Hi Esper players! I've been on a break from Modern for a while since Twin was banned, but after seeing an Esper control deck do well it has reinvigorated my interest in the format. Esper Charm has been a favorite card of mine for a long time, and I'm excited to get a chance to play them again in a competitive list!
I had a question for the more experienced players about Runed Halo. I see it in a lot of sideboards, but because of the price spike recently I'm not sure I want to pick them up. How important to the overall SB strategy is the card? I haven't played Modern in quite some time, but I imagine the reason it's there is to be able to name cards for linear decks that rely on 1-2 cards to win (I'm thinking AdNauseum, Scapeshift). In what matchups are these brought in? Also, how effective is Meddling Mage as a substitute? I play Legacy, and Miracles often brings in Meddling Mage to act as Disruption + Clock against combo decks, and to me Meddling Mage could fill a similar role in Esper. The obvious weakness however is any creature specific removal, and anti-synergy with wraths, but depending on the matchups where Runed Halo is brought in, it may be irrelevant, and perhaps the body is even a potential upside. Is it crazy to consider Meddling Mage over Runed Halo?
Hi Esper players! I've been on a break from Modern for a while since Twin was banned, but after seeing an Esper control deck do well it has reinvigorated my interest in the format. Esper Charm has been a favorite card of mine for a long time, and I'm excited to get a chance to play them again in a competitive list!
I had a question for the more experienced players about Runed Halo. I see it in a lot of sideboards, but because of the price spike recently I'm not sure I want to pick them up. How important to the overall SB strategy is the card? I haven't played Modern in quite some time, but I imagine the reason it's there is to be able to name cards for linear decks that rely on 1-2 cards to win (I'm thinking AdNauseum, Scapeshift). In what matchups are these brought in? Also, how effective is Meddling Mage as a substitute? I play Legacy, and Miracles often brings in Meddling Mage to act as Disruption + Clock against combo decks, and to me Meddling Mage could fill a similar role in Esper. The obvious weakness however is any creature specific removal, and anti-synergy with wraths, but depending on the matchups where Runed Halo is brought in, it may be irrelevant, and perhaps the body is even a potential upside. Is it crazy to consider Meddling Mage over Runed Halo?
Thanks in advance for the input
You hit the nail on the head for the uses of Runed Halo. Notably it's not the best against AdNaus and blue Scapeshift. It is how we win the valakut match up along with matchups against linear decks with a minimal number of threats. Think bogles, infect, dredge, etc. Notably, mage can't stop valakut triggers.
The bigger issue with Meddling Mage is it dies to normal removal unlike Runed Halo. I have no desire to say mage is inferior to it, but removal tends to be more rampant in modern due to it being more of a creature format than legacy. I mean all the big combo decks minus ad nauseam and valakut use creatures as combo pieces.
All I can really say is test and see. I can't say one way or the other due to having never cast a meddling mage in modern.
I'd be more impressed if you managed to build an esper deck that didn't beat jund.
Just because you beat the best midrange deck in the format doesn't make you the new best midrange deck in the format.
12post crushes miracles, does that make it the best prison-control deck in legacy?
Your sideboard document doesn't go into too much detail on how you choose to sideboard against certain matchups, how to deal/plan for unexpected/uncommon answers, or even why you chose to build your board as you did, which might be useful if you intend to present it to newer players interested in the deck.
That all being said: I do not think your deck's sideboard is a particularly good example of a versatile/plan-based sideboard (though I'll admit, most junk/mardu list's boards aren't either).
That being said, you've high-lighted one of my (least)favorite aspects of sideboard philosophy.
Many people argue between sideboarding in a couple of "10s" (cards like leyline of the void vs dredge, stony vs affinity, leyline of sanctity vs mono red burn, slaughter games vs scapeshift, etc, cards that are incredibly powerful and totally swing your problem matchups when you draw them. Crumble to dust, geist, and RiP would be the popular ones in esper control) vs siding in a lot of "5s" (cards like blessed alliance, engineered explosives, celestial purge, negate, or surgical extraction to a lesser extent). The problem is that this argument is just completely wrong.
It does not matter if you are siding in 5s or 10s.
It matters that every game, you are presenting the best your deck can reasonably be, all things considered, against what you are sitting across the table from.
Cards like crumble or leyline of the void might be great to play because they hugely swing your problem matchups, where as nihil spellbomb and disdainful stroke aren't gonna cut it, but at the same time, maybe thoughtseizes and surgical extractions are good because while they do not swing your matchups as much as the other cards, they do so more efficiently in terms of deckspace, and allow you to improve other matchups as well, matchups that leyline and crumble would not help as much, if at all, in.
Your sideboard has, as I count, 8 cards to bring in against tron (1 unmaking, 3 geist, 2 extractions, 1 thoughtseize, 1 clique), though you might bring in the disenchant too.
The issue with that is that you've set up your board in such a way to make almost all of those cards less effective. The threats are much more effective when backed up by a lot of discard and countermagic, but no sideboard configuration allows you to do that (because there aren't enough of those cards in your sideboard). The extractions work best with ghost quarters and hard discard, which is all well and good, but you only have 3 relevant discard spells, and 1 ghost quarter. (Esper control can get away with 3 thoughtseizes, 2 ghost quarter, and 2-3 extractions against tron partly because we have much more counters than transcendent, but also because resolving a single extraction is much more impactful for us than it is for ET.)
Against burn, for example, you don't really have the ability to be a totally reactive deck (you don't have enough answers to lock them out), you don't have the prison pieces (only halos, which aren't enough), and you don't have a clock.
Sure, you have a bunch of cards that are situationally useful against burn (escalate spells, halos, etc) but baneslayer is the only card in your board that has a significant impact in the matchup, despite the fact that its almost certainly atleast somewhat unfavorable (correct me if I'm wrong, but in the small number of games I've played with ET against burn, that matchup didn't really feel that great.)
Some leylines, perhaps even main, for example, would massively improve this matchup.
Because of this approach, you're also totally dead to lantern control. You have a bunch of mediocre cards against them, but you have almost no power to actually swing the matchup. On the other hand, you've got too many cards that are relevant against titanshift, to the point of diminishing returns. On top of that, despite your desire for a broad and well designed sideboard, you don't have a coherent plan against that either. Your plan to hide behind runed halo and try to dig for a clock is basically just stone cold dead to a summoner's pact for a rec sage, because you have almost no answer for that in your deck. And its not even just a case of "sometimes they'll have the perfect answer" but you simply have a mess of cards that don't all push in the same direction, and the impactful ones that you want to be able to support (halo) aren't backed up, meaning the plan you do have loses to their sideboard plan of doing the same thing they did but with some more anti-cheese in their deck.
