I am hoping Yorion provides the same role in my lists but I like the logic for sevinnes in yours.
I agree with your points on court of grace, but I am trying history instead because of Serra’s and the greater token focus
On ravens warning I was hesitant to play it without a lot of flyers. If you can’t reliably proc the second stage you have a 3 drop that essentially dies to bolt. The most obvious extra flyers are a bit awkward with estrids. (bitterblossom/strix/uncommon alliance)
Where I am at for my esper list is below. The focus is on the removal into blink engine curve since that is what sets the list apart from other control decks. The were only two real innovations.
First, the “jitte” black saga tying all the decks loose ends. It is a pump to make the tokens relevant attackers, murders small creatures to complement trial, and is additional trials to more consistently curve into the 3 drop engines.
Secondly, the white march lets us complement prismatic ending. We need to have answers to instant speed lage, and strix contorts the mana and plow leaves us with too much creature removal/not enough non-creature removal. The deck inherently has more white mana than coloured mana later in the game too because of serras.
3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
2 Paladin Class
1 Warlock Class
3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea
3 History of Benalia
4 Estrid’s Invocation
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Prismatic Ending
3 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
3 Vista
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains
This is kind of true but all of the token makers have this problem. Like if you aren't going off with estrids then 1 Omen of the Sun or 1 History of Benalia is also relatively non-threatening by itself and is unlikely to really do anything if your opponent's removal spell has no other target anyway.
Improbable Alliance is not that awkward with Estrid (you still get 2x the amount of faeries) I think my only reservation about it is just that it doesn't make tokens if your opponent has Narset, which seems a bit annoying but maybe isn't the most important consideration
History at least is 4 damage to a planeswalker with no support through a removal spell. The esper list has tokens and Yorion to stretch their removal. Also that is why I like the “jitte” saga so much, it is a low opportunity cost way to make the tokens real threats. The nettlecyst saga Michiko’s reign of truth had a higher ceiling for the same role but a much lower floor. I agree that the vanilla token makers by themselves aren’t as good for you as court of cunning.
As an aside, I haven’t found blast to be too much of an issue in esper. Paladin class protects it on the stack and then it is usually white or black after that.
Improbable alliance could be a nice fit for a jeskai list; I just really like trial and aminatou. Alliance plus baubles and ravens warning could be good; you could try ledger shredder too.
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 05-11-2022 at 11:03 AM.
Yeah but my list doesn't, and that's the context I'm talking about. Sorry if that wasn't obvious
I find that a little bit hard to believe as the deck looks very anemic without Animatou/Invocation/YorionAs an aside, I haven’t found blast to be too much of an issue in esper. Paladin class protects it on the stack and then it is usually white or black after that.
All I want is 1 optimal card that functions as a second wincon if my opponent has emrakul in their deck and I can't mill them with court. I think the rest of my list is fine. I don't want to rebuild the the deck by playing multiple extra wincons (Alliance + Warning) or adding bauble etcAlliance plus baubles and ravens warning could be good; you could try ledger shredder too.
Omen of the Forge / Improbable Alliance:
PROS
- Only 2 mana
- Can provide some reasonable earlygame stabilization by providing removal / multiple flying blocker
CONS
- No lifegain
- Works with estrid but doesn't take over the game in an overwhelming way
- Alliance disabled by breacher/narset
Omen of the Sun / Raven's Warning:
PROS
- Lifegain
CONS
- Not super good earlygame stabilization without invocation (tokens are a combination of weak/few/nonflying)
- Works with estrid but doesn't take over the game in an overwhelming way
History
PROS
- Big combo with Invocation, take over the board and kill opponent super fast
- 2x decent size token + buff just by itself is ok to pressure pw
CONS
- No lifegain / flying makes it a weak defensive option
Court of Grace / Shark
PROS
- Powerful card in its own right
CONS
- 4+ mana (Harder to resolve. Can't recur with Sevinne must protect it on the stack. Can't recur with Sevinne so can't play the line of milling yourself with Court of Cunning to find it)
Other option is to e.g. cut 1 Spreading Seas for Dovin's Acuity to get lifegain from a different card then re-evaluate these pros/cons
I don't want to play ledger shredder because I don't want to clash with my own humility and I don't want to turn opponent's removal on. If I wanted to play some random creature wincon it would probably just be mentor
An interesting thing I realised is that even UW(+b) without red gives you some good tools vs Mulch because you have Detention Sphere (+Estrid every turn) to deal with Zombies (or even Virulent Plague maybe). Still somewhat vulnerable to boseiju but at least it's something to be aware of
Last edited by kombatkiwi; 05-12-2022 at 02:10 AM.
It should also be noted that it would be quite difficult to find a worse time in the entire history of legacy to play Ledger Shredder. The connive mechanic is a forced draw that an opponent is able to trigger, at a time when Mind Twist + Timetwister are both inexplicably legal in the form of Day's + Narset passive (on top of LED/Echo)...meaning that DnT is spamming quad-laser Labyrinth in response to the presence of banned effects in the format. Note that DnT also just got a flash shatter-bear and Solitude to help trigger connive on their opponent's turn.
Now imagine if your opponent has that Narset or Labyrinth effect ..imagine it's your upkeep...imagine of they proc a connive trigger...it's gonna be frowntown, population you once the draw step comes.
Now imagine it's any point during your turn vs Narset or Labyrinth...how exactly do you think this is going to end when you put any spell on the stack and the opponent responds by casting a must-counter spell...you sure you want to trigger connive by playing that FoW?
Sorry I wasn’t sure how specific we were talking.
Blast is definitely strong against the deck, but my point is that with more non-blue targets you can dodge blast’s removal mode pretty easily.
In that context perhaps ravens warning is the best, even with 0 support maindeck. It seems like you care about stabilization more than value. Lifegain, a flying blocker, and the ability to get terminus/meltdown/entreat/insert target combo hate seems like it should stabilize you against everything.
I am also skeptical that shredder is good right now. But many good magic players such as Matt Vook are singing its praises as a flying 2 drop for control decks that can’t play strix. This is a control deck that can’t play strix but wants 2 drop flyers. It’s worth testing.
I am still working on the esper deck, and losing a lot in leagues.
The problems:
- You need something to make the tokens relevant, but those types of cards are generally terrible if you don’t have tokens
- All the sorcery speed removal leaves a big hole in answering eot marit lage.
- Using Serra’s for WW on t2 is inconsistent, but using it to cast a 3 drop on t3 isn’t really acceleration
- Blue count is iffy, especially if you add more token generators.
- History and strix strain the mana.
I added court of grace to help. The tokens contest/protect monarch (1), makes flyers (2), makes Serra ramp relevant (3) and is more reasonable to cast off basics than history (5)
I also added 3feri as an additional engine. The combo with aminatou is extremely strong and he lets endings answer lage (2)and helps blue count (4)
Karakas added to help with lage. (2)
As mentioned earlier, reign of truth to life of Umezawa since it ww t2 wasn’t consistent (3) and it is still removal/lifegain if you don’t have tokens (1)
As mentioned earlier, strix to omen of the sea for castabilit (5) t3 ww from serras (3)
In that case, your best token producers are the cards that do both. History of Benalia
Hidden Stockpile? It doesn't goldfish as aggressively as the 1-mana ones but it's much better at lasting control, lasting presence, and giving tokens something relevant to do.
What happened to the 4x Swords to Plowshares?
StP is the best control spot removal spell in the game. Auto-include in any UWx control.
3x Prismatic Ending, 3x March, 0x StP seems wrong. March is good but should be competing for space with Ending or disenchant effects, not StP.
Trying to "combo" Serra for WW on T2 seems unreliable in an 80-card deck.
T3 Serra still helps play around Daze or pay for mana sinks. Maybe that should be the plan instead of trying to aggro WW on T2.
Maybe you don't want more aggro token generators then.
Serra's Sanctum aggro probably needs to be some 60-card deck with a lot of 1 drops (like Aggro Enchantress). 80-card Yorion with high blue count and 3 cmc flicker tilts towards the control role. 1-mana "create 1 token" cards seem bad in control. Maybe you need to pick a direction instead of trying to do it all. Control seems more likely to win.
3feri seems good in general, especially if you lean into the control role. Stack control, card draw, reusing ETB enchantments...
Edit: What about something more controlling like this?
//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Prismatic Ending
2 March of Otherworldly Light
3 Force of Negation
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
//Enchantments: 22
2 Trial of Ambition
2 Spreading Seas
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 History of Benalia
4 Estrid's Invocation
1 Court of Grace
1 Humility
//Planeswalkers: 5
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
//Lands: 29
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Marsh Flats
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
2 Snow-covered Island
2 Snow-covered Plains
2 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Storm Giants
3 Serra's Sanctum
...
