I chose to put this song here because it's long, and it fits the "Growing Ageless" part of the deck's title. Everything will be changing, especially your life total and perhaps the amount of people that are willing to play with you, and/or wanna even be friends with you.
So we back once again with arguably one of the best esper generals currently out right now: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. I've created this deck because I'm tired of having no spells resolve with other decks, and I don't like when other play control decks. So I made a control deck, and it's pretty fun.
To start, this deck can be made way more budget than it currently is, so feel free to make any changes you wish to the deck, or suggest anyways you would approach changing it.
So with the announcement of Commander 2016 and all the new generals being released, I decided it may be a good time to make a new deck because I don't want my group of friends to enjoy playing with any of the new generals and I want to make them always scoop turn 4. So, without further due, let's get into the fragmentation of this deck!
I first wanted to make a control deck, but I couldn't find the right general for me. I considered Rasputin Dreamweaver but he's more of an aggro control deck and I don't really enjoy that style. I also considered Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, however a buddy in my group already plays him. So, I made the compromise to go to a tricolour deck, and hence why I found esper. It plays Azorious colours and adds black to be a real douche. That and another buddy plays Leovold, Emissary of Trest which hinders the whole purpose of my deck.
To begin, we got the pretty standard set of lands, running the original dual lands, as well as a mixture of shock, fetch, and utility lands too. Tolaria West helps tutor for other lands that we may need as well, so that's good.
Now as I stated, