Not true, because both can be used at instant speed, and if it takes out a recurring threat at end step, we're VERY happy.

i click thumb up but i still want lightning, disintegration, spray and dark intimations.

I'll anguish a scrounger any day and cast out can always be cycled if you find it too early.

Lights choice for UR splash white was something like :

Correct me if i'm wrong Light, I'm pretty sure i'm really close.

3 x Fiery Impulse
2 x Magma Spray

2 x Telling time
3 x Censor
2 x Essence Scatter
3 x Harnessed Lightning

2 x Scatter to the Winds
2 x Broken Concentration
2 x Radiant Flames
1 x Dynavolt Tower

3 x Glimmer of Genius
1 x Hieorglyphic Illumination
2 x Cast out

2 x Confirm Suspicions
1 x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 x Disciple of the Ring

1 x Pull from tomorrow
1 x Torrential Gearhulk
1 x Chandra, Flamecaller

8 x Island
4 x Mountain
2 x Wandering Fumarole
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Sulfur Falls
2 x Glacial Fortress
3 x Aether Hub
2 x Highland Lake



Mine was a bit more spicy, with some cards more situational, but generally the same concept. I was running a third manland, Kefnet, and nahiri, the harbinger (underrated!) over jace, amongst other things... I ran an unsubstantiate over a broken concentration for instance to imitate a situational negate. Generally speaking we independently came to almost the same manabase and the same decklist barring 3/4 cards.

This list could potentially ditch another land if it went +3 hieroglyphic -2 telling time !!!... this is aggressive though... I kinda like the deeper look that tt offers t2, but there is no doubt that to combat flood and for lategame power, HI is better.

That deck seems extremely light on win cons. Plus it also only runs 25 lands, which seems risky to me.

I dunno, eyeballing it, it seems like a good list. I'll test it and see how it runs.

Pretty much it except I fit a Blessed alliance or 2 instead of the illumination for a more toolbox approach ( for revenge etc ). I go back in forth with it really.

I tried to optimise the wincon package with nahiri, since it can 'glue' wincons together, whilst also being a very potent defensive card and a drawspell... This is why I also had a kefnet in my list. I think Light's deck is better in the control mirror though (and despite being less sweet and brilliant, a better deck), since he did not skimp on hard counters at all, and he will grind that game out eventually. Mine was a bit more like 'ok i dealt with your first 10 cards, now i have to construct the win sorta fast'. I even pushed that approach further in my sideboard, where I had 2 Glorybringer and 2 Glyph keeper to get even more proactive.

Well counting the pull and confirm (come on, they basically are win cons and you know it) that's 7 win cons. it's true you can't just run out your win cons as you get them , you have to be patient - but isn't that what traditional control is all about ?

Also if you're testing it i would appreciate it if you test the blessed alliance in there as it's one of those things I go back in forth with.

From the list posted here I think
-1 Illumination
and - 1 either telling time ( this seems fine but i really don't like one offs of anything other than win cons)/Confirm Suspicions ( probably wouldn't cut this because it's great but you really don't want two in hand against faster decks, although the deck already has tools for aggression so 2 confirms might not be so greedy ) / -1 essence scatter ( see telling time)

+2 Blessed alliance.

I do believe blessed alliance needs to be in there just for it's utility to deal with problems that control struggles with , it's just that I'm not sure of the spots. I really would like other's opinions on this.

I think you just build the best control deck possible and concede to gaea's revenge when it happens... because .... it's gonna be 1 maniac in the entire tournament that runs it.

BA 's main pull for me is its ability to gain life, but it's a bad removal spell UNLESS they play frigging gaea's revenge or you get caught with your pants down (and now THIS IS WAY MORE LIKELY) when they play Bristling Hydra. This is incidentally like, one of the ONLY spots where esper is better than UR/w because they can just shrug and languish, whilst UR/w has to have either removal up to respond to its energy being on the stack (and still risk being blown out by both blossoming defense AND harnessed lightning), or jump through a million hoops to try and get that thing off the board.

