Worlds is less relevant than an FNM at a shop in the middle of nowhere. In 2 weeks UB Azcanta will look like a random deck people tried for a while and you'll probably forget you had this conversation.
Worlds is less relevant than an FNM at a shop in the middle of nowhere. In 2 weeks UB Azcanta will look like a random deck people tried for a while and you'll probably forget you had this conversation.
The best players in the world competing for the biggest prize in the history of mtg - but yea, they must be wrong.
There have been control decks built on the back of an extra card per turn, Search gives us an extra SELECTED card per turn, and it's being dismissed.
Well then.
It's been my experience so far that SphRev is less of an advantage engine than it is a stabilizer now. 4-6 life gained is nothing to scoff at. It also helps us keep hitting land drops in the late game for large WSZ/StW finishes.
With Search, I think we need to angle towards more cheap interaction and back off playing so many cantrips. Our advantage engine is live t4-5 now, and doesn't require us to hit every land drop to be effective.
I can't decide if the deck should just remove Rev and jam 3 Search, if the token spells are still largely our go-to, or if we need to adapt an inevitability game plan.
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Kodieyost - What do you mean by "or if we need to adapt an inevitability game plan." ? Are you thinking something not based in attacking?
Also, which cantrips are you speaking of? I agree that Opt and Serum aren't necessary for the gameplan, but the early game smoothing is always welcome and helping to fuel the yard is nice. It does suck to have to grab one of those off of an Azcanta activation though. Not sure if we can cut think twice though, in my experience so far you cant rely on Azcanta alone as your source of card advantage.
I've also been toying around with the idea of a 1-of Muddle the Mixture. Fine against everything but Tron, but also doubles as extra Searches or Snaps which are arguably the most powerful cards in the deck.
There have been control decks built on the back of an extra card per turn, Search gives us an extra SELECTED card per turn, and it's being dismissed.
Well then.
It's been my experience so far that SphRev is less of an advantage engine than it is a stabilizer now. 4-6 life gained is nothing to scoff at. It also helps us keep hitting land drops in the late game for large WSZ/StW finishes.
With Search, I think we need to angle towards more cheap interaction and back off playing so many cantrips. Our advantage engine is live t4-5 now, and doesn't require us to hit every land drop to be effective.
I can't decide if the deck should just remove Rev and jam 3 Search, if the token spells are still largely our go-to, or if we need to adapt an inevitability game plan.
It's possible it might make more sense to move towards thopter-sword combo or something of that sort to make the deck more efficient if we do end up going towards SfA + less lands.
Correct, not based on attacking. We can't necessarily play the old UB Control deck with Nephalia Drownyard, but that's the concept I'm reaching for. Some type of shift in game plan to win without a giant "I win" button.
It may be worth exploring Spell Snares in the MB and getting Thopter-Sword in there too. Snare so that we can confidently jam it in the early game with counter mana up. Been considering Spell Pierce MB too, even tho it's counterintuitive to our long game - I think replacing 2 of my 8 removal spells (not counting sweepers) with 2 spell pierce would help my Combo MU and control mirrors, not to mention being solid against Burn.
On-curve planeswalkers and coco are two of the most powerful starts against us, along with Cranial Plating, on the play Chalice for 1 on T2, and stubborn denial out of GDS.
Just some thoughts to adapt in the meta, I'm seeing more and more eldrazi/GDS in my meta and my list may start to skew for that, so apologies in advance.
I think Opt is great but in an Azcanta build, we don't want to be effectively whiffing. Tapping 4 to find an opt and cast means we had to spend 5 mana total to find an answer... that's better than 2 cards deep with Rev, but not necessarily good.
Think twice definitely stays, Esper charm is great, where I'm considering trims are the X spells, lands, and some removal.
I play 9 counters, 8 kill spells, 26 lands, 2 snap, 1 GidJura, 3 X spells, 3 sweepers, and 8 draw spells currently.
