Hello NGA,

Long time lurker, 1st time poster here. I've been trying to create an Esper brew that works in this meta, and would like some feedback on the deck I'm currently running. It's not very different from the previous meta, adding only 2 Fatal pushes from Aether Revolt. I'm not really sure what other new cards would be good. I'd really like to make this work, since Esper control is my favorite

x2 Fatal Push

X1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
x2 Blessed Alliance
x3 Telling Time

x2 Scatter to the Winds
x3 Broken Concentration
x3 Spell Shrivel
x2 Murder
x2 Anguished Unmaking
x1 Liliana, the Last Hope

x3 Glimmer of Genius
x2 Languish
x1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

x1 Disciple of the Ring
x1 Planar Outburst
x1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
x1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

x1 Linvala, the Preserver
x1 Torrential Gearhulk
x1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis

x2 Plains
x5 Island
x3 Swamp
x2 Shambling Vent
x2 Sunken Hollow
x2 Prairie Stream
x2 Drowned Catacomb
x2 Isolated Chapel
x2 Glacial Fortress
x4 Evolving Wilds

Would appreciate any tips to improve the deck for this meta.

Thanks!

Hey there;

The list looks solid; my own list does not look too different from it.
The main difference is that I'm running a lot more early removal. Most of the more Dangerous threats to your strategy cost 2 or less mana, which means that counterspells and Murder don't deal with them effectively whereas Grasp of Darkness and Fatal Push do.

One interesting thing about your list is that you decided to forgo Confirm Suspicions completely. I agree that the card is quite clunky, but it still is one of the better winconditions the deck has IMO. That being said, it does not match up too well against the aggressive meta, so I could definitely see arguments for not including it.

Regarding the manabase, I think Aether Hub would help you greatly to get the sometimes very steep mana requirements (especially if you include Grasp of Darkness). Yes, it mostly is a 1-shot, but you really only need it this once most of the time. I'd cut a couple Islands for two Hubs and maybe add the third Hub as 27th land.

Thanks for the tips. Based on your suggestions, I think I may try cutting both Murders and add 2 Grasp of Darkness (though I'm a little worried about Aethersphere Harvester with this change), and throwing in the Aether Hubs to compensate for the tighter early game mana costs. I'm not sure I can justify a 3rd Fatal push with so little on hand to activate revolt.

I've definitely used Confirm Suspicions in most of my Esper decks in the past, and I agree it's a huge boost if you can get it off. Still, some of the worst threats to the deck, like Harvester and Bristling Hydra come out before turn 5, and that's why I went with more Spell Shrivels. I may be off base here, but I feel like Confirm Suspicions really helps more in the control match up, where this deck is already pretty strong thanks to all the counter spells, as well as the Anguished Unmakings for planeswalkers, which are the primary reason I gave up on Grixis control and came back to Esper.

I've cut some hard counters and made room for Unsubstantiate and it's been great for the deck. I'll post my current list tonight, it's actually extremely effective against vehicles and if I had been testing it harder earlier, I probably would've brought it to the tournament.

I think Linvala is too slow and clunky and doesn't pay off nearly as much as you'd like a singleton bomb to pay off.

My current build of Esper Control


2 x Fatal Push

1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 x Blessed Alliance
2 x Telling Time
3 x Unsubstantiate
1 x Declaration in Stone

2 x Scatter to the Winds
4 x Spell Shrivel
1 x Murder
2 x Anguished Unmaking
1 x Liliana, the Last Hope

3 x Glimmer of Genius
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 x Confirm Suspicions
1 x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

1 x Torrential Gearhulk
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis

2 x Plains
4 x Island
2 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Glacial Fortress
3 x Evolving Wilds
3 x Aether Hub

I said this months ago when KLD came out and everyone was trying to find ways to make it less susceptible to vehicle decks.....Everyone seemed to ignore it...

