Has anyone tried disrupting shoal? We have a pretty nice curve in the early game w/ blue spells to hit a wide variety of targets with it and Dictate/Mine have the potential to overcome the card disadvantage from it as well. I'm tempted to give it a shot, thoughts?
I played my list at Tuesday night magic last night, trying out two v cliques in the mb and they were great. I ended up going 4-0,beating ur delver, u turns, bant spirits, and grixis delver to take home the credits. Taking the opportunity to bird up whenever I can until this deck is officially dead.
I should have my last card for this deck and 8 bird tokens from Aaron Miller by next week's Monday night or FNM. I haven't been this excited to play magic in a long time.
The reason I'm not running it is because of the strain it would put on the mana base. If you're wanting to play t1 discard you need something like 16 untapped black sources in your deck to make it happen reliably. I also think running discard forces the deck to run a more black base in the list and play damnation over verdict and perhaps take a more proactive approach in the game to capitalize on the holes you can poke in their plan. I wonder if the discard would water down the late game draws too, making the combo less potent if you're drawing 1-2 iok against a hellbent opponent.
Yeah the 3rd verdict is 100% necessary locally for me, lol. Why aren't you playing Lingering Souls, though? I'm running 3 souls/2 Charm in my 3cmc slot and flashing Souls in EoT has been consistently great, and it plays a flexible role allowing you to either buy time or put some pressure on your opponents. It's also a great way to deal w/ (almost, karn gtfo) any resolved planeswalkers. I think in your list i would try cutting 1 beck, muddle, and esper charm to try it out.
To be fair I can't really think of any decks in modern that beat that opener.
And that's why I still play R in my Tron deck.
btw I still have 0 ideas on how to beat grixis.
Delver or otherwise? Kill/counter all their dudes, surgical lightning bolt. How do they win at that point?
If you don't have the t2 pyroclasm, the double captain follow up would've made it useless.
Grixis control mostly, but both variants have kommand/snare for brain, which can be a blowout. Control has mb answers to 2 for 1 our draw engine, and ancestral to pull ahead of us. It's not easy.
Took my list to a 4 round local event tonight, ended up going 3-1 and nabbing 2nd place. This deck, man.
R1 Slivers
Both games I bird up and bury him in board wipes and card advantage. G2 I actually boarded in an Ashiok and managed to kill him w/ his own creatures
R2 hatebears
Traditional esper control has problems w/ this matchup, but being able to make 1/1 fliers and cast lingering souls + verdict at instant speed allowed me to win 2-0.
R3 Merfolk
G1 was one I should have lost. He starts off by casting T2 lord (I path it), T3, silvergill adept. I follow up w/ Lingering souls and pass. He casts a lord and swings in w/ silvergill and muta. I draw a card and pass back to him. He drops two lords and swings in. Before blocks I cast 2x fatal push killing the lords he just cast, then snap + path the other lord and block the adept w/ a lingering soul and take 2 from mutavault. Post dmg I blessed alliance his mutavault and the board is empty. The game actually continues to grind for a long time, with me killing 2 MoW and a bunch of other lords and barely stay alive through a 5 turn land pocket. The turn he has lethal on board he forgets to swing w/ mutavault, and I untap and fuse beck/call... Stabilizing at 1 life. G2 I get an early beck/call and kill everything that touches the board while clocking him w/ birds.
R4 Bant Spirits
So it appears everyone is on creature decks tonight, and I have dodged the one storm player. Cool. G1 He gets a t2 geist and I'm 1 turn short of stabilzing. G2 He doesn't do anything for the first couple of turns so I'm able to eventually bird up and win the game. G3 He has the literal absolute nuts. T1 Hierarch, T2 Geist, T3 rattlechains + mausoleum wanderer, t4 dogskol captain + copy it w/ phantasmal image. I died. Fast. To be fair I can't really think of any decks in modern that beat that opener. He ended the game w/ spell queller still in hand. **** me. Luckily we had ID'd and agreed to play for the playmat for 1st place.
overall fun night, and glad I got to play against decks that get wrecked by insta-verdict. Tonight's tournament puts me at an overall 8-3, which I'd consider pretty good. Looks like I'll be keeping this deck together for when I want something fun, while not playing actual trash.
btw I still have 0 ideas on how to beat grixis. So far my plan is to board out brains + 1-2 beck for Ashiok, Gideon AoZ, 2 Geist, 2 Dispel, 1 Negate. Haven't been able to test it, but it feels like a solid plan.
Okay so this deck might have some legs, and its a goddamn blast to play. I took my list to fnm just to see how things go... And went 3-0.
R1 - infect.
G1 I bird up on t5 after killing his blight Ed agent and he can't beat it. G2 I messed up my math and let a lethal nexus sneak through. G3 goes on for a little bit, t4 or so I Esper charm his 3 card hand and he doesn't come back from it as I cast lingering souls and make his life miserable.
