@Henwen: My avatars story is: When I was gone commercial fishing...my wife got on my account and changed my avatar picture to this.. Barbie doll thing. I thought it was cute/sweet/funny.. so I kept it.

Keep on brewing boys.. I'm keeping a close eye on this one.

Megabeast: after I made my post I had some time to read through the thread and I saw you made an esper control deck with the 3 celestial flare + 3 Gideon's reproach package. It makes me feel good we picked the same early control package.

Rise from the tides replacement:
Archangel Avacyn is the obvious choice here. Flash adds real synergy with countermagic, and flash + evasion is a semi-reliable way of at least wounding planeswalkers. The indestructibility / board wipe abilities are just gravy. Her board wipe should NEVER backfire against this deck. Overall her ceiling, her best case scenario is not tremendously high. But her floor is one of the best - she will never force you to tap out, you can at least bluff a counter and dodge sorcery speed removal.

She is not a high impact finisher though, and that is what I intended rise from the tides to be. From under the floorboards would be my preferred choice if we have a madness outlet... but we don't... and it is too much trouble to shoehorn one in.

I even considered Spectral Shepherd and Elusive Tormentor as possible highly inevitable win conditions. Sphinx's Tutelage is not as inevitable as I want it to be because some decks pack LOADS of enchantment hate. But a 10 turn clock with the shepherd is meh.

Honestly from under the floorboards is so good if you can find a way to discard it at instant speed... I would run both copies and axe Linvala. Unfortunately I do not think it is worth it to add self-discard so we can turn madness on.

I went to the Dimir thread and I had a look at Zerris' control list. I do not like some of his choices, but I love his choice of win condition is brain in a jar into Rise from the Tides. Summoning lethal damage on your opponent's end step while you have almost all your counter mana open is an extremely powerful win condition that is hard to disrupt. This is exactly why I am interested in from under the floorboards.

I am just going to stick a pin in the "ultimate win condition" discussion for now because I think it isn't terribly important, the first ~10 turns are what makes or breaks a control deck, if you can stabilize and survive with cards in hand the win condition isn't too terribly important.

Other things I am thinking about:
We have six ways of interacting with resolved planeswalkers, but only four ways of interacting with resolved enchantments. Can we pack 1-2 more enchant removal spells in without sacrificing too much?

I was looking at Emeria Shepherd as a way of grabbing enchants / journal / and planeswalkers back. I think the cost is far to high with my current curve but since yours is lower with 1 more land than my deck it might work out better for you.

Edit: if we change up our removal to favour more exile we might be able to use ulamog's reclaimer

Emeria shepherd - I really do want a way of getting Sorin back but I do not think this card is the answer. Too expensive and too little application...

Ulamog's reclaimer we already have access to Possessed Skaab, I do not think it is worth it fiddling around with exile in order to shoehorn the eldrazi in - the body is marginally better, it isn't going to win games. An archaeomancer effect can be good but I just feel the skaab/reclaimer is too slow.

I have tested the deck a bit further playing 3 more games off stream and your deck won them all. I swapped out rise from the tides with avacyn as per your suggestion. It certainly has enough strength to take on superfriends ft ulamog as it proved today. The other decks I still need to meet are gruul eldrazi + burn and white weenies. I don't have time to stream atm, but the deck usually wins with about 18-25ish cards left in the deck. I feel like I am playing dodgeball for the first 30 or so cards then your deck is in complete control from that point on. Very good list, let me know if you make changes to the mana base.

My favorite part of MTG is deckbuilding, and I like decks with inevitability - you seem to have one of the better conversations / theory crafts going on here, so I'm in.

Here are my thoughts on Esper (and your deck / cards in general), in no particular order. My experience is from 500 hours of playing rank 35-40 steam, with a mix of UG Counter-Wolves, RG Fireball-Ramp, 4-Color Good Stuff, and some weirder ramp/control decks, which can be found in various places across these forums. I have every card unlocked, and like to brew. I tried playing mono-white once and hated it. Never again. With that background:


From the cards you included:

Anguished Unmaking is not that great. Yes, it can target anything, at instant speed, and exile it. But it's a three mana removal spell that deals you three damage. Every time I build a control deck, I put in two copies, and every time I play my first game, I have a copy dead in hand as I get beaten down by 2/3 Reflector Mages and 3/3 Bounding Krasises (krasi?). This card is good at dealing with resolved planeswalkers and Ulamogs - but the problem is, if somebody resolved a Planeswalker or Ulamog against you, you're already in a bad spot and this rarely saves you because it's too expensive and reactive an answer. If your opponent isn't resolving Walkers and 10/10s, why am I paying 3 life and 3 mana to deal with an individual threat? Unless you're playing a ton of life gain or attacking so aggressively that your life total is irrelevant, I don't think this card deserves the spot. Read the Bones is a much better value for life trade.

Tamiyo's Journal is not a very good card unless you're assembling a very specific combo and you already have Tireless Tracker / Bygone Bishop / Ulvenwald Mysteries so this is just a 5-mana tutor. If this is your only way of generating clues, you're basically playing a card that reads ": Do nothing, draw a card during your next turn" which is the worst cantrip I've ever heard of. If you can afford to play that and still win the game, you could have played almost anything else and won the game a lot easier. And no, Confirm Suspicions isn't reliable enough to count.