I'm at:
-1 WSZ
-1 Rev
-1 Jura
-2 Land
-2 kill Spell
+3 Search
+4 Opt
That's the start of my changes currently. Not happy with lack of a wincon, so I'm looking for suggestions there. I think the wincon would slot over removal #8 if it's 1 Card, over removal #8 and counters #8 if it's 3. Of course dependent on what kind of wincon it is.
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Interesting that both you and Adrithria came to a conclusion of Thopter/Sword because I did as well, except I dropped white. It runs a pair of Gifts Ungiven to make up for the lack of Esper Charm card advantage and it is an additional way to piece together the combo (Sword/snap, Foundry/snap, Muddle, Whir of Invention) and it works just fine as value card if you include a suite of a couple different walkers in a deck with Snap, Cryptic, and Search, you always have a decent pile you can make (Snap, Walker, Cryptic, Search is a great +2 for 4cmc). I like 2/1 Foundry/Sword split, but if one were to increase those numbers, you could easily start running thirst for knowledge.
It's real easy to start down a rabbit hole though, none of that fundamentally jives with Esper Draw-Go. I can't do it today because I have an exam tomorrow, but I'll try to get around to starting an Azcanta/Thopter thread in deck creation within a couple days when I do, ill let you guys know. Or feel free to start one, and I'll be sure to check it out if you let me know about it.
@Aegean- I wouldn't mind seeing a blue black list either. I think you lose your best answers to 2 of 3 best decks without white (verdict for shadow and path for Eldrazi) but being a better azcanta deck overall could just be better, who knows.
@Badmcfadden - I agree in the sense that it can't be your only source of card advantage, but it being your only engine is fine. Your going to win a lot of games that you can't deal with a ghost quarter simply by being able to bin 6-12 useless cards over the course of the game. I tested a version with 4 Think Twice and 4 Esper charm, between that kind of draw and searches redundancy I was able to win a few games where I couldn't flip azcanta.
I also think we aren't used to having to protect our lands, so there could be a card out there that just does exactly what we are looking for. Spreading Seas is great in that regard for example. Or how about the stifle bird nimble obstructionist ? Sun Titan? Obviously some of these aren't great for draw go, but the point is they exist so there are probably other options we haven't thought about in a long time. I also think it's perfectly reasonably to exchange an azcanta + an activation for a GQ if we have 2-3 more copies of azcanta we can find or have 1 in our hand already.
I miss Solar Flare lmao it was my favorite standard ever. Played every weekend at events with it.
I don't think Sun Titan is wrong in this meta, especially with Search ramping us a land, but I don't think I want to be on that plan.
Thopter is a fine way to close out a game, without leaving yourself open to instant speed wincons (Coco, Chord, Breach, etc). My only issue is how dead the individual pieces are in our specific deck.
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I miss Solar Flare lmao it was my favorite standard ever. Played every weekend at events with it.
I don't think Sun Titan is wrong in this meta, especially with Search ramping us a land, but I don't think I want to be on that plan.
Thopter is a fine way to close out a game, without leaving yourself open to instant speed wincons (Coco, Chord, Breach, etc). My only issue is how dead the individual pieces are in our specific deck.
This biggest issue comes down to it takes more deck building slots to play thopter sword than most of us are used to.
I have played a lot of UB thopter/sword and would advise against trying to jam it into a control deck. The fundamental problem is the # of slots you need for thopter/sword to work and how utterly useless either card is if the combo is not online. A big part of what makes esper draw-go tick is that the win condition takes up 1-2 slots (secure/WSZ) so can't really clog up your hand most of the time. Adding a bunch of thopters, swords, and/or whirs will lead to way more games where your hand has multiple do-nothing cards stuck in it.
I am sure its possible to build a draw-go whir deck but its probably jeskai and it probably looks very little like esper draw-go in any case.
And the more general trouble with thopter-sword decks is the mountain of hate you'll face if that's your win condition. Stony silence, ancient grudge, rest in peace, surgical extraction, etc etc. It is a brutal uphill battle g2/g3 trying to get past all the artifact and grave hate that dismantle your combo.