I could go on here, but I would highly recommend trying to look at the decks you're worried about, thinking about how they sideboard, and thinking about what beats that.
Thats not to say that any of the cards or ideas you're using are bad, or shouldn't be used, but your goal of having a diverse board of cards that are all relevant in different places is successful to the point where it is harming you.
It does seem like a pretty generic esper walkers list, just with narset, and updated with newer cards. Its not brand new, but it has gotten popular recently, presumably thanks to neothinker here.
I'd love to play against this deck with nahiri.
You don't really any way to actually win. You struggle against nahiri, its either "hit it with one of 2 thoughtseize, or hope souls/tarpit can kill it", which if you do the math, means jeskai has a ton of time to find things.
Grixis control (not delver) also doesn't feel like it would be favorable, 50-50 at best.
Valakut and ad nauseum you also seem like a slight underdog to. You lean heavily on runed halo here, which is far from unanswerable.
I'd also love to see your lantern, skred, sun and moon, bant spirits, burn, and kiki chord matchups, as I'd be shocked if those were really more than around 45%.
I don't think anyone disputes that the deck is built to work around narset. What people dispute is the claim that esper midrange built to work around narset is better than esper midrange without narset.
The tezz comments aren't really arguable here. I think lantern is much stronger than tezz, because an artifact based prison deck running tezz is handicapped by doing so.
Narset honestly looks like a playable card when you rebound charm/souls, and like the regular unplayable walker she is when you do literally anything else with here.
I had much better results with esper midrange/walkers once I cut narset.
Another comment I saw, on reddit I believe, is that narset's high loyalty is a trap, because soon people will realize that attacking her isn't even worth it most of the time, and her ability to draw fire will go down significantly.
Lets also not overdo how good her ulti is here. I've ultied jace, unraveler of secrets many times in modern, and won far fewer of those games than you might expect. Sure, the ult is not quite the same, but an ult that doesn't actually pressure the other player like that is far weaker than you could be lead to believe. (I firmly believe this is why dovin is unplayable. If his ult just made a bunch of thopters or something and could actually close a game, he might be worth playing.)
This does all come off as very harsh, but like all brews, a lot of people are very, very optimistic about transcendent. But life isn't a fairy tale, not every brew is going to crush, and looking at a deck like this critically is important.
Lets stop spamming the draw go thread about a tap out superfriends deck please. If you want to discuss transcendent is has it's own thread.
Alright, I've had my say. I'm willing to spam the thread with whatever else you'd like.
Meddling mage is a lot better in legacy partly because its relevant against more decks, and partly because people simply play less removal (ie, why tidehollow sculler is/was actually not insane to play in that format) In modern, most jund/grixis decks leave some form of removal in against us because they literally don't have the room to board it all out.
Having cast my fair share of pikula in modern, its inferior.
Halo is quite good against a lot of things. My most common names:
Snow covered mountain
reality smasher
thought-knot seer
valakut, the molten pinnacle
thrun, the last troll
restoration angel
lightning storm
eidolon of the great revel
rift bolt (lava spike, boros charm, etc)
slippery bogle (and his cousin gladecover scout)
Death's shadow
awoken horror (and friends kiln field and bedlam reveler)
bloodghast (and prized amalgam)
conflagrate
gifts ungiven
mindslaver
seismic assault
grapeshot
Manlands (mutavault, nexi, etc)
griselbrand (borborygmos enraged)
etched champion
murderous redcap
knight of the reliquary
eternal scourge
codex shredder (don't name lantern, its almost always better to just preemptively name shredder, otherwise the google doc is pretty good, though missing a couple things. For draw-go, 2 drop spells are worse named vs burn b/cuz of spell snare, and searing blaze/blood are almost always sided out. Also I wouldn't side halos in vs jund/junk.)
You hit the nail on the head for the uses of Runed Halo. Notably it's not the best against AdNaus and blue Scapeshift. It is how we win the valakut match up along with matchups against linear decks with a minimal number of threats. Think bogles, infect, dredge, etc. Notably, mage can't stop valakut triggers.
The bigger issue with Meddling Mage is it dies to normal removal unlike Runed Halo. I have no desire to say mage is inferior to it, but removal tends to be more rampant in modern due to it being more of a creature format than legacy. I mean all the big combo decks minus ad nauseam and valakut use creatures as combo pieces.
All I can really say is test and see. I can't say one way or the other due to having never cast a meddling mage in modern.
Valakut seems like a very big weakness of Mage now that I think about it. One other thing that I didn't think of is that Runed Halo can be both proactive and reactive, whereas Meddling Mage can only be played proactively, meaning sometimes you end up hitting the wrong card. It's also interesting looking at NeoThinker's list of cards to name, there are definitely some decks where Mage might be better, for example being able to name Ad Nauseum, but I think for Modern, Runed Halo may be the strictly better sideboard card (unless you have some very weird local meta). I think I will have to fork out the money for them in the end. Maybe I'll do a 1-2 MM/RH split for now or something.
I think the transcendent deck is a good point of comparison for why you WOULD choose draw go over other options.
Listing good and bad matchups for each is irrelevant. Every deck has good and bad matchups--with the exception of the proven and stable tier 1 decks (burn, affinity, BGx, infect), no deck has "good enough" matchups across the board to bring it to tier status just based on its overall matchup with the metagame at large. If we think either esper deck has the ability to be a perennial tier 1 contender, we're stupid. Listing which matchups are good and bad isn't going to make a deck a good choice or not a good choice.
Therefore, why else would we choose to play a different deck in modern? Two categories: Competitive reasoning and Other reasoning.
