The changes would be to drop all creatures and Karn, Scion of Urza. And replace them with three to four each of Kaya, Orzhov Usurper and Gideon Blackblade as the finishers. Gideon would be nothing more than a 4/4 indestructible beater.
I do love the new cards and possibilities for BW Control, but I don't know if you could rely solely on those 2 as finishers. Gideon Blackblade would seem to be better in an aggro-type or midrange deck that had other creatures; standing alone, he doesn't protect himself against opposing creatures attacking him and any random exile effect would get rid of him.
First-time poster in this thread, as I am coming around to the Burn-side, and I'm probably bringing Burn to the SCG in Dallas (really Fort Worth) this weekend.
I saw an article today by Todd Stevens on SCG where he noted a couple of burn decks adding Bedlam Reveler (and Manamorphose). One was Josh Utter-Leyton's deck from the MODO World Championship, which has already been addressed here. The other was a more interesting take from a 5-0 list on MODO which had the Revelers in the SB:
I guess you would only bring in the Revelers where they would be more appropriate, such as the many matchups where Searing Blaze would be dead. Giving up Skullcrack in the deck may or may not be worth it. Thoughts?
Hi guys. Sorry for the late response. My current list is below. So far the mana base has worked very well. I made top 8 this weekend again (also made a couple of 4-1's in competitive mtgo leagues)..but then lost to UW approach (that won the tournament) on the quarter final =( It came down to game 3, I needed one mana to counter twice and play the second sun... (had duressed him the previous turn) but.. the land I drew came in tapped =(
After this weekend have been thinking of shuffling some numbers in the MD. Basically -2 doomfall + 1 settle the wreckage from the sb + 1 gideon, and then add another Gideon in the sb.
On the matchups:
vs sultai/temur energy decks..we are heavily favored. vary your threats g2/g3 if they are into the lost legacy plan.
vs UB (the MD doomfalls actually do a lot of work there) is good game 1, but game 2 one has to sb carefully depending on whether they are running the creature package or not.
ss Ramunap.. game 1 is in their favor. G2 and G3 are very draw dependent but if the sb comes out we are good. Sadly I think the matchup is overall in their favor (say 60-40).
vs UW approach: game 1 is in their favor as they run (more) Gideons typically. Should be in our favor because of the discard. Obviously (as this weekend) it does not always work..but on average it does
Anyway, hope this helps..any critique/comment is more than welcome!
Cheers
Thanks for your post, airgaps, I have been trying out Esper Approach for a few weeks and like the feel of it. My list is very similar to your revised list (I run 26 lands and 3 Opts -- I tried out an extra land and no Opts, but I found that I was running into more land problems that the extra 2 cards didn't offset).
I see you have switched to Angel of Sanctions instead of Torrential Gearhulk; how is that coming? Also, I am trying out Sunscourge Champion instead of Authority of the Consuls, and I have liked it so far because of the immediate lifegain, the fact that it is a better draw late, and that I can actually side it in in more matchups than monored. I also have been playing a River's Rebuke in the SB because of the tokens decks online, and I may try to fit in a second one.
I have been following this discussion for some time, as I have felt that UW Approach was a decent option before rotation and Esper Approach potentially a very good deck for the first few weeks after rotation, with many people trying out new versions of aggro and midrange decks, Pirates and Dinosaurs, that Approach should prey upon. Black looked like the best splash, and I have come up with the following deck:
I'm pretty satisfied with the overall deck. I like having all 4 Approaches in the main, having 7 sweepers main, and I like the Gideon -- actually, I would like to have a second, but there's nothing I want to take out. 3 Evolving Wilds is the only way to set up revolt for the Fatal Pushes, and I prefer them to Aether Hubs, particularly since I removed all Aether Meltdowns.
Does anyone have any good plans about sideboarding in general against Temur and 4-color Energy? Obviously, the Solemnity would come in, probably for the maindeck Authority of the Consuls. Since they will be bringing in countermagic - Negates and Spell Pierces - should I try to bring in creatures, or my own Negates and Duresses?
I'm planning to take the deck to SCG Dallas (Ft. Worth), so any suggestions would be appreciated!
You can find a text spoiler as well as pictures pulled from Mythic Spoiler on my GitHub repo here: https://github.com/ajriddle/Magic-Files. A few notes about the files:
-Aftermath cards are named like Struggle/Survive in the spoiler and like StruggleSurvive.full.jpg in the pics folder. The card types and mana costs are written the same way as the names in the spoiler.