If thopter/sword is ever good in modern it will be because a deck arises that has 1-2 other solid angles of attack and doesn't actually rely on thopter/sword. We saw this briefly with UW tron decks that included a single copy of each and gifts ungiven to tutor (academy ruins and crucible of worlds being the other pieces of the package iirc). Thing is the cards are so bad on their own that its still not good and most of the time just flat out slower and worse than unburial ritesing an iona.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Elspeth feels like the perfect card to take advantage of falling behind early while drawing cards. I like Secure the Waste as a payoff here as well since it scales nicely. I'll state my bias against Rev up front, but I don't think Rev fits what you're trying to do. Getting to 6 mana is going to be tough enough for your payoff in Elspeth, and X=5 on Secure is going to be decent. But x=3 on Rev as a late game spell that also rots in your hand early is going to be very underwhelming, especially when you're using it to draw into such a limited number of high impact spells. I might recommend Sorin, Grim Nemesis as that additional payoff over Rev. Huge loyalty, can kill most threats, card advantage+wincon on the +. I don't think this card is too far behind Elspeth in power level. Maybe 2x Elspeth is better, but I also like having a diversity because of legend rule and extraction effects.
My other concern is that Serum Visions seems bad in a deck with 9 Fetchlands and 2 Azcanta. It doesn't play particularly well with either side of Search for Azcanta. You might be better off running Sleight of Hand. I don't think I've ever made the suggestion of Sleight over Serum in a control deck, but I think it's right here.
Thanks for the feedback.
I thought about running 2 Elspeths, but outside of really grindy matches I found she was usually a win-more, and in a lot of situations it was risky to resolve her (like against unfair decks that Secure could help you race). Also, aside from Extractions and hard GY hate (which rarely show up in G1), Secure is the more "durable" win-con because you can Snapcaster it. That's why I went to two Secure and Elspeth in the side, like a more traditional list. It might be better to run some kind of 'walker package though, because they do provide continuous advantage that Secure cannot.
The single Rev has actually been pretty great. You will still hit plenty of land drops with 22 lands and ten cantrips (you just have more control over when those land drops come), and I think 1 Rev is a better bet than a third Azcanta, because after a certain point it is the best topdeck, and the lifegain is very important, while Azcanta is pretty weak in multiples.
I hadn't thought about running Sleight instead of Serum. There are times where the scry from Serum isn't that great (moreso because of Azcanta than fetches though, it's easy to fetch around Visions) but Serum is much better on its own and when digging for a specific card.
Anyway, on to the match report:
I played the following list at FNM yesterday to a 3-2 finish. The deck ran smoothly, but I made more play errors than I'm used to because of all the scrying and sequencing sorcery-speed spells around my other spells. I should probably stop keeping one landers that only have one cantrip, too. Both my losses were to the only two GDS players in the room, while the other matches were to more janky decks, but not ones that would necessarily be easy matchups.
R1 - 7 Land Belcher (2-1 W):
G1: I kept a hand with Verdict/Snap/Path/Cantrip/3 Lands and he was able to thin his deck and stack it with Recross the Paths before I could find a counterspell. There was no way I was beating every threat in his deck one after another so I scooped.
SB: I cut Pushes and Verdicts and bring in TS, BA, and Cast Out.
G2: He has two Defense Grids but I manage to kill them with Disenchant/Snap-Disenchant and take over the game from there.
G3: I take out his initial threats with Esper Charm discard, he topdecks a few creatures which I manage to kill while basically flooding out. Eventually we're both topdecking when I cast a big Secure for the win.
R2 - Grixis Death's Shadow (0-2 L):
G1: He lands LotV on T3 and I can't deal with it fast enough. By the time I've stabilized with Azcanta up, he ults her and cuts me down to 3 lands, while continuing to drop threats.
SB: I cut Pushes, Remands, and 1 Cryptic, bring in BA, Verdict, Purge, 1 Dispel, 1 Baneslayer.
