Congratulations on the great finish cliché!

A new week, some minor changes. -1 Supreme Verdict in the main deck, replaced by 1 Sorin Lord of innistrad. My deck feels threat light, and the lifelink is relevant. In the main deck I removed 1 thoughtsieze for an inquisition of kozilek. In the sideboard I removed 1 meddling mage for 1 inquisition of kozilek. This is because esper is quite life intensive, a good number of my wins come down to 3-5 life remaining. Thoughtseize has also been awkward in delver matchups where they really pressure your life total. Crack fetch/thoughtseize against delver decks is essentially handing them a free lightning bolt. I’ve normally sided them out for this reason but I did miss the information the card gave. Inquisition sidesteps this problem. Meddling mage got cut in the SB because it felt a lot like living in a glass house. I’ve never truly felt safe with him in play. He’s still a super solid card though, I may have to roll this change back down the road.

Match 1
UR Delver(0-2 Loss)
Game 1:
I feel like I got some pretty bad luck here. I start the hand with snapcaster, brainstorm, pierce, and lands. He does end up playing 2 stifles, but I have enough basics to develop a manabase. The problem ends up being that I can’t find any removal over the next 3 turns and delver/burn spells end up killing me off.

Game 2:
-3 FoW
-2 Jace(too slow, and red blasts are problematic)
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Search for Azcanta
+2 Flusterstorm(deal with stifle)
+1 Unearth
+1 Inquizition of Kozilek
+1 Path to Exile
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Supreme Verdict


More bad luck. Keep a good hand of basics, some removal, brainstorm. We trade resources for a while, then when I brainstorm to find some more gas I find 3 tundras, and I have no way to shuffle. He sticks a threat the next turn and I end up dying because of the horrific brainstorm.

Match 2: Burn(2-0 Win)
Pretty much same as least week, collective brutality sees me through. I do win a race under a resolved sulfuric vortex with 2 TNNs. To be fair, my opponent did appear to be drawing quite poorly.

Match 3: Grixis Delver(1-2 Loss)
Not really sure what to make of this loss. I thought I’d be more prepared, but both losses were to resolved TNNs so shaving a verdict may have been a mistake.

Game 1:
I handily crush him. I have all the removal in the world, then in the late game I resolve a jace and run away with it. Importantly, I find out he runs stifle.

Game 2:
-2 Jace(too slow, pyroblast is a problem)
-2 Thoughtseize
-3 FoW
-1 Search for Azcanta
+2 Flusterstorm(deal with stifle)
+1 Unearth
+1 Inquizition of Kozilek
+1 Path to Exile
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Supreme Verdict

Sideboard plan is identical to UR plan, the decks largely behave the same. Pierce/flusterstorm are even more important in stopping both stifle and cabal therapy.
I make one mistake I’m aware of. Against a grim lavamancer on board and a known hand of stifle, brainstorm, flusterstorm, unknown card I cast collective brutality. My plan is to take stifle as it really screws with a lot of cards, jitte/SFM/batterskull for example. I have only one other card in hand, spell pierce. The question is whether I escalate it by pitching pierce or protect my brutality with pierce. I have plenty of land so the flusterstorm/daze tax isn’t a problem. The real concern is my opponent brainstorm a FoW and countering me. I end up playing it safe, and keep the pierce back. I grab the stifle, but as a consequence the lavamancer gets to live and probably deals me 4-6 damage over its lifetime. This lost life ends up costing me down the road.

This game goes very long, I deal with all his threats, and I’m even snapcaster mage flashing back supreme verdict at this point. I cast sorin in a bid to stabilize at 2 life, but it simply isn’t enough. His grim lavamancer/DRS kill me.

Game 3:
Another heartbreaker. We trade resources early, and so on. The real backbreaker ends up coming on turn 4 or 5. I have jace in hand that I want to resolve to win the game. The previous turn I had cast collective brutality and inquisition taking FoW and daze, but leaving him a brainstorm. I have 3 basics in play, with a tundra in hand as land number 4. My opponent has 2 volcs and a wasteland, I’m assuming he’ll waste the tundra as soon as he sees it, so I really only have one shot at this jace. I attempt to cast the jace, he brainstorms finds daze and counters it. I lose pretty much on the spot after that.

Match 4: Concede
I end up getting paired up against a friend who is 2-1. Since I’m 1-2 I just snap concede so he can prize out, he plays the eldrazi post deck so I didn’t really like my odds anyway. End up playing a burn deck for fun.


General note, I did miss the 2nd supreme verdict maindeck, I’ll probably slot that back in. I did like the inquizitions a lot so those will stay.
I’m thinking seriously about going down to 1 jace. Pyroblasts/low to the ground decks are making him awkward. Jace is still an amazing card, he just hasn’t been the slam dunk win he used to be I guess. Not sure what replaces him if anything at all. Liliana the Last Hope is possible, but her BB means I play into wastelands. Kaya has potential since her -1 gains life. But now that I’m aware of how tight life margins can be, her 0 ability costing 2 life is a significant turn off.
Search for Azcanta is probably out. Its soft to pyroblast and wasteland, both of which I have in abundance over here. And its flip side is pretty good, but it does cost a LOT.

Another thing I’m noticing more is how important DRS green gainlife ability was now that I don’t have it anymore. At least in my play, esper seems to have a chronic problem of stabilizing at very low life totals, then dying to a random top decked lightning bolt. Not sure what the solution to this problem is.