seems better against blue deck but much worse against BGx. The problem is that if that blue deck is grixis and this gets terminated, we will get behind on mana which is very important in the matchup.
As it was said countless time, it's very good in teaching builds.
while a lot of things you say are spot on, i think what's described as tapout control in the article is accurate. There is no cheap value and/or undercosted creature. The early game is spent answering stuff until your haymakers come online and provide, as you say, infinite card advantage by virtue of not beeing answered
"In Draw-go, you’re aiming to control the entire game - as such, you need to be more parsimonious with your resources because they might play something better at some point, wherever it is (and they will have time, because the game will go long) and then you will need those same cards to answer that. In Standard UB, for example, patience is the key word - as long as you’re only taking one or two damage a turn, then the game greatly favors you. Remember the graph? The longer it goes, the more likely you are to win, so you have no reason to panic and answer their threats while leaving yourself vulnerable to their follow up. If you can afford to, take damage for a couple turns and then answer their threats when you get to a point where you already have an answer for their follow up - try to get to a point where they can’t win, and buy your time with life points if need be"
This part is interesting and is a good argument for playing runed halo. Since we literaly need to answer EVERY card our opponent play it's very nice to have a removal that can later be buyed back with Cryptic.
I think we are both right, but you're reasoning is probably better.
Between the combination of our answers AND our instant speed draw, I think we actually aren't that bad against them. I was probably worrying about nothing. I haven't too many opportunities to test against them, as I usually spend free testing time against tier 1 problem decks, basically burn.
probably wisely so. I think that the deck is good tho. Have you seen the videos of LSV playing it? That plus PV saying he thinks the deck is the real deal makes me wonder if the deck is not better than it looks (and it looks very bad lol). Anyway the matchup is probably good so no worries.
About burn, what do you side in/out exactly? The matchup can be anywhere from hard to easy depending on the amount of hate you play. Baneslayer and timely are my favorite cards against it but it can be hard to play them in sufficient number.
i agree with your conclusion but not for those reasons. If it was for those cards only, they would be discarded with IoK and TS and then you would draw irrelevant cards for the rest of the game. The issue with their prison plan though is that it's vulnerable to instant speed draw
not sure it's worth thinking about too hard though. The deck is a pile. It's a troll deck.
We can relieve some of the pressure by playing runed halo naming codex shredder.
a troll deck that won a grand prix nonetheless
to be fair though, even if they have a fateseal lock early, instant speed draw and fetches can get you out of it. As amalek said, game 1 plan is probably just to get to a point where you white sun them into a cryptic or 2
a) it's a miracle that I've ran the same 75 in three events now, peformed exceedlingly well in all of them, and do not desire to change a single card in the 75
b) how do you guys feel about changing out the 2nd utility land for a 1 of glacial fortress, seeing as we have 2-3 runed halo in the 75, and the extra white source could be useful, as well as some choke insurance.
keep in mind how good the foils look before answering.
I'm probably gonna go ahead and make the change until someone tells me I'm an idiot. Could go back to calciform pools too, but if you have a fair amount of lantern in your meta, play drownyard.
EDIT: Just wanted to say that Runed Halo is known in my play groups as my pet card, and I'm personally disappointed in myself that it took me this long to shoehorn it into the maindeck flex slots. It is SO good.
This is the only instance with this deck where I would actually tell Wafo-Tapa "hey man, the right thing to do is play this instead of that". It feels THAT strong.
glacial fortress is indeed a gorgeous foil. That being said, I really have been happy with my manabase as-is (fifth manland, 8 fetches), but I have noticed the increase in damage taken.
More importantly, I need another pack-foil teferi because that card only continues to overperform every time I board it in. Also need some baneslayer angel copies in foil since I don't actually have foils of those.
