MTG Salvation

I run Phyrexian Processor in my Trostani deck. Can easily gain 100+ life per turn with it if you pay enough life and have enough populate on the board. Worth a look...

Hey everybody! Been forever since I posted here; I wanted to share a list for some constructive feedback. This is my first attempt at an Esper EDH deck. I built it after getting my ass handed to me in multiplayer too many times with some of my other decks, so I would like this to be able to hold its own in a 3 to 4 player game, while also being able to keep up in 1 vs 1 duels... List:



My play group tends to love the enchantments a fair bit, hence the extra enchantment removal... I'm feeling it's a bit short on the artifact removal though? Also, some of the cards are strictly meta-dependent (Invulnerability for Uril etc), but I'm open to suggestions on any cards that are strictly better etc...

Thoughts??

@Ginolard: Looters are definitely a card that's geared more towards the long game. If you'd rather focus on aggro, then maybe look at building more towards running a ramp package for your finishers instead.

Well, Ginolard, it looks like you're almost running the same list as me... Can I offer a piece of advice though? Just go all out and add two more Sun Titan's in place of two of your Adepts. You know you wanna.... And it makes the deck so much more consistent!

Killing Looters early really isn't a bad idea against this deck, honestly, as they can fix hands like crazy and flat out win games if they go unchecked... But yes, it's satisfying to know that your Titan is probably safe etc.

Ruinators are just a very good threat overall... The fact that you may not be tempted to cast them in favor of growing your Splinterfrights doesn't even matter that much... It's fun to just give your opponents somehing to sweat over haha.

Quote from Ginolard

Interesting, I also was considering Swiftfoot Boots for the Cagebreakers and Splinterfrights. How are they working out? And Ambush Viper or Phantasmal Bears...tough choice. The Viper is a really nice "Hey! Surprise!!" card, tempting. I love the Looter but not sold in it so far in this deck, I think I'll stick with the Dream Twists in the main deck for now.

I think my manabase may need some work but I agree that basic lands work better than duals in this deck.

Scrappy - Given that you are, like me, splashing white why not have some Nevermores in the SB?

Yeah, talked about this a bit previously. Boots are very good in this build, as you can recur them with Sun Titan if you mill them (it's actually almost preferable that way as your opponents can't O Ring them ahead of time)... So definitely solid. They make Cagebreakers an out of nowhere win con too.

I had Nevermore and Probes in my board initially, and wound up cutting them since I didn't like running things that I might mill into my yard that weren't creatures and didn't have flashback... they're the kinds of cards that you want to play early, so relying on Sun Titan'ing them back into play isn't really the best route to go.

If it weren't for Sun Titan being in the deck, I would seriously consider cutting the two Ruinators for something else, but as it stands, getting a Ruinator back for free is the stone cold stone colds - that an and even casting an early game Ruinator with Boots it out is kinda redonk haha.

Oh, and Ambush Viper over Bears, no question about it. Removal trumps fragile 2/2 for 1 any old day of the week.

As for the Looters.... you have to remember one of their most important functions.... they DRAW YOU A CARD haha! Seriously, don't underestimate that. Even if it's pulling you through lands off the top, that's effectively putting yourself waaaaaay ahead and saving your ass by improving your draws. Huge advantage there. Dream Twist as a 2-of in the main is solid tho, for sure... not sure if I'd run more than that.

Another reason why drawing cards instead of milling cards is relevant: Against control decks running counters, they effectively either have to counter or remove the creature you cast from your hand, and THEN deal with you reanimating it... where as if you mill, they just have to counter the reanimation spell. Big difference there, one generates far more card advantage for you than the other. So Looters (and card draw, in general) is better than just straight mill effects.

Alright, so here's my original list (mana base is jank):



There was a few problems I had with this deck... it lost to Flyers, essentially. Wurm was garbage (no evasion = very hard to race with when it can just be chumped until it's removed). Mana Leak was useless when milled... Splinterfright wasn't nearly as good when nine times out of ten you'd be happier casting a Ruinator from your yard as a proper finisher etc.

So I took a look at adding a third color... Sun Titan seems really good, flashback cost on Rites seems super good... after a bunch of tweaking, I wound up with this list:



Sideboard is a bit of a mess and is being changed a lot as I try out new ideas...

