I'm making an Esper control deck to take along to a small house tournament with a few mates. It's only semi-comparative with beer and good times :). They will be playing Angel/Knights, Goblin Aggro and Elf/Green Ramp. A few of the others usually run enhanced challenger decks.
The rest is really just counter, card draw and creature destruction. I put in Oblivion Ring which gives me some creature removal as well as something i can use against enchantments or artifacts.
So if you have any tips it would be greatly appreciated
Is your goal to be standard only, or can you use older cards? What are the rules for the tournament?
Because if you can run older cards grabbing brainstorm, terminus, ponder/preordain, counterspell, and swords to plowshares/oust/path to exile would help a lot. You ron't need black for much here, UW curving counters into teferi is plenty to win.
Mortify instead of Murder would be great; easier to cast and has enchantment hate, so way better. In addition, if you are willing to buy some cheap cards, the original Counterspell is as good as it gets. Also, Oath of Teferi just doesn't do much, even with 5 planeswalkers. 5 mana can get you an actual Teferi or Eldest Reborn, which is better by a lot. On the more fun side, the Mirari Conjecture is a great value enchantment.
Usually, my ideal balance when playing control is something like this:
- 4 to 8 counters
- 4 to 6 spot removals
- 2 or less mass removals
- No more than 4 wincons (Chromium and Teferi)
Rest should be draw power, a couple creatures with good ETB effects and, of course, lands. Before I proceed with my advice therefore ask: do you have the card pool to put together something with this kind of ratio? I'm sorry to say, but you're just not running enough artifacts for Tezzeret and Karn to be relevant: Chromium (flash him in, and then you've got a difficult to remove 7/7 flying threat to attack with) and Teferi (draws cards, untaps lands, acts as emergency removal: this guy can do literally everything a control deck needs) should be your wincons, but again, don't run more than 4 in total between the two, or you'll risk getting your hand clogged with cards with too high a cost to actually cast.
Teferi is a perfectly good answer to planeswalkers.
Manlands are performant too. But the ones in your colour are a little expensive (Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit)
How do you feel about using signets (Dimir Signet, Azorius Signet) for fixing and playing more lands that come into play tapped?
Maybe also replace some sorceries with instants?
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Mortify instead of Murder would be great; easier to cast and has enchantment hate, so way better. In addition, if you are willing to buy some cheap cards, the original Counterspell is as good as it gets. Also, Oath of Teferi just doesn't do much, even with 5 planeswalkers. 5 mana can get you an actual Teferi or Eldest Reborn, which is better by a lot. On the more fun side, the Mirari Conjecture is a great value enchantment.
Usually, my ideal balance when playing control is something like this:
- 4 to 8 counters
- 4 to 6 spot removals
- 2 or less mass removals
- No more than 4 wincons (Chromium and Teferi)
Rest should be draw power, a couple creatures with good ETB effects and, of course, lands. Before I proceed with my advice therefore ask: do you have the card pool to put together something with this kind of ratio? I'm sorry to say, but you're just not running enough artifacts for Tezzeret and Karn to be relevant: Chromium (flash him in, and then you've got a difficult to remove 7/7 flying threat to attack with) and Teferi (draws cards, untaps lands, acts as emergency removal: this guy can do literally everything a control deck needs) should be your wincons, but again, don't run more than 4 in total between the two, or you'll risk getting your hand clogged with cards with too high a cost to actually cast.
Teferi is a perfectly good answer to planeswalkers.
Manlands are performant too. But the ones in your colour are a little expensive (Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit)
How do you feel about using signets (Dimir Signet, Azorius Signet) for fixing and playing more lands that come into play tapped?
Maybe also replace some sorceries with instants?
I'm missing a lot of the good land cards, but I'll consider buying some if this decks plays OK. I'd like to get a decent control deck.
I tried to use the skeleton @zdtsd mentioned above. I didn't really find many creatures with great ETB effects, so i went with 4x Exclusion mage.
@quilt I have a few Signets, but struggled to make room for them. The mandlands would be great. I have most of those in my Cube, but only 1 of's and the Cube doesn't get touched :).
Anyhow, this is the next iteration. Sorry for the late reply.
I personally would remove the guildgates and max out the Briefings (if it is at all possible for you to do so; of course), because 22 lands should be enough for a deck like this. Alternatively, upon cutting to 22 lands you could increase Briefing to 2, and then run a couple guild signets (Dimir Signet for example) to help accelerate your mana. That aside, I like your latest build
I personally would remove the guildgates and max out the Briefings (if it is at all possible for you to do so; of course), because 22 lands should be enough for a deck like this. Alternatively, upon cutting to 22 lands you could increase Briefing to 2, and then run a couple guild signets (Dimir Signet for example) to help accelerate your mana. That aside, I like your latest build
I'll have a look at getting some more Briefings, they are pretty cheap. I only have the 1 at the moment.
At the moment I have 1x Dimir Signet and 7x Dimir Lockets. The lockets might be an OK tradeoff i guess. Or one of each I suppose.
I'll give this deck a whirl on the weekend. I really do appreciate your help.
Think nothing of it, and do let us know how it goes. Honestly, your current deck is quite good in general, not just for kitchen table casual, when it comes to spells: unfortunately the land base is very much a non-optimized one, and so you will still incur the risk of cloggy hands... But within the confines of kitchen table casual that shouldn't be too much of a problem, or at least I hope so.
