The sideboard is a very rough draft right now. Notes:
Eight fetch lands because of Blood Moon being so common.
Serum Visions instead of Curious Obsession (or Topplegeist) to give improved odds of having a good T1 play and to filter extra lands and Vials later in the game. Obsession is a nonbo with Phantasmal Image and could be dead in the face of a flying blocker. Serum Visions also digs early for the two-drop cards in the sideboard, which seems relevant.
Not trying GoST or Mutavault, because there is no room for them. One Moorland Haunt only, because I strongly subscribe to Frank Karsten's ideas on building a strong mana base.
Ample artifact hate SB, for Affinity, KCI, and Lantern.
I'd appreciate feedback from those experienced with this deck. Thanks for reading.
Started messing with a black splash last night to get a feel for it. On paper my ideal starts don't lead to a faster kill, it just further secures it at the later turns. Anyway, decklist below and some musings afterwards:
Lots of weird numbers because I was trying stuff out.
1. The deck didn't really increase my clock by any significant margin. I'm treating sorin like a lord, but on curve he's only adding an extra 2-4 damage typically per swing. The lifelink helps, but that's almost a moot point when I'm taking more to begin with to just be able to cast him.
2. Lingering souls felt okay? Messing around against humans, they can still drop a mantis rider or bulk up the 1/2 block flier to block the tokens and crack back for a meaningful race. It threw me off of when I would fire off spell queller or other flash plays with rattlechains.
3. The deck is spell heavy right now with 35 cards being lands/spells. So 25 dudes, only 4 of which are 1 drops. I want discard and better removal - but that directly impacts the amount of gas I have to pour into vial on turns 2-3.
4. With the introduction of another functional sacrifice ability in remorseful cleric, liliana, heretical healer seems interesting. Her mana cost would be atrocious for a 3rd color splash to the deck but remorseful cleric, wanderer and selfless give the deck 12 ways of flipping her and she can return a few things before she goes out the door and leaves a zombie around to boot. She plays very well with vial as well (flash her in after blocks are declared, flip, return a dude that just died and leave her hanging around with a new zombie token.
5. I wanted to test bloodghast, as him getting buffs from the lords seems particularly strong, but the deck as built didn't have any ways of sticking him in the yard. Streex mentioned brutality as a decent option for us, and while I do really like the card I feel like ghast is asking too much of the deck space wise at that point for a mediocre impact. Vampire tribal just has so many more ways of binning and recurring him and he's not even great there.
6. The removal options are pretty wide open, but dismember was still looking really great and at that point the black only saves me a couple life from time to time.
7. Fetching black early is great, but it's never going to be relevant before t4 (cast souls t3 to flash is back on t4, or sorin t4) at the earliest. If I add discard it could potentially throw off my flow for turns 1-3. Obviously I want T1 vial, t2 double discard vial in wanderer and go ham from there but that's just not realistic.
8. Given the amount of sac guys we'll have, I wonder if rally the ancestors is it worth consideration? It's slow, but it could be a blowout on setting up blocks, removal for graveyards, or getting wanderer/queller back to counter a big payoff spell. Toying with the idea of flip lili is what led me down this path, the only issue is that it's purely defensive because we can't give our guys haste or set up a sac drain kill without deck concessions elsewhere.
9. Is tormented soul enough of a payoff in a lord heavy build to just be a beater? Not sure if he's worth it but he does wear curious obsession quite well. Promo art is pretty rad...
I'm seeing a lot of posters splash black in the UW builds...what about in a Bant shell? Would splashing a fourth color for Lingering Souls even be worth it? Or is Bant strong enough w/o it?
I'm seeing a lot of posters splash black in the UW builds...what about in a Bant shell? Would splashing a fourth color for Lingering Souls even be worth it? Or is Bant strong enough w/o it?
I'm no expert but...
Adding a 4th colour is bad.
If on CoCo then it adds to your chance of blanking.
Alright, so with Supreme Phantom coming out I've started working on my list to buy in to Modern. This is a rough draft based on reading up on UW Spirits from multiple sources, and I'm particularly iffy about the land base (mostly # of fetches and shocks) and the sideboard because I'm not current with the Modern metagame. Any thoughts are welcome...
