Ok, weird tech question time:
Anyone tried Torpor Orb side vs CoCo decks and such? Yeah, i know it's narrow, but I'm looking for alternatives and came across this.
My thinking is that it'll lessen the strain on the counter magic part, since I then can allow stuff to resolve and wipe it away with verdict later without worrying so much.
I don't think its worth playing.
What is your 75?
What are you having trouble with vs chord and such?
I've played against more birds of paradise than anything else in modern, and I'd honestly say I only lose when I draw poorly.
Most of their "threats" are simply not threatening.
Finks, voice, and redcap are usually the only real threatening things in the deck for us, though it depends on the build.
Took my list to a 3-0-1 finish tonight at Tuesday night magic with 16 players and snagged 1st place, here's a quick breakdown of what I played against:
R1 Grixis Delver
Both games I get underneath his threats and drown him in card advantage.
R2 Hatebears
G1 I got stuck on 3 lands and a fetch, and wasn't able to get a Leonin arbiter off the table before it had done too much for me to recover.
G2 I was able to wipe the board and stabilize with an Elspeth and finish off the game.
G3 was stupid close, but I stabilized on t4 in turns and we ended up as a draw.
R3 RG Tooth and Nail
Both games I never let him get off the ground, and easily take it 2-0
R4 Infect
G1 I mull to 5, but I'm still able to eek out a win, him scooping to a big Rev.
G2 I drew 4 lands > esper charm and died on t6 to a blighted agent
G3 was fairly close until I managed to secure for 6 and follow up with esper charm > snap + charm his hand (leaving him with 0 cards) > path agent and close the game out with tokens + snaps.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
Hello all, I'm relatively new to Esper draw-go deck!
I'd like to start by saying I like how this deck works and all the people putting effort onto it. I only started playing 2 weeks ago, but I am having a difficulty playing against Tron and Eldrazi Tron. I know main board is weak against them, and as for the sideboard we can bring in Stony Silence, Thoughtseize, and maybe Gesit, but it hasn't been successful for me. I know a Grixis control brings in Fulminator Mage and Srugical. Is it worth trying them out or would it be too difficult to cast with no red on our side? I've seen some people run a list with Steam Vents and Crumble to the Dust, but I do not feel it's quick enough nor successful.
I want to keep playing this Esper control deck but with Tron and other Combo decks rising on meta. it feels difficult for me. Any input against those decks I would appreciate it much. Thanks!
It seems like a lot of people are switching back to secure the wastes at the current time. I'm feeling like this is primarily a reaction to wanting to try fatal push, which gives an incentive for extra snapcasters, which in turn gives you a good reason to play secure over zenith, but I'm not sure that we want to be cutting zenith for secures right when the format is starting to slow down a bit.
Also, Don't ever board out WSZ to bring in elspeth against BGx. That's just lunacy. You switch from a wincon that's dead to just discard early to one that's vulnerable to discard for longer AND loses to maelstrom pulse + lingering souls. Bring elspeth in as an extra win condition, but don't cut what is probably the most difficult single card for BGx to actually answer in the matchup.
In its current state, the deck is "fine", and satisfies the condition of "has enough power to see play in modern", but I consider it to be a garbage fire the same way I consider the protean hulk combo deck zack elsik was pushing for a while to also be a garbage fire and the same way I consider most tribal decks other than merfolk to be garbage fires. You can hem and haw about their advantages in certain matchups, and there may be specific card choices or sideboard optimizations that make one matchup or another better or worse. That's fine. None of that answers the fundamental question as to why this deck isn't just a worse version of X, where x can be any number of different things. In the case of draw-go, the answer is it's the best at generating card advantage, in a combination of both raw cards and effective blanking of opposing creature removal in a creature-centric format. That category isn't a thing you necessarily care about in modern (many decks just die with cards unspent in hand at times) but there ARE matchups in the top tiers in which it IS a relevant path to strategic victory that is very hard for opponents to actually interact with (BGx matchups, primarily). For ET, all I can say is that it's maybe the best planeswalker deck, but nobody has convinced me that being the best planeswalker deck is an effective route to victory in modern under any circumstances.
No amount of talking to me about your sideboard plans to apply pressure in bad matchups, shift gears into better disruption suites, or actual matchup percentages is going to change this. It's a brew in the same class as a whole other family of modern brews--people play them because they LIKE the deck (lord knows I played UW tap-out from the start of the format until GP boston/Worcester in 2014), but it doesn't mean the decks aren't just a pile. I guarantee that for any set of matchup percentages, there is a build of bgx, burn, or affinity that has a better total. Those decks are perennial mainstays because of their overall performance against the field of modern contenders. An individual with mastery of a bad deck can still win events with it, just like a bad player with a powerful deck can win events. I'm under no illusion that the draw-go deck performs better than the transcendent deck--I think it's likely that the transcendent deck probably IS a better deck in the modern metagame as things currently stand. However, I also don't think it has a fundamental strength to it that will raise the ceiling on what it can do.
As most of us are aware after the printing of fatal push, the draw-go deck really is just one or two fundamental upgrades away from being a real contender for regular tier 2 status, because it attacks on a relatively unique axis in the modern format and the powerlevel of most of its cards is there. You can see that with the number of new players drawn to the deck. I can't say the same thing for the esper transcendent deck, because what it does is not fundamentally unique, and it is much more likely that any such cards it gets are actually just better in UWR or BGx. Trying to play midrange without green or bolt in this format is not competing on the top level. If we get a crazy UB planeswalker that's castable at three mana (or maybe even a UW one with the correct types of abilities) and that might change, but I doubt another planeswalker on the power level of liliana of the veil will see print--she already seems to be the ceiling for that card type in the modern era.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Most of us play surgical extraction in the board. If you expect a lot of a tron, its a no-brainer.
Generally, green based tron doesn't play enough threats to really worry us games 2-3. With you extract a karn, then you leave them with wurmcoils, worldbreakers, ugins, and ulamogs, which path to exiles and counterspells clean up nicely, especially with snapcasters to double up those spells.
I think trying to surgical a tron land is alright, but its not really what you want to focus on. If it comes up, and it makes sense, go for it, but don't mull for the "build your own crumble to dust"
Eldrazi tron is pretty similar, but it can be a bit tricky to board against because different people play different threats. The classic matter reshaper, thought knot, smasher trio means that verdict is strong against them.