Realistically you probably cut History for more 2 CMC control value (Spreading Seas, Trial), Timeless Dragon, or Shark Typhoon
In the aggro direction, you could reduce reliance on blue
//Enchantments: 25
4 Sarcomancy
4 Legion's Landing
4 Paladin Class
2 Curse of Silence
4 Hidden Stockpile
4 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
3 Estrid's Invocation
//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
//Spells: 10
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 March of Otherworldly Light
//Lands: 22
4 Serra's Sanctum
4 Marsh Flats
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
2 Scrubland
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Island
Last edited by FTW; 05-15-2022 at 10:03 PM.
Played in a big-ish local event
4 Flooded Strand
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Scalding Tarn
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending
4 Omen of the Sea
4 Spreading Seas
4 Estrid's Invocation
2 Force of Negation
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 History of Benalia
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Humility
1 Court of Cunning
SB
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Blood Moon
1 Deafening Silence
1 Energy Flux
1 Pithing Needle
1 Detention Sphere
1 Dovin's Acuity
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
5 Pyroblast/REB
Round 1 UB Ninjas 0-2
Feels winnable/favoured but I think I just hit my bad side of variance, didn't see any pyros in g2
Round 2 Burn 1-2
G1 feels unwinnable, Dovin's Acuity carried G2, G3 he REB the Acuity, I Sevinne it back but don't have enough time to copy it
Round 3 Elves 2-1
G1 Humility, G2 he eventually GSZ->Archon, G3 he has a slow start and I am able to set up engine and grind him out. Spreading Seas was quite good here.
Round 4 Mono B Midrange 0-2
I get greedy g1 and don't FoW his needle, he just names Strand when I need white and of course I topdeck Strand then Vista while I die to Voidwalker + Saga. If I drew them in the other order I might have been fine. G2 I just get ground out by Hymn + Bob before my Sevinne can recover
Round 5 UG Omni 2-1
G1 He combos me turn 4 with Veil backup, game 2 despite all my hand-wringing about needing a non-Court wincon vs Emrakul decks I try to mill him anyway because I want Emrakul to proc to shuffle away the Escape food for his Uro. In the end he missed the trigger and died with no cards in library and his other Emrakul in his hand. G3 I just control the game with Pyro + Estrid and kill with History alphastrike
Round 6 UR Delver 1-2
G1 lose in the typical way where they have 1 more threat than you have answer. G2 everything goes in my favour with the Pyro + Sevinne plan. G3 he plays Court of Cunning and Maddening Hex on back to back turns and I don't have the immediate response so I die
Maindeck Humility and especially Nodes are both meh/bad, it occurred to me that I think a better maindeck would be esper basically just for trial of ambition where you just make the logical manabase swap (-2 Tarn +2 Delta -1 Volcanic +1 Underground -1 Mountain +1 Swamp) then -1 Humility -1 Nodes +2 Trial
You keep everything else the same including the 1 Court of Cunning +1 Other wincon. I assumed there would be some good life drain enchantment in black that can replace History of Benalia and consolidate the Acuity slot but perhaps not? The best thing I can find is Curse of Leeches, which is alright but not that great. History is ~fine~, a couple of games with 'paper clock' the fact that it can alpha strike 20 damage in 3 turns mattered, but this could be Raven's Warning or any of the other suggestions. Oath of Kaya would be an absolute slam dunk if it wasn't legendary.
Losing blast from SB probably hurts a lot though
Thanks for your insightful comments guys.
Life of Umezawa is decent for lifegain/removal but is probably too low a power level if you can’t use the pump ability. Oath of Kaya is indeed awesome if the legendary doesn’t matter (with aminatou).
I have tried it. It’s fine but unimpressive. It also strains the mana a tiny bit (primarily with ponder) and wants you to use your fetches at sub-optimal times for cantripping.
Trial and other removal spells are the most tempo efficient/uniquely powerful thing the deck can do. The reason to play the deck over other control piles is trial into estrids to kill a creature every turn of the whole game starting on t2. I was worried that plow would cause us to have too many cards that only hit creatures. As a 80 card deck with minimal stack interaction maybe the point is moot though. More 3feri helps us too in being less prismatic dependant.
I like the timeless dragon suggestion. It doesn’t blink well, but is an excellent mana sink either for the t2 WW or the later 3+ white mana. It also helps keep fetch + serras hands. You don’t want to go island ponder because then your serras is definitely not making any mana t2, but plains or swamp into enchantment leaves you without any way to get blue mana. Previously warlock class was in that role, but is a much weaker card. The black requirements of warlock make it much worse as a mana sink and the flickering is only minor value.