Cancel is an incredible card when people are regularly tapping out for 5-6 mana plays at sorcery speed. I agree that any esper deck should run all five "copies". unlike Anguished Unmaking, this is a 3-mana answer to a Walker that doesn't put you behind.

Telling Time feels underwhelming. It's the cantrip in Duels that's closest to "real" cantrips, but that extra mana cost is a killer. If you've got nothing else going on at 2 mana, sure, it's a reasonable play - but it's not even close to the power of Oath of Nissa or even Sylvan Ranger/Elvish Visionary. This card gets much better in Esper where we can hold it up alongside 2-mana instants, but I'm not entirely convinced. This also makes Celestial Flare a lot worse, since we'd need a land to hold up both. If only we had Anticipate, alas...

Celestial Flare - I'm mixed on this card. There are a few situations that it, and it alone, can solve. But there are also a lot of times where it's very very bad. Even ramp and control decks have lots of 1/1 Sylvan Rangers floating around, and is hard to keep up when you're trying to draw cards in Blue. I'd probably play it as a one-of so you have an out to Gaea's Revenge.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar - a very good card. But not a control card. He's quite mediocre on defense; a 2/2 a turn gaining no loyalty will not win games. That said, his offense is amazing. But it feels disconcerting to have him in the same deck as Tamiyo's Journal (the worlds slowest win condition) and Linvala the Preserver, who gets actively worse as Gideon tosses out tokens.

Rise from the Tides is the wrong win condition for this deck. With how easily the zombies die to sweepers and how instant/sorcery focused you have to be, I think Rise is the wrong win condition for almost any deck short of craziness like this.

Disperse is a tricky card to run because of how bad the card disadvantage hurts. To play this well, you need to either 1) be aggressive enough that the tempo will win you the game, or 2) have enough counters that you can be sure to get it on the way back down and enough inevitability / card draw to make up the card disadvantage. I'm not sure you meet the conditions for that. Either way, Compelling Deterrence is strictly better (if you have it).


From the cards you didn't include:

Declaration in Stone is the best removal in Duels. It's everything you wish Anguished Unmaking was - one mana cheaper, with a drawback you can actually afford. It doesn't hit walkers, but that's why we play counterspells. The fact that it can two-for-one or remove tokens for free (What's that? Exile all six of your thopter tokens for two mana?) are icing on the cake.

Grasp of Darkness is incredibly versatile removal. I'd pick it over Celestial Flare because of its ability to handle baby-walkers before they flip, and the fact that you an use it at endstep. That's one of the major drawbacks of every "in combat" removal spell - if you hold up three mana with a removal spell and a counterspell and they go to combat with no lands tapped... what do you do? If you keep holding up mana to counter their play, they just hit you and pass turn or play something small. If you kill their creature in combat, they cast a planeswalker. You never want to be the one pressured to act first with a control deck. And, if you're already conceding to holding up two mana just for combat... why not bring Reave Soul and kill the creature on your own turn before it gets more value (i.e. Tireless Tracker style). Reave Soul saw (brief!) standard play; card's not terrible.

Complete Disregard Hey look, instant speed Reave Soul! The main value of this card is for one target that it can hit which otherwise is a major thorn in your side: manlands. Control decks always struggle to match sorcery speed answers against lands that only animate on the opponent's turn - Complete Disregard hoses every single one except Lumbering Falls.

Fleshbag Marauder - when you see this card, think Liliana, Heretical Healer. They're a combo that adds up to Liliana of the Veil. Play them together, or don't play either.

Rising Miasma and Biting Rain and basically unplayable when the main beaters in the meta are Sylvan Advocate, Reflector Mage, Tireless Tracker who instantly grows on their turn, Bygone Bishop, and Bounding Krasis. Even elves centers around Lys Alana Huntmaster. Your wraths need to deal at least three. luckily, you also don't need that many. if you want a 5th/6th, I suggest Tragic Arrogance, which has some incidental hate for walkers.

Pore over the Pages - This card is excellent in control, and you should probably be running a playset. In the lategame, you always have some cards that are dead in the matchup or lands you don't need - this card reads ": Draw 3 cards". Yes, it's sorcery speed. Too bad, it's still the best card drawer in the game, and you want it. Notably, you're under no pressure to cast it early. Your hand won't empty until you're at 6-7 lands, at which point you can cast this, draw three, and untap still keeping up a counterspell.

Ob Nixilis Reignited - No, he's not the most impressive walker. But he's better than a lot of the other cards you're playing. As soon as you're willing to pay the cost in black to have Languish, you should be playing Ob Nix. The reason he matters isn't because he's efficient, it's because he's inevitable. The key to control is inevitability. As soon as you drop Ob Nix, your opponent has to do *something*. You no longer have to make the first move, so you can spend the rest of the game with counterspells up and if they don't cast anything, you win. He's not as effective at it as Sorin, but he's also one mana cheaper.