I'm with Cipher on being suspicious of drownyard talk--sure, it's the best thing since sliced bread against lantern control, but be realistic--were you really going to devote slots to that deck, when it just scoops to stony silence + a bunch of instant speed card draw? You guys remember that we can make a ton of zenith tokens (enough for lethal, and just cryptic-bounce a few permanents to their hand and crack for lethal, right? The only way I see that matchup going sour is if they recognize the cryptic bounce/zenith interaction and (correctly) mill zenith--most likely, they aren't gonna give you snapcaster mage so you can flash it back. The reality is the round is going to go 1-0-1. Win the first game because cryptic commands + zenith, board in all your disruption/grave hate, board out all your nonland win cons, and settle in for going to time. Don't stall, that's cheating. Don't play at the lantern player's pace though. Like, remember all the tons of games against midrange durdlefest opponents where they took 30 second turns to your 10 second turns and just ate up a ton of the clock? This is the universe saying "now it's your turn". I'm not advocating cheating, I'm pointing out the reality is that clock management is a thing in paper as in MODO, and this is perhaps the ONLY matchup in the modern format where we're NOT at the mercy of the clock.
that's probably true. the only game i played against the deck, my 4 cryptic were close to the bottom and i was never able to draw them in time
@accpi - I've had the same topic up among friends of mine cos I want to stick to one deck for 2 months (1 of december is my final date) just to figure out if the deck really is my thing. Anyway our discussion was about which deck; UW Control or Esper Control was the most competitative in a changing meta. Most people could agree that UW Control packed with Restoration AngelWall of Omens and Kitchen Finks stands out to be the most competitative on the simple basisline: it can finish games faster and it sustain aggro better. That being sad, personally i believe that it doesn't really matter which deck is the best, its more a question about which player you are.
As you can see Esper Control is performing, still lacking GP victory, but you're the one taking it there maybe? Besides it's the best Draw-Go deck in Modern. So if you want to play control, and by that i mean pure control i would place my money on Esper Control. If you like walkers and a more midrange control approach i take UW Control.
That's my 5 cents
Anyway i played some games with my friend and holy ***** I'm totally on Nephalia Drownyard That card is kinda busted in Esper, but is 1 Copy enought? cos we had a game where he managed to Tec Edge my drownyard and i needed to finish the game with colonnades instead, making all the effort kinda wasted. Might be playing it wrong dunno.
I agree with Jayman. Esper is stronger against Affinity, Infect, and the various combo/aggro hybrids that actually dominate Modern. Kitchen Finks is only stronger against burn and the slower aggro/midrange decks, and even then Lingering Souls + Vault is probably stronger (against Zoo and Collected Company/Elves). People just choose not to run Lingering Souls so that the non-creature matchups are stronger. Straight UW is much, much weaker against combo or tempo, as well. Also, Wall of Omens in Modern makes me want to cry. I'd rather run Peek.
I'm suspicious about the Drownyard talk. In my experience people flock to mill cards because they like to see powerful cards hit their opponent's graveyard, which is totally irrelevant outside a Control mirror where there's only a playset of win conditions. I'd rather run a Creeping Tar Pit, or better yet this new Shambling Vents card, if 4x Colonnade isn't enough of a win condition. Drownyard even in standard was used to self-mill into Think Twice + Forbidden Alchemy. Without the self-mill being applicable, a copy of Drownyard is a ton of mana to produce a 10+ turn clock. You could just as well sit on your hands for 6 turns, draw the next Colonnade finally, and then kill them before a Drownyard would mill them out. Considering how useful the manlands are for defensive purposes I'd be hard pressed to not just add more copies over Drownyard.
A rankingsystem like that would just result in people who win a lot will get low rankings and people who lose a lot will get high rankings.
I expect that it would be possible to separate the noise from the signal to a certain degree. If a player always ranks opponents poorly when they win, then one could detect that correlation and correct for it. Alternately, only the winning player could be given an opportunity to rate their opponent, which would eliminate most 'sour grapes' ratings.