Competitive reasoning: this boils down to essentially one question--does this deck have better odds of winning a given tournament than any other, given the prevalence of the mainstay tier one decks, and the current makeup of the rest of tier one and two (by prevalence). This is a dynamic equilibrium problem as things currently stand, and the reason is that we have a stable second tier of decks with lopsided good and bad matchups, which if a given tournament shifts too far one way or the other (metagame wise) can make a deep tournament run and post a good finish. Unless a deck has an overall positive matchup against the field at-large, or is part of a relatively small subset of decks that collectively share this positive matchup against the field at-large, it's not going to be a competitive consideration UNLESS it has some sort of extreme-value associated with it. You can think of this as being related to the extreme value theorems you talked about in algebra, or the extreme value theorems from calculus. The point is, optimal outcomes (local minima or maxima on a solution space) occur at input sets that contain some kind of extreme value. In other words, other deck choices become good when the deck has some extreme value associated with it. For example, tron (arguably the deck with the best jund matchup) in a format that has swung to far towards jund being the king of the tier 1 decks. Merfolk tends to rise when burn and abzan sit on top of tier one and blue decks push up in tier two. Ad Nauseam tends to rise when infect gets pushed down, etc.
What axis is the transcendent deck the extreme value for? We know what that axis is for the draw-go build: raw card advantage + virtual card advantage of blanking removal means the draw-go build is the BEST overall option against other interactive decks. Any time the format becomes very interactive (lots of BGx, jeskai, grixis, etc), the esper draw-go deck is actually a reasonable metagame choice to take down a large tournament. I'm not sure you can describe a metagame condition in which the transcendent deck becomes an overall meta-choice to win a tournament. Remember that in this sense, we're only speaking in terms of average outcomes--any individual tournament or set of pairings will contain variance, so we're looking at an aggregate equal-skill pilot's chances to win the tournament more often than any other individual pilot with equal skill level on a different deck, and this result has little bearing on the reality of the way tournaments work in practice.
The "other" category is why people would choose decks that don't fit these competitive requirements. It could be budget. It could be because they value something other than a win (GP finish for pro points/consistency of result, not looking to actually win). It could be personal investment in a deck. It could be that they just want to play the style of deck they want to play. My opinion on the majority of brews in modern is that people play them because they WANT to play decks in that style, regardless of whether they're good or not.
I think that's the case with esper transcendent.
I KNOW that's the case for most of us on the draw-go deck.
We play these decks because we like the style. The difference is mostly academic, because we'd play the deck of our choice regardless of the metagame.
But, there are distinct circumstances in which the draw-go deck IS a competitive choice. I'm not sure that's the case for transcendent.
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Primary Decks:
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I'd rather not engage in a discussion made up of points that are only going to be counter-argued and refuted by your skepticsm - that have been discussed in detail by many players actually playing this deck beyond just a dozen or so games. There's several points you made that I can touch on that have been thoroughly evaluated, and tested (hours upon hours by several players, including myself, that have contributed to this deck's design from main to side), through application, not just theory or wishful thinking. From your SB analysis to the MU assessments, particularly Ad Naus, Jeskai Control, and Grixis Control, are misconceived. In fact, there's been extensive testing being done vs many of these MU's, and there's been consistent wins vs Ad Naus and Grixis Control recently. The deck is hitting its stride. There's an established core, design philosophy/formula, and gameplan. The recent 5-0 on MTGO was comprised of the following wins:
2-0 vs Ad Naus
2-1 vs Grixis Control
2-1 vs Grixis Control
2-0 vs Living End
2-1 vs Jund
I highly recommend checking out my community and feedback from players heavily invested in this deck if you want a better perspective of the deck. Regardless, the proof is in performance, and that will speak louder than any words or opinions.
Tiny point: merfolk isn't good against burn. Its slightly burn-favored to even at best. Merfolk likes abzan, blue decks that aren't playing helix, and tron (especially tron with their own islands).
The major issue with grixis control is that there are so many different builds of it that all look a bit different.
Pre-push, I would find it easy to believe you had a decent grixis matchup. Now, I think that matchup will be getting worse if your list stays constant and their list adapts.
That being said, I would be interested in more data regarding the ad nauseum matchup.
Certain builds of grixis, I could accept as being favorable, living end and jund I'm sure are both favorable, but ad nauseum strikes me as a weak matchup in general.
I honestly don't know how good ET is, but (and I don't mean this harshly) I just don't care. I wanna play everything at instant speed and never rely on on-board permanents. White Sun's Zenith (or Secure the Wastes) is my jam, and Esper Charm+Think Twice is my drug. I'm certain that there's a way for me to go x-0 in every tournament as long as I can beat Burn at this point. My only recent losses have been to Burn, to weird circumstances like getting stuck on 3 lands despite draw spells, or to decks I've literally never seen before (and lost close game 3's, haha). Even Tron feels like I've solved it for my play style.
Also, interesting note: the more I play with Fatal Push, the more it feels like a worse Condemn. I'm fairly certain that Push is best suited for UBx decks that aren't Esper (Sorry WotC if you're reading this. I do appreciate the effort though!). The thing is, if I really like Push that much, why shouldn't I just play Condemn? It gets around indestructible/recursion, it's on-color, and it hits delve threats and Eldrazi. And Push does what exactly? Hits Confidant and Grim Lavamancer at the low, low cost of totally destroying your mana base?
Been reading the discussion on ET. I think neo7hinker has been very patient with his responses to everyone. There is no need to diss a deck which has just recently put up some decent results. I think all the flak it is getting is just unnecessary and silly espescially calling it a hot pile of garbage, it's not helpful at all when you are repeatedly condemning the deck, just have some inputs on how to improve it Would have been enough. The bottom line is both draw go and ET have their advantages and disadvantages.
Geezus... at one point of time the discussion reminded me of a toxic era in the 8rack thread.
... I'm with Cody on this one. If you want to know why the Esper Transcendent deck AND Esper Control deck will both be eternally just playable tier 3 decks in modern that hope to hit the perfect matchups on a weekend to shine,(unless a Dig through Time level card being printed or something of that power level. I am not bashing either deck and saying don't play them. But, it is important to understand that these decks lack what makes modern decks powerful and top of the metagame. I play draw go all the time, it's a blast. Would I take it to a GP or even an Open, probably not. I had it at that 5k because I was coming up with a good build for local events, and I NEVER play in Sunday events, but certain things in my life came up where I could (they go much later than opens), had I known that, I would've brought Jund, Grixis, Delver, or some other deck in that line.