Archangel Avacyn arguably the best creature in duels. Unarguably the best creature in white in duels. Play a copy in every deck with by turn 5. Yes, even weenie. Yes, even your creatureless control deck. She's that good.


Based on this, my Esper list would look more like...

Some Punny Deck Name Here
(Control)

Threats
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/Jace, Telepath Unbound
1x Archangel Avacyn/Avacyn, the Purifier
1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Linvala, the Preserver
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Removal
1x Reprisal
2x Declaration in Stone
1x Reave Soul
2x Complete Disregard
1x Angelic Purge
1x Suppression Bonds
2x Languish
1x Oblivion Strike
2x Planar Outburst

Counterspells
2x Scatter to the Winds
3x Broken Concentration
2x Spell Shrivel
2x Confirm Suspicions

Card Draw
2x Oath of Jace
3x Pore Over the Pages

Lands (27)
2x Plains
5x Island
2x Swamp
4x Evolving Wilds
2x Shambling Vent
2x Sunken Hollow
2x Prairie Stream
2x Drowned Catacombs
2x Isolated Chapel
2x Glacial Fortress
1x Forsaken Sanctuary
1x Submerged Boneyard


You'll notice the mana is such a mess ( on 3, on 4, and on 5 with no fixing) that I even had to add some always-tapped lands. It'll hurt, but you'll get to cast your spells. Eventually.

The removal is a lot of 1 and 2-ofs; this is because our card draw offers a ton of selection between Jace, Oath of Jace, and Pore Over the Pages. Just discard whatever removal isn't relevant to the matchup, and keep the removal that is.

Deck style should be pretty close to your original choices; I tried to deviate as little as possible in terms of play pattern. Haven't actually tested the deck - this was just twenty minutes of theory crafting - but I'd expect it to play decently.

Zerris-
Thank you for your detailed reply. I do not have time to address everything you said right now.

I wanted to repost my tenative decklist in a more readable format.
3 x Telling time
3 x Celestial flare
3 x Gideon's reproach
2 x disperse

2 x Anguished unmaking
2 x Scatter to the winds
3 x broken concentration
1 x calculated dismissal

2 x Languish
3 x comparative analysis
1 x gideon, ally of zendikar
1 x suppression bonds

2 x Planar outburst
1 x Tamiyo's journal
2 x Confirm suspicion
1 x Archangel Avacyn

1 x Sorin, grim nemesis
1 x Linvala, the preserver

2 x shambling vent
4 x Evolving wilds
2 x glacial fortress
2 x isolated chapel
2 x drowned catacomb
2 x prairie stream
6 x islands
4 x plains
2 x swamp


Just a few things:

I don't know where you got 28 land, the lands I listed were 26.
A lot of the changes you recommend are based on switching answers around. Which answers you run is to a big extent dependent on the meta.

The one change you make that I have to strongly disagree with is removing Telling Time. If I am on the play this is the card I would want to cast on turn 2 90% of the time, on the draw 60% of the time. It significantly improves the range of playable hands... a hand with 2 land and telling time is not optimal, but it is playable.
You compare TT to some green sorcery speed draw spells. Not an apples to apples comparison. So let me make a simplified comparison between TT and some other draw spells:
TT lets you see 3 cards and "nets" you zero cards (i.e. no net card advantage) at instant speed for 2 mana.
Oath of Jace lets you see 3 cards and "nets" you zero cards at sorcery speed for 3 mana.
Pore over the Pages lets you see 3 cards and "nets" you one card at sorcery speed for 5 ~ 3 mana.
Being able to draw / filter through cards earlier in the game has a huge impact on your ability to hit land drops so that you can afford to cast those more expensive spells. I am not saying Oath/PotP are bad cards, but TT has a whole other realm of utility as a mana fixer in the early game.
TT is not a meta-dependant card. It solves mana issues, cheap, at instant speed, and to me it is an auto-include in almost any blue deck.

I agree with a number of your individual card analyses, but overall it would take too long to respond to them. Let me just make some big picture comparisons:
You have 20 sorcery speed spells and 13 instant speed spells - 39% instants.
I have 9 sorcery speed spells and 25 instant speed spells - 74% instants.
Now to be perfectly fair Gideon's Reproach and Celestial Flare are restricted instants, but they are still much better than sorceries since they can do things like hit manlands, haste creatures, flash creatures. etc.

My curve is:
Two:11
Three:8(11)
Four:7(4)
Five:6
Six:2
Average CMC: 3.4(3.3)

Your curve is:
Two:5
Three:12(15)
Four:4
Five:10(7)
Six:2
Average CMC: 3.8(3.6)

The numbers in parentheses are for the reduced mana costs of Comparative Analysis and Pore Over the Pages.

The point of all this nitty gritty math is to make a point about the big picture. You opt for powerful sorcery speed plays, with countermagic support. I try to build my deck around countermagic from the ground up. Is my deck better? I have no idea. But I would encourage you to give it a try for yourself. I agree with a lot of your card analysis, and it may be correct on an individual level, but on the whole your deck is too slow and expensive to fully utilize countermagic IMO.

