The typical esper list is too clunky to beat one drop aggro consistently unless you go up to anout 8 go 20 spot removal spells snd run a couple of lifegain link guys because board wipes generally come down too late due to how efficient the reach is in modern. Same thing with burn. Taking more than 1 hit decreases your odds of winning by a lot especially since many of our spells do not effect the board or life total.
Played in a Saturday-Night Modern event last night. Something like 16 people, so not very big but much bigger than normal at this particular store. I'm not going to re-post my list as I've posted it several times now. The only change I made was putting 3 Crumble to Dust in the board, as well as a singleton Steam Vents. Normally I wouldn't have done that, but this particular meta is Tron heavy, with no burn, 1 infect player, and then a bunch of random T2-3 decks.
Match 1: Tron Game 1: I mulled to 5, kept a hand that would have been decent against anything BUT Tron, and got destroyed by a turn 3 Karn that just exiled my lands. Didn't draw any more for the remaining 4 turns before I scooped. My opener consisted of Hallowed Fountain, Glacial Fortress, Path, Spell Snare, Snapcaster. In hindsight I probably should have mulled to 4 regardless in an attempt to get some sort of early game interaction stronger than Path and Spell Snare.
In: 1 Steam Vents, 3 Crumble to Dust, 2 Stony Silence
Out: 1 Path, 2 Spell Snare, 1 Think Twice, 1 Condemn, 1 Wrath of God
Game 2: I mulled to 5 again, but wound up with a hand capable of casting a turn 4 Crumble to Dust with Remand backup in case of turn 3 Karn. He goes for the T3 Karn, it gets Remanded, I Crumble his Tower. It rolls back around to him, and he casts Thought-Knot Seer with Eye of Ugin support. At this point I didn't have any removal, but wasn't too worried. He exiled a Cryptic Command with Thought-Knot Seer. I wind up losing to a combination of a second Thought-Knot Seer and not seeing any removal.
Match 2: Jeskai Hero's Blade Game 1: I kept a fairly decent hand with a Remand, a Logic Knot, Path, and lands. He doesn't do much the first few turns, then slams Geist of Saint Traft on turn 4. I try and Knot it, and he casts a mainboard Dispel. I path his first Angel token, but from there on out things go from bad to worse as he drops a Hero's Blade on his Geist and goes to town. I didn't see a single board wipe for the rest of the game. He ended things with a combination of Burn, Geist beats, and Vendilion Clique beats.
Game 2: Mulled to 4 due to drawing repeated no-land or all-land hands. Kept an opener with 2 lands, Remand, and Logic Knot. First few draws I got lands, he drops a T4 Geist, and things play out similarly to last time from here. Didn't see any of my sideboard cards.
Match 3: Tron, Part Deux Game 1: At this point, I'll admit that I was very much on tilt. I try and avoid getting frustrated with my games, but occasionally it happens. It also didn't help that I was running on less than an optimal amount of sleep, and I think that contributed. ANYHOW. He mulled to 5 after two no-land hands. Logic Knot took care of a T3 Karn, then Esper Charm started doing its job shredding his hand. I wound up winning with Snapcaster Mage beats after flashing back an Esper Charm. I kept his hand empty from around T5 onward.
In: See match 1
Out: See match 1
Game 2: This was on odd game. My opponent was now very much on tilt. I play against him regularly, so he knew what was coming in from the board. T3 rolls around after he's cast Ancient Stirrings and cracked a Map to get lands, I plop down a fetched Steam Vents, and he concedes. He apparently didn't grab a Ghost Quarter when he saw one with Stirrings and didn't grab it with Map either, which is his usual out to Crumble.
Match 4: BW Tokens Game 1: This was a pretty easy game. I kept a hand with a good number of counterspells and board wipes, and just ground him out. Won with a Zenith for 19 at the end of the game. At this point I determined that I need custom Cat tokens.
In: Nothing. I honestly don't have anything in my board for this matchup.
Game 2: Played out exactly like game 1. I had good draws, and won with a massive Zenith.
Overall, despite being a bit frustrated after my first two games, I had a fun night. There are a total of 4 Tron decks running around in this meta, out of a max of usually 12-16 people, which is I why I decided to try out the Tron-heavy sideboard. It didn't actually have a chance to pay off at the event, but I did 50 rounds of postboard testing with my 3rd opponent over the course of the past week, and it definitely paid off more often than not.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks WUBEsper ControlBUW URStormRU RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List WModern Death and TaxesW WLegacy Death and TaxesW
I still think triple quarter/triple extraction is a better plan than crumble out of the sideboard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I still think triple quarter/triple extraction is a better plan than crumble out of the sideboard.
I think I agree with you. I'll most likely be testing that plan out next Saturday and doing my usual 50-100 games of postboard testing with my Tron playing buddy in the meantime.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks WUBEsper ControlBUW URStormRU RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List WModern Death and TaxesW WLegacy Death and TaxesW
I still think triple quarter/triple extraction is a better plan than crumble out of the sideboard.
As good as Crumble is, I think I may agree with you. I played in SNM (Saturday Night Modern) just yesterday, and the 3 Crumbles never came out of the board. I faced Emeria Control (2-0), then Jund (0-2) [he topdecked like a boss in G1, and I mulled to 5 in g2 before his Thrun came down and I couldn't find the Wrath], then Gw Devotion (2-1), and finally Slivers (1-2) [last game was close, but he ripped a CoCo and I didn't topdeck the Wrath/Verdict]. I honestly felt that most of the games would have gone significantly better for me if I had more sideboard room. 4 slots for the "combo" is a little too much -- maybe 2 Crumbles would be better? I'm thinking about this sideboard:
2x Baneslayer Angel [I switched back from BBV after the BGx players told me they prolly wouldn't side it in against themselves. I don't particularly know why, but if even they said it, it must be true.]
The major reason BBoV is not as strong against jund/abzan is because it generally get walled by goyfs, as well as sometimes by things like huntmaster, pia and kiran, or any blocker + bolt.
Maybe its just me, but I honestly hate blood baron as a finisher in this deck because if its condition is met, we're almost 100% to win, but otherwise its just 4/4 with protection from removal spells, but not from plenty of relevant creatures.
If your lifelinking wincon can't actually safely deal damage or gain life, play something else, and in this case I think baneslayer is almost strictly better.
One Condemn is not nearly enough. Uwr runs around 12 spot removsl spells and 4 snapcasters and do not have an overly positive matchup. (Positive but not dominate) Also those wipes miss most of the threats.
One Condemn is not nearly enough. Uwr runs around 12 spot removsl spells and 4 snapcasters and do not have an overly positive matchup. (Positive but not dominate) Also those wipes miss most of the threats.
I'm still running 2 Condemn alongside 4 Path, with only 2 Verdict. As you pointed out, Verdict is too slow and needs to be more of an out than a focal point. I haven't felt at all like I was missing the third, and have far more games where it's poor. Sweepers in Modern are almost as bad as in Legacy (Terminus with a Sensei's Top doesn't count). I'm pretty happy with 2 copies.
My problem with running even more spot removal is that it's not even good against the aggro decks that people do play. Condemn drawn against Cranial Plating or Ravager is playable, but not great. Same as how you can draw 3 Paths and die on turn 3 to Infect. Zoo, exactly, is going to lose if you draw a pile of Paths, but I don't see those decks hardly ever. I just played today and saw zero aggro, for example. I imagine you're describing the MODO League metagame (which has always been ultra-aggressive) and I hope I don't run into that when I start piloting this deck on it. Very annoying to retweak your deck like I did after the first league I played, only to find out all your Engineered Explosives and other anti 1-drop cards never come out of the board in a paper tournament.
I actually was considering Going up to 4 Baneslayer in the board, on account of it being good against the Eldrazi deck. It seems ludicrous though, and I'm not sure it's too much of a single effect. It does come in against a sh*t ton of matchups. Maybe Kitchen Finks would be better than Baneslayer 3-4, but if I'm only bringing it in against blitz aggro (and it's not even great against Affinity/Infect), I think I'm more likely to go back to Explosives. I guess the question is whether or not they can really beat a Baneslayer, with even moderate support from the rest of your deck.
I went to a small Modern tournament today and went 2-1 overall.