The early tempo hit from bouncing or pseudo-countering a T2-T3 play can make a big difference in getting over the hump to turn on our more expensive counterspells and sweepers. Watching an opponent tap a creature to pilot a vehicle just to have the vehicle bounced can be a pretty significant tempo hit.

The bounce effect is still relevant as token removal. It is also good against creatures that use +1/+1 counters, which are pretty common with all of the different varieties of Energy and Constrictor decks running around. Isn't terrible against combat tricks and Auras/Equipment either, although that is significantly less relevant on a tournament level.

Bouncing your own creatures to dodge removal is definitely relevant. Bouncing your own Blue Gearhulk is just gravy (EoT Flash Gearhulk, Flashback removal to kill something, swing for 5, EoT bounce Gearhulk, Flash Gearhulk, Flashback removal to kill something else, swing for 5).

I also found that the bounce pairs up nicely with Blessed Alliance, helping to work around the usual sac weakness. Being able to bounce your opponents little critter to force them into saccing their bigger threat can be very helpful. Same is true if you decide to go the route of Oath of Liliana.

Being an Instant to grab back with Baby Jace or Blue Gearhulk doesn't hurt either, same if you plan on trying to go the Dynavolt Tower or Thing in the Ice route.

Maybe you did, I dunno. But bouncing Cathartic Reunion is the best feeling ever.

Bad timing with edits on my part.....ugh.

I posted my thoughts about Unsubstantiate in Esper Control up above. ^^

Divinevert, I built your list 4 days ago. I'm X-0. And X is something like 30 between IPad and steam. Thanks!

My issue with control in Duels has been the lack of Negate. Wizards has made it clear that they do not want us to efficiently deal with the planeswalker. We were denied this in Origins, Oath of the Gatewatch, and now Aether Revolt. Thats a total of THREE times what Wizards have denied us Negate.

What is the best replacement for Negate?

_Is Disperse acceptable as it does interact with a resolved PW or Tutelage?
_Is Unsubstantiate just good enough for Duels when though we are not threatening a combo kill or fast clock with creatures? It seems important in prolonging the turn-3 Liliana / Tutelage from the opponent. Do we have to accept 2 for 1ing ourselves over the lack of Negate?
_What about playing artifacts and trying to turn on Metallic Rebuke?

Missing Negate definitely hurts as it not only counters Walkers, but also Vehicles; and it is amazing protection in the mirror.

I've tried playing Maps and Rebukes in a Grixis shell and it was not horrible, but Rebuke still was a 3-mana counterspell most of the time; and other 1-mana artifacts would be going out of your way too much I think.
A 1- or 2-of maindeck Disperse is okay; it seems to be the consensus that Unsubstantiate is the closest thing we've got though. Personally I'm not running either, but if I did it would be Unsub.

My main problem with Unsubstantiate is that I would only use it to prolong the casting of Sphinx's Tutelage & Liliana, the Last Hope when your ON THE DRAW and you've also got a 3-mana counter in hand. That means you 2-for-1 yourself, as a control deck, to deal with those threats ON THE DRAW.

Your most common, easy to cast, counter spell is Spell Shrivel, which also exiles those cards. The problem with Spell Shrivel however is that it loses its effectiveness in the very late game so you need to back it up with the threat of hard counters such as Scatter to the Winds. Anguished Unmaking is the closest I believe we have to a Negate which would need to target enchantments (Sphinx's Tutelage), planeswalkers (Liliana, Gideon, etc), and artifacts (Smuggler's Copter, Heart of Kiran). The other benefit of Negate would be in the control mirror to fight over spells on the stack.

There has to be some combination of cards that's better than x3 Unsubstantiate.

What about x1 Fragmentize & x2 Disperse.

Fragmentize is always situational. Unsubstantiate is almost always valuable for something. It's not just for delaying walkers...it has a bunch of flexible uses. It's always useful for tempo even if it is card disadvantage. If we get late game, hand size is usually the least of our fears.

