MTG Salvation

Hey guys! Been a while as I took a break from Control in general. However Esper Control has been calling my name as of late so I’ve been reading many of the pages Ive missed trying to work towards making my 60, hoping you can give me some help on it as I’m back and fourth.



I’ve been back and fourth and I feel like I want a sphinx’s Rev. But not sure if needed, my wincons I know I want more then just StW which is why Titan and Ojutai and my counters suite I’m not sure.. I’ve thought Remand over Mana Leak due to atleast I have a cantrip in the Cavern matches Game 1.. any help would be greatly appreciated!

By Baneslayer being an open secret you mean it's something people are expecting?
I usually bring Baneslayer against creatures.dec, but I've been doing it less and less.
I still like to use at least one "wincon" at insta speed - either secure or sphinx's... so I can bait counter EoT and slam a PW easier on my main.... but that might be just a fear on my part.
Did you play 2 thoughtseize main? I'm to and fro with those...

I'll play side events at GP Sao Paulo this weekend, and if anything good comes out of it I'll tell you guys.

Pretty sure Elspeth sun's champion is just better than grave titan if you want a six mana bomb. I guess she clocks slower but not dying to path or terminate seems more valuable.

Four charm four think twice two search seems like a lot of air. Mana leak should be negate, runed halo, or blessed alliance I'd think. Leak is so bad when the game goes long and knot does the same thing on turn two more often than not.

While agree with most of what you're saying, @BadMcFadden, Logic Knot tends to get bad in multiples as well. Then you're either stuck with Negate or Mana Leak for the same CMC slot. I think I actually prefer Mana Leak over Negate, but to each their own.

Quote from BadMcFadden »

Pretty sure Elspeth sun's champion is just better than grave titan if you want a six mana bomb. I guess she clocks slower but not dying to path or terminate seems more valuable.

I agree with this. I had a game the other day where I had an Elspeth down against Red/White taxes. She was able to hold down the fort against the ground creatures, but I had to Supreme Verdict to get rid of their Flickerwisp(s) and/or Angels (I forget exactly what they had). Having Elspeth allowed me to do this and still have creatures on board whereas with something like Grave Titan, they would have been gone too.

Four charm four think twice two search seems like a lot of air. Mana leak should be negate, runed halo, or blessed alliance I'd think. Leak is so bad when the game goes long and knot does the same thing on turn two more often than not.

I run 4 Charms, 4 TT, and 2 Searches and so far it seems like those numbers work. I agree on Mana Leak though. I am running 3 Negate and they have been fantastic. I can't imagine them being nearly as good if they were Mana Leak. And, since Logic Knot was mentioned, I had a game where I needed to counter something out of Jund where they had 8 mana available. Logic Knot was able to do it, but obviously Mana Leak would have been awful.

On a side note, I saw Timely Reinforcements mentioned above and I think I am going to find room for 2 in the main to help with a couple different matchups (namely burn). I am not sure if anyone else has tried them yet, but they seem decent. I am going to go down to 2 Negate and cut something else for them.

And, lastly, I am going to be finding room for Teferi (once the foil price goes down a little). Are people still running him with Jace? What is the split or what are the numbers of Teferi people are running?

There was a time the deck ran spell snares and remands to buy time early on until cryptics and verdicts came online. So I could see remand. I'm more on negate myself because path push and verdict clean up resolved creatures, so the hole to plug is more non creature stuff like a turn three Liliana or a teferi etc.

Paradoxically, the format is faster now without twin so remand is worse. Remand is also worse without think twice as an efficient value use for the rest of your mana.

I've been on a MB timely for a good while now and it's been excellent; it's an alternative to leyline as far as getting chip shotted out and it timewalks hollow one pretty hard.

Grave titan isn't the best finisher, but in original builds in 2014-early 2016 it was the best "training wheels" for people learning the deck and having trouble with the clock. At the time, we didn't have secure the wastes as an option and night of souls' betrayal was a mainstay so elspeth wasn't a good option for the speed aspect.