Round 1 vs. Kiki-Cord (2-0 win)
This was a matchup against a close friend of mine and so I've played it quite a few times. Esper is highly favored because it comes down to a grid-fest usually and we can draw cards for days. In fact, in game 1 I won with White Sun's with 7 cards left in my library. I was able to Snap-Cryptic to counter/ bounce Snap 3 times. In game two I won with a swing with Colonnade with 0 cards left in my library. The best card in this match up was Sphinx's Revelation. It stabled my life total well assuring my enough card-advantage to close out the game.
Round 2 vs. Abzan (2-1 win)
A classic Abzan shell with Lilianas, Rhinos and Lingering Souls. An interesting inclusion was Anafenza, the Foremost.
Game 1 I lost because I was not able to get the colors I needed to cast all my spells.
Game 2 was a bit iffy. It started out well when he Thoughtseized me showing only lands and a Think Twice/ Lingering Souls. He brought the beats with Treetop Village and Anafenza until I was at 3. I Sphinxed for 6 finding the Path for Anafenza and the the Ghost Quarter for the Village. From there I was able to stabilize, Cryptic Commanding anything he tried to play.
Game 3 I was able to wipe the board twice after blocking his Tarmogoyf for 4 turns with Lingering Souls tokens. I killed his Liliana with a Colonnade after he minused it to make me sack another Souls token then Sphinx to secure the game.
Lingering Souls as a 3-of proved really good in this match-up and Sphinx was great yet again.
Round 3 vs. Tron (0-2 loss)
My worst nightmare: Tron. My sideboard is not ready for this match-up yet and I got steam rolled game 1. Game two I had him down to 8 with 2 Spirits and Snap on board. He found the O-Stone to stop me from killing him and then proceeded to cast 2 Ulamogs and I lost.
Lingering Souls was pretty good here in providing a quick clock, but was not enough.
Overall I was happy with my play and look forward to the next tournament. Lingering Souls preformed better than expected (but doesn't mean that it is better than other options).
Lingering Souls was pretty good here in providing a quick clock, but was not enough.
Overall I was happy with my play and look forward to the next tournament. Lingering Souls preformed better than expected (but doesn't mean that it is better than other options).
Do you suggest 2 mainboard Lingering Souls over 2 mb Cliques?
Also, I wouldn't run them main. In the main we want as much pure card advantage we can get. Esper Charm, Think Twice, and Shadow of Doubt provide pure card advantage and dig us through our deck. People think Lingering Souls is good because it can provide card advantage. However, it doesn't always do that. The tokens don't trade with many creatures. If they do that's obviously great. Sometimes their board is already so wide or their creatures are so big that the souls can't trade. Also, its not often our opponents are forced to use removal on the tokens (simply because our deck doesn't apply much pressure). In decks that do have additional pressure, Lingering Souls is great. In our deck, it can often provide us negative card advantage because we are forced to chump with the tokens, trading 1/4th of a card each time for zero of our opponents. After chumping with four souls tokens we have spent 1 card from our hand for zero of our opponents. Most important, our deck needs a significant amount of pure card advantage spells because we have to dig through our deck to get to our White Sun's Zenith and Sphinx's Revelation. If we are taking out cards that provide pure card advantage for cards that may provide card disadvantage, we are diluting the power and theme of the deck.
Random question, has anybody tried using any of the battle lands? I've decided to start dabbling with them and goldfishing a bunch of games so see how often they bite me coming in tapped, but the potential for a much much less painful mana base is appealing.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
@zdeathblow i think your view/analyse of why Lingering souls doesn't work is wrong. To me the most importent role Lingering Soul has is to stop decks like Infect/Affinity while it can close games faster than Colonnade.
I ran 3 copies in my latest list and i think they were MVP along with Shadow of Doubt (out of the board). I never consider Lingering souls a card advantage card but it surely are a 2-1 (can be the same but depends on definition). And another upside is, as you mention, they can chump block for days which forces your opponent into overcommitting into a Wrath.
I dont feel like Esper is the place to be right now but that's another discussion
You probably notice how good they are against affinity and infect because they actually provide CA in those matchups. They force the opponent to use a pump spell in infect and in affinity there 1/1s just trade. What I was saying was that when you are in chump mode with Lingering Souls it's negative CA and you would be better off with other cards. This deck is designed to 2 for 1 the opponent and kill them with card advantage. As for their ability to apply pressure, for five mana I can think of better ways to kill my opponent. I would rather run a Gideon Jura or even Batterskull over souls if I was going to try to trade on board or put pressure on.
