[DTB] Blade Control

[NiRVeS]

I made the finals of two events (53 and 25 players respectively) with the following Esper list:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15458&d=294149&f=LE

Not sure about the Gideon yet, but very happy about everything else.

Matchups event 1:
R1: Pox / W 2-0
R2: D&T / W 2-0
R3: Hive Mind / W 2-1
R4: Miracles / W 2-0
(Double ID into T8)
QF: concession from teammate
SF: infect / W 2-1
F: D&T / L 1-2

Matchups event 2:
R1: Dragon Stompy / W 2-0
R2: Grixis Delver / L 0-2
R3: Elves / W 2-0
R4: Shardless BUG / W 2-1
R5: Eldrazi / W 2-1
R6: BR Reanimator / W 2-1
(Cut to top4)
SF: BUG Delver / W 2-0
F: Eldrazi / L 0-2

[CptHaddock]

I've lost plenty of games against Delver decks having resolved 3-mana sorceries, this is an extreme oversimplification.

Why would you want to talk about sensible things when you can just talk in absolutes?

For real though, souls have helped me stabilize many times against Delver. The most important thing about the Delver matchup is just developing your manabase and the board, don't play into obvious soft counters and you'll win the game. Sometimes they just have the delver draw and you can't really do anything about it. I don't really like bringing in blood moon in the delver matchup but against a lot of decks it's just a game closer. Say you have a big fight over a Jace or TNN or something similar and they are tapped out, blood moon will just end the game against some decks. You shouldn't be slamming it ASAP hoping that it resolves, that's just plain dumb. The best way to beat these greedy 4c decks is to just overtax all their spells and esper does that naturally.

Not sure how Chandra is unplayable, she's a walker/removal spell that doesn't get hit by REB which everyone is basically playing right now.

[NiRVeS]

Not sure how Chandra is unplayable, she's a walker/removal spell that doesn't get hit by REB which everyone is basically playing right now.

I wouldn't call Chandra unplayable, but I do think the white 4CC walkers (Elspeth and Gideon) are superior since they close out games faster and are better at pressuring opposing Planeswalkers, which for me is one of the main arguments for running this type of card anyway.

[L10]

Another issue is that red is a tertiary color, so getting the RR mana reliably may be hard, unless it's more of a URw build.

[maharis]

I've been playing Esper on MTGO and it's been pretty good. 12-8 over four leagues but 7-3 since I made a couple tweaks.

4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Baleful Strix
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Gurmag Angler

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Lingering Souls
1 Counterspell
1 Unearth
1 Fatal Push

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire & Ice

4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Swamp

3 Meddling Mage
2 Disenchant
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Fatal Push
1 Pithing Needle

Originally I was trying Ojutai's Command for the blowout potential, but I just wasn't able to cast it ever so I switched to Unearth (which has been pretty awesome). I also originally had 2 wastelands (20 land total) but that sucked as well so I cut them for the 9th fetch and 3rd ponder. Just felt like it made the deck too swingy, it was nice to occasionally mana-screw someone but that wasn't consistent (obviously) and more often than not I just wanted to get my colors online. (Similar conclusion to CptHaddock)

The reason I play this deck is that I love playing Souls and ZP again. I don't like this as a TNN deck without DRS, just makes it clunkier. The various BUG(r) decks they get their true-name down first, decay/discard your equips, kill sfm, Pyroblast, etc. Sucks when they get one down but if you can get a Jitte on some Souls you can usually keep up.

Surprised I don't see more Striges as they pick up equips well, pitch to force, come down through Thalia, draw a card, hit the table early if nothing is really going on. Card is absurd.

[Tcpdump]

My version of "make blade control great again" :

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:9
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Spells:29
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
1 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fire // Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Council's Judgment
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Batterskull
4 Force of Will

Lands:22
1 Academy Ruins
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:15
2 Containment Priest
2 Izzet Staticaster
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Wear // Tear
1 Sword of Fire and Ice




Enviado desde mi iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

[apistat_commander]

I'm getting back into MtG, at what seems like a great time. I quit playing right as Miracles was taking over and have returned coincidentally right after it died. Just before Miracles got big, Esperblade was doing really well: Tempo was getting crushed out by mid-range decks but the mid-range decks had a terrible MU against combo and/or decks that hated on non-basics. This seems to be approximately where we have returned to now, with no major new players in the meta other than DRS and Eldrazi which is just another stompy deck. My list below is pretty similar to what TokenMaster is running above, but seems pretty solid for the current meta. Post-board you transform into a hate-machine for whatever MU you are playing. Discard and counters is the best combination against combo, you get to run basics, and you can battle mid-range on card quality.