So at first glance it might seem that I'm running too few land, but with a full 4 BoP, Mulch, and Looter, I don't often have issues at all with hitting land drops (if anything, I'm looting away land off the top)... also, with looters and mill in here, most times my 5 and up drops aren't sitting in my hand, they're in my yard being reanimated...

It runs pretty smooth... I originally ran more duals, but found I really needed more basics so that I didn't need to worry about the manabase being too slow. I'm happy with where it's at, now it's just a matter of tweaking the finishers to my liking and adjusting the curve post-board as I see fit.

@IRranger: Okay, so on average, how many uses per game do you typically ge out of the Drownyard??

@Chazbal: Honestly, if you're looking at a list similar to what I'm running (which I'll get to posting once I'm at a proper computer instead of on my phone), it's essentially a Bant build with a black splash for hardcasting 4 Unburial Rites and (in my case) a singleton Grimgrin, Corpse-Born or (in other cases) activating Drownyards. So if you think of it as essentially 3 colors, it's really not tha bad (especially since one of the colors is green for Birds/Mulch). Throwing in Looter effects allows you to bypass the black mana source issue completely by using flashback costs for Rites.

...Care to share your list...?

I'm a tad busy at the moment, but I will post my original built with my thoughts on it and then my follow up build (which you can see a few pages back) and then my current build (which is pretty similar)...

It's interesting to note that the Innistrad event decks were posted, and one of them looks to be quite similar to what we're trying to do here heh. ;-)

Maybe cut the main deck down to 15 dredge specific cards (or as close as possible), and do a transformational sideboard....?

Gnaw to the Bone has already been mentioned in my sideboard a few pages back as being good against RDW. I'm not sold on Vengeful Pharoah, as it's too reliant on Looter abilities if you draw it (since triple black is hard to get to typically).

I haven't tested Solemn Simulacrum yet, but on paper it seems less than ideal in Sun Titan lists... why? It costs 4 mana to ramp you one land, and then can't be recurred via Sun Titan... at 4 mana or above, I'm of the opinion that the creatures need to be finishers in order to justify them being milled into your graveyard. As an example, if creature land ramp was something a person wanted, I would look into something like Viridian Emissary.

The 2 drop wurm is just bad. While your opponent is chumping your Wurm all day, he's also able to swing back at you... who do you think is going to win that race, especially with our lack of removal? If you really need an extra creature like that, try running a copy or two of Wreath of Giests... it provides the same effect to any of your creatures (including Birds.......!) and is recurrable via Sun Titan. Somebody else had mentioned they were running this aura in their lists previously, although I don't think there was Sun Titan in the deck ...

I honestly think Sun Titan + Unburial Rites is the glue that makes this deck truly viable. Using that as a base, I would think that non-finisher creatures should cost 3 or less so they can be recurred with the Titan, and virtually every non-permanent card should have flashback in order to be useful from the graveyard post-mill. Notable exceptions would be Mulch if you're in green, since it really is just far too useful to not include.

If you're in Red, absolutely run Grim Lavamancer... this thing is the nuts and was pretty much made for this type of deck!

Those are my thoughts on this stuff... I'm still refining my list as I go. I'll post an updated version or two shortly.

So Armored Skaab is good in the deck... Running it as a two of. Also added in a singleton copy of Grimgrin, Corpse-Born... He's redonk here, especially with an active Sun Titan... Solves the targeted removal issue as well, while feeding Splinterfright.

Edit: So having managed to land both Grimgrin and Sun Titan in a few games now, it occurred to me that there's probably a viable Esper build floating around in these cards... Sacrificing Armored Skaab to Grimgrin and then recurring it with Sun Titan and milling myself another 4 cards is kinda sorta really good! In fact, if I were to swap or even add some copies of Aether Adept, that could become a pretty solid control build... Might be planning another variant here.

Funny, I actually had someone play a Grimiore against me at FNM this last Friday... He spent three turns discarding stuff to it and then I killed him before he got to untapped with it. So... Pretty good, I guess...

Oh, I completely agree about Dream Twist being awesome in this deck. Even just having turn one milling options with a decent hand is good... the question in my mind is whether or not it's worth losing the speed and low cost of Dream Twist for a bit more defense with Armored Skaab... because I really don't know what else to cut. 4 Mulch seems key to smoothing out draws with our manabase... still thinking it through. Going to be playing some games this evening, so I'll have lots of time to try out new stuff.