[DTB] Blade Control

Hello Everyone. I'm shifting my game into Esper Blade, so here I am with opinions and questions! I've been playing RUG for a long time now, and it's still my baby. However Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace have made Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf pretty useless. From RUG I moved into Miracles, and while it was a big thing for a while, I don't really like the new RIP + Helm of Obedience combo that's taking control of the deck. Not to mention it just fell off of the top decks!

So I played a few weeks at the local with a brew of my own based upon lots of decks I've seen running around, but now (thanks to a friend's advice) I'm working with Ben Friedman's list from Edison. Here's the list for reference:

Lands (23)
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Academy Ruins
2 Wasteland

Creatures (11)
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Lingering Souls

Removal (5)
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Engineered Explosives

Discard (4)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek

Counterspells (6)
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
1 Counterspell

Cantrips (6)
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Intuition

Win Cons! (5)
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

Sideboard (15)
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Vindicate
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Path to Exile
1 Lingering Souls

On to how I feel about this deck!

Turn one is really hard for me sometimes. I'm very torn if I should slam that discard spell ASAP, or hold up a spell snare (on the draw of course). This is really a meta thing, but in a blind match, there's got to be some precedent for it. Slamming the discard spell gives you lots of information, and the ability to take away that two drop you might counter. Then again, they might have multiple two drops, and you at least get to pick the one you want to hit the field the least. However, if you hold up the snare, you then get to counter the first one, and strip the second one out of their hand the next turn with the discard spell. Decisions!

That leads me into the discussion of Spell Snare vs. Spell Pierce. Snare is good when there are a lot of fair decks dropping really good 2 CMCs. This meta seems to fit the bill. With Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Scavenging Ooze, and many more this meta fits the bill. Pierce is good in an unfair meta - that is with lots of combo decks running around. The crux here is that Snare also hits most of the important combo pieces right now - Tutors. Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish are the big ones, shutting down TES and SnT's tutor strategies. So I'm very much in favor of the Snares, not to mention there's three Flusterstorms in the board which are even better against these combo decks!

Ok, onto other issues! Intuition is a card I have never played with, so I need a little help here! Aside from the obvious choices (3x Souls, 3x Force, Cabal+Cabal+Souls) what other common combinations are there for this card? I know it's a powerhouse - I just need to play with it and learn how to use it best. If my post is too long, read this paragraph and respond :)

Onto the sideboard:

• I really like Cabal Therapy, and I know there's been some discussion here about this. Honestly, I've gotten pretty good at guessing what my opponent needs to win the game - and hitting it dead on with this card, so I'll be playing it for a while!
• Surgical Extraction with Snapcaster Mages in the main is just a no brainier.
• Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce - I like this choice a lot. Spell pierce tends to lose it's usefulness after a while - even against decks like TES. If you don't spring it at the perfect time - it's just dead. However, Flusterstorm is just the card for the combo match-ups. It's dead on against storm - which is the primary concern here.
• Two Supreme Verdicts are for the creature match-ups. Decks like Goblins and Affinity are still running around, and these are great. Much more importantly - RUG and BUG agro can't counter them!
• Vindicate is for opposing planeswalkers in the control mirror.
• Engineered Explosives is one of my favorite cards - ever. It's just so useful and flavorful to boot! Comes in against TES, RUG, BUG, the list goes on!
• Lingering Souls confuses me a bit. I'm just not sure which match-ups I want the fourth one in the main. I'm guessing it's for the mirror - but I'm just not su

re!

Cheers Everyone!

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Originally Posted by Pherion

[*]Lingering Souls confuses me a bit. I'm just not sure which match-ups I want the fourth one in the main. I'm guessing it's for the mirror - but I'm just not su

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I will respond in more detail to your post a bit later today, but for this point, Ben talked about it in his article on starcity after the event, saying that he did not like it and would change it with a cheap answer, like path to exile number 2, or desanchant.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...y-In-2013.html

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Originally Posted by Firepaw3

Has venser, the sojourner been discussed in this thread? I really like the card and it doesent seem 1/2 bad with riptide and karakas, or is it just too much mana for what it.does?

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Why should anyone talk about adding obviously bad cards? Venser doesn't draw cards on it's own and doesn't create any extra board presence. At 5 mana this is pretty much a win more card in Legacy. If you are looking for a borderline playable 5 mana walker, check out Gideon Jura. I don't think it's good but it's playable in fair metas at least. Tamiyo is probably playable as well; at least it draws cards and pitches to Force of Will.
But honestly, if you are looking for more walkers add 4th Jace if you don't already play it or add Elspeth or more Elspeth. They are just strictly better than the 5 mana ones.