Lingering Souls was pretty good here in providing a quick clock, but was not enough.
Overall I was happy with my play and look forward to the next tournament. Lingering Souls preformed better than expected (but doesn't mean that it is better than other options).
Do you suggest 2 mainboard Lingering Souls over 2 mb Cliques?
Previously I was running 1 Clique mainboard and no Lingering Souls but I pushed Clique to the SB in order to test out Lingering Souls. Seeing as I saw no Affinity or Infect but 2 Tron decks I think Lingering Souls will be taking the bench for now and Clique will be coming back in. However, Souls in much better against decks that run 1 for 1 removal and discard, but those decks are also usually GBx decks and we can usually win those anyway.
So multiple people messaged me asking about my list after I peeked in briefly on streams the last couple of nights. I want to take this opportunity to talk about the difference between small metagames and open metagames. I'm going to post three lists: My current list for locals, the list I would take to a large event (open, GP) tomorrow, and the list I would play on MODO, and why the changes exist:
I'm going to talk about changes from the perspective of my list for an open metagame, because I consider that to be the most "stock" build, with the best overall matchup against the field. Things to note:
1. The manabase is the same for every list. I firmly believe that three ghost quarters is the place to be in this metagame, and because of that I'm sticking with shadow of doubt over remand. The dream is to be on the play, have your opponent try to fetch their third land at the end of your fourth turn, and you get to shadow of doubt that fetch AND ghost quarter one of their other lands AND path to exile their turn two play. Pretty much no deck can recover from that kind of brutalizing.
2. They all have a common core: 11 sideboard cards ( 2 baneslayer angel, 1 Elspeth, sun's champion, 2 celestial purge, 3 surgical extraction, 1 wrath of god, 1 negate, 1 dispel) and 57 mainboard cards. What this means, from a practical standpoint, is that a solid esper list isn't going to vary much from the stock parameters. Important problems for us to deal with in the metagame at large haven't changed. The answers we choose for them (extraction over rest in peace) reflects the changing metagame, but the requirement we have for categorical answers (grave hate, fatties, extra board wipes) doesn't change.
If we look at the three-card differences in the mainboard, it boils down like this:
Open list: 2 leyline of sanctity, 1 verdict
Local list: 2 disfigure, 1 supreme verdict
MTGO list: 1 Gideon Jura, 2 condemn
Sideboards:
Open list: 2 thoughtseize, 2 stony silence
Local list: 3 stony silence, anti burn flex slot
MTGO list: 1 baneslayer angel, 2 thoughtseize, 1 dispel
What these differences between lists show is the different metagame concerns; The open list you can see contains more generic answers alongside targeted affinity/RG tron hate, but in a way that is applicable in more matchups if necessary. The combination of thoughtseize and sweepers covers the bases of potential decks broadly, but doesn't really target anything in particular, and the list will require more grinding in more matchups because there's fewer "I win" buttons.
The local list on the other hand reflects my local metagame: lots of the twin players switched to infect, making mainboard leylines a liability locally but turning the metagame on a local level into what is primarily a mixture of affinity, burn, and infect; such a metagame makes disfigure attractive for additional slot removal because it's 1 mana and kills most of the threats without giving my opponents extra lifepoints. The heavy amount of stony silence also reflects a preference for having solid answers to just crush affinity, while still having game against the 1-2 tron players locally.
The MTGO metagame reflects the fact that there's a lot of fast linear decks, as well as a greater prevalence of the Bx eldrazi decks; this requires the increased counts of our next most flexible 1 mana slot removal and additional cheap interaction. It also is reflected in increased baneslayer counts, a creature which can singlehandedly carry sideboarded games against a huge chunk of the MTGO metagame if they don't keep in removal for it. The reduced boardwipe count also reflects the increased slot removal; such games are going to be tighter and grinding more dangerous, accounting for increased mainboard win conditions.
What doesn't change for any of these lists? The fact that we still need the core sideboard answers that don't change with the shifting metagame; a planeswalker bomb for BGx matchups is always helpful, some cheap countermagic is always useful for combo matchups (alongside discard and extraction effects), celestial purge still kills lilly, keranos, blood moon, dark confidant, everything in burn, and a large portion of the zoo deck.