Some lists play the normal tron karns and ugins and such, which means negate is decent, but unless you're sure they have them, negate is weak against most versions.
IMO, like tron, extracting smasher, or another threat, is pretty good, but its better here because they're more threat dense.
Otherwise, hold your removal if you can ever help it. I'm alright taking 8 points of damage off a thought-knot seer with a path in hand if I can be spending mana to draw tons of cards.
Some people keep chalice in, because it stops our path to exiles, but honestly, I don't think its very strong. Halos, blessed alliances, and wraths all dodge chalice anyways, but its something to be aware of, as you can't always just let ulamogs resolve because you can path one later if you slam a chalice.
Stony is pretty weak against eldrazi tron, imo.
Splashing for crumble isn't the most unreasonable thing, either.
Just a question for everyone, if you were to splash for crumble (and not play ghost quarters) would you consider a loothouse main as the single colorless land? Or is that too greedy (with only 1 red source in the deck) for anyone to seriously consider?
I prefer secure because it is the more flexible option. You can cast an early game secure to trade with a creature, or put pressure on a lotv earlier than you can with wsz. It's also much much easier on the mana base, especially considering the amount of black mana I'm running to support Push in the early game.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
So I got into modern about a month ago. I initially built Abzan. It felt powerful but it is really not my style of play AND I did not like feeling in so much of a disadvantage vs. tron decks. Two weeks ago, with the surge of fatal push I decided to give Esper a try. I based my list on one that did well in the first 'bigish' tournament post AER (very similar to pizz0wn3d's one but with 2 sb thoughtseize) in terms of wincons and counter numbers. So far I am very happy with the deck, and and mostly fixed in the basic sb spots (runed halo [what a card!..so much flexibility], stony silence,..)
I have been learning how to play many of the common matchups (at least those that show more often on MTGO 2-man queues), but obviously I have a way to go. I have been reading the forum to try and learn about them. Learning how to play different matchups makes a lot of difference.
My question to you guys is, what is the main difference (in terms of meta matchups) between Esper and Jeskai? Clearly Esper Charm is great and the main reason for the black addition. I have been really impressed by it. The Fatal push gives the possibility of running 7 1CC mana removal spells which is IMO just awesome.
On the other hand I have been also exploring other threads. I have been also on the UW thread reading a lot, but without direct experience with the deck seems hard to really understand the details of many situations. They seem to run a couple of more creatures, which give them more tricks and a faster (although possibly more vulnerable) wincons, but it is at heart I think a draw-go deck also. What is in your opinion of the main difference pros/cons between the two decks?
I am sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I really want to get some word of advice from you guys. I am going to GP Brisbane in a couple of weeks and would like to be as prepared as possible and, obviously, pick the more consistent deck. Does any one have experience with both decks and wouldn't mind sharing his opinion? Thanks in advance.
So I got into modern about a month ago. I initially built Abzan. It felt powerful but it is really not my style of play AND I did not like feeling in so much of a disadvantage vs. tron decks. Two weeks ago, with the surge of fatal push I decided to give Esper a try. I based my list on one that did well in the first 'bigish' tournament post AER (very similar to pizz0wn3d's one but with 2 sb thoughtseize) in terms of wincons and counter numbers. So far I am very happy with the deck, and and mostly fixed in the basic sb spots (runed halo [what a card!..so much flexibility], stony silence,..)
I have been learning how to play many of the common matchups (at least those that show more often on MTGO 2-man queues), but obviously I have a way to go. I have been reading the forum to try and learn about them. Learning how to play different matchups makes a lot of difference.
My question to you guys is, what is the main difference (in terms of meta matchups) between Esper and Jeskai? Clearly Esper Charm is great and the main reason for the black addition. I have been really impressed by it. The Fatal push gives the possibility of running 7 1CC mana removal spells which is IMO just awesome.
On the other hand I have been also exploring other threads. I have been also on the UW thread reading a lot, but without direct experience with the deck seems hard to really understand the details of many situations. They seem to run a couple of more creatures, which give them more tricks and a faster (although possibly more vulnerable) wincons, but it is at heart I think a draw-go deck also. What is in your opinion of the main difference pros/cons between the two decks?
I am sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I really want to get some word of advice from you guys. I am going to GP Brisbane in a couple of weeks and would like to be as prepared as possible and, obviously, pick the more consistent deck. Does any one have experience with both decks and wouldn't mind sharing his opinion? Thanks in advance.
Most of us have actually played Jeskai, and I could write a book about the differences between UWR and Esper. =D I started off on something similar to Shaun Mclaren's PT Born of the Gods list, and played it for a good solid while, but evetually abandoned it for Esper Draw-Go (which I played for a month or two before actually joining the MTGS forum). But I have kept up a little with Jeskai as well as Esper.
The biggest thing I found out is that Jeskai is stronger in a field of aggro decks like Burn/Infect/Affinity and poorer against grindier fair decks like BGx and Grixis Midrange-Control lists. It's got an abundance ofspot removal and lifegain against quick decks, but leans heavily on Snapcaster Mage for card advantage. Some older lists play Sphinx's Rev more heavily and some Ajani Vengeant type threats/wincons, but the main way you win us by establishing a critical mass of burn spells. Newer lists often play Secure the Wastes, which gives the deck more defined wincon, and I suppose you could play a few Think Twice even though it's a little out of character.
On the flip side, Esper is stronger in a field of grindy decks like BGx, Grixis, Abzan Company, etc. It also has a great control matchup due to never needing to deploy a threat and the presence of Esper Charm to whittle down a control opponent's resources. It can easily beat many other decks, especially those weak to hard counters and Supreme Verdict, but it struggles agaist fast, uninteractive linear decks like Burn and Tron.
So manged to go 4-1 in a friendly league, damn eldrazi taxes got me with lots of hand kill and got there sadly, anyways I have attached a screen shot of my updated list.
So 4 Path, 2 Fatal Push 1 blessed alliance has been working great as it fights the aggro fest that plagues modo but is not dead vs the midrange matchups mostly(push is garbage vs grxis control obviously)
2 Spell snare is about the sweet spot I think for the current meta, having them matters in alto of matchups but the matchups where its not as useful there is only 2 not 4 to have less dad draws.
