Bumbleberry Pie

[kombatkiwi]

I was being a little bit facetious but yea I think the bar for playing a 4 mana card in a control deck is pretty high especially when it's just a value piece, then you have to ask is it better than ring? Usually these slots are limited to stuff like emperor/comet/Karn that can actually function as wincons (I guess you can revive Kaya with court or something to kill the opponent but thats an extra hoop to jump through)

To some extent I agree that you don't always want the top end play of your control deck to be dinky 2-for-1s like Snapcaster KCommand but this deck already has Estrid 4x and idk if it needs to go any harder into the Phyrexian Arena plan

[Reeplcheep]

• * the decklist is missing hopeless nightmare, hymn, and sarcomancy.
• * the manabase was weird since I already have lots of white from serras. I also needed tons of B for hymn and the 1 cmc enchantments.
• * I’m worried that a beanstalk build just becomes bad enchantress, since you will never draw more cards off it than enchantress does from their deck 2 cmc durdle. It’s hard to be 4c and also support serras and trial. I want to interact first and then repeat them.
• * I did find in test games that it was hard to have enough spell and enchantment density.
• * sarcomancy does provide “value” quickly, but is awkward with the board wipes.

[FTW]

Beanstalk encourages a different direction.

The most successful builds play
Yorion, Sky Nomad
Force of Will
Solitude
Lorien Revealed
Leyline Binding
Forth Eorlingas!

Unless you've made a dedicated build around playing "5-mana" cards that cost 0-2 mana (Terminus too?), it's hard to get consistent value to justify playing the 4th color for Beanstalk.

The current deck configuration is a fundamentally different design direction: 1-2 cmc enchantments into T3 Estrid/Aminatou/Sanctum. That direction doesn't fit well with what Beanstalk needs to shine.

[FTW]

I was being a little bit facetious but yea I think the bar for playing a 4 mana card in a control deck is pretty high especially when it's just a value piece, then you have to ask is it better than ring? Usually these slots are limited to stuff like emperor/comet/Karn that can actually function as wincons (I guess you can revive Kaya with court or something to kill the opponent but thats an extra hoop to jump through)

To some extent I agree that you don't always want the top end play of your control deck to be dinky 2-for-1s like Snapcaster KCommand but this deck already has Estrid 4x and idk if it needs to go any harder into the Phyrexian Arena plan

Good points. In Standstill, a major consideration is that your 4cmc piece has to also function well under Standstill (triggered/activated ability). The One Ring is terrible there. You can't cast the spells you draw & Ring kills you. Meanwhile Court replays everything without casting "spells", while leaving all your mana untapped to interact if opponent ever breaks Standstill. It works out very differently.

In a deck like this you could consider draw engines like Ring (Aminatou flicker resets the number of counters to avoid lifeloss), and you may already get enough lategame value from Estrid. Ardenvale may offer less.

I still think Court of Cunning is even weaker. It dies to more things. The ability doesn't generate any gamestate advantage or protect the monarch, just mill. Mill may even donate resources to the opponent (Delve, Escape, flashback, Reanimate, etc.). Out of all the Courts, the 2WW ones are harder to kill. Ardenvale gives you more value even if you lose the Monarch (1/1 token is weak). Maybe none of them are good enough.

[kombatkiwi]

[Mixed replies to both FTW and reeplcheep, sry if it's a bit confusing]:

If you just want to make a "when my deck is at its operational ceiling how do I draw the most cards" then Enchantress might be better at doing that, but the upshot of beans vs enchantress is that:
(1) beans cantrips on etb while argothian doesn't, so it's significantly easier to stabilize with your engine going especially in games where you mulligan or get double griefed or whatever
(2) The set of cards that trigger beans generally seems more appealing than having to play mono-enchantments. (Force of will is by far the biggest factor here but you can also utilise other generically strong cards like prismatic ending etc rather than having to play a stack of wild growths and such).
(3) Beans has way better synergy with Yorion

Even if this hypothetical yorion estrid deck is not "maximising" beanstalk (i.e. the % of 5 cmc cards in the deck is maybe not as high as "generic beans control" deck) I think Estrids Invocation is a super powerful card to the point that lists using it in the past have played relative junk like Nylea's Presence or Omen of the Sea just to have high enough density of copy targets. Beans is similarly "copy = draw a card" but can scale beyond that when copied (or just be an engine by itself) by triggering from your other spells too.