Two quick notes:

1) I can't count; you're right - you had 26 lands. MB.
2) Pore is net 2 cards. I think it's effectively +3 often enough that I count it as such personally, but the net is 2.

My trouble with countermagic from the ground up is that Esper doesn't do it very well. If you want to play countermagic starting on turn 3, then you need to be able to win the game with a turn 2-3 play. Jace counts, but you only get one of him. If your plan is "play counter spells from turn 3 onwards until I tap out on turn 6" then I'm not that impressed, because the opponent will just refuse to play anything meaningful until you apply pressure, then dump his entire hand when you tap out. I think it's important to play a threat first, then countermagic to back it up - unless your win condition is also at instant speed, then do whatever.

As an example of a deck that wins the game with a turn 2 threat, counter-wolves has eight turn two threats, and all of them can win the game on their own. Then it plays a bunch of threats at instant speed and never taps out again. I can get behind that gameplan, because you never drop your shields once you put them up.

But Esper doesn't have an early game plan. There's no way to pressure an opponent in the deck you were thinking of until - at earliest - turn 5 Gideon attack (and if you want to tap out on turn four, I'm thrilled - watch me play this Woodland Wanderer or 4CC Walker of my own which you'll have to tap out to deal with - allowing me to do it again on 5 mana). This means your most proactive attack is turn 7 Gideon with counterspell up into an attack on turn 8 - so you need to have inevitability. Otherwise every ramp deck and 4CC Walker deck in the format will just play bigger and better things, and you'll get to the late game - then still lose. I guess what I'm asking is "when do you expect to win the game?". My deck expects to win in the very very late game. Ramp will get to 10 lands, cast Ulamog or Kozilek, I'll counter/kill it, absorb the hit, and still go over the top. 4CC walkers will get to cast every card in their deck, and I'll counter / answer all of them. But I'm having trouble seeing when your deck expects to win. The Gideon and the low mana curve says "early", but the pile of counterspells/Sorin/Linvala/no other threats says "very late". I could build in the other direction as well (Esper Midrange), but I'm curious what you intended.

I searched the thread first but couldn't find anything, So I apologize if someone has already posted a similar deck to this one.

I decided to make a control/reanimate deck but Im still lacking some of the cards I would like to add. That being said, this deck seems to run very well and I have had much success with it.

One mana:
Sinister Concoction x2

Two mana
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy x1
Displacement Wave x1
Nagging thoughts x1

Three mana
Bottle Gnomes x3
Liliana, Heretical Healer x1
Fleshbag Marauder x3
Artificer's Epiphany x4
Anguished Unmaking x1
Pieces of the Puzzle x1

Four mana
Suppression Bonds x1
Languish x2
Bitter Revelation x2
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar x1

Five mana
Planar Outburst x1
Tragic Arrogance x1
Necromantic Summons x3
Ob Nixilis Reignited x1

Seven mana
Emeria Shepherd x1
Alhammarret, High Arbiter x2
Plated Crusher x2

Lands (25)
Shambling Vent x2
Sunken Hollow x1
Prairie Stream x2
Drowned Catacomb x2
Isolated Chapel x2
Glacial Fortress x2
Evolving Wilds x4
Plains x4
Swamp x3
Island x3

The way the games have played so far have had me using Bottle Gnomes, Languish, Planar Outburst, Tragic Arrogance, Displacement Wave, and Shambling Vent to survive early.

Along the way I use Sinister Concoction, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Nagging thoughts, Artificer's Epiphany, Pieces of the Puzzle, and Bitter Revelation to ensure land drops and get Emeria Shepherd, Alhammarret, High Arbiter, or Plated Crusher into the graveyard. Follow this up with Necromantic Summons and you usually get a +2/+2 version of whichever of the big creatures you need. It has been especially great to Reanimate Emeria Shepherd and use a plains/Evolving Wilds afterwards to get two threats on the field.

Im still thinking about adding a fourth reanimation card - Rise from the Grave, but so far the many card draw spells have gotten me into a Necromantic Summons most of the time.

Ever After is the card you're looking for. Thing's bonkers in any dedicated reanimation deck, though I'd add another target or two to get full value.

Zerris, I think the most useful discussion we could have would be about individual card choices. Nonetheless, I am going to engage in a less useful discussion because you tickled my theory funny bone.

Basically your most recent post says my deck fails at aggro control because of a lack of early threats. And it fails at hard control because it lacks inevitability. FYI your list only has one more win condition than me, baby jace, so I am not sure which card choice(s) you believe makes your list more inevitable. Please tell me if I mischaracterized what you said here.

OK: here is some theory.
Inevitability is easy to see in practice, hard to understand in theory. It just means decks that do better in long games.

The reactive control package is a big part of inevitability, but you were talking about it more in terms of win conditions, so I wanted to address that.

The best control decks run very few, hard to disrupt win conditions. This has several advantages:
1)You open up more card slots for control; and
2)You do not need to devote as many counterspells to protecting your win package.