-The text on the aftermath cards are formatted like
"Return target creature card with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. ---Aftermath #(Cast this spell only from your graveyard. Then exile it.)# Target creature gets +2/+0 and gains haste until end of turn."
-The Rarity, Artist, and Flavor Text fields are missing (or blank)
-The Card # field does not match the actual card number from the set, it's just the order the cards were in on the Cockatrice xml spoiler.
-There is only one of each basic in the spoiler and the pics (the full art).
-Some of the text in the spoiler runs together where there should be a new line. I tried to fix some of it, but no guarantees. You won't notice it as much if you use the pics.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Enjoy.
Very nicely done, for both the text spoiler and the pictures. They imported into MWS without a hitch, and the split cards can be easily viewed! Thank you very much!!
What's your thoughts on this deck?
To me it's a pretty standard list although i'm stil unsure to play Elspeth only in the SB, i would rather play 2 Chandra and 1 Elspeth main.
- L
I am running the deck this weekend at the SCG in Dallas/Ft Worth. I have made the switch to Elpseth in the main, I like it. Also, I have replaced one of the Lightning Helix in the main with a Journey to Nowhere, which should help out in your expected matchups. Lastly, I have added a 2nd copy of Crumble to Dust, replacing the Boil. I do like Boil, but maybe not for this weekend.
Lately, with my build of Esper, Saheeli is a cakewalk, BG is draw dependent, but on paper, should be easy, and Mardu is draw dependent. I just went to 4 Fatal Push main, but I'm having a lot of consistency issues. I'm on 2 Anticipate right now, after trying 0 Jim Davis style and compromising to 2. I also went down to 26 MD land with Blighted Fen (VERY good so far) in the SB to mitigate flooding. I seem to lose from running out of gas and not having enough removal mid game. Unsure of what to do next. I think I will try Dynavolt Tower as repeatable removal since I have no energy uses besides my 2 Aether Hub.
I have had much the same results as you with my build of Esper. I won my Game Day, going 3-1-1 in the Swiss and beating BG aggro, GW, and RW Vehicles in the elimination rounds (I had lost to the RW Vehicles deck in the Swiss). I think control will continue to have consistency issues with the present metagame (drawing the wrong half of the deck at the wrong time) and no big "I win" spells like Sphinx's Revelation. I do like the idea of a Blighted Fen in the SB, and I may try that against non-Vehicles decks.
I hope you have better results that I did with Dynavolt Tower. I was disappointed with it -- it just didn't seem to have as powerful an effect as it does in Jeskai or UR Control, since Harnessed Lightning is an additional energy benefit/generator that Esper and UB don't have.
Here is a patch I made from the cocatrice XML file. I tried to fix any typos I saw and added % cards to the mana costs and stuff, but no guarantees. The energy symbol is also just represented with 'E' and I didn't bother with the rarity, artist, or flavor text fields.
One question guys, I have been playing against a lot of decks and Im feeling confortable with the deck. But at the moment, I didnt faced burn.
How is the match? How would you sideboard?
I ve been cutting both wraths, both chandras, and banishig light and a blood moon for 3 leyline, 2 blessed and 1 anger. Is that correct?
Im playing todd stevens decklist
I'm playing Todd Stevens' list as well, and I would cut another Blood Moon and keep 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance in -- you really really do not want to draw a 2nd Moon, and even the first Moon sometimes does absolutely nothing.
I played a Mardu Control deck (actually more of a BR splash W) at SCG Regionals in Plano, TX. I finished in 12th place, losing in the last round to fall out of the Top 8.
R1: WR Vehicles, won 2-0
R2: Esper Control, won 2-0
R3: UW Spirits, won 2-0
R4: GB Delirium, won 2-0
R5: GB Delirium, lost 0-2
R6: UW Spirits, won 2-0
R7: UB Zombies, won 2-1
R8: GB Delirium, lost 0-2
Yes, the deck is 61 cards. I originally had 26 lands, but the night before I was getting mana screwed so I just added another land. The mana base held up very well until the last match, when I mulliganed to 5 in G1 but still almost won the game (G2 was not close).
I do not think anyone needs to worry about having duplicate planeswalkers in hand -- they are magnets for removal and attacks by the opponent, and if any of them stay around for longer than a few turns you are getting so far ahead on card advantage that it doesn't matter if you have extra copies in hand.
