Huh. Izzet Prowess did pose some problems for me the few times I faced it (though one opponent was a more aggressive version running GGC; maybe not a strict Prowess deck). They got 1-2 creatures down before my counters were online and had the correct pump spells afterward (of which I could counter 1 at best) as well as a Firecraft to finish me.
Maybe they had the nuts, maybe my keeps were too clunky, maybe I misplayed.

Probably the second one. Esper should have enough tricks to run them out of steam and creatures before ever getting into burn range.

Watching them triple buff a creature and then casting Celestial Flare is euphoric.

My updated list:

https://www.magicduelshelper.com/deckli ... cfe99f9f9d

It's my old list, but:

-3 Horribly Awry
-1 Spell Shrivel
-1 Comparative Analysis
+2 Broken Concentration
+1 Telling
+1 Grasp of Darkness
+1 Westvale Abbey

It's close between the Abbey and Horribly Awry/Celestial Flare for the final spot.

That's really close to my list; differences for me are:

-3 Grasp of Darkness
-2 Declaration In Stone

+3 Gideon's Reproach
+1 Celestial Flare
+1 Broken Concentration

Seems like Esper Control has found a shell out of which the deck can be built and modified.

Grasp of Darkness is so much better than Gideon's Reproach, if only because it gives you an extra EOT play. I hate having to choose between removal and counters, so I'll usually just take the hit, see what they cast post-combat, and if removal is better, just Grasp the target end of turn.

Plus it kills Avacyn, it kills a transformed Kytheon, it kills Nissa without it attacking (during the period where they are digging out their forest before they can transform), it kills Tracker in response to him buffing, etc.

It's way more flexible. Yeah, the mana can sometimes be a pain, but much more rarely than you'd think. I have BB by turn 2 or 3 alot of games if I want it from Evolving Wilds and duals.

I agree Grasp is the stronger card; I just think there are quite some awkward mana problems while running Grasp.
E.g. you want t2 for Grasp; but also for Telling Time (to be able to leave both up), for Flare or for your counterspell t3. All of these thresholds are much easier to hit if you just need 1W instead of BB; hence Reproach > Grasp for me.
I do think this slot could be up to debate though, maybe the truth lies in between.

All of that seems doable, but usually it's okay to not have WW by turn 2, since it's very rare that you'll need to Flare a 1-drop unless it's Kytheon. And of course anything you could flare that early, you could Grasp. Things like Wilds help you have the early stuff you need. I mean, I'm sure you'll agree that the biggest thing far and away is getting counter magic up and online.

I do agree on that; and to get BB t2 and UU t3 you need a UB dual; one out of 4 cards in your deck and you can't tutor for it. It's much easier to hit W turn 2 and UU t3 afterwards.

The weird scenario with Flare/Grasp is that you'll often crack a Wilds early to fetch for one of the colours (in your case likely Black) only to find yourself unable to cast the other card later. Reproach gets around that a bit.

The scenario with Telling Time is mainly relevant vs. aggressive decks. On the play, you'd generally rather cast Telling Time, but sometimes you'll just take the 2-for-1 offered by them enchanting their 1-drop or you just want to remove their Kytheon. It's way more important on the draw though; especially against an unknown opponent. Even them missing their 1-drop does not mean they're not aggressive; you'd need Grasp open by their t3in that scenario whereas you otherwise would want to cast Telling Time.
Again, you'd need a UB dual to leave open Time as well as Grasp; whereas you have a lot more options to leave open 1W/1U.

Grasp also remains relevant much longer and is relevant in much more matches and scenarios. Maybe I'm greedy but I'd prefer that to something that is rarely a better option than Flare

Interesting to see such a convergance in deck design.

Holding mana open for a counter is ideal, but especially vs aggro I often end up mostly using board removal in the early game. Having early removal online ASAP is crucial vs aggro, and reproach is always ready even when I am struggling to hit all my mana sources.

I run 3 flares and I am considering 4. Reproach is the perfect supprt spell for flare since it removes 1/1s, forcing opponent to sac a larger creature.

