MTG Salvation

-2/-2 is better than 2 damage to a creature, FWIW.
BB vs 1B is also pretty relevant in this deck, IMO.
That being said, as cool as the card is, I don't think we'll play it.
For burn hate cards, it just doesn't seem better than the long list we've already got (Blessed alliance, collective brutality, leyline, etc)

Yea, I think Profane is probably just out of range on the costs unfortunately because the effects would be outstanding for this deck.

The thing about Moment of Craving is that it kills AND gains life at the same time (at instant speed). Alliance is really just a foil to Boros Charm most of the time, and to get the same effect out of Brutality you have to discard a card and play at sorcery speed. It's sort of like Lightning Helix in that regard. Will it see play tho? Not sure.

I think against Burn, specifically, Brutality is good in the sense that it can trade 3 cards for 3 card at the cost of just 2 mana, and Burn is good at bottlenecking you on mana.

I like the idea of spell quellers in an esper deck, good way of pressurising the opponent and still being able to 'counter' spells.

@BloodyRabbit_01 I'd like to hear it, including a deck list.

It's happening...someone won an SCG Open with a 24 land + Serum Vision Revelation deck:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118062

As heavy as the guy was on burn spells, I don't think this can be replicated exactly in Esper, but I'm not so certain the burn was helping him race combo decks, anyhow. We might have a better shot against non-creature decks on account of Esper Charm, which would mean that a pile similar to the 12 removal spells and 2 Verdicts in this list might secretly be a thing.

Quote from Cipher »

It's happening...someone won an SCG Open with a 24 land + Serum Vision Revelation deck:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=118062

As heavy as the guy was on burn spells, I don't think this can be replicated exactly in Esper, but I'm not so certain the burn was helping him race combo decks, anyhow. We might have a better shot against non-creature decks on account of Esper Charm, which would mean that a pile similar to the 12 removal spells and 2 Verdicts in this list might secretly be a thing.

Nikolich has multiple top 8s with similar builds. This build of the deck appeared at the last team event where we saw both him and aintrazi playing a big jeskai draw go deck.

Esper doesn't necessarily have a walker strong enough to replace Nahiri, so that slot is definitely in the air. What's our plan for burn (jeskai is slightly favored I believe, if not the match up is very close to 50/50)? How do we beat decks with inevitability on us (Tron, valakut, etc)?

This isn't really directed at you cipher; they're just questions we have to ask what benefit do we gain by replacing the burn package with black?

Edit: I realized that my post made it sound like I don't think a Nikolich style esper list is the way to go. I definitely think it is for those still on esper or see value in continuing to play esper.

Yeah, I don't think the list translates directly into Esper. There's just a few things he's doing that UW player are also doing, yet you don't see much adoption from people on the forum. Serum Visions, Search for Azcanta, less than 25 lands, etc.

Wouldn't say Burn is positive for UWR, maybe 45/55 when I played a similar list with Cliques in the sideboard. Mostly you need to reliably kill their 1-drops without taking free damage and you've got them stuck trying to burn you down from 20. Easier when you have 8-10 spot removal spells.

Making sure you have inevitability maindeck is a big thing, which is why I think Runed Halo should take the place of removal spells like Blessed Alliance. Doesn't touch Tron, but Tron isn't very popular and not so much of a problem without Eye of Ugin.

These other Control archetypes have been pretty successful with no attempt made to stop decks like Storm or Dredge or Valakut. Esper's strength is probably in it's ability to run extra hand/stack diruption, which puts it in a better position against non-creature decks. Could it be that instant-speed Mind Rot isn't worth it on account of Modern being a creature-driven format? Never really seen the numbers to back it up.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Torrential Gearhulk. I used to like the card, back then, and the interaction between it and Academy Ruins.

...I don't know if we need even more lands that are vulnerable to land destruction, but Academy Ruins might be a thing with Gearhulk. Engineered Explosives happens to be pretty good, right now.

On another note, with Azcanta becoming a staple in Snapcaster Mage decks while Storm/Affinity/Burn still exist in the top tiers, I think it might be time for some number of Spell Snares to come back to the main of the stock list.

Seems like esper is the last deck to adopt Azcanta, doesn't surprise me much, I remember fighting tooth and nail with most of you guys about how good the card is in control. Anyways, here we are.

@annhilator - The sideboard is a great place for Spell Snare right now. Since I began playing modern, I always said Spell Snare is not a sideboard card, and I think most people would agree with that adage. Right now, the truth is the opposite. Spell Snare is the best card in the deck against a lot of matches, and the worst card in the deck against a lot of matches. All of my UWx decks are currently on 3 Dispel and 3 Snare in the board and they have been absolutely bananas.