I've been cutting down 3 Logic Knot to 1 and replaced them for 2 Mana Leak. It has done wonders for me in my meta. I don't have any problems for the late game, but against fast combo decks and aggro decks, the issue is getting to the late game. Logic Knot on the draw is horrible in the early stages and is really conditional to what's in the graveyard. My counterspell suite is the following : 4 Cryptic Command, 2 Spell Snare, 2 Mana Leak, 2 Negate, 1 Logic Knot. So 5 for the late game with Cryptic and Knot, 4 for the early game with Snare and Leak and the 2 Negate are just good catch all.

As for the split, 1/1 Jace with Teferi is good I think.

Quote from WizardMN »

Quote from BadMcFadden »

Pretty sure Elspeth sun's champion is just better than grave titan if you want a six mana bomb. I guess she clocks slower but not dying to path or terminate seems more valuable.

I agree with this. I had a game the other day where I had an Elspeth down against Red/White taxes. She was able to hold down the fort against the ground creatures, but I had to Supreme Verdict to get rid of their Flickerwisp(s) and/or Angels (I forget exactly what they had). Having Elspeth allowed me to do this and still have creatures on board whereas with something like Grave Titan, they would have been gone too.

Four charm four think twice two search seems like a lot of air. Mana leak should be negate, runed halo, or blessed alliance I'd think. Leak is so bad when the game goes long and knot does the same thing on turn two more often than not.

I run 4 Charms, 4 TT, and 2 Searches and so far it seems like those numbers work. I agree on Mana Leak though. I am running 3 Negate and they have been fantastic. I can't imagine them being nearly as good if they were Mana Leak. And, since Logic Knot was mentioned, I had a game where I needed to counter something out of Jund where they had 8 mana available. Logic Knot was able to do it, but obviously Mana Leak would have been awful.

On a side note, I saw Timely Reinforcements mentioned above and I think I am going to find room for 2 in the main to help with a couple different matchups (namely burn). I am not sure if anyone else has tried them yet, but they seem decent. I am going to go down to 2 Negate and cut something else for them.

And, lastly, I am going to be finding room for Teferi (once the foil price goes down a little). Are people still running him with Jace? What is the split or what are the numbers of Teferi people are running?

Thanks for all the input guys :).

I honestly forgot about big Elspeth when i added Grave Titan I was just trying to find more Win-Cons as i do not believe it is possible to rely solely on WSZ of StW with colonnades as our only Win. Teferi also gives us another but we have to Ultimate him first. I think i will switch Titan out for big Elspeth which also works better then i can still keep her post verdict from my side if need be. What are your thoughts on the Dragonlord Ojutai? He is currently a Sphinx's in my paper list as i found out i do not have one yet, does this dragon do enough to earn a spot in the list?

Sphinx's Revelation, I love this card and as i stated it currently takes the spot of my Ojutai i had listed but is Sphinx's still worth it in the current meta? especially when running 4 Charm, 4 Think Twice and 2 SFA?

As for my Card Advantage suite 4/4/2 Charm/Think/SFA - I was reading alot of the previous pages (i think i read from like 630 to 657) and saw alot of back and fourth and even some decks that also tried to run 4 Serum or Opt with them like they did in the past... this is way to much air for those cantrips IMO. Personally i do not think the deck is the same if you remove the Think Twice, as its stated in the primer it is systematically the worst and yet the best card in this deck, i was a disbeliever when i first built the deck and now i dont want to not have it. I also agree with a post someone stated is that SFA while not entierly what we want, it is too good not to include in the deck as it helps us out. 10 forms of solid card advantage i do not think is to much.

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, @TomCourtenay, you mentioned a split of 1/1 for Jace and Teferi, what makes Jace #1 better then Teferi #2? Is it due to the legendary rule and potentially having him get stuck in our hand with one on the battlefield? Or is it because Jace's abilities are strong enought o warrant a 1of? I read alot of debate back and fourth and alot of posts stating that Teferi was 100% better then jace, that Jace didnt deserve a spot in the deck anymore and that Teferi was the real deal?

Paradoxically, the format is faster now without twin so remand is worse. Remand is also worse without think twice as an efficient value use for the rest of your mana.

I've been on a MB timely for a good while now and it's been excellent; it's an alternative to leyline as far as getting chip shotted out and it timewalks hollow one pretty hard.