1 WSZ vs 2 Secure is still correct in my eyes, the meta is quickly reaching a midrange plateau in the coming month and its those matchups where sure a quick secure might get you there but the 1 wsz will carry many more wins as the games go longer, allowing a small zenith to allow it to be cycled for later use, also you can hide it away from discard alot easier with out fear of a wasted token stream.
3 Logic knot is still fine with out serum visions due to the addition of fatal push beign another early spell to toss as needed.
SB:
2 Runed halo is still an all-star, basically our lifeline vs man lands out of affinity as well as valakut triggers from scapeshift decks, I have added 2 Leyline of sanctity to the sb as additional help in the matchup that can come in vs grxis and jeskai matchups to aide s against chip shots from bolt snap bolt plays.
I wanted to try out a grave titan over elspeth after being inspired by Cipher's post, and thinking about elspeth it is hit by less hate in the grxis mathcup they usually have less terminates post board and they have less coutners that answer it as negate can't just nab it they need cryptic or leak really. its also still useful vs eldrazi as a house that comes down and cleans up. also provides more pressure so its good vs tron in a pinch.
Thanks for the reply and explaining. I have been enjoying the Esper deck very much and have made a couple of 4-1 s and 3-2 in the competitive MTGO leagues.
I realize now I may have been running a 'weak' sb, in the sense that I do not have a "robust" symmetry breaker for the control matchup (say an elspeth). I have also been considering running a couple of Ashioks in the sb, but I think they may be to narrow a sb card? I prefer to run sb cards that are flexible (unless the match is so horribly bad that I need a silverbullet to even have a chance).
A couple of cards I have thinkign about:
+ Disallow. What do you guys think? I have been running 2 negate MD and 1 SB, but perhaps one of those could be changed by a disallow? I chance to also combat activated/triggered abilities (cast triggers, Nahiri ultimates, etc.) seems very relevant in certain matchups. Again, IMO flexibility is king. Has anyone tested it? I play it my standard esper deck and it does a lot of work...of course standard is a different environment but..
+ Curse of Death's hold. It is pretty good vs many decks I think. Stops lingering souls, opposing Secure tokens, snap casters, infect, etc. It seems the mana base should be able to sustain it now that lists are increasing the B sources for fatal push. Or is it not worth it in your experience?
Ashiok is very narrow, yes. Not unplayable, but not great.
I'm not convinced you need a mirrorbreaker for control. We should be favored in those games already.
Disallow is alright if you're playing remands, I think, but otherwise, it just doesn't make the cut. You never see dissolve or anything in modern, because three mana on the draw basically misses 90% of the things you want to counter.
Night of souls betrayal is an option if you don't play secure. Its one of those cards that when its good, its great, but when its not, its terrible, and the current meta simply doesn't have enough decks it shines against, for the most part.
Thanks for the reply and explaining. I have been enjoying the Esper deck very much and have made a couple of 4-1 s and 3-2 in the competitive MTGO leagues.
I realize now I may have been running a 'weak' sb, in the sense that I do not have a "robust" symmetry breaker for the control matchup (say an elspeth). I have also been considering running a couple of Ashioks in the sb, but I think they may be to narrow a sb card? I prefer to run sb cards that are flexible (unless the match is so horribly bad that I need a silverbullet to even have a chance).
A couple of cards I have thinkign about:
+ Disallow. What do you guys think? I have been running 2 negate MD and 1 SB, but perhaps one of those could be changed by a disallow? I chance to also combat activated/triggered abilities (cast triggers, Nahiri ultimates, etc.) seems very relevant in certain matchups. Again, IMO flexibility is king. Has anyone tested it? I play it my standard esper deck and it does a lot of work...of course standard is a different environment but..
+ Curse of Death's hold. It is pretty good vs many decks I think. Stops lingering souls, opposing Secure tokens, snap casters, infect, etc. It seems the mana base should be able to sustain it now that lists are increasing the B sources for fatal push. Or is it not worth it in your experience?
Cheers
On Disallow: Almost certainly unplayable, but a lot of people will play this deck in small, less-competitive metagames so maybe it will work for you. When people are playing the card they should, the way they should, a 3 CMC counterspell that isn't uncounterable is going to be ass in blue mirrors. I used to board out 2x Cryptic against tempo/control hybrids, and that card has a much higher ceiling than something like Disallow. It's really only when you start thinking about clunky, Tier 2-3, spell-based combo decks that these 3 CMC counters get interesting, but why would you dedicate cards to beating those decks when Runed Halo and Negate cover them and so many other matchups?
On Curse of Death's Hold: Was the hotness for a minute. Depending on how popular random green midrange gets it may make a comeback. I know that the Bant Company deck with the 4x Spell Queller is basically unwinnable, so Curse or Night of Souls' Betrayal may be part of a winning sideboard strategy. I think the real question is whether the card is too slow to be relevant against Infect/Affinity, since Elspeth/Baneslayer/whatever is better in more of the Midrange matchups.
On Control Mirrors: I mostly run cards like Elspeth for the GBx and Eldrazi matchups. Jund in particular is very easily able to cheese you out of "going off", if they do things like Thoughtseize your Esper Charms and Revelations. Since the core engine gets broken up so easily, I like actually boarding in threats that can run away with the game.
I do think this deck does need something to break symmetry in blue mirrors. Wafo originally had Teferi, and although none of these decks have anything on Twin, it doesn't change the fact that post-board most blue decks have a pile of cards like Dispel/Negate that can interact easily with Esper Charm and especially Revelation. I'm trying Grave Titan out, but also looking for another creature to add, hopefully one that's 4 or 5 CMC and can punish these decks for going all-in on turn 4 or 5 to either chump-check you with a planeswalker or fight over Ancestral on their upkeep. It burned losing to Nahiri decks that ripped 3 Nahiris and just keep jamming them with Snare/Dispel backup...
Something that can beat Dispel/Negate, while also ignoring Path would be ideal. Teferi may still be the best choice, but it's not worth anything in other matchups.