Hopefully, highlighting the ways a slightly shifted metagame can alter your sideboarding priorities will help some of you that have trouble with metagaming locally solve your problems. If there's interest, I'll go into some more depth about the actual PROCESS of sideboarding in a match with each of these decks and how to approach coming up with a sideboard plan from these sideboards in an abstract way.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
So multiple people messaged me asking about my list after I peeked in briefly on streams the last couple of nights. I want to take this opportunity to talk about the difference between small metagames and open metagames. I'm going to post three lists: My current list for locals, the list I would take to a large event (open, GP) tomorrow, and the list I would play on MODO, and why the changes exist:
*snip*
Why do you play Leylines in the main for the first list? Honestly, I'm starting to doubt even having them in the side, but Leyline seems like a terrible card in the main -- sometimes it's useless, and many times it'll be drawn late game without a window to tap out for it anyways.
Burning-Tree Emissary
Match 1: Tron
Game 1: I mulled to 5, kept a hand that would have been decent against anything BUT Tron, and got destroyed by a turn 3 Karn that just exiled my lands. Didn't draw any more for the remaining 4 turns before I scooped. My opener consisted of Hallowed Fountain, Glacial Fortress, Path, Spell Snare, Snapcaster. In hindsight I probably should have mulled to 4 regardless in an attempt to get some sort of early game interaction stronger than Path and Spell Snare.
In: 1 Steam Vents, 3 Crumble to Dust, 2 Stony Silence
Out: 1 Path, 2 Spell Snare, 1 Think Twice, 1 Condemn, 1 Wrath of God
Game 2: I mulled to 5 again, but wound up with a hand capable of casting a turn 4 Crumble to Dust with Remand backup in case of turn 3 Karn. He goes for the T3 Karn, it gets Remanded, I Crumble his Tower. It rolls back around to him, and he casts Thought-Knot Seer with Eye of Ugin support. At this point I didn't have any removal, but wasn't too worried. He exiled a Cryptic Command with Thought-Knot Seer. I wind up losing to a combination of a second Thought-Knot Seer and not seeing any removal.
Match 2: Jeskai Hero's Blade
Game 1: I kept a fairly decent hand with a Remand, a Logic Knot, Path, and lands. He doesn't do much the first few turns, then slams Geist of Saint Traft on turn 4. I try and Knot it, and he casts a mainboard Dispel. I path his first Angel token, but from there on out things go from bad to worse as he drops a Hero's Blade on his Geist and goes to town. I didn't see a single board wipe for the rest of the game. He ended things with a combination of Burn, Geist beats, and Vendilion Clique beats.
In: 2 Dispel, 2 Leyline of Sanctity
Out: 1 Condemn, 2 Lingering Souls, 1 Think Twice
Game 2: Mulled to 4 due to drawing repeated no-land or all-land hands. Kept an opener with 2 lands, Remand, and Logic Knot. First few draws I got lands, he drops a T4 Geist, and things play out similarly to last time from here. Didn't see any of my sideboard cards.
Match 3: Tron, Part Deux
Game 1: At this point, I'll admit that I was very much on tilt. I try and avoid getting frustrated with my games, but occasionally it happens. It also didn't help that I was running on less than an optimal amount of sleep, and I think that contributed. ANYHOW. He mulled to 5 after two no-land hands. Logic Knot took care of a T3 Karn, then Esper Charm started doing its job shredding his hand. I wound up winning with Snapcaster Mage beats after flashing back an Esper Charm. I kept his hand empty from around T5 onward.
In: See match 1
Out: See match 1
Game 2: This was on odd game. My opponent was now very much on tilt. I play against him regularly, so he knew what was coming in from the board. T3 rolls around after he's cast Ancient Stirrings and cracked a Map to get lands, I plop down a fetched Steam Vents, and he concedes. He apparently didn't grab a Ghost Quarter when he saw one with Stirrings and didn't grab it with Map either, which is his usual out to Crumble.
Match 4: BW Tokens
Game 1: This was a pretty easy game. I kept a hand with a good number of counterspells and board wipes, and just ground him out. Won with a Zenith for 19 at the end of the game. At this point I determined that I need custom Cat tokens.