Still gonna add that search is pretty lackluster in this deck. I would easily sleeve up the deck without it.
It feels like think twice to me; its playable, but I'm never really happy to play it, its just there to fill up deck space.
Its always gonna be better in decks like grixis or jeskai that don't rely on hitting as many land drops and can just find a bunch of lightning bolts.
The major reason to play esper over other color combinations is that we dig the best. Another digging card in mono blue objectively benefits the decks that didn't have access to as much dig the most.

IMO, I would still not sideboard snare. I disagree that its the best card in the deck in a lot of matchups. Its potentially the best card game 1 in a lot of matchups, but once we start boarding, its merely good in applicable matchups. I would only play it in the board if I felt my deck was optimally configured that way (because of boarding plans). I don't feel that way, and maybe just because of how I construct my sideboards, I've never felt that way in modern, and I don't really expect to ever feel that way, barring a major meta shift or me trying to metagame hard.
I am still playing snares main. I only stopped playing them for a very brief period, and as many of you have noticed, its back to being good, and in my experience, its good enough to warrant 2-3 mainboard slots.
Disclaimer, I tend to play against more coco decks than show up online or at these scg/gps, which does color my perception slightly.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Still gonna add that search is pretty lackluster in this deck. I would easily sleeve up the deck without it.
It feels like think twice to me; its playable, but I'm never really happy to play it, its just there to fill up deck space.

This, pretty much sum it up. Azcanta is pretty bad here. Expecially considering BOTH the reactive nature of the deck and the large number of Logic Knot we play.

it's horrible in all the bad match-up, doing nothing the turn we play it and MAYBE providing a scry 1 the turn after. Against Affinity, Burn and whatsoever, it's miles worse than Revelation - which is istant value (and I don't even play Revelation anymore).

U-Control isn't doing much, with or without Azcanta. They were 2 Jeskai in the top2 of the recent big tournament, but other than that it's the same old story. I wouldn't take it as a comparative metre, to be honest.

I don't think this is a fair assesment. UW has been playing 2 Search since it was released, and all of the UWR decks that placed are playing 3 Logic Knots. It doesn't have anything to do with that -- Search works WELL with Knot, since it fuels delve. And for the record, Search is actually just fine vs. Burn -- it lets you scry every turn for free if it's in play, so you don't have to play anything at their end step to get ahead, and it ramps you when it does flip. The issue with it in Esper isn't with Search, it's a problem with Esper. Our early game is weak, mainly due to painful mana and awkward draws against the wrong deck. Serum doesn't really fix this issue, since it Bolts us to fetch-shock.

All of my UWx decks are currently on 3 Dispel and 3 Snare in the board and they have been absolutely bananas.

This seems a true waste of space. I won't argue about when these cards are good (most likely, Burn, Affinity and Blue-Mirror) but they aren't solutions, just fillers. The sideboard should aim adding more resolutive plays to our maindeck, like Wrath of God or Blessed Alliance (just to make an example) respectively for raw power and flexibility. Or thing like Runed Halo, which win the game alone against certain strategies. Or Celestial Purge, because Liliana can be difficult to manage sometimes. Less specific cards leave us - too often - unable to answer the most common threat in the metagame. We can't really afford that.

Sometimes upgrading fillers is exactly what you want to do. In fact, having good filler upgrades for various matchups lets you side out marginal cards you may not have been able to if you just fill the board with stand-alone cards. And I wouldn't say that either Dispel or Snare are narrow, either. That said, I do think 3 of each is a little unnecessary.

To be honest, I think that Esper is in a rut right now because it has NOTHING that any other UWx Control doesn't also have while playing a less painful manabase and fewer dead cards. Esper Charm is easily replaced in these other decks with Search/Seas/Snapcasters 3 and 4/Glimmer/etc., and Fatal Push is easily replaced by burn or Condemn/Alliance/Sphere in their respective decks. The most unique thing Esper has now is discard in the board, and I don't really play discard in Esper anyways. I honestly think there isn't a real draw to black right now, so it's gonna take something big for me to play Esper as my main deck again, sadly.

Normally I would take the time to refute you guys on Search for Azcanta, but honestly I've done that so much and the results of it in every format speak for itself at this point. If you are playing Snapcaster mage and not Azcanta, you're either stubborn or ill-informed, in either case it's just wrong. It's not comparable to think twice, one is a 5 Mana draw 2, the other is a 2 Mana win condition.

On sideboards- 3 Dispel has been seeing play on a lot of lists, and while I debated playing 1 snare main and 2 side I decided that it was dead too often main. It's also a very good card against a lot of the decks that other sideboard slots are good against, for example I make room by cutting stuff like blessed alliance, timely and Stony Silence all together since affinity is a fine match, and both dispel and snare are fantastic against burn.

