and the postboard pulses and grips they will probably bring in anyways. Playing a 24th land ia probably a good idea tho.Originally Posted by matunos
Really Really not. Like, completely differents goals in mind.
24 lands in an esper list sounds pretty greedy, given the amount of business spells you want.
We've been playing against Wasteland for a while now, nothing new there. Vindicates and Sinkholes can at least be countered.
Allright I considered our guys suggestions so I made a few changes,. After swearing to my self that I would never pay 60 bucks for a discard spell, and after debating with the store employee which card should I get, I finally gave in and bought 2 thought seize. I originally wanted to remove 2 marsh flats so I could add 2 polluted deltas, but he convinced me that thoughtsiexe will improve the deck much more than the polluted deltas would. Anyways, I entered a small tourney, 17 players, 5 rounds of Swiss, and I went 2-3. The only reason I got those "wins" is because I got a bye and my last opponent had to drop. Soooo.... There you go, it's either I don't understand how this decks works, or I'm just a realllllly horrible player. I've always played tempo decks back then, and I've always benn ale o play very tightly, but for some reason, when it ones to this version of stoneblade, I dont get the results I wanted. Btw, I'm on the process of getting a 3rd Jtms so I an replace the elspeth. So guys, how, do you guys play this deck? I've read the primers and watched the deck techs and matches, but I still don't get it. Maybe I just dont enjoy playing the deck.
look, it's not as simple as being told how to play the deck and do well. I've had some friends try the deck and quit stoneblade because they only won against bad players. They were good players and read a LOT about stoneblade. The deck just has a steep learning curve. When you play against under average or average players you might win some games on just the powerlevel of the deck but once you play against a skilled mtg player this deck becomes really hard to pilot correctly.
Maybe you play too agressively because you are used to tempo? Maybe you don't make the right choices. With stoneblade, more than with any other deck, it's important to determine your role in the matchup. Are you the beatdown? or not? will you try to take over the board with control and play defensively? or do you want to drop stonefoge on T2 and make tokens to swing? Badly evaluating your role and making agressive or defensive plays when you are not supposed to can cost you the game. Another hing that makes this deck hard is color management. We need all 3 colors early on and are wide open to wasteland. Fetching correctly is such an overlooked thing. I've lost so many games by fetchin badly. Lastly: the brainstorms. Brainstorm is a card you play differently in every deck. In tempo you'll play it more agressively than in control. In tempo decks you want to fill your grave and sculpt your hand to a fast win with disruption. IN control you want value. Especialy in versatile decks like stoneblade and bant your branstorms are crucial. You want to shuffle away the bad part of your deck to draw the good one. The later you cast your brainstorms and the more information you have, the better. You want to be able to shuffle away discard spells or other spells that aren't relevant in that particular matchup or moment.
The best tip i can give you is: playtest, playtest, playtest. Read some articles by Tom Martell, Ben Friedman, Shaheen Soorani (on starcity games). Try to understand each card choice and finish that deck completely. IN stoneblade you rely on the power of individual cards, having some less than optimal choices here and there can be decisive.
THat's how i see it at least. I have only been playing this deck for 2 months (?) now i think. I always end 2-2 or 3-1 with this deck and haven't played a big tournament with it yet so i have a lot to learn myself. I hope it helped though.
I don't like MTG, i just like legacy control decks.Esper stoneblade
Hi Deadpool and welcome to the forums. Let me tell you this, Esperblade is a difficult deck to play. I've been with High Tide for quite some time and it is recognized as a hard deck to play but when I switched over to Esperblade it felt like the decision trees suddenly tripled for each match.
If you've been playing RUG before it could be a painful switch because even though tempo decks have also very complicated decision trees those decks sometimes play themselves and you can certainly get free wins occasionally. The problem with Esperblade is that there are almost no free wins with the deck, you have earn each one of them. Because of this it sometimes feels "too fair" against combo decks and underpowered against harder hitting fair decks. You have to start getting the feel of the deck to know when to be proactive and when to be reactive, how to maximize the utility from your every single card instead of trying to play bomb after bomb and try to win it by overpowering your opponent. My win percentage started to increase when I started learning how to play with good hands! Sometimes you get the Lingering Souls, SFM and Jace hand and you think you can play bomb after bomb and basically win but you have to learn to squeeze every bit of advantage from each card before using your other resources. Thus you have to be able to decide on the right tool and attack/defense vector for each situation you are in. It is a learning curve but certainly starts feeling better as you progress.
Also for the discard, it may feel weird to play it in a UW control deck and most possibly you are not making the best use of your discard spells now. You can use your discard spells to get information about your opponent, to remove a card you know they already have, for insurance before playing a card you want to stick, or sometimes just to harass them because you don't have much going on. Sometimes it is better to hold on to your discard spells, you don't have to cast it every time you have B open. You just have to start thinking about these things and what you need them for before casting them so you can start getting good value of your every spell.
I hope all these make some sense and would be helpful. Good luck.
Hi Guys,
Want to share a list with you. It works pretty good for me. Made a few unconventional choices:
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lingering Souls
2 Thoughtseize
2 Vindicate
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Dark Confidant
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
sb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Disenchant
3 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Duress
1 Perish
2 Supreme Verdict
Let me explain some choices: I wanted to fit in bob's as an extra card engine maybe im a bit biased cos i like this card so much when I played BW stoneblade. I must admit bob have already won me several games! Your opponent must deal with him or he'll bury the opp. under a lot of cardadvantage. My experience is that you'll solve the life loss when bob gets going....
Furthermore I wanted the deck to be more resilient against p. fire decks, although i didnt want to hurt the manabase too much. I found the solution in playing a second vindicate (2 waste/2 vindi and 3 scm to flashback those 2 vindis seems pretty nice). Vindicate is doing pretty well for me! It saved me several times because it's so flexible (e.g. opposing planeswalkers; cb locks, etc)
Im interested in what you think about this list :) If you like it, try it out some time:)
With kind regards,
So after playtesting for months with Junk, I decided to audible to Esperblade at the last minute for SCG Legacy Open Milwaukee. I ran Vidi's GP Denver list (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=9908&iddeck=72237), but went -1 Cabal Therapy, +1 Spell Pierce in the sideboard; I anticipated a lot of combo at the Open and I'm not confident enough with Cabal Therapy yet, so I just decided to have access to 4 Force of Will, 4 Spell Pierce postboard.
278 Players announced, which is pretty good I think. This report is all from memory, so I apologize to the other players if I misremembered certain things.
Round 1: Esperblade
Game 1: I open with a strong control hand, with Thoughtseize, Brainstorm, Lingering Souls and 2x Jace... unfortunately I never find a fourth land even after Brainstorm + Snapcaster Mage -> Brainstorm. Very, very sad as I watch my opponent Legend rule my 2nd land (Academy Ruins), then Vindicate my 3rd land, leaving me with 1 land in play as I watch him assemble Jace and Batterskull. Onto Game 2. Took out 3x Souls for 3x Geist, took out some creature removal spells like Verdict and a couple StP for Pierce, FoW, and Disenchant. This mirror matchup is all about Jace, so I wanted to ensure that he resolved and Geist gives me an incredibly quick clock that Esperblade has a tough time answering effectively, although I admit that I get far less grindy without Souls. Meh.
Game 2: Opened with Geist and a ton of countermagic. My resolved turn 3 Geist elicited a defeated look from my opponent. 3 turns later, my opponent was dead; it was literally that easy. Onto Game 3; no changes for sideboarding.
Game 3: My opponent's on the play and kept an INCREDIBLY greedy hand of 2x Thoughtseize, Brainstorm, and an Underground Sea. His turn 1 Thoughtseize nabs my Jace, he then proceeds to Brainstorm turn 2... and bricks. He is stuck on 1 land for the next 4 turns, allowing me to cast a Jace that I drew into. He scoops after some number of Fateseals from my Jace.
1-0 in Matches.
Round 2: Goblins
Game 1: I don't exactly remember this game well, other than I know for sure he stomps me to death with a million little green men. I see he's running RG and RW Shocklands, so I (correctly) put him on Tietze's list that just won SCG Open Atlanta. I took out most countermagic spells (Cavern of Souls > me) and boarded in any and every creature hate spell I had (Darkblast, Zealous Persecution, etc).
Game 2: This game goes long as I was able to StP his Lackey, slowing down his hand. I IoK and see a KGrip, which makes my face sour as I'm holding Stoneforge + Jitte in my hand. I misplay a couple turns later and elect not to StP his Warchief on my turn, allowing him to cast Matron on his turn for Ringleader and still have exactly 3 mana open for KGrip; this was pivotal as I was trying to bait the KGrip on my Jitte, allowing my potential Batterskull to be safe. Having taken myself off that plan, I spend about 2-4 turns digging desperately for Verdict as he empties his hand (he's holding KGrip, lands, and a dead Vial), leaving me dead on board unless I find the Verdict. I do not and extend my hand to him. This matchup seems tough as Ringleader just blows me out of the water and my usual "trump" in Batterskull just eats KGrip for free. Not sure what I could've done differently here.
