@DJ0045 I shot you a pm

Kickin Ass, takin names! Heh

Cut a dead weight for 1, IMO.

I'll cut 2 for 2. TBH the Dead Weights have been dead draws a lot. Grasp of Darkness has you mostly covered, but I like Dead Weight being able to drag things into Languish range.

Yeah, that's probably fine... The second copy is never dead, it just becomes a vampire.

Silly DJ, vampires are dead

To me

The addition makes me want to add Welcome to the Fold and From Under the Floorboards, but what to cut? What to cut?...

Gobo Rab... Where you at? You know the Dimir side of Esper.

Edit: also, I've just updated the OP, with my current build, and thread info.

Compulsion felt dead to me because if they swing with their Sower or Smasher I can kill them next turn, sure, but then I've already taken five, as there aren't any chump blockers in the deck. Would rather kill them before if possible. Grasp at least cleanly kills thought-knot seer if they decide to exile some other priority threat from your hand... although it's not ideal either.



Yeah, I tried the matchup, two games with your list against this type of decks. I'll be honest, I'm not the greatest player, but all the time it felt like ramp was one step ahead. The lists where similar to those posted in the selesnya decklists thread, although not quite. I saw something like this:

Sylvan Ranger
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Reality Smasher
Greenwarden of Murasa
Matter Reshaper
Thought-Knot Seer
Eldrazi Displacer
Oblivion Sower
Gaeia's Revenge
Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Fog
Ruin in Their Wake
From Beyond
Explosive Vegetation
Planar Outburst
Nissa's Renewal


Didn't see plated crusher, but it still felt hopeless with the barrage of seer, displacer, sower, smasher, kozilek. Dead weight only kills the 1/1 Sylvan ranger, to cast murderous compulsion you have to take 5 damage to face first, even then the eldrazi displacer makes anything dodge your removal, so you need 2 removals for 1 threat, and the same 2 for 1 with Reality Smasher. Then there's the case of Thought-knot seer -> Displacer -> Thought-knot seer to exile anything useful you might have left in the hand. Then one match the guy nonchalantly cast Kozilek into my Scatter to the Winds, but as he still draws 7 while my hand is empty the game's still lost. The other match I didn't have the counter for Kozilek, so just conceded. Admittedly Ulamog doesn't feel as big of a problem as he was before with the 4 exile removals, although still very annoying.

My thoughts on the matchup are that reprisal and sinister concoction would have been more useful than compulsion, potentially, although still might not be enough. Feels like the best thing here would actually be blue counters, anything else isn't as clean. And yeah, 2 games are not any kind of sample size, of course, but those 2 losses back-to-back made me ragequit

Edit: I should clarify that the games were with the original version of the list before "call the bloodline" and other changes

Okay, thanks for that. Some thoughts: we added Call the Bloodline to turn compulsion into an instant a lot of the time, but that may not be enough (note it also helps with the chump blocker issue). The sample size might be small, but it's totally valid. Let me think about how to beat that deck, I'll also build it and play it, and then I'll get back to this thread.

For sure I'd consider putting in Reprisal for that matchup. It hits the entire deck, except unfortunately Displacer which is a top priority kill.

But yeah, we look ill equipped to handle that deck, I'll try to shore up the holes.

Compulsion is terrible unless you can garantee that you're going to play it at instant speed most of the time, and your deck has WAY too few discard outlets to make that possible. I had a lengthy discussion with Rabble the other day about the card (prompted by his Rise from the Tides deck, which is basically Dimir Madness Control) and we both agreed that even in a deck that runs close to max copies of Call, Reckless Scholar and Catalog, 3 copies of Compulsion is already too many. I'd start the cuts there.




This logic is so wrong I'll attack it from another point just to differentiate myself from 3B:

In Standard Control decks, Avacyn has to compete with Dragonlord Ojutai.

Fair enough, but I hope we can agree that there are only so many 5 drops we can justify, even in control. I'm probably not willing to cut compulsion for Avacyn (when she only gets half of her value). The threat package for control should have all of the planeswalkers, and Kalitas, but does it really need anything else?

Speaking of Ojutai, he is actually hard to remove, we don't have an equivalently great control finisher creature. Well maybe in green, but not in these colors. Our equivalents are planeswalkers, only. Kalitas is only making the cut because of its general synergy with dying creatures.

You're reeeeeally underestimating Avacyn, DJ. Like, for reals. Forget about synergy. She has synergy with Plains, and that's all the synergy you need. Cut that damned 4th Compulsion that is going to rot in your hand without a good target and include the Archangel of winning at Magic already! That is like the level 0 of improvements your deck needs. Only after that you should start concerning youself with the ramp matchup and stuff.

He's being a rebellious Edgelord Fel, it's just a phase let him work it out

Alright, alright... I'll try it damn it.

Dead Weight has been a dead draw for me even in my Sigil deck. It just doesn't hit enough things to be relevant.