R2 - storm.
G1 we both sit around and sculpt our hands, and I kill every dude he puts into play. He eventually grapeshots me for 6 and puts 12 goblins into play, which I follow up with a verdict. A couple of turns later I drop Jar and bird up.
G2 I serum visions t2 and bottom two basic lands, he untaps and slams a blood moon. I figure I'm screwed, but he has very little follow up and I play the only copy of jar that I left in the deck, and pass turn. He storms into a wurmcoil engine and passes turn.. So I activate jar and path it. He was super crushed by that as he only had 1 card left in hand, and my follow up turns were activate jar for peer through depths getting Esper charm, in tap and jar the charm to blow up his moon. He scooped to that. Best game of the night.
R3 - bant spirits
G1 we go back and foth for a little bit until I proceed draw 6 lands in a row and die to combat.
G2 I am dead on board, but top deck a wrath of god, and follow up with snap > charm his stony silence and scry with jar. Two turns later I bird up and the game goes downhill for him.
G3 was fairly close, we play for a while and run each other out of resources. I eventually top deck and cast a fused beck, which he negates. Next turn I top deck another one and it resolves. Game quickly snowballs in my favor.
Overall I had a blast, and can't believe how well I keep doing with this deck. I think my favorite thing about the deck is how people react to it. It's hilarious.
I'm in! Basically just picked up all the parts and will be putting this together. I've been looking for a control deck to play and this looks like a lot of fun and reasonably powerful. I played UW control way back in the early oughts and I'm looking forward to returning to this mode of play. I'll still have GR Tron ready to beat up on decks like this.
I think what I like about this list is that it's so inexpensive to swap between it and the more traditional control variants, since the combo parts are like $5 total lol. It's a great deck to have on the side (my main list is DS Jund), and bring to smaller events to beat people up w/ a rogue list. I built it originally out of curiosity and a desire to play something silly, but it keeps winning games so I haven't been able to put it down lol. Not sure how good this deck is when people are prepared for it, but playing a t2 Jar against unsuspecting opponents can let you run away with the game.
Also @Slippaz - I think I'm going to try out a 1 of sphinx's rev in place of the 3rd verdict, as I often feel like one of the things I'm missing out on is a way to regain life without playing weaker cards just to have the ability to do so.
Yes all around, haha. Lingering Souls is great in the deck. Playing 3 Jar and 2 Sram’s for a little while and shifting back made me realize how much I love what Jar does for the deck overall, and it’s possible that we shouldn’t even be running Sram’s. It is definitely good sometimes, and I think by meta it can be kind of a blowout, so at the end of the day, it’s possible that the decision between the two should be decided by what you expect to face. No question that Souls is nuts as an instant, and I agree totally with the way you’re approaching building the deck. Back when Caleb D was first brewing his Bird Brain list in UW (the one with Mentor and Titi), I said somewhere that the issue with the way he used Jar was that his 3-drop slot was so weak. This is part of the reason I want the deck in Esper rather than Jeskai or something else…Esper really has the best 3 drops in Charm and Souls. And Jar is just *much* worse when you’re not motivated to tick it up and down consistently. You lose scry value, you make other cards in your hand worse, and you reduce it to just an enabler. You never really see how good Jar is for card re-evaluation (by speed or cost), and you don’t get to take advantage of how useful the scry is in a deck that depends on properly sequencing 1-for-1 answers with CA plays like Verdict, Charm, and Beck//Call. Plus Jar scales up more or less perfectly across 2-3-4 to a second Beck at 6. Since we can’t control when we draw the Beck that puts us way ahead, the most efficient thing, IMO, is to always we won’t have mana available to scry down and be shooting to tick up toward casting it on 6. Then we find a little breathing room at 4 or 5 and get a huge scry to actually find it or something else.
On your list: I like it a lot, and it’s definitely very similar to what I’m running. Exact same spirit to the deck whatever the differences. I would ask you one thing about it, though. Have you been finding that you need 3 Verdicts in the matchups your facing? It’s obviously a meta call, but to be honest I’m finding 3Push/4Path/1Alliance/1Verdict (and 1 Verdict/BA in the side) to be more than enough to deal with the creatures I’m facing these days. I know it’s kind of a thing to run 3 Verdicts in Esper Draw-Go…I used to run 2 with one in the side as part of the general “trimming” this deck did transitioning away from Wafo-Tapa. But I’m not sure that’s right atm.