Lands (22):
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Marsh Flats
1x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Island
1x Scrubland
2x Underground Sea
3x Tundra
1x Karakas
1x Creeping Tar Pit

Creatures (9):
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Snapcaster Mage
2x True-Name Nemesis

Instants (15):
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
1x Counterspell

Sorceries (9) :
4x Thoughtseize
3x Ponder
1x Lingering Souls
1x Supreme Verdict

Artifacts (3):
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa’s Jitte
1x Engineered Explosives

Planeswalker (2):
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard:
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Disenchant
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Supreme Verdict
2x Path to Exile
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Invasive Surgery
2x Duress
1x Vendilion Clique

Any input on the list? The sideboard needs tweaking probably, but it is a decent starting place. Lingering Souls is a great card, but with DRS in the format I don't imagine you'll get the same value out of it that you used to. I'm wondering if I should include more in the board though. I looked at the other Planeswalkers, but JTMS still seems like the most powerful thing you can slam down for 4 mana.

[useL]

I have to wonder why this thread is all the way back at third page in Established Decks. When I quit playing StoneBlade and went to Miracles it was a thriving deck.

Regarding the deck list postings. I have a feeling that it will seldom result in anything constructive and just a few comments that lead to nothing. Try to focus on certain parts of the deck or specific cards instead for a more detailed discussion. I would suggest to never post a list unless you want to point to a certain part, preferably someone elses list that you have thoughts about since your own list tends to be so personal and the card choices so subjective.

I would like to focus on two cards in this post. These are Council's Judgment vs Engineered Explosives. Both have upsides and downsides and I will try to narrow it down.

Council's Judgment
a) does not target,
b) can not be "interrupted" once it resolves
c) Snapcastable
d) requires 3 lands for a full resolution
e) does not affect your own boardstate
1) costs 2 white which most lists can struggle with
2) sorcery speed
3) single target removal

Engineered Explosives
a) does not target
b) castable with any mana at lower range of cmc
c) sweeps everything at 1 cmc
d) easy to cast early for 0 or 1
1) can get stifled
2) needs specific colors
3) not recursive unless you play bad lands
4) with a typical blade list you will get affected at cmc 2-3


So my decision on which one to play depends on this:

a) am I playing several Snapcaster Mage?
b) am I playing a board intensive list with Baleful Strix, TNN, 3 Equipments?
c) am I facing a lot of decks with chalice, D&T, elves?
d) am I facing a lot of decks like reanimator, control with jace, bug delver, sneak and show?
e) am I playing other double white spells that makes me play double plains anyway?
f) do I have any of the cards mentioned in Japanese foil? *sorry, couldnt help it*

Anyway, my thoughts on two cards. If you want me to do another analysis of other comparables let me know, I have done this with huge parts of my deck. Oh btw, humble brag, I am now 8-0 in tournament play since I revised my list. That might have been the same if I were on Parallax Wave since the sampl size is so small, but it feels good.



/Markus aka useL

[apistat_commander]

Regarding the deck list postings. I have a feeling that it will seldom result in anything constructive and just a few comments that lead to nothing. Try to focus on certain parts of the deck or specific cards instead for a more detailed discussion. I would suggest to never post a list unless you want to point to a certain part, preferably someone elses list that you have thoughts about since your own list tends to be so personal and the card choices so subjective.

Agreed. This thread should a.) not be dead and b.) have more productive discussion. It seems the Source has slowed down a fair bit since I was posting regularly.

I would like to focus on two cards in this post. These are Council's Judgment vs Engineered Explosives. Both have upsides and downsides and I will try to narrow it down.