Ok, after 5 games going 1/4 with this thing (so close to 2/3, bloody Flash deck!) I'm gonna say this just isn't matching up. So much out there is proving an issue because it screws over your removal package. Specifically Murderous Compulsion does nothing vs Sylvan Advocate (for a rare, seeing both copies in 3 of those games got my tinfoil hat twitching) and once Always Watching hits the board turn 3, when you'd be actually looking to Madness cost it, the card is then useless. Dead Weight has killed so far: A Jace on turn 2, a Duskwatch Recruiter turn 2, brought a Woodland Wanderer into Languish range. Past turn 2 this card gets VERY hard to justify, whereas Grasp of Darkness has been great for stalling things out.

I never hit a Call the Bloodline until game 4 when it was too late to do anything, and this is my other source of distress in a CONTROL deck. No real card draw until turn 5. You. Are. MAD! 2 copies of Oath of Jace? I need it instant speed man! I go one less card deep but if I'm playing it at their end step (which I should) then I'll be seeing whatever card that was anyway. I'd lose:

-1 x Pore Over the Pages
-2 x Oath of Jace
+3 x Catalog

I lost game 2 with Pore in hand and no way to draw a 5th land to cast it. Control NEEDS a way to do this stuff early on (or at least a Telling Time). If you are 100% committed to the whole "Murderous Compulsion-Madness cost" thing, then just use Catalog. The scry when you have a PW hasn't been relevant.

The wincons. I did -1 Compulsion for +1 Avacyn and she actually pushed for my only win (well okay she did eat a removal spell, but Sorin hitting a Languish with his +1 after she got 2 swings in got it). Linvala has done what she is meant to, although I rarely want to force both her benefits and would rather Outburst then play her. Kalitas has impressed me, and he gave that Simic Flash deck a dam good run. I think though that this build 100% could do with Ayli, if only for the 2/3 deathtouch for 2. I could have stalled a game out far longer than I had any right doing with no card draw just by playing "sac-the zombie" with Kalitas. The PW choices are fine, rest of the removal package is fine.

What kills the deck:

- It feels like you're building for last meta's aggro. Always Watching renders a lot of what you're running early useless.
- Not enough card draw early. Oath of Jace is subpar, you don't use Delerium.
- PW.dec/Ramp's threats are still more consistent and numerous than yours atm. You WILL NOT compete late game with this build against them.

To end this with a smile, what I liked/what your build showed me:

- Kalitas is better than I gave him credit for, but needs a bit more to support him in this deck which I've suggested.
- Plays different to any other Esper build I've tried and feels like there is a way to make this work.
- Murderous Compulsion is fun if you pull it off

Hope my reduced rank assists you!

Lol... Know what's funny? I think the OP build was better. Cut thing in the ice. That's about it. Replace it with early card draw. Probably Telling Time, maybe cut a suppression bond for copy 3.

Another option: cut thing, cut from under... Add telling time, and Gideon.

When I started, I was building for all metas... No conditional removal at all. Destroy or exile. A little card loss is nothing in a control deck, so long as the deck has ways to recover.

But that Skeleton is just...I dunno man. I think there's something to be said for going the Kalitas/Call the Bloodline token generator route to use Angelic Purge and the like more reliably, but there's gotta be something else we can use early on. I just find the idea of reliably using Purge in a next to creatureless deck early on is hard.

thats a mistake

I am testing kinda similar shell, but I am still grinding for some cards, so can't fully playtest it, but it seems to work pretty well so far.

Creatures (5)
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2x Thing in the Ice
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Linvala, the Preserver

Instants/Sorceries (17)
1x Declaration in Stone
3x Grasp of Darkness
4x Murderous Compulsion
2x Scatter to the Wind
3x Catalog
2x Anguished Unmaking
2x Welcome to the Fold

Enchantments (5)
3x Call the Bloodline
2x Suppression Bonds

Artifacts (1)
1x Tamiyo's Journal

Planeswalkers (4)
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

Lands (25)
2x Shambling Vent
2x Sunken Hollow
2x Prairie Stream
1x Westvale Abbey
2x Drowned Catacomb
2x Isolated Chapel
2x Glacial Fortress
4x Evolving Wilds
2x Plains
2x Island
4x Swamp

There are still 3 spots I'm not certain with. I don't like running sweepers, since this deck loves to create tokens, but I might get a 1 of, Archangel Avacyn could also make the list or just some Celestial Flare for hexproof... Or perhaps Angelic Purge to deal with big stuff.

You definitely need at least 1 Sweeper/Panic Button. These token decks don't come online anywhere near fast enough compared with the W/X aggro decks running Always Watching and that Green flash/trample enchantment for Wolves. You'll just get run over. Planar Outburst is just a good catch-all (Languish would leave you pretty sore wiping your board and leaving them with something else left). And if you can Awaken it you at least gain SOMETHING out of the wipe.

How are you finding Welcome to the Fold may I ask? I'm hearing some pretty whacky stories but it seems horribly inconsistent on paper.