1-1 in Matches.
Round 3: Punishing Maverick
Game 1: I open with 2x StP, 2x Snapcaster, 2 lands, no countermagic and no discard. I either keep this hand and auto-lose to combo and control or I keep and hope my opponent is on creatures. He's on the play and I see turn 1 Windswept Heath into Plains, making me think he's on Miracles; I get sad. He then taps his Plains, and I actually say to him "Sensei's Divining Top resolves"... then see him drop a Mother of Runes; I smile, thinking to myself "My opponent is dead and doesn't even know it". I proceed to draw into a third Stp, and he can never get a creature to stick. I win off Snapcaster equipped with a drawn Jitte. I took out Forces and brought in more creature hate (Perish, Zealous Persecution, etc).
Game 2: My opponent keeps a greedy hand and goes Forest, pass on Turn 1. I IoK him and see Wasteland, GSZ, and Red Elemental Blast + a bunch of creatures needing White mana to be cast. I take his GSZ as I correctly presumed that he was planning on going Turn 2 GSZ for 1, getting Birds of Paradise, giving him access to all colors. He then proceeds to draw into another Wasteland and doesn't see a colored land for the rest of the game. My Jace forces him to scoop.
2-1 in Matches.
Round 4: RUG Delver
Game 1: I feel good going to into this match. His early threats get countered and StPed, leaving him durdling around for a long time. I assemble Stoneforge + Batteskull + Jace as he is cantripping for eternity, trying to find a threat. I StP his Goyf, and he takes a look at my board, then scoops. I take out Forces, Vindicate, Counterspell and bring in Perish, Relic of Progenitus, Zealous Persecution, and I think a Spell Pierce or two.
Game 2: RUG Delver does it's thing and I can't get anything to resolve and his 2x Stifle leaves me looking silly with nothing but uncracked fetches on my side. He plays very tight this game, knowing that my only out is Supreme Verdict on his Nimble Mongoose and Goyf. He gets there in typical RUG Delver fashion. No changes for sideboarding.
Game 3: He mulls down to 5. I open with Relic, Clique, 2 land, and a Jace; I can almost smell 3-1. He lands turn 1 Nimble Mongoose and passes. I land turn 1 Relic... and proceed to get stuck on 2 lands for the rest of the game. He ends up cantripping into another Nimble Mongoose. I pop Relic and we get into a counter war over his Stifle; he ends up winning and that causes him to hit Threshold. I then die. This was a very depressing Game 3 as he mulled to FIVE, but he was a very friendly and skilled player, so I enjoyed the overall match and wish more Magic players can have a fun conversation while still playing well like we did.
2-2 in Matches.
Round 5: Legacy Eggs
Game 1: I don't know what he's on, but suspect it's Eggs due to seeing some of his cards that are played in Modern Eggs. I get him down to 4 life with my Batterskull, but he proceeds to combo off. I watch him for 30 minutes as he combos because I need to see his specific win condition; he shows me his loop of inifinte mana, then shows me his loop of Cephalid Coliseum death. I board out all my creature hate, -3 Jace, -3 Souls and bring in +3 Geist, all of my countermagic, +2 Surgical Extractions, +1 Relic, +1 IoK. I felt Jace was terrible in this matchup due to the redundancy of his deck.
Game 2: I IoK his Second Sunrise, then Surgical Extraction it. I drop Geist, then swing 4 times for the win. No sideboard changes.
Game 3: I have Geist out and he's dead next turn. He tries to go off with Faith's Reward, but my Force and 2x Pierce stop him. He was a very technical player that showed me exactly what he was doing with his mana, his graveyard, etc. I appreciated his care for making sure everything was nice and neat for his opponent to observe; I felt that I understood exactly what he was doing at every step of his combo.
3-2 in Matches.
Round 6: TinFins
Game 1: I lose on turn 3 to an attacking Griselbrand AND Emrakul. -3 Souls, +3 Geist, and I took out stuff like EE and Verdict for more countermagic, giving me 4 Force and 4 Pierce postboard.
Game 2: I lose on a turn 2 Griselbrand -> Tendrils death. After the match, my opponent points out my misplay for not Karakas-ing his Griselbrand with his -7 trigger on the stack. It wouldn't have mattered at all, but I appreciated that. This matchup was utter brutality.
3-3 in Matches. I briefly consider dropping, but I am told by my teammates that x-3 can still at least get Top 64 ($50), so I decide to play on.
Round 7: Burn
Game 1: I open with a nice mix of creature hate and countermagic. He gets me down to 4-6 life (he's then in topdeck mode) before my Stoneforge -> Jitte takes over the game. I board out slow stuff like Souls, Vindicate, Jace, Verdict, EE, etc. and bring in more countermagic and Geists.