In: Nothing. I honestly don't have anything in my board for this matchup.
Game 2: Played out exactly like game 1. I had good draws, and won with a massive Zenith.
Overall, despite being a bit frustrated after my first two games, I had a fun night. There are a total of 4 Tron decks running around in this meta, out of a max of usually 12-16 people, which is I why I decided to try out the Tron-heavy sideboard. It didn't actually have a chance to pay off at the event, but I did 50 rounds of postboard testing with my 3rd opponent over the course of the past week, and it definitely paid off more often than not.
WUBEsper ControlBUW
URStormRU
RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List
WModern Death and TaxesW
WLegacy Death and TaxesW
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I think I agree with you. I'll most likely be testing that plan out next Saturday and doing my usual 50-100 games of postboard testing with my Tron playing buddy in the meantime.
WUBEsper ControlBUW
URStormRU
RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List
WModern Death and TaxesW
WLegacy Death and TaxesW
As good as Crumble is, I think I may agree with you. I played in SNM (Saturday Night Modern) just yesterday, and the 3 Crumbles never came out of the board. I faced Emeria Control (2-0), then Jund (0-2) [he topdecked like a boss in G1, and I mulled to 5 in g2 before his Thrun came down and I couldn't find the Wrath], then Gw Devotion (2-1), and finally Slivers (1-2) [last game was close, but he ripped a CoCo and I didn't topdeck the Wrath/Verdict]. I honestly felt that most of the games would have gone significantly better for me if I had more sideboard room. 4 slots for the "combo" is a little too much -- maybe 2 Crumbles would be better? I'm thinking about this sideboard:
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Maybe its just me, but I honestly hate blood baron as a finisher in this deck because if its condition is met, we're almost 100% to win, but otherwise its just 4/4 with protection from removal spells, but not from plenty of relevant creatures.
If your lifelinking wincon can't actually safely deal damage or gain life, play something else, and in this case I think baneslayer is almost strictly better.
One Condemn is not nearly enough. Uwr runs around 12 spot removsl spells and 4 snapcasters and do not have an overly positive matchup. (Positive but not dominate) Also those wipes miss most of the threats.
I'm still running 2 Condemn alongside 4 Path, with only 2 Verdict. As you pointed out, Verdict is too slow and needs to be more of an out than a focal point. I haven't felt at all like I was missing the third, and have far more games where it's poor. Sweepers in Modern are almost as bad as in Legacy (Terminus with a Sensei's Top doesn't count). I'm pretty happy with 2 copies.
My problem with running even more spot removal is that it's not even good against the aggro decks that people do play. Condemn drawn against Cranial Plating or Ravager is playable, but not great. Same as how you can draw 3 Paths and die on turn 3 to Infect. Zoo, exactly, is going to lose if you draw a pile of Paths, but I don't see those decks hardly ever. I just played today and saw zero aggro, for example. I imagine you're describing the MODO League metagame (which has always been ultra-aggressive) and I hope I don't run into that when I start piloting this deck on it. Very annoying to retweak your deck like I did after the first league I played, only to find out all your Engineered Explosives and other anti 1-drop cards never come out of the board in a paper tournament.
I actually was considering Going up to 4 Baneslayer in the board, on account of it being good against the Eldrazi deck. It seems ludicrous though, and I'm not sure it's too much of a single effect. It does come in against a sh*t ton of matchups. Maybe Kitchen Finks would be better than Baneslayer 3-4, but if I'm only bringing it in against blitz aggro (and it's not even great against Affinity/Infect), I think I'm more likely to go back to Explosives. I guess the question is whether or not they can really beat a Baneslayer, with even moderate support from the rest of your deck.
Round 1 vs. Kiki-Cord (2-0 win)
This was a matchup against a close friend of mine and so I've played it quite a few times. Esper is highly favored because it comes down to a grid-fest usually and we can draw cards for days. In fact, in game 1 I won with White Sun's with 7 cards left in my library. I was able to Snap-Cryptic to counter/ bounce Snap 3 times. In game two I won with a swing with Colonnade with 0 cards left in my library. The best card in this match up was Sphinx's Revelation. It stabled my life total well assuring my enough card-advantage to close out the game.