I think you're thinking of Court of Cunning too hard as needing to fit in this exact role where both players have traded off a few resources and its like turn 4-5 and you aren't clearly winning yet but you want to slam some unanswerable card to push ahead and win the game. In this spot Forth Eorlingas is also usually quite shit (opponent can block/removal 1-2 token leaving you with basically no threat/pressure then hit you on the crackback etc). The upside of Forth Eorlingas (what makes it a really good card) is that it gives you a unique angle being able to make a proactive play getting monarch as early as turn 3 if the opponent doesn't commit anything to the board (or is playing combo), while also scaling into the lategame to just be pseudo-entreat in games where sneaking 1 knight early is not viable. Similarly, for court of cunning you can drop it on turn 3 as surprise proactive play, or much later in game it just kills in 2 turns because you mill them 10x every turn for every Estrids Invocation you have. It doesn't need to be totally unanswerable because you can also kill in other ways like flickering hopeless nightmare or yorion attacking, i.e. the fact that it pitches to force is a meaningful upside. (Not "I can never pitch this or expose it to prismatic ending or pyroblast because it's the only wincon in my deck and I have to make sure that it sticks"). What im trying to say is that in lategame where you have already taken control and have at least 1 Estrid then any type of court should basically be gg. The white ones are maybe slightly better in a not-quite-fully-stable-empty-board situation (because they still give you something each turn if your opponent takes monarch, hoping your opponent can't remove an enchantment) but this comes at a cost of happening at best 1 turn later and requiring 4 lands rather than 3 and being harder to play around daze etc which is a very meaningful drawback.

Im pretty sure I would play 0 copies of sarcomancy. The only reason you wanted this type of card before is because you need your deck to have an actual wincon in it, and with Estrid in the deck you don't need to play some expensive bomb wincon that does nothing until late in the game, you can play some card that interacts early (okay block with 2/2 zombie or attack opponent's pw, sure) and then late in game you use Estrid to retrigger it to kill the opponent. I think Ravens Crime + Shock face is better than 2/2 Zombie that burns you for 1 every turn if it dies, so now with Hopeless Nightmare existing I don't think I would play sarcomancy at all. The primary function of this slot is still to be a wincon in stable games so you don't even need to play many copies of any of this type of card because in a long game you will eventually find it. The argument might be "but I want a lot of 1mana enchantments because I want my serras sanctum to be online asap" but then I think you are contorting the deck too much for sanctum, because the ceiling on sanctum is too low here. You have no spell which you can spend more than WW on except Yorion [edit: Okay I guess Cling escape and Temporary Lockdown and the 1of Sevinnes], and sure if you have a land that taps for WWWW it's great to have Yorion as outlet for that, but Yorion is not like 15cmc Emrakul in enchantress, you can easily just wish and cast it off 5 normal lands (see DNT etc).

Similarly as I said in previous post I don't know if Founding the Third Path is the right card for this deck because it seems to be doing a similar thing like Sanctum where you start from the position that you assume that it's good then you try to think of what cards to add that enable it, without evaluating whether the end result is overall making your deck better or not. I.e. you seem to feel that you have to play a bunch of 2mana spells to maximise the value of chapter 1, and then you end up playing either a bunch of quite bad cards (3 fracture 0 Ending in your 3C legacy control deck should be a bit of an "alarm bells / red flag" moment) or playing Hymn which hurts your mana quite a lot. Like maybe Omen of the Sea is a "worse card in a vacuum" than 3rd Path, just like Plains is "less powerful" than Sanctum, but if it has better synergy with Estrids and Yorion (and Sanctum) and doesn't price you into playing maindeck disenchant or whatever then maybe that's what you should be playing instead.