If Gideon's Reproach were something like Arrow Volley Trap, I'd agree. But I don't want to use any spell to take a single 1/1, unless it's the very specific scenario of taking out a blocker allowing me to kill a PW with Avacyn/Gideon. Usually, I'm just contented to soak the damage and make my decisions EOT.

But again, as HenWen said, it's basically a philosophical and strategy debate between timing/flexibility vs. mana/efficiency.

And I may be going back. I'm finding the Broken Concentration to be pretty cumbersome in early draws. I don't know that I would change anything from my original list now. Maybe this is too quick and reactionary, but not having a counterspell available turn 3 is backbreaking.

This is my Esper Creature Control Deck (I call it Creature Control because it 1.) Runs more creatures than most of the other lists here and 2.) After I collect more OoG and SOI cards, I'm dropping pretty much all of my creatures for a very spell-heavy build):

1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 x Thing in the Ice
2 x Sigiled Starfish
2 x Gideon's Reproach
1 x Celestial Flare
1 x Telling Time
1 x Grasp of Darkness
1 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Reave Soul

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 x Oath of Gideon
2 x Scatter to the Winds
2 x Broken Concentration
2 x Anguished Unmaking
1 x Read the Bones

1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 x Suppression Bonds
1 x Comparative Analysis
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

1 x Archangel Avacyn
1 x Possessed Skaab
1 x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

1 x Linvala, the Preserver
1 x Sire of Stagnation
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

4 x Plains
4 x Island
4 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Glacial Fortress


This is probably the best deck I've built. It runs really well. Almost all of my losses can be tied into either bad mana (generally either too many lands or not hitting doubles), the priority issue messing with my plays, and the occasional issue I have with my laptop not stopping the timer/playing a card. The mana base is very solid; I rarely have issues with it. When I do, it's normally just bad luck with getting too few/many lands or just the wrong colors. It's not normally too bad, though, because this deck has lots of card draw and a little bit of scrying. As for the above debate of Grasp vs. Reproach, I only have the one Grasp to play. The top cards in my deck are:

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Linvala, the Preserver: I'm putting these two together because they both serve the very valuable purpose of giving us life. We have quite a few cards that drain us of life, most notably Ob Nixilis and Anguished Unmaking, and these are the two cards that give us most of our life back. We also have Liliana's creature side and Shambling Vent, but these two work better. Kalitas also has a great combo: activate his ability at least once to get two +1/+1 counters, then Languish the board to get a whole host of zombie tokens. This combo works well with the Possessed Skaab, as the Skaab can retrieve the Languish and get sacced to Kalitas.
Anguished Unmaking: This deck's ultimate removal spell, the only cards it can't get rid off are manlands, Gaea's Revenge, Plated Crusher, and whatever the other green hexproof creature is.
Planeswalkers: All of these alone are a win condition, except for maybe Lilana's flip side and the SOI Jace. When you start combining them, however, things get really nasty. I've had multiple matches where I'm drawing three+ cards a turn late-game with Jace, Ob Nixilis, and my regular draw. I have noticed that there are times when you can draw a little too much, namely while you have Sire of Stagnation on the board. But that's why I have [card]Possessed Skaab[card]. I didn't realize that I could draw too many cards when I was first building the deck, but I knew it was unavoidable that I card I would want to play would e in the graveyard at some point.

On a side note from my deck: If we get the [card]Oath of Liliana[/card] from Eldrich Moon, do you think it would be playable in Esper Control? It kind of feels like something between Oath of Chandra and Oath of Gideon to me.

Without knowledge of what cards you're missing, I can't give you great advice, but the curve is good. Are you running 22 lands? That bad, especially if you're trying to support Ulamog. Scrying won't make up for card draw when you need those cards AND those lands.

And no, Oath of Liliana wouldn't make Esper Control. Unsubstantiate will. Blessed Alliance will. Summary Dismissal PROBABLY will.

Lili's Oath is probably worse for us than Fleshbag or something, and that is worse than Flare (now Blessed Alliance).