My thinking is to take full advantage of the potential for 10 lord effects in the deck by including the black splash for Lingering Souls and going for a go-wide strategy. I look to maximize damage from Mausoleum Wanderer and tap effects from Nebelgast Herald and build an aggressive board in the vein of Merfolk. 4 Caverns may be too many, but I'm not sure what to do instead. Maybe a couple more shocks? As for the sideboard... I'd again like to maximize Spirit synergy, but I'm not too familiar with the Modern meta currently so I may have some gaps. For example, I don't know how I plan to beat Ensnaring Bridge. Any advice would be welcome, as I hope to build this in the next month and start finally attending Modern events at my LGS.
Sucks she was paired against burn. Was good to watch though. Game 2 she felt firmly in the drivers seat for awhile.
Played UW vial spirits at my LGS Friday (same as last report but with caverns in the manabase). Quick report below, went 3-1.
Match 1 was mardu pyromancer. Lost 2-1. I just couldnt stick anything meaningful after having my hand shredded game 1. I don't run enough removal to make the match worthwhile. Game 2 spell queller and some hexproof in response to my key threats let me tempo for the win. G3 I had 3 caverns and both moorland haunts. Cast like 2 guys the whole game.
Match 2 was jund. 2-1, biggest take away was giving myself a copy of goyf on ththe ground and chipping in for 1-4 every turn just added up with his mana base. nebelgast herald felt great.
Match 3 was lantern. Game one I have 3 spell queller win hand and see my opponent stirrings for a bridge (which I have no maindexk answer to). She tries an inquisition to clear the way for bridge next turn and I quell that. Next turn I quell the birdge. On t4 she drops land, inquisition me...after revealing another bridge on top for her draw. No way out of that. Match 2/3 I brought in negates, an echoing truth, and took out images/ojutais command. I saved mausoleum wanderer to counter whir of invention and was able to get there.
Match 4 was humans. Game 1 he mulls to five and I blow up his images with nebelgast heralds (hehehe). Match 2 he has an absurd start with t2 lieutenant, t3 image it, t4 another lieutenant and image that too. Anyway, I had worship t4 and 2-3 dudes out by then, and they can't interact with the enchantment.
Deck felt great and I think mardu pyromancer just felt like I was on the bad side of variance. Discard seems to hurt me more on this deck than other decks. Dunno if that's actually the case or not but it always feels bad when my 2-3 drops are stripped from me.
Considering trying ancestral vision down the road. Probably in place of 2 obsessions, one image and one command. At least until the new spirits drop.
Kat got 27th in the SCG open in Atlanta with Bant. Would be great to get a tournament report as I'm not sure what her other losses were from aside from burn.
Good show for the deck though. I may need to take bant out for a stretch once supreme phantom drops. I need to also just get another GoST because I only have 2. He plays very well with a lord build.
Well, I'm bringing a deck based more on tempo, delaying opponents moves with Remands and Cryptics, drawing a spirit and if able to play them with Aether Vial.
Paths and Nebelgast Heralds will delay more creature based decks on tapping and exiling them before attacking.
Yesterday I tried the Bant version, with 4 birds (haven't got nobles yet), 3 Permeating Mass and 4 collecteds. Even if I played them with nobles, it didn't feel that good that I felt some time ago with the UW version.
IMO, permeating mass wasn't doing it that great, as there are humans, affinity, and if there are other creatures with counters, you are basically helping them, since most of them are 1/1, which they will become 1/3 with massive counters, making their toughness even bigger.
My deck will play 26 creatures, a nice number though.
Some time ago, when I played them, I had Eidolon of Rhetoric main card, so, basically I was playing a creature on my turn, a counter on their and vial into another creature. And that was the end of their turn, literally, unless they attacked of course. First I'm going to test it like this, and see how it goes.
Hi everyone. I have been playing modern spirits for a while now. I have tested UW, Bant, and Esper versions and I am leaning toward liking UW the best (lingering souls feels clunky since you can't play at instant speed and I like the reactive play of UW over Bant).
Throwing my 2 cents in...
TheGratGig: I don't think Dungeon Geist is anywhere near as powerful as Nebelgast. Nebelgast has flash and costs 3 instead of 4. Furthermore, you will never tick your vial up to 4 when all of our best spirits are at 3, so flashing it in will only happen with rattlechains out. Also, Dungeon only triggers on its own ETB, while Nebelgast triggers on any spirit and the gas come from moorland haunt activation when you are out of spirits in hand.
