MTG Salvation

Hey guys, I'm in the process of putting together a draw-go list, and there were a couple of cards I came across that look promising that I haven't seen much discussion on:

disallow is a counterspell that can hit fetchlands and other utility lands such as field of ruin, hit annoying cast triggers from things like ulamog, and stop planeswalker ults. The big one for me is that it can deal with the storm trigger from a grapeshot/empty.

censor is pretty straight forward, a force spike/mana tithe that cycles for U. Seems better than serum/opt if you're not running terminus.

dawn charm is a card I feel a lot of people have slept on, the fog mode seems really useful against aggro decks like hollow one, dredge, zoo, etc., and being able to counter a burn/discard sounds good to me.

Disallow is probably the best 3 cmc counterspell in the format, but its still a 3 cmc counterspell. The format is too fast for it to be worth a slot.
Censor is not good in this deck because we need our answers to actually do something in more than just narrow circumstances.
Playing it in the serum/opt slot is slightly better, though in my opinion, without terminus you should not play either of those, and in general, hiero is a better card in that slot anyways.
Dawn charm is just too narrow. A fog is probably not going to matter much, since we're probably still dead the next turn. Countering burn or discard is ok, but its still a 2 cost spell, and its going to do very little far too often.

I've dropped the draw-go version a long time and Terminus feels good in Esper. With 2 Jace, 2 SfA and 4 Opt / 4 Esper Charm, it works well. I'm on 3 Terminus at the moment, but it's a nice addition to the deck. My sideboard though feels clogged and I can't add much to it :



Unmoored Ego is really a game ender, but sometimes I miss having Thoughtseize. However, 4 lifegain effect from the sideboard is a must in my case : I can't win otherwise against Burn, Affinity, etc. So it works. I'd like to have more room for Thoughtseize / Supreme Verdict, but I don't have any

Is blessed alliance better than the 5 mana angels?

I think you should specify your question. Better against what ?

That being said, they have different angles. Angels will stabilise the board on their own if protected/unanswered. blessed alliance has more narrow / niche uses such as bogles or infect, where it shines.

Quote from tjd2191 »

Is blessed alliance better than the 5 mana angels?

I'm on 2 Blessed Alliance / 1 Timely Reinforcement / 1 Runed Halo because I find Baneslayer Angel / Lyra Dawnbringer to be too slow against the matchups where lifegain is important. By that, I mean : against Burn, which is the worst matchup, it's hard to get to 5 mana to cast the Angel and still be alive. However, gaining 4 life on turn 2-3 and using it to gain 4 / kill a creature on turn 4+ is huge. It can even be flashbacked with Snapcaster Mage, which is great. To me, it gives the extra 4-8 life point needed to stay alive, stabilize and win against Burn and aggro matchups like Affinity or Humans. However, if you can cast an Angel and staying alive that turn, then you should be golden.

tldr : go with BA if you want low to the ground, versatile answers and go with BSA or Lyra against midrange and such.

I don't know if this is actually relevant to our deck (I feel like it isn't playable), but since a few people have mentioned it on the thread before - Absorb finally got a reprint into Modern.

It has a chance as a singleton. I've probably said this before, but it any 3 mana counterspell has a chance in modern, its this one.

I could see UW control splitting 1-1 mainboard with timely reinforcements, since you might want something thats better vs combo, but still functional vs aggro/burn.

So after not playing magic for about 2-3 years i want to jump into Modern with nothing. Planning on dropping $1.5k on a deck and Esper control has always been my favorite build of any format and so forth. Is epser control competitive enough or should i got the jeska route. Also what would be a good decklist to start my journey with esper if I got this route?

Absorb is a big news for us. 1-2 in the 75 for sure.

@EvilChicken : look in my signature for a decklist suggestion !

Wow. I'm really surprised anyone is this excited about Absorb in Modern.

In my (biased) opinion, esper control is good enough.
At worst, you're not really wasting money buying cards for this deck. Its basically a pile of staples, and if you later decide that UW or jeskai are better, you're most of the way there, and you aren't gonna be left with a lot of expensive cards that won't transfer.


Absorb is definitely appealing, though I can't say for certain if it will stick.
UW and Esper, not having access to helix, do care about lifegain. Most of us have played blessed alliance (which is nice but competes with push), timely (which is also nice but plays poorly with terminus), or rev (which is slow and clunky) at different points in time.
I would never sideboard this, but theres a real chance it sees play as a 1-2 of.

