Yea, I think esper has plenty of bad matchups.
One of the strengths of most control decks, especially white control decks, is that you can beat anything if you really want to, you just can't be everything. I can play 4 rest in peace, 4 extractions, 4 bsa, and 3 lyra and probably never lose to dredge. I will lose to plenty of other decks though.
Another important note: just because a matchup is improved doesn't mean its unloseable, or even positive. Going from 30>40% is nice, but still a bad matchup.
But assuming equal player skill, and equal matchup skill, assuming esper is playing terminus, and esper has a reasonably broad sideboard,
I think burn is around even, I think spirits is a bad matchup, I think ad nauseum is a bad matchup, turns is bad, I think titanshift is medium (if you have halos/leylines its fine, if you don't its negative), blue tron is slightly unfavorable, bridgevine is probably bad? I haven't played esper against it enough to know how likely we beat their medium hands (as we obviously lose to their god hands and crush their garbo hands). Lantern is potentially unfavorable as well (depending on sideboard) and the UR prison deck is real bad. UR wizards is also unfavorable. Ponza is unfavorable. Dredge is bad. 8 whack is not great.
And as I've always complained about, even our good matchups are still very loseable. We don't consistently crush very much.
Otherwise, I think tron is better with charm + seize + extraction over 2-3 field of ruins. You can believe whatever you want, but I'm something like 50-3 against tron in matches the past 18months/2years with esper. I'm probably a lot closer to 70% with UW.
Spirits is, in my opinion, horrible for UW, and only slightly better for esper. Fatal push is pretty nice here, and esper charm to make them discard can be quite strong against vial. Still a bad matchup, but not as bad as UW.
UW has a somewhat better mana base, but it also plays 5 colorless lands to our 2. That doesn't help color requirements much. And its not like esper is all that heavy on black. Its pretty much just a splash. Its a little more painful (though I'm usually on ~6 fetches in UW), but not that much. I don't tend to shock myself much.
Dealing an extra point or two to cast that fatal push on a mantis rider instead of ousting it tends to even out.
And sure, oust is better vs hollow one. Push isn't strictly better, but push is better in 80 or 90% of matchups. If push were white, all UW decks would be playing it over oust/condemn.
My example of shadow, or martyr, or plenty of other decks like that is that you can't claim this deck is just terrible because no one plays it. Was jund shadow unplayable garbage the week before it put a million copies into top8s? Of course not, it just wasn't recognized.
Is this deck that good? Probably not, but perception on power level frequently does not correspond to reality.
Anyways.
Esper does play logic knot, and has for years. I'm currently playing terminus, I know some other people are as well.
However, I don't think control decks have to be able to cheat on mana. While cheating on mana can be powerful, I don't think its required. Jund and twin were consistently modern powerhouses that did not cheat on mana. Many fair decks don't. Even burn doesn't. Sure, plenty of decks do, especially in current day modern, I don't believe its required.
Otherwise, esper has frequently played cards like think twice to keep up on mana efficiency. You can spend a majority of your mana every turn, sometimes casting highly impactful, interactive spells, sometimes not, but still getting ahead, atleast a little bit, every turn, every draw, every land drop.
I don't think radical idea is particularly playable. Some sort of baby jace + lotv + brutality + goryos deck could exist (I played a version a few months back), but honestly, I don't think the deck is particularly strong, and I don't think radical idea changes much.
Depends on what your exact list is.
U tron used to be quite bad for basically all control decks before jace/teferi got printed, but I think the matchup is pretty reasonable with experience + a plan.
Anyways.
Esper does play logic knot, and has for years. I'm currently playing terminus, I know some other people are as well.
However, I don't think control decks have to be able to cheat on mana. While cheating on mana can be powerful, I don't think its required. Jund and twin were consistently modern powerhouses that did not cheat on mana. Many fair decks don't. Even burn doesn't. Sure, plenty of decks do, especially in current day modern, I don't believe its required.
Otherwise, esper has frequently played cards like think twice to keep up on mana efficiency. You can spend a majority of your mana every turn, sometimes casting highly impactful, interactive spells, sometimes not, but still getting ahead, atleast a little bit, every turn, every draw, every land drop.