Round 2 vs. Abzan (2-1 win)
A classic Abzan shell with Lilianas, Rhinos and Lingering Souls. An interesting inclusion was Anafenza, the Foremost.
Game 1 I lost because I was not able to get the colors I needed to cast all my spells.
Game 2 was a bit iffy. It started out well when he Thoughtseized me showing only lands and a Think Twice/ Lingering Souls. He brought the beats with Treetop Village and Anafenza until I was at 3. I Sphinxed for 6 finding the Path for Anafenza and the the Ghost Quarter for the Village. From there I was able to stabilize, Cryptic Commanding anything he tried to play.
Game 3 I was able to wipe the board twice after blocking his Tarmogoyf for 4 turns with Lingering Souls tokens. I killed his Liliana with a Colonnade after he minused it to make me sack another Souls token then Sphinx to secure the game.
Lingering Souls as a 3-of proved really good in this match-up and Sphinx was great yet again.
Round 3 vs. Tron (0-2 loss)
My worst nightmare: Tron. My sideboard is not ready for this match-up yet and I got steam rolled game 1. Game two I had him down to 8 with 2 Spirits and Snap on board. He found the O-Stone to stop me from killing him and then proceeded to cast 2 Ulamogs and I lost.
Lingering Souls was pretty good here in providing a quick clock, but was not enough.
Overall I was happy with my play and look forward to the next tournament. Lingering Souls preformed better than expected (but doesn't mean that it is better than other options).
Who were you asking?
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Do you suggest 2 mainboard Lingering Souls over 2 mb Cliques?
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Also, I wouldn't run them main. In the main we want as much pure card advantage we can get. Esper Charm, Think Twice, and Shadow of Doubt provide pure card advantage and dig us through our deck. People think Lingering Souls is good because it can provide card advantage. However, it doesn't always do that. The tokens don't trade with many creatures. If they do that's obviously great. Sometimes their board is already so wide or their creatures are so big that the souls can't trade. Also, its not often our opponents are forced to use removal on the tokens (simply because our deck doesn't apply much pressure). In decks that do have additional pressure, Lingering Souls is great. In our deck, it can often provide us negative card advantage because we are forced to chump with the tokens, trading 1/4th of a card each time for zero of our opponents. After chumping with four souls tokens we have spent 1 card from our hand for zero of our opponents. Most important, our deck needs a significant amount of pure card advantage spells because we have to dig through our deck to get to our White Sun's Zenith and Sphinx's Revelation. If we are taking out cards that provide pure card advantage for cards that may provide card disadvantage, we are diluting the power and theme of the deck.
Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zdeathblow
You probably notice how good they are against affinity and infect because they actually provide CA in those matchups. They force the opponent to use a pump spell in infect and in affinity there 1/1s just trade. What I was saying was that when you are in chump mode with Lingering Souls it's negative CA and you would be better off with other cards. This deck is designed to 2 for 1 the opponent and kill them with card advantage. As for their ability to apply pressure, for five mana I can think of better ways to kill my opponent. I would rather run a Gideon Jura or even Batterskull over souls if I was going to try to trade on board or put pressure on.
Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zdeathblow
Previously I was running 1 Clique mainboard and no Lingering Souls but I pushed Clique to the SB in order to test out Lingering Souls. Seeing as I saw no Affinity or Infect but 2 Tron decks I think Lingering Souls will be taking the bench for now and Clique will be coming back in. However, Souls in much better against decks that run 1 for 1 removal and discard, but those decks are also usually GBx decks and we can usually win those anyway.