For example lists:
with terminus:


without terminus:

Sideboards vary.
I usually play thoughtseize + extractions or clique + rip, some copies of blessed alliance, some cheap countermagic, another sweeper or 2 (EE, settle, verdict, etc) sometimes halo, leyline damping sphere, or stony, sometimes night of souls betrayal, sometimes unmoored ego, sometimes disenchant/celestial purge/anguished unmaking, sometimes angels, sometimes other random fun cards.

Also, if people want to go back to the original wafo-tapa list with 4 mainboard meta-dependant cantrips, we're getting awfully close to the point that hallowed moonlight is playable.

@Cody I'm honestly super surprised you'd still play Jace in a list without Terminus.

Sometimes I feel like the only person on the planet who likes jace and dislikes sfa.
Jace is legitimately powerful in this deck. Hes relatively easy to kill, and he is sorcery speed, but hes only 4 mana, and his floor is better than draw a card + gain 3 life, which is more appealing to me than most other wincons. Hes a goid card advantage engine, he actually wins the game if needed (and through bridge, infinite life, etc), and he attacks on a unique angle (fateseal) that synergizes well with mind rots. He does require a clean board, but this deck in general does too.
Not to mention that bouncing a creature lets us counter it again, or forces them to commit into board wipes.
And of course, that doesnt touch on how useful brainstorm (compared to just drawing) can be.

I feel like im just listing out what the card does, which everyone knows, but jace has legitimately played well for me since hes been unbanned. Im not sure if other peoples experiences are widely different, but I frequently find myself wanting to draw him, and he does ditch multiples. Theres also the usefulness of splitting walkers so you can have 2 in play at once.

I do still enjoy the pure draw-go style, but I dont think we can still convince ourselves its worth playing now that we have real woryhwhile options at sorcery speed.

Quote from Cody_X »

Sometimes I feel like the only person on the planet who likes jace and dislikes sfa.
Jace is legitimately powerful in this deck. Hes relatively easy to kill, and he is sorcery speed, but hes only 4 mana, and his floor is better than draw a card + gain 3 life, which is more appealing to me than most other wincons. Hes a goid card advantage engine, he actually wins the game if needed (and through bridge, infinite life, etc), and he attacks on a unique angle (fateseal) that synergizes well with mind rots. He does require a clean board, but this deck in general does too.
Not to mention that bouncing a creature lets us counter it again, or forces them to commit into board wipes.
And of course, that doesnt touch on how useful brainstorm (compared to just drawing) can be.

I feel like im just listing out what the card does, which everyone knows, but jace has legitimately played well for me since hes been unbanned. Im not sure if other peoples experiences are widely different, but I frequently find myself wanting to draw him, and he does ditch multiples. Theres also the usefulness of splitting walkers so you can have 2 in play at once.

I do still enjoy the pure draw-go style, but I dont think we can still convince ourselves its worth playing now that we have real woryhwhile options at sorcery speed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still iffy on SfA, but Jace has been a whole new realm of awkward for me. I always either die with him in my hand, or he dies the turn after I play him, or I die after I play him because I just gave them a window to resolve something annoying.

Playing Jace and Fatesealing a Jeskai opponent only to have them jam Teferi and minus (or just uptick and eventually deal with Jace with Bolt/Snap/Bolt) feels gross. Not that there are better card advantage engines to play, tho.

I've gotten far more milage out of Gideon of the Trials than Jace, because it's the lifegain effect while seldom actually dying.

Yea occasionally you'll get stuck in positioned where if you drop jace you'll immediately die, but realistically, theres no card in that slot that would save you.
Gideon of the trials is a better creature-defensive walker, but his ceiling is very low. I do like the card, but I think he shines in decks that can utilize a 4/4 beater better.

Otherwise, we're still king in control mirrors. We almost never have to be the ones aggressively slamming things. If my opponent never gives me a good opportunity to go for it, I'm happy waiting until I can mind rot them out of the game before resolving something.

Teferi being able to downtick is for sure annoying, and you rarely want to be the first one to drop a walker in the control mirror for that reason, but thats easily managable for us. Most of the other control decks in the format have no way to get ahead besides walkers/cryptic/SFA, which doesn't match up well against this deck.

For sure jace isn't the most perfect card imaginable for this deck, but I can't say I've been unhappy playing him. Certainly not unhappy enough to drop him, and I can't say the same for SFA.

I agree with Cody. Jace over Teferi any day for me. Sure, Teferi has upsides, but Jace is simply more powerful by itself.

That being said, you don't have to choose. Playing 2-3 of each is a good place to be.

Since when has Esper been the king of control mirrors?

Since always. Esper charm and discard spells have been good in control mirrors for the past decade.