I don't think radical idea is particularly playable. Some sort of baby jace + lotv + brutality + goryos deck could exist (I played a version a few months back), but honestly, I don't think the deck is particularly strong, and I don't think radical idea changes much.
For Jund, Twin, and Burn, they do cheat on mana, just not in the way that is obvious.
Jund does it by playing the most overpowered cards they can for the lowest cost. It looks "fair", and is often called that, but really it's built to run a strict curve of 1cmc discard into 2cmc threats that take over the game into 3- and 4-cmc cards that help seal the deal. Jund was best when it still had access to a card that obviously helped it cheat on mana: Deathrite Shaman.
Twin also cheated on mana, in not-always-obvious ways. The obvious way was being able to have infinite creatures for a proportionally low cost, but there's more to it. All who played during that time should be familiar with having a land tapped down during our end step. While this doesn't decrease the mana that they need to use, it does increase our land requirements for combating the deck. It, in itself, is a virtual form of cheating on mana. The threat of the combo also made it so that many decks just couldn't play the game, always holding up mana in case of the combo. Again, this forced delay in tempo was a round-about way for Twin to "cheat" on mana.
Burn "cheats" in the same way that Jund does, but using the whole "Theory of Fire". It uses the most low-cost-to-high-damage-ratio cards that it can. Jund does the same, but the support cards that don't actually do direct damage are there to make it so that the cards that do deal damage can deal the most they can for the mana invested in casting them.
The success of each deck in the meta is determined by how well each deck can "cheat" on mana relative to all other decks in the meta. If other decks are suddenly able to cheat on mana more efficiently for effects to achieve a desirable gamestate, then the other decks will perform better. To me, a good measure for this is by looking at Jund and Burn meta shares compared to other decks, as they are the "most fair" at cheating on mana (in my humble opinion).
As far as the term "fair", though, I think that it's often used improperly - Any deck that is looking to play fair is looking to lose. Fair is not competitive. Jund and Burn are not fair, they're illusions of fair relative to other decks. It's all relative. Tarmogoyf isn't fair compared to Grizzly Bears. A competitive deck has to be built to be as unfair as possible relative to every other competitive deck in the meta.
Thus, how do we (Esper) play unfair? Can we play even more unfair, or are the cards required for doing so just not printed yet?
I did almost mention the "tarmogoyf cheats on mana by being a mistake" though I did not.
In some respect, we do too in playing path to exile or snapcaster mage. Could argue that cards like verdict or spell snare (that trade up on mana) function similarly.
That all being said, I don't think the whole "roundabout ways of cheating on mana" is all that relevant. Sure, its nice when a deck is able to do so, but I do not believe that it fundamentally defines how good a deck is in the format.
Thats not what fair means, though. A 20/20 for 1 is fair. Its busted, but its fair. Fair isn't about powerlevel, its about playing by the rules of the game.
There are a few "unfair" type cards we could play that we do not (ancestral visions, disrupting shoal, tasigur, gifts/rites, pacts + gideon/angel's grace) but we don't play these cards because they aren't good, and having a streamlined deck is worth a lot more.
Let me preface this comment with the fact that I've been playing predominantly UW Control/Miracles for the past year or more, and generally think it's a better meta choice. Just for clarity.
So Tron is improving with Charm instead of three Field/Quarter - heh.
Charm lets you empty Tron's hand once you begin to stabilize (or if they stumble), thus attacking their threat density (one of their 2 vital resources: the Tron lands themselves, and their threats). Cutting Field/GQ for a different type of resource denial could still be good against them. Though, I will concede that ECharm is easily played around by holding up Stars/Spheres/Relics, which happens to me quite often when playing Esper.
Spirits is improving because you’re casting a useless cc3 istant spell that doesn’t impact the board - heh.
It's better than playing your sorcery-speed card advantage at the mercy of your opponent. Casting your spells when you want to is better than doing so when your opponent wants you to, especially your tempo opponent (which spirits often is against Esper).