If you are gonna use this card, it should be because you have nightmares about bristling hydra and burn.... gaea's revenge is a non factor unless people specifically tune anti-control (which YOU, Light; did last time you played the tournament, but noone else went that deep).

From a deckslot perspective: Disciple and kefnet can EAT gaea, and gearhulk trades it after gaining value.... you don't need ba for it since your deck already has answers at lower or even mana.

I get what you mean , but when I'm playing control it really erks me if I don't have answers for
everything

Also like you said .... lifegain/burn - check , Bristling Hydra - check , Revenge - check , other large/protected pesky creatures - check. I mean sure as a removal spell alone its not that great but with all the removal already in the deck , its very likely the board isn't flooded so BA won't be horrible at it's worst. The versatility and utility is just too good I feel to pass.

It also gets around stuff like Avacyn, Selfless Spirit, and Blossoming Defense. Don't underestimate the value of non-targeted removal. With our ability to control the board, usually they don't get to attack in with large swarms. And if they do, well, at least we can offset some of it with the life gain.

As I said, a page above, there are certain problem cards Esper handles better. It comes at a cost of worse mana. We went full circle. I told you I felt like the smooth mana and consistency is worth it over the power this season... you said no, then asked for a decklist, which I provided. Now we are back at talking about specific problem cards.

Avacyn and the spirit do not truly count btw since they still die to doomblade (instant, 2 mana !) or fiery impulse (instant, 1 mana!) respectively

Blossoming defense is a BITCH though. Ok put that one up for valid reasons to play BA. Still not seeing why this would cause me to go esper
You got nothing but AU bro

I suppose, but the "smooth" mana is also going down to 25, which makes my skin crawl. I've tested going up to 27 a number of times.

I'm sure both light and me have together played about as much games with this manabase as you have with espers. This is not theorycraft, we got the reps. I even posted you could be a total maniac and go down to 24 and probably not feel much of a difference.

Run it. Tell me how you feel

I find that VERY unlikely (and that isn't an insult, Esper is just the deck I have played almost exclusively for 4 seasons), but I'll test the deck. I see it's got alot of card draw, so maybe my fears are unearned.

Agreed 100 percent. I don't know how blessed alliance can be considered bad removal in this sort of deck. You can play it t2 and kill something fast to buy time, you can play it later to kill a threat and gain life. It wins against burn. It wins against things that are hard to kill.

In these sorts of decks, if the opponent is able to attack with a bunch of stuff, things have gone very wrong already. Pretty much the only time it's annoying is when they resolve a pia... but even then I'll pay a card to kill the thoptor and gain 4 life. Also (it's rare but it happens) late when we have lots of mana we can play combat tricks using BA and manlands (or gearhulk).


As for your list, I'm not that worried about it being light on wincons, I'm worried about what you do when a threat actually resolves. 2 cast outs just isn't enough (in my opinion). What happens when someone lands tutelage or a big PW. It's not viable to plan on being able to counter absolutely everything with only ~8 counterspells. The real strength of esper (in my opinon) is the freedom to let almost anything through if needed, knowing that as long as they don't win soon, you'll draw an answer at some point. Needing an answer right now is much harder than simply needing one soon.

Yeah, I think BA initially became super important in SOI amid Lumbering Falls beatdowns where we had the board controlled but nothing to stop the dumb land.

I'm sorry I read "only 8 counterspells" and then proceeded to laugh untill I passed out.

I'm not telling you you need to add more counterspells. I'm telling you it's just not viable to plan on being able to counterspell everything. What do you do against a T3 lili if both castouts are in the bottom half of your library?

Well it's true that my list runs a nahiri on top of the castouts; and the unsubstantiate... but to be fair, in any control deck.... when you get to 4 mana + and you have a good counterspell suite... what you describe happens. Rarely. Less often than the times you get ran down because your early removal was hard to cast and stuff. The posited deck has better early removal for the meta, better mana, and runs (bit less than mine) a few bullets to resolved permanents. If I could doublesplash for Anguished Unmaking I would, we 've been over this.

It's about how often something happens. Not what could happen. Especially in Duels, where variance is even higher than in a format like, say Standard.