Haven't tried your list, but uw control is working nicely for me. I started with monoblue that is not viable and wanted to arrive to esper. But azorius started to win in ladder and yet have to lose (i lost one because i misclicked a tapped land). My record is 12-1, aggro is bad matchup but have won 4 of them till now. I won against 2 rdw in a row staying at 20 life, against vehicles staying safely around 10, and against rakdos something at 2 life because of double scrounger.

My list:

3 x Blessed Alliance
3 x Censor
2 x Essence Scatter
3 x Telling Time
2 x Pull from Tomorrow
2 x Scatter to the Winds
3 x Broken Concentration
2 x Skywhaler's Shot
1 x Gideon of the Trials
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 x Cast Out
3 x Glimmer of Genius
2 x Commit // Memory
1 x Disciple of the Ring
2 x Planar Outburst
1 x Torrential Gearhulk

26 x lands


Note that this is my first draft, haven't changed anything because it is doing well. I'm very pleased of Essence Scatter, i knew it would be good in monoblue and azorius, but i think i would use it also in esper instead of grasps along with push. I have cut some cards that i wanted to test, i don't remember right now, but it's doing well despite i make some odd choices, the only card i tried (in another deck) is Kefnet that seems the pure wincon card.
Also i was starting having doubts before, and now i still have more doubts if there is need to go esper for a better control deck.

I think you can run less telling time since you have 3x censor that can be cycled for selection if needed, plus I feel running 2 colors you don't need that selection as bad early. I probably need to bump up to 3x censor on my deck as well just having some difficulty on what to cut.

I think many like esper because of the options it brings. Best early removal in the game with push. You get a better selection of planeswalkers that win the game for you if unanswered (lili, ob nix, sorin). You have less expensive and sometimes a more effective board wipe in languish. One of the best all round removal cards in Anguished unmaking. The biggest advantage to esper that I can see as far as tournament play is you have access to a much better sideboard running 3 colors (6 sweeps available, more anti-control threats, more removal than can fit in a deck). Black also has some lifegain removal, that was the draw for the deck I built in the esper thread. You also get man lands that are unavailable in U/W.

I think U/W has more consistent mana just because you are less likely to see all tap lands or be color screwed on 1 color. U/W also can run utility lands that esper can't afford to do so I was running 2x Abbeys for my U/W.

I still like the idea of building in some kind of recovery to stabilize vs aggro decks but I'm not sure running Essence Extraction is worth it to go esper. I'm not a fan of running life gain cards that only boosts life and doesn't do something else along with it e.g. Blessed Alliance or Sphinx's Revelation. I'm undecided on what the best options are right now, I need more games under my belt in these archetypes.

Well there is another option in Renewed Faith. Upsides are cheap cycling, grants some lifegain early, uncounterable in its cycle form and a bit more lifegain later. I'd consider it as sideboard for Burn matchups, not much else.

The Blue finishers work plenty fine for Control now, White only offers the Gideons and they just aren't needed in Esper. If Black is only in it for Push (Lili isn't really working out like she used to) then I wouldn't bother splashing either.

Yeah esper has lot of useful stuff and when i will try it maybe i could say that it's better than this one. But till now i'm not missing anything.
Pws are good wincons but not a seal on the game as before. I don't even use Jace atm. My wincons are disciple and 2 pulls and they are 90% a seal.
Push is missing but till now my answers are doing nicely. Unmaking is good, but i'm not missing it having 2 cmc counters and other 5 possible answer for resolved threats in Commit and Cast Out.
I think that card selection and draw are not enough, since i have few wincons. I always go down less than 20 cards now, a lot faster than before with pulls and cycling.

I hope i will have sweet words also for esper after trying it.

I think we have a similar viewpoint. I only tried esper to see if I could use all the exile the stuff cards along with running a couple Essence Extraction for stabilizing vs red decks / fast aggro. These blue decks really can rip through their library quickly.

I may try your deck out and compare notes. I like all those counters where my deck has more removal. I can probably go down a win con and switch to blue dudes as BBB pointed to.

Yeah probably i need some exile effect in the deck, i won against Scroungers thx to Gideon's knights, but i'm not sure about Dec in Stone, Awry and Shrivel. I think i need to face more Scroungers and other problematic stuff and then decide since this is the first draft.

