here I finally found the relevant rule for this

508.5. If an ability of an attacking creature refers to a defending player, or a spell or ability refers to both an attacking creature and a defending player, then unless otherwise specified, the defending player it’s referring to is the player that creature was attacking at the time it became an attacking creature that combat, or the controller of the planeswalker that creature was attacking at the time it became an attacking creature that combat.


yeah it's a bug you should be milling if ulamog attacks a walker you control

found some answers to improve the deck. Drana's Emissary did prove to be a bum and so did Perilous Myr.

I have replaced them with:

Topan Freeblade... Boxes it out with the goblins and elves, provides a chump blocker and protects an early Necromantic Summons target from Fleshbag Marauder .

Mire's Malice... The "pool/nerfs to the format" are somewhat similar to sealed pool. This card has always been an all star in drafts and sealed. Green decks hate this card as much as blue decks hate the acid moss. It was a huge mistake not to include it.

Thanks for the helpful and positive feedback folks.

Peace,
-f

edit: I mixed up the names of two cards. I do this often. I also added the pop ups for the cards.

Freeblade?.. Myrs proved to be perfect answer to aggro for me, usually 2-for-1-ing their early drops. They could also damage the opponents' Planeswalkers, which is great considering our lack of burn in Esper.

I never want to top deck a Myr after a sweeper. Freeblade is kinda ok.

I see. It's just, they look kinda strange in a control shell but if that works for you - good

It is out of place on purpose. I picked the creature that makes the deck look one way out of the gate and do something else entirely. I also think freeblade is very useful for 1W.

My Esper Control List - Ulamill & Friends

Pretty simple stuff.. control, mill, man lands, planeswalker ultimates and Ulamog. The three green lands are for Brilliant Spectrum.

1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 x Gideon's Reproach
3 x Celestial Flare

3 x Sphinx's Tutelage
2 x Scatter to the Winds
2 x Spell Shrivel
3 x Artificer's Epiphany

2 x Suppression Bonds
2 x Countermand
4 x Brilliant Spectrum
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 x Planar Outburst
2 x Angelic Edict
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

3 x Plains
3 x Island
2 x Swamp
1 x Forest
2 x Lumbering Falls
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Drowned Catacomb
1 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Glacial Fortress
4 x Evolving Wilds


I'd like a little more enchantment hate.. but I can't have everything. The list is pretty tight. Wish I could fit some Cubs in here.. but the Angelic Edicts can do the job.

Here is my esper deck list

1 Shambling Vent
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Sunken Hollow
2 Prairie Stream
2 Isolated Chapel
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Plains
5 Swamp
7 Island

1 Sire of Stagnation
3 Fleshbag Maruadee
1 Jace Vyrn's Prodigy

3 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Languish
2 Planar Outburst
4 Alcemist's Vial
3 Artificer's Epiphany
4 Reave Soul
3 Inspiration
4 Spell Shrivel
2 Scatter to Wind
1 Ob Nixlis Reignited

we met thru a chance Necromantic Summons :

Disciple of the Ring

She fights with Jace. I think they used to hook up or something but that is cool because I am in love.

Also when playing in any game rank 20+... Felidar Cub... don't leave home without it.

-f

It seems 58 cards...

You're right. It was missing two lands.. two Prairie Stream (supposed to be 26 land). Good catch.. and welcome to NGA!

I'm having luck with this one but I find I'm never getting to Ulamog. It always seems like mid game I'm discarding lands because I need the other cards for more pressing threats. Or I'm racing to get through their deck if I've got a Sphinx out.

Ulamog is there as a just in case.. as in just in case they blow up all your Tutelages.. which has happened before.

If you're getting flooded a lot, by all means.. cut a land and play a Felidar Cub, another Spell Shrivel, another Angelic Edict, a Possessed Skaab, etc. I'm at 26 lands for two reasons: One.. I get mana screwed all the time on Xbox, not flooded.. and I'm beginning to think there might be distinct differences in the shuffler between Steam/Xbox, or in the way I mulligan. Two: All our draw spells in this deck have us discarding, so having the ability to ditch excess land is better IMO than ditching good spells.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. So far the only loses have been to mana screw, a few wide strategies where I didn't draw a sweeper.. and a game where dude resolved Disciple of the Ring and I couldn't answer it. Disciple should probably be in this list.. but I'm terrible with her so I shy away from running her.