Manabase is comparable between UW and ‘I need UWB by turn 3’ deck - heh.
Well, the extra removal you get in black and relatively cheap card draw to find it likely save you as much life as you take from your lands anyways. So it probably is a wash. I'm not convinced on this issue though.
Humans improves because ‘who cares about the self-damage, we’re casting black spells’ - heh.
Killing Meddling Mage at instant speed definitely improves the humans matchup. Ousting one can't let you cast that Miracled Terminus, for example. (If you're playing them.)
Against Hollow One and Dredge Oust isn’t better than Push - heh.
Yet Push is more useful against Dark Confidant, manlands, and other threats. Each card has its place.
Again, I typically play UW more often than Esper these days, but you shouldn't pretend that other people don't have real arguements.
Esper is dead, the majority of players on this thread are playing UW and longingly dreaming of playing draw-go. Rabbit is 100% correct, there is no reason to splash currently.
That doesn't mean we should stop the discussion, it just means we need to explore other options because draw-go is a style that many control players like to play.
On that note, and the reason i came over here before I got sidetracked reading the last couple pages was to see if anyone has been playing mission briefing? I know that before the days of the good walkers a lot of you esper guys were on White Sun's Zenith. Well, mission briefing and Zenith can let you be creatureless draw-go again. I doubt it's good enough to be highly competitive, but it certainly fills that itch to be completely draw-go again. One of the issues was always losing Zenith to a discard spell, well, briefing let's you shuffle it back.
Thats kind of a silly thing to say. Who knows how many people are still playing esper, but you can't just assume that everyone's switched without real evidence.
I intend to try out briefing once grn drops, though I'm inclined to think that its not good enough. The body on snapcaster is quite relevant, where as the digging on briefing is inherently worth less in the older lists.
I will say that I think true draw-go is dead for the time being simply because jace/teferi/azcanta are far more powerful than any possible alternatives.
Its too difficult to get away with playing 4 think twice and 2 revs in your deck when real alternatives exist now.
That being said, I think esper as a color combination is still good.
Jeskai miracles is a reasonable alternative to regular miracles, and esper miracles is in the same boat. You get more removal, you get charm, you get sideboard options. You're still playing the UW miracle base, but you have additional tools to assist you in unfavorable/even matchups.
Lots of drama in the 667 pages of this thread (especially lately). Can we get the focus on matchup analysis, card discussion, mana base building, sideboarding tips and tricks, etc. ? I don't think that splashing for black is particularly good right now, draw-go being dead to SfA, Jace, Teferi, etc. However, I'm still enjoying Esper and it's my pet deck at the moment. I'm really having a blast and going 2-2 or 3-1 is what's happening. It's not the best, but it's not tier 7 either.
I can say whatever I want, since it seems like thats what you're doing.
Most UW decks only play 1 extra spot removal spell beyond path, where as we play 2, and push is a lot better than oust or condemn, no matter what you say.
I can say that B is better against the metagame, since field is only medium against a majority of the field. Its good in a couple matchups, but charm is literally relevant in 100% of matchups.
Sure, you can think mana base is an issue. I don't. I almost never have mana base issues, and I don't usually take more than 1 or 2 points of damage over straight UW.
The problem with thing in the ice is that its terrible. Theres no real point to playing it in esper. If you want large threats, you have plenty to choose from, tasigur being foremost. If you're playing much more proactively, you don't need to have a 7 power creature to clock combo when you also have counters and discard, you're much better off with a consistent threat, even if its smaller.
Bouncing other creatures is alright, but bounce isn't super strong vs most of the format, and we don't have too many of our own creatures to bounce for value that are actually worth playing.
The deck you posted has no results though, so its just a worse version of blue moon. I wish you'd stop fanboying over decks like this when its just worse than established options
If you really want to play esper, you shouldn't just play a color shifted copy of a different deck, you should explore something new.
You've managed to fit in 0 copies of field of ruin, so I assume you've tanked your tron matchup as well as your valakut matchup.
Your humans matchup is also probably terrible since you're 3 colors, and hollow one is probably just a forgone conclusion since you're playing fatal push over oust.
