MTGNexus

Alright, so. As far as Commander goes, I've never built an esper-colored deck or a control heavy deck before. Looking at the list of possible commanders, Ertai, the Corrupted always stood out the most. It's not hard to just go for a lot of tokens and sac outlets, but I wanted to see if I could do something more. Eventually I came across the interaction of Thraben Doomsayer and Faces of the Past, going infinite with a sac outlet. And Ertai is both a sac outlet, and he'll be untapped by the same combo, meaning as long as you have mana you can counter any spell your opponents play as long as you've got the mana for it.

I swore to myself for months that I'd never make a deck around this, but the idea slowly got more tempting, I told a friend about it and he challenged me to make a control EDH deck, he said it would help me expand my horizons.

I took the challenge.

This is what resulted.

Some control pieces, counterspells, token generation, sac outlets, tutors and draw to get what I need and one or two infinite combos. One intentional omission is grave pact type effects, as I have two decks that employ those.

No Talismans for Mana Acceleration?

With as many creatures as will be dying, would you consider Nether Traitor?

The signets, sol ring and chromatic lantern seem to do a good enough stop at ramp...so far. I've only played the deck twice.

First time, I had an incomplete combo...just the sword of the meek, thopter foundry and phyrexian altar. Infinite life, but nothing much else. Didn't quite work out how I hoped.

Second time, I had a slow set up but I eventually took complete control of the game and won with white sun's zenith.

Nether Traitor looks interesting, though.

Something else to consider, from a Control perspective, is a Wheel + Payoff setup.

I had an Esper Stax list that was pretty good and often just overwhelmed my opponents in Value after stifling their cards with prototypical Stax pieces. Esper has some of the best Wheel effects in the game available and the best Wheel payoff cards as well. Notion Thief, Alms Collector, Narset, Parter of Veils, Smothering Tithe, and Consecrated Sphinx are unbelievably good with cards like Windfall, Echo of Eons, Time Reversal, Emergency Powers, and Whispering Madness. I'd recommend giving some of these synergies a whirl if you're feeling a touch sadistic.

This deck is already pretty good at card advantage, mostly by feeding tokens to skullclamp and vampiric rites.

In general, I'd look to lower the CMC of a lot of things in your list. For example, I'd replace Angel of Despair with Anguished Unmaking or Utter End. Isperia, Supreme Judge could be Fact or Fiction, or Propaganda if you want to deter attacking creatures.

When it comes to sac outlets, you want them to be as close to free as possible, and you want them to be reusable. So, Stronghold Assassin and Carnage Altar could be something like Altar of Dementia and Attrition.

Same goes for your counterspells. Speaking of which, I'd much rather play the OC, Arcane Denial, Negate, or even Disdainful Stroke than Absorb. That extra mana will make a big difference when it counts.

Attrition for Stronghold Assassin is an easy swap, yeah. Probably should try to lower the average CMC, too... I might take Isperia out.