I've been thinking lately that a deck like Corey Burkhart's should crush Esper Draw-Go in the mirror, not that I've ever played against his version. Taking out the Jace's makes things much better for them. If the Grixis pilot's played the matchup from our side, they know that we can get into trouble in mirrors (game 1) if the other player doesn't give us any opportunity to trade resources with them. Esper Charm is pretty useless, for example, when you have 7 cards in hand, already. Use it on them, and they pitch a few removal spells. The old Gerry Thompson-style Grixis decks played the Jace/Thoughtseize package and by definition played into our strategy, but Burkhart's specific list has more ways to win than we do (4x Snapcaster, 3x Tasigur, 2x Creeping Tarpit, 3x Kolaghan's Command), and gets to Rev for x=3 for just one mana...They even can Thought Scour us to accelerate the mill plan, have a 12% higher spell density, and retain the CounterBurn gameplan that UWR used to have in mirrors. It would be interesting to play that matchup against a skilled Grixis pilot.
To be perfectly honest, I'm almost certain that if more people had the patience for decking game 1 in mirrors, things would be much worse for us. The last mirror I played at an FNM (UW Resto), I spent so much time analyzing how things could play out that we went to time and I just gave the guy the victory. For his part, my opponent just didn't draw any creatures till like turn 12, and my hand was basically turbo-draw. Once I started looking at the matchup as if we were two Standard decks with single-digit ways to win the game and 20+ ways to stop it, I realized that our deck is so poorly positioned for decking (UW runs 4 Ghost Quarters, for example), and our inevitability engine gets hit by every counter (WSZ), that we might technically auto-lose every game 1 if these playersalways played like that, and not just by accident when they're forced to.
You're absolutely wrong about the auto-decking being not in our favor. If they aren't playing discard spells, and try to force a deck-out, we win that fight short of something silly like thoughtscour targeting us and hitting zenith.
If the game goes that long, we have the knockout sequence: 5 combined esper charm/snapcaster mage + zenith in hand. Eot, charm them two or three times, untap and charm them two or three times, then stick zenith for x= 2 or 3.
Easy win from there--they're topdecking and we're topdecking, but we have a very small deck with card draw and a zenith in it, and they're usually drawing to spot removal against kitties.
I've never lost a fair blue-mirror with this deck that went past turn nine or ten. AKA, all of the blue decks since the twin ban. If the game goes that long, the engine has started and we're going to win.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I would like to create an esper deck besides my Mardu Nahiri deck and I wonder why there is no Esper deck with Liliana of the Veil included?
I would like to play her in Esper combined with Esper Charm and Snapcaster.. Are there any experienced players who can give me some advice? I think that the list can not include Cryptic Command because of 2B for Liliana + 2W for Gideon Jura..
Any sorcery speed spell costing more than 1 just interfere with the decks strengths. Having to choose between turning off all your counter magic and draw spells to play lili is just an awkward position to be.
You're absolutely wrong about the auto-decking being not in our favor. If they aren't playing discard spells, and try to force a deck-out, we win that fight short of something silly like thoughtscour targeting us and hitting zenith.
If the game goes that long, we have the knockout sequence: 5 combined esper charm/snapcaster mage + zenith in hand. Eot, charm them two or three times, untap and charm them two or three times, then stick zenith for x= 2 or 3.
Easy win from there--they're topdecking and we're topdecking, but we have a very small deck with card draw and a zenith in it, and they're usually drawing to spot removal against kitties.
I've never lost a fair blue-mirror with this deck that went past turn nine or ten. AKA, all of the blue decks since the twin ban. If the game goes that long, the engine has started and we're going to win.
Yeah, like I said it was the first time I played a match where my opponent did nothing for so long. Nearly ever blue mirror has Lightning Bolt, so the game never plays out like that. If the guy had drawn creatures he would have went for them earlier and if I hadn't drawn all me Esper Charms early I would have went with the obvious play of holding them all for a big turn. I won't claim to have seen it play out many times; it's definitely theory.
You're absolutely wrong about the auto-decking being not in our favor. If they aren't playing discard spells, and try to force a deck-out, we win that fight short of something silly like thoughtscour targeting us and hitting zenith.
If the game goes that long, we have the knockout sequence: 5 combined esper charm/snapcaster mage + zenith in hand. Eot, charm them two or three times, untap and charm them two or three times, then stick zenith for x= 2 or 3.
Easy win from there--they're topdecking and we're topdecking, but we have a very small deck with card draw and a zenith in it, and they're usually drawing to spot removal against kitties.
I've never lost a fair blue-mirror with this deck that went past turn nine or ten. AKA, all of the blue decks since the twin ban. If the game goes that long, the engine has started and we're going to win.
Yeah, like I said it was the first time I played a match where my opponent did nothing for so long. Nearly ever blue mirror has Lightning Bolt, so the game never plays out like that. If the guy had drawn creatures he would have went for them earlier and if I hadn't drawn all me Esper Charms early I would have went with the obvious play of holding them all for a big turn. I won't claim to have seen it play out many times; it's definitely theory.
If you're drawing all the charms early, just fire them off as needed to draw cards--it really only takes 2-3 charms if you also have some spell snares to force through the mind rot modes. If your opponent doesn't draw their creatures until super late, it doesn't matter--at that point, nothing they play is going to effectively trump the tokens from white sun's zenith.
As far as the burn point goes, there's two sides to that question.
One: That's card disadvantage for them, and something we can blank with blessed alliances and revs.
Two: That's the way we can lose those matchups, which is the reason I play two copies of leyline of sanctity in the mainboard. Good opponents will board out their burn spells in this matchup anyway, but it doesn't hurt to keep one or both leylines in anyway.
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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
To clarify, I'm not saying game 1s against URx are a bad matchup; I've won the vast majority of those games, Splinter Twin combos withstanding.
I just haven't seen enough of the oddball scenarios where the game plays out like a Standard control mirror, with no one having any expectation of winning outside of decking or a single trump. I'll have to play out this scenario more times to see how often stacking Esper Charms works out. Which probably won't happen since UW or Esper mirrors basically never happen unless you go to a FNM where one player brings the deck each week. Pretty much not relevant to the deck's performance as a whole.
Now that I think more about that one game, I recall WSZ being third from the bottom, and the reason the game 1 took so long was because I had only 12 or so lands (lost Colonnades and Ghost Quarters earlier trying to stop his Colonnades + Ghost Quarters) and the remaining counterspells were Cryptics. I recall casting Zenith for something like x=2 the first time and if I recall I ended up winning the first game. Round was over in the first few turns of game 2 and I let the guy have it.
