viewtopic.php?f=61&t=16478

This is what I'm going with on release day. I'm being disciplined and cutting Avaycn for Gearhulk.

I've finally got all the cards to make the suggested deck earlier in this thread. It's working out decently for me, but I still don't find it to be as consistent as say 4c walkers. Does anyone have any tips? I find 50-60% of games go well, but others I just seem to get all tap out removal, or all counters, and overall to me the best has been when I have a mix so that I can deal with threats on the board as well as ones I can't by countering them.

My couple questions would be:

1. what are the ideal things to look for in an opening hand? I'm often struggling between focusing on setting up my mana correctly vs having enough of a plan in hand to make things work. Usually then it turns out I'm up against aggro when I don't have a good hand for it and vice-versa.
2. Turn 3 Liliana a good idea? Most times I've tried it, seems to just tap me out and set up for the board getting out of control, even when it's seemed like they aren't doing anything on the other side.

I'd really like to get better at playing Esper, I know it can be good and it's just me as the player, but with almost every deck on Duels I can't help but feel that the consistency just isn't there. This is true of both aggro and control decks where games flip from ideal draws to horrid ones. I know RNG and all that, but I still think the 4-3-2-1 kills a lot of otherwise amazing decks.

This is one of the reasons I love Telling Time. T2 you know better what you need because you have a better idea which deck your opponent is playing and you are another draw step or two into your deck. If my opening hand can cast it t2, I almost always keep.

My general guideline:
-3-5 lands that can cast the spells I have in hand (e.g. if I have Murder I want double-black t3; if I hold Scatter to the Winds I want double-blue t3). On the draw, 2 lands plus Telling Time can be alright if the hand is good otherwise.
-Some way(s) to interact with the opponent early, this means counterspells or removal. Telling Time can double down as an early interactive card if it doesn't need to fetch a land early. T4 Languish may be good enough on the play; but is too slow on the draw most of the time.




Depends on how well you can protect her and under how much pressure you are.
If the opponent has the board (and she can't do too much about it), it's better to keep up the interactive spell.
I'll slam her when I have removal backup for her (might change with KLD due to Lathnu Hellion and Fleetwheel Cruiser) or she can kill a very important opposing creature (Cryptbreaker, Deathcap Cultivator, Wharf Infiltrator). If I only have counterspell backup, it's more important to get these online and better to keep them up.

Thanks for the thoughts, definitely helpful.

I generally thought a T3 lili on an empty board would be pretty devastating, but several decks have easily recovered from it.

The worst match with my Esper I've played was against mono-U that took probably over an hour, but they managed to beat a Lili ultimate with a ton of draw and bounce. Felt like stabbing myself in the eye the whole match, esp when they take the entire timer each turn.

Matches when I get all tap-out control or all counters and not much else...I find myself wondering if I just didn't mulligan correctly to start with. When I have 4 lands, a dec in stone, anguished unmaking and planar outburst...I feel like I should mulligan, but then again next hand could be worse and without mana or too much. Still it seems that example hand I will never draw a single counter and be left playing catch up almost the whole match with a slow grind to my eventual death.

Modolu explained most of it above, but it also helps that you know what type of meta you're facing. The more you know about it, the better you'll be at playing Esper control, or control in general.

Generally...

You usually want to see an opener of 3 lands with action spells to boot. Telling Time is definitely a card you want early on in the game; it helps with your draws and you're able to see what you need in the upcoming turns. If you have a 2 lander then you'll need to be disciplined and ask yourself, "Is this any good? Can I do better? Am I on the draw or play?" Once you ask yourself those questions then you'll know what to do. It also good to know what's in your deck.

Would you keep these hands?


About turn 3 Liliana...

This goes back to the situation at hand. Would it be safe to play her out on T3? I see on the field for my opponent, should I still play her out? I see my opponent is playing mono , would he have burn for her? It also depends on your hand and if you have anything else going for you; if you do you could play her out as bait.

But overall, it all depends on the situation.

The thing about T3 Liliana is that majority of the time people are aiming to play to her ultimate; which could make it easier for your opponent to play around. "Meh, I'll just wait until she gets to 7 loyalty to deal with her."

Her ultimate is usually back breaking, but it's definitely not out of the realm to come back from. Was your opponent playing wipe effects like Displacement Wave and Crush of Tentacles? Those are pretty good for dealing with the zombie tokens.

