If game 1 goes super long and we win, you can just grind out game 2 til the clock runs out. Whether or not its possible for you to win is irrelevant if you win the first game.
Nexus is actually pretty decent in control mirrors. If they cast spells on your end step, whether or not you counter them, you can just cast nexus and take an extra turn with them tapped out/low.
If they play around it, they basically never have a window to casts spells.
I think 26 lands is fine. The shaun mclaren pt bng list is 26 with 4 tec edges, so playing field of ruin is theoretically just better for color requirements. (and he played anger over verdict, which is worse for colors)
absorb is fine.
IMO, the ghost quarter is bad if you don't play crucible, and crucible isn't that good right now.
4 colorless sources is a little awkward, but its not too bad.
Its been consistently reasonable for me.
The cards I'd be playing in that slot (timely, gideon, clique, etc) are all not better. It mostly depends on what you expect to play against, or want another mainboard card for.
ballista? abrade? Spatial contortion? darkblast? potentially conflagrate?
Obviously decks like burn or phoenix that we might want to race have easy answers to 2/2s.
IMO I could deal with seeing REB/BEB without the vindicate half.
I don't expect this to happen, as red getting counterspells seems unlikely under current color pie rules. (I know ricochet trap and gutteral response are modern legal, but to my knowledge, they've moved away from cards like that in the past 5+ years)
Yea, I was literally just talking about this at legacy today too.
I played against BR reanimator, which by an metric, is a deck not designed to produce interesting games.
And I won't say that it exactly does, but legacy as a whole produces a lot more decision points, and a lot more opportunities for a game to subtly shift.
Do you counter their fast mana? Do you surgical their chancellor in response to an exhume knowing they left up mana for a potential entomb when you have a plow in hand? Do you want to throw a spell away to a chancellor trigger turn 1? Do you want to cast a brainstorm in response to their therapy? How much are you willing tuck? What if it was an unmask instead? How many turns do you want to time walk yourself leaving up a deathrite shaman? Would you rather cast a thalia or a revoker on turn 2 if they've already dropped double petal? Is a turn 1 ooze better than mulling to leyline? Is it worth crop rotating a karakas into a bog with no loam in hand?
This just scratches the surface, but this is the bread and butter of games vs a deck thats the epitome of a roulette machine.
Games in modern do not consistently feel like this. Frequently the reanimator deck just has it doesn't and you're left with a coloring book.
Well I've been pretty silent for a while, but I'll chime in.
I voted for 4.
I won't say its the worst its ever been. I've played through Probe + grave troll and eye of ugin + TKS.
This is better.
Somewhat.
As someone who forces interactive decks that produce (in my opinion) consistently interesting games, the fact that the format heavily rewards those that do the exact opposite is certainly disheartening.
I do enjoy winning, everyone does, but I'm not upset at the format because my deck isn't good (not exactly, any how).
I really just want to sit down to play magic every week, and know there 75% of my matches are going to be interesting games, full of decisions, potential back and forth, and just generally stimulating games.
I know this is possible, because its true for legacy, but it is not remotely true for modern.
Theres a whole laundry list of cards I'd love to ban for selfish reasons, because I don't believe that they promote interesting decks (tron lands, stinkweed/thug, cavern of souls, ensnaring bridge, valakut, spirit guide, burning inquiry, and plenty more I'm sure.)
Despite looting/stirrings being popular targets, given wizard's general goal to ban the enablers, there is atleast a chance that those cards produce interesting games. If decks like phoenix or amulet titan are fringe decks that pop up from time to time, I could deal with it. (Not to mention things like lantern, hardened scales, or mardu, that actually do produce interesting games much more frequently). At the very least, they do provide a decision to two to make, which is more than can be said of cards like burning inquiry.
My local meta is a pretty good mix of people playing what they enjoy, and people playing what we all know is good, so theres certainly variety. If people around me were more inclined to just play the top decks, I'd probably have voted closer to 5.
Perhaps this isn't a popular opinion, especially given the long list of complaints, but at the core, I just want to play interesting games. If wizards can make that happen by printing a lot of interesting fair cards in modern horizons, thats great. If they can't, then I'll probably start to reevaluate how much of my modern cards I want to keep.
Esper control has its own thread here, though its not for specifically budget decks.
Some suggestions:
You want to max out on hard card advantage. This means cards like jace, teferi, esper charm, search for azcanta, hieroglyphic illumination, think twice, etc.
