Note: Please mark decks as "Premium" if you use Premium cards in your deck builds. Thank you.

If I left anything out or you see any errors please let me know.

Source: Atharva's Decklists & Strategies Thread

Here's the 2 minute esper deck that I threw together between TNT matches. I'll say, it seemed to work pretty well for multiplayer. Not sure about 1v1, but, I'll find out when I've got a chance to test.
I'm sure there's improvements, but, we needed something in this thread!

3 x Reprisal
1 x Baneslayer Angel
2 x Planar Cleansing
4 x Vapor Snag
4 x Voyage's End
4 x Think Twice
2 x Negate
4 x Nullify
3 x Dissolve
2 x Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 x Time Warp
2 x Rune-scarred demon
2 x Tribute to Hunger
1 x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

4 x Dimir Guildgate
4 x Orzhov Guildgate
10 x Island
5 x Plains
2 x Swamp

Esper Control [Premium]

Lands: 27

6 Plains
8 Island
5 Swamp
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Dimir Guildgate
2 Orzhov Guildgate

Creatures: 7
3 Wall of Omen
1 Resolute Archangel
1 Soul of Ravnica
1 Indulgent Tormentor
1 Griselbrand

Spells: 26

4 Divine Verdict
2 Planar Cleansing
4 Voyage's End
4 Think Twice
3 Dissolve
2 Inspiration
3 Tribute to Hunger
4 Flesh to Dust

Decided to build a real control deck. I've only tested it in 3 matches (mainly because the matches take so long) but I won 2 out of 3 and probably would have won the last if I had more card draw. Anyway, just like traditional control, you want to have more answers than your opponent has threats and try and put down a land each and every turn. Eventually he/she will run out of things to play and you can continue to draw cards until you hit your bomb, potentially with counter magic backup. This deck list has a pretty solid curve and plays well, and almost all of the spells are instant speed so you shouldn't need to tap out on your turn unless your scrying or think twice to hit a land for the turn.

I wouldn't recommend using it if you are new to magic or new to control. You have to know when to use your resources in order to take full advantage of this deck. If you make sloppy plays then you probably won't see very much success. Also becareful with the autotap lands. DoTP2015 seems to tap lands in the wrong order and may result in you not leaving up certain cards which can cost you the game.

That actually looks like a solid base for an Esper control deck, but I'd like to see Rune-Scarred Demon in the list somewhere. Griselbrand looks hard to cast with only nine sources of black mana, perhaps you could cut here. I'm currently running a Grixis control deck and have found that 25 land plus 4 Think Twice and 3 Inspiration is enough to consistently hit your land drops and stay ahead of the other guy on cards.

I think Esper will be better whenever we get the Alara DLC because of the artifacts. I can't be the only one who enjoys esper artifacts with sphinxes etc

I can't wait to have the possibility of making an artifact deck..



This build seems like it is BEGGING for Sphinx-Bone Wand and Rune-Scarred..

Hey guys, I'm new here but I've followed these games as well as paper magic on forums at gamefaqs.com and mtgsalvation.com for a long time. But there's a lot of great discussion for this iteration in particular going on here, so after lurking for awhile I finally decided to break down and register.

Anyway, I've made several control decks and I'll probably post my lists for all of them in the respective threads. I'm somewhat saddened to see that the Esper thread has so few posts. So far, this is probably my favorite control list. I just want to contribute and see what you guys think, so any feedback is appreciated. It's straight-up control, no gimmicks. There are premium cards in it.

Esper Control (61)

Removal/Sweepers (14)
3 Righteous Blow
3 Reprisal
3 Ulcerate
2 Planar Cleansing
2 Flesh to Dust
1 Angelic Edict

Permission (7)
3 Dissolve
2 Negate
2 Nullify

Card Draw (7)
4 Think Twice
3 Inspiration

Hand Disruption (3)
3 Mind Rot

Finishers (6)
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Indulgent Tormentor
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Griselbrand

Lands (24)
5 Plains
5 Island
5 Swamp
3 Azorius Guildgate
3 Dimir Guildgate
3 Orzhov Guildgate

This deck has gone through several tweaks, and it will likely go through more. Some notes on card choices...

Finishers/Manabase - I know Griselbrand is considered somewhat of a stretch on the manabase what with the quad black and all, but I honestly can say that I've never had trouble casting him in this deck or in my Grixis list. The only time I've ever encountered trouble with him was with my 4 color control deck, which I've shelved for now anyway, until the tri-lands come out in the Alara DLC. I used to run a couple Ingots here as well, but after not getting much use out of them, they got kicked to the curb. I really can say I haven't had any major issues.

Removal - Yeah, I did have some Tribute to Hungers in here like most lists do, first 3 then 2 then 1. I just found it to be underperforming the vast majority of the time I was casting it. Most decks out there right now have little things like token creatures or Elvish Visionary that you would have to waste an Ulcerate on first in order to have the Tribute hit anything worthwhile. So I think the removal package is fine without it, with the permission suite as backup to counter the odd hexproof creature, or Planar Cleansing failing that.

Wall of Omens - Again, like my America Control build, I recognize that this is a good card. I just don't know if it is necessary. For now I'm not running any of them, but if someone can really convince otherwise, I will look into it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and/or feedback.