I probably agree with 3B here. I mean in theory i see esper now as blue with double splash, with black only for Push, Sorin and only maybe Unmaking. Idk about the sweepers, since they require double color, so i could take black as well as white depending on the less light splash. And due to these reasonings i don't think going esper is good enough. But in practise it could be completely different and for sure worth to test.

If you're sticking with U/W, Dec in Stone is a must since your sweeper is turn 5+, especially since tokens can pile up fairly quick now.

At least on steam, classic control is wildly unplayable right now. The metagame is all over the place with decks that do random powerful things, and the best way to combat them is balls to the wall aggro. It's just a boring fest of slapping down cards.

Sharing this sentiment TBH. That's why I've been messing around with Elk's Gruul list. What works for Simic Ramp doesn't work for Mill, which doesn't work for Gruul Beatdown, which doesn't work for Red aggro etc etc. There's little consistency across archetypes let alone decklists atm. Once it settles down I'll know what hate makes it in.

I have always seen that as the catch of playing control in duels. With no side board you have to design 60 cards to answer everything you might see and right now thats a wide range. I think you have to battle plan for aggro and sprinkle in answers to cover the other bases. Wide answers like counters are good but they dont help untill turn2 and usually 3 so you bettet be able to handle board threats. I really wish we had access to void shatter.

Pretty much accurate.

Historically it tends to get better halfway through the season when most builds have more or less metastasized.
Kaladesh meant that all of a sudden you had way more questions than quality answers, but it also meant many people were building with very specific cards, and you could tune a good control deck and just 'own' the ladder. Rarity restrictions actually made that a thing, since if there were none, control would've been entirely dead ever since that season (and probably way before ^^).

Each set though, the questions become more diverse, and while I would say that both pull and censor (and cast out) are great tools for control, jury is still out wether the environment will stabilize soon allowing control lists to tune and try to cram 75 into their 60 for the ladder.

I would currently advise to not play (classical blue based) control myself, as I said, all over the frigging place.

I think i've met the guy that showed me the deck to play if classical control does become good when it all settles down, and needs to be pested back out to the fringes though. Some madman running unsummon and all the frigging blue 2 drops izzet has (unsubstantiate, scatter, censor, telling time, take inventory), topping off at 2 pull, gearhulk and 2 commit/memory. Only sticky wincons ? 2 Dynavolt Tower and 2 fevered visions. I think we cycled through our decks three times (I also run 2 commit/memory) before I lost my counter war to get kefnet back on the table (force of habit did not try the counter fight when he unsummoned it, which wouldve won me the game) with him on 1 life. Feelsbadman, but if he's reading this, kudos, very well played .

What do you think about running Displacement Wave in this deck? For a token wipe. I'm contemplating going -1 Confirm suspicions and adding a single wave for the multitude of token decks I am seeing.

I love confirm for all the extra card advantage though. Hard decision.

Finally got around to trying the archetype. Running 2 wincons is a no-go, sorry guys but Pull isn't a miracle worker in my experience, lost too many games where I just needed to close the game instead of holding a fistful of removal or counters. Glyph Keeper has been worth it as another 5 power flyer that's hard to tackle, baby Jace is here for repeatable copies of Sweepers or Dec in Stone vs Tokens or Blessed Alliance vs Burn decks. Haven't missed the other PWs or Confirm Suspicions at all TBH, card advantage hasn't been an issue.

Creature(6)
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 x Kefnet the Mindful
1 x Disciple of the Ring
2 x Glyph Keeper
1 x Torrential Gearhulk


Instant(21)
3 x Gideon's Reproach
3 x Blessed Alliance
3 x Censor
2 x Essence Scatter
2 x Pull From Tomorrow
2 x Scatter to the Winds
3 x Broken Concentration
3 x Glimmer of Genius


Sorcery(3)
1 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Planar Outburst


Split(1)
1x Commit // Memory

Enchantment(3)
3x Cast Out

Land(26)
2 x Prairie Stream
4 x Plains
9 x Island
4 x Meandering River
2 x Glacial Fortress
2 x Evolving Wilds
3 x Aether Hub

Zero PWs?

Zero ****s.