G2: I keep a risky 1 Island 1 Serum hand and only find another Island and a Watery Grave, he kills me on T4 with two shadows swinging for 20.
R3 - Gr Ponza (2-1 W):
G1: I counter his early land destruction and pull ahead with a well timed Verdict that wipes out his mana dorks.
SB: I think I trimmed a few removal spells and one verdict and brought in Seizes, Cast Out, and Purge. My main fear is getting locked out turns 2-3 with Blood Moon followed up by LD on my basics.
G2: He keeps a weak hand and I Thoughtseize his main threat (Inferno Titan), but he draws a Choke the next turn. I play out lands without casting anything to get to 4 for Cast Out, while he attacks me with some dorks. I think I'm safe when I Cast Out his Choke, but he has Beast Within for my Cast Out, and I'm never able to draw out of Choke again.
G3: Pretty similar to G1. I flip Azcanta early, but even though he kills it a few turns later I'm already so far ahead I win easily.
R4 - Grixis Death's Shadow (1-2 L):
G1: I stabilize at two life after getting hit with an Angler and a 5/5 Shadow in the same turn. He burns me out a bit later with K Command.
SB: Same as last time
G2: We both durdle for a bit, I path his first threat (Tasigur) and set up Azcanta. I think I lost a counter war over Lili the Last Hope (he was running 2 Deprive in addition to Stubs), and then shortly after that he went all in trying to overload my removal, dropping Young Pyromancer, Angler, and a big Shadow. At the end of that turn I rip a Verdict of Azcanta and he scoops right there (in the interest of time I guess?).
G3: This game starts slow as well, I get Azcanta up and things are looking good, but he Thoughtseizes and then Extracts my hand with two Verdicts. This time when he goes wide my only out is a big Secure to try to race him. I'm lucky enough to draw it, but he has a Deprive.
R5 - Living End (2-1 W):
G1: He draws 3 Fulminators and cuts me off Verdict mana, I get killed by the first Living End.
SB: Pushes and Blessed Alliance out, Surgicals and Verdict in.
G2: I let him resolve a LE, extract it, then wipe the board. He durdles around until I finally kill him with a Warrior swarm.
G3: Similar to G2 except it takes longer because he went back to his sideboard and got Slaughter Games, which he then used on my Secures, so I had to kill him with Snapcaster beats.
As I feared, Remand was pretty useless (except against Living End) and I did have trouble against Death's Shadow's discard, so going forward I'm going to try Think Twice in the mainboard again. I'm also going to test out the Token sideboard plan again, because I think Lingering Souls would be nice against GDS. I'm going to use Sorin, Lord of Innistrad this time though, because he's better on his own and his emblems can still buff my spirits and warriors after he dies.
I guess that leaves us with relatively no options then.
Do we continue on the Soldiers plan, or do we audible to a new plan of attack? If so, what direction do we move towards?
Sorry I may have missed the exact context where there was a reason to be looking at thopter/sword, but from the esper side of things I have never felt like I had a problem with the win conditions. 2x secure or 1x WSZ are fine with 3-4 colonnade and 2-4 snapcaster as backup plans and 0-1 elspeth/gideon. I have never been in a game with esper draw-go where I thought "man I wish I had a different win condition" unless you count the times I tapped low for an elspeth suns champion and lost the game as a result (which is why I then relegated her to the SB).
To me the deck's problems are mostly related to drawing the wrong cards in the wrong situations. Logic knots vs cavern of souls. Paths and Verdicts vs valakut. too many cantrips too little action vs burn. stuff like that.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Sorry for the hiatus; I've been traveling a lot and haven't had time to sit down with the deck and work out the new cards. Once I'm all settled, I'm planning on settling in on the stock list plan, replacing 2 TTs and a couple lands with Opts, adding 2 Searches, a third Snapcaster, a third Logic Knot, and cutting one Rev, one Cryptic, one Verdict, and a Remand. The numbers may be off; I may want to cut Remand altogether or cut TT completely, or go up to 4 Knots of Snaps, but I don't think we need to change the deck completely. I do think it's extremely possible that the new cards make the objectively correct wincon Secure the Wastes and maybe, just maybe, the extra card selection opens the door for a couple fun-ofs like Ojitai's or Silumgar's Command. More to come...