Game 2: It's almost an exact repeat of Game 1, but Stoneforge -> Batterskull gets it done this time.
4-3 in Matches.
Round 8: Belcher
Game 1: He's on the play and I open with a counter heavy hand w/ Force of Will. He goes off and tries to go for Burning Wish -> Empty the Warrens; he popped LED in order to generate enough mana for Empty the Warrens. I Force of Will his Burning Wish, leaving him with no hand and a Chrome Mox in play. I proceed to win easily with Stoneforge -> Batterskull. I board out all creature hate, -3 Souls and board in +3 Geist, and the rest of my countermagic + 1 IoK.
Game 2: He plays Taiga, then passes. My turn 1 Thoughtseize sees LED, a Petal, and 2x Belcher. I grab the LED. He never is able to get in the game as he's standed on mana and not able to cast Belcher while I'm killing him with Geist. I Thoughtseize near the end and grab his Simian Spirit Guide, which ends any hope he had of casting Belcher.
5-3 in Matches. Feeling good as I'm in 63rd place after 8 rounds.
Round 9: Dredge
Game 1: I'm on the play and have a pretty nice hand of Thoughtseize, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and lands. I Thoughtseize and see Breakthrough, Cephalid Coliseum, 2x Faithless Looting, a Dredger, and Careful Study. I enter Frowntown and grab Breakthrough. He proceeds to combo off on turn 3/4? and kills me with Flayer of the Hatebound shenanigans. Side out slow stuff like -1 Vindicate, -1 Verdict, and -1 Jace and -3 Souls for +2 Surgical, +1 Relic, +3 Geist.
Game 2: I have a Geist on board and I'm able to get him down to single digits. He then combos off and kills me with Elesh Norn + zombie tokens; I didn't see any graveyard hate this game unfortunately, but it seems like a tough matchup anyway.
5-4 in Matches. I finished in 69th place.
Props:
+ Nice, friendly opponents throughout the day.
+ Almost finishing in money in my first SCG Open.
+ Trading in a ton of random stuff for $150 store credit, allowing me to finish off my playset of Savannah.
Slops:
- Swamp ass smelling dudes.
- No food/concessions in the Delta Center.
- Typical (horrible) Wisconsin weather; we actually had light snow in the middle of April. WTF.
Last edited by Arsenal; 04-15-2013 at 11:59 AM.
OK, as sad as this is to admit for me I seem to have a real blind spot to "Goblins".
played them twice this weekend. sided out FoWs for surgical and BEBs and Sword of Fire and Ice and still lost.
does anyone have any suggestions on a game plan against the little green men?
Supreme Verdict to blow them b@stards up?
Other nasty trick could be a Ghostly Prison combined with a few Entlightened Tutors.
You could also try what I used to do: 4x Kitchen Finks on side.
That's absolutely brilliant against all aggro (except for Merfolk, but that matchup sucks anyway).
(Edit: why side in Surgicals? They have no influence on the board state at all, and the little green men don't seem to be abusing the grave all that much.)
You board out lingering souls against the mirror? wouldn't it be better to side out forces? it's an attrition match. You said it yourself jace is everything, so why not keep souls in to respond to their souls and protect jace? Why would you remove your best card against fair decks. Force is major card disadvantage and spell pierce is mediocre as the only really relevant thing it stops is jace.There's much better cards to remove than L-souls IMO.
Side in a path to exile, supereme verdict, zealous persecution, darkblast or any other removal. Eventually keep 1 or 2 forces in to counter the ringleaders. Side out Thoughtseizes, some FoW's, spell pierces and anything else that is bad aganst them.
Gameplan? get jitte or sword of fire and ice online and win. SoFaI or Jitte is GG for goblins if they can't get rid of it. Beyond that you just have to stop their ringleaders so they lose gass or hit them with a verdict on the right time.
I don't like MTG, i just like legacy control decks.
This is true and could've been mis-boarding by me. My line of thought at the time was this; if my opponent keeps his Souls in, he can't attack my Jace + block my Geist at the same time, so he either whittles my Jace down or dies in three turns due to Geist. With 4 Force + 4 Spell Pierce, I felt like I was almost guaranteed to resolve Jace and/or Geist and if that happened, I cared less about his Souls than I normally would. Esperblade has a tough time dealing with a resolved Geist as I've been on the dealing and receiving end before and it sucks pretty hard. Also, Pierce on their Souls when I have Geist out is pretty brutal for them. I think Pierce has more value in this matchup then you're giving it credit; many of their Snapcaster -> whatever will be for exact mana, so Pierce stops any Snapcaster shenanigans unless they wait for another 2 turns, all while I'm Forcing through my Jace or Geist.
