3 off cencors , plus dynavolt tower. But serisouly jokes aside, your argument cannot be "what do you do when your answers are at the bottom of your deck and my 1 off that you need said answers for is a turn 3 play ... on the play " that's ridiculous man.

Edit : heck, if your that worried about such an outlier case, you could even run 2 off disperse instead of the scatters if you want.

I just think it's funny. You guys come into the Esper control thread talking big about how it's inferior to other types of control. You get lots of reasons why it's not and now you're back to arguing for more early control? As you said... we've been over this. See my post above for tons more early options for esper builds. You do not need the red to have more low cmc answers than you can feasibly fit in a deck.

So... if early answers aren't the issue, then what are you still doing here? Esper is provably more versatile after several turns and there are clearly plenty of answers at low cmc available to both esper and jeskai.

At best I could see an argument that both have slightly different feels but are each viable (which I suspect is correct), so why did you come here again?





It's not ridiculous at all. The point of Esper is versatility. You simply have more answers in the deck to any one thing. The probability that you find the answer you need in Epser is going to be larger (in most cases) than it is in Jeskai.


Edit:
And sure... I could swap disperse for some scatters, but that would hurt the deck a fair bit against other control. Esper doesn't have to make those kinds of choices as anguished unmaking is good pretty much always.

Regarding your early answers , you are comparing dead weight and the like , to impulse, magma spray, and harnessed lightning ( if you aren't running grasp , but even if you are harnessed is better for obvious reasons - mana etc) ? Come on dude.

fatal push
aether meltdown
blessed alliance
essence scatter
censor
grasp of darkness

That really isn't enough low mana control for you? I listed other options just to show the extremely large number of spells available to choose from.

fatal push
aether meltdown
blessed alliance
essence scatter
censor
grasp of darkness

That really isn't enough low mana control for you? I listed other options just to show the extremely large number of spells available to choose from.[/quote]

We've been over this. But I'll try to make it more elaborate. First lets get rid of the common spells shall we ?

So now we have
Fatal push
aether meltdown
grasp

vs
Impulse
Spray
Harnessed lightning.

Fatal is fine ofc.
Aether is subpar , and costs more than spray. It also isn't fuel for Gearhulk or Disciple.

Grasp is really bad for the mana as you now need double black , and double blue early on.

Grasp is totally playable, I've messed with it quite a bit and it's fine. The point isn't that esper early control is better, but that it's adequate. Because it's good enough, all of the later advantages to esper make it very appealing.

In a head to head comparison, you're absolutely right. jeskai early stuff is slightly better (but esper is clearly better later). So... both options are viable? Weird. Why did you come into this thread to **** post again?

I love the control turf wars.

Damn straight

Jesus hates this thread and so do i

Hold up, why did my thread get 3 pages all of a sudden?

Jking; the discussion on wheter Esper, Jeskai, or Grixis where more efficient was interesting to say the least.

So let's agree that WE are better early... YOU are more or less equal but theoretically SLIGHTLY better late... And YOU run 27 lands including 4 evolving wilds, 2 other taplands, and double double manacosts. WE run 24/25 with 4 taplands and we play doubleblue Oh we have a double red 6 drop, sorry. And we play more draw. Case **** closed.

Esper is not "slightly" better late lmao

grixis best.

You know what, I've seen the light. Mono G clearly best control.

I love it. Control their life total down to 0, and they can't do **** about it!

On a more serious notion, I currently like URx the best for control colours. Magma Spray's exile clause has been very relevant to me (relevant enough that I'm running it as a 4-of over other 1-CMC removal), Radiant Flames >>>>> Languish currently because coming online a turn earlier is HUGE, and Harnessed Lightning is way easier to cast than Grasp while being about as good.

As for wincons: Chandra is about as good as Sorin (though I think she's positioned a bit better in the current meta) and while Jeskai loses out on Liliana and Ob, gaining Nahiri makes all up for it. With a wincon-suite of Nahiri, Disciple, big Jace, Chandra and Gearhulk, plus maybe baby Jace or Kefnet as well as two Pull from Tomorrow, I think Jeskai is set up well enough in that regard.

Compared to Jeskai, Grixis has to resort to Obi instead of Nahiri, which is shaky considering the manabase and thus slightly weaker. On the other hand, Grixis gains access to Fatal Push, making its aggro matchup even better (3 Push, 3 Lightning, 2 Spray, 2 Flames is fantastic). I think it's a tad too light on wincons, but playable.

Esper is still the best in control mirrors, but I found it weaker in aggro match-ups, and I think the difference is significant.

I think that people here understimate Essence Scatter (i did it too) and overstimate Confirm Suspicions.

Essence Scatter is a card I underestimated indeed. It still fights for its place with removal and can't deal with resolved threats, but a 2-mana Murder that stops their ETB and gets around indestructible is pretty awesome. Currently it's a 2-of in most control lists for me.

Confirm is our replacement for Torrential Gearhulk numbers 2 and 3 - counterspell with heavy upside, and we need it.

Yeah i use Scatter as 2 of too, instead of one removal and one Cancel. About Confirm, the card is good but i don't feel it as a must.

I see the argument for scatter. For me, it's more tempting as a sideboard option (though it isn't in mine because I did a bad job with my board). I get nervous about going too all in on things that don't hit resolved threats. TBH scatter seems more appealing to me in dual color control with less removal options.

Confirm is amazing. It's one of our best tools vs mid-range decks. Without it, someone who keeps playing threats every turn could prevent us from resolving draw for a while, confirm fixes that and lets us trade 1-1 without worrying about running out of gas. It also synergizes with both push and memory.