What have control win conditions looked like in the past?
For example, Ivan Floch's UW control list won a tournament in '14 with only 2 mutavaults and elixir of immortality. http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=7946&d=245712&f=ST. This means 59 out of 60 cards in his deck are answers, cards that help draw answers, or lands that help pay for answers. No one ever played against him till he would win that I know of... the endgame is Sphinx's Revelation gaining you a ton of life and drawing you a ton of cards.

My duels 2015 list had Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. In some matchups I would never cast him and would basically use him as a poor man's elixir. This is a win plan that takes forever but was incredibly hard to disrupt... if I do not die, I wait, wait, wait and eventually win. I had a number of other cards that doubled as answers or win conditions, typically Obelisk of Alara won me games with its red mana activation. But Kozi was a failsafe in the control mirror matchup.

Another archetypal control win condition is the heavily protected dude that can survive being targeted by a bunch of removal spells. Morphling and her big bro Ætherling say hello. When you do not run creatures it creates virtual card advantage because your opponent's removal spells are "dead." If you wait 20 turns to cast your first creature, your opponent will often have a fistful of removal spells. And they will use them all freely. Maybe you are in a position where you can counter his removal, but usually this leaves you more vulnerable to threats your opponents may have. Highly protected creatures can stay alive without your help.

I would agree that in general my deck's win conditions are more vulnerable to disruption than I would like. But like I said your deck is ~1 card off from mine in the win condition department (I already made the swap from rise from the tides to archangel avacyn).

What replacement win conditions are available?
We do have options: in the passive mill department is Ever After. On the turn when you have no cards in your library you cast this, it goes into your library. Next turn you cast it again, et cetera. Only way to disrupt this is via mill or counterspells. The problem is that, compared to Elixir, you aren't drawing cards, so if you get to the bottom of your library ~10 cards faster than your opponent you are in a position where you have to keep control without drawing new cards.

For heavily protected creatures we have spectral shepherd or elusive tormentor. Shepherd is just too slow IMO, if I draw it at ~10 cards left in library I may mill myself before killing my opponent. Tormentor is vulnerable to your own board wipes (Languish) and requires discarding cards.

Thinking outside of the box, I love from under the floorboards in theory as a control win condition. And I love Rise from the Tides being quickened via brain in a jar. The problem with these combo win conditions is that you need multiple copies of each card for consistencies sake and that takes too many deck slots away from control.

So yes my win package does not look very much like a traditional control deck. I am aware of this but I do not see any better choices at the moment. I do not have a single, hard to disrupt win condition, but a number of small ones that hopefully add up. 2 manlands, 4 awaken spells, 2 angels, and 2 planeswalkers is 10 win conditions.

So to answer your question: yes, I do intend to win the game very late, and I have gone painstakingly through every available card to find hard-to-disrupt win conditions. The ones we have are sub par, so my win conditions look like they come out of a midrange deck.

That said, I think 80% of a control deck is its first 10 turns, how well it establishes control and denies card advantage to your opponent. I think the control package is there and makes this deck viable. The deck does NOT win in the style I would want but it does not really matter.

I would love to hear your suggestions for replacements... you critique my list but then post something very similar so I am not sure if you are saying this archetype is not viable in this card pool, or if you are making some other point.

The main thing I was going for in my list over yours for inevitability was card advantage. My list has more ways to draw cards (even if you count net cards, and certainly if you count card value), which I think is important in a 1-for-1 counterspell based deck. I make no claim that my build is good, simply that it accomplishes that slightly better. The real problem I'd like to figure out how to address (in both our builds, and in Esper in general, honestly) is how we win a game against green. If our opponent casts Tireless Tracker on turn 3 and draws three cards off it (land + fetch land on next turn), how do we ever make up those cards? This is a format filled with 4/4 and 4/5 threats for 2 mana, alongside a ton of flash creatures, and green has more reliable card advantage than blue. It's the same problem in standard. We have a ton of counterspells that can only ever be 1-for-1's, and our opponent's threats cost less than the spells we're using to counter, while drawing more cards. Maybe I'm missing something fundamental about the way we need to play the game, but I'm having trouble seeing where we gain an edge. Actually, I think the best solution to theory is practice, so I'd love to play a few games against you if you're up for it, so as to understand how your deck sculpts a gameplan.

Also, as far as hardest to interact with win condition - I nominate Brain in a Jar + Rise from the Tides for 10-15 zombies at instant speed for 1 mana.

I was going to write another overly lengthy post but I just wanted to point out one thing. You want your deck to go in the direction of more card advantage engines, but you have a hard time dealing with enemy card advantage engines.

The more successful you are at neutralizing enemy card advantage engines, the less card advantage engines you need. I think it is easy to imagine situations where Jace is sitting in your hand, waiting for you to tap out and play him at 5 mana. Your opponent plays an evolutionary leap... which you can't answer. He ends up drawing a bunch of cards and you are in a position where you NEED to play Jace in order to recover. So you do, and maybe he draws you into an answer or whatever. But you also might end up tapping out to play him and exposing yourself to another card you cannot answer right away.