[Reeplcheep]

• I wanted my targets to be interaction, since there are already lots of 1 for 1 interaction + durdle engine control decks. That’s why I was excited for founding. We could go back to “good cards” + a few dress down and omens. I’m not sure that you can go 4c when you have 1 drops in all colours. Abundant growth anti synergizes with Leyline binding.
• I think our engines are already such good proactive threats maybe we don’t need any monarch cards at all. Since they are fine when you are behind on board too. I’m very tempted to run multiple oath of kayas and just kill with ye old bolt snap bolt. 2 nightmares and an oath into Yorion is already 14 damage, and your wincons being removal means you don’t have to side them out.
• I think you are undervaluing how good having a land that taps for “draw Yorion”. Against fast decks it really helps fuel forces and against slow decks it gives you a painful truths. We could totally add more sevinnes, especially with oath. I agree we can cut sarcomancy, 12 enchantments are probably enough.
• The thought behind fracture is that temporary isolation already answers a lot of stuff that pending does, and pending doesn’t kill Urza’s saga. You could replace fracture with vanishing verse (murktide, Leyline binding) or Drown in the lock. I didn’t know how to take into account the mana fixing from founding. It is possible we could get away with less black or play gerrard’s verdict.

[Reeplcheep]

I played half a league. 2 losses vs painter and maverick, 1 win vs D&T.

• Cling doesn’t use extra white mana nearly as well as sevinnes
• Fracture did lose me games due to not hitting creatures, but it did screw an opponent by killing a t1 saga.
• Hymn was awkward as by the time it gets flash backed the opponent had few cards. The first cast was quite strong.The mana affect was real.
• There were several times where temporary isolation would have been excellent, but I couldn’t get there in time. With the recurring removal from our engines, maybe it is unneeded.

Some solutions i brewed up:

• See the Truth gives us a value card off of founding that is a huge haymaker when flash backed. It also doesn’t contort the mana. It also ignores bowmaster.
• Vanishing Verse has advantages (lage, murktide, Leyline binding) over ending and has a better floor than fracture. Hopefully between thoughtseize/oath/fow we can handle 3feri and comet.
• Sevinnes is this best outlet for Serra sanctum. On thin Ice gives us another playable 1 cmc control enchantment if we cut temporary isolation, better enabling serras. With vanishing verse we don’t have the marit lage issue that on thin ice/trial/pending had in the past.

4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 On thin Ice
4 Founding the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
3 Sevinne’s Reclamation
2 Oath of Kaya

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 See the Truth
4 Vanishing Verse
4 Force of Will

3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
3 Strand
3 Marsh Flats
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Snow Swamp
3 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

1 Yorion, the sky Serpent
3 Force of Negation
1 Back to Basics
1 Graftdiggers Cage
1 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Torpor Orb
1 Stoney Silence
1 Deafening Silence
4 Enlightened Tutor

[FTW]

That looks strong. Good mix of enchantments good vs creatures and enchantments good vs spell-heavy decks.

Hopeless Nightmare as wincon+disruption looks strong, although it will not police fast combo as well as Thoughtseize so that match may get affected. You just have FoW. Maybe Curse of Silence??

Do you want 1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity as another Sanctum mana sink?

Why 0 Teferi?

[Reeplcheep]

List is missing 4 Thoughtseize main.

Between sevinnes and Yorion i thought I have enough extra grind. And those are more accessible when I need them.

I had to make cuts somewhere for verse, and they have some overlap.

