your hand). Not exactly ideal (and Apostles Blessing may just be better) although is an answer to devoid spells.
Is the cantrip worth it in this case or is Dismember just strictly better for these types of purposes? I wasnt looking for it to take up a cantrip spot as I am liking Slip/Visions in those spots. I just am not a fan of dismember mainboard but want an out to Meleria game 1.
While I understand the advantage of having Pyroclasm being only 1R I think that between being grabbable by stirrings, instant speed, and that it can kill Etched Champion against affinity is good. Although I am not sure if they side those out against us.
I am currently on 2 Pyroclasm and 1 Firespout. My current plan is to try out one of each for a while and see how it goes.
Has anyone run into the R/G Scapeshift deck? If so, how do you feel about the matchup?
I played a few games against it and felt that that have so many live cards its hard to keep them off their strategy. The only time I felt I stood a chance was when I had a Leyline of Sanctity in play and was able to protect it.
What are your thoughts on Thalia, Heretic Healer in the sideboard for mid range match ups (bant eldrazi/abzan)?
Thanks for taking the time to provide all this input. I learned early on time with the deck was most important. Would definitely not think of going to the GP without playing the deck a fair amount prior to now. Mostly played the deck during the previous Modern PPTQ season but had moved away from it for playing for fun at FNMs (just need to test against these eldrazi decks).
If I decide to play the deck - will make sure to write up a report rather than lurking ^^
I used to play this deck (about 6 months ago) and am deciding whether I want to take this deck or Infect to GP Detroit. I was looking at the most recent list you posted and was surprised not to find Night of Soul's Betrayal. Was there a reason to not playing this in that list? I remember you being big on the card back when I was playing and it seems it would be good against Affinity/Infect/Eldrazi (mimics, obligaters, drowners become 5/5s for 6).
And would you make any modifications to that list going to a larger event like GP Detroit based on some of the Eldrazi decks that came out in Louisville?
While I know it needs a creature - seems like its good gm1 against a potential elshnorn (pumping your creature in response to it coming down and snagging the eslhnorn away). Also provides a way out of Meleria for a turn. While a Dismember would kill something like a Meleria permanently - it lets you get around any creature for a turn.
It can double as psuedo removal counter too (bouncing your creature to your hand). Not exactly ideal (and Apostles Blessing may just be better) although is an answer to devoid spells.
Is the cantrip worth it in this case or is Dismember just strictly better for these types of purposes? I wasnt looking for it to take up a cantrip spot as I am liking Slip/Visions in those spots. I just am not a fan of dismember mainboard but want an out to Meleria game 1.
While I understand the advantage of having Pyroclasm being only 1R I think that between being grabbable by stirrings, instant speed, and that it can kill Etched Champion against affinity is good. Although I am not sure if they side those out against us.
I am currently on 2 Pyroclasm and 1 Firespout. My current plan is to try out one of each for a while and see how it goes.
I played a few games against it and felt that that have so many live cards its hard to keep them off their strategy. The only time I felt I stood a chance was when I had a Leyline of Sanctity in play and was able to protect it.