The reason neither of these decks will ever be top-tier decks without a broken card being printed for them is the reason why UR/x decks and Jund do so much better on average than all the other control shells and Abzan. Lightning Bolt is removal, and can kill the opponent. It is both proactive and reactive for a single mana. Bolt Snap Bolt can be 2/5's of someone's life total at any given point. Modern as a format is based around fast, powerful, and mostly proactive linear strategies. They are consistent and redundant. For a "fair" deck to keep up, they need just enough tools to keep them down, while closing the game out fast. Liliana of the Veil + Discard with Bolt and Goyf do this very well. Better than any other deck in modern ever. This is why Jund is consistently and WILL be consistently the best fair deck. Grixis shines when something is wrong in the format, and the only way to stop it is with permission. You see over and over again grixis popping up when Cryptic Command and friends are good. Once that issue is solved it goes away until the deck is needed again and Grixis Delver generally takes it's place for people who enjoy those decks (because it's proactive and disruptive). Decks like Tron, Merfolk, Bant Eldrazi, Burn, and even Dredge are all proactive linear strategies that can disrupt what your opponent is doing. This is why they are good.
The esper decks are either A) Sorcery speed with expensive threats and conditional disruption or B) Reactive with cheap general disruption. Neither of these decks have good fast efficient threats to close a game out. Without that, they will stay where they are or until SFM, Jace, or something of that level comes back into the format that allows it to thrive.
I honestly don't know how good ET is, but (and I don't mean this harshly) I just don't care. I wanna play everything at instant speed and never rely on on-board permanents. White Sun's Zenith (or Secure the Wastes) is my jam, and Esper Charm+Think Twice is my drug. I'm certain that there's a way for me to go x-0 in every tournament as long as I can beat Burn at this point. My only recent losses have been to Burn, to weird circumstances like getting stuck on 3 lands despite draw spells, or to decks I've literally never seen before (and lost close game 3's, haha). Even Tron feels like I've solved it for my play style.
Also, interesting note: the more I play with Fatal Push, the more it feels like a worse Condemn. I'm fairly certain that Push is best suited for UBx decks that aren't Esper (Sorry WotC if you're reading this. I do appreciate the effort though!). The thing is, if I really like Push that much, why shouldn't I just play Condemn? It gets around indestructible/recursion, it's on-color, and it hits delve threats and Eldrazi. And Push does what exactly? Hits Confidant and Grim Lavamancer at the low, low cost of totally destroying your mana base?
it allows you to use your mana when you want to not when they let you basically. This is very important on turn 1/2 of the game and with Snapcaster Mage at any point. I agree though, it's not the best, but certainly better than Condemn for the most part on that idea alone.
Im really annoyed by neo7hinkers showmanship here. This is about draw go, no one in here is interested in your tap out deck which by the way isnt your creation at all. The idea was out there before you picked it up and it even did put up results online before you claimed to create it. Lets pls go on with discussing draw go and you go back to your fb communities and try to thrill some kids with your planeswalker deck.
Fyi - I didn't bring it up. Scroll back to page 386. I simply provided info on the deck in response to the series of posts about it.
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Also, interesting note: the more I play with Fatal Push, the more it feels like a worse Condemn. I'm fairly certain that Push is best suited for UBx decks that aren't Esper (Sorry WotC if you're reading this. I do appreciate the effort though!). The thing is, if I really like Push that much, why shouldn't I just play Condemn? It gets around indestructible/recursion, it's on-color, and it hits delve threats and Eldrazi. And Push does what exactly? Hits Confidant and Grim Lavamancer at the low, low cost of totally destroying your mana base?
Been reading the discussion on ET. I think neo7hinker has been very patient with his responses to everyone. There is no need to diss a deck which has just recently put up some decent results. I think all the flak it is getting is just unnecessary and silly espescially calling it a hot pile of garbage, it's not helpful at all when you are repeatedly condemning the deck, just have some inputs on how to improve it Would have been enough. The bottom line is both draw go and ET have their advantages and disadvantages.
Geezus... at one point of time the discussion reminded me of a toxic era in the 8rack thread.
That's like saying "I don't understand why people are always so rude to those Jehovah's Witnesses..."
I don't know if this is his first thread hi-jack, but I can't imagine them ever ending well.
... I'm with Cody on this one. If you want to know why the Esper Transcendent deck AND Esper Control deck will both be eternally just playable tier 3 decks in modern that hope to hit the perfect matchups on a weekend to shine,(unless a Dig through Time level card being printed or something of that power level. I am not bashing either deck and saying don't play them. But, it is important to understand that these decks lack what makes modern decks powerful and top of the metagame. I play draw go all the time, it's a blast. Would I take it to a GP or even an Open, probably not. I had it at that 5k because I was coming up with a good build for local events, and I NEVER play in Sunday events, but certain things in my life came up where I could (they go much later than opens), had I known that, I would've brought Jund, Grixis, Delver, or some other deck in that line.
The reason neither of these decks will ever be top-tier decks without a broken card being printed for them is the reason why UR/x decks and Jund do so much better on average than all the other control shells and Abzan. Lightning Bolt is removal, and can kill the opponent. It is both proactive and reactive for a single mana. Bolt Snap Bolt can be 2/5's of someone's life total at any given point. Modern as a format is based around fast, powerful, and mostly proactive linear strategies. They are consistent and redundant. For a "fair" deck to keep up, they need just enough tools to keep them down, while closing the game out fast. Liliana of the Veil + Discard with Bolt and Goyf do this very well. Better than any other deck in modern ever. This is why Jund is consistently and WILL be consistently the best fair deck. Grixis shines when something is wrong in the format, and the only way to stop it is with permission. You see over and over again grixis popping up when Cryptic Command and friends are good. Once that issue is solved it goes away until the deck is needed again and Grixis Delver generally takes it's place for people who enjoy those decks (because it's proactive and disruptive). Decks like Tron, Merfolk, Bant Eldrazi, Burn, and even Dredge are all proactive linear strategies that can disrupt what your opponent is doing. This is why they are good.
The esper decks are either A) Sorcery speed with expensive threats and conditional disruption or B) Reactive with cheap general disruption. Neither of these decks have good fast efficient threats to close a game out. Without that, they will stay where they are or until SFM, Jace, or something of that level comes back into the format that allows it to thrive.
Yeah, this decks need an auto-win to ever become Tier 1. I would argue that it's already as competitive as something like Ad Nauseam or whatever else people consider Tier 2. In Legacy Miracles you have Counterbalance and Jace for auto-wins; it's possible for a card advantage engine that's 4 or less mana to be released. Also very possible that something is released which breaks the Gifts/Unburial Rites engine wide open.
Ironically the Narset deck is running what should be a pile of auto-wins, they're just all under-powered for the format. Liliana and Nahiri are the only 4x planeswalkers to make it in this format on account of being able to end the game by turn 5 and 6, respectively. Mardu Superfriends sounds like it would be entertaining to try.