[Reeplcheep]

Gold fishing it a bit and humming and hawing over card choices. It is possible I can be trying to do too many things at once. The core of the deck I want is to make lots of mana with serras, and enchantments making value with estrids. Kombat has a point about focusing on power floor over power ceiling. In light of that:

• Omen over founding since it immediately makes value, even if the ceiling is lower. Founding asks for mill synergies and spell density that are difficult to provide without sacrifices.
• I think extra enchantments for serras is worth it. If I have less chance of making ww, I also have less chance of making any mana at all which means cutting spells for more lands. Sevinnes changed to tireless dragon, since the floor of getting a land is higher, and the cheaper cost/uncounterable means you can run more.
• Run the full 20 esper greatest hits 1 drops to have a functional interactive deck regardless of synergies.
• I believe sarcomancy is worth it. I have won surprising amounts of games with 2/2 factories, and once nightmare is in your deck you have given up on stranding cards in hand. Dragon lets you keep sarcomancy, 1 land + serras hands and also turns off the life loss.
• A few cling just for lifegain and a hedge against scam

4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 Sarcomancy
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Trial of Ambition

4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, time Raveler

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Thoughtseize

2 Cling to Dust
3 Tireless Dragon
4 Force of Will

3 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
1 Plateau
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains

1 Yorion, the sky Serpent
3 Force of Negation
1 Back to Basics
1 Graftdiggers Cage
1 Court of Grace
1 Rest in Peace
1 Torpor Orb
1 Stoney Silence
1 Deafening Silence
4 Enlightened Tutor

[FTW]

I like the shift to just running unconditionally good cards for Esper Control: Swords, Prismatic, Teferi, Omen, Cling. You've shed some variance just by running more "good stuff", flexible high power cards with high floors.

Timeless Dragon is also a good mana sink for Sanctum and mana fixing, reducing more variance.

Sarcomancy seems bad if you're on the control plan instead of aggro (History of Benalia, etc.). Some form of creature machine seems good, but Sarcomancy can backfire so badly, especially when you can't back up the 2/2 with more fast beatdown. It also puts all your 1cmc enchantments onto black mana.

What about Shark Typhoon? It cycles early and mana sinks late. The only bad thing is it doesn't work as an early enchantment for Sanctum. But maybe you can use some On Thin Ice to fill that role?

Edit: Or even a cheap 2/x enchantment creature like Gnarled Scarhide or Underworld Coinsmith? At least there's no risk of it dealing you damage.

[Reeplcheep]

• Between the back half of dragon and all 8 3 drops I thought I have a lot of ways to turn off the life loss. Because enchantments turn on white mana, there is an incentive to run non-white cheap enchantments. Sarcomancy + land + serras lets you have either all 3 colours on t2 or cycle timeless through a wasteland. Curse of silence or whatever doesn’t do that. The other options of wizard class, warlock class or mystic remora leave a lot to be desired. Mill based wincons like Court of cunning seemed higher risk and increased the cmc of the deck. It arguably synergizes with the shocks from Nightmare.
• Shark typhoon doesn’t use white mana as well as timeless and requires more mana to be threatening. Perhaps pitch to fow is enough though?
• On thin ice would be ideal, but if you give up plow you die to marit lage. If you give up ending you have no answer to non-creatures. If you give up both for on thin ice and Leyline binding you awkwardly need both 3c lands and basics.
• Enchantment creatures either don’t have an etb or are more expensive. They also expose estrids to creature removal. If I did run a creature, it would be Spirited Companion.

[FTW]

Although you have a few ways to turn off the lifeloss, you're also an 80-card deck with a slow clock. It might be OK goldfishing, but a disruptive fair opponent should be able to find lines that turn Sarcomancy on you. That lifeloss could be the difference between winning and losing grindy fair matches.

Other potential 1 CMC enchantments that might fit a control deck:
Authority of the Consuls
Curse of Silence
Evil Presence
Sea's Claim
Land Tax
Legion's Landing
Mystic Remora
Myth Realized
Okiba Reckoner Raid
On Thin Ice
Planar Void
Soothsaying
Soul Snare
Warlock Class
Wizard Class

The options aren't great.

Some of them don't copy well (Legendary) or flicker well (no ETB ability or added benefit). Some are not able to be played proactively on turn 1.

