MTGNexus

If you are interested in hosting a Primer for the Esper Hero decklist, please PM me or hoser2 directly!

This thread is to discuss the Esper Hero decklist and its variants. Brad Nelson took the below list to 2nd place in the Mythic Championship recently.

I really like this list, I haven't been playing any standard past month or so. If I did I'd probably be on this, how is it right now?

It's still really strong. It's arguably the best deck still, even with the new M20 additions, but that remains to be seen. I've been off of Arena for a while so I haven't had a chance to play too much with the new cards yet.

I think it's been about a month since I've played Arena or standard in paper so I'm really behind in the format I was listening to a recent episode of the Arena decklists (formerly GAM) podcast and they still seemed to be reasonably high on esper (with or without hero)

I've been testing it on Arena a bit. So far, I would say Hero seems kinda ehh, but I also don't know how much more you can really expect out of a two-drop in this kind of deck. It eats removal a lot, and sometimes I get a token out of it.

Turn 2, you have all three colors out, and you can play Thought Erasure or Hero. The answer is pretty much always Erasure, right? It's tempting to play the Hero first so you can Erasure on T3 and get a token, but if there's even an average chance your opponent has removal, it's better to get the removal out of their hand, then play Hero on T4 or later, when you can potentially cast two spells and guarantee yourself a token.

I feel that the issue I always had with hero was that I had a hard time sequencing with when to play a hero vs erasure to get the most value

You generally want to play the Erasure early to see their hand and potentially get their cheapest spell out of the way. I would want to play the Erasure first against control for sure, and I've been doing it against mono-red as well, since they have a lot of cheap burn to take out a Hero with. Haven't played against Nexus yet, but I'm thinking Hero first, you want to start attacking soon and you can probably wait until T3 to Erasure their Reclamation.

Might also depend on your T3 play. If I have a Narset, I want to go T2 Erasure, T3 Narset, then T4 Hero and hopefully by then I've found something I can trigger the Hero with. If I don't have a three-drop, then maybe I go Hero first and T3 Erasure, try to get the token.

I played this list a bit on Arena, it seems really powerful. I'm hoping to get on more once my internet works again

More recent lists are running Deputy over Hostage Taker, mostly because of Scapeshift. Against Vamps I dont know which one I prefer. Hostage looks better because with only 2-3 answers, you have a decent chance to secure the stolen creature. However most vamps are really bad on your side of the board anyway and barely worth the mana.

Im running 2 Legion's End mb and another one side. By itself it slows down Scapeshift and with threeferi, completely shuts down the combo. And the card is rock solid way to stop Krasis chains, while not beging dead against mono-r, Feather and so on. Its only dead against esper control.


Im struggling hard in the Feather match up. A fair share of our removal does not kill Feather and if they get it and Gods Willing its pretty much over. Feels like I need to win 100% of the matches Feather dont show up because Im losing all the ones she does. Im probably messing up the SB plan.

I haven't played Arena or any form of standard in maybe 2 or 3 months but deputy seems better than hostage taker, especially against scapeshift. legion's end seems really good though

After playing a few games with this today, I'm definitely thinking adding Deputy is the way to go. Also, the Teferi, Time Raveler + Oath of Kaya interaction is still ridiculous, news at 11

I haven't played hero in a while mostly due to just getting back into arena and playing vampires but 3feri and oath always just felt really dirty due to how good it was, especially since you also get a hero trigger as well

Another observation: Despark belongs on the bench. There aren't enough targets for it.

Looks like Basillica Bell-Haunt replaced Elite Guardmage in the Hero decks that placed in the SCG Classic on Sunday. Interesting.

I always wanted to like Bell Haunt but it always seems so weak compared to guard mage, especially at 4. But is making them discard and having a bigger body that much better?

Making them discard is useful now that there's a combo deck in the format, and also doesn't get blanked by opposing Narsets.

I guess the discard can be good against scapeshift decks and I guess the gain 3 life without the extra card on guard mage isn't too good against a Narset

A few other notes on Bell-Haunt vs. Guardmage:

• Guardmage has Flying, marginally relevant vs. some PWs (but plenty of hard removal that can be sided in/mained in PW metas; PW decks also tend to play fewer blockers in the first place, so you can just bring Bell-Haunt). If every deck was, say, ground creatures + Teferi, Time Raveler and the like, you would want Guardmage, though.
• Bell-Haunt's 3/4 body is great, yes. Very good against Nissa lands, good against explore creatures somewhat, and it doesn't die to Oath of Kaya in the mirror/vs. Control, so it can actually do its job vs. PWs. Also way harder for mono-Red to remove. All showing up in the meta to some extent (particularly Oath of Kaya). 4 toughness is where it's at right now.
• The body also lets it block against Vampires better if Legion Lieutenant is dead. (Elite Guardmage is undisputedly better at actually killing Sorin, though.)
• As mentioned, discard is valuable vs. Scapeshift (and to a small extent Feather, maybe Vamps) and Guardmage does not provide hand advantage vs. Narsets. Kethis is pushing out Scapeshift, but that is letting Esper Control back in, so you get Narsets.

Basically, it's a meta call (and a personal one) and has been as long as the deck's been around. Bell-Haunt has some obvious weaknesses vs. Guardmage, like opponent-controlled discard usually being worse than drawing (and sometimes detrimental), being harder to cast, not being in the air, and so on. But in a meta where decks are almost all ground-combat decks or combo and people are running Narsets, Dreadhorde is pretty much gone, etc., Bell-Haunt is probably better. Some people value the discard more when considering that you're already playing other disruption cards.

For what it's worth, BBD, who has been on Esper Hero constantly for a while now and has been super outspoken about Guardmage being better for months, still plays Guardmage in the MPL (as of last week). He was building for Kethis but was taking into account the possibility of niche anti-Kethis decks (not stuff like Scapeshift, mono-Red, the mirror, Esper Control, Nissa decks, etc. but decks that can beat Kethis and only Kethis), so I think Elite Guardmage was a fair call. He sided them out vs. Kethis obviously and had plenty of hate in his sideboard. Very different to, say, an SCG Open, where a lot more things will be brought.

His match vs. Ken Yukuhiro was pretty good, btw, if you're interested in current Standard/unorthodox sideboarding. Would recommend.

Anyone have any post rotation lists yet? Is hero still viable?

It doesn't look good. Losing Teferi, Hero of Dominaria|DOM and Hostage Taker|XLN to rotation hurts, and Oko, Thief of Crowns|ELD just pisses all over this deck in general.

It's early, but thus far the meta is warped around Golos, Tireless Pilgrim + Field of the Dead and there's not really a good way to interact with lands right now. I don't know exactly how you beat that deck, but it's probably not with a traditional UWx control shell, and it's definitely not with Hero of Precinct One.

I guess Oko is a problem too?

Anyone have any luck with the deck post field banning?

Assemble the Herowatch! BBD looks at a potential THB build on tcgplayer.

ah BBD, one of the unsung heroes (bad pun intended) of Esper Hero as a deck. I might put together a list like his on arena soon and see what I think.

Maybe Ashiok is a fine replacement for 5 mana Teferi, whose loss really hurt the deck

The punishment is strong here. BBD would approve. Dream Trawler is another interesting consideration.

dream trawler seems a bit slow in the deck for what it does but I could be wrong. It's a bigger body that draws a card when it attacks, so it might be worth trying