Since the planeswalkers are out of your budget (and search too probably) you definitely want 4 charm, 4 think twice.
You only have 23 lands, which is pretty low. I would adding atleast 1, probably 2, more.
You also want field of ruin over ghost quarter. Tolaria west, oboro, and adarkar wastes are bad. Glacial fortress, drowned catacombs, fetid pools, and irrigated farmlands are all better choices. (I wouldn't play a cycling land unless you play 25-26 lands).
Mission briefing is worse than snapcaster, but its a lot cheaper, so you might consider playing one or two.
Other finishers like white suns zenith or secure the wastes, sphinx's revelation, gideon planeswalkers (jura, trials, or ally of zendikar are all reasonable).
Augur of bolas isn't worth playing here.
Traditionally, esper control is base UW, so you'd want supreme verdict over damnation. The difference isn't huge, but uncounterable is decent.
For other removal, oust, dismember, cast down, blessed alliance are all options.
You don't want to play dispel main. Absorb is pretty decent though.
I wouldn't add any of the creatures you listed to the mainboard. Sphinx of the final word or chromium are ok (but not necessary) in the sideboard.
Getting more fetchlands, path to exiles, cryptic commands, then later search for azcanta, planeswalkers, and snapcasters will do a lot to improve this deck.
Esper control isn't very widely played so it really needs all the help it can get. (though I think its a reasonable choice at the moment)
Hieroglyphic illumination is worth mentioning too.
Its a cantrip, its card advantage, its reasonable lategame with snapcaster mage. It doesn't gain life, but it fills a similar slot to rev.
Faerie macabre doesn't seem better than surgical in the general sense. If you're playing cards like traverse or pulse of murasa, where it specifically being a creature is relevant, thats a different story, but I wouldn't play macabre in this type of deck.
If you wanted an effect like that, tormod's crypt is probably better.
Hell, even remorseful cleric is an option.
Compared to bolt or push, sure but compared to cast down or other hard removal, not necessarily.
Condemn is bad vs shadow decks because of discard, and bad vs amulet because of pacts. Its vaguely functional, but its not great.
If you trim sweepers for spot removal, you basically have to play more creatures to block or else protecting planeswalkers is really difficult if youre spending mana on cantrips that dont effect the board.
Terminus is extremely medium vs humans.
Before terminus solidified itself as the sweeper option of choice, humans had problems because they didn't know what to name with meddling mage. Now, they just slam it on terminus all day, not to mention freebooter ruining terminus's day.
Against spirits, mausoleum wanderer can also be a huge pain for terminus, especially if they have lords in play (the situation in which you want to cast terminus).
I don't think either condemn or oust are that good in general. They're functional, and they're the best we have without splashing red/black, but they're not especially good, and I don't think they're good enough to drop sweepers entirely for.
Condemn is back against a lot more than bob/teeg. Ravager, prime time, shadow, hell, even against thing in the ice it can be awkward. Its awkward vs spirits, since it doesn't play around hexproof-granters well. Its not good vs baral, kiki jiki, and plenty more besides.
It is kinda nice with spiral, but I don't think giving up sweepers is good enough without access to more good removal.
Went 2-2.
Matchups were kinda rough, played against blue tron twice, which I'm pretty sure is a godawful matchup.
Played against jeskai and grixis as well.
Was unfortunately not a very diverse spread of decks, but I think I probably want a 25th land, and I definitely felt like I didn't have enough ways to start a fight at instant speed. Its possible whir would have been better, but casting wargate for azcanta or field of ruin, or another land came up a few times, so I'm not sold either way on that one yet.
I think without the miracles, I'm inclined to drop the opts. Hieros might be better. I felt like I wanted more digging for the combo pieces (couldn't find my sword of the meeks and the store only had 1, or I would have played atleast a second), but still wanted the instant speed over serum visions due to growth spiral, but I'm thinking hieros are probably still better for the raw card advantage.
A vendilion clique mainboard might also be good, but I'm not sure how much of this is just overreacting to playing against a bunch of control decks.
I was hoping to figure out if 1 verdict main + 4 wishes + thopter sword was enough anti-aggro, but that will have to wait until next time.
I think terminus is still good. Theres just so much thats hostile to traditional sweepers right now compared to terminus.
Sweepers in general aren't super good though. In a lot of matchups I'd prefer to just overload on spot removal, but I'm not sure if we actually really can without splashing red/black.