Lingering Souls is always a strong card for control decks. And Lingering Souls is an obvious choice for the Narset Transcendant builds. But is the sorcery speed too steep of a cost for the Draw-Go shell?
I feel like some people have been a bit harsh on neothinker personally here, hes handled it well and been constructive, so lets not keep pn that train.
As for lingering souls in esper, a lot has been written on it, but simply put, the things it does arent worth the space in the deck.
It isnt a very strong clock (by itself, 4 snap, 2 clique, 4 souls, 2 secure and 5-6 manlands is maaaybe enough to warrent souls, most souls decks play actual threats like walkers or delve creatures), and requires tapping a lot oof mana on our own turn.
The tokens get swept up by verdict, and simply put, 4 chump blopcks from a card isnt that strong.
Most of us dont even play timely.
Wafo's gp lille list knew what it wanted to do, and played souls side, but it didnt really work.
A deck lime transcendent, or better yet, junk, that can pair souls with more impactful cards to defend, more pressure, and proactive disruption get much more out of the card than traditional drawgo lists do.
As for lingering souls in esper, a lot has been written on it, but simply put, the things it does arent worth the space in the deck.
It isnt a very strong clock (by itself, 4 snap, 2 clique, 4 souls, 2 secure and 5-6 manlands is maaaybe enough to warrent souls, most souls decks play actual threats like walkers or delve creatures), and requires tapping a lot oof mana on our own turn.
The tokens get swept up by verdict, and simply put, 4 chump blopcks from a card isnt that strong.
Most of us dont even play timely.
Wafo's gp lille list knew what it wanted to do, and played souls side, but it didnt really work.
A deck lime transcendent, or better yet, junk, that can pair souls with more impactful cards to defend, more pressure, and proactive disruption get much more out of the card than traditional drawgo lists do.
These were my thoughts almost exactly. Glad to hear I'm on the right track.
But I'd like to expand on a few of your items:
Why would anyone not play Timely Reinforcements in the sideboard for this deck? Hovis played 2 in his SB...
How did Lingering Souls in the SB not work out? It sounds like a great value play vs the grindy decks.
As for lingering souls in esper, a lot has been written on it, but simply put, the things it does arent worth the space in the deck.
It isnt a very strong clock (by itself, 4 snap, 2 clique, 4 souls, 2 secure and 5-6 manlands is maaaybe enough to warrent souls, most souls decks play actual threats like walkers or delve creatures), and requires tapping a lot oof mana on our own turn.
The tokens get swept up by verdict, and simply put, 4 chump blopcks from a card isnt that strong.
Most of us dont even play timely.
Wafo's gp lille list knew what it wanted to do, and played souls side, but it didnt really work.
A deck lime transcendent, or better yet, junk, that can pair souls with more impactful cards to defend, more pressure, and proactive disruption get much more out of the card than traditional drawgo lists do.
These were my thoughts almost exactly. Glad to hear I'm on the right track.
But I'd like to expand on a few of your items:
Why would anyone not play Timely Reinforcements in the sideboard for this deck? Hovis played 2 in his SB...
How did Lingering Souls in the SB not work out? It sounds like a great value play vs the grindy decks.
Because Timely is lifegain + tokens, and Blessed Alliance is lifegain and removal. We dont really care about tokens.
Timely isn't really a bad card, but I stopped playing after I switched from playing primarily esper teachings a while ago.
It gains life, which is nice, but the tokens are kind of mediocre here (compared to something like nahiri, where I've mainboarded timely cuz it can get insane), and taping 3 mana at sorcery speed for 6 life is only average.
Blessed alliance, leyline, and cheap countermagic/removal are better against burn/low-down aggro.
Wafo went 9-6 (with three byes) at gp lille. He actual games went 6-6, which is not terrible, but for someone like wafo-tapa, who went to his first modern gp in years after posting a handful of good results online, its not really very impressive.
Lingering souls is a bit of a trap card in the deck for a couple of reasons, and primarily because its good against grindy decks.
Against grindy decks, tapping out to let them do their thing is basically the only way we lose, barring the occasional nut-draw that our hand doesn't line up with, which as most people can attest, is rare, and even when their seize > goyf > liliana hands happen, we can beat that half the time.
The other bit is that, what do we really want to side out against bgx? Most people will switch out zenith for elspeth if they have it, but what else comes out? I'll sometimes cut wraths vs jund, or alliances vs abzan if I have stuff like celestial purge or leyline in my board, but really, the main is just a pile of cards that happen to be good against gbx.
Trying to overboard against your best matchup both hurts the formula thats good against your best matchup, and fills up your board with stuff thats not as good in other matchups.
Its one thing if you have a playset of leylines vs burn that you happen to bring in some or all vs jund, because you want a knockout punch to a matchup we could certainly use a punch in.
Lingering souls, on the other hand, isn't a knockout punch vs anything we want a punch against.
It clocks decks like tron or valakut, but its a sorcery and sucks at clocking. It chumps against everything, but I'd rather just kill their creatures.
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I had a question for the more experienced players about Runed Halo. I see it in a lot of sideboards, but because of the price spike recently I'm not sure I want to pick them up. How important to the overall SB strategy is the card? I haven't played Modern in quite some time, but I imagine the reason it's there is to be able to name cards for linear decks that rely on 1-2 cards to win (I'm thinking AdNauseum, Scapeshift). In what matchups are these brought in? Also, how effective is Meddling Mage as a substitute? I play Legacy, and Miracles often brings in Meddling Mage to act as Disruption + Clock against combo decks, and to me Meddling Mage could fill a similar role in Esper. The obvious weakness however is any creature specific removal, and anti-synergy with wraths, but depending on the matchups where Runed Halo is brought in, it may be irrelevant, and perhaps the body is even a potential upside. Is it crazy to consider Meddling Mage over Runed Halo?
Thanks in advance for the input
You hit the nail on the head for the uses of Runed Halo. Notably it's not the best against AdNaus and blue Scapeshift. It is how we win the valakut match up along with matchups against linear decks with a minimal number of threats. Think bogles, infect, dredge, etc. Notably, mage can't stop valakut triggers.
The bigger issue with Meddling Mage is it dies to normal removal unlike Runed Halo. I have no desire to say mage is inferior to it, but removal tends to be more rampant in modern due to it being more of a creature format than legacy. I mean all the big combo decks minus ad nauseam and valakut use creatures as combo pieces.