I have a friend who plays cruel control more or less exclusively in modern, and have played the esper vs grixis matchup a good deal.
Its "harder" than the burkhart list, but simply put, we win more than they do. Maybe not a lot more, but its definitely in our favor, and I can confidently say that playskill is the deciding factor in the games we've played.
Teferi in wafo's list did a lot of things, winning control mirrors being the first, but certainly not the last. Its relevant against all forms of tempo (twin, delver, etc), burn, infect, and others. I feel that he would not have played the card if twin in particular were not around (hence he did not at gp lille, despite infect likely being (one of?) the most represented decks.
Ashiok and 4 mana sorin are both quite capable of taking over a game when provided proper backup, if you're worried about decks like jund, grixis, or nahiri. They are not spectacular, however. DLO dodges negate/dispel, as well as path, but I firmly believe it does not fit well in this deck. It kind of sucks nephalia drownyard isn't reliable vs tasigurs, lingering souls, or emrakuls.
Batterskull loses to negate, but is strong against removal and dispel.
If you're off white sun's zenith, then patience for decking might matter, but I played WSZ primarily against cruel, which means that route was never on the table for him.
(Our deck is literally a standard deck in the sense that we have single digit wincons (generously, 8 at best) and 20+ ways to stop it. No "as if" about it )
Being able to infinitely loop zenith is huge, IMO. Most "mirror" type matches (basically anything remotely long-game oriented playing wraths and cryptics) don't have more counters/dead cards than we do. They may not have much less, but you should almost never lose a counter war that causes you to lose the game in a decking position. You will likely have a mana advantage at that point in the game, but at worst, you'll likely be about even.
Being able to bait answers with colonnades, then using charms to pull apart the rest of their hand (I am also a firm believer at making people move to discard whenever possible. We have all the time in the world in these situations) while slamming wsz repeatedly can often be enough. WSZ only costs 3 to consistently cast to win (you don't need cats to deck them), but even if you do, just making a couple cats to be sure you can win the counterwar and letting them eat removal is fine.
It really boils down to: don't use counterspells on anything you do not have to. If they resto angels and get value out of them, don't counter it unless it will win/provide more value than the counter is worth.
Being able to wrath away the resto is infintely more worthwhile than knotting it, even if you take a couple of damage, or they draw a card or two out of it.
Sure, wsz gets hit by every counter, but pretty much any control wincon is. Creatures are weak to removal, walkers are weak to negates, everything is weak to hard counters.
Also, we are very capable of winning without decking with zenith. If you suspect they've boarded in a *****-ton of cheap counters (dispels primarily) we can still force through enough cats to win. Game 2-3 especially, where mind rot is a lot stronger, tossing out throw-away revs to bait countermagic, getting into counterwars over silly things (probably losing, just thinning their hand), can be quite reasonable plays to get through the zenith.
That all being said, outside of cruel, I don't have very much experience against control decks that could theoretically be successful at decking us, but honestly, I can't imagine games where we lose in that situation to be easily reproducable by decks like burkhart's control, or basically any nahiri list (though they can't deck with emrakul either, but they still lose to kitty cats.
The scariest part with nahiri control is actually that they can fight us on the inevitability front--even if they can't hardcast emrakul, they can recycle the relevant spells from their deck indefinitely. Eventually if we don't kill them, they will start cheating out emrakul for a quick hit, wiping our lands, and putting the game away (eventually by us not being able to reshuffle with zenith, if not die to emrakul hits and bolts). This is actually a matchup where we DO NOT have infinite inevitability in game one, so it's important to understand how to set up the knockout punch. They can't stop our version of the "killing blow" as it were, but if we don't assemble it or screw it up they can actually just win the game after that point.
Post-board, that's another story entirely, but it's still worth mentioning that jeskai nahiri is a matchup where, due to the unique card interactions, we can actually be legitimately ground out in a blue mirror. I've only had it happen once in testing (when my partner was specifically aware of the potential to do it and was playing towards it), and it's never happened to me in a sanctioned match, but it is possible for them to actually grind past our late game and go over the top.
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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
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Anyone tried Torpor Orb side vs CoCo decks and such? Yeah, i know it's narrow, but I'm looking for alternatives and came across this.
My thinking is that it'll lessen the strain on the counter magic part, since I then can allow stuff to resolve and wipe it away with verdict later without worrying so much.
Too cute? Doable? Any experience on this?
Thanks
What is your 75?
What are you having trouble with vs chord and such?
I've played against more birds of paradise than anything else in modern, and I'd honestly say I only lose when I draw poorly.
Most of their "threats" are simply not threatening.
Finks, voice, and redcap are usually the only real threatening things in the deck for us, though it depends on the build.
R1 Grixis Delver
Both games I get underneath his threats and drown him in card advantage.
R2 Hatebears
G1 I got stuck on 3 lands and a fetch, and wasn't able to get a Leonin arbiter off the table before it had done too much for me to recover.
G2 I was able to wipe the board and stabilize with an Elspeth and finish off the game.
G3 was stupid close, but I stabilized on t4 in turns and we ended up as a draw.
R3 RG Tooth and Nail
Both games I never let him get off the ground, and easily take it 2-0
R4 Infect
G1 I mull to 5, but I'm still able to eek out a win, him scooping to a big Rev.
G2 I drew 4 lands > esper charm and died on t6 to a blighted agent
G3 was fairly close until I managed to secure for 6 and follow up with esper charm > snap + charm his hand (leaving him with 0 cards) > path agent and close the game out with tokens + snaps.
Here's the list for whoever is interested:
http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/271938
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I'd like to start by saying I like how this deck works and all the people putting effort onto it. I only started playing 2 weeks ago, but I am having a difficulty playing against Tron and Eldrazi Tron. I know main board is weak against them, and as for the sideboard we can bring in Stony Silence, Thoughtseize, and maybe Gesit, but it hasn't been successful for me. I know a Grixis control brings in Fulminator Mage and Srugical. Is it worth trying them out or would it be too difficult to cast with no red on our side? I've seen some people run a list with Steam Vents and Crumble to the Dust, but I do not feel it's quick enough nor successful.
I want to keep playing this Esper control deck but with Tron and other Combo decks rising on meta. it feels difficult for me. Any input against those decks I would appreciate it much. Thanks!