Thanks ZZ, definitely does depend on the board state, but sometimes I just can't predict everything that my opponent is doing. I'm at 30-35 rank usually, and it seems in that area it's not full of net decks, but about a 50/50 mix of random rogue stuff that people are trying out likely.

All of the linked hands I would have likely kept. The last one may not be ideal to me with no double blue, and Gisela early game seems to just be a removal magnet, though you have planar outburst, I find if I have to do that T5 I've probably lost vs white humans, they could have a Selfless Spirit or Make a Stand to ruin that plan.

Yup the mono blue had Displacement Wave, Crush, targetted bounce, and I forgot what was the last reason, but it must have been flyers I couldn't remove at the time, but either way gave them enough time to grind me down making my ground troops useless or resetting them often enough to make it so. I've never played another deck like it, but these rogue decks are always difficult to me as with Esper I seem to rely on anticipating what my opponent is doing and knowing if I need to keep a Blessed Alliance in hand, or if targetted removal is better.

Sometimes I can't answer every threat, but even minor threats that stay on the board too long take my life total too low, in those cases sometimes an opponent unexpectedly catches me tapped out and can finish me off, other times I've made it down to 1-2 life and easily won...all depends on the deck I guess.

Very much Esper seems like it should have an answer to every situation, which is what drew me to it in the first place, but sometimes feels like I just don't draw those cards, especially after a big losing streak. I'd rather feel as if most games I made mis-plays that I could improve upon, I'm just hoping most of my problems stem from a bad opening hand.

So, with the advent of Kaladesh, I've updated my most favored deck list to reflect the new inclusion, and additions:

Esper still feels very slow relative to the meta. If it's going to have a tourney presence, other anti-aggro decks will need to spring up, murder the aggro decks for us, and allow us to swoop in and murder them.

Eh, if aggro is that prelevant than we can always go for more early removal, put in some Spell Shrivels, and add in Aether Hubs so we can cast them on T2; maybe Grasp of Darkness.

I'm with Divine, Epser in it's old form isn't able to answer threats fast enough. Ob Nix becomes much more of a liability if you even reach turn 5, and the sweepers don't give you the guaranteed safety they once did. Black kill spells just feel bad atm, with so many 2-for-1 body generators in play. Sure, you can Murder the Copter, but then you're banking on a sweeper to stop all those 1/1s and 2/2s chunking you. Counter spells and Fragmentize feel more important to prevent the insane amount of bodies on ETB, or killing the Vehicle payoffs respectively.

And even counterspells only come online on T3, where even in generous scenarios you're staring at serious beats from a 2 drop. ****, the Brawler is already swinging for 4 on T3 and that's just a single 2-drop. If you're on the draw, people could have already hit you for 12 points of damage before you get to play your third land.

T1: Kessig Prowler
T2: Voltaic Brawler
T3: Lathnu Hellion

Cool, I'm at 8 and now I can finally murder ONE of them. Or counter something, but I'm dead on board? The deck definitely needs to go back to 3x Blessed Alliance, it will likely need to cut Avacyn for removal, it may need to cut 1 or 2 counters for removal. Plus side, Hub makes T2 Grasp much more feasible.

But it's so much fun to play. I'm an eternal optimist, so I believe it can still be competitive. Realistically though, I see your points. =-P

Funny you should mention that scenario, had a turn 1 Kessig into that 2cmc transform spell today. Aether Meltdown helps a bunch.

I don't love it, because decks SHOULD be packing enchantment hate now, but it might work if only to drag us to that 4+ mana sweet spot we need to hit to take over.

You're right. In a world where we could run a 2 mana creature counter, or Immolating Glare, I'd never bother with it. What this does allow us to do however, is stall for sweepers at 2 mana instant speed. Enchantment hate all seems to be instant speed, and flicker decks are neither strong enough or resilient enough to the rest of the meta to be a concern we focus on. If they cast a rec sage turn 3 to pop the Meltdown on their Brawler, I'd happily spend a counter on it to keep 2 creatures out of the fight.

You said you were running a RG Ramp deck, right? Do you run Conclave Naturalists?

haha that guy died

I'm sorry I don't follow?



No just 2 x Sage atm.

Blessed Alliance
Essence Extraction
Unsubstantiate

Aether Hub

All good agaisnt the current meta.