Oh wait thats a terrible argument isn't it.
I wonder where I got it from......
Well, its good to see that you ignore your own arguments too, not just mine.
Good to see that push is better than oust when you're the one playing push, but not better when I'm the one playing it.
But I'll move on. But please don't insist that you have all the answers and that the rest of us are just ignorant fanboys. As I said before, innovation in this game always happens with unpopular ideas and small numbers of people trying things.
Its possible your esper thing deck is good. Who knows, no one is playing it, but obviously pointing to the fact that its untested and that its just a different version of an established deck is useless criticism.
Unfortunately, this subforum has definitely seen better days. I dislike that discord has taken so much traffic away from sites like this one, or the source. Not sure if theres any way to prevent a slow death, though.
Jeez, I came to view this thread for some sideboarding tips; not to be told "just go play miracles". If I wanted to play something I know will win in my local meta, I'd just play Burn. I play Esper because it's fun.
Jeez, I came to view this thread for some sideboarding tips; not to be told "just go play miracles". If I wanted to play something I know will win in my local meta, I'd just play Burn. I play Esper because it's fun.
Well for sideboarding, it depends what you are looking for, I have a pretty straight forward sideboard plan mostly. What matchups you have?
You could, but its not that good. Both pieces are still sorcery speed, and you have to find both or they're both useless. They're also weak to basically every sideboard card in the format.
Theres worse you could play, but theres better too.
Thopter sword is generally better in a more dedicated artifact deck.
chemister's insight is probably not modern playable. I'm sure people will try, but without discard synergy I can't see it being better than hiero or glimmer. citywide bust is similar to slaughter the strong, in that I think both are fringe playable, though haven't see any play. Both are likely to shine in jeskai geist/queller type builds though, not control decks. dawn of hope I've started to play this in martyr proc, early testing suggests its ok, but again, not a card I see making it in traditional control. discovery//dispersal is probably too weak on both sides to make it. Some people were talking about the front side, but a 2 mana cantrip is much worse than it seems, especially at sorcery speed. Mission briefing is not something I've played with enough to give much of a verdict on, but its yet to impress me, and I'd be surprised if this is actually better than snapcaster. Mnemonic betrayal is cute, but it doesn't seem worth the sideboard space, as its not really good against very many decks. radical idea see chemister's insight. ritual of soot consume the meek has basically only seen play in decks with teachings, so this seems like a bust. Like citywide bust, if a more midrangey deck can turn this into plague wind, this could see play, but it wants you to play 4 drops, and itself is a 4 drop. Black has delve creatures, which is a plus, but it has shadow too, which doesn't work so well. thought erasure kind of the same as discovery, discard is a lot worse at 2 mana sorcery speed. This does take everything, and we're not super interested in turn 1 thoughtseize anyways, but I doubt this makes the cut either way. unmoored ego This is easily the most playable in the set. I'm not sure if I actually like it better than seize + extraction, but it does use less sideboard space, which is appealing.
I don't think I missed anything thats realistically playable in this deck. Other cards from the set are modern playable, if they can find homes.
Unmoored Ego is the only card I can see making it to the sideboard. I will test it, it could take a spot or two to roll over strategies like Tron, Ad Nauseam, Scapeshift, Amulet Titan, etc. It's a good card. Mission Briefing isn't bad, but Snapcaster is better in my opinion.
Admittedly, Thought Erasure still takes anything without loss of life, so it might be okay, but I honestly don't have high hopes. I think most would play Inquisition of Kozilek instead, even if it's a little worse against Tron for example, and that's assuming you want to play discard at all. I think mainboard you'd probably want Inquisition, but Thoughtseize is the best sideboard discard spell.
With that said, it's not like Castigate ever saw play, so...
One of the strengths of most control decks, especially white control decks, is that you can beat anything if you really want to, you just can't be everything. I can play 4 rest in peace, 4 extractions, 4 bsa, and 3 lyra and probably never lose to dredge. I will lose to plenty of other decks though.