Council's Judgment
a) does not target,
b) can not be "interrupted" once it resolves
c) Snapcastable
d) requires 3 lands for a full resolution
e) does not affect your own boardstate
1) costs 2 white which most lists can struggle with
2) sorcery speed
3) single target removal

Engineered Explosives
a) does not target
b) castable with any mana at lower range of cmc
c) sweeps everything at 1 cmc
d) easy to cast early for 0 or 1
1) can get stifled
2) needs specific colors
3) not recursive unless you play bad lands
4) with a typical blade list you will get affected at cmc 2-3

I think it is interesting that you choose these two cards, because I see many lists playing both and was planning to do so myself. Right now I see them both as part of a 7 piece MD removal package:

4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Council's Judgment
1x Engineered Explosives

Having two Wrath effects MD seems really good, especially with so many decks relying on creatures. What are you considering for the slot instead of removal? More countermagic/discard/win conditions? My meta is combo heavy, so I'd like to fit a second Spell Pierce/Counterspell in the MD but the flexibility of both EE and Council's Judgment have pushed me in the other direction.

Speaking of card choices, I'm stuck on a bit of a conundrum: whether or not DRS is worth it in this deck? I don't want to play the TNN/Bantblade lists that are running around, because if I want to play aggro I'll just run Delver. My Blade lists would be are mostly identical with the following changes:

4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Tropical Island

1x Supreme Verdict
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Council's Judgment
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Karakas

So basically, I'm trading all of my one-of flex slots for the power of Deathrite Shaman. In terms of impact upon the deck here are the pros and cons as I see it:

Pros
- Accelerates the deck, allowing you do to more things more quickly. I think this makes the deck more powerful, as you have stronger opening hands against many decks in the format. T1 DRS into T2 Thoughtseize/SFM seems pretty sick.
- Provides maindeck grave hate
- Provides an additional source of lifegain
- People seem to fear DRS and blow a lot of removal on him. This means SFM is a little safer.
- Lowers the curve of the deck, which is never a bad thing in Legacy.

Cons
- MD Wrath/EE are much worse. Wiping the opponent's board is generally pretty good and seems like an option I'd want to have.
- You lose a lot of flexible removal that can be very useful in a control deck.
- I don't think the manabase really supports Karakas with DRS. I really want Karakas in my meta given the number of Reanimator and Sneak/Show decks running around.

So basically I think the trade off is between flexibility and power. Having a number of sweet one-of is one of the nice things about Stoneblade and given that your games go longer you'll see a lot of them. I also run 4 Brainstorm/4 Ponder so digging for them is not out of the question. However, DRS does a lot to accelerate the deck and is a pretty awesome little spell stick. Thoughts/input?

[CptHaddock]

Is there really that much to discuss as far as this deck goes? The UW vs UWr vs UWb topic has been beaten to death, and most other topics are silly things like 3 vs 4 ponders.

I'm not a big fan of DRS in this style of deck but in the end the debate just comes down to consistency vs power and trying to find a good mix of the 2. If you are playing DRS I would recommend building more around DRS and adding things like Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach. The turbo TNN plan seems worse than Bant and turn 2 lingering souls isn't really that impressive anymore. If we're being nit picky then you're venturing into Deathblade and not really UWx blade. I wouldn't be too worried about removal, you shouldn't be jamming SFM into an empty board when you're the control deck in almost every fair matchup.

[Madmankevinx]

I feel like if we are not playing DRS avoiding the Deathblade label, U/W is where I want to be running maindeck Back to Basics and a heavy counter package maybe with Standstill for after we get a SFM down. It's a brave new world post top so who knows.

[apistat_commander]

I'm not a big fan of DRS in this style of deck but in the end the debate just comes down to consistency vs power and trying to find a good mix of the 2. If you are playing DRS I would recommend building more around DRS and adding things like Liliana of the Veil and Hymn to Tourach. The turbo TNN plan seems worse than Bant and turn 2 lingering souls isn't really that impressive anymore. If we're being nit picky then you're venturing into Deathblade and not really UWx blade. I wouldn't be too worried about removal, you shouldn't be jamming SFM into an empty board when you're the control deck in almost every fair matchup.

I think DRS is totally worth discussing as a control piece. The Deathblade lists I'm seeing largely look like untuned piles and the manabases are atrocious. What I'm interested in is running DRS in the Esper shell as essentially a black creature while holding the other elements the same (4 basics, balance of combo/creature hate, etc.). DRS is quite powerful but I'm still not convinced that he adds enough to the deck to be worth moving away from the control plan where you can largely Wrath without impacting your board. However a major strength of Stoneblade is the ability to switch between being the aggressor or playing control depending on the MU/your draw. DRS seems to enhance that feature of the deck, either providing you instant speed damage/more mana for being the control or letting you slam down powerful cards more quickly if you are the aggressor. I don't like many of the Deathblade lists because they lock you into being the aggressor, and I prefer to have some amount of flexibility.