Grave titan isn't the best finisher, but in original builds in 2014-early 2016 it was the best "training wheels" for people learning the deck and having trouble with the clock. At the time, we didn't have secure the wastes as an option and night of souls' betrayal was a mainstay so elspeth wasn't a good option for the speed aspect.

I have taken advice on the counter suite and i have replaced 1 Remand with 1 Negate, I think that 1x Remand is better then 1x Mana Leak but i could be wrong.. Thoughts?

Timely Reinforcments.. What is the appeal with this one? Sure it is very powerful, resolved against burn is like buying 2 turns, against a creature deck buys us time with blockers, the card is strong. However this deck is designed to be primarily instant speed as much as we can correct? I know recent SFA and planeswalkers have made it into the list to coincide with our Verdicts but the remainder is instant. With timely reinforcments being Sorcery is that what we really want to be playing? and using our Mana on our turn? Maybe its good enough because if we cast it while Teferi is out it really only costs us 1 mana on our turn?

Also as im at a computer now, here is a better layout of my list in paper, including the changes i mentioned.

Here are my thoughts on some of your questions/observations. I am certainly not an expert but I can at least weigh in.

Quote from RafiqEDH »

What are your thoughts on the Dragonlord Ojutai? He is currently a Sphinx's in my paper list as i found out i do not have one yet, does this dragon do enough to earn a spot in the list?

I don't think so. I had, at one point, thought of trying to include Ojutai but the fact that it need to hit to be effective and can be answered with Path fairly easily means it doesn't do as much as I think we need. I am just not sure it really helps any truly bad matchups and the CA it gives can be achieved through other cards.

Sphinx's Revelation, I love this card and as i stated it currently takes the spot of my Ojutai i had listed but is Sphinx's still worth it in the current meta? especially when running 4 Charm, 4 Think Twice and 2 SFA?

I have cut from Revs entirely. I was finding that I didn't really need it after adding in Jace and Search and the life gain was best against burn and it was too slow for that. I preferred to cut it for now. I could certainly accept that this is a mistake, but I have yet to find any games where I really missed it.

As for my Card Advantage suite 4/4/2 Charm/Think/SFA - I was reading alot of the previous pages (i think i read from like 630 to 657) and saw alot of back and fourth and even some decks that also tried to run 4 Serum or Opt with them like they did in the past... this is way to much air for those cantrips IMO. Personally i do not think the deck is the same if you remove the Think Twice, as its stated in the primer it is systematically the worst and yet the best card in this deck, i was a disbeliever when i first built the deck and now i dont want to not have it. I also agree with a post someone stated is that SFA while not entierly what we want, it is too good not to include in the deck as it helps us out. 10 forms of solid card advantage i do not think is to much.

I had cut Think Twice for Opt a while back and fairly quickly went right back to Think Twice. I believe TT is much better than Opt in this deck. I know some like Serum Visions since it digs a bit deeper, but I don't like the Sorcery timing of it.

I have taken advice on the counter suite and i have replaced 1 Remand with 1 Negate, I think that 1x Remand is better then 1x Mana Leak but i could be wrong.. Thoughts?

I believe Remand is even worse than Mana Leak. Remand is a tempo card and we are not a tempo deck. Returning a spell to their hand often delays them a turn, but we are not exactly a fast deck so we will not have done much in that one turn to help stop it the next turn. I would rather this be another Negate or, if you want it for creature based matchups, another Logic Knot. TomCourtenay above said they were using Mana Leak so I would say to use Mana Leak here if you really want something other than Negate or Logic Knot.

Timely Reinforcments.. What is the appeal with this one? Sure it is very powerful, resolved against burn is like buying 2 turns, against a creature deck buys us time with blockers, the card is strong. However this deck is designed to be primarily instant speed as much as we can correct? I know recent SFA and planeswalkers have made it into the list to coincide with our Verdicts but the remainder is instant. With timely reinforcements being Sorcery is that what we really want to be playing? and using our Mana on our turn? Maybe its good enough because if we cast it while Teferi is out it really only costs us 1 mana on our turn?