Another important note: just because a matchup is improved doesn't mean its unloseable, or even positive. Going from 30>40% is nice, but still a bad matchup.
But assuming equal player skill, and equal matchup skill, assuming esper is playing terminus, and esper has a reasonably broad sideboard,
I think burn is around even, I think spirits is a bad matchup, I think ad nauseum is a bad matchup, turns is bad, I think titanshift is medium (if you have halos/leylines its fine, if you don't its negative), blue tron is slightly unfavorable, bridgevine is probably bad? I haven't played esper against it enough to know how likely we beat their medium hands (as we obviously lose to their god hands and crush their garbo hands). Lantern is potentially unfavorable as well (depending on sideboard) and the UR prison deck is real bad. UR wizards is also unfavorable. Ponza is unfavorable. Dredge is bad. 8 whack is not great.
And as I've always complained about, even our good matchups are still very loseable. We don't consistently crush very much.
Otherwise, I think tron is better with charm + seize + extraction over 2-3 field of ruins. You can believe whatever you want, but I'm something like 50-3 against tron in matches the past 18months/2years with esper. I'm probably a lot closer to 70% with UW.
Spirits is, in my opinion, horrible for UW, and only slightly better for esper. Fatal push is pretty nice here, and esper charm to make them discard can be quite strong against vial. Still a bad matchup, but not as bad as UW.
UW has a somewhat better mana base, but it also plays 5 colorless lands to our 2. That doesn't help color requirements much. And its not like esper is all that heavy on black. Its pretty much just a splash. Its a little more painful (though I'm usually on ~6 fetches in UW), but not that much. I don't tend to shock myself much.
Dealing an extra point or two to cast that fatal push on a mantis rider instead of ousting it tends to even out.
And sure, oust is better vs hollow one. Push isn't strictly better, but push is better in 80 or 90% of matchups. If push were white, all UW decks would be playing it over oust/condemn.
My example of shadow, or martyr, or plenty of other decks like that is that you can't claim this deck is just terrible because no one plays it. Was jund shadow unplayable garbage the week before it put a million copies into top8s? Of course not, it just wasn't recognized.
Is this deck that good? Probably not, but perception on power level frequently does not correspond to reality.
Anyways.
Esper does play logic knot, and has for years. I'm currently playing terminus, I know some other people are as well.
However, I don't think control decks have to be able to cheat on mana. While cheating on mana can be powerful, I don't think its required. Jund and twin were consistently modern powerhouses that did not cheat on mana. Many fair decks don't. Even burn doesn't. Sure, plenty of decks do, especially in current day modern, I don't believe its required.
Otherwise, esper has frequently played cards like think twice to keep up on mana efficiency. You can spend a majority of your mana every turn, sometimes casting highly impactful, interactive spells, sometimes not, but still getting ahead, atleast a little bit, every turn, every draw, every land drop.
I don't think radical idea is particularly playable. Some sort of baby jace + lotv + brutality + goryos deck could exist (I played a version a few months back), but honestly, I don't think the deck is particularly strong, and I don't think radical idea changes much.
U tron used to be quite bad for basically all control decks before jace/teferi got printed, but I think the matchup is pretty reasonable with experience + a plan.
For Jund, Twin, and Burn, they do cheat on mana, just not in the way that is obvious.
Jund does it by playing the most overpowered cards they can for the lowest cost. It looks "fair", and is often called that, but really it's built to run a strict curve of 1cmc discard into 2cmc threats that take over the game into 3- and 4-cmc cards that help seal the deal. Jund was best when it still had access to a card that obviously helped it cheat on mana: Deathrite Shaman.
Twin also cheated on mana, in not-always-obvious ways. The obvious way was being able to have infinite creatures for a proportionally low cost, but there's more to it. All who played during that time should be familiar with having a land tapped down during our end step. While this doesn't decrease the mana that they need to use, it does increase our land requirements for combating the deck. It, in itself, is a virtual form of cheating on mana. The threat of the combo also made it so that many decks just couldn't play the game, always holding up mana in case of the combo. Again, this forced delay in tempo was a round-about way for Twin to "cheat" on mana.