Finally, Kor Firewalker: Seems like a weird call with Jar and Peer in the deck, but my reasoning is that you can lose to burn resolving Timely Reinforcements once or even twice. I’ve done it several times (the twice that is, lol). Kor Firewalker is an infinitely worse topdeck when you’re in a tight spot, because it can’t overpower multiple spells from a low life total. But if you resolve it on turn two, you basically can’t lose the game (if you don’t block tapped out and get Skullcracked, lol). Maybe that doesn’t justify it, but my thinking is that Burn is a bad enough matchup that having higher risk/higher reward hate might, on average buy us a few extra percentage points. I don’t play against the deck to really understand how much better/worse it is, but I have beaten it the last two times I’ve played it, so I guess that’s something
Having 3 verdicts is more of a safety net for me than anything else I think. My local paper meta is full of creature strategies and the verdicts are able to do some real work. Though I may swap one out in the future an drop to 2 verdicts, I just don't feel comfortable running less than 2 mb verdict in my area, though 3 might be superfluous with the Lingering Souls being added back to the list. I'm not sure what I'd drop the 3rd verdict for, I think it's a tossup between another counter, fatal push, or my 24th land.
As for the matchup vs burn, I've been thinking about squeezing 3 Leyline of Sanctity into my sb, which would go pretty far in that MU and the BGx/Ad Naus Matchups as well. Might drop runed halo + elspeth for them.
@Slippaz - I just saw your list get posted 5-0 on mtgGoldfish, and I like the list. Mine is actually only a couple of cards off. This is what I've been playing the last couple of days, and it's a blast!
Casting Lingering Souls at instant speed is pretty stupid, and is one hell of a card to cast EoT. Peer through depths has a pretty crazy high ceiling, and I feel like the 2nd copy can come in over the 4th Beck, since it digs so far and reduces the chances of having 2 beck in in your opener. I'd definitely recommend Lingering Souls in the list if you can find space. It feels good to follow up a fused Beck w/ Lingering souls to draw 6 total cards (doing it mid combat w/ Brains out on 1 and 2 = dirty underpants).
I actually really like this version of Esper as it gives you a very proactive feel to the deck and the Scry X on brain helps you dig like a mofo when you need answers. I usually cycle it up to 4 and scry back down, not keeping it at 1 if I don't have Beck in hand, which makes having 5-6 3 drops a little more valuable throughout the game (enter Lingering Souls w/ flash). I like the Firewalkers in the sb, and might steal that if I see enough Burn Players.
I've been playing a similar list with spreading seas mb, and it feels super legit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/magictcg/comments/638ws6/_/
Bird up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdOQ5pCWiyI
Yeah the 3rd verdict is 100% necessary locally for me, lol. Why aren't you playing Lingering Souls, though? I'm running 3 souls/2 Charm in my 3cmc slot and flashing Souls in EoT has been consistently great, and it plays a flexible role allowing you to either buy time or put some pressure on your opponents. It's also a great way to deal w/ (almost, karn gtfo) any resolved planeswalkers. I think in your list i would try cutting 1 beck, muddle, and esper charm to try it out.
If you don't have the t2 pyroclasm, the double captain follow up would've made it useless.
Grixis control mostly, but both variants have kommand/snare for brain, which can be a blowout. Control has mb answers to 2 for 1 our draw engine, and ancestral to pull ahead of us. It's not easy.
R1 Slivers
Both games I bird up and bury him in board wipes and card advantage. G2 I actually boarded in an Ashiok and managed to kill him w/ his own creatures
R2 hatebears
Traditional esper control has problems w/ this matchup, but being able to make 1/1 fliers and cast lingering souls + verdict at instant speed allowed me to win 2-0.
R3 Merfolk
G1 was one I should have lost. He starts off by casting T2 lord (I path it), T3, silvergill adept. I follow up w/ Lingering souls and pass. He casts a lord and swings in w/ silvergill and muta. I draw a card and pass back to him. He drops two lords and swings in. Before blocks I cast 2x fatal push killing the lords he just cast, then snap + path the other lord and block the adept w/ a lingering soul and take 2 from mutavault. Post dmg I blessed alliance his mutavault and the board is empty. The game actually continues to grind for a long time, with me killing 2 MoW and a bunch of other lords and barely stay alive through a 5 turn land pocket. The turn he has lethal on board he forgets to swing w/ mutavault, and I untap and fuse beck/call... Stabilizing at 1 life. G2 I get an early beck/call and kill everything that touches the board while clocking him w/ birds.
R4 Bant Spirits
So it appears everyone is on creature decks tonight, and I have dodged the one storm player. Cool. G1 He gets a t2 geist and I'm 1 turn short of stabilzing. G2 He doesn't do anything for the first couple of turns so I'm able to eventually bird up and win the game. G3 He has the literal absolute nuts. T1 Hierarch, T2 Geist, T3 rattlechains + mausoleum wanderer, t4 dogskol captain + copy it w/ phantasmal image. I died. Fast. To be fair I can't really think of any decks in modern that beat that opener. He ended the game w/ spell queller still in hand. **** me. Luckily we had ID'd and agreed to play for the playmat for 1st place.
overall fun night, and glad I got to play against decks that get wrecked by insta-verdict. Tonight's tournament puts me at an overall 8-3, which I'd consider pretty good. Looks like I'll be keeping this deck together for when I want something fun, while not playing actual trash.
btw I still have 0 ideas on how to beat grixis. So far my plan is to board out brains + 1-2 beck for Ashiok, Gideon AoZ, 2 Geist, 2 Dispel, 1 Negate. Haven't been able to test it, but it feels like a solid plan.
R1 - infect.
G1 I bird up on t5 after killing his blight Ed agent and he can't beat it. G2 I messed up my math and let a lethal nexus sneak through. G3 goes on for a little bit, t4 or so I Esper charm his 3 card hand and he doesn't come back from it as I cast lingering souls and make his life miserable.
R2 - storm.
G1 we both sit around and sculpt our hands, and I kill every dude he puts into play. He eventually grapeshots me for 6 and puts 12 goblins into play, which I follow up with a verdict. A couple of turns later I drop Jar and bird up.
G2 I serum visions t2 and bottom two basic lands, he untaps and slams a blood moon. I figure I'm screwed, but he has very little follow up and I play the only copy of jar that I left in the deck, and pass turn. He storms into a wurmcoil engine and passes turn.. So I activate jar and path it. He was super crushed by that as he only had 1 card left in hand, and my follow up turns were activate jar for peer through depths getting Esper charm, in tap and jar the charm to blow up his moon. He scooped to that. Best game of the night.
R3 - bant spirits
G1 we go back and foth for a little bit until I proceed draw 6 lands in a row and die to combat.
G2 I am dead on board, but top deck a wrath of god, and follow up with snap > charm his stony silence and scry with jar. Two turns later I bird up and the game goes downhill for him.
G3 was fairly close, we play for a while and run each other out of resources. I eventually top deck and cast a fused beck, which he negates. Next turn I top deck another one and it resolves. Game quickly snowballs in my favor.
Overall I had a blast, and can't believe how well I keep doing with this deck. I think my favorite thing about the deck is how people react to it. It's hilarious.
I think what I like about this list is that it's so inexpensive to swap between it and the more traditional control variants, since the combo parts are like $5 total lol. It's a great deck to have on the side (my main list is DS Jund), and bring to smaller events to beat people up w/ a rogue list. I built it originally out of curiosity and a desire to play something silly, but it keeps winning games so I haven't been able to put it down lol. Not sure how good this deck is when people are prepared for it, but playing a t2 Jar against unsuspecting opponents can let you run away with the game.
Also @Slippaz - I think I'm going to try out a 1 of sphinx's rev in place of the 3rd verdict, as I often feel like one of the things I'm missing out on is a way to regain life without playing weaker cards just to have the ability to do so.
Having 3 verdicts is more of a safety net for me than anything else I think. My local paper meta is full of creature strategies and the verdicts are able to do some real work. Though I may swap one out in the future an drop to 2 verdicts, I just don't feel comfortable running less than 2 mb verdict in my area, though 3 might be superfluous with the Lingering Souls being added back to the list. I'm not sure what I'd drop the 3rd verdict for, I think it's a tossup between another counter, fatal push, or my 24th land.
As for the matchup vs burn, I've been thinking about squeezing 3 Leyline of Sanctity into my sb, which would go pretty far in that MU and the BGx/Ad Naus Matchups as well. Might drop runed halo + elspeth for them.
2 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (35)
2 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Peer Through Depths
3 Beck // Call
4 Brain in a Jar
2 Spell Snare
3 Logic Knot
2 Esper Charm
3 Lingering Souls
2 Cryptic Command
3 Supreme Verdict
Lands (23)
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Mystic Gate
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
2 Celestial Colonnade
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Celestial Purge
2 Runed Halo
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Dispel
2 Negate
1 Fatal Push
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Lost Legacy
1 Wrath of God
2 Geist of Saint Traft
Casting Lingering Souls at instant speed is pretty stupid, and is one hell of a card to cast EoT. Peer through depths has a pretty crazy high ceiling, and I feel like the 2nd copy can come in over the 4th Beck, since it digs so far and reduces the chances of having 2 beck in in your opener. I'd definitely recommend Lingering Souls in the list if you can find space. It feels good to follow up a fused Beck w/ Lingering souls to draw 6 total cards (doing it mid combat w/ Brains out on 1 and 2 = dirty underpants).
I actually really like this version of Esper as it gives you a very proactive feel to the deck and the Scry X on brain helps you dig like a mofo when you need answers. I usually cycle it up to 4 and scry back down, not keeping it at 1 if I don't have Beck in hand, which makes having 5-6 3 drops a little more valuable throughout the game (enter Lingering Souls w/ flash). I like the Firewalkers in the sb, and might steal that if I see enough Burn Players.