StreexGeist: I liked your arguments for Collective Brutality so I tried it out and found myself always sideboarding it out. The problem I had with it primarily is that I never want to tap out for it (similar to my problem with lingering souls) and as a topdeck you are only getting 1 mode. I love the card, but not in spirits. The best card we have access to in Esper IMO is strangely enough Supernatural Stamina. Stamina makes Mausoleum Wanderer and Selfless Spirit awesome bullets, gives us a little reach, and keeps our guys alive. I also like having access to Fatal Push, but I am underwhelmed with any other black cards I have tried and so I'm leaning back toward UW for its consistency and the ability to add more moorland haunts.
The problems: I think most of us not in bant would agree that the biggest problem we face is a card draw / advantage engine, but we do seem to have a big problem in needing information on our opponents hand to properly sequence our spirits too. Esper can fix this but I already mentioned Brutality didn't seem great and I really dislike Inquisition as it is a miserable top deck and we already have enough of that problem with Aether Vial. To that end, what about the card Peek? It is a 1 mana blue cantrip that allows us to look at our opponent's hand at instant speed. I would never want more than 1 in my opening hand (I don't want to overly complicate my mulligan decision), so 2x seems right to me, but that extra infor seems like it could be relevant.
To be honest the only pw i would consider is teferi, hero of dominaria because the untap lands ability is nice with our flash stuff but i think spending resources to protect it and having to play more lands is totally not worth it.
The day they print one that makes some spirit token i'll be willing to give it a try maybe but until them i'd rather keep curious obsession... draw one or more cards doesn't get much more efficient than the one mana investment
To be honest the only pw i would consider is teferi, hero of dominaria because the untap lands ability is nice with our flash stuff but i think spending resources to protect it and having to play more lands is totally not worth it.
The day they print one that makes some spirit token i'll be willing to give it a try maybe but until them i'd rather keep curious obsession... draw one or more cards doesn't get much more efficient than the one mana investment
I was about to say, he's the first walker I've actually wanted to try in my spirits list. He kind of solves the whole "running out of gas" issue, while also serving as a way to remove threats on the board in a pinch. I doubt we'd ever get him to ult in a typical game, but still, draw a card each turn feels really good that far into the game. Also, I need to update my deck lists. That esper spirits list was from ages ago.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Figure of Destiny What's your opinion on figure of destiny in UW builds? I am flabbergasted that the card doesn't even get a mention in this article whereas on other sites (mtggoldfish for example) it's 4x in the deck. Thanks. Bendaer
I intend to get into the Spirits archetype and since I play on a budget, I will stick to UW for the start. A first draft of what my deck will look like:
What do you guys think of Thalia? I like her in DnT-variations and other creature decks, but I am not sure how bad the lack of synergy will feel. Also the new Lord should help the clock in uninteractive MUs and make combat easier against creatures. I want to test Remorseful Cleric in the maindeck since I am used to midrange-infested metas, where I think the card will shine.
I would love to hear feedback and opinions. I am used to a Death and Taxes playstyle so my view of this decks strategy might not be completely correct just now - which is something I want to improve!
Thalia plays very poorly with path and obsession.
My 2c
Cons:
If you're used to the playstyle then it's not the end of the world, but she does make a decent chunk of the deck more expensive (vial, obsession and path gives 11 cards total in your list which is close to 20% of your deck).
She's also bad in multiples, which means you don't often want to see copies 2-4 unless they jump through hoops. This pushes you up to almost 14 cards, which is nearly a quarter of your deck, that doesn't play favorable with her.
Her mana denial plays poorly with the ramp of path. While we're often pathing to shave off a turn or two of our opponents clock, she's not getting in often because we're not swinging in with threats alongside her.
The uptick in humans has led to opponents being more savvy vs playing her. I just ignore her now and strand cards in my opponents hand if they have multiples and only expend removal of it's a x for 1 or she just needs to go so I can do my thing period.
Pros:
That being said, I've played her as a 3x and 4x and I've done well in an open meta at my LGS. When you want her and you get wanderer > Thalia > multiple spell quellers she's a monster.
Against smaller decks, like bant coco or elves she can swing in on the ground very easily while they try and set up.
You can sideboard out of spells to become more taxing, and impact the numbers above.
Having vial helps pay the tax while you continue to do your thing with deploying tempo based creatures.
She can be very punishing to spell heavy land light decks (like UR tempo decks).