I feel like if we are not playing DRS avoiding the Deathblade label, U/W is where I want to be running maindeck Back to Basics and a heavy counter package maybe with Standstill for after we get a SFM down. It's a brave new world post top so who knows.

I tested straight U/W a bit and liked it less than Esper. You do get a stronger manabase, a bomb in the form of B2B, and you have more slots for countermagic. On the other hand, the combination of discard and countermagic provides the biggest hurdle for combo and G2/3 it is easy to turn Blade decks into a hate machine for whatever you are playing. A lot of decks can simply ignore, kill, or counter B2B, then you are left with countermagic or Swords to handle everything which doesn't always work. That being said, I believe every Blade shell is viable given the right pilot and tuning it for their meta. My meta is filled with combo and a lot of Tier 2 wonkiness (Eldrazi, Burn, etc.) so having the ability to proactively take threats is beneficial for me rather than waiting to counter things which doesn't always work out.

[Seraphix]

I feel like if we are not playing DRS avoiding the Deathblade label, U/W is where I want to be running maindeck Back to Basics and a heavy counter package maybe with Standstill for after we get a SFM down. It's a brave new world post top so who knows.

I largely reached the same conclusion. Juggling a 3rd color without Deathrite Shaman always felt too clunky in the fair matchups for me. Blade decks are slow and mana hungry, and now that most opposing fair decks have Deathrite Shaman they are better positioned to leverage a mana advantage against us, particularly with Wasteland.

...

I tested straight U/W a bit and liked it less than Esper. You do get a stronger manabase, a bomb in the form of B2B, and you have more slots for countermagic. On the other hand, the combination of discard and countermagic provides the biggest hurdle for combo and G2/3 it is easy to turn Blade decks into a hate machine for whatever you are playing. A lot of decks can simply ignore, kill, or counter B2B, then you are left with countermagic or Swords to handle everything which doesn't always work. That being said, I believe every Blade shell is viable given the right pilot and tuning it for their meta. My meta is filled with combo and a lot of Tier 2 wonkiness (Eldrazi, Burn, etc.) so having the ability to proactively take threats is beneficial for me rather than waiting to counter things which doesn't always work out.

While UW has no analog to discard, there is no shortage of hateful U and W permanents you can play to supplement your permission with against combo decks. I also like that pure UW can comfortably support Wastelands, which together with B2B vastly improve your matchups vs land-centric decks (Lands, Cloudpost, etc), traditionally hard matchups for Blade strategies.

[Misersoneof]

Hey Everyone! New to this thread and coming here from Miracles. Sorry if I'm bringing up something that you guys have already talked about but I didn't see it here and I have seen it discussed by the Deathblade Thread.

Ben Friedman recently went on the Leaving a Legacy Podcast and pitched his UB Control list. After talking about that list he went on to discuss his new Esper Stoneblade list featuring 3 main copies of Collective Brutality. Since the podcast he has written an article on the Esper list (link here) and 5-0'd a legacy league. (Stream here)

Since seeing his performance I have been sold on Collective Brutality. It is a discard spell for combo, a removal spell for aggro and reach for those moments when you have to end the game. Its escalate ability is also useful in control shells because extra lands or dead counters become extra copies of CB.

What do you guys think?

[MrFrowny_]

Hey Everyone! New to this thread and coming here from Miracles. Sorry if I'm bringing up something that you guys have already talked about but I didn't see it here and I have seen it discussed by the Deathblade Thread.

Ben Friedman recently went on the Leaving a Legacy Podcast and pitched his UB Control list. After talking about that list he went on to discuss his new Esper Stoneblade list featuring 3 main copies of Collective Brutality. Since the podcast he has written an article on the Esper list (link here) and 5-0'd a legacy league. (Stream here)

Since seeing his performance I have been sold on Collective Brutality. It is a discard spell for combo, a removal spell for aggro and reach for those moments when you have to end the game. Its escalate ability is also useful in control shells because extra lands or dead counters become extra copies of CB.

What do you guys think?