I loved the deck, but I will certainly need to determine a better plan for the GB Delirium matchup. I was expecting more aggro and stacked the maindeck in that fashion, but those dead cards never really posed much of a problem except in the mid-rangy Delirium matches.
BW Control needs to adjust to a changing climate. With the flavors of Green decks on the top tables everywhere, we might want to start maindecking Kalitas and Linvala, giving up the traditional advantage of being creatureless in the main, but essentially pre-boarding against 4-C Rites, WG Tokens, and Bant Coco. It's not really a change of deck or strategy, just a realignment of resources. I'm going to try this out and see if that helps -- if not, then the deck might need to be reworked.
I don't know. We are running a couple of sexy new cards from the latest set (Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Westvale Abbey), we have a GP win with Seth Mansfield's build, and the deck is Tier 1 and solid. Maybe grindy, removal heavy, creature-light or creatureless control decks don't have the same level of prestige as other decks.
I'm thinking about dropping from 4 to 2 Wasteland Stranglers in my deck. The synergy with exile removal is great, and I have more exile removal than Stranglers, but there's enough variance that I have had games getting even a couple Stranglers in my hand and no cards in my opponent's exile.
I'm also considering adding 2 Oath of Gideon. Has anyone tested this card extensively enough to know whether it works or doesn't? I have a total of 8 planeswalker cards in the deck, so the loyalty bonus is going to come up often. The T3 Oath -> T4 Gideon dream is something that should happen often enough since I play 4 Gideon. The loyalty boost to Sorin is also huge because of how his -9 is almost always game winning (also allows his -X to hit bigger stuff without killing himself).
I tested Oath of Gideon a little, but not extensively. I found that a sorcery speed "make 2 guys" for 3 mana was bad, and the extra buff to the planeswalkers was not enough to cut other cards in the deck for it. Occasionally it would work out great, but more times I wanted literally any other card in the deck when I drew it.
I do love the new cards and possibilities for BW Control, but I don't know if you could rely solely on those 2 as finishers. Gideon Blackblade would seem to be better in an aggro-type or midrange deck that had other creatures; standing alone, he doesn't protect himself against opposing creatures attacking him and any random exile effect would get rid of him.
Jonathan Job played this to an 11th place finish at the Dallas SCG Open last month:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dismember
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Eternal Scourge
3 Gemstone Caverns
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Matter Reshaper
2 Mutavault
4 Reality Smasher
2 Scavenger Grounds
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Serum Powder
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Smuggler's Copter
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Wastes
2 Gut Shot
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Surgical Extraction
This might be what he means.
I saw an article today by Todd Stevens on SCG where he noted a couple of burn decks adding Bedlam Reveler (and Manamorphose). One was Josh Utter-Leyton's deck from the MODO World Championship, which has already been addressed here. The other was a more interesting take from a 5-0 list on MODO which had the Revelers in the SB:
3 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Stomping Ground
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Inspiring Vantage
4 Arid Mesa
Creatures
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Boros Charm
4 Searing Blaze
4 Lightning Helix
3 Manamorphose
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Destructive Revelry
1 Searing Blood
2 Path to Exile
1 Kor Firewalker
3 Bedlam Reveler
3 Relic of Progenitus
I guess you would only bring in the Revelers where they would be more appropriate, such as the many matchups where Searing Blaze would be dead. Giving up Skullcrack in the deck may or may not be worth it. Thoughts?
Thanks for your post, airgaps, I have been trying out Esper Approach for a few weeks and like the feel of it. My list is very similar to your revised list (I run 26 lands and 3 Opts -- I tried out an extra land and no Opts, but I found that I was running into more land problems that the extra 2 cards didn't offset).
I see you have switched to Angel of Sanctions instead of Torrential Gearhulk; how is that coming? Also, I am trying out Sunscourge Champion instead of Authority of the Consuls, and I have liked it so far because of the immediate lifegain, the fact that it is a better draw late, and that I can actually side it in in more matchups than monored. I also have been playing a River's Rebuke in the SB because of the tokens decks online, and I may try to fit in a second one.
2 Fetid Pools
4 Glacial Fortress
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 Concealed Courtyard
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Opt
2 Authority of the Consuls
4 Censor
3 Supreme Will
4 Glimmer of Genius
4 Cast Out
4 Fatal Push
4 Fumigate
3 Settle the Wreckage
1 Gideon of the Trials
4 Approach of the Second Sun
3 Regal Caracal
1 Search for Azcanta
2 Torrential Gearhulk
1 The Scarab God
2 Negate
2 Duress
2 Solemnity
I'm pretty satisfied with the overall deck. I like having all 4 Approaches in the main, having 7 sweepers main, and I like the Gideon -- actually, I would like to have a second, but there's nothing I want to take out. 3 Evolving Wilds is the only way to set up revolt for the Fatal Pushes, and I prefer them to Aether Hubs, particularly since I removed all Aether Meltdowns.