Ways to deal with Liliana go:
Oblivion Ring
Detention Sphere
Pithing Needle
Spell Pierce
Force of Will
Counterspell
Ways to deal with Liliana that are actually good against decks packing mana dorks, discard, and abrupt decay:
....Celestial Purge?
....Elspeth?
Baby Jace?
Boros Charm?
Lightning Bolt?
I guess Lingering Souls is pretty strong in this role. The problem is playing Lingering Souls has a profound effect on the way your deck is constructed. Esper plays discard because they want to tap out on 3 for some souls action. To me this just makes the mana base too fragile. I've found that one of the best things I have been able to do to increase my win percentage is to minimize games I lose to mana and mana disruption. Splashing for souls, i.e. UWb, is not out of the question, but then you have to be very mindful of your count of other three drops, i.e. Vendilion Clique and Snapcaster Mage.
Celestial Purge looks interesting. I know a couple Junk players were testing it and found it to be decent. It hits a lot of stuff like Sneak Attack, Liliana of the Veil, Dark Confidant, Deathrite Shaman, all Goblins, Batterskull Germ token, Sulfuric Vortex/Sulfur Elemental (very common RUG Delver sideboard cards), etc. I think it may warrant a slot.
yeah my list has one verdict in the main. not sure what i was thinking about with the extraction.
think my plan should be -2 FoW +2 BEB -3 IoK +2 PtE & +1 Darkblast?
Geist is amazing in Modern and should be in every sideboard for Blade Control players. Geist is very amazing at what he does: ending games fast if they can't block him or mass removal him. He might be good main-decked depending on your meta.
I thought that first too, sure it stops things but it doesn't do enough. If you have extra discard or other business spells in the side that can replace pierce it is best to side them in IMO. The point with pierce is that along with your discard spells it's a bad draw late game when you need gass. It can stop some things but 90% of the time you'll want business instead.
I don't like MTG, i just like legacy control decks.
My sideboard was:
1 Darkblast
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Perish
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Zealous Persecution
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Disenchant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
Postboard against Esperblade, I had sided in my 1 IoK, 3 Geist, 1 Force, 2 Pierce, 1 Disenchant, 1 Zealous Persecution (going off of memory). I took out 1 Verdict, 3 Souls, 1 Counterspell, 2 Swords to Plowshares, 1 EE, and maybe a couple other cards. Also, with a resolved Geist (pretty easy to resolve since my Esperblade opponent likely sided out his Forces), games don't go super, duper long where Spell Pierce becomes worse.
I usually take out all the Forces. About the only thing they're relevant for is countering a turn 1 Vial, and if you're siding out 2, your chances of drawing a FoW when you don't want it is greater than having the FoW when you need it.
Pierce(s) usually go too, but I usually keep a singleton Counterspell for something like REB.
I usually cut a Jace or two as well, as they don't usually live long with REBs and goblin armies.
IMO, discard isn't terrible, and probably fine unless you have better stuff to board in (like the BEB, Ghostly Prison, etc. if you have those).
Batterskull, Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice (if you're running that) are all pretty good. Not quite as strong as against Merfolk, but they can allow you to stabilize and keep Goblins from swarming.
I feel like we're very soft versus Graveyard based strategies. We have 3 sideboard cards (2 Surgical Extraction, 1 Relic of Progenitus) to deal with them and it just feels like it's not enough. I think I may test -2 Surgical Extraction, -1 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Spell Pierce, +4 Leyline of the Void.
You make some weird choices. I would never side out counterspel or E.E. Counterspell, in contrary to spell pierce is extremely good lategame. E.E answers their tokens and about every other pesky permanent like jitte, not to mention it's extremely powerful to recur explosives with academy ruins. The forces can protect your jace but the card disadvantage may make you lose the game in any other scenario.
You also open yourself up to very bad topdecks: force, pierce, discard spells. If your opponent sides out his counters and discard for business he's most likely going to win because you'll fall out of the game once your initial onslaught is answered.
That's my opinion at least. If they leave in their qouls and stall you out or drop their own geist, they'll win becaus ethey have the bigger guns while you'll slowly draw into a ton of dead cards.
Geist is good in the mirror, but it doesn't win the matchup on its own, geist still dies to EE, snapcaster, clique, souls, verdict and legend rule. Once your geist plan fails it seems you have nothing left.
I don't like MTG, i just like legacy control decks.
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