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http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?event_ID=19&t[T1]=1&start_date=2017-09-30&end_date=2017-09-30&state=TX&city=Dallas&order_1=finish&limit=8&t_num=1&action=Show+Decks
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#online
The best players in the world competing for the biggest prize in the history of mtg - but yea, they must be wrong.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
Reid Duke and other pros in the tournament have talked about how the decks at Worlds are inbred.
Well then.
It's been my experience so far that SphRev is less of an advantage engine than it is a stabilizer now. 4-6 life gained is nothing to scoff at. It also helps us keep hitting land drops in the late game for large WSZ/StW finishes.
With Search, I think we need to angle towards more cheap interaction and back off playing so many cantrips. Our advantage engine is live t4-5 now, and doesn't require us to hit every land drop to be effective.
I can't decide if the deck should just remove Rev and jam 3 Search, if the token spells are still largely our go-to, or if we need to adapt an inevitability game plan.
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Also, which cantrips are you speaking of? I agree that Opt and Serum aren't necessary for the gameplan, but the early game smoothing is always welcome and helping to fuel the yard is nice. It does suck to have to grab one of those off of an Azcanta activation though. Not sure if we can cut think twice though, in my experience so far you cant rely on Azcanta alone as your source of card advantage.
I've also been toying around with the idea of a 1-of Muddle the Mixture. Fine against everything but Tron, but also doubles as extra Searches or Snaps which are arguably the most powerful cards in the deck.
It's possible it might make more sense to move towards thopter-sword combo or something of that sort to make the deck more efficient if we do end up going towards SfA + less lands.
It may be worth exploring Spell Snares in the MB and getting Thopter-Sword in there too. Snare so that we can confidently jam it in the early game with counter mana up. Been considering Spell Pierce MB too, even tho it's counterintuitive to our long game - I think replacing 2 of my 8 removal spells (not counting sweepers) with 2 spell pierce would help my Combo MU and control mirrors, not to mention being solid against Burn.
On-curve planeswalkers and coco are two of the most powerful starts against us, along with Cranial Plating, on the play Chalice for 1 on T2, and stubborn denial out of GDS.
Just some thoughts to adapt in the meta, I'm seeing more and more eldrazi/GDS in my meta and my list may start to skew for that, so apologies in advance.
I think Opt is great but in an Azcanta build, we don't want to be effectively whiffing. Tapping 4 to find an opt and cast means we had to spend 5 mana total to find an answer... that's better than 2 cards deep with Rev, but not necessarily good.
Think twice definitely stays, Esper charm is great, where I'm considering trims are the X spells, lands, and some removal.
I play 9 counters, 8 kill spells, 26 lands, 2 snap, 1 GidJura, 3 X spells, 3 sweepers, and 8 draw spells currently.
I'm at:
-1 WSZ
-1 Rev
-1 Jura
-2 Land
-2 kill Spell
+3 Search
+4 Opt
That's the start of my changes currently. Not happy with lack of a wincon, so I'm looking for suggestions there. I think the wincon would slot over removal #8 if it's 1 Card, over removal #8 and counters #8 if it's 3. Of course dependent on what kind of wincon it is.
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It's real easy to start down a rabbit hole though, none of that fundamentally jives with Esper Draw-Go. I can't do it today because I have an exam tomorrow, but I'll try to get around to starting an Azcanta/Thopter thread in deck creation within a couple days when I do, ill let you guys know. Or feel free to start one, and I'll be sure to check it out if you let me know about it.