Lets say that I run Anguished Unmaking instead of Jace. I wipe out evoleap before my opponent can gain cards. I do not have any card advantage engine, but I do not NEED one either because I can stick with 1 for 1 removal spells.

It isn't like we are running completely different decks... there is a great deal of overlap, but the card choices at the margins do seem to split along these lines. I generally emphasize cheaper cards that do not tap me out and can seize control early, preventing my opponent from getting card advantage. You have more cards that are expensive sorceries, but they give you more cards. The problem is that sometimes those extra cards are spent answering stuff you COULD have killed earlier. Notice I did not say should!

The zombiebrain combo is pretty cool! I would never want to play 3 / 2 copies... but with the much-maligned Tamiyo's Journal I could run each as a singleton

Edit - I forgot to say I would love to play but I don't have all my cards unlocked yet. HenWen on Steam. Do a search... there are a few HenWens but I am the only one that plays duels. Also the only one that capitalizes "H" and "W."

The Winningteam will play your deck .. badly , but yes I will play it

This is all very interesting but ultimately seems to confirm the sad intuition that Esper doesn't cut it in this meta...

One thing about Celestial Flare: Gaea's Revenge is the least of your problems. Just this morning I beat two Draw-Go decks by simply dropping an early Lumbering Falls and not even trying to cast a single spell in the entire game. Good luck digging for your singleton Avacyn or dropping Sorin when you're already 12-15 life behind.

I unlocked the cards needed to build my deck, except for a few minor mana changes. yay me.

otrisk: I think you are making the case that a control deck needs answers that respond to threats in the meta. In this case, celestial flare.

The cards that are top on my list to cut are the 2nd disperse, calculated dismissal, and linvala. I am thinking of adding more early removal, exclusion ring, or more planeswalkers. These changes really depend on the meta so I am not sure yet.

Edit:

Zerris and I had some fun games against one another. He is a creative deckbuilder and has some decks that I have not seen mentioned in the meta. His "fish" style GU aggro-control deck completely stomps my list due to its superior tempo.

Based on some of my own play against random players and my games with Zerris I have made the following changes:
Cut:
1 x linvala, the preserver
1 x tamiyo's journal
1 x suppression bonds
1 x gideon, ally of zendikar
1 x plains


Added:
2 x complete disregard
1 x jace, unraveller of secrets
1 x ob nixilis, reignited
1 x island


Swapping for another island was the most obvious. This puts my manabase at 13U 11W 8B plus 4 fetchlands. Telling Time is THE turn 2 play for this deck, and getting UU by turn 3 is key for our cancel clones.

Linvala is more trouble than she is worth. She is one of the best creatures to help defend this sort of control deck, but tapping out to cast her just isn't worth it. Mainly she is too vulnerable to removal.

Tamiyo's journal is kind of a "win more" card. If my opponent is not pressuring me, and I feel comfortable to tap out, I can cast this spell. It arguably has more benefit than papa Jace and is more survivable, but I need more spells that interact with the board.

Suppression bonds is one of the spells that lingers in my hands the longest. I felt like it was necessary to have more planeswalker hate, but my deck does well enough without this card. 4 mana, sorcery speed, no thanks.

Gideon's soldier guys are a nice answer to manlands, and he puts the opponent on a short clock, but ultimately I wanted a planeswalker that could interact with my opponent's creatures more directly.

Complete disregard is not a totally obvious choice. The problem that I experienced multiple times was that I would not want to tap mana to use reproach/flare. I mainly included disregard as a cheap way of using removal on the endstep. It also is a good answer to things like e.g. auras. I will see how it performs with playtesting.

Island is the most terrifying card in Magic, the Gathering history. Nuff said.

So the new planeswalker package puts my curve and overall number of sorcery speed spells in the same place. I hope that they give me the edge I need by adding draw and board control every few turns. Papa Jace's abilities are overall not tremendously exciting, but drawing an extra card every turn is worth it. Ob Nix's life loss hurts, but having a card draw engine that can occasionally give you a free murder is worth it. Simply playing him and killing a creature is often worth more than the life you pay to +1 him.

Avacyn is now my only creature, and she is so totally worth it.

My expensive sorcery speed plays are 4 board wipes and 3 planeswalkers that all draw me cards... the rest of the deck is instant speed.

Anyway I welcome feedback or suggestions from anyone.

Can confirm; played some good games. Ran my midrange walkers deck (got crushed by counterspells), my counter-wolves deck (Landed a threat on turn 2, rode it to victory), and my flash deck (same story as counter-wolves, except instead of counters I brought disruption).

Overall conclusions: This deck is real, but it needs a way to deal with 2 and 3-mana plays from green that doesn't involve tapping out before second main phase. I think Complete Disregard is amazing, and I'm running a full playset in my control deck. Sounds like a good choice here. Other changes all look reasonable - Gideon was a nice threat, but we don't need a pure threat; this deck has enough counters and card draw to hang with other decks into the later game.

Biggest weakness felt like consistency. This is a deck full of answers in three colors with no mana fixing. If your lands don't line up or your answers don't match the threats, you get run over. Even moreso by Aggro, which I don't pilot (and didn't attempt to). The creatureless base (outside of Avacyn, who's basically a removal spell in the same vein as Ob Nix, but at instant speed) looks fantastic against a meta of sweepers and Declaration in Stone, though.