All I can really say is test and see. I can't say one way or the other due to having never cast a meddling mage in modern.
Note: Tips, Decks, and targets. Some tip references are for ET. You can ignore those.
The Runed Halo Guide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10fAugZq4Y29uTHQFsA3PhbPbLkamnnKMeVtP5B7XGv4
You could even add this to the OP if you'd like. It's definitely one of the most valuable, cross-performing SB cards.
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Just because you beat the best midrange deck in the format doesn't make you the new best midrange deck in the format.
12post crushes miracles, does that make it the best prison-control deck in legacy?
Your sideboard document doesn't go into too much detail on how you choose to sideboard against certain matchups, how to deal/plan for unexpected/uncommon answers, or even why you chose to build your board as you did, which might be useful if you intend to present it to newer players interested in the deck.
That all being said: I do not think your deck's sideboard is a particularly good example of a versatile/plan-based sideboard (though I'll admit, most junk/mardu list's boards aren't either).
That being said, you've high-lighted one of my (least)favorite aspects of sideboard philosophy.
Many people argue between sideboarding in a couple of "10s" (cards like leyline of the void vs dredge, stony vs affinity, leyline of sanctity vs mono red burn, slaughter games vs scapeshift, etc, cards that are incredibly powerful and totally swing your problem matchups when you draw them. Crumble to dust, geist, and RiP would be the popular ones in esper control) vs siding in a lot of "5s" (cards like blessed alliance, engineered explosives, celestial purge, negate, or surgical extraction to a lesser extent). The problem is that this argument is just completely wrong.
It does not matter if you are siding in 5s or 10s.
It matters that every game, you are presenting the best your deck can reasonably be, all things considered, against what you are sitting across the table from.
Cards like crumble or leyline of the void might be great to play because they hugely swing your problem matchups, where as nihil spellbomb and disdainful stroke aren't gonna cut it, but at the same time, maybe thoughtseizes and surgical extractions are good because while they do not swing your matchups as much as the other cards, they do so more efficiently in terms of deckspace, and allow you to improve other matchups as well, matchups that leyline and crumble would not help as much, if at all, in.
Your sideboard has, as I count, 8 cards to bring in against tron (1 unmaking, 3 geist, 2 extractions, 1 thoughtseize, 1 clique), though you might bring in the disenchant too.
The issue with that is that you've set up your board in such a way to make almost all of those cards less effective. The threats are much more effective when backed up by a lot of discard and countermagic, but no sideboard configuration allows you to do that (because there aren't enough of those cards in your sideboard). The extractions work best with ghost quarters and hard discard, which is all well and good, but you only have 3 relevant discard spells, and 1 ghost quarter. (Esper control can get away with 3 thoughtseizes, 2 ghost quarter, and 2-3 extractions against tron partly because we have much more counters than transcendent, but also because resolving a single extraction is much more impactful for us than it is for ET.)
Against burn, for example, you don't really have the ability to be a totally reactive deck (you don't have enough answers to lock them out), you don't have the prison pieces (only halos, which aren't enough), and you don't have a clock.
Sure, you have a bunch of cards that are situationally useful against burn (escalate spells, halos, etc) but baneslayer is the only card in your board that has a significant impact in the matchup, despite the fact that its almost certainly atleast somewhat unfavorable (correct me if I'm wrong, but in the small number of games I've played with ET against burn, that matchup didn't really feel that great.)
Some leylines, perhaps even main, for example, would massively improve this matchup.
Because of this approach, you're also totally dead to lantern control. You have a bunch of mediocre cards against them, but you have almost no power to actually swing the matchup. On the other hand, you've got too many cards that are relevant against titanshift, to the point of diminishing returns. On top of that, despite your desire for a broad and well designed sideboard, you don't have a coherent plan against that either. Your plan to hide behind runed halo and try to dig for a clock is basically just stone cold dead to a summoner's pact for a rec sage, because you have almost no answer for that in your deck. And its not even just a case of "sometimes they'll have the perfect answer" but you simply have a mess of cards that don't all push in the same direction, and the impactful ones that you want to be able to support (halo) aren't backed up, meaning the plan you do have loses to their sideboard plan of doing the same thing they did but with some more anti-cheese in their deck.
I could go on here, but I would highly recommend trying to look at the decks you're worried about, thinking about how they sideboard, and thinking about what beats that.
Thats not to say that any of the cards or ideas you're using are bad, or shouldn't be used, but your goal of having a diverse board of cards that are all relevant in different places is successful to the point where it is harming you.
It does seem like a pretty generic esper walkers list, just with narset, and updated with newer cards. Its not brand new, but it has gotten popular recently, presumably thanks to neothinker here.
I'd love to play against this deck with nahiri.
You don't really any way to actually win. You struggle against nahiri, its either "hit it with one of 2 thoughtseize, or hope souls/tarpit can kill it", which if you do the math, means jeskai has a ton of time to find things.
Grixis control (not delver) also doesn't feel like it would be favorable, 50-50 at best.
Valakut and ad nauseum you also seem like a slight underdog to. You lean heavily on runed halo here, which is far from unanswerable.
I'd also love to see your lantern, skred, sun and moon, bant spirits, burn, and kiki chord matchups, as I'd be shocked if those were really more than around 45%.
I don't think anyone disputes that the deck is built to work around narset. What people dispute is the claim that esper midrange built to work around narset is better than esper midrange without narset.
The tezz comments aren't really arguable here. I think lantern is much stronger than tezz, because an artifact based prison deck running tezz is handicapped by doing so.
Narset honestly looks like a playable card when you rebound charm/souls, and like the regular unplayable walker she is when you do literally anything else with here.
I had much better results with esper midrange/walkers once I cut narset.
Another comment I saw, on reddit I believe, is that narset's high loyalty is a trap, because soon people will realize that attacking her isn't even worth it most of the time, and her ability to draw fire will go down significantly.
Lets also not overdo how good her ulti is here. I've ultied jace, unraveler of secrets many times in modern, and won far fewer of those games than you might expect. Sure, the ult is not quite the same, but an ult that doesn't actually pressure the other player like that is far weaker than you could be lead to believe. (I firmly believe this is why dovin is unplayable. If his ult just made a bunch of thopters or something and could actually close a game, he might be worth playing.)