Also, Don't ever board out WSZ to bring in elspeth against BGx. That's just lunacy. You switch from a wincon that's dead to just discard early to one that's vulnerable to discard for longer AND loses to maelstrom pulse + lingering souls. Bring elspeth in as an extra win condition, but don't cut what is probably the most difficult single card for BGx to actually answer in the matchup.
No amount of talking to me about your sideboard plans to apply pressure in bad matchups, shift gears into better disruption suites, or actual matchup percentages is going to change this. It's a brew in the same class as a whole other family of modern brews--people play them because they LIKE the deck (lord knows I played UW tap-out from the start of the format until GP boston/Worcester in 2014), but it doesn't mean the decks aren't just a pile. I guarantee that for any set of matchup percentages, there is a build of bgx, burn, or affinity that has a better total. Those decks are perennial mainstays because of their overall performance against the field of modern contenders. An individual with mastery of a bad deck can still win events with it, just like a bad player with a powerful deck can win events. I'm under no illusion that the draw-go deck performs better than the transcendent deck--I think it's likely that the transcendent deck probably IS a better deck in the modern metagame as things currently stand. However, I also don't think it has a fundamental strength to it that will raise the ceiling on what it can do.
As most of us are aware after the printing of fatal push, the draw-go deck really is just one or two fundamental upgrades away from being a real contender for regular tier 2 status, because it attacks on a relatively unique axis in the modern format and the powerlevel of most of its cards is there. You can see that with the number of new players drawn to the deck. I can't say the same thing for the esper transcendent deck, because what it does is not fundamentally unique, and it is much more likely that any such cards it gets are actually just better in UWR or BGx. Trying to play midrange without green or bolt in this format is not competing on the top level. If we get a crazy UB planeswalker that's castable at three mana (or maybe even a UW one with the correct types of abilities) and that might change, but I doubt another planeswalker on the power level of liliana of the veil will see print--she already seems to be the ceiling for that card type in the modern era.
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
Generally, green based tron doesn't play enough threats to really worry us games 2-3. With you extract a karn, then you leave them with wurmcoils, worldbreakers, ugins, and ulamogs, which path to exiles and counterspells clean up nicely, especially with snapcasters to double up those spells.
I think trying to surgical a tron land is alright, but its not really what you want to focus on. If it comes up, and it makes sense, go for it, but don't mull for the "build your own crumble to dust"
Eldrazi tron is pretty similar, but it can be a bit tricky to board against because different people play different threats. The classic matter reshaper, thought knot, smasher trio means that verdict is strong against them.
Some lists play the normal tron karns and ugins and such, which means negate is decent, but unless you're sure they have them, negate is weak against most versions.
IMO, like tron, extracting smasher, or another threat, is pretty good, but its better here because they're more threat dense.
Otherwise, hold your removal if you can ever help it. I'm alright taking 8 points of damage off a thought-knot seer with a path in hand if I can be spending mana to draw tons of cards.
Some people keep chalice in, because it stops our path to exiles, but honestly, I don't think its very strong. Halos, blessed alliances, and wraths all dodge chalice anyways, but its something to be aware of, as you can't always just let ulamogs resolve because you can path one later if you slam a chalice.
Stony is pretty weak against eldrazi tron, imo.
Splashing for crumble isn't the most unreasonable thing, either.
Just a question for everyone, if you were to splash for crumble (and not play ghost quarters) would you consider a loothouse main as the single colorless land? Or is that too greedy (with only 1 red source in the deck) for anyone to seriously consider?
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So I got into modern about a month ago. I initially built Abzan. It felt powerful but it is really not my style of play AND I did not like feeling in so much of a disadvantage vs. tron decks. Two weeks ago, with the surge of fatal push I decided to give Esper a try. I based my list on one that did well in the first 'bigish' tournament post AER (very similar to pizz0wn3d's one but with 2 sb thoughtseize) in terms of wincons and counter numbers. So far I am very happy with the deck, and and mostly fixed in the basic sb spots (runed halo [what a card!..so much flexibility], stony silence,..)
I have been learning how to play many of the common matchups (at least those that show more often on MTGO 2-man queues), but obviously I have a way to go. I have been reading the forum to try and learn about them. Learning how to play different matchups makes a lot of difference.
My question to you guys is, what is the main difference (in terms of meta matchups) between Esper and Jeskai? Clearly Esper Charm is great and the main reason for the black addition. I have been really impressed by it. The Fatal push gives the possibility of running 7 1CC mana removal spells which is IMO just awesome.
On the other hand I have been also exploring other threads. I have been also on the UW thread reading a lot, but without direct experience with the deck seems hard to really understand the details of many situations. They seem to run a couple of more creatures, which give them more tricks and a faster (although possibly more vulnerable) wincons, but it is at heart I think a draw-go deck also. What is in your opinion of the main difference pros/cons between the two decks?
I am sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I really want to get some word of advice from you guys. I am going to GP Brisbane in a couple of weeks and would like to be as prepared as possible and, obviously, pick the more consistent deck. Does any one have experience with both decks and wouldn't mind sharing his opinion? Thanks in advance.
Most of us have actually played Jeskai, and I could write a book about the differences between UWR and Esper. =D I started off on something similar to Shaun Mclaren's PT Born of the Gods list, and played it for a good solid while, but evetually abandoned it for Esper Draw-Go (which I played for a month or two before actually joining the MTGS forum). But I have kept up a little with Jeskai as well as Esper.
The biggest thing I found out is that Jeskai is stronger in a field of aggro decks like Burn/Infect/Affinity and poorer against grindier fair decks like BGx and Grixis Midrange-Control lists. It's got an abundance ofspot removal and lifegain against quick decks, but leans heavily on Snapcaster Mage for card advantage. Some older lists play Sphinx's Rev more heavily and some Ajani Vengeant type threats/wincons, but the main way you win us by establishing a critical mass of burn spells. Newer lists often play Secure the Wastes, which gives the deck more defined wincon, and I suppose you could play a few Think Twice even though it's a little out of character.
On the flip side, Esper is stronger in a field of grindy decks like BGx, Grixis, Abzan Company, etc. It also has a great control matchup due to never needing to deploy a threat and the presence of Esper Charm to whittle down a control opponent's resources. It can easily beat many other decks, especially those weak to hard counters and Supreme Verdict, but it struggles agaist fast, uninteractive linear decks like Burn and Tron.