I've spent the last week trying to make a control deck that doesn't suck horribly, with very little success.
From the start I was of the opinion that control is very weak in the current card pool, but actually trying to play it brought me to a world of pain and misery that I could not have imagined.

Anyways, after some failed attempts with 2 color decks, I have finally found something promising in this esper enchantment pile based on sigil of the empty throne:



1 Jace, Vryn's prodigy
2 Harbinger of the tides - to recover tempo against aggro, esp. with infectious bloodlust
1 sigiled starfish - Jace number 2, or at least it tries
2 alchemist's vial - since all the removal is sorcery speed, this is useful against haste, or if the opponent blows up the suppression bonds on their Ulamog
4 tightening coils - it's doom blade
2 disperse - can also save my win conditions from enchantment removal
2 jorubai murk lurker - give lifelink to the angels and save me from my own card drawing spells
3 sphinx's tutelage - it's a 4/4 flier for 3 mana with sigil; otherwise it's my plan to win the game
3 claustrophobia - double blue can be hard to pay on turn 3
4 read the bones - the blue/white version of the deck didn't work because it's missing this
4 suppression bonds - this saves me from always losing to planeswalkers and evolutionary leap
2 languish
2 sigil of the empty throne - with 16 total enchantments in the deck
2 planar outburst
1 Ob Nixilis reignited - card drawing, removal, and my plan C to win the game

2 plains
4 island
3 swamp
2 shambling vent
2 sunken hollow
2 prairie stream
2 drowned catacomb
2 isolated chapel
2 glacial fortress
4 evolving wilds


What I concluded is that true control is impossible, since there are too many uncontrollable ways to win the game, especially in ramp decks, and no combination of counterspells and removal can be assembled to take care of all of them in a reliable fashion. Therefore, you want a deck that can win quickly, which also means having enough win conditions that a couple of them can consistently be found early in every game (you can expect the first one to be blown up by enchantment removal) - i.e. the 3 tutelages alone are not enough.

uh... telling time?

It used to be in the deck.
But isn't the sigiled starfish just better? At the end of the day what telling time does is put a single unwanted card to the bottom of the library, and a couple activations of the starfish give me roughly the same value. The fact that it's an instant doesn't matter since I have no counterspells or instant speed removal, I think I'd rather have a blocker.
On the other hand, it dies to my own mass removal spells, so maybe telling time is better after all.

It definitely feels like this deck needs as much card selection as it can get.

Rather than Telling time in this deck; How about Retreat to Coralhelm ? scry on landdrop; untapping jorubais/vents/angels, double loot with jace, + it's an enchant ! Maybe cut 1 Read the Bones for a singleton ? I worked a bit on this archetype inspired by Mobius back awhile, but I got fed up losing to moss. Nice to see someone else brewing with it I tried it pure Azorius, but if we just concede to moss, adding black for vents and RDB seems sweet ! Between this and your bant aggro deck, you're fast turning into my fav brewer

well, you said the deck was bad because didn't have RtB but Telling Time should have been in that specific slot, in that case
And Sigled Starfish is only better if you are facing alot of ground based aggro decks, otherwise it does nothing vs thopters and the bigger decks just run it over, while you miss timings for holding up counter magic, but hey, different play styles, I guess

This archetype is just overall poorly positioned right now; it dies vs Mosstards, it dies vs Thoptertards. It's a supercute deck type though; and Retreat / lifegain theme to offset rtb would work fine in a different meta.

Yeah I have considered all the on-color retreats but I like that the starfish gives me a play on turn 2 other than tightening coils. The problem with the azorius version was not only the lack of good card drawing but also having less win conditions overall (Ob Nixilis ultimate counts) and less mass removal.

In the azorius version I was trying thopter spy network but when I realized that I had guardians of Meletis in my deck I threw everything out of the window.




I have no countermagic in the deck, with no instants/flash creatures it just wouldn't work. Again, the azorius version had an artifact subtheme and I had artificer's epiphany plus two scatter to the winds, but I wasn't too happy with either of these cards (and scatter has a known bug that makes it occasionally uncastable).