The Classes are mana sinks that draw cards, but don't impact the board right away.

Okiba is a B 2/2 creature that has Menace and drains life instead of ever damaging you. Is that better than Sarcomancy? Sarcomancy has higher ceiling (2/2 factory undisrupted) but lower floor.

Planar Void is card disadvantage though it maindeck hates on a lot of decks, and you don't use the graveyard much. It does conflict with Timeless Dragon/Sevinne's though.

Soul Snare could be an opportunity to play StP as a proactive enchantment. On Thin Ice is only sorcery speed removal, so it misses some things StP can answer (EOT Marit lage, Sneak Attack fatty), but Soul Snare can answer those.

Myth Realized might be a powerful enchantment to play early and then turn into a wincon. It both enables Sanctum and then functions as a mana sink/wincon.

Curse of Silence adds disruption and then cantrips. Flickering it is relevant so you can change the card. However you wanted something nonwhite for curve-out reasons.

Evil Presence/Sea's Claim might be the best option as maindeck land destruction. You can hate out a lot of nonbasics or manascrew greedy decks. Spreading Seas is even better if you have room at 2 mana (flickers and copies very well), but you clearly need something proactive at 1 cmc.

If you're willing to go 4c, then you get access to the best option: Abundant Growth.

[Reeplcheep]

I’m worried 4c control won’t actually work with one drops in all colours. Most 4c decks only have bant or bug 1 drops.

Marit lage is the only super concerning instant speed creature. Perhaps we can get away with on thin ice + pending if we have enough flyers. A flyer heavy control token build would also enable staff of the story teller and ravens warning. Those are two cards that have promise but need more than just sarcomancy. How about - plow - sarcomancy - timeless - omen of the sea - cling - plateau + on thin ice + staff of the story teller + the ravens warning + bitterblossom + some vistas & volc/bayou.

A few extra lands due to on thin ice being awkward with serras, and you could put a few miracles in the sideboard . Thoughtseize could be changed to cabal therapy. The deck looks worse against scam between no cling and tons of x/1s, but might be better overall.

[FTW]

Soul Snare does answer Marit Lage.

Or maybe you keep StP but replace PEnding with instant Leyline Binding, since your mana already produces 3-4 colors of mana or you can use Sanctum to pay.

Staff is a good engine but better if you went back to the full token plan (Sarcomancy, Benalia). Bitterblossom is a weak card on its own. I tried to make it work with Staff in Legacy, but the correct 1B token engine is from tribe Orc (or 1BG Insect). The problem is Blossom and Raven are mediocre on their own. You're adding weak cards to enable Staff, and you're an 80-card deck that may never see Staff. Staff is good with Yorion and Aminatou but not Estrid or Serra, so maybe this isn't the deck to force it.

Are Okiba, Myth Realized, or Evil Presence not good enough for the 1 cmc spot?

[Reeplcheep]

Soul snare is effectively 2 mana, doesn’t have any etb synergies, and is not very flexible as removal.

Stp or pending + Leyline binding does make sense, but then you don’t have a 2nd 1 drop enchantment. Warlock class wasn’t totally awful when I played it. It provides a similar “find lands with a serras” role to timeless, and could replace sarcomancy in the 1 drop slot.

Porphyry nodes + binding might be best for creature less. Binding is much easier without also needing basic lands.

I thought staff would be excellent with Serras as an outlet for extra white mana. When you are consistently drawing a card off part 2 and getting temporal mastery with part 3 I thought ravens might be good enough. The more token heavy build other wise would have issues with blue count.

All 3 of those don’t seem like cards control wants and trade down with removal.

[Reeplcheep]

Alternatively,

Flicker of Fate
Scroll Shift
Geistwave
Rite of Undoing

Are interaction that also are sort of engine cards. Rite of undoing seems the most interesting to me.