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Originally Posted by dunkle_stille

Why should anyone talk about adding obviously bad cards? Venser doesn't draw cards on it's own and doesn't create any extra board presence. At 5 mana this is pretty much a win more card in Legacy. If you are looking for a borderline playable 5 mana walker, check out Gideon Jura. I don't think it's good but it's playable in fair metas at least. Tamiyo is probably playable as well; at least it draws cards and pitches to Force of Will.
But honestly, if you are looking for more walkers add 4th Jace if you don't already play it or add Elspeth or more Elspeth. They are just strictly better than the 5 mana ones.

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I am pretty sure he meant Venser, Shaper Savant not Sojourner given his reference to Riptide Lab and Karakas.

As a response to that, some of the Blade players in my area are a big fan of a single copy in the board. It gives you another thing another thing to bring in against control, Sneak/Show, and other slower decks (12 post, Nic Fit, etc.). He is never dead because he interacts with the stack and the board, but 4 mana for a bounce spell is still a lot. The Venser/Karakas lock is pretty powerful, however establishing a combination of two singletons is a bit ambitious.

I played Riptide Laboratory for a while. I think I activated it one time in a game I was going to win anyway. I'd rather have Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, or a colored source. Tower of the Magistrate is fine if your meta has enough Stoneforge decks.

The body on Venser is just so irrelevant. I think I'd rather run Restoration Angel. Still has flash, has evasion, and is a 3/4, aka blocks everything except unfair creatures and Tarmogoyf.

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Originally Posted by ThediscoPower

I will respond in more detail to your post a bit later today, but for this point, Ben talked about it in his article on starcity after the event, saying that he did not like it and would change it with a cheap answer, like path to exile number 2, or desanchant.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...y-In-2013.html

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Thanks for the link! I'm glad to hear that my confusion about the 4th Lingering Souls was not misplaced. The article is pretty good, the end section where he talks about different strategies has a lot of fantastic info in it.

The other thing I need to learn, and this is probably just from experience, is when to play aggressiveness, and when to play for attrition. My guess is that in combo and agro match-ups we need to play slowly and grind them out. Whereas in the control match-up it feels like we can go either way depending on how turn 1 and 2 go. The deck feels very flexible in this regard.

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Originally Posted by apistat_commander

I am pretty sure he meant Venser, Shaper Savant not Sojourner given his reference to Riptide Lab and Karakas.

As a response to that, some of the Blade players in my area are a big fan of a single copy in the board. It gives you another thing another thing to bring in against control, Sneak/Show, and other slower decks (12 post, Nic Fit, etc.). He is never dead because he interacts with the stack and the board, but 4 mana for a bounce spell is still a lot. The Venser/Karakas lock is pretty powerful, however establishing a combination of two singletons is a bit ambitious.

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Yea i did, always mix the names up

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Turn one is really hard for me sometimes. I'm very torn if I should slam that discard spell ASAP, or hold up a spell snare (on the draw of course). This is really a meta thing, but in a blind match, there's got to be some precedent for it. Slamming the discard spell gives you lots of information, and the ability to take away that two drop you might counter. Then again, they might have multiple two drops, and you at least get to pick the one you want to hit the field the least. However, if you hold up the snare, you then get to counter the first one, and strip the second one out of their hand the next turn with the discard spell. Decisions!

Intuition is a card I have never played with, so I need a little help here! Aside from the obvious choices (3x Souls, 3x Force, Cabal+Cabal+Souls) what other common combinations are there for this card? I know it's a powerhouse - I just need to play with it and learn how to use it best.

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Discard vs keep up Snare: If you have time to play the Discard on turn two, there is no real disadvantage of keeping open Snare turn one. If you have the option of t2 Stoneforge, I would play the discard t1 to see if the coast is clear (and also because I will likely not have to opportunity for a discard on t2 or even t3).

On Intuition: A common play that I almost missed the first time it came up is Intuitioning for 1-ofs with Snapcaster Mage in hand. I run a 1-of MD Supreme Verdict and was desperately needing a mass removal g1 vs. Death and Taxes. So I eot Intuitioned for EE-Verdict-Ruins and got the Ruins (as I was dead on board). I then snapped the Verdict on my turn and had Ruins-EE for the rest of the game.

I'm going to try Rest in Peace in the board, but I'm really lost as to what I take out if I put it in. It's either Snapcaster or Lingering Souls (assuming this).

My 75 for reference:

ESPER STONEBLADE:
CREATURES: [8]
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Snapcaster Mage

INSTANTS [14]
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Counterspell
1 Intuition

PLANESWALKERS [3]
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

ARTIFACTS [4]
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Engineered Explosives

SORCERIES [9]
2 Thoughtseize
1 Vindicate
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lingering Souls
1 Supreme Verdict

LAND [22]
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins

SIDEBOARD [15]
2 Humility
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Rest in Peace
2 Flusterstorm
1 Disenchant
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Timely Reinforcements

EDIT:
Maybe I need to run Geist in the sideboard before I can think about Rest in Peace?

I need some sideboarding help against maveric. I'm playing Vidi's list with couple sideboard changes (no geists) but same maindeck. How do you guys side against maveric? I tend to side out all counters and thats four cards only. I know i want to side in at least perish and darkblast, also disenchant feels necessary for their sylvan libraries/jitte/possible chokes what might have in their sideboards. Zealous Persecution also feels good cards against their guys, killing several dudes for 2 mana is great deal. Also played today against punishing fire version and surgical seemed great for that purpose so even more cards to side in. What do you think about Sword of feast and famine, is protection from green enought reason to side it in against maveric?

People who play geist in their sideboard, how good is has been? I can see that potential against combo, but i feel that our combo matchup is good enought now, so we don't necessary need _that_ fast clock when we have stoneforge -> batterskull for example. I also like to stabilize first then grind them out by jace or mystic/batterskull.

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Originally Posted by Atog

I need some sideboarding help against maveric. I'm playing Vidi's list with couple sideboard changes (no geists) but same maindeck. How do you guys side against maveric? I tend to side out all counters and thats four cards only. I know i want to side in at least perish and darkblast, also disenchant feels necessary for their sylvan libraries/jitte/possible chokes what might have in their sideboards. Zealous Persecution also feels good cards against their guys, killing several dudes for 2 mana is great deal. Also played today against punishing fire version and surgical seemed great for that purpose so even more cards to side in. What do you think about Sword of feast and famine, is protection from green enought reason to side it in against maveric?

People who play geist in their sideboard, how good is has been? I can see that potential against combo, but i feel that our combo matchup is good enought now, so we don't necessary need _that_ fast clock when we have stoneforge -> batterskull for example. I also like to stabilize first then grind them out by jace or mystic/batterskull.

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You have mentioned everything i side in, which has proven to be enough for me. If you feel you still have troubles, you can double up on some of the cards you mentioned. Apart from thet you could add an extra supreme verdict, engineered explosives etc..
Geist seems to be one of the most misunderstood sideboard choices. Its power doesnt lie in the combo matchup but in the miracle control matchup. Geist is also good as a clock against. Combo, but its a bit slow at 3 mana.
Its against miracles that geist is really good though. They absolutely need to flip terminus or they lose in 3 turns.

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Originally Posted by AEnesidem

You have mentioned everything i side in, which has proven to be enough for me. If you feel you still have troubles, you can double up on some of the cards you mentioned. Apart from thet you could add an extra supreme verdict, engineered explosives etc..
Geist seems to be one of the most misunderstood sideboard choices. Its power doesnt lie in the combo matchup but in the miracle control matchup. Geist is also good as a clock against. Combo, but its a bit slow at 3 mana.
Its against miracles that geist is really good though. They absolutely need to flip terminus or they lose in 3 turns.

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So, in other words... You keep Swords to plowshares in against miracles to clear the way for geist? I think Stp is by far the worst card in the deck against Miracles, but without it Geist will die to Snapcaster mage more often than not... :(
If we didn't have V.Clique or lingering souls I could see it beeing played, but these cards are both better... I don't think adding more 3 drops is the way to go. My personal idea of playing vs miracles is to counter their top and discard the early plays. Esperblade is much better at resolving and protecting Jace, which the MU is all about.

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Originally Posted by Mackan

So, in other words... You keep Swords to plowshares in against miracles to clear the way for geist? I think Stp is by far the worst card in the deck against Miracles, but without it Geist will die to Snapcaster mage more often than not... :(
If we didn't have V.Clique or lingering souls I could see it beeing played, but these cards are both better... I don't think adding more 3 drops is the way to go. My personal idea of playing vs miracles is to counter their top and discard the early plays. Esperblade is much better at resolving and protecting Jace, which the MU is all about.