I'll admit that something al la Solar Flare sounds sick. Think 2 Sun Titan, 3 Snapcaster Mage, some Detention Spheres, Search for Azcantas, and maybe even Vendilion Cliques/Spell Quellers. I like it.
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I don't think Sun Titan is wrong in this meta, especially with Search ramping us a land, but I don't think I want to be on that plan.
Thopter is a fine way to close out a game, without leaving yourself open to instant speed wincons (Coco, Chord, Breach, etc). My only issue is how dead the individual pieces are in our specific deck.
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This biggest issue comes down to it takes more deck building slots to play thopter sword than most of us are used to.
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I am sure its possible to build a draw-go whir deck but its probably jeskai and it probably looks very little like esper draw-go in any case.
And the more general trouble with thopter-sword decks is the mountain of hate you'll face if that's your win condition. Stony silence, ancient grudge, rest in peace, surgical extraction, etc etc. It is a brutal uphill battle g2/g3 trying to get past all the artifact and grave hate that dismantle your combo.
If thopter/sword is ever good in modern it will be because a deck arises that has 1-2 other solid angles of attack and doesn't actually rely on thopter/sword. We saw this briefly with UW tron decks that included a single copy of each and gifts ungiven to tutor (academy ruins and crucible of worlds being the other pieces of the package iirc). Thing is the cards are so bad on their own that its still not good and most of the time just flat out slower and worse than unburial ritesing an iona.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Do we continue on the Soldiers plan, or do we audible to a new plan of attack? If so, what direction do we move towards?
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Thanks for the feedback.
I thought about running 2 Elspeths, but outside of really grindy matches I found she was usually a win-more, and in a lot of situations it was risky to resolve her (like against unfair decks that Secure could help you race). Also, aside from Extractions and hard GY hate (which rarely show up in G1), Secure is the more "durable" win-con because you can Snapcaster it. That's why I went to two Secure and Elspeth in the side, like a more traditional list. It might be better to run some kind of 'walker package though, because they do provide continuous advantage that Secure cannot.
The single Rev has actually been pretty great. You will still hit plenty of land drops with 22 lands and ten cantrips (you just have more control over when those land drops come), and I think 1 Rev is a better bet than a third Azcanta, because after a certain point it is the best topdeck, and the lifegain is very important, while Azcanta is pretty weak in multiples.
I hadn't thought about running Sleight instead of Serum. There are times where the scry from Serum isn't that great (moreso because of Azcanta than fetches though, it's easy to fetch around Visions) but Serum is much better on its own and when digging for a specific card.
Anyway, on to the match report:
I played the following list at FNM yesterday to a 3-2 finish. The deck ran smoothly, but I made more play errors than I'm used to because of all the scrying and sequencing sorcery-speed spells around my other spells. I should probably stop keeping one landers that only have one cantrip, too. Both my losses were to the only two GDS players in the room, while the other matches were to more janky decks, but not ones that would necessarily be easy matchups.
4 Opt
4 Serum Visions
2 Remand
Removal: 10
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Blessed Alliance
3 Supreme Verdict
Countermagic: 6
3 Logic Knot
3 Cryptic Command
Card Advantage: 10
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Esper Charm
1 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Secure the Wastes
Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Dispel
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Cast Out
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
R1 - 7 Land Belcher (2-1 W):
G1: I kept a hand with Verdict/Snap/Path/Cantrip/3 Lands and he was able to thin his deck and stack it with Recross the Paths before I could find a counterspell. There was no way I was beating every threat in his deck one after another so I scooped.
SB: I cut Pushes and Verdicts and bring in TS, BA, and Cast Out.
G2: He has two Defense Grids but I manage to kill them with Disenchant/Snap-Disenchant and take over the game from there.
G3: I take out his initial threats with Esper Charm discard, he topdecks a few creatures which I manage to kill while basically flooding out. Eventually we're both topdecking when I cast a big Secure for the win.
R2 - Grixis Death's Shadow (0-2 L):
G1: He lands LotV on T3 and I can't deal with it fast enough. By the time I've stabilized with Azcanta up, he ults her and cuts me down to 3 lands, while continuing to drop threats.