@TheGratGig How does Tallowisp fetching Steel of the Godhead sound? I really like the toolbox angle that can be added to the deck, I’m just wondering if it’s worth making the slots for?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard: UB Control
Modern: UWR Control
EDH: Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Phelddagrif
Glissa, the Traitor
Rosheen Meanderer
I've 4-1 three straight comp leagues with Bant and it's felt quite good, Ive actually felt like the worst card was Geist in the deck, and am considering putting it into the side to bring in where it's good and putting more flying and disruptive creatures in the main. CoCo is just so good.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've been fiddling around and boy ya sure can't fit in all the cards ya want, can ya? Here is my first draft after some cards arrive in the mail:
4x Drogskol Captain
1x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Mausoleum Wanderer
3x Nebelgast Herald
4x Phantasmal Image
4x Rattlechains
1x Remorseful Cleric
3x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
4x Supreme Phantom
3x Cavern of Souls
4x Flooded Strand
2x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
1x Moorland Haunt
1x Plains
2x Polluted Delta
2x Seachrome Coast
2x Marsh Flats
Artifact (4)
4x Aether Vial
4x Serum Visions
3x Blessed Alliance
2x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Negate
4x Path to Exile
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
- Eight fetch lands because of Blood Moon being so common.
- Serum Visions instead of Curious Obsession (or Topplegeist) to give improved odds of having a good T1 play and to filter extra lands and Vials later in the game. Obsession is a nonbo with Phantasmal Image and could be dead in the face of a flying blocker. Serum Visions also digs early for the two-drop cards in the sideboard, which seems relevant.
- Not trying GoST or Mutavault, because there is no room for them. One Moorland Haunt only, because I strongly subscribe to Frank Karsten's ideas on building a strong mana base.
- Ample artifact hate SB, for Affinity, KCI, and Lantern.
I'd appreciate feedback from those experienced with this deck. Thanks for reading.1 watery grave
2 hallowed fountain
4 foooded strand
2 polluted delta
1 marsh flats
2 moorland haunt
2 seachrome coast
1 darkslick shores
2 plains
2 island
3 path to exile
2 curious obsession
4 lingering souls
2 sorin, solemn visitor
4 mausoleum wanderer
4 rattle chains
4 selfless spirit
3 phantasmal image
4 spell queller
4 drogskol captain
2 nebelgast herald
Lots of weird numbers because I was trying stuff out.
1. The deck didn't really increase my clock by any significant margin. I'm treating sorin like a lord, but on curve he's only adding an extra 2-4 damage typically per swing. The lifelink helps, but that's almost a moot point when I'm taking more to begin with to just be able to cast him.
2. Lingering souls felt okay? Messing around against humans, they can still drop a mantis rider or bulk up the 1/2 block flier to block the tokens and crack back for a meaningful race. It threw me off of when I would fire off spell queller or other flash plays with rattlechains.
3. The deck is spell heavy right now with 35 cards being lands/spells. So 25 dudes, only 4 of which are 1 drops. I want discard and better removal - but that directly impacts the amount of gas I have to pour into vial on turns 2-3.
4. With the introduction of another functional sacrifice ability in remorseful cleric, liliana, heretical healer seems interesting. Her mana cost would be atrocious for a 3rd color splash to the deck but remorseful cleric, wanderer and selfless give the deck 12 ways of flipping her and she can return a few things before she goes out the door and leaves a zombie around to boot. She plays very well with vial as well (flash her in after blocks are declared, flip, return a dude that just died and leave her hanging around with a new zombie token.
5. I wanted to test bloodghast, as him getting buffs from the lords seems particularly strong, but the deck as built didn't have any ways of sticking him in the yard. Streex mentioned brutality as a decent option for us, and while I do really like the card I feel like ghast is asking too much of the deck space wise at that point for a mediocre impact. Vampire tribal just has so many more ways of binning and recurring him and he's not even great there.
6. The removal options are pretty wide open, but dismember was still looking really great and at that point the black only saves me a couple life from time to time.
7. Fetching black early is great, but it's never going to be relevant before t4 (cast souls t3 to flash is back on t4, or sorin t4) at the earliest. If I add discard it could potentially throw off my flow for turns 1-3. Obviously I want T1 vial, t2 double discard vial in wanderer and go ham from there but that's just not realistic.
8. Given the amount of sac guys we'll have, I wonder if rally the ancestors is it worth consideration? It's slow, but it could be a blowout on setting up blocks, removal for graveyards, or getting wanderer/queller back to counter a big payoff spell. Toying with the idea of flip lili is what led me down this path, the only issue is that it's purely defensive because we can't give our guys haste or set up a sac drain kill without deck concessions elsewhere.