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
2 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
3 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacomb
4 cryptic command
4 spell snare
2 logic knot
2 shadow of doubt
4 esper charm
2 sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
3 supreme verdict
2 snapcaster mage
1 white sun's zenith
2 leyline of sanctity
3 surgical extraction
2 baneslayer angel
2 celestial purge
1 Elspeth, sun's champion
1 dispel
1 negate
1 wrath of god
2 thoughtseize
2 stony silence
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
2 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
3 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacomb
4 spell snare
2 logic knot
2 shadow of doubt
4 cryptic command
4 esper charm
2 sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
2 disfigure
3 supreme verdict
2 snapcaster mage
1 white sun's zenith
2 Baneslayer Angel
2 celestial purge
3 stony silence
1 Elspeth, sun's champion
3 surgical extraction
1 negate
1 dispel
1 wrath of god
1 XXX
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
2 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
3 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacomb
4 cryptic command
4 spell snare
2 logic knot
2 shadow of doubt
4 esper charm
2 sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
2 condemn
2 supreme verdict
2 snapcaster mage
1 white sun's zenith
1 Gideon jura
1 Elspeth, sun's champion
2 celestial purge
2 thoughtseize
3 surgical extraction
1 wrath of god
3 baneslayer angel
2 dispel
1 negate
I'm going to talk about changes from the perspective of my list for an open metagame, because I consider that to be the most "stock" build, with the best overall matchup against the field. Things to note:
1. The manabase is the same for every list. I firmly believe that three ghost quarters is the place to be in this metagame, and because of that I'm sticking with shadow of doubt over remand. The dream is to be on the play, have your opponent try to fetch their third land at the end of your fourth turn, and you get to shadow of doubt that fetch AND ghost quarter one of their other lands AND path to exile their turn two play. Pretty much no deck can recover from that kind of brutalizing.
2. They all have a common core: 11 sideboard cards ( 2 baneslayer angel, 1 Elspeth, sun's champion, 2 celestial purge, 3 surgical extraction, 1 wrath of god, 1 negate, 1 dispel) and 57 mainboard cards. What this means, from a practical standpoint, is that a solid esper list isn't going to vary much from the stock parameters. Important problems for us to deal with in the metagame at large haven't changed. The answers we choose for them (extraction over rest in peace) reflects the changing metagame, but the requirement we have for categorical answers (grave hate, fatties, extra board wipes) doesn't change.
If we look at the three-card differences in the mainboard, it boils down like this:
Open list: 2 leyline of sanctity, 1 verdict
Local list: 2 disfigure, 1 supreme verdict
MTGO list: 1 Gideon Jura, 2 condemn
Sideboards:
Open list: 2 thoughtseize, 2 stony silence
Local list: 3 stony silence, anti burn flex slot
MTGO list: 1 baneslayer angel, 2 thoughtseize, 1 dispel
What these differences between lists show is the different metagame concerns; The open list you can see contains more generic answers alongside targeted affinity/RG tron hate, but in a way that is applicable in more matchups if necessary. The combination of thoughtseize and sweepers covers the bases of potential decks broadly, but doesn't really target anything in particular, and the list will require more grinding in more matchups because there's fewer "I win" buttons.
The local list on the other hand reflects my local metagame: lots of the twin players switched to infect, making mainboard leylines a liability locally but turning the metagame on a local level into what is primarily a mixture of affinity, burn, and infect; such a metagame makes disfigure attractive for additional slot removal because it's 1 mana and kills most of the threats without giving my opponents extra lifepoints. The heavy amount of stony silence also reflects a preference for having solid answers to just crush affinity, while still having game against the 1-2 tron players locally.
The MTGO metagame reflects the fact that there's a lot of fast linear decks, as well as a greater prevalence of the Bx eldrazi decks; this requires the increased counts of our next most flexible 1 mana slot removal and additional cheap interaction. It also is reflected in increased baneslayer counts, a creature which can singlehandedly carry sideboarded games against a huge chunk of the MTGO metagame if they don't keep in removal for it. The reduced boardwipe count also reflects the increased slot removal; such games are going to be tighter and grinding more dangerous, accounting for increased mainboard win conditions.
What doesn't change for any of these lists? The fact that we still need the core sideboard answers that don't change with the shifting metagame; a planeswalker bomb for BGx matchups is always helpful, some cheap countermagic is always useful for combo matchups (alongside discard and extraction effects), celestial purge still kills lilly, keranos, blood moon, dark confidant, everything in burn, and a large portion of the zoo deck.
Hopefully, highlighting the ways a slightly shifted metagame can alter your sideboarding priorities will help some of you that have trouble with metagaming locally solve your problems. If there's interest, I'll go into some more depth about the actual PROCESS of sideboarding in a match with each of these decks and how to approach coming up with a sideboard plan from these sideboards in an abstract way.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Why do you play Leylines in the main for the first list? Honestly, I'm starting to doubt even having them in the side, but Leyline seems like a terrible card in the main -- sometimes it's useless, and many times it'll be drawn late game without a window to tap out for it anyways.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.