I look at it as being a great card against burn (and I feel our burn matchup is horrible) and it gives a bit more resiliency against Humans or Hollow One or Pyromancer (obviously not against their Spirits) and even Jund to just chump. I personally have had a couple games at least where I died the turn before I could get my Verdict off either because they were too fast or because I couldn't get my lands. Being a 3 drop gives me a spot in the curve to tap out against certain decks to stall for a little while as needed. And, once we get to 6 or 7 mana, it can be a good card to stabilize while still leaving up mana for whatever else is needed. Now, I haven't actually used it yet, so I could be off on these assessments but this is what I think of when potentially adding this card.

On a side note: I currently do not play White Sun's Zenith or Secure the Wastes. I prefer Zenith but I wanted to try the deck without it and rely on Jace, Gideon Jura, Colonnade, and Snapcaster to close out games. And, eventually, Timely and Teferi will be added to that. I know the planeswalkers are not Instant timing but, so far, finding the right time to land a Walker and then protecting them has proven successful in most matches.

Here are my thoughts on some of your questions/observations. I am certainly not an expert but I can at least weigh in.

Quote from RafiqEDH »
What are your thoughts on the Dragonlord Ojutai? He is currently a Sphinx's in my paper list as i found out i do not have one yet, does this dragon do enough to earn a spot in the list?

I don't think so. I had, at one point, thought of trying to include Ojutai but the fact that it need to hit to be effective and can be answered with Path fairly easily means it doesn't do as much as I think we need. I am just not sure it really helps any truly bad matchups and the CA it gives can be achieved through other cards.

I love any and all help so all your imput is greatly appreciated. I can respect the reasoning on Ojutai, i've just been trying to find more Win-Cons but im thinking back to my old build which did not have access to Jace or Teferi so maybe they provide enough and Elspeth and Secure is enough?

Sphinx's Revelation, I love this card and as i stated it currently takes the spot of my Ojutai i had listed but is Sphinx's still worth it in the current meta? especially when running 4 Charm, 4 Think Twice and 2 SFA?

I have cut from Revs entirely. I was finding that I didn't really need it after adding in Jace and Search and the life gain was best against burn and it was too slow for that. I preferred to cut it for now. I could certainly accept that this is a mistake, but I have yet to find any games where I really missed it.

Does jace truly replace the Sphinx's rev? and if so is a 2/1 split of Teferi/Jace too much?

Quote from RafiqEDH »

Does jace truly replace the Sphinx's rev? and if so is a 2/1 split of Teferi/Jace too much?

I think Jace + Search has been sufficient replacement for Rev. We still have Think Twice, Cryptic, and Esper Charms for card draw so, personally, I have not missed Rev. Even when I played it, it was only a 1 of anyway.

I am thinking of going with a 2/1 split to start. A 1/1 split may be correct, but Teferi looks powerful enough to warrant trying out 2.

I vastly preferred having only a single zenith as my wincon, plus colonnades.
I would say not only is it possible, but its actually better.
Generally speaking, A graph of number of wincons on the Y and effectiveness of winning on the X is going to be U shaped, assuming the wincons in question fit the deck.
Building your deck to have only 1 wincon (being WSZ, or comparable) is frequently very effective. Your entire deck is streamlined to use it, and you won't get clogged down drawing random cards in the midgame when you need more answers. You need the wraths and the logic knots first to even get to the point where having a wincon matters.
Another deck to look at would be storm: 90% of storm decks play 3 or fewer wincons. The effectiveness of grapeshot (or tendrils or empty), and the deck as a whole, decreases the more wincons you add. You need a critical mass of rituals and cantrips in order for the deck to function at all first and foremost.

Then decks like burn or affinity or humans are on the other end of the scale. Everything in their deck is a threat, and while some things are bigger threats than others, it all adds up. They do require synergy/raw numbers though. Playing burn with some random card instead of the lava spikes and the boros charms is going to make the deck much worse, because it relies on having a critical mass of these wincons.

Now the obvious counterpoint to this would be something like jund, that has only ~15 creatures. It seems reasonable to say that adding or removing a significant amount of creatures to jund is unlikely to improve it, and that is somewhat true.
The major difference here is that jund's discard takes answers to your threats. If you push a champion of the parish, humans just plays another one. They need 2 threats here. Jund is more interested in just taking the push so the first goyf sticks. Fundamentally, the discard spell could just be another goyf here.