I don't know if you feel like you fill up the graveyard fast enough, but you might consider pteramander over delver in your tempo builds. Worse than an early, lucky, delver, but mid-late game you can potentially just slam it as a 5/5 and stabilize where a delver can't. Maybe thats a different deck though.
If they play around it, they basically never have a window to casts spells.
IMO, the ghost quarter is bad if you don't play crucible, and crucible isn't that good right now.
4 colorless sources is a little awkward, but its not too bad.
Its been consistently reasonable for me.
The cards I'd be playing in that slot (timely, gideon, clique, etc) are all not better. It mostly depends on what you expect to play against, or want another mainboard card for.
Obviously decks like burn or phoenix that we might want to race have easy answers to 2/2s.
I don't expect this to happen, as red getting counterspells seems unlikely under current color pie rules. (I know ricochet trap and gutteral response are modern legal, but to my knowledge, they've moved away from cards like that in the past 5+ years)
I played against BR reanimator, which by an metric, is a deck not designed to produce interesting games.
And I won't say that it exactly does, but legacy as a whole produces a lot more decision points, and a lot more opportunities for a game to subtly shift.
Do you counter their fast mana? Do you surgical their chancellor in response to an exhume knowing they left up mana for a potential entomb when you have a plow in hand? Do you want to throw a spell away to a chancellor trigger turn 1? Do you want to cast a brainstorm in response to their therapy? How much are you willing tuck? What if it was an unmask instead? How many turns do you want to time walk yourself leaving up a deathrite shaman? Would you rather cast a thalia or a revoker on turn 2 if they've already dropped double petal? Is a turn 1 ooze better than mulling to leyline? Is it worth crop rotating a karakas into a bog with no loam in hand?
This just scratches the surface, but this is the bread and butter of games vs a deck thats the epitome of a roulette machine.
Games in modern do not consistently feel like this. Frequently the reanimator deck just has it doesn't and you're left with a coloring book.
I voted for 4.
I won't say its the worst its ever been. I've played through Probe + grave troll and eye of ugin + TKS.
This is better.
Somewhat.
As someone who forces interactive decks that produce (in my opinion) consistently interesting games, the fact that the format heavily rewards those that do the exact opposite is certainly disheartening.
I do enjoy winning, everyone does, but I'm not upset at the format because my deck isn't good (not exactly, any how).
I really just want to sit down to play magic every week, and know there 75% of my matches are going to be interesting games, full of decisions, potential back and forth, and just generally stimulating games.
I know this is possible, because its true for legacy, but it is not remotely true for modern.
Theres a whole laundry list of cards I'd love to ban for selfish reasons, because I don't believe that they promote interesting decks (tron lands, stinkweed/thug, cavern of souls, ensnaring bridge, valakut, spirit guide, burning inquiry, and plenty more I'm sure.)
Despite looting/stirrings being popular targets, given wizard's general goal to ban the enablers, there is atleast a chance that those cards produce interesting games. If decks like phoenix or amulet titan are fringe decks that pop up from time to time, I could deal with it. (Not to mention things like lantern, hardened scales, or mardu, that actually do produce interesting games much more frequently). At the very least, they do provide a decision to two to make, which is more than can be said of cards like burning inquiry.
My local meta is a pretty good mix of people playing what they enjoy, and people playing what we all know is good, so theres certainly variety. If people around me were more inclined to just play the top decks, I'd probably have voted closer to 5.
Perhaps this isn't a popular opinion, especially given the long list of complaints, but at the core, I just want to play interesting games. If wizards can make that happen by printing a lot of interesting fair cards in modern horizons, thats great. If they can't, then I'll probably start to reevaluate how much of my modern cards I want to keep.
Esper control has its own thread here, though its not for specifically budget decks.
Some suggestions:
You want to max out on hard card advantage. This means cards like jace, teferi, esper charm, search for azcanta, hieroglyphic illumination, think twice, etc.
Since the planeswalkers are out of your budget (and search too probably) you definitely want 4 charm, 4 think twice.
You only have 23 lands, which is pretty low. I would adding atleast 1, probably 2, more.
You also want field of ruin over ghost quarter. Tolaria west, oboro, and adarkar wastes are bad. Glacial fortress, drowned catacombs, fetid pools, and irrigated farmlands are all better choices. (I wouldn't play a cycling land unless you play 25-26 lands).
Mission briefing is worse than snapcaster, but its a lot cheaper, so you might consider playing one or two.
Other finishers like white suns zenith or secure the wastes, sphinx's revelation, gideon planeswalkers (jura, trials, or ally of zendikar are all reasonable).
Augur of bolas isn't worth playing here.
Traditionally, esper control is base UW, so you'd want supreme verdict over damnation. The difference isn't huge, but uncounterable is decent.
For other removal, oust, dismember, cast down, blessed alliance are all options.
You don't want to play dispel main. Absorb is pretty decent though.
I wouldn't add any of the creatures you listed to the mainboard. Sphinx of the final word or chromium are ok (but not necessary) in the sideboard.
Getting more fetchlands, path to exiles, cryptic commands, then later search for azcanta, planeswalkers, and snapcasters will do a lot to improve this deck.
Esper control isn't very widely played so it really needs all the help it can get. (though I think its a reasonable choice at the moment)
Its a cantrip, its card advantage, its reasonable lategame with snapcaster mage. It doesn't gain life, but it fills a similar slot to rev.
Faerie macabre doesn't seem better than surgical in the general sense. If you're playing cards like traverse or pulse of murasa, where it specifically being a creature is relevant, thats a different story, but I wouldn't play macabre in this type of deck.
If you wanted an effect like that, tormod's crypt is probably better.
Hell, even remorseful cleric is an option.
Condemn is bad vs shadow decks because of discard, and bad vs amulet because of pacts. Its vaguely functional, but its not great.
If you trim sweepers for spot removal, you basically have to play more creatures to block or else protecting planeswalkers is really difficult if youre spending mana on cantrips that dont effect the board.
Before terminus solidified itself as the sweeper option of choice, humans had problems because they didn't know what to name with meddling mage. Now, they just slam it on terminus all day, not to mention freebooter ruining terminus's day.
Against spirits, mausoleum wanderer can also be a huge pain for terminus, especially if they have lords in play (the situation in which you want to cast terminus).
Condemn is back against a lot more than bob/teeg. Ravager, prime time, shadow, hell, even against thing in the ice it can be awkward. Its awkward vs spirits, since it doesn't play around hexproof-granters well. Its not good vs baral, kiki jiki, and plenty more besides.
It is kinda nice with spiral, but I don't think giving up sweepers is good enough without access to more good removal.
4 growth spiral
1 search for azcanta
2 snapcaster mage
2 jace, the mind sculptor
1 teferi, hero of dominaria
2 wargate
1 thopter foundry
1 sword of the meek
4 glittering wish
1 supreme verdict
4 path to exile
2 spell snare
3 logic knot
4 cryptic command
4 misty rainforest
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
2 hallowed fountain
3 island
2 plains
1 forest
2 field of ruin
1 hinterland harbor
1 detention sphere
1 knight of autumn
1 spell queller
1 teferi, hero of dominaria
1 sphinx's revelation
1 supreme verdict
1 fracturing gust
1 wheel of sun and moon
1 absorb
1 thopter foundry
1 negate
1 disdainful stroke
1 dispel
1 vendilion clique
1 surgical extraction
Went 2-2.
Matchups were kinda rough, played against blue tron twice, which I'm pretty sure is a godawful matchup.
Played against jeskai and grixis as well.
Was unfortunately not a very diverse spread of decks, but I think I probably want a 25th land, and I definitely felt like I didn't have enough ways to start a fight at instant speed. Its possible whir would have been better, but casting wargate for azcanta or field of ruin, or another land came up a few times, so I'm not sold either way on that one yet.
I think without the miracles, I'm inclined to drop the opts. Hieros might be better. I felt like I wanted more digging for the combo pieces (couldn't find my sword of the meeks and the store only had 1, or I would have played atleast a second), but still wanted the instant speed over serum visions due to growth spiral, but I'm thinking hieros are probably still better for the raw card advantage.
A vendilion clique mainboard might also be good, but I'm not sure how much of this is just overreacting to playing against a bunch of control decks.
I was hoping to figure out if 1 verdict main + 4 wishes + thopter sword was enough anti-aggro, but that will have to wait until next time.
I think terminus is still good. Theres just so much thats hostile to traditional sweepers right now compared to terminus.
Sweepers in general aren't super good though. In a lot of matchups I'd prefer to just overload on spot removal, but I'm not sure if we actually really can without splashing red/black.
I don't know if you feel like you fill up the graveyard fast enough, but you might consider pteramander over delver in your tempo builds. Worse than an early, lucky, delver, but mid-late game you can potentially just slam it as a 5/5 and stabilize where a delver can't. Maybe thats a different deck though.