So I recently put together the Esper Stoneblade list that Ben Friedman played last month on MTGO and played in my weekly LGS Tournament with the list. I only made one change to the list, I added a Containment Priest to the sideboard because we have a lot of Sneak and Show at our LGS. Here is the list for anyone unfamiliar with what I'm talking about:

Creatures (10)
2 True-Name Nemesis
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Instants (14)
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sorceries (9)
2 Ponder
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality

Artifacts (3)
1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands (21)
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard (15)
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Meddling Mage
2 Fatal Push
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Thoughtseize
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Collective Brutality
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Containment Priest

I went 3-0, getting 1st place in the Tournament. I would've wrote a tournament report over it the day of/after but I was busy with work and forgot. Anyways, I beat High Tide 2-0, Grixis Pyromancer 2-0, and Maverick 2-0. The Collective Brutalities are the real deal, almost every time I cast one, it was a 2 for 1. I highly recommend at least the 3 in the main.

[First_Revenge]

Hello stoneblade brethren!

I'm on deathblade, just felt like throwing in my 2 cents regarding collective brutality. I ran 3 maindeck recently to great success. Feels like exactly the midrange catchall answer i've been looking for.

More or less felt exactly like what ben friedman described, i had mediocre G1's but felt my deck was loaded G2 and G3. Lead to a lot of 2-1 wins. The card seems to be for real, and i'll be running 3 copies for the forseeable future.

[tescrin]

I think my list is more applicable to the Deathblade people, but I figured I'd share my deck's thread here.

Long story short, it's more Control/Tempo of all things; using Spellstutter Sprite with Bitterblossom and Spell Queller to build a board while basically playing everything on the opponent's turn except equip costs, DRS, and SFM.

Again, may not be your thing but I've been having good local success with it and the more hands that shuffle it up the better to find out if it's viable. Since landing on what I consider the appropriate shell I've gone 12-1-1 in locals; where as I was figuring it out I was often going 2-1, 1-2, or 1-1-1. I realize that that's not amazing test data, but again, that's why I'm putting a note here.

[Misersoneof]

I was doing some testing with the Ben Friedman Esper list I posted about early. FYI, if you check the list that is posted it's only 59 cards main. He must've left out the Creeping Tar Pit because he planned to change it to something else. I don't have a tar pit yet so I put in a ponder which seems to work fairly well.

After doing some rounds with a friend who had BUG leovold I felt that the deck was pretty strong Game 1 which seems to be counter to the what other players have said. It really does run like a control deck and I loved being able to kill threats, develop my mana and sweep whenever my opponent over-committed.

Post board however my friend ran 2 null rods and every time he landed one I was completely blown out. All equipment became useless and the catch-all of 3 engineered explosives were dead cards. My playtest partner suggested that I should run disenchant to take out rods and stony silence. What do you guys think of that suggestion? Do any of you run 1-2 disenchants in the side? Are they even warranted in this meta?

[First_Revenge]

Post board however my friend ran 2 null rods and every time he landed one I was completely blown out. All equipment became useless and the catch-all of 3 engineered explosives were dead cards. My playtest partner suggested that I should run disenchant to take out rods and stony silence. What do you guys think of that suggestion? Do any of you run 1-2 disenchants in the side? Are they even warranted in this meta?

Ya null rod/stony silence is a blow out. As for the meta thing, it depends on what you want to do with the deck. I would guess Friedman probably built this deck to take down large tournaments where the “meta” is harder to define, hence the catchall answers like EE. But if you just want to play at small weeklies where you’ve got a pretty good handle on the meta, ya you can and should switch it up accordingly.

For what its worth I haven’t run into null rod/stony silence at all. That being said, I do side in 1 disenchant since I know mud/dnt/chalice/3ball/stoneblade are all things I’m fairly likely to see in my local meta.

And in general don’t get discouraged by one bad matchup and warp your deck around it. It sounds like you’ve only tested this against one person so far. Take it to a tourney and see how it does in the bigger scheme of things.

[btm10]

Post board however my friend ran 2 null rods and every time he landed one I was completely blown out. All equipment became useless and the catch-all of 3 engineered explosives were dead cards. My playtest partner suggested that I should run disenchant to take out rods and stony silence. What do you guys think of that suggestion? Do any of you run 1-2 disenchants in the side? Are they even warranted in this meta?

Why wouldn't you run Disenchant in the sideboard? I get wanting access to Council's Judgement or EE as more of a catch-all, but there's no shortage of targets for Disenchant and Instant speed for 2 mana is a big improvement on Sorcery speed for more than 2 mana. A 1/1 split seems about right.