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.
So 4 Path, 2 Fatal Push 1 blessed alliance has been working great as it fights the aggro fest that plagues modo but is not dead vs the midrange matchups mostly(push is garbage vs grxis control obviously)
2 Spell snare is about the sweet spot I think for the current meta, having them matters in alto of matchups but the matchups where its not as useful there is only 2 not 4 to have less dad draws.
1 WSZ vs 2 Secure is still correct in my eyes, the meta is quickly reaching a midrange plateau in the coming month and its those matchups where sure a quick secure might get you there but the 1 wsz will carry many more wins as the games go longer, allowing a small zenith to allow it to be cycled for later use, also you can hide it away from discard alot easier with out fear of a wasted token stream.
3 Logic knot is still fine with out serum visions due to the addition of fatal push beign another early spell to toss as needed.
SB:
2 Runed halo is still an all-star, basically our lifeline vs man lands out of affinity as well as valakut triggers from scapeshift decks, I have added 2 Leyline of sanctity to the sb as additional help in the matchup that can come in vs grxis and jeskai matchups to aide s against chip shots from bolt snap bolt plays.
I wanted to try out a grave titan over elspeth after being inspired by Cipher's post, and thinking about elspeth it is hit by less hate in the grxis mathcup they usually have less terminates post board and they have less coutners that answer it as negate can't just nab it they need cryptic or leak really. its also still useful vs eldrazi as a house that comes down and cleans up. also provides more pressure so its good vs tron in a pinch.
Esper draw go Control!
Twitch stream: http://www.twitch.tv/pimpdonny
I realize now I may have been running a 'weak' sb, in the sense that I do not have a "robust" symmetry breaker for the control matchup (say an elspeth). I have also been considering running a couple of Ashioks in the sb, but I think they may be to narrow a sb card? I prefer to run sb cards that are flexible (unless the match is so horribly bad that I need a silverbullet to even have a chance).
A couple of cards I have thinkign about:
+ Disallow. What do you guys think? I have been running 2 negate MD and 1 SB, but perhaps one of those could be changed by a disallow? I chance to also combat activated/triggered abilities (cast triggers, Nahiri ultimates, etc.) seems very relevant in certain matchups. Again, IMO flexibility is king. Has anyone tested it? I play it my standard esper deck and it does a lot of work...of course standard is a different environment but..
+ Curse of Death's hold. It is pretty good vs many decks I think. Stops lingering souls, opposing Secure tokens, snap casters, infect, etc. It seems the mana base should be able to sustain it now that lists are increasing the B sources for fatal push. Or is it not worth it in your experience?
Cheers
I'm not convinced you need a mirrorbreaker for control. We should be favored in those games already.
Disallow is alright if you're playing remands, I think, but otherwise, it just doesn't make the cut. You never see dissolve or anything in modern, because three mana on the draw basically misses 90% of the things you want to counter.
Night of souls betrayal is an option if you don't play secure. Its one of those cards that when its good, its great, but when its not, its terrible, and the current meta simply doesn't have enough decks it shines against, for the most part.
On Disallow: Almost certainly unplayable, but a lot of people will play this deck in small, less-competitive metagames so maybe it will work for you. When people are playing the card they should, the way they should, a 3 CMC counterspell that isn't uncounterable is going to be ass in blue mirrors. I used to board out 2x Cryptic against tempo/control hybrids, and that card has a much higher ceiling than something like Disallow. It's really only when you start thinking about clunky, Tier 2-3, spell-based combo decks that these 3 CMC counters get interesting, but why would you dedicate cards to beating those decks when Runed Halo and Negate cover them and so many other matchups?
On Curse of Death's Hold: Was the hotness for a minute. Depending on how popular random green midrange gets it may make a comeback. I know that the Bant Company deck with the 4x Spell Queller is basically unwinnable, so Curse or Night of Souls' Betrayal may be part of a winning sideboard strategy. I think the real question is whether the card is too slow to be relevant against Infect/Affinity, since Elspeth/Baneslayer/whatever is better in more of the Midrange matchups.
On Control Mirrors: I mostly run cards like Elspeth for the GBx and Eldrazi matchups. Jund in particular is very easily able to cheese you out of "going off", if they do things like Thoughtseize your Esper Charms and Revelations. Since the core engine gets broken up so easily, I like actually boarding in threats that can run away with the game.
I do think this deck does need something to break symmetry in blue mirrors. Wafo originally had Teferi, and although none of these decks have anything on Twin, it doesn't change the fact that post-board most blue decks have a pile of cards like Dispel/Negate that can interact easily with Esper Charm and especially Revelation. I'm trying Grave Titan out, but also looking for another creature to add, hopefully one that's 4 or 5 CMC and can punish these decks for going all-in on turn 4 or 5 to either chump-check you with a planeswalker or fight over Ancestral on their upkeep. It burned losing to Nahiri decks that ripped 3 Nahiris and just keep jamming them with Snare/Dispel backup...
Something that can beat Dispel/Negate, while also ignoring Path would be ideal. Teferi may still be the best choice, but it's not worth anything in other matchups.
I've been thinking lately that a deck like Corey Burkhart's should crush Esper Draw-Go in the mirror, not that I've ever played against his version. Taking out the Jace's makes things much better for them. If the Grixis pilot's played the matchup from our side, they know that we can get into trouble in mirrors (game 1) if the other player doesn't give us any opportunity to trade resources with them. Esper Charm is pretty useless, for example, when you have 7 cards in hand, already. Use it on them, and they pitch a few removal spells. The old Gerry Thompson-style Grixis decks played the Jace/Thoughtseize package and by definition played into our strategy, but Burkhart's specific list has more ways to win than we do (4x Snapcaster, 3x Tasigur, 2x Creeping Tarpit, 3x Kolaghan's Command), and gets to Rev for x=3 for just one mana...They even can Thought Scour us to accelerate the mill plan, have a 12% higher spell density, and retain the CounterBurn gameplan that UWR used to have in mirrors. It would be interesting to play that matchup against a skilled Grixis pilot.