Think nothing of it, and do let us know how it goes. Honestly, your current deck is quite good in general, not just for kitchen table casual, when it comes to spells: unfortunately the land base is very much a non-optimized one, and so you will still incur the risk of cloggy hands... But within the confines of kitchen table casual that shouldn't be too much of a problem, or at least I hope so.
I'm going to test it tonight (30 min). Will be fun.
If it works out well I'm going to buy a better land base for it. What would you consider a good land base?
I see a few new lands have come out in the latest set.
I'll have to have a look at it after the games tonight. I guess I'd need to look at more shock lands and lands that aren't dependent on having a standard land in play to come in untapped.
It went well. Won all my games, but dropped one against a very aggressive Sliver deck who got a really good start. He ended up getting 2 Descendants' Path and I really just ran out of answers as he was playing 2/3 creatures per turn. But still beat him in the other 2 games.
It was good fun to be honest. None of us really play control, so it mixed it up a bit.
I'm making an Esper control deck to take along to a small house tournament with a few mates. It's only semi-comparative with beer and good times :). They will be playing Angel/Knights, Goblin Aggro and Elf/Green Ramp. A few of the others usually run enhanced challenger decks.
I figured I'd go with a control deck as I'm keen to play with Chromium, the mutable and a few of my mythic planeswalkers I packed recently (Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Karn, Scion of Urza). So they are obviously the Win conditions in the deck.
The rest is really just counter, card draw and creature destruction. I put in Oblivion Ring which gives me some creature removal as well as something i can use against enchantments or artifacts.
So if you have any tips it would be greatly appreciated
Edit: Made a few changes, taking out Oblivion Ring (SideBoard) and putting in Murder, The Eldest Reborn and Urza's Ruinous Blast
Although I'm not sure. I don't really have any answers to planeswalkers at the moment.
4 Chromium, the Mutable
Enchantment
2 The Eldest Reborn
1 Oath of Teferi
Land
1 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Watery Grave
2 Plains
4 Island
3 Swamp
3 Dimir Guildgate
2 Settle the Wreckage
4 Syncopate
3 Murder
4 Sinister Sabotage
Sorcery
2 Urza's Ruinous Blast
4 Thought Erasure
2 Notion Rain
2 Ritual of Soot
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
Because if you can run older cards grabbing brainstorm, terminus, ponder/preordain, counterspell, and swords to plowshares/oust/path to exile would help a lot. You ron't need black for much here, UW curving counters into teferi is plenty to win.
I have 4x Ponder and 4x Sword to plowshears which I can swap in.maybe remove murder for Plowshares and Notion Rain for Ponder.
I'll have to have a look at my older cards and see what I have.
Deal with it.
- 4 to 8 counters
- 4 to 6 spot removals
- 2 or less mass removals
- No more than 4 wincons (Chromium and Teferi)
Rest should be draw power, a couple creatures with good ETB effects and, of course, lands. Before I proceed with my advice therefore ask: do you have the card pool to put together something with this kind of ratio? I'm sorry to say, but you're just not running enough artifacts for Tezzeret and Karn to be relevant: Chromium (flash him in, and then you've got a difficult to remove 7/7 flying threat to attack with) and Teferi (draws cards, untaps lands, acts as emergency removal: this guy can do literally everything a control deck needs) should be your wincons, but again, don't run more than 4 in total between the two, or you'll risk getting your hand clogged with cards with too high a cost to actually cast.
Manlands are performant too. But the ones in your colour are a little expensive (Celestial Colonnade, Creeping Tar Pit)
How do you feel about using signets (Dimir Signet, Azorius Signet) for fixing and playing more lands that come into play tapped?
Maybe also replace some sorceries with instants?
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Good points.
I went ahead and changed the deck using that cards I already have: https://deckbox.org/sets/2163799
I'm missing a lot of the good land cards, but I'll consider buying some if this decks plays OK. I'd like to get a decent control deck.
I tried to use the skeleton @zdtsd mentioned above. I didn't really find many creatures with great ETB effects, so i went with 4x Exclusion mage.
@quilt I have a few Signets, but struggled to make room for them. The mandlands would be great. I have most of those in my Cube, but only 1 of's and the Cube doesn't get touched :).
Anyhow, this is the next iteration. Sorry for the late reply.
4 Exclusion Mage
2 Chromium, the Mutable
Instant (17)
1 Mission Briefing
4 Counterspell
4 Opt
4 Sinister Sabotage
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fumigate
4 Thought Erasure
4 Ponder
Planeswalker (2)
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Land (25)
5 Island
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Plains
4 Watery Grave
3 Dimir Guildgate
1 Drowned Catacomb
I'll have a look at getting some more Briefings, they are pretty cheap. I only have the 1 at the moment.
At the moment I have 1x Dimir Signet and 7x Dimir Lockets. The lockets might be an OK tradeoff i guess. Or one of each I suppose.
I'll give this deck a whirl on the weekend. I really do appreciate your help.
I'm going to test it tonight (30 min). Will be fun.
If it works out well I'm going to buy a better land base for it. What would you consider a good land base?
I see a few new lands have come out in the latest set.
I'll have to have a look at it after the games tonight. I guess I'd need to look at more shock lands and lands that aren't dependent on having a standard land in play to come in untapped.
It was good fun to be honest. None of us really play control, so it mixed it up a bit.