No, I'm running 25 lands (I missed 3x Evolving Wilds). With the missing cards, it's basically just a full playset of Grasp of Darkness and several copies of Rise from the Tides. Once I get those, I'm basically just going to dump most creatures to give RftT as much full as possible.
EDIT: Also, a second copy of Thing in the Ice.

The problem with dropping creatures and adding Rise from the Tides is that you are turning on your opponent's removal without immediate benefit. My thinking, and the basis of the inclusion of my 2 creatures (Jace and Avacyn) is that I don't much care if they get removed because Jace is an immediate must-remove and the best turn 2 play in Duels. He's also got some sweeper protection simply by being flipped to a Planeswalker. Avacyn is either a EOT play, which gets around most removal besides Anguished Unmaking and Grasp of Darkness, or he's a mid-combat play, which allows for more potential removal (Declaration in Stone, Languish, etc.), but also makes him a removal spell himself by jumping in and killing something.

I guess my opinion about Rise from the Tides is that YES, our current lists are slow. Yes, the ability to drop 20 points of damage on to the board and then just win next turn is appealing. But does it make the deck BETTER? Are we really short on win cons? Counter control doesn't NEED a ton of win cons. We need cards, so we need card draw and we need counters. Our actions need to be efficient the whole way through the game. That's why the Walkers are enough. Because they are what we need: efficient and flexible. Left unchecked, sure, Avacyn could win me a game. But I'd never build my strategy around it. Esper is winning by reaching the halfway point of their deck 5 cards sooner than the opponent does. That's how we win and that's why I don't think Rise from the Tides is a reliable enough win condition. It's one of those "win more" cards outside of decks that can cheat it out during their opponents' end step. If you could cast it AND be able to hold up counter backup, you're at 9 mana with counters in hand, congrats, you've already won anyway.

Rise from the Tides is nice because you don't usually NEED more than 7 or 8 zombies to ruin your opponent's day, so dropping creatures just to add more fuel isn't really that efficient if the creatures you're using have a purpose. Tides is nice because it baits your opponents board clear out.

Hello Folks,

First post here but long time lurker. I love my angels and reanimator decks in general which seem to work somewhat better this release with some more planeswalker hate from imprisoned in the moon. Any tips for improvement would be greatly appreciated. This deck was inspired by another post I saw on magic duels helper and the emeria reanimator decks I saw on youtube. I don't know how to link the cards-someone please tell me how.

Creatures (8)
Emeria Shepherd x2
Greeenwarden of Murasa x1
Bruna the Fading Light x1
Gisela the Broken Blade x1
Arcangel Avacyn x1
Linvala the Preserver x1
Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy x1

Sorceries (13)
Declaration in Stone x2
Pieces of the Puzzle x4
Languish x2
Planar Outburst x2
Necromantic Summons x3
Ever After x2

Instants (6)
Telling Time x2
Artificer's Epiphany x2
Anguished Unmaking x2

Enchantments (4)
Oath of Jace x2
Imprisoned in the Moon x2

PW's
Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Liliana, The Last Hope

Lands (25)
Plains x5
Island x1
Swamp x3
Shambling Vent x2
Sunken Hollow x2
Prairie Stream x2
Drowned Catacombs x2
Isolated Chapel x2
Glacial Fortress x2
Evolving Wilds x4

So far I just grind out any threats they play until I resurrect 2 or 3 creatures at once to overwhelm my opponent with a 2 turn clock. The Emeria Shepherds are clutch cause they can also bring back the Imprisoned In the Moon in case you mill them or anything else really.

You can put [ card ] and [ /card ] around all the card names or [ deck ] before the first card and [ /deck ] after the last. Minus the spaces between the brackets I added to show you.

Your deck looks fun, Esper has been one of my favorites ever since I pulled a foil Dromar, the Banisher many years ago.

It looks a lot like a deck I made, more PW though. Ob Nixilis Reignited and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

So I'm probably being cute here but, anyone notice how Spell Queller and Ulamog's Nullifier kind of want to be BFFs?

I've tried some form of Esper Flash Flyers deck every season now so I won't be surprised if it fails again but I got a few new toys to try out...