Alright, here's the standard-issue Esper Control thread for the format moving forward.
I had two goals with the deck when I created the list:
1) See if the mana can support a full-on three color deck. *
2) Be completely devoid of creatures to blank most removal spells and make Azcanta as powerful as it could be. **
*I really wanted to try pushing the shard mana as hard as I could with the full set of each check land, but I didn't want to have infinite tapped lands in the deck so I only include six of the possible eight cycling lands. So far, it's worked out mostly well. I haven't had issues with lands coming into play tapped at inopportune times, but a single game I played today did find me short a black source until about turn seven or eight. Fortunately I had enough other stuff going on that it didn't particularly matter, but it's something to note.
**No creatures has been awesome. Unlike most blue control decks from the last couple formats, you aren't constantly pushing Gearhulks and Gods to the bottom of your deck anymore. Azcanta can hit your supporting cast of spells, but it also nabs your main win condition (Karn) as well. I'm actually kind of surprised how fast this deck can close the game once you get to a spot where the "Karn Army" is starting to assemble. Provided you maintain control of the game during this, you kill in a matter of just a couple turns and it's coming from a card that you don't even have to commit as a straight up win condition; it's merely a card advantage engine that flips the script in the late game.
My thoughts after the first day of playing the deck
So far, both Karn and Teferi have been as good as advertised. All of the abilities of each have come up in various contexts and I've been super satisfied with their inclusion. Also, being Karn flooded isn't really the worst thing in the world since you can just make a token army over the course of a few turns and it can REALLY get out of hand if your opponent can't pressure you enough; not to mention you still have all of your mana and cards in hand to control the game, so you're really coming at them from multiple angles in that sense. The two-mana rebate from Teferi is no joke either and this deck has enough plays at that mana cost that you can really take advantage of it. Sometimes you can even get cute and get a double activation out of your Azcanta!
The deck might have a bit of a higher curve than I would like for a typical control deck (~3cmc) and I wasn't able to squeeze in any draw spells with this particular configuration, but neither of those issues have come back to haunt me as of yet. I'm playing 27 lands to mitigate these shortcomings and have yet to be mana screwed (knock on wood). The deck feels really powerful and you've got a lot of strong draws off the top if you've managed to stabilize the board. There are times where you'll have something like a Profane Procession in play and then draw another, but most of the time that's fine; that card warps how your opponent has to play so much when it's online that it's worth having several copies in the deck. For example, if you manage to resolve that against an opposing control deck and they don't have any or many ways to remove it... they more or less can't win the game at all (played against an opposing Esper deck earlier and ended up decking him).
(I have the list here if you want to try some sample hands/goldfishing.)
As always, you should tailor your sideboard to meet your needs. I'll admit that the one I have listed is kind of all over the place, but it's got tools to beat basically anything so I may just keep it as-is for the time being.
I think you're trying to skew control in a few too many different ways. Half of the deck is instant speed interaction that T. Gearhulk would love to help out with, and the other half is sorcery speed interaction, most of which is very expensive. I think you need to pick a direction and delve into it more. Either have a mostly disruptive deck with one big win con (Approach is a good choice) or work like an esper tapout deck that leverages it's walkers to victory. Trying to do both can lead to some very by-polar hands where you want to slam a karn on turn 4 but also hold up mana for commit or vraska's contempt.
Furthermore, If you're trying to leverage karn, I recommend Treasure map as card you should probably play.
There's definitely merit to your position. So far, I haven't really had much issue with the balance between the two and I've limited the amount of counterspells to account for the fact that I'll often be tapping out or very low within the first 3-7 turns of the game. I would say trying to play too much permission while also pairing a lot of the cards in this list is dubious at best, so I've tried to keep that in mind.
As far as the other instant-speed stuff is concerned, since I'm really a true tapout deck I like to keep my options open to interact on the board as necessary on the end step. It should go without saying that I don't try to make a proactive play unless the coast is clear or I have good recovery tools (Settle and Contempt being the best).
I think if I ended up going towards a Gearhulk-centric list that the deck becomes totally different and loses one of the aspects that has been working out well for me so far: stranding dead cards in my opponent's hand. I love me some Gearhulk/God action and wouldn't be opposed to working in that direction; I'm just doing something different for now to mix it up.
Anyway, I definitely won't say with 100% confidence that this list is optimal or even the right way to build a control deck in the new format. I just know what's been working for me up to this point. I appreciate your input, though
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Post Ravnica Allegiance Type 2 - WUB Control
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Interesting list, and I'm happy that it's working out so far. Is the 3 maindeck Negate working well? There are at least a couple targets in most decks, but I wonder if you've had some stranded in your hand while dealing with creature based aggressive decks. I have the same question about Profane Procession, as it can seem a bit do-nothing on T3 against a solid creature curve.
That being said I have been thinking about a tap-out style control deck that includes enchantment removal such as Seal Away, Ixalan's Binding, and an ascend payoff in Secrets of the Golden City. Obviously your planeswalkers are your card advantage, but Teferi, Hero of Dominaria untapping two lands in the later game does a good impression of Ancestral Recall when you could cast your draw spell.