Does anyone have any good plans about sideboarding in general against Temur and 4-color Energy? Obviously, the Solemnity would come in, probably for the maindeck Authority of the Consuls. Since they will be bringing in countermagic - Negates and Spell Pierces - should I try to bring in creatures, or my own Negates and Duresses?
I'm planning to take the deck to SCG Dallas (Ft. Worth), so any suggestions would be appreciated!
Very nicely done, for both the text spoiler and the pictures. They imported into MWS without a hitch, and the split cards can be easily viewed! Thank you very much!!
I am running the deck this weekend at the SCG in Dallas/Ft Worth. I have made the switch to Elpseth in the main, I like it. Also, I have replaced one of the Lightning Helix in the main with a Journey to Nowhere, which should help out in your expected matchups. Lastly, I have added a 2nd copy of Crumble to Dust, replacing the Boil. I do like Boil, but maybe not for this weekend.
I have had much the same results as you with my build of Esper. I won my Game Day, going 3-1-1 in the Swiss and beating BG aggro, GW, and RW Vehicles in the elimination rounds (I had lost to the RW Vehicles deck in the Swiss). I think control will continue to have consistency issues with the present metagame (drawing the wrong half of the deck at the wrong time) and no big "I win" spells like Sphinx's Revelation. I do like the idea of a Blighted Fen in the SB, and I may try that against non-Vehicles decks.
I hope you have better results that I did with Dynavolt Tower. I was disappointed with it -- it just didn't seem to have as powerful an effect as it does in Jeskai or UR Control, since Harnessed Lightning is an additional energy benefit/generator that Esper and UB don't have.
Thanks very much!!
I'm playing Todd Stevens' list as well, and I would cut another Blood Moon and keep 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance in -- you really really do not want to draw a 2nd Moon, and even the first Moon sometimes does absolutely nothing.
The deck:
4 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Shambling Vent
2 Needle Spires
3 Smoldering Marsh
2 Foreboding Ruins
2 Inspiring Vantage
2 Concealed Courtyard
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Aether Hub
Creatures
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Linvala, the Preserver
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
4 Grasp of Darkness
2 Harnessed Lightning
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Anguished Unmaking
3 Radiant Flames
2 Transgress the Mind
2 Live Fast
2 Oath of Liliana
3 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Deadlock Trap
1 Radiant Flames
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Noxious Gearhulk
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
2 Lost Legacy
1 Fragmentize
2 Descend upon the Sinful
1 Painful Truths
1 Essence Extraction
R1: WR Vehicles, won 2-0
R2: Esper Control, won 2-0
R3: UW Spirits, won 2-0
R4: GB Delirium, won 2-0
R5: GB Delirium, lost 0-2
R6: UW Spirits, won 2-0
R7: UB Zombies, won 2-1
R8: GB Delirium, lost 0-2
Yes, the deck is 61 cards. I originally had 26 lands, but the night before I was getting mana screwed so I just added another land. The mana base held up very well until the last match, when I mulliganed to 5 in G1 but still almost won the game (G2 was not close).
I do not think anyone needs to worry about having duplicate planeswalkers in hand -- they are magnets for removal and attacks by the opponent, and if any of them stay around for longer than a few turns you are getting so far ahead on card advantage that it doesn't matter if you have extra copies in hand.
I loved the deck, but I will certainly need to determine a better plan for the GB Delirium matchup. I was expecting more aggro and stacked the maindeck in that fashion, but those dead cards never really posed much of a problem except in the mid-rangy Delirium matches.
I don't know. We are running a couple of sexy new cards from the latest set (Sorin, Grim Nemesis and Westvale Abbey), we have a GP win with Seth Mansfield's build, and the deck is Tier 1 and solid. Maybe grindy, removal heavy, creature-light or creatureless control decks don't have the same level of prestige as other decks.
I tested Oath of Gideon a little, but not extensively. I found that a sorcery speed "make 2 guys" for 3 mana was bad, and the extra buff to the planeswalkers was not enough to cut other cards in the deck for it. Occasionally it would work out great, but more times I wanted literally any other card in the deck when I drew it.