Don't play DLO. I do like the card, but it just doesn't belong here. We rely far too much on sweepers for him to really shine.
I'm still playing a rev. I think its fine. I wouldn't play a second, but I've not been terribly disappointed with the singleton.
I think some form of mainboard lifegain is required, whether its as much as amalek has or not.

I think before jace/teferi/search, think twice was straight uncuttable, but I no longer believe that to be the case.
It may or may not still be good enough to play, but the primer is written the way it is because it assumes that there is no playable alternative. Even glimmer/hieroglyphic were not printed when it was written.

Most of the teferi talk in modern is about jeskai. Just because teferi may be better there doesn't mean he's better here.
I've been playing a few different splits of planeswalkers, but I do think the first jace is better than the first teferi. Bouncing creatures is obviously not as nice as tucking anything, and it is nice that teferi gains loyalty while drawing cards, but brainstorm is really good, and untapping lands doesn't matter as much as it does in jeskai. On top of that, having a decently stocked hand (which is far more common here than jeskai), coupled with mind rotting our opponent, makes fatesealing really strong.

We're no longer as instant speed as we used to be. Playing these planeswalkers, search, wraths, etc, means we will be tapping mana on our own turn more often than we have in the past. On top of that, timely is real strong right before a sweeper. If we know we're wrathing turn 4, gaining 6 + 3 chumps worth of life often totally closes the door on our opponent, not to mention timely chumping to keep our walkers on the table.

For the logic knot/negate/mana leak, I'm still on 3 knot, 0 negate, 0 leak main. Occasionally not having more turn 2-3 interaction is awkward, but its not too bad. Tarpit + teferi gives more play against planeswalkers than we've had in the past, but we still have cryptic to bounce. I think negate and mana leak are way too problematic to play (main) in esper.

Wow, where do i begin to respond to all of this knowledge. I guess from the top.

- White Sun's Zenith, I love this card and believe it generates more of a threat vs Secure the Wastes. My problem is back when i first built this deck it almost never resolved. It was either countered or i was locked out of W land from our UW control player using Spreading Seas, Ghost Quarter and the artifact to let him bring his GQ back from the GY (As you can see this was before Field of Ruin was printed). I lost many games because of this, since it got countered i no longer had a win con in my deck to continue and obviously the GQ and seas took care of colonnade. Maybe this was inexperience or maybe not? All i know is it was terrible having to rely on just 1 way to win the game.

- Ojutai i completely see where he is of less value as we are primarily creature less and the more we keep our win cons to non-creatures the easier it is to have our game plan.

- I agree the primer is fairly old and was written prior to TT, but i've watched some games more recently for Draw-Go on Youtube by someone names "Sky Lagger MTG" and his list ran 4 opt and 1 TT and while he won, he had significant problems with keeping his hand full. His list was 4 Opt, 1 TT, 1 Rev, 4 Charm, 2 JTMS and i just felt that while the deck functioned it wasnt to it's highest potential. Couple this with reading Amalek0's post on the previous page where he stated "Think Twice is just the truth" i just feel like Think Twice is still what we want, this deck wants to gain card advantage not cantrip.. I think if you want to play cantrips Serum > Opt and UW > Esper... but Esper IMO is so much more fun to play. Maybe i am wrong though, most of you have played this deck alot more then i have. Also, i might be wrong here too, but i;ve always been of the belief that you should have enough basics to cast any spell through Blood Moon so in this particular case then running WSZ, Cryptic, Supreme, ***, Jace and Sphinx I would need to be run 3x Island, 3x Plains and 1x Swamp.. thats alot of basics.

- Yes alot of Teferi here has been about Jeskai but there was one post specifically that had take aways from Barcelona that stated Teferi was the real deal. I know Amalek0 is not a huge fan of him but i do believe he is good for us.. of course testing would tell. I am also a fan of the lock with JTMS once we have destroyed their hand so i also feel he fits but its a matter of where does he fit in the list? Could do 2/1 split and cut the Elspeth so it's not overloaded.

- As for Timely i guess your right we are slowly adding more sorcery speed stuff maybe it's worth trying out.. If i do though i think i would cut my 1of Remand since it has been my biggest debated spot in order to add the main deck Timely.