9. Is tormented soul enough of a payoff in a lord heavy build to just be a beater? Not sure if he's worth it but he does wear curious obsession quite well. Promo art is pretty rad...
I'm no expert but...
Adding a 4th colour is bad.
If on CoCo then it adds to your chance of blanking.
I can't see it as a good fit.
4x Mausoleum Wanderer
2x Phantasmal Image
4x Rattlechains
3x Selfless Spirit
4x Drogskol Captain
3x Nebelgast Herald
4x Spell Queller
4x Supreme Phantom
Spells
4x Aether Vial
3x Path to Exile
3x Lingering Souls
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Flooded Strand
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
3x Island
1x Moorland Haunt
2x Plains
2x Polluted Delta
3x Seachrome Coast
1x Watery Grave
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Selfless Spirit
2x Azorius Herald
2x Eidolon of Rhetoric
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Negate
1x Settle the Wreckage
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
My thinking is to take full advantage of the potential for 10 lord effects in the deck by including the black splash for Lingering Souls and going for a go-wide strategy. I look to maximize damage from Mausoleum Wanderer and tap effects from Nebelgast Herald and build an aggressive board in the vein of Merfolk. 4 Caverns may be too many, but I'm not sure what to do instead. Maybe a couple more shocks? As for the sideboard... I'd again like to maximize Spirit synergy, but I'm not too familiar with the Modern meta currently so I may have some gaps. For example, I don't know how I plan to beat Ensnaring Bridge. Any advice would be welcome, as I hope to build this in the next month and start finally attending Modern events at my LGS.
Played UW vial spirits at my LGS Friday (same as last report but with caverns in the manabase). Quick report below, went 3-1.
Match 1 was mardu pyromancer. Lost 2-1. I just couldnt stick anything meaningful after having my hand shredded game 1. I don't run enough removal to make the match worthwhile. Game 2 spell queller and some hexproof in response to my key threats let me tempo for the win. G3 I had 3 caverns and both moorland haunts. Cast like 2 guys the whole game.
Match 2 was jund. 2-1, biggest take away was giving myself a copy of goyf on ththe ground and chipping in for 1-4 every turn just added up with his mana base. nebelgast herald felt great.
Match 3 was lantern. Game one I have 3 spell queller win hand and see my opponent stirrings for a bridge (which I have no maindexk answer to). She tries an inquisition to clear the way for bridge next turn and I quell that. Next turn I quell the birdge. On t4 she drops land, inquisition me...after revealing another bridge on top for her draw. No way out of that. Match 2/3 I brought in negates, an echoing truth, and took out images/ojutais command. I saved mausoleum wanderer to counter whir of invention and was able to get there.
Match 4 was humans. Game 1 he mulls to five and I blow up his images with nebelgast heralds (hehehe). Match 2 he has an absurd start with t2 lieutenant, t3 image it, t4 another lieutenant and image that too. Anyway, I had worship t4 and 2-3 dudes out by then, and they can't interact with the enchantment.
Deck felt great and I think mardu pyromancer just felt like I was on the bad side of variance. Discard seems to hurt me more on this deck than other decks. Dunno if that's actually the case or not but it always feels bad when my 2-3 drops are stripped from me.
Considering trying ancestral vision down the road. Probably in place of 2 obsessions, one image and one command. At least until the new spirits drop.
Good show for the deck though. I may need to take bant out for a stretch once supreme phantom drops. I need to also just get another GoST because I only have 2. He plays very well with a lord build.
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Nebelgast Herald
Land
4 Island
1 Plains
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Aether Vial
Instant
4 Path to Exile
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
3 Remorseful Cleric
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
3 Deprive
2 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Blessed Alliance
I'm unsure of the mana base, do I want more caverns? less fetches and more basics?
Any and all insight is greatly appreciated
Bridgevine B R G
Burn R W G
Dredge B R U G
Storm R U
Amulet Titan G U R B
Paths and Nebelgast Heralds will delay more creature based decks on tapping and exiling them before attacking.
20 Lands
Non-Creature Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
Creature Spells
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Supreme Phantom
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
2 Selfless Spirit
2 Nebelgast Herald
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Worship
2 Damping Sphere
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Negate
2 Detention Sphere
Yesterday I tried the Bant version, with 4 birds (haven't got nobles yet), 3 Permeating Mass and 4 collecteds. Even if I played them with nobles, it didn't feel that good that I felt some time ago with the UW version.