Not playing brainstorm/ponder/force of Will, without a good reason, seems like a deckbuilding sin. it seems like the aggro list will just be a DGA or BW humans list but slower and with bad mana. It also is harder to justify the deck over enchantress.
A possible dragon list based on the above:
3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
3 Paladin Class
3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
3 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Timeless Dragon
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Serra’s Sanctum
2 Scrubland
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
2 Vista
2 Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
1 Snow Plains
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 05-18-2022 at 11:41 AM.
The above build felt much better. I went 3-2 in a league, beating 3 fair creature decks and losing to 8 mulch and dredge. Life of Umezawa into estrids/aminatou in both g1 and g2 vs elves felt particularly dirty.
Looks better. With Trial + Umezawa you have a lot of ways to curve out punishing creature decks.
I think you don't have enough anti-combo for an 80-card deck. Most 80-card UWx Yorion piles play 7 Forces. You could cut a Paladin Class to make room.
What graveyard hate do you have in the side? I notice you beat 3 creature decks and lost to 2 combo/graveyard decks. Small sample size, but it tells me the deck may be lopsided.
My blue count is a bit suspect, but perhaps going to 7 is correct. This deck could support thoughtseize/therapy, do you think that would be better than just a pile of forces?
I have 2 rip in the sideboard. I run 3 etutor and 3 IoK to help compensate for the “smaller” sideboard too.
I think the mechanism of loss matters more here than the idea of GY-combo. In either case [8Mulch or LED Dredge] the deck is losing to Field of the Dead and pseudo-Field of the Dead (Bridge from Below); it's losing to meaningless token spam. There is also an issue with sorcery speed vs EoT Lage and upkeep Ichorid. There is a tertiary issue with getting wrecked by FoV (which both of those strats will use).
The wrong answer here is: "I need more dedicated yard hate." What you need is the ability to kill lands + wrath. You do those things and you can get by with the ability to sporadically interact with graveyards, which for UBw is easily maindecked in the form of 2x Cling to Dust and 1x 3cmc Kaya. The SB yard hate slots should be not be redundant; i.e. Surgical is another targeted effect. The SB dedicated stuff needs to be novel (i.e. GY wipe), come out early (preferably on 0-1cmc), not play into the known FoV (which means Relic and/or Spellbomb, where you reset their yard while drawing past FoV's pseudo-card advantage...and this has to happen while blackmailing the opponent into frivolously wasting half of their targeting of FoV on your SB permanent).
So if you correct the maindeck and play three optimal UBw yard-interacting slots, and just have say a Relic and a Spellbomb in the side, then you've covered all the bases you need to against a deck can't compete since the printing of Endurance [LED Dredge]. If you want to hit Dredge even harder without trying to, you stop all the Estrid's stuff and turn your deck into UBw Landstill and chuck 0/0 cycle sharks at Bridge from Below and build towards Karn, which pulls the GY reset buttons from SB to hand. The main point here is that this Estrid's strategy is done chasing down LED Dredge hate beyond this point due to diminishing returns on overall winrate.
The bigger problem here is the opposing token spam stuff and having zero reset buttons [i.e. wrath]. You are ofc not allowed to play wraths b/c it not only nukes your only wincon (other than the opponent gifting you the win with an Aminatoa ult), but it would have also given the opponent the wincon of death by Sarcomancy in addition to win by mill. Let's just take a moment to point out that we're talking about a color set with options of Verdict, 3 mana wraths, and halfsies like Damn...You need to be doing something pretty unique to cover that deficit.
There is the too powerful brute force method of Virulent Plague, which defeats your own deck. There is the diet brute force method of Illness in the Ranks which you can jankily overcome with Paladin Class, but that doesn't necessarily answer the opponent's 2/2 token flood...and at the end of the day you will still lose to FoV +/- them having too many dudes. You're kinda limited to the mix of Humility, anthem effects, and the slow inevitability of edict trigger spam...and all of this is still going to have FoV problems. The Humility stuff is the most coherent option, but you're locked into a pretty bad spot vs actual Field of the Dead...and you can't break out of it b/c color commit is too heavy in 3 directions (UBW) to allow for the easy answer of Wasteland backed up by something more absolute and non-FoV'able like Unmoored Ego name Field of the Dead (or Bridge from Below).