- Logic Knot #3 i actually traded off while i was not playing control anymore and honestly never thought Esper would be the one i picked back up when i did so oops :). However like i said before i did find in the past that i didn't always have a GY for my Logic Knots and so they sometimes became dead cards, maybe thats less of an issue now thanks to SFA fueling the GY? then again my previous list ran 12 counters in it so i had alot of cards that did nothing if my opponent did nothing.

Regarding win conditions it was very common to run four colonnade two snaps and a zenith with an optional maindeckable Elspeth sun's champion as the win conditions. With secure the wastes it became more common to play two stw and a third snap cutting zenith and Elspeth.

Jace and search really started mangling the draw-go thing as it's tempting to tap out turn two or four for these only to get punished. SFA is this weird hybrid of think twice and revelation as it's a mana dump that draws cards, but the front half is sorcery speed and the back half gets destroyed a lot.

I haven't actually picked the deck up in a while but that was where I was at last I played. Sort of an existential crisis of the draw go archetype.

Yea existential crisis pretty much sums it up for me too.
I'm gaining more confidence that playing what feels like a pile is ok though, since all of the other blue decks in the format feel like piles too, and still do ok.

Its likely somewhat inexperience.
You literally (and I do mean literally) do not have to cast zenith until you have 0 cards in your deck and you're going to deck yourself.
Against blue decks, you are looking to mind rot them until they're empty then start casting haymakers.
This means a lot of draw-go, moving to discard even when you could draw off esper charm to hit more land drops, because you may need to hold onto these charms to close the game.
If you play jace, and manage to resolve him against UW, bouncing your own snapcaster can be brutal. Usually if you mindrot them, they're likely to discard their removal first, which means they can't path the snap in response, allowing you to keep them running on empty.

I do not know who skylagger is. I'll probably check it out when I get the time, but I will say this: if he's not running azcanta, he has no business cutting all those think twices. I've played a decent amount of 4 charm, 2 search, 4 opt, 2 jace, 1 teferi, 1 rev, and yes, my hand isn't as perpetually full as it was pre-ixalan, but those cards have other advantages. It may be a worthy trade-off.

While the "enough basics to cast any spell through blood moon" is a decent rule of thumb, I think zenith is still an exception. You're always going to want plains + island + swamp first since that lets you charm away moons, followed by island x3 + plains + swamp, since that lets you cryptic bounce. 2nd + 3rd plains are always going to be the least important of your basics. On top of that, if a blood moon resolves, its somewhat unlikely the game will get to a point where you having a 3rd plains in your deck is the difference maker. Its possible, but not particularly likely, IMO.
But even still, if thats not convincing, you can play 2x secure the wastes. Its generally better with all of the walkers (and its what I'm currently on), though I won't say I'm sold on it. It is much easier to cast under mana-base duress though.
For logic knot, you just have to know how to manage them. Knowing when to tap lands and when to delve, how much to delve, etc, is important. Frequently might not the right word, but logic knotting them for x = to their untapped mana (so they can tap out to resolve their spell) can be an important play against decks like coco or burn, letting us mind rot them a bunch if they choose to keep their spell, or let us save a card in the yard if they don't.

I'll summarize my thoughts:

- Think Twice: After playing a lot without it recently, I'm firmly convinced it is still one of the best draw spells to be playing in the deck. It's been covered in depth, so I'll just leave it at that. I don't yet know whether 3 or 4 is correct though, but it's up there.

- Leak vs. Remand: I think both are perfectly serviceable -- people are grossly underestimating Remand, now that there's no tempo deck to play them. Back when Twin and Delver were around, everyone knew what Remand did and how powerful it really is, but I've had people ask to read the card recently (not joking). That said, I think which 2-mana counter you play depends on the card's intended purpose -- if you want just general early "interaction" and have powerful spells to take advantage of the tempo or certain cards that you need to draw into (such as playing Gideons or other planeswalkers or playing fewer than 4 Wraths main), I'd suggest Remand. If you're looking for more early counterspells in particular (like in a meta with Blood Moons and Tron), and have little reason to worry about tempo, I suggest Leak. That said, I generally lean towards Remand, as it's a little better late game.