[FTW]

Those other cards seem too conditional to be playable. Squeezing in some Leyline Bindings between StP & PEnding is probably the best move. Leyline Binding can answer The One Ring, while PEnding struggles (opponent can cut off red).

Sea's Claim/Evil Presence can trade down. But they can also manascrew opponents, convert your fetches into a colored source, or turn off dangerous nonbasics (Saga, Depths, Field of the Dead, Karakas, Blast Zone, manlands, Eye of Ugin, Ancient Tomb, etc). Spreading Seas would be significantly better but doesn't fill the 1 cmc spot. Maybe it's better than Omen of the Sea though? It's a 2cmc draw that flickers well but interacts with opponent instead of just scrying.


E.g.
//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Enchantments: 22
4 Warlock Class
4 Hopeless Nightmare
4 Trial of Ambition
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Leyline Binding

//Spells: 22
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Prismatic Ending

//Planeswalkers: 6
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter

//Creatures: 3
3 Timeless Dragon

//Lands: 27
3 Serra's Sanctum
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Scrubland
1 Plateau
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Plains
12 fetch

The core looks strong. The outstanding slot is the 1 cmc enchantment. Is Warlock Class your best bet? It gives black a way to dig into other colors and serves as an additional mana sink, even if some of the triggers get underused. Level 3 doubles the clock of Hopeless Nightmare. Before you reach 6B, flickering it is useful to reuse the Level 2 draw.

Porphyry Nodes can't be played proactively on turn 1, so it's bad for the Sanctum ramp plan or the Estrid plan. It's an enchantment that's designed to suicide, not stay on the field.

Okiba is not really a control card, but neither is Sarcomancy. Okiba just seemed better than Sarcomancy (much higher floor). Perhaps not running any 2/2s is optimal.

Myth Realized is a control card. It's a finisher in a spell-heavy creature-light control deck. It's also a proactive turn 1 enchantment. It's not great with Estrid or Aminatou, but it helps enable Sanctum and then acts as a Sanctum mana sink. Is it worth considering? It seems like a better creature than a 2/2 zombie. It doesn't trade down with removal as long as you don't use it aggressively and ignore the 2W mode until lategame. Just let it sit and gain counters as you play Magic. Leave W open and you threaten a blocker, discouraging attacks. If they do attack (representing removal), you get to decide whether to activate and block (drawing out removal) or take the damage (protecting the Monk) or counter the removal & kill the attacker (good trade). It does most of that passively, without you having to dump mana into it.

Wizard Class or Warlock Class would make up for the card selection lost by cutting Omen for Spreading Seas.

Edit: Curse of Silence may be the most disruptive/controlling option though.

[Reeplcheep]

I keep going around in circles with packages. Is 15 cards that turn off the life loss really not enough to run sarcomancy?


Shrieking affliction
Disinformation campaign

Bloodchief’s Ascension
Omen of the forge
Oath of Nissa

Sarcomancy
Staff of the Storyteller
Orc Bowmaster

Moderation
Force of Negation

[Reeplcheep]

In my test leagues unending 2/2s win more than their fair share of games, so I am loath to get rid of sarcomancy.
Maybe we can commit to a sac theme? Between Nightmare and third path we might have a critical mass of enchantments that generate value on being sacrificed and on etb. Bargain spells provide a critical mass of uncounterable sac out lets, while still being interaction. I tried rite of oblivion aaa 2 of during third path testing and it did decently well.


Esper greatest hits (20)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will

Sac/bounce enablers (13)
3 Rite of Oblivion
3 Johann’s stopgap
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou

Bounce & sac targets (19)
4 Nightmare
4 Sarcomancy
4 Founding of the Third Path
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Tymaret’s Blessing

Lands (3 serras + 25)


It’s a bit confusing, but overall the ca comes out ahead.
Nightmare + stopgap is recoil + preordain for B + 1U instead of U + 1UB.
Sarcomancy, founding, rite is a 2/2 into double WB anguished unmaking.
Tymaret rite is 5 mana for vindicate draw 3.