Esper Dovin

[grimfield]

Since the spoiling of Dovin, Grand Arbiter, I have been tinkering with a tokens heavy esper midrange deck to try and abuse his “dig through overtime” (shout out to Eternal Durdles for the nomenclature) ultimate ability.

Tokens strategies are not the most powerful thing to be doing in legacy certainly. That being said, cards like bitterblossom and lingering souls can give delver and control decks alike quite a bit of trouble.

Let’s talk about what consider a sample list and optional directions to build into!

PW// 4
4 Dovin GA

Instants and Sorceries// 29
4 Lingering souls
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize or Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
2 Chart a Course
1 Spell Pierce

Enchantment// 4
4 Bitterblossom

Creature// 3
3 Baleful Strix

Lands//20
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Wasteland
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Scrubland

Some things to consider:

Daze. This card doesn’t seem like a natural fit in a deck with 10 3-drops. Being able to hold up something while you tap out for Dovin on 3 seems important, but casting him on 3 isn’t always correct as it’s best to have some attackers available already.

I could see cutting this for more discard spells. Therapy is very strong in this deck in midgame and later stages. Daze loses luster as the game goes on. This deck does not win particularly fast.

Wasteland. I am not sure we want to be on this. The color requirements of the deck are not actually too bad as it’s very U heavy. Unlike in delver decks, there are many times you can use wasteland for mana in this deck. I think having a few to kill utility lands is good, but I can also see playing B2B and no wastelands.

Karakas. If we move away from wasteland this could be a decent hedge against SnT or depths. Having swords and bitterblossom makes depth less scary than other matchups.

Chart a Course. This card has impressed me. Being able to have a blue night’s whisper without lifeloss happens fairly often. Pitching lingering souls, extra blossoms, or Dovins is also pretty acceptable. I could see increasing this to three if we move to a version without wasteland.

Zealous Persecution. Definitely a SB inclusion. Perhaps worth maindecking? Can handle opposing TNN and provide a faster clock in a pinch.

Council’s Judgement. Having ways to deal with LtlH and other problematic permanents seems reasonable. She is quite good vs our token generators.

Back to Basics. Mentioned above, I believe this deck can be built to support this card if we want it.

Counterspell. I could see this as a 1-of in a slower build.

Intuition. Usually too cute, can setup fun piles with souls and therapy.

EE/Supreme Verdict. Having a sweeper as a 1-of in a slower build seems reasonable.

Equipment: sfm does not seem like where we want to be as it enables our opponents’ removal to work effectively. I could see having a jitte or two without her. I’m kind of biased against this card so I am open to a discussion here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I welcome any thoughts you may have!

Cheers,
Grimfield


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[tescrin]

-1 Souls
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Blossom
-1 Dovin

+2 SFM
+1 Jitte
+1 SoFaI

You definitely don't run a bunch of 4 ofs that are bad if you draw 3 of them; especially not ones that are bad if you play 2 (Blossom is actually worse in multiples because the damage gradient against yourself is too high)

You *DO* want equips. Not just to make tokens non-anemic, but to balance your life-loss. SFM being removed is something you should basically be happy about. They spent mana and a card to kill a 1/2 that drew you a card. No big.

People who feel weird about SFM are often thinking about BSK. Blue often plays BSK and 4x SFM; because you can't sustain BSK without a multitude of SFM and Brainstorm helps with BSK. Personally I'm back to running the non-blue non-D&T variant of SFM; where you run a couple and she just helps with CA and getting the equipment you want more often.

Finally, equips (especially on fliers) are super helpful with Elves. Currently you're banking on not only countering all large elf spells, but you're also banking on racing their 1/1s and 2/2s with abilities against your 1/1s that lack abilities, while also hurting yourself with blossom and paying a lot more mana for them. It's too slow for Elves.

Aside from other issues, I think this folds to D&T, Goblins, Burn, probably Eldrazi (they run Jitte and Reality Smasher.) From experience I can say that you'll (probably) do fine against Lands, Turbo, maybe Reanimator, maybe S&T (but you're really slow to kill.) Even with Jitte I think you'll have issues with D&T and Gobbos. If an opponent lands a Jitte against you it's also GG, so you'll probably lose to opposing SFM decks.

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The main question here is why would you run a lot of this as opposed to mentor? This isn't to say you need to run Mentor; but to focus on what makes this approach better (if there is one) and then hone in on what decks you want to beat with it. If it's just to run Dovin; what does dovin do for you? He seems to search for combo or hard-control cards.

IMO; this implies you should have a focus on getting a combo kill in there somewhere. Dark Triumph may be a way to nuke your opponents for example, making use of all those tokens. I would consider, with the above SFM critique, running a Rip//Helm package (3/1 to 4/2) maybe with Energy Field or you could find another insta-gib. Then your gameplan becomes something your opponent has to deal with more proactively than fetching up Jitte->GG.

Those are my first impressions anyway. I think you can make much better use of the Dig-Through-Time activation (assuming you can reliably get it.) A card that I noticed would pair well with Dovin in R was Hanweir Garrison. If he attacks the turn you drop dovin you are now in reach of the DTT activation.

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Blossom math:
Single - 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 21 damage for 7 hp over 8 turns
Double - 0 + 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = 20 damage for 10 hp over 5 turns

While that may seem alright, it also means that if your opponent interacts with you it's much more dangerous:

T3 boardwipe
Single 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 18 damage for 9 hp over 9 turns
Double 0 + 2 + 4 + 0 + 2 + 4 + 6 = 18 damage for 14 hp over 7 turns

This is just to show that it's very easy to kill yourself (especially since you lack life-gain) if you're not careful. I run 3 blossom Max, even when I build around it.

This is because Blossom's life-loss is linear, but its damage is geometric. If you don't get far enough along the geometric curve for it to be worth it (because you're killing yourself to quickly) then the second copy is actively bad.