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i don't keep stp in against them. Most of the current miracle control decks don't play many creatures. They often don't play clique or only 1 or 2 snapcaster. The majority switched to RIP miracles anyway and don't play any creatures at all. I dropped geist from the sideboard too. But in bant as well as esperblade geist has given me some free wins against miracles/rip and is decent against combo (however there are better options here). For me geist has always worked extremely well against control decks with a low creature count. Since those decks lost their presense, i feel we can drop geist as it isn't fantastic against anything else.

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Originally Posted by Atog

People who play geist in their sideboard, how good is has been? I can see that potential against combo, but i feel that our combo matchup is good enought now, so we don't necessary need _that_ fast clock when we have stoneforge -> batterskull for example. I also like to stabilize first then grind them out by jace or mystic/batterskull.

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It's the best card in the sideboard ( yeah, seriously ), especially against combo. Disruption is good, disruption with a clock is even better though. With only 4 Stoneforge Mystic to summon a real beater the deck often needs too long to kill or actually find a threat. I think upping threat density is pretty essential to win against combo, and good for several other matchups as well. It even has protection from Punishing Fire. Oh and pitches to Force. Being pitchable is really more relevant than I expected it in the past.

Against what combo deck, exactly, can you afford to cast a 3 mana creature that doesn't affect them at all, on your own turn?

I'll stick to Stoneforge-->SoFF and Vendilion Clique, thanks.

I also doubt the notion that it kills combo faster. It's going to speed you up by about a turn--what's the difference between doing that and just having the extra Spell Pierce to slow them down by a turn?

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Originally Posted by Malakai

Against what combo deck, exactly, can you afford to cast a 3 mana creature that doesn't affect them at all, on your own turn?

I'll stick to Stoneforge-->SoFF and Vendilion Clique, thanks.

I also doubt the notion that it kills combo faster. It's going to speed you up by about a turn--what's the difference between doing that and just having the extra Spell Pierce to slow them down by a turn?

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Geist would be great in those matchups where you can make them discard their hand, but you can't generate enough of a clock to finish the game. You'd know when you can safely tap out. Plus a threat that pitches to Force is not insignificant.

Vendilion Clique is as good as it gets against all sorts of combo though.

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Originally Posted by lordofthepit

Geist would be great in those matchups where you can make them discard their hand, but you can't generate enough of a clock to finish the game. You'd know when you can safely tap out. Plus a threat that pitches to Force is not insignificant.

Vendilion Clique is as good as it gets against all sorts of combo though.

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meddling mage > geist of saint traft. With ethersworn canonist beeing next contender in your "geist-slot". I agree we need a body to carry SOFF, but why not have the body do something relevant?

I don't understand why you worry about killing them fast enough, as long as they don't kill you you win:)

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Originally Posted by Mackan

meddling mage > geist of saint traft. With ethersworn canonist beeing next contender in your "geist-slot". I agree we need a body to carry SOFF, but why not have the body do something relevant?

I don't understand why you worry about killing them fast enough, as long as they don't kill you you win:)

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Meddling Mage is fine as an anti-combo card, but it's terrible against control.

Have you played combo decks very often? A deck that has a ton of disruption but a slow clock is very easy for most combo decks to beat.

I'm not saying Geist is amazing, especially since I haven't played Esper recently enough to update my configuration, but I can see why people have been running it.

Yes, I've played most combo decks a dozen times (some of them a lot more). My point still stands, geist is not good against control of today and against combo we don't need an extra clock. Every card in the deck that doesn't disrupt them will be useless once they resolve ad nauseam, show and tell, time spiral or whatever. This is where focus has to be, not letting them resolve those spells. I remember playing sfm-Cb-top (pre-miracles) against painter and winning postboard with 2 cliques and 2 jaces as my only win-cons in the deck... That deck had the cb-softlock so it's not really the same, but it was crucial I had the maximum amount of hate at every stage of the game. In esperblade I think mystics, cliques, meddling mages and a couple of jace is more than enough, with SOFF acting as the "soft-lock". I guess it comes down to playstyle and it's not really right or wrong. Im rather uber-safe than sorry:)

I will be recording a couple of dailies this week and post them on www.youtube.com/mtgvideo. Hopefully your comments on those help me see new lines of thinking.

Geist of Saint Traft, is both, supergood and superbad vs Combo, depending on your protection suite. If your plan is to cast Pierces, Counterspells and flash them back with Snapcaster Mage Geist is obv. bad... you don't want to tap out for a nothing. On the other side, if your disruption consists of Discard and free Counterspells Geist is very strong, you just play disacrd the first 2 turns, maybe third too, with Snappy and drop the Geist t3/4 on a clear cost for the win, optimally holding Force of Will up. So I think it depends on the very list of Stoneblade, whether he is great or awful.

Greetings