Life 2 Lifeless (premium)

Cloudshift-4
Lone Missionary-4
Arrest-2
Rhox Faithmender-2
Quickling-2
Voyage's End-4
Dissolve-2
Archaeomancer-4
Time Warp-1
Pharika's Chosen-4
Tribute to Hunger-2
Sanguine Bond-2
Rune-scarred Demon-1
Vizkopa Guildmage-3


Plains-6
Island-5
Swamp-5
Azorious Gate-3
Dimir Gate-2
Orzhov Gate-2

The idea is to just rape the Lone Missionary using Cloudshift, Voyage's End, and Quickling along with Rhox Faithmender and Sanguine Bond or the Guildmage. I usually build Aggro type decks but I like this, have yet to take it online but the combo came out well against the AI. Any opinions are welcome!

Take it online and see how it actually runs..

What's up with just hanging out in a lobby.
I tried to pick up a game with you and could never join but you didn't disappear into a game.

If that happened, then that was a rare occurrence where I had to run to the bathroom or was sidetracked speaking with someone. It doesn't happen much at all, but I can get distracted once in a while. I usually don't stay afk in a lobby for long though..

Usually I have a habit of leaving out of lobbies if I do go away.

Add me and lets game it up sir!

2bestest, can I have your Steam so we can play some matches sometime? I'd love to bounce ideas off you!

Overmaster, I would like that VERY much sir! My steam is also my forum name

2bestest

What would yours be?
EDIT: I think I may have found you already just waiting for you to accept it!

Okay, so I just threw this deck together a couple hours ago, and I've won 5 straight games with it. Here's the list:

Esper Control (Premium)


Land (25)
Azorius Guildgate x 4
Dimir Guildgate x 4
Orzhov Guildgate x 4
Plains x 4
Island x 6
Swamp x 3

Wall of Omens x 3
Voyage's End x 4
Think Twice x 4
Negate x 2
Brimaz, King of Oreskos x 1
Dissolve x 3
Phyrexian Rager x 3
Talrand, Sky Summoner x 2
Inspiration x 2
Graveborn Muse x 2
Baneslayer Angel x 1
Flesh to Dust x 2
Planar Cleansing x 2
Resolute Archangel x 1
Rune-Scarred Demon x 2
Griselbrand x 1

So far it has been running really well. I wasn't sure about the mana base, but I haven't had any problem casting Planar Cleansing or Griselbrand yet. Generally I'm terrible at deck building, so maybe I've just been getting lucky these last several games. So if anyone has any tips to make it better, I'll give them a try.

I haven't had a need to cast Flesh to Dust yet, so maybe it's not needed at all? But I wouldn't know what to replace it with, and I feel like it may come in handy at some point. I'm also not sure about the Archangel, but she did save me from dying against a RB deck that got my life total really low.

Again, any help is appreciated! I've been having a lot of fun with it so far, so give it a try if you want to!

I'm not sure how needed Griselbrand is, I might go for Kozilek, Butcher of Truth instead to help with any stalling games to refresh your GY and of course he is a huge threat as well (as is Grisel).

Looks good though!

EDIT - Final deck below.

The strategy is to get lots of defences down while drawing into threats and stalling with lifegain. You then pull into your win-cons - the Skulkers or the Demons, with the Rune-Scarreds often fetching the Skulkers and Rescue being used to pull the win-cons back back. As there's a decent amount of draw, you can sometimes cheat out a Rune-Scarred by discarding in the end step, then rescuing it for next turn.

The Skulkers get very big very quickly, and can be split via Rescue or Reprisal if a weenie attack would be better suited. Otherwise they combo excellently with Griselbrand, as they grow by 1 P/T for every card you draw, which when given lifelink via Swift Justice lets you offset the cost of activating Griselbrand. The Elixir makes sure you don't mill yourself this way, and reshuffles the Swift Justices to be used again. Via this method you can eventually draw almost all your deck each turn as the lifegain gets higher each time due to the Skulkers getting huge.

Drawing Time Warp means you can also string together a number of turns by drawing the deck, casting Time Warp, discarding down, then shuffling with Elixir next turn and drawing the deck again. Though this is barely ever needed as it's usually quicker to split the huge skulker into tokens or use Vizkopa to kill when the huge skulker has lifelink.

An interesting twist on the otherwise stagnant Orzhov lifegain decks with a cool central trick that resolves a lot more often than you'd think.

Here's a deck I made that I'm having a blast playing.

Recurring Nightmare ** Premium Build **



Lands

6x Plains
4x Island
5x Swamp
3x Azorius Guildgate
3x Dimir Guildgate
3x Orzhov Guildgate

Creatures

3x Wall of Omens
3x Banisher Priest
1x Resolute Archangel
3x Quickling
2x Agent of the Fates
3x Phyrexian Rager
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Shadowborn Demon
2x Rune-Scarred Demon


Artifacts

1x Elixir of Immortality

Spells

3x Cloudshift
2x Reprisal
1x Planar Cleansing
3x Vapor Snag
2x Void Snare
3x Voyage's End
2x Undying Evil

This control deck's main plan is to abuse the "When XXXX enters the battlefield" with bounce cards and Quickling. This deck is very good at defense.

I've had the most fun when I have 2-3 of the Quickling's out cycling each other and frustrating other players trying to remove my creatures.

As always I welcome anyone's advice on making the deck better. Maybe find a place for Mercurial Pretender?

I've been trying to build a Cloudshift, Archaeomancer, Rune-Scarred Demon, Sphinx-Bone Wand, Quickling, Talrand, Sky Summoner deck but everything I built so far is garbage and get's owned by my aggro decks by AI.

Maybe someone's got it to work?

Going 3 colours is the wrong way to do it. With Demons you have 4 x 7 mana cards in there which is too slow. Check out my build in the Azorius section. I think it works really well.