This^^

The tempo hit from having your T2/T3 play hit with Unsub can be pretty significant, especially if we are talking vehicles. T2 Copter, T3 critter to crew Copter that eats Unsub means not getting hit by Copter until at least T4, and which point you should have counterspell mana for the followup pilot, or removal for Copter itself. It also helps to get over that hump to get enough mana on the table to use sweepers to clean up the board.

As I have said before, beyond all the tempo applications, there is a ton of other things that Unsub is good for. The bounce is still relevant as token removal, it also works well against creatures that use a lot of +1/+1 counters (like the Snek decks running around), combat tricks, and equipment/auras (although those are uncommon in the meta). It combos well with sacrifice based removal like Blessed Alliance and Oath of Liliana. The bounce effect is still relevant as removal protection for our own creatures, and bouncing your own Gearhulk EoT to reuse the ETB effect is almost never bad.

It is also another cheap Instant for the decks that choose to run things like Dynavolt or Thing in the Ice, can be recast from the yard with Blue Hulk (and Baby Jace if you choose to run him), and is another card we can exile (and combos well) with Disciple in the late game.

Card disadvantage is not my gripe with Unsubstantiate; Espereasily has the means to refill.
Also, Unsub is still good on the play; e.g. turn 4 Unsub + Telling Time or Unsub + removal spell is a huge Swing in your favor, and denying your opponents a t2 Copter, Scrounger or Key has some value as well.

My reason for not including it is the lategame. Unsub is yet another counterspell that gets worse lategame (similar to Shrivel); and Shrivel's exile clause is too important against stuff like Scrounger (I wish we had Void Shatter...).
Maybe I'm wrong here and should run 2 of them; but the main targets would be Fevered Visions and Tutelage, and I don't see enough of these decks to warrant them.

I actually added Unsub for vehicles, not mill

I don't feel like I have a huge Problem with Vehicles; your removal suite is very well-equipped to take them down IMO. Unsub does help a bit, but the majority of work is done by the removal spells (Grasp in particular, but Blessed Alliance and Push are great as well)

I run 2 in my list and I don't have any complaints. Although running all 3 makes it more consistent for that early game tempo jump.

I feel like the bounce side of the card goes a long way towards keeping it relevant in the late game. Using it as removal protection or to reuse Gearhulk is enough on it's own to still be alright in the late game IMO. I feel it goes a long way towards making Blessed Alliance better in certain matchups as well. On top of the usual benefits of bounce (removing counters/auras/equipment/combat tricks, or just removing a blocker/attacker for a turn, particularly after dropping an EoT Gearhulk).

Something I just thought about since people have been talking about Brisela on the main page. I suddenly want to Unsub my own Bruna to get extra reanimations. Completely impractical, way too expensive, but I still want to do it just to do it. Maybe this will be the impetus to start screwing around with Brisela again in some sort of shell.

Don't get me wrong, Unsubstantiate was the main card that won my the tournament during EMN season when I played against CGB in the finals. It prevents many ETB effects from happening providing your opponent doesn't have twice the mana to cast those things.

My main changes to Divinevert's deck would be the following. They are either detrimental to control in a format with vehicles.
-1 Declaration in Stone
-2 Confirmed Suspicions
-1 Murder
-3 Blessed Alliance

Because vehicles and tutelage are your main problems.
+2 Fragmentize
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Telling Time
+3 Grasp of Darkness

Lands would be...
4 Swamp, 2 Island, 1 Plains, 3 Hubs, and 4 Wilds

That's close to what I'm running, though Confirm Suspicions and Blessed Alliance are still in for me over Unsub and Fragmentize. Alliance gaining 4 lifeis just big against aggressive strategies, even if that means Copter gets to loot once.

Also I'm running a 27th land over Gideon. I agree 1 Plains is all the manabase has space for, and I hate being unable to fetch for the second Plains to cast him. Maybe that's just me though.