This does all come off as very harsh, but like all brews, a lot of people are very, very optimistic about transcendent. But life isn't a fairy tale, not every brew is going to crush, and looking at a deck like this critically is important.
Alright, I've had my say. I'm willing to spam the thread with whatever else you'd like.
Meddling mage is a lot better in legacy partly because its relevant against more decks, and partly because people simply play less removal (ie, why tidehollow sculler is/was actually not insane to play in that format) In modern, most jund/grixis decks leave some form of removal in against us because they literally don't have the room to board it all out.
Having cast my fair share of pikula in modern, its inferior.
Halo is quite good against a lot of things. My most common names:
Snow covered mountain
reality smasher
thought-knot seer
valakut, the molten pinnacle
thrun, the last troll
restoration angel
lightning storm
eidolon of the great revel
rift bolt (lava spike, boros charm, etc)
slippery bogle (and his cousin gladecover scout)
Death's shadow
awoken horror (and friends kiln field and bedlam reveler)
bloodghast (and prized amalgam)
conflagrate
gifts ungiven
mindslaver
seismic assault
grapeshot
Manlands (mutavault, nexi, etc)
griselbrand (borborygmos enraged)
etched champion
murderous redcap
knight of the reliquary
eternal scourge
codex shredder (don't name lantern, its almost always better to just preemptively name shredder, otherwise the google doc is pretty good, though missing a couple things. For draw-go, 2 drop spells are worse named vs burn b/cuz of spell snare, and searing blaze/blood are almost always sided out. Also I wouldn't side halos in vs jund/junk.)
Valakut seems like a very big weakness of Mage now that I think about it. One other thing that I didn't think of is that Runed Halo can be both proactive and reactive, whereas Meddling Mage can only be played proactively, meaning sometimes you end up hitting the wrong card. It's also interesting looking at NeoThinker's list of cards to name, there are definitely some decks where Mage might be better, for example being able to name Ad Nauseum, but I think for Modern, Runed Halo may be the strictly better sideboard card (unless you have some very weird local meta). I think I will have to fork out the money for them in the end. Maybe I'll do a 1-2 MM/RH split for now or something.
Listing good and bad matchups for each is irrelevant. Every deck has good and bad matchups--with the exception of the proven and stable tier 1 decks (burn, affinity, BGx, infect), no deck has "good enough" matchups across the board to bring it to tier status just based on its overall matchup with the metagame at large. If we think either esper deck has the ability to be a perennial tier 1 contender, we're stupid. Listing which matchups are good and bad isn't going to make a deck a good choice or not a good choice.
Therefore, why else would we choose to play a different deck in modern? Two categories: Competitive reasoning and Other reasoning.
Competitive reasoning: this boils down to essentially one question--does this deck have better odds of winning a given tournament than any other, given the prevalence of the mainstay tier one decks, and the current makeup of the rest of tier one and two (by prevalence). This is a dynamic equilibrium problem as things currently stand, and the reason is that we have a stable second tier of decks with lopsided good and bad matchups, which if a given tournament shifts too far one way or the other (metagame wise) can make a deep tournament run and post a good finish. Unless a deck has an overall positive matchup against the field at-large, or is part of a relatively small subset of decks that collectively share this positive matchup against the field at-large, it's not going to be a competitive consideration UNLESS it has some sort of extreme-value associated with it. You can think of this as being related to the extreme value theorems you talked about in algebra, or the extreme value theorems from calculus. The point is, optimal outcomes (local minima or maxima on a solution space) occur at input sets that contain some kind of extreme value. In other words, other deck choices become good when the deck has some extreme value associated with it. For example, tron (arguably the deck with the best jund matchup) in a format that has swung to far towards jund being the king of the tier 1 decks. Merfolk tends to rise when burn and abzan sit on top of tier one and blue decks push up in tier two. Ad Nauseam tends to rise when infect gets pushed down, etc.
What axis is the transcendent deck the extreme value for? We know what that axis is for the draw-go build: raw card advantage + virtual card advantage of blanking removal means the draw-go build is the BEST overall option against other interactive decks. Any time the format becomes very interactive (lots of BGx, jeskai, grixis, etc), the esper draw-go deck is actually a reasonable metagame choice to take down a large tournament. I'm not sure you can describe a metagame condition in which the transcendent deck becomes an overall meta-choice to win a tournament. Remember that in this sense, we're only speaking in terms of average outcomes--any individual tournament or set of pairings will contain variance, so we're looking at an aggregate equal-skill pilot's chances to win the tournament more often than any other individual pilot with equal skill level on a different deck, and this result has little bearing on the reality of the way tournaments work in practice.
The "other" category is why people would choose decks that don't fit these competitive requirements. It could be budget. It could be because they value something other than a win (GP finish for pro points/consistency of result, not looking to actually win). It could be personal investment in a deck. It could be that they just want to play the style of deck they want to play. My opinion on the majority of brews in modern is that people play them because they WANT to play decks in that style, regardless of whether they're good or not.
I think that's the case with esper transcendent.
I KNOW that's the case for most of us on the draw-go deck.
We play these decks because we like the style. The difference is mostly academic, because we'd play the deck of our choice regardless of the metagame.
But, there are distinct circumstances in which the draw-go deck IS a competitive choice. I'm not sure that's the case for transcendent.
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
2-0 vs Ad Naus
2-1 vs Grixis Control
2-1 vs Grixis Control
2-0 vs Living End
2-1 vs Jund
I highly recommend checking out my community and feedback from players heavily invested in this deck if you want a better perspective of the deck. Regardless, the proof is in performance, and that will speak louder than any words or opinions.
Admins:
I'm ending my ET talk here.
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The major issue with grixis control is that there are so many different builds of it that all look a bit different.
Pre-push, I would find it easy to believe you had a decent grixis matchup. Now, I think that matchup will be getting worse if your list stays constant and their list adapts.
That being said, I would be interested in more data regarding the ad nauseum matchup.
Certain builds of grixis, I could accept as being favorable, living end and jund I'm sure are both favorable, but ad nauseum strikes me as a weak matchup in general.
Also, interesting note: the more I play with Fatal Push, the more it feels like a worse Condemn. I'm fairly certain that Push is best suited for UBx decks that aren't Esper (Sorry WotC if you're reading this. I do appreciate the effort though!). The thing is, if I really like Push that much, why shouldn't I just play Condemn? It gets around indestructible/recursion, it's on-color, and it hits delve threats and Eldrazi. And Push does what exactly? Hits Confidant and Grim Lavamancer at the low, low cost of totally destroying your mana base?