- Teferi vs. Jace: I haven't gotten a lot of experience with Teferi, but I have had a lot with Jace and I actually like both. I think at playing least one Jace is beneficial, as the card is very powerful and takes over the game instantly if he sticks, which I find likely assuming you've managed to draw your singleton. However, Teferi is a massive blowout for many reasons. Against any creature deck, he upticks while guaranteeing you have mana up for interaction and simultaneously digging for that interaction. Against other Jace decks, Teferi can immediately undo any positioning an opponent has made to land their planeswalker while leaving himself in play. If they're on Bolt, Teferi's better than Jace since you naturally want to uptick him every turn anyways. Thus, I think it's remiss not to play a Teferi. So I support a 1-1 split of the 2.

- Zenith/Secure: If you cast a Zenith and it gets countered, you didn't wait long enough to cast it. If there's any doubt in it resolving, wait a few more turns -- inevitability generally favors the Think Twice/ECharm/SfA deck in control mirrors as long as you don't get bolted out or buried by an opponent's flipped Search or planeswalker. At some point, you can lead with a bait spell or wait until you have multiple ECharms to fire off eot. Force your opponent to tap mana somehow. Your Zenith should practically always resolve or leave your opponent with no resources if you play it right, and it's not too hard to leverage if you're patient. I get it though, because in all honesty, it's very hard to simply pass back and forth without getting a little antsy or feeling silly. That said, Zenith has been feeling a little extra lately, but I'm too stubborn to cut it. It's feeling a little like training wheels to me now actually, ironically, but I'm not fool enough to try my luck with only single-creature wincons, so Zenith stays.

So with all this excellent Information, basing on my current list i posted (i will put below again for ease), what changes do you guys believe i should make. +/- please



Based on what i have read so far i can see the following:

- I should find a way to add 1x Jace, the mind Sculptor, either a 1/1 split or 2/1 (im inclined to test 2/1 first)
- Zenith > Secure unless i run 2x Secure (which i dont own a 2nd copy)
- Rev may or may not be needed with my CA currently
- Elspeth is > Grave Titan but may not be needed?


As for my "meta" i honestly dont know since i only play with my testing group before tournaments so not sure whats common. My testing group is UW Control, UR Kiki-Jiki, Grixis Grisolbrand, UB Faeries, And Eldrazi deck (i dont remember the colors), i also bring Elves and GW valuetown that they could play vs me as well.

Quote from RafiqEDH »

I vastly preferred having only a single zenith as my wincon, plus colonnades.
I would say not only is it possible, but its actually better.
Generally speaking, A graph of number of wincons on the Y and effectiveness of winning on the X is going to be U shaped, assuming the wincons in question fit the deck.
Building your deck to have only 1 wincon (being WSZ, or comparable) is frequently very effective. Your entire deck is streamlined to use it, and you won't get clogged down drawing random cards in the midgame when you need more answers. You need the wraths and the logic knots first to even get to the point where having a wincon matters.
Another deck to look at would be storm: 90% of storm decks play 3 or fewer wincons. The effectiveness of grapeshot (or tendrils or empty), and the deck as a whole, decreases the more wincons you add. You need a critical mass of rituals and cantrips in order for the deck to function at all first and foremost.

Then decks like burn or affinity or humans are on the other end of the scale. Everything in their deck is a threat, and while some things are bigger threats than others, it all adds up. They do require synergy/raw numbers though. Playing burn with some random card instead of the lava spikes and the boros charms is going to make the deck much worse, because it relies on having a critical mass of these wincons.

Now the obvious counterpoint to this would be something like jund, that has only ~15 creatures. It seems reasonable to say that adding or removing a significant amount of creatures to jund is unlikely to improve it, and that is somewhat true.
The major difference here is that jund's discard takes answers to your threats. If you push a champion of the parish, humans just plays another one. They need 2 threats here. Jund is more interested in just taking the push so the first goyf sticks. Fundamentally, the discard spell could just be another goyf here.

Don't play DLO. I do like the card, but it just doesn't belong here. We rely far too much on sweepers for him to really shine.
I'm still playing a rev. I think its fine. I wouldn't play a second, but I've not been terribly disappointed with the singleton.
I think some form of mainboard lifegain is required, whether its as much as amalek has or not.

I think before jace/teferi/search, think twice was straight uncuttable, but I no longer believe that to be the case.
It may or may not still be good enough to play, but the primer is written the way it is because it assumes that there is no playable alternative. Even glimmer/hieroglyphic were not printed when it was written.