IMO, permeating mass wasn't doing it that great, as there are humans, affinity, and if there are other creatures with counters, you are basically helping them, since most of them are 1/1, which they will become 1/3 with massive counters, making their toughness even bigger.
Some time ago, when I played them, I had Eidolon of Rhetoric main card, so, basically I was playing a creature on my turn, a counter on their and vial into another creature. And that was the end of their turn, literally, unless they attacked of course. First I'm going to test it like this, and see how it goes.
Throwing my 2 cents in...
TheGratGig: I don't think Dungeon Geist is anywhere near as powerful as Nebelgast. Nebelgast has flash and costs 3 instead of 4. Furthermore, you will never tick your vial up to 4 when all of our best spirits are at 3, so flashing it in will only happen with rattlechains out. Also, Dungeon only triggers on its own ETB, while Nebelgast triggers on any spirit and the gas come from moorland haunt activation when you are out of spirits in hand.
StreexGeist: I liked your arguments for Collective Brutality so I tried it out and found myself always sideboarding it out. The problem I had with it primarily is that I never want to tap out for it (similar to my problem with lingering souls) and as a topdeck you are only getting 1 mode. I love the card, but not in spirits. The best card we have access to in Esper IMO is strangely enough Supernatural Stamina. Stamina makes Mausoleum Wanderer and Selfless Spirit awesome bullets, gives us a little reach, and keeps our guys alive. I also like having access to Fatal Push, but I am underwhelmed with any other black cards I have tried and so I'm leaning back toward UW for its consistency and the ability to add more moorland haunts.
The problems: I think most of us not in bant would agree that the biggest problem we face is a card draw / advantage engine, but we do seem to have a big problem in needing information on our opponents hand to properly sequence our spirits too. Esper can fix this but I already mentioned Brutality didn't seem great and I really dislike Inquisition as it is a miserable top deck and we already have enough of that problem with Aether Vial. To that end, what about the card Peek? It is a 1 mana blue cantrip that allows us to look at our opponent's hand at instant speed. I would never want more than 1 in my opening hand (I don't want to overly complicate my mulligan decision), so 2x seems right to me, but that extra infor seems like it could be relevant.
What's your current list?
What do you think about this guy?
The day they print one that makes some spirit token i'll be willing to give it a try maybe but until them i'd rather keep curious obsession... draw one or more cards doesn't get much more efficient than the one mana investment
I was about to say, he's the first walker I've actually wanted to try in my spirits list. He kind of solves the whole "running out of gas" issue, while also serving as a way to remove threats on the board in a pinch. I doubt we'd ever get him to ult in a typical game, but still, draw a card each turn feels really good that far into the game. Also, I need to update my deck lists. That esper spirits list was from ages ago.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Thalia plays very poorly with path and obsession.
My 2c
Cons:
If you're used to the playstyle then it's not the end of the world, but she does make a decent chunk of the deck more expensive (vial, obsession and path gives 11 cards total in your list which is close to 20% of your deck).
She's also bad in multiples, which means you don't often want to see copies 2-4 unless they jump through hoops. This pushes you up to almost 14 cards, which is nearly a quarter of your deck, that doesn't play favorable with her.
Her mana denial plays poorly with the ramp of path. While we're often pathing to shave off a turn or two of our opponents clock, she's not getting in often because we're not swinging in with threats alongside her.
The uptick in humans has led to opponents being more savvy vs playing her. I just ignore her now and strand cards in my opponents hand if they have multiples and only expend removal of it's a x for 1 or she just needs to go so I can do my thing period.
Pros:
That being said, I've played her as a 3x and 4x and I've done well in an open meta at my LGS. When you want her and you get wanderer > Thalia > multiple spell quellers she's a monster.
Against smaller decks, like bant coco or elves she can swing in on the ground very easily while they try and set up.
You can sideboard out of spells to become more taxing, and impact the numbers above.
Having vial helps pay the tax while you continue to do your thing with deploying tempo based creatures.
She can be very punishing to spell heavy land light decks (like UR tempo decks).
Hope this helps!
Modern: UWR Control
EDH: Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Phelddagrif
Glissa, the Traitor
Rosheen Meanderer
RIP Jimmy foREVer
what do you think bant/esper lists would look like with the new M19 lord? What should be cut to make room?