Not sure if this deck is top tier, but it looks reasonably competitive with some tuning. Also, HanWen is a better control pilot than I will ever be - I'll stick to my midrange and ramp creature decks.

Also, a quick glance at the mana base, before I go - my math suggests that this mana base is fine as long as we're okay not being able to cast Languish until turn 5. If we wanted to cast it turn 4, we should replace two islands with Sunken Hollows, which might make the mana come into play tapped an unacceptable amount of the time. Seems reasonable as is, once you add the Island. (Which we can, now that Gideon's gone!)

I've been doing some experimenting with Esper control lately (complete newbie with controls), it didn't go well. That being said, I'd be glad to test some of the decks here if that's OK, I'll be sure to report back the results.

@HenWen
I love the changes you made to your build, and I also like the concept itself. Most of the changes you did were the ones that I had in mind when I first saw the build so I'm glad that my view on the deck was kinda good. How satisfied are you with Celestial Flare? I do get the point behind it, it's just that I find it to be relatively situational to justify WW requirement.
Also, I'd like to probe your mind on Declaration in Stone. I tested it in my previous tries on the deck and it did quite well despite working at sorcery speed. Massive tokens from Under the Floorboards and such were kinda problematic because even though I was playing massive removals, I often had to chose between keeping the field under control and keeping open lands for counters on their turn. This helped me keep both against sudden flooding or big guys. While I did try Complete Disregard, I tested it for too few times, I still can't surely say how good or bad it works for me compared to the Declaration (although I love throwing out draw and destruction on opponents' end phase).

Zerris - you are right about consistency. Mana consistency is a major issue. Unfortunately, too many taplands can also be crippling. Two more taplands might be doable... I will have to wait till I go to my PC tonight.

Johnny: flare is a WW spell but I do not expect to "curve out" with it on turn 2. Usually I want to cast it after reproach or complete disregard. As far as the mana cost, I just took a plains out to add another island, it hasn't been a big deal.

Tempo is very important for this deck, it isn't quite the same concept as the "clock" of an aggressive deck. You can have all the answers you need in hand and still lose the game if your opponent is one threat ahead of you. Control decks do not "curve out" in the same way as normal decks. Instead, I am usually thinking of how well my curve / plays will look when I am holding mana open.

So an ideal turn 5 will generally look like 5 mana, with both flare and a cancel-lookalike castable in the same turn. This allows you to start controlling the board while remaining in fully reactive draw-go mode (or at least bluffing it!).

The flare + cancel combo is key to stabilizing early, and also makes it easier to re-stabilize later on. Maybe the board has no creatures or one creature, if you tap out to cast a planeswalker the flare + cancel combo will generally allow you to regain full board control very quickly.

Flare does take some getting used to and I understand most players instinctively want the easy to use declaration. Flare does take some getting used to but ultimately it is the only answer that works against a number of threats. Because of this, it is often the removal spell I hold on to the longest, other than anguished unmaking.

I might consider adding declaration... but overall it hasn't felt at all necessary because the deck has so many cards that scale. Right now there are the 2 disregards, then 5 cards that can kill creatures with <5 power. Everything else scales... the flares, planar outbursts, bounce spells, and unmakings. Plus two planeswalker abilities that scale too. So I do not feel an urgent need for declaration at this time... although it is something I will keep in mind. I think the card drawback outweighs its utility vs tokens, and mass zombie tokens are pretty infrequent.

I would love to hear more experiences of anyone else who has played the deck.

I think game logs are key to understanding how to improve your deck. And I really like reading other peoples' logs. Zerris' logs inspired me to post something here.

I will say these are very lengthy, but with a control deck is hard to describe the action accurately. You can't just say "I curved out and stomped him."

Prowess- my opponent drops mage ring bully and I quickly realize I am playing vs. prowess. My normal game plan of "kill all the creatures" is super effective here, I answer a few threats before they can connect. I flash in Archangel Avacyn on his end step but she eats instant speed burn before her indestructibility ability can resolve. But my planeswalkers follow up and soon Papa Jace and Bro Nixilis are on the table, drawing me cards, his sole response is a manland which eats celestial flare. Good start.

Analysis: Avacyn was meh here.

Wolves - I mull down to 6 on the draw and get a 4 land hand with 2 planeswalkers. He opens with baby nissa and another creature, but I drew languish and kill all of his fun. He drops two more creatures and I have another board wipe, I plop Ob Nix down on the table and murder his midrange threat which is some 5/4 thingy with wolf synergy. He tries greenwarden of murasa but a counterspell denies him card advantage.

Analysis: Drawing double board wipes is good against decks that use creatures. I had a terrible start but my opponent also had a mediocre start.

