Grasp doesn't hit Harvester. And you have almost zero ways to deal with hexproof or tall creatures. I prefer my slightly more toolbox-y approach. Grasp is also very painful on the mana, which I understand is why you re-working the mana, but then you run into issues with Gideon/Scatter/etc.

Also, Gem, I still think you consistently underrate Confirm Suspicions, which is just huge for the deck imo. I'm skeptical it'd work without it.

Remember when I answered back "I'd tried the Wasteland Strangler and its working out great. Thank you."?

Since the Vehicle invasions I been lost in making a solid decks and totally beyond frustration with the new artifacts uses without featuring them as the key element of a deck; yet one big bright side remained thru all of this. That is this Esper deck with your input of the Wasteland Strangler in it. Its more amazing now than ever. Thank You Again!!!

Ok I can't play Control at all, I don't have the patience. I played Vert's Esper Control against a rank39's Abzan Control last night and it must have lasted 30 minutes. Vert is right, the counter-spells make the difference in that match up, and even though my life was 3 and his life was 38, i had zero doubt I was going to win. i felt totally in control. so I'm saving the right moments to do the counter-spells and mis-using Unsubstantiate like crazy. I have 3 creatures on board and 2 planeswalkers. I must have played Torrential gearhulk about 3-4 times this match. I'm holding up a Confirm Suspicions as well as a bunch of other stuff. He has some 1 power creature dinging me but I'm swinging for 10 so my clock is faster than his. He dings me twice and I now have lethal. I'm about to swing for ten (he has one card in hand) and I have confirm suspicions in hand. So i don't see anyway i can lose. He has exactly ten life left so I think I got this in the bag. Before swinging I look at my library and there are 6 cards left so i feel like I can safely draw one with Ob just in case I need some more protection against something scary. I use Ob's ability and... .BLACK BARNEY DEFEATED. Oh man.... i forgot I had one life left. And it's totally cuz I had been playing the same damn match for 30 minutes and it was 11:15pm and I was tired.

That's two losses in a row so.... BELETED!

I hate Control.

When was the last time you've seen Ulamog in the lobbies?

You'd usually drop Disciple with 8 mana and hold 3 up...Ulamog is just 2 MANA MORE. You could've prompted the concession.

It's not two losses in a row. That's a win where you randomly decided to suicide.

Disciple at 8 mana wins games much more often than Ulamog at 10.

Gem is right that Ulamog triggers concession even if victory is 3 turns away. My ratio of getting concessions from that bastard is great. i played Gem's GeistRamp deck the other deck and got an insta-concede when I played Ulamog .

Vert, a loss is a loss. I lost cuz the deck was so boring to play I no longer could pay attention to the board state. BAD DECK, lol

My deck idea is like Eldritch Evolution, Cruel Revival and a bunch of draw, all designed to play Disciple over and over again until my opponents concede.

I'm beginning to like 27 lands as well.

Okay. This is my final cut of Esper Control. You can no longer convince me that cards should be cut or added, but you suggestions will not go unread.


_No Jaces, no Disciple, no Gearhulk, no Confirm, no Broken or Scatter, no Ob and no Sorin.

Objectively better than Verts build. Also, looks way more fun to play

Yeah.

When the set drops, I'm going to test x2 Evolving Wilds because Aether Hub is my main fixer and Wilds is just to shuffle when I cast Telling Time and to trigger Fatal Push.

Yeah evolving wilds gets along so well with fatal push, I love that

Hi guys

I'm new to this place and the playstyle of Esper.

I was wondering, how do you guys play the deck. Let's say you have 4 mana for Gideon Ally of Zendikar, would you play it if no other creature was on the board, or would you save the mana, and focus on counterspelling whatever the opponent throws at you. Both players have 20 life.

I'm trying to grasp, how to play this deck efficiently, hope you can help me out

/Ced

That depends on many things.

Do you feel as though your opponent might have a Bounding Krasis or a R haste creature? Do you make a 2/2 or uptick to evade a Firecraft? If going up against a counter spell deck, if Gideon gets answered, do you have an answer for a resolved PW?

Since Gideon wins in 3-4 turns, I'm more inclined to drop him late. Theres also an argument for dropping those cheap PWs for high loyalty ones such as Jace, Ob, and Sorin.

It depends on board state. If you're winning on board state or it's tied, then wait on Gideon. If you're losing (on a clock), drop Gideon. I used to jam Gideon as soon as I have him since the opponent HAS to respond to him but now I realize he's infinitely better if I exhaust my opponents answer(s) first

I think the build has one problem in that it runs too few wincons. The only things that can win the game for you at some point are Kefnet, the Gideons, a Liliana emblem, the two Shambling Vents you are running and the Zombies gained from Return. It's far from unthinkable that your opponent just deals with all of these threats (especially since you're not running many counters) and afterwards just has to wait for you to mill out before he does.
I understand that you want to keep the deck's curve as low as possible, but I think you're overdoing it with cutting all the CMC 5+ cards (aside from Pull).

I am with Modulo here, the win cons look very light here. At least cut one grasp of darkness for disciple of the ring.

Wouldnt streaming be hard because the other player can just search his stream and counter play and win.