Burn "cheats" in the same way that Jund does, but using the whole "Theory of Fire". It uses the most low-cost-to-high-damage-ratio cards that it can. Jund does the same, but the support cards that don't actually do direct damage are there to make it so that the cards that do deal damage can deal the most they can for the mana invested in casting them.
The success of each deck in the meta is determined by how well each deck can "cheat" on mana relative to all other decks in the meta. If other decks are suddenly able to cheat on mana more efficiently for effects to achieve a desirable gamestate, then the other decks will perform better. To me, a good measure for this is by looking at Jund and Burn meta shares compared to other decks, as they are the "most fair" at cheating on mana (in my humble opinion).
As far as the term "fair", though, I think that it's often used improperly - Any deck that is looking to play fair is looking to lose. Fair is not competitive. Jund and Burn are not fair, they're illusions of fair relative to other decks. It's all relative. Tarmogoyf isn't fair compared to Grizzly Bears. A competitive deck has to be built to be as unfair as possible relative to every other competitive deck in the meta.
Thus, how do we (Esper) play unfair? Can we play even more unfair, or are the cards required for doing so just not printed yet?
Lantern Control
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In some respect, we do too in playing path to exile or snapcaster mage. Could argue that cards like verdict or spell snare (that trade up on mana) function similarly.
That all being said, I don't think the whole "roundabout ways of cheating on mana" is all that relevant. Sure, its nice when a deck is able to do so, but I do not believe that it fundamentally defines how good a deck is in the format.
Thats not what fair means, though. A 20/20 for 1 is fair. Its busted, but its fair. Fair isn't about powerlevel, its about playing by the rules of the game.
There are a few "unfair" type cards we could play that we do not (ancestral visions, disrupting shoal, tasigur, gifts/rites, pacts + gideon/angel's grace) but we don't play these cards because they aren't good, and having a streamlined deck is worth a lot more.
Charm lets you empty Tron's hand once you begin to stabilize (or if they stumble), thus attacking their threat density (one of their 2 vital resources: the Tron lands themselves, and their threats). Cutting Field/GQ for a different type of resource denial could still be good against them. Though, I will concede that ECharm is easily played around by holding up Stars/Spheres/Relics, which happens to me quite often when playing Esper.
It's better than playing your sorcery-speed card advantage at the mercy of your opponent. Casting your spells when you want to is better than doing so when your opponent wants you to, especially your tempo opponent (which spirits often is against Esper).
Well, the extra removal you get in black and relatively cheap card draw to find it likely save you as much life as you take from your lands anyways. So it probably is a wash. I'm not convinced on this issue though.
Killing Meddling Mage at instant speed definitely improves the humans matchup. Ousting one can't let you cast that Miracled Terminus, for example. (If you're playing them.)
Yet Push is more useful against Dark Confidant, manlands, and other threats. Each card has its place.
Again, I typically play UW more often than Esper these days, but you shouldn't pretend that other people don't have real arguements.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
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That doesn't mean we should stop the discussion, it just means we need to explore other options because draw-go is a style that many control players like to play.
On that note, and the reason i came over here before I got sidetracked reading the last couple pages was to see if anyone has been playing mission briefing? I know that before the days of the good walkers a lot of you esper guys were on White Sun's Zenith. Well, mission briefing and Zenith can let you be creatureless draw-go again. I doubt it's good enough to be highly competitive, but it certainly fills that itch to be completely draw-go again. One of the issues was always losing Zenith to a discard spell, well, briefing let's you shuffle it back.
I intend to try out briefing once grn drops, though I'm inclined to think that its not good enough. The body on snapcaster is quite relevant, where as the digging on briefing is inherently worth less in the older lists.
I will say that I think true draw-go is dead for the time being simply because jace/teferi/azcanta are far more powerful than any possible alternatives.
Its too difficult to get away with playing 4 think twice and 2 revs in your deck when real alternatives exist now.
That being said, I think esper as a color combination is still good.