I think it's strange @annhilator, all of the reasons why you think it's esper is in a bad spot right now are why I think it's great right now. I feel like push is better than Bolt and esper charm is better than spreading seas. The main reason why I think we are in a good spot right now is because we have playing the StW/WSZ game forever, and are better suited for it. We just need to not be stubborn and adopt some of the other tech, like Gearhulk, like azcanta. I also think we are the best Settle the Wreckage deck, which makes me think we ought to be on settle over verdict, but I haven't actually tested that yet.

I would argue negate isn't necessary in the sideboard, and I often run disdainful stroke in that slot. Stroke hits the majority of spells you want to take with negate, while also hitting Primeval Titan and Various Eldrazi spells. It seems to me that some of the old logic of negate as a sideboard card and spell snare as a main deck card are currently inversed. I really like Negate in the main right now, it has very good targets in all of the bad matches. All the UWx decks currently are well situated against most creature strategies, so have counters to everything else seems great.

Here's a list which will be very close to what I will try in my next league.



*Edit, forgot serum visions and list was short

IMO, esper isn't any more painful than jeskai or grixis is. Both of those decks rely a lot more on their third color than we do.
The fact that jeskai sees some success right now is the same as its always been in modern: jeskai is a more popular color combination. More people are playing jeskai than esper, and this is basically always going to be the case.

While having filler cards in your board can be reasonable, I feel that playing 6 counterspells that have so much overlap is just not the best way to configure your deck. Playing snare in the board at all is just generally not the best way to build your deck, because of how the card overlaps. You want something good vs burn, storm, jund/junk, affinity? Well leyline hits all but affinity, and affinity hate overlaps with lantern and tron varients, as well as other decks weak to multiple wraths. And leyline is a far more impactful card than spell snare, which gives it more points in my mind.

Espers draws are basically "unconditional removal", "better card draw" and "discard spells". The better card draw is definitely lessened with search, but the other 2 are still relevant.
That being said, I think part of the problem is that if you go into a tournament with the idea of "I'm going to dodge all my bad matchups and win, or not and lose" then jeskai is probably the better choice because it has some obviously difficult matchups that once ignored, lets you more easily capitalize on the good matchups. Esper still has the whole "has game against basically everything, but loses to itself sometimes". If you're trying to win a 15 round tournament, jeskai is obviously the better choice.
That being said, I do think there is still a lot of draw to esper. Its biggest problem always has been the number of people actually bringing it to major events.
"The results of it in every format" seems a little unfair. It sees no real play in standard or vintage, it sees very fringe play in legacy (and only in 1 deck, and its not exactly some crazy all star there. And plenty of people don't play it in that deck). And in modern, its... ok. The jeskai lists that have done well this weekend played 2 a piece. Some of the UW lists that have done well have played a couple. Its not really terribly noteworthy. That doesn't really scream "speaks for itself" to me. It says "look this card is playable in this format" and not a whole lot more.

The whole open mind thing still rubs me the wrong way. Its not like none of us have tried gearhulk, have tried search. Its that we did and weren't impressed.
Gearhulk is frankly the worst card in big jeskai, but its playable. Its not great, but its playable. Its also worth far more in a deck with bolts that stacks up damage. It is absolutely not something I'm interested in for stock esper lists, and I've confirmed this thought literally every time I've played with the card.
Like, I've never thought when playing esper "oh man, this deck just really needs 1 more threat that gives me some late game value to push it over the edge". Search is a little more defensible because of the potential early benefits of the pseudo scry, but its still not exactly cut and dry.
I get that these cards are good (or atleast playable in gearhulk's case) in jeskai, but before we go smushing them into esper, think about why. When you play fewer hard answers and more lightning bolts, the dynamic shifts a little.

I too am still brewing different control lists in modern. Some of them esper, some of them with search, some both. Its possible you'll be right all along, and esper + search is the way to go, but I have no doubt in my mind that whatever that list looks like, its not something I've played so far, because that card has very much failed to impress me here.

That's a fair assessment of Gearhulk actually, and I haven't played much with it in esper,and probably will eschew it after thinking about the.points you just made there. I disagree that we don't need more big finishers though, but it's possible it should just be a second secure the wastes. I especially like if the late game cards are both flexible and Ruin-able.

IMO, finishers are just not the problem I find myself having. Its possible other people have that problem, but its just not my experience.
That being said, we also have finsihers like big elspeth, several gideons, several sorins, baneslayer angel, wsz/secure, etc, that are all better than gearhulk IMO.