[Deck] UWb Esperblade

[OrGy]

I've been piloting the list below to solid Top 8 results during the past 3 months :

// Lands
2 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
1 [R] Scrubland
2 [R] Tundra
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [R] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Plains

// Creatures
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
3 [ISD] Snapcaster Mage
2 [ISD] Geist of Saint Traft

// Spells
4 [CST] Swords to Plowshares
1 [NPH] Batterskull
1 [MBS] Sword of Feast and Famine
2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
2 [M10] Ponder
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek
1 [GP] Repeal

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [6E] Perish
SB: 2 [BD] Diabolic Edict
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
SB: 2 [ARB] Meddling Mage
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [RAV] Darkblast

Quick explanation on the ratios used :

4 SFM: Obv. with the equipment package containing Batterskull. The card is both CA/CQ as usual.

3 DC: Tried as a 4 of in the first place, the openers with more than 1 were pretty much always mediocre as you don't ever want to have 2 on board with some high CC in the list. 3 has proven a fairly effective number so far.

3 SCM: 4 is too much IMHO as the card often act as a late game bomb. 2 would be not enough as in some matchup, you want to play it Turn 3 and recur a removal to stabilize or spotted discard to maintain pressure on your opponent hand.

2 Geist: The guy is golden. Vs. control, it dodges removal and bash for a tremendous amount of damage. Vs. Aggro, it carries charged Jittes or SoFaF unopposed. There are very few thing that can manage a 4/4 Hexproof Pro green/black beater that bash for 8 total.

4 STP / 4 Brainstorm / 4 Force of Will / The equipment Package: Do I need to explain something here ?

2 Thoughtseize / 2 Inquisition of Kozilek: Spot Discard is key to fight on a fair ground against combo, while not being irrelevant Vs. Aggro denying them access to their next drops in the curve or stripping them of the removal they would otherwise aim at our Card Advantage creatures. The split is a safe way to warrant not losing too many LP while using Confidant and fetches on a regular basis.

3 Spell Pierce: We just need to keep Combo in check. Having access to cheap counter accomplishes just that. Like the 4 disrupt cards, the card prove fairly relevant against aggro countering their removal on SFM/DC giving us the opportunity to stabilize.

2 Ponder: With only 21 lands and 2 of hate card in the sideboard, we must ensure that we dig deep enough in our library not to miss any land-drop and find our answers. I'd rather have this over Preordain because it theorically digs deeper to find specific card and the fact that we can rearrange our 3 top at will is more relevant with card such as Confidant if a land is available among the 3 we see. This used to be a 3 of till I witnessed a rise in popularity of Delver based decks in my meta, leading to the inclusion of the card bellow.

1 Repeal: The all around player. On a transformed Delver, the card pulls out a good tempo boost costing 1 and cantripping while your opponent must setup a new top of library to transform his dude once again. A cantripping blue fog is just perfect to support our middle to late game strategy. On various occasion, the card gives access to nice tricks (Liliana on the opponent side with his hand emptied, Repeal in response to Lili's +1 is just hilarious). Bouncing and nabbing the card bounced with Seize or Inquisition is also a quite potent play costing us 1 card. The card gives us the 21th blue card allowing us to FOW without any real effort.

2 Jace: A shame we don't have room for a third one. Ramping to 4 mana can be troublesome at times but overall, he does what he does, closing games on his own.

Manabase: pretty self explanatory. A quick hint for Wasteland though : While a times the card allows us to cut selectively a relevant color on our opponent side, it's here manily to remove some pesky lands (Maze/Laboratory/Tower of the Magistrate/Grove/Mishra/Mutavault), in time for us to hit with our equipments and gaining advantage.

SB :
1 Spell Pierce: It allows us to run 8 relevant counters against storm post-board.

2 Perish: Turns the tide against Bant / Elves Aggro / Maverick / Mongoose based TT decks.

2 Diabolic Edict: With Reanimator running rampant in my meta, the card offers us a way to deal with a resolved Inkwell Leviathan or a Iona setup on white. Not bad against all kind of aggro decks where post board we tend to shoot critters at sight.

2 Darkblast: Delver/Confidant/Xantid/Lavamancer/Mother of Runes/Hierarch/Elves/SCM, the list is incredibly long. Recuring spot removal is kind of the dream and synergizes well with ours Ponder/Brainstorm to get rid of the irrelevant cards.

3 Surgical Extraction: Did I told you that Reanimator was running rampant in my meta ? Useful against Punishing Fire / Loam and really synergetic with SCM.

1 Liliana of the Veil: Bant and many non red strategies cannot effectively deal with Lili slow but constant hand grinding. A third sac effect is not that bad in aggro matchups were Jace tend to be too slow to have an impact.

2 Meddling Mage: Very usefull when your opponent relies on key card to deploy its strategy. Replaces Geist or SFM depending of the matchups.

1 Relic of Progenitus: A fourth graveyard dealing card helps greatly when it comes to graveyard dependant MU such as Ichorid or Reanimator.

1 Vindicate: All around player, really great against Control or as a second response (Repeal beeing the first) to hate permanents (BtB, Blood Moon, choke).

any comment or question ?