Think creatively. Don't just give up on a good idea because you can't think further than the most obvious possibilities.
you misunderstand. They are giving up on a terrible idea. Qualitative ratings have no place in competitive magic.
Here people went crazy: blue problems are not counterspells.
As a UWR control player i'll love to have some nice CMC 2 counter but real problem here is not that. In a format where a blu-based deck can't draw two fuking cards instant speed is obvious loosing. Look blakc: i'll LOVE to have even a blue Sign in Blood ...or, why not, a blue abzan charm? I'm getting sick about this, is not blue mages that are weanyng about counterspells, is that blue is unfaerly underthreated. We don't ask for brainstorm or ancestral vision, we need a dececent draw card: cmc 2 draw 2 sorcery or CMC 3 draw 2 instant.
We already found the solution on late-games trheats: we just need something to draw. I found oltragious the print of Jeskai charm...cmc 3 bouncer, bolt or lifelink? bleargh
If you are playing Esper mentor then you need to run 3-4 Mentors mainboard. It seems like you could just be playing the card at the wrong times. Monastery Mentor is like Pack Rat in that they both die to everything, but they are insane when our opponents have exhausted their resources.
This is definately true, but Mentor kills a lot quicker then Pack Rat, while the rat is more resistant to spot removal.
YEP and that's exactly why I'm now trying a version with :
Testing Sculler and Mage, they slow our ennemy and take removal instead of Mentor.
I was thinking... What about a random Mutagenic Growth to protect Mentor and Geist?
--Esper has all the tools to play in modern, but not the consistency; and what I mean by this is that no matter how smooth the card drawing engine is as a whole, if we don't draw the parts of the engine within an (admittedly wide) range of distribution, we get to this stall state where our topdecks are just horrific. I'm not sure what can be done about it except to say we need better card filtering that is on the level of something like an instant-speed forsee but with at least a double blue requirement. Basically, some way to push our card selection up in a way that can't be readily abused by combo decks or twin, decks that tend to play low-mana curves and have to fight against cheap countermagic.
As it was said countless time, it's very good in teaching builds.
"In Draw-go, you’re aiming to control the entire game - as such, you need to be more parsimonious with your resources because they might play something better at some point, wherever it is (and they will have time, because the game will go long) and then you will need those same cards to answer that. In Standard UB, for example, patience is the key word - as long as you’re only taking one or two damage a turn, then the game greatly favors you. Remember the graph? The longer it goes, the more likely you are to win, so you have no reason to panic and answer their threats while leaving yourself vulnerable to their follow up. If you can afford to, take damage for a couple turns and then answer their threats when you get to a point where you already have an answer for their follow up - try to get to a point where they can’t win, and buy your time with life points if need be"
This part is interesting and is a good argument for playing runed halo. Since we literaly need to answer EVERY card our opponent play it's very nice to have a removal that can later be buyed back with Cryptic.
it actualy is
probably wisely so. I think that the deck is good tho. Have you seen the videos of LSV playing it? That plus PV saying he thinks the deck is the real deal makes me wonder if the deck is not better than it looks (and it looks very bad lol). Anyway the matchup is probably good so no worries.
About burn, what do you side in/out exactly? The matchup can be anywhere from hard to easy depending on the amount of hate you play. Baneslayer and timely are my favorite cards against it but it can be hard to play them in sufficient number.
a troll deck that won a grand prix nonetheless
to be fair though, even if they have a fateseal lock early, instant speed draw and fetches can get you out of it. As amalek said, game 1 plan is probably just to get to a point where you white sun them into a cryptic or 2
that's probably true. the only game i played against the deck, my 4 cryptic were close to the bottom and i was never able to draw them in time
drownyad is very good against lantern
you misunderstand. They are giving up on a terrible idea. Qualitative ratings have no place in competitive magic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQaH3-LK54
play black!esper charm
love the mutagenic growth idea
dig through time was great
really?