Jeskai miracles is a reasonable alternative to regular miracles, and esper miracles is in the same boat. You get more removal, you get charm, you get sideboard options. You're still playing the UW miracle base, but you have additional tools to assist you in unfavorable/even matchups.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Most UW decks only play 1 extra spot removal spell beyond path, where as we play 2, and push is a lot better than oust or condemn, no matter what you say.
I can say that B is better against the metagame, since field is only medium against a majority of the field. Its good in a couple matchups, but charm is literally relevant in 100% of matchups.
Sure, you can think mana base is an issue. I don't. I almost never have mana base issues, and I don't usually take more than 1 or 2 points of damage over straight UW.
The problem with thing in the ice is that its terrible. Theres no real point to playing it in esper. If you want large threats, you have plenty to choose from, tasigur being foremost. If you're playing much more proactively, you don't need to have a 7 power creature to clock combo when you also have counters and discard, you're much better off with a consistent threat, even if its smaller.
Bouncing other creatures is alright, but bounce isn't super strong vs most of the format, and we don't have too many of our own creatures to bounce for value that are actually worth playing.
The deck you posted has no results though, so its just a worse version of blue moon. I wish you'd stop fanboying over decks like this when its just worse than established options
If you really want to play esper, you shouldn't just play a color shifted copy of a different deck, you should explore something new.
You've managed to fit in 0 copies of field of ruin, so I assume you've tanked your tron matchup as well as your valakut matchup.
Your humans matchup is also probably terrible since you're 3 colors, and hollow one is probably just a forgone conclusion since you're playing fatal push over oust.
Oh wait thats a terrible argument isn't it.
I wonder where I got it from......
This subforum is quickly becoming useless.
Good to see that push is better than oust when you're the one playing push, but not better when I'm the one playing it.
But I'll move on. But please don't insist that you have all the answers and that the rest of us are just ignorant fanboys. As I said before, innovation in this game always happens with unpopular ideas and small numbers of people trying things.
Its possible your esper thing deck is good. Who knows, no one is playing it, but obviously pointing to the fact that its untested and that its just a different version of an established deck is useless criticism.
Unfortunately, this subforum has definitely seen better days. I dislike that discord has taken so much traffic away from sites like this one, or the source. Not sure if theres any way to prevent a slow death, though.
Well for sideboarding, it depends what you are looking for, I have a pretty straight forward sideboard plan mostly. What matchups you have?
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Theres worse you could play, but theres better too.
Thopter sword is generally better in a more dedicated artifact deck.
chemister's insight is probably not modern playable. I'm sure people will try, but without discard synergy I can't see it being better than hiero or glimmer.
citywide bust is similar to slaughter the strong, in that I think both are fringe playable, though haven't see any play. Both are likely to shine in jeskai geist/queller type builds though, not control decks.
dawn of hope I've started to play this in martyr proc, early testing suggests its ok, but again, not a card I see making it in traditional control.
discovery//dispersal is probably too weak on both sides to make it. Some people were talking about the front side, but a 2 mana cantrip is much worse than it seems, especially at sorcery speed.
Mission briefing is not something I've played with enough to give much of a verdict on, but its yet to impress me, and I'd be surprised if this is actually better than snapcaster.
Mnemonic betrayal is cute, but it doesn't seem worth the sideboard space, as its not really good against very many decks.
radical idea see chemister's insight.
ritual of soot consume the meek has basically only seen play in decks with teachings, so this seems like a bust. Like citywide bust, if a more midrangey deck can turn this into plague wind, this could see play, but it wants you to play 4 drops, and itself is a 4 drop. Black has delve creatures, which is a plus, but it has shadow too, which doesn't work so well.
thought erasure kind of the same as discovery, discard is a lot worse at 2 mana sorcery speed. This does take everything, and we're not super interested in turn 1 thoughtseize anyways, but I doubt this makes the cut either way.
unmoored ego This is easily the most playable in the set. I'm not sure if I actually like it better than seize + extraction, but it does use less sideboard space, which is appealing.
I don't think I missed anything thats realistically playable in this deck. Other cards from the set are modern playable, if they can find homes.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
With that said, it's not like Castigate ever saw play, so...
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.