---
While it's fine to take the minimal steps to optimize UBw approach to yard hate and randomly crap on the obsolete pseudo-Field (Bridge from Below), the main issue is actual Field of the Dead - particularly in multiple and Stage on top - and not at all the concept of combo/graveyard...and it's even more of a problem because Field and pseudo-Field are synonymous with FoV spam. As long as the deck is so heavily split in color identity, you just need to take the loss to Field. Don't waste time misidentifying the deck design flaw and spin your wheels on dedicated yard hate.
One of the more understandable posts from fox. A bunch of great points; I appreciate the minimal use of unique jingo.
Yes the deck is trying to vomit out tokens while still interacting. You did cut to the structural issue: This means that the decks that vomit out tokens harder without interacting beat me soundly if I don’t have hate. 8mulch with field, dredge with bridge, 8cast with Sai.
As a non-enchantment mana sink I could definitely play cling to dust. It is considerably worse than dragon against delver and is also annoyingly black intensive. Kaya could also be a elspeth’s Nightmare
The redundancy is so that I can run the RIPs without etutors in fair matchups (delver/uro decks). That may be incorrect.
I can play either Out of Time or Detention sphere as boardwipes that play well with my tokens and etutor. Inherently that makes their FoV good though as mentioned. Not sure what to cut.
It’s tempting to go to UBw, but prismatic ending and serras sanctum are so powerful it feels bad to leave them on the table. Paladin class/dragon/plow are comparable to discard/cling/strix and could be cut.
Good points Fox. Not being able to run Wraths means overcommitting to 1-for-1s, which is very strong vs fair creatures but weak to instant threats and better token spam.
Would Spreading Seas improve the Field of the Dead and Dark Depths matchups while still offering unique value/synergy with the core engine?
Playing around FoV is big. My first instinct was Leyline of the Void over RiP, since T0 is better than T2 and this deck can ramp into 2BB, but losing to predictable FoV SB is a problem. Crypt effects work better.
Out of Time?
Combined with Humility shutting off abilities and Spreading Seas shutting off Field, that should cover most creature strategies that get around the Edict->Estrid thing.
However it's still weak to FoV. The deck will have to rely on stack control or mass-shroud effects to prevent FoV.
Edit: Alternately, Hidden Stockpile? I like that it lets you play Wraths (creates new token at EOT and can sac the others to scry). However that would involve some major changes away from the Sarcomancy plan.
iirc cards like Stage and Vesuva are "hard" copies, while Spreading Seas would turn Field into a "soft" copy. So if you have a Stage target a "hard" copied Vesuva as Island, your Stage becomes a "hard" copy of Island...but if you have a Stage target a "soft" copied Field of the Dead as Island (due to Spreading Seas), you get a fully operational Stage as Field through Spreading Seas. This makes a card like Spreading Seas a really bad answer, even when you're not getting blown out by FoV. The other issue here is putting down a lot of the prison on cmc 2 vs Blast Zone. Assuming the rules work like this still, Seas remains a poor answer to Depths.
Out of Time has issues with a really bad decision by WotC to randomly tamper with phasing rules. The game of magic would also be in a much better place if nonsense like Kaldra could still be permanently dealt with by phasing out the token to exile. Note that if Estrid's copies Out of Time, they just get their stuff back the moment you blink Estrid's from object A to object B.
Assuming the only decks that can out-pace our removal engines are token based, detention sphere should be good enough as board wipes. It is somewhat unfortunate that sarcomancy creates zombies with the same name. Unlike out of time it can be profitably copied by estrids to kill more stuff or blink multiple sarcomancies at a time. It is also an answer to expensive non-creatures or a fow pitch in a pinch.
Fall of Thran is land destruction that is immune to FoV and REB. It is probably uncastable without a serras in hand however.
It’s hard to cut one of the colours to a splash. Serra’s and prismatic are white, ponder and our engines are blue, and the best targets are sarcomancy and trial. The most reasonable manabase would be WBx but cutting ponder is probably not defensible.
WUB list based on the above:
3 Legion’s Landing
4 Sarcomancy
2 Paladin Class
3 Life of Toshiro Umezawa
4 Trial of Ambition
3 Omen of the sea
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Estrid’s Invocation
2 Aminatou, the Fateshifter
2 Detention Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Cling to Dust
3 Prismatic Ending
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Force of Negation
3 Serra’s Sanctum
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Delta
4 Strand
4 Flats
3 Vista
2Snow Swamp
2 Snow Island
2 Snow Plains
6th basic to maybe cast Fall of Thran and serras is worse with only 9 1 drops and no dragon.
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