To be perfectly honest, I'm almost certain that if more people had the patience for decking game 1 in mirrors, things would be much worse for us. The last mirror I played at an FNM (UW Resto), I spent so much time analyzing how things could play out that we went to time and I just gave the guy the victory. For his part, my opponent just didn't draw any creatures till like turn 12, and my hand was basically turbo-draw. Once I started looking at the matchup as if we were two Standard decks with single-digit ways to win the game and 20+ ways to stop it, I realized that our deck is so poorly positioned for decking (UW runs 4 Ghost Quarters, for example), and our inevitability engine gets hit by every counter (WSZ), that we might technically auto-lose every game 1 if these playersalways played like that, and not just by accident when they're forced to.
If the game goes that long, we have the knockout sequence: 5 combined esper charm/snapcaster mage + zenith in hand. Eot, charm them two or three times, untap and charm them two or three times, then stick zenith for x= 2 or 3.
Easy win from there--they're topdecking and we're topdecking, but we have a very small deck with card draw and a zenith in it, and they're usually drawing to spot removal against kitties.
I've never lost a fair blue-mirror with this deck that went past turn nine or ten. AKA, all of the blue decks since the twin ban. If the game goes that long, the engine has started and we're going to win.
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
Any sorcery speed spell costing more than 1 just interfere with the decks strengths. Having to choose between turning off all your counter magic and draw spells to play lili is just an awkward position to be.
Yeah, like I said it was the first time I played a match where my opponent did nothing for so long. Nearly ever blue mirror has Lightning Bolt, so the game never plays out like that. If the guy had drawn creatures he would have went for them earlier and if I hadn't drawn all me Esper Charms early I would have went with the obvious play of holding them all for a big turn. I won't claim to have seen it play out many times; it's definitely theory.
If you're drawing all the charms early, just fire them off as needed to draw cards--it really only takes 2-3 charms if you also have some spell snares to force through the mind rot modes. If your opponent doesn't draw their creatures until super late, it doesn't matter--at that point, nothing they play is going to effectively trump the tokens from white sun's zenith.
As far as the burn point goes, there's two sides to that question.
One: That's card disadvantage for them, and something we can blank with blessed alliances and revs.
Two: That's the way we can lose those matchups, which is the reason I play two copies of leyline of sanctity in the mainboard. Good opponents will board out their burn spells in this matchup anyway, but it doesn't hurt to keep one or both leylines in anyway.
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 just haven't seen enough of the oddball scenarios where the game plays out like a Standard control mirror, with no one having any expectation of winning outside of decking or a single trump. I'll have to play out this scenario more times to see how often stacking Esper Charms works out. Which probably won't happen since UW or Esper mirrors basically never happen unless you go to a FNM where one player brings the deck each week. Pretty much not relevant to the deck's performance as a whole.
Now that I think more about that one game, I recall WSZ being third from the bottom, and the reason the game 1 took so long was because I had only 12 or so lands (lost Colonnades and Ghost Quarters earlier trying to stop his Colonnades + Ghost Quarters) and the remaining counterspells were Cryptics. I recall casting Zenith for something like x=2 the first time and if I recall I ended up winning the first game. Round was over in the first few turns of game 2 and I let the guy have it.
Its "harder" than the burkhart list, but simply put, we win more than they do. Maybe not a lot more, but its definitely in our favor, and I can confidently say that playskill is the deciding factor in the games we've played.
Teferi in wafo's list did a lot of things, winning control mirrors being the first, but certainly not the last. Its relevant against all forms of tempo (twin, delver, etc), burn, infect, and others. I feel that he would not have played the card if twin in particular were not around (hence he did not at gp lille, despite infect likely being (one of?) the most represented decks.
Ashiok and 4 mana sorin are both quite capable of taking over a game when provided proper backup, if you're worried about decks like jund, grixis, or nahiri. They are not spectacular, however. DLO dodges negate/dispel, as well as path, but I firmly believe it does not fit well in this deck. It kind of sucks nephalia drownyard isn't reliable vs tasigurs, lingering souls, or emrakuls.
Batterskull loses to negate, but is strong against removal and dispel.
If you're off white sun's zenith, then patience for decking might matter, but I played WSZ primarily against cruel, which means that route was never on the table for him.
(Our deck is literally a standard deck in the sense that we have single digit wincons (generously, 8 at best) and 20+ ways to stop it. No "as if" about it
Being able to infinitely loop zenith is huge, IMO. Most "mirror" type matches (basically anything remotely long-game oriented playing wraths and cryptics) don't have more counters/dead cards than we do. They may not have much less, but you should almost never lose a counter war that causes you to lose the game in a decking position. You will likely have a mana advantage at that point in the game, but at worst, you'll likely be about even.
Being able to bait answers with colonnades, then using charms to pull apart the rest of their hand (I am also a firm believer at making people move to discard whenever possible. We have all the time in the world in these situations) while slamming wsz repeatedly can often be enough. WSZ only costs 3 to consistently cast to win (you don't need cats to deck them), but even if you do, just making a couple cats to be sure you can win the counterwar and letting them eat removal is fine.
It really boils down to: don't use counterspells on anything you do not have to. If they resto angels and get value out of them, don't counter it unless it will win/provide more value than the counter is worth.
Being able to wrath away the resto is infintely more worthwhile than knotting it, even if you take a couple of damage, or they draw a card or two out of it.
Sure, wsz gets hit by every counter, but pretty much any control wincon is. Creatures are weak to removal, walkers are weak to negates, everything is weak to hard counters.
Also, we are very capable of winning without decking with zenith. If you suspect they've boarded in a *****-ton of cheap counters (dispels primarily) we can still force through enough cats to win. Game 2-3 especially, where mind rot is a lot stronger, tossing out throw-away revs to bait countermagic, getting into counterwars over silly things (probably losing, just thinning their hand), can be quite reasonable plays to get through the zenith.
That all being said, outside of cruel, I don't have very much experience against control decks that could theoretically be successful at decking us, but honestly, I can't imagine games where we lose in that situation to be easily reproducable by decks like burkhart's control, or basically any nahiri list (though they can't deck with emrakul either, but they still lose to kitty cats.
Post-board, that's another story entirely, but it's still worth mentioning that jeskai nahiri is a matchup where, due to the unique card interactions, we can actually be legitimately ground out in a blue mirror. I've only had it happen once in testing (when my partner was specifically aware of the potential to do it and was playing towards it), and it's never happened to me in a sanctioned match, but it is possible for them to actually grind past our late game and go over the top.
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