Honestly, I just want Counterspell. T_T
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.
Geezus... at one point of time the discussion reminded me of a toxic era in the 8rack thread.
... I'm with Cody on this one. If you want to know why the Esper Transcendent deck AND Esper Control deck will both be eternally just playable tier 3 decks in modern that hope to hit the perfect matchups on a weekend to shine,(unless a Dig through Time level card being printed or something of that power level. I am not bashing either deck and saying don't play them. But, it is important to understand that these decks lack what makes modern decks powerful and top of the metagame. I play draw go all the time, it's a blast. Would I take it to a GP or even an Open, probably not. I had it at that 5k because I was coming up with a good build for local events, and I NEVER play in Sunday events, but certain things in my life came up where I could (they go much later than opens), had I known that, I would've brought Jund, Grixis, Delver, or some other deck in that line.
The reason neither of these decks will ever be top-tier decks without a broken card being printed for them is the reason why UR/x decks and Jund do so much better on average than all the other control shells and Abzan. Lightning Bolt is removal, and can kill the opponent. It is both proactive and reactive for a single mana. Bolt Snap Bolt can be 2/5's of someone's life total at any given point. Modern as a format is based around fast, powerful, and mostly proactive linear strategies. They are consistent and redundant. For a "fair" deck to keep up, they need just enough tools to keep them down, while closing the game out fast. Liliana of the Veil + Discard with Bolt and Goyf do this very well. Better than any other deck in modern ever. This is why Jund is consistently and WILL be consistently the best fair deck. Grixis shines when something is wrong in the format, and the only way to stop it is with permission. You see over and over again grixis popping up when Cryptic Command and friends are good. Once that issue is solved it goes away until the deck is needed again and Grixis Delver generally takes it's place for people who enjoy those decks (because it's proactive and disruptive). Decks like Tron, Merfolk, Bant Eldrazi, Burn, and even Dredge are all proactive linear strategies that can disrupt what your opponent is doing. This is why they are good.
The esper decks are either A) Sorcery speed with expensive threats and conditional disruption or B) Reactive with cheap general disruption. Neither of these decks have good fast efficient threats to close a game out. Without that, they will stay where they are or until SFM, Jace, or something of that level comes back into the format that allows it to thrive.
it allows you to use your mana when you want to not when they let you basically. This is very important on turn 1/2 of the game and with Snapcaster Mage at any point. I agree though, it's not the best, but certainly better than Condemn for the most part on that idea alone.
Fyi - I didn't bring it up. Scroll back to page 386. I simply provided info on the deck in response to the series of posts about it.
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Fatal Push is an instant, Condemn is basically a sorcery.
That's like saying "I don't understand why people are always so rude to those Jehovah's Witnesses..."
I don't know if this is his first thread hi-jack, but I can't imagine them ever ending well.
Yeah, this decks need an auto-win to ever become Tier 1. I would argue that it's already as competitive as something like Ad Nauseam or whatever else people consider Tier 2. In Legacy Miracles you have Counterbalance and Jace for auto-wins; it's possible for a card advantage engine that's 4 or less mana to be released. Also very possible that something is released which breaks the Gifts/Unburial Rites engine wide open.
Ironically the Narset deck is running what should be a pile of auto-wins, they're just all under-powered for the format. Liliana and Nahiri are the only 4x planeswalkers to make it in this format on account of being able to end the game by turn 5 and 6, respectively. Mardu Superfriends sounds like it would be entertaining to try.
Legacy: Strawberry Shortcake, Aggro Loam, DnT+b
Modern: Devoted Karn
Vintage: Survival
As for lingering souls in esper, a lot has been written on it, but simply put, the things it does arent worth the space in the deck.
It isnt a very strong clock (by itself, 4 snap, 2 clique, 4 souls, 2 secure and 5-6 manlands is maaaybe enough to warrent souls, most souls decks play actual threats like walkers or delve creatures), and requires tapping a lot oof mana on our own turn.
The tokens get swept up by verdict, and simply put, 4 chump blopcks from a card isnt that strong.
Most of us dont even play timely.
Wafo's gp lille list knew what it wanted to do, and played souls side, but it didnt really work.
A deck lime transcendent, or better yet, junk, that can pair souls with more impactful cards to defend, more pressure, and proactive disruption get much more out of the card than traditional drawgo lists do.
These were my thoughts almost exactly. Glad to hear I'm on the right track.
But I'd like to expand on a few of your items:
Legacy: Strawberry Shortcake, Aggro Loam, DnT+b
Modern: Devoted Karn
Vintage: Survival
Because Timely is lifegain + tokens, and Blessed Alliance is lifegain and removal. We dont really care about tokens.
It gains life, which is nice, but the tokens are kind of mediocre here (compared to something like nahiri, where I've mainboarded timely cuz it can get insane), and taping 3 mana at sorcery speed for 6 life is only average.
Blessed alliance, leyline, and cheap countermagic/removal are better against burn/low-down aggro.
Wafo went 9-6 (with three byes) at gp lille. He actual games went 6-6, which is not terrible, but for someone like wafo-tapa, who went to his first modern gp in years after posting a handful of good results online, its not really very impressive.
Lingering souls is a bit of a trap card in the deck for a couple of reasons, and primarily because its good against grindy decks.
Against grindy decks, tapping out to let them do their thing is basically the only way we lose, barring the occasional nut-draw that our hand doesn't line up with, which as most people can attest, is rare, and even when their seize > goyf > liliana hands happen, we can beat that half the time.
The other bit is that, what do we really want to side out against bgx? Most people will switch out zenith for elspeth if they have it, but what else comes out? I'll sometimes cut wraths vs jund, or alliances vs abzan if I have stuff like celestial purge or leyline in my board, but really, the main is just a pile of cards that happen to be good against gbx.
Trying to overboard against your best matchup both hurts the formula thats good against your best matchup, and fills up your board with stuff thats not as good in other matchups.
Its one thing if you have a playset of leylines vs burn that you happen to bring in some or all vs jund, because you want a knockout punch to a matchup we could certainly use a punch in.
Lingering souls, on the other hand, isn't a knockout punch vs anything we want a punch against.
It clocks decks like tron or valakut, but its a sorcery and sucks at clocking. It chumps against everything, but I'd rather just kill their creatures.