Most of the teferi talk in modern is about jeskai. Just because teferi may be better there doesn't mean he's better here.
I've been playing a few different splits of planeswalkers, but I do think the first jace is better than the first teferi. Bouncing creatures is obviously not as nice as tucking anything, and it is nice that teferi gains loyalty while drawing cards, but brainstorm is really good, and untapping lands doesn't matter as much as it does in jeskai. On top of that, having a decently stocked hand (which is far more common here than jeskai), coupled with mind rotting our opponent, makes fatesealing really strong.

We're no longer as instant speed as we used to be. Playing these planeswalkers, search, wraths, etc, means we will be tapping mana on our own turn more often than we have in the past. On top of that, timely is real strong right before a sweeper. If we know we're wrathing turn 4, gaining 6 + 3 chumps worth of life often totally closes the door on our opponent, not to mention timely chumping to keep our walkers on the table.

For the logic knot/negate/mana leak, I'm still on 3 knot, 0 negate, 0 leak main. Occasionally not having more turn 2-3 interaction is awkward, but its not too bad. Tarpit + teferi gives more play against planeswalkers than we've had in the past, but we still have cryptic to bounce. I think negate and mana leak are way too problematic to play (main) in esper.

Wow, where do i begin to respond to all of this knowledge. I guess from the top.

- White Sun's Zenith, I love this card and believe it generates more of a threat vs Secure the Wastes. My problem is back when i first built this deck it almost never resolved. It was either countered or i was locked out of W land from our UW control player using Spreading Seas, Ghost Quarter and the artifact to let him bring his GQ back from the GY (As you can see this was before Field of Ruin was printed). I lost many games because of this, since it got countered i no longer had a win con in my deck to continue and obviously the GQ and seas took care of colonnade. Maybe this was inexperience or maybe not? All i know is it was terrible having to rely on just 1 way to win the game.

- Ojutai i completely see where he is of less value as we are primarily creature less and the more we keep our win cons to non-creatures the easier it is to have our game plan.

- I agree the primer is fairly old and was written prior to TT, but i've watched some games more recently for Draw-Go on Youtube by someone names "Sky Lagger MTG" and his list ran 4 opt and 1 TT and while he won, he had significant problems with keeping his hand full. His list was 4 Opt, 1 TT, 1 Rev, 4 Charm, 2 JTMS and i just felt that while the deck functioned it wasnt to it's highest potential. Couple this with reading Amalek0's post on the previous page where he stated "Think Twice is just the truth" i just feel like Think Twice is still what we want, this deck wants to gain card advantage not cantrip.. I think if you want to play cantrips Serum > Opt and UW > Esper... but Esper IMO is so much more fun to play. Maybe i am wrong though, most of you have played this deck alot more then i have. Also, i might be wrong here too, but i;ve always been of the belief that you should have enough basics to cast any spell through Blood Moon so in this particular case then running WSZ, Cryptic, Supreme, ***, Jace and Sphinx I would need to be run 3x Island, 3x Plains and 1x Swamp.. thats alot of basics.

- Yes alot of Teferi here has been about Jeskai but there was one post specifically that had take aways from Barcelona that stated Teferi was the real deal. I know Amalek0 is not a huge fan of him but i do believe he is good for us.. of course testing would tell. I am also a fan of the lock with JTMS once we have destroyed their hand so i also feel he fits but its a matter of where does he fit in the list? Could do 2/1 split and cut the Elspeth so it's not overloaded.

- As for Timely i guess your right we are slowly adding more sorcery speed stuff maybe it's worth trying out.. If i do though i think i would cut my 1of Remand since it has been my biggest debated spot in order to add the main deck Timely.

- Logic Knot #3 i actually traded off while i was not playing control anymore and honestly never thought Esper would be the one i picked back up when i did so oops :). However like i said before i did find in the past that i didn't always have a GY for my Logic Knots and so they sometimes became dead cards, maybe thats less of an issue now thanks to SFA fueling the GY? then again my previous list ran 12 counters in it so i had alot of cards that did nothing if my opponent did nothing.

You have some stuff wrong. I'm on no think twice and i am playing teferi.

@Amalek0, can you post your list for me please?