SB: I cut Pushes, Remands, and 1 Cryptic, bring in BA, Verdict, Purge, 1 Dispel, 1 Baneslayer.
G2: I keep a risky 1 Island 1 Serum hand and only find another Island and a Watery Grave, he kills me on T4 with two shadows swinging for 20.
R3 - Gr Ponza (2-1 W):
G1: I counter his early land destruction and pull ahead with a well timed Verdict that wipes out his mana dorks.
SB: I think I trimmed a few removal spells and one verdict and brought in Seizes, Cast Out, and Purge. My main fear is getting locked out turns 2-3 with Blood Moon followed up by LD on my basics.
G2: He keeps a weak hand and I Thoughtseize his main threat (Inferno Titan), but he draws a Choke the next turn. I play out lands without casting anything to get to 4 for Cast Out, while he attacks me with some dorks. I think I'm safe when I Cast Out his Choke, but he has Beast Within for my Cast Out, and I'm never able to draw out of Choke again.
G3: Pretty similar to G1. I flip Azcanta early, but even though he kills it a few turns later I'm already so far ahead I win easily.
R4 - Grixis Death's Shadow (1-2 L):
G1: I stabilize at two life after getting hit with an Angler and a 5/5 Shadow in the same turn. He burns me out a bit later with K Command.
SB: Same as last time
G2: We both durdle for a bit, I path his first threat (Tasigur) and set up Azcanta. I think I lost a counter war over Lili the Last Hope (he was running 2 Deprive in addition to Stubs), and then shortly after that he went all in trying to overload my removal, dropping Young Pyromancer, Angler, and a big Shadow. At the end of that turn I rip a Verdict of Azcanta and he scoops right there (in the interest of time I guess?).
G3: This game starts slow as well, I get Azcanta up and things are looking good, but he Thoughtseizes and then Extracts my hand with two Verdicts. This time when he goes wide my only out is a big Secure to try to race him. I'm lucky enough to draw it, but he has a Deprive.
R5 - Living End (2-1 W):
G1: He draws 3 Fulminators and cuts me off Verdict mana, I get killed by the first Living End.
SB: Pushes and Blessed Alliance out, Surgicals and Verdict in.
G2: I let him resolve a LE, extract it, then wipe the board. He durdles around until I finally kill him with a Warrior swarm.
G3: Similar to G2 except it takes longer because he went back to his sideboard and got Slaughter Games, which he then used on my Secures, so I had to kill him with Snapcaster beats.
As I feared, Remand was pretty useless (except against Living End) and I did have trouble against Death's Shadow's discard, so going forward I'm going to try Think Twice in the mainboard again. I'm also going to test out the Token sideboard plan again, because I think Lingering Souls would be nice against GDS. I'm going to use Sorin, Lord of Innistrad this time though, because he's better on his own and his emblems can still buff my spirits and warriors after he dies.
4 Opt
4 Serum Visions
Removal: 9
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
3 Supreme Verdict
Countermagic: 6
3 Logic Knot
3 Cryptic Command
Card Advantage: 13
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Think Twice
2 Search for Azcanta
4 Esper Charm
1 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Secure the Wastes
Lands: 22
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Lingering Souls
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
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Sorry I may have missed the exact context where there was a reason to be looking at thopter/sword, but from the esper side of things I have never felt like I had a problem with the win conditions. 2x secure or 1x WSZ are fine with 3-4 colonnade and 2-4 snapcaster as backup plans and 0-1 elspeth/gideon. I have never been in a game with esper draw-go where I thought "man I wish I had a different win condition" unless you count the times I tapped low for an elspeth suns champion and lost the game as a result (which is why I then relegated her to the SB).
To me the deck's problems are mostly related to drawing the wrong cards in the wrong situations. Logic knots vs cavern of souls. Paths and Verdicts vs valakut. too many cantrips too little action vs burn. stuff like that.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron