[Primer] Esper Draw-Go Control

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aklepatzky
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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

I think we're favoured g1 against mardu cause they have so many dead cards (but you gotta still be careful with the blood moons in the main cause they can steal the game outta nowhere which is annoying). Post sb things turn in their favour
Yeah he plays an almost identical list to this I found: https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=23606&d=363586&f=MO

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The Fluff
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Mardu Pyro is built to prey on decks like this one. 3 colors with plenty of fetch and manlands get screwed hard by moon. Mp is also a 3 color deck, but it's built in a way that moon does not really mess with it too much. Every young pyromancer must be killed on sight so you don't get swarmed. A single reveler resolving gives so much gas, so try to stop that thing from resolving.
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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

Went 1-1-2 at my LGS tonight. Not in the mood for an extensive write up cause I've been feeling quite sick the last few days so I'll cut to the chase.

R1: tied against Jund (1-1)

My friend came like 8 min late to the tournament and it ended up costing me the third game which I would've won.
The first times I resolved Lyra against Jund I was lucky enough for her to survive but these last few times she has been trophied/lilied so this has me thinking about keeping her in the sb.

R2: lost against scapeshift (0-2)

Game one I mulled to 6 and kept an acceptable hand but drew the useless cards in the mu and lost to zombie beats.
Game two I kept a good hand with two lands and didn't draw the third land in like 3 turns. He played a t4 titan or something like that which I countered with Logic Knot but the tempo loss from not curving out and making my land drops ultimately cost me the game. Tilting.

R3: won against Jund (2-0)
Game one he kept a slow hand with no t1/t2 plays (idk what was he thinking lol). Game two I had every answer I needed. Purge is a hell of a card in this mu like I said.

R4: tied against g tron (1-1)
I Surprisingly won game 1 at 1 life. I kept an ok hand and he had t3 tron on the play with karn. I was about to concede but I kept playing. I drew my 3 cryptics and like 3 snapcasters almost back to back which did all the work. Kaya's made him sacrifice a wurmcoil and got rid of the tokens with cryptics. Amazing game.
I don't remember game two tbh.
Game three he had t4 tron drawing naturally the 3rd piece even after I played Ashiok on curve and milled one of the copies. He then played Ulamog but I had DS and went to turns.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

Hey guys. Crushed another local (5-0) with the following list:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/visual/2518559

Played vs Simic Urza, Amulet Titan, Red Prison, Temur Snow and UR Storm. Deck stays strong. Sanctuaries are dope.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

Went 3-0-1 tonight at my LGS. Ended up 1st.

R1: Won (2-0) against GDS.
G1: I kept path path drown lands so no shadow was going to hurt me. He flooded tho and I beat him with snap and tar pit.
G2: He never found the third land and I slammed Snap+opt t3 and Jace t4 and plus on him while hitting. He resolves angler and I had path but wasn't giving him the blue he needed. I cast a 2nd snap and leave them to block while Jace's loyalty kept going up. He conceded after a few turns.

R2: tied (1-1) against Etron
G1: I had path, snap path and kaya's to answer his treats but misplayed a command trying to counter not realizing he casted an Eldrazi with cavern and that probably cost me game cause that TKS that resolved removed my wrath in hand and it all went downhill from that point.
G2: I ego t3 on the play naming the tron land he hadn't played (oh surprise... etron having natural tron t3 on the draw) so kept him off tron. Unfortunately that meant the Karn he had in hand was resolving. I slam t3feri then he resolved Karn grabbed coating and used it against my pw. I draw play land pass, he plays Smasher I play Kaya's putting a spirit and making him sacrifice it. started doing business, I dealt with karn with the spirit token. This game was tight but ultimately he conceded.

R3: won (2-0) against an interesting version of Scapeshift

G1: Back 2 back esper charms put me in a pretty good spot, I resolved teferi I beat him with Colonnade holding up Logic Knot while he was on topdeck mode.
G2: He mulls to 5, plays land and passes. I draw my first card and top deck TS which I play with the swamp I had in hand: his hand was SSG, SSG, land, Chandra. I obv take the pw and pretty much had the game controlled from that point on.

T4: won (2-1) against Crashing Footfalls Living End

G1: He kept a one lander and cycled like a maniac and never found the second land, pretty sad. I slammed t3 t3feri and started beating with snap and he conceded.
G2: I saw he was playing blood moon viewing his previous matches so I tried to respect it which made things a bit harder. Had path, snap path and purge but he had t2 fulminator and double Crashing Footfalls so ultimately lost to Rhino beats.
G3: I had a very good hand and slammed t3 t3feri again and just beat him with snap+tar pit.
I played around BM the whole time but he never cast it against me.

Deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/visual/2460182

I haven't been siding in Clique even against the MU i'm supossed to (Combo, big mana) cause I feel pretty covered up with all the other cards I have (2 TS, ego, veto, DS...) considering replacing it.
Last edited by aklepatzky 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

[mention]BloodyRabbit[/mention] RIP seems like a nonbo with Snap, drown and Tasigur

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

RIP only enters in otherwise unwinnable matchups like Dredge. Where when you resolve it you care 0 about anything else.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

Kayas guile also answers dredge and isnt as narrow. Kalitas too and also helps against burn aggro and jund

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

It doesn't answer Dredge. It's a temporary solution, and we win vs them with hard counter (aka: RIP or Leyline).

Good luck playing Guile on the draw, then.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

Then play leyline which is faster and doesnt go against your own deck as much
Theres a reason people side in rip against grixis control which shares drown tasigur and snap with your build

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

Sorry to say this, but you seem to misunderstand when and against whom we side it.

RIP in this deck isn't a catch all like in straight UW, where you board it in against things such as GDS or Grixis Control. It's a Dredge hoser. Nothing else. You bring it against strategies where you basically win on the spot with RIP + Force (Dredge, Crabvine, Living End). No other card in the game does this. Leyline aside, which is - though - much more hand dependent and needs to be played in four copies to optimize it (and four copies are a lot).

When we cast RIP against Dredge (and the likes of them) you care zero about Snaps being dead.

We obviously suffer from RIP when it is played against us by fair decks. Which is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT matter.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

Leyline is still faster and 3 copies is enough with the london mull (the same 3 copies of rip youre playing) so theres no point in playing rip in this scenario

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

There is a lot of sense in not playing Leylines. It's called consistency.

You can agree or disagree with the choice, it's fine. But one cannot deny what a card does. Leyline is far from being a strictly superior card.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

interesting discussion on leyline vs rip. I think both cards are fine, currently using them both... although the rips are in another deck, so I use leylines here. Both have advantages and disadvantages, Leylijne is free but must be mulled for.. rip only costs 2 mana, but also cleans out my own yard.
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Post by SanityLost » 4 years ago

To awake this thread from its slumber: What is your guys opinion on Esper's positioning right now? IMO and to my experience, we kinda struggle vs. Urza and Oko decks, for the latter I am planning to pack 1-2 Nixious Grasp in the side. However, Field of the Dead seems rough for us, any ideas to handle this?

Have you got more recent results? I am considering to take the deck to the next 80 man tournament next week.
Unban Mental Misstep.

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Post by GenesisEffect80 » 4 years ago

SanityLost wrote:
4 years ago
To awake this thread from its slumber: What is your guys opinion on Esper's positioning right now? IMO and to my experience, we kinda struggle vs. Urza and Oko decks, for the latter I am planning to pack 1-2 Nixious Grasp in the side. However, Field of the Dead seems rough for us, any ideas to handle this?
Unmoored Ego handles Field of the Dead. As for Oko, I have not been playing much lately and have not encountered him yet. My question would be, how good is Oko without Gilded Goose? Since we don't rely on artifacts or creatures, with a few exceptions, Oko is just making food tokens, which I get can be fed to Urza. But if we manage Goose, don't they lose their primary accelerant combo?

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Post by TheAnnihilator » 4 years ago

Agreed on Ego, seems like an absolute must in this meta. I think Esper and control in general is pretty medium right now. It's fine against the same-olds like Infect, Jund (which isn't nearly as favorable now as it used to be, which I always considered one of Esper's greatest strengths), random creature decks like Druid and Eldrazi, etc. But Amulet and Urza of pretty much all flavors feel like miserable matchups, not to mention that any green deck can run Veil of Summer and hose our deck. I see Urza decks in my local meta every time Modern fires, and it usually doesn't fire anymore, so I'm using the time from now until the Urza ban to test out new decks that I don't usually play. I should be receiving the last 2 cards I need for Amulet in the mail soon, for example.

If I were to play Esper, I'd most certainly be on a Noxious Grasp, 2 Egos, and 2 Mystical Dispute in the board, varying with your meta , of course. I'd also be likely to shave to 3 ECharms, since games tend to be fast and Veil makes ECharm embarrassing. I think Path is better than Push again, so I'd favor it in a split, and I think 2-mana countermagic is still good.

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Post by TheAnnihilator » 4 years ago

GenesisEffect80 wrote:
4 years ago
SanityLost wrote:
4 years ago
To awake this thread from its slumber: What is your guys opinion on Esper's positioning right now? IMO and to my experience, we kinda struggle vs. Urza and Oko decks, for the latter I am planning to pack 1-2 Nixious Grasp in the side. However, Field of the Dead seems rough for us, any ideas to handle this?
Unmoored Ego handles Field of the Dead. As for Oko, I have not been playing much lately and have not encountered him yet. My question would be, how good is Oko without Gilded Goose? Since we don't rely on artifacts or creatures, with a few exceptions, Oko is just making food tokens, which I get can be fed to Urza. But if we manage Goose, don't they lose their primary accelerant combo?
Oko is still a huge problem on his own, since he makes a 3/3 every other turn with no mana investment past his initial cast. They plus for a food, and then elk their own food token. Both abilities are also a plus, so pressuring with manlands both takes forever and opens us up to a resolved Urza. The fact that he feeds Urza is just insult to injury honestly.

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

I haven't posted in a week or so as I had been playing my other modern deck (BR goblins).
Today I ended up 1-2 winning against jund (2-0) and losing against UR breach (1-2) and twiddle storm (0-2).
Speaking of Ego, I think will main it on tuesday if I play esper cause there are a lot of combo decks in my local meta (amulet, breach, valakut).
Burn has been virtually non existent the last few days and not too many aggro decks either so I'm gonna move both Kaya's guile to the side to make room for ego. I want to add the 2nd copy of spell snare to the main too, I see what I can move.

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Post by GenesisEffect80 » 4 years ago

TheAnnihilator wrote:
4 years ago
Oko is still a huge problem on his own, since he makes a 3/3 every other turn with no mana investment past his initial cast. They plus for a food, and then elk their own food token. Both abilities are also a plus, so pressuring with manlands both takes forever and opens us up to a resolved Urza. The fact that he feeds Urza is just insult to injury honestly.
Psionic blast on the play!

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Post by aklepatzky » 4 years ago

On tuesday got another 4-0 ended up first at my lgs with my latest list. Beat jund (2-1) valakut (2-1) burn (2-0) and bogles (2-1)

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Post by A Cute Bunny » 4 years ago

The biggest problem with being on Esper right now is veil of summer. When people expect control or Jund to be around they side 3ish of these and it feels really bad. That's why I dropped off of Esper, everyone at my LGS started siding 3-4 Veils and it just became very unfun to play against real fast. Especially with them going Oko with Veil protection.

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Post by SanityLost » 4 years ago

A Cute Bunny wrote:
4 years ago
The biggest problem with being on Esper right now is veil of summer. When people expect control or Jund to be around they side 3ish of these and it feels really bad. That's why I dropped off of Esper, everyone at my LGS started siding 3-4 Veils and it just became very unfun to play against real fast. Especially with them going Oko with Veil protection.
Yeah I totally agree. To play against Veil feels so anticlimactic.... IMHO this card is a borderline design mistake (and yes, I am kind of biased here since I am a control player at heart). It drives control decks out of the meta, which have not been really strong anyhow.
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Post by TheAnnihilator » 4 years ago

I like Oko, but I hate both Urza and Veil. I honestly think Veil was an egregious design mistake.

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Post by GenesisEffect80 » 4 years ago

TheAnnihilator wrote:
4 years ago
I like Oko, but I hate both Urza and Veil. I honestly think Veil was an egregious design mistake.
Totally agree on Veil. That card has three sentences. Pick any one of them and make that the effect, and it's powerful but fair. Any two are OP, and all three together are format-defining. It might as well say, "Opponents cannot play decks with blue or black cards." Maybe, if the card cost UG, it could be considered fair, or if it was Sorcery speed. It's like nobody at R&D remembers Ramunap Red. If the thought was, "Green should be more than just Stompy," I actually agree, but I would say, UB needs to be more than just mill, which is all we ever get.

Another guy at my LGS said that the original design of Oko was to have a -1: Take Control of target creature until end of turn, but apparently that was OP, so they went with the +1: You Win the Game. And also Life.

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