Midrange - I start with 4 lands and card draw. I do not have great answers vs. aggro and he plays GW first so I am afraid, but he does nothing but play 3 Sylvan Rangers for the first two turns. I have no counters in hand but he plays as if I do, so I just continue to take three damage a turn and pass the turn back to him. Finally, draw a counter and wipe his board with counter mana open. His Gideon, Ally of Zendikar eats a counterspell. I think I drew another counterspell at some point and counter Greenwarden of Murasa.

At this point though my answers are very limited and he has several cards more in hand than me, so I drop papa Jace. He answers with Emeria Shepherd and a plains landfall, bringing greenwarden back and earning him a ton of card advantage. Luckily both cards only have 4 toughness and languish wipes his board while Jace draws me more cards. He drop the Gideon that the Greenwarden brought back to his hand, I respond with Ob nix. For the next few turns I tick Ob Nix up to draw me a card and tick Jace down to remove Gideon's 2/2 tokens. Fortunately Bro Nix draws me Anguished Unmaking and I answer my opponent's Gideon permanently. A manland eats Jace, but Sorin, Grim Nemesis shows up for reinforcements and my opponent concedes.

This game felt kind of like I was playing Superfriends. I did not have a countermagic lock on the game, I think I only drew 2-3 counterspells. My opponent had some serious card advantage going on, I did not list it but he cast read the bones three times. My opponent conceded with a bunch of cards in hand - I am pretty sure he had a bunch of removal spells he could never use.

Analysis: Deck working as intended, Avacyn would have been dead on arrival if I drew her.

Vampires / madness - my opponent drops turn 2 vampire berserker turn 3 Liliana, Heretical Healer. I was on the play and had the mana, but no counter. No bounce, no unmaking. I force languish and his berserker activates twice, killing itself and flipping liliana before my spell resolves. This leaves my opponent with ~2 cards in hand. Liliana begins stripping my hand, but I kept a Gideon's Reproach up my sleeve. Unfortunately Embermaw Hellion is beyond reproach. The discarding continues and when I kill creatures they get reanimated instantly. I have no answer for Liliana.

Analysis: I got ripped a new one this game. Lili is just brutal. At first I want to say this matchup is hopeless, but then I realize that the odds of a turn 3 Liliana are small, and the odds of me not having any of the 9 spells I can use to answer her are also small. I think I have the cards I need and this is not necessarily a hopeless matchup, as poorly as it went this one game.

Next four matches: My opponents concede without making any plays. I attribute this solely to the awesomeness of my deck and the terror people experience when playing against permission. I am certain they had nothing to do with mana starvation / flooding.

Midrange/control - This decklist was interesting because instead of the standard removal into fatties gameplan he ran a number of tricky enchantments. I started the game with two compelling dominance in hand which is a nightmare scenario for me, one of those situations that compels me to consider going down to one copy. He tries for a few early creatures, I wipe em.
I counter Outland Collossus, which was a good move, but I also hit some stupid 2/1 vampire with calculated dismissal, which was clearly a mistake. His board has nothing but a 1/1 elf now and he resolves Evolutionary Leap. I draw another counter and bounce evoleap with counter mana open.

My opponent's gameplay has been very slow because he has drawn/played very few lands. I have drawn a ton and I have five more lands in play. Although I have been drawing some cards I have a hand of one bounce and one wipe vs his ~6 or 7. So I am worried. I Planar Outburst in response to his second collossus, and swing in with my 4/4 land. His Gaea's Revenge takes me down to 4. Another outburst takes care of revenge and promotes my 4/4 land to 8/8, but I am worried. My 8/8 land is actually a Shambling Vent that I cannot afford to activate, so I do not attack. Bone Splinters plus carrier thrall answered my monster sized land, and the eldrazi scion token put me on a two turn clock. Bounce spell #2 found a good use here. Archangel Avacyn shows up, I protect her, and she gives me a piggyback ride to victory.

Analysis: this was a really long game where I didn't draw any of my big card advantage engines. No planeswalkers. No confirm suspicions until ~2 turns before the end. I was about 30 cards deep in my deck. The game felt pretty touch and go. Two bounce spells was not crippling.

And Avacyn? She won me this game, only after I helped her out with a counterspell. I can think of a number of other spells that would have worked here.

So I am 8-1... I know I am going to have a big chain of mana screws at some point so I don't feel bad about including these as wins.

I intend to run more games before I make any changes, but...

My deck crushes with multiple planeswalkers. I think there may be very few matchups like ramp where I do not want to tap out to cast them. On the other hand, if I draw none of them.... the deck kind of durdles.

Archangel Avacyn has been performing poorly so far. "Dies to removal" and all that. I will not give up on her yet.

In that last game, I wouldn't mind having Tamiyo's Journal.

Comparative analysis is being considered for removal. My major card advantage engines provide so much card advantage every turn that the card advantage is tremendous.

There are a lot of matchups where my counters feel like they are stretched very thin. I am thinking about Bone to Ash replacing Comparative Analysis. And/or Calculated Dismissal.

So I am considering cutting:
Avacyn
2-3 comparative analysis
And adding:
Tamiyo's journal
~2 bone to ash
Celestial flare or calculated dismissal

My deck's performance against aggro is also on my mind. Removing comparative analysis in favor of more board interaction should help.