There was a single list back in January that focused on tap-out Esper control with very little permission and I wonder if there are aspects that could be drawn upon here. It obviously lacks in power, but we could make up for that with Dominaria.
There are enough cards being played in popular decks that I want to be able to protect the planeswalkers from (namely Vraska's Contempt and Oblivion Ring-esque effects) that having some maindeck answers for only two mana has been fine. It also gives you a cheap way to stop opposing planeswalkers from becoming a problem and now that the first tournament results are in since Dominaria's release and UW Control made a finals apppearance, I anticipate there are going to be people jumping on the bandwagon for the next week or two so having the Negates main gives you a leg up if that's how things play out.
The other thing is that so much of the rest of the deck revolves around dealing with creatures that I wanted to have a few slots dedicated to non-creature interaction. History of Benalia, Sram's Expertise, Lich's Mastery, etc. People are still trying all sorts of things out so there's just a lot of random stuff you might come across that I like having a few cards to that are able to fight them on the cheap. The only time it's punished me so far has been against the mono-red GPG deck, but who knows how long that will continue to be a thing.
As for Profane Procession, I actually have cut one for a single copy of Cast Down. I've found that what you mentioned has come up a bit more often than my initial experience led me to believe, but I still believe the card is super powerful. It's single-handedly won me a number of games just because my opponent can't interact with it or can't go wide on the board quickly enough and they just get overwhelmed by it. So yeah, definitely not as high on it as I was last week, but it's still been a solid performer; just a bit more mana intensive than I would like in some positions.
I think Secrets of the Golden City might be interesting, but honestly feels kind of unnecessary. Even in decks where your main source of recurring card advantage is Teferi, he still provides a lot of gas and drawing card draw spells with him feels slightly too durdly right now. I mean, I would love to be doing it since drawing cards feels so good (lol), but I think you have to have a bit more saturation in your interaction and less cards that are dedicated strictly to drawing cards. So for the time being, I would personally pass on Secrets, but I wouldn't fault you for trying it out. You also have Azcanta going on most of the time, which is more than sufficient if you ask me.
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Post Ravnica Allegiance Type 2 - WUB Control
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
As you can see there are some card choices that you'd normally not see in the regular lists such as twilight prophet. Getting the city's blessing is not that hard for this deck especially with seal away. The burn and gain life from prophet might help get in the last points of damage across while keeping us alive and providing advantage at the same time.
Admiral's orders is an odd card, but strangely, I like having the option to counter removal against my attacking creature for 1 mana while serving as a hard counter at normal times. Syncopate is just for waiting it out against opponents who tap out for walkers or any early threat.
Nezahal is just big and really annoying at times. Reminds me of pearl lake ancient
Pretty straight forward draw-go playstyle deck that really isn't too similar with other lists
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I had two goals with the deck when I created the list:
1) See if the mana can support a full-on three color deck. *
2) Be completely devoid of creatures to blank most removal spells and make Azcanta as powerful as it could be. **
*I really wanted to try pushing the shard mana as hard as I could with the full set of each check land, but I didn't want to have infinite tapped lands in the deck so I only include six of the possible eight cycling lands. So far, it's worked out mostly well. I haven't had issues with lands coming into play tapped at inopportune times, but a single game I played today did find me short a black source until about turn seven or eight. Fortunately I had enough other stuff going on that it didn't particularly matter, but it's something to note.
**No creatures has been awesome. Unlike most blue control decks from the last couple formats, you aren't constantly pushing Gearhulks and Gods to the bottom of your deck anymore. Azcanta can hit your supporting cast of spells, but it also nabs your main win condition (Karn) as well. I'm actually kind of surprised how fast this deck can close the game once you get to a spot where the "Karn Army" is starting to assemble. Provided you maintain control of the game during this, you kill in a matter of just a couple turns and it's coming from a card that you don't even have to commit as a straight up win condition; it's merely a card advantage engine that flips the script in the late game.
My thoughts after the first day of playing the deck
So far, both Karn and Teferi have been as good as advertised. All of the abilities of each have come up in various contexts and I've been super satisfied with their inclusion. Also, being Karn flooded isn't really the worst thing in the world since you can just make a token army over the course of a few turns and it can REALLY get out of hand if your opponent can't pressure you enough; not to mention you still have all of your mana and cards in hand to control the game, so you're really coming at them from multiple angles in that sense. The two-mana rebate from Teferi is no joke either and this deck has enough plays at that mana cost that you can really take advantage of it. Sometimes you can even get cute and get a double activation out of your Azcanta!
The deck might have a bit of a higher curve than I would like for a typical control deck (~3cmc) and I wasn't able to squeeze in any draw spells with this particular configuration, but neither of those issues have come back to haunt me as of yet. I'm playing 27 lands to mitigate these shortcomings and have yet to be mana screwed (knock on wood). The deck feels really powerful and you've got a lot of strong draws off the top if you've managed to stabilize the board. There are times where you'll have something like a Profane Procession in play and then draw another, but most of the time that's fine; that card warps how your opponent has to play so much when it's online that it's worth having several copies in the deck. For example, if you manage to resolve that against an opposing control deck and they don't have any or many ways to remove it... they more or less can't win the game at all (played against an opposing Esper deck earlier and ended up decking him).
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Fetid Pools
3 Irrigated Farmland
3 Field of Ruin
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
Instants/Sorceries
1 Commit / Memory
2 Disallow
3 Negate
4 Fatal Push
3 Vraska's Contempt
2 Fumigate
3 Settle the Wreckage
2 Seal Away
3 Search for Azcanta
3 Profane Procession
Planeswalkers
3 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
4 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Disallow
3 Duress
2 Fragmentize
1 Ixalan's Binding
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
2 Seal Away
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Negate
(I have the list here if you want to try some sample hands/goldfishing.)
As always, you should tailor your sideboard to meet your needs. I'll admit that the one I have listed is kind of all over the place, but it's got tools to beat basically anything so I may just keep it as-is for the time being.
Thoughts? Questions? Criticisms? Let me know.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
Furthermore, If you're trying to leverage karn, I recommend Treasure map as card you should probably play.
As far as the other instant-speed stuff is concerned, since I'm really a true tapout deck I like to keep my options open to interact on the board as necessary on the end step. It should go without saying that I don't try to make a proactive play unless the coast is clear or I have good recovery tools (Settle and Contempt being the best).
I think if I ended up going towards a Gearhulk-centric list that the deck becomes totally different and loses one of the aspects that has been working out well for me so far: stranding dead cards in my opponent's hand. I love me some Gearhulk/God action and wouldn't be opposed to working in that direction; I'm just doing something different for now to mix it up.
Anyway, I definitely won't say with 100% confidence that this list is optimal or even the right way to build a control deck in the new format. I just know what's been working for me up to this point. I appreciate your input, though
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
That being said I have been thinking about a tap-out style control deck that includes enchantment removal such as Seal Away, Ixalan's Binding, and an ascend payoff in Secrets of the Golden City. Obviously your planeswalkers are your card advantage, but Teferi, Hero of Dominaria untapping two lands in the later game does a good impression of Ancestral Recall when you could cast your draw spell.
There was a single list back in January that focused on tap-out Esper control with very little permission and I wonder if there are aspects that could be drawn upon here. It obviously lacks in power, but we could make up for that with Dominaria.
The other thing is that so much of the rest of the deck revolves around dealing with creatures that I wanted to have a few slots dedicated to non-creature interaction. History of Benalia, Sram's Expertise, Lich's Mastery, etc. People are still trying all sorts of things out so there's just a lot of random stuff you might come across that I like having a few cards to that are able to fight them on the cheap. The only time it's punished me so far has been against the mono-red GPG deck, but who knows how long that will continue to be a thing.
As for Profane Procession, I actually have cut one for a single copy of Cast Down. I've found that what you mentioned has come up a bit more often than my initial experience led me to believe, but I still believe the card is super powerful. It's single-handedly won me a number of games just because my opponent can't interact with it or can't go wide on the board quickly enough and they just get overwhelmed by it. So yeah, definitely not as high on it as I was last week, but it's still been a solid performer; just a bit more mana intensive than I would like in some positions.
I think Secrets of the Golden City might be interesting, but honestly feels kind of unnecessary. Even in decks where your main source of recurring card advantage is Teferi, he still provides a lot of gas and drawing card draw spells with him feels slightly too durdly right now. I mean, I would love to be doing it since drawing cards feels so good (lol), but I think you have to have a bit more saturation in your interaction and less cards that are dedicated strictly to drawing cards. So for the time being, I would personally pass on Secrets, but I wouldn't fault you for trying it out. You also have Azcanta going on most of the time, which is more than sufficient if you ask me.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
1 nezahal, primal tide
1 torrential gearhulk
2 twilight prophet
2 teferi, hero of dominaria
4 seal away
3 fatal push
2 cast down
2 vraska's contempt
2 settle the wreckage
3 syncopate
4 admiral's order
1 supreme will
3 glimmer of genius
2 opt
4 glacial fortress
4 drowned catacombs
2 irrigated farmlands
2 fetid pools
1 field of ruin
4 island
3 plains
2 swamp
3 duress
2 fumigate
2 arguel's bloodfast
2 authority of the consuls
1 ixalan's binding
2 negate
2 moment of craving
1 cast out
As you can see there are some card choices that you'd normally not see in the regular lists such as twilight prophet. Getting the city's blessing is not that hard for this deck especially with seal away. The burn and gain life from prophet might help get in the last points of damage across while keeping us alive and providing advantage at the same time.
Admiral's orders is an odd card, but strangely, I like having the option to counter removal against my attacking creature for 1 mana while serving as a hard counter at normal times. Syncopate is just for waiting it out against opponents who tap out for walkers or any early threat.
Nezahal is just big and really annoying at times. Reminds me of pearl lake ancient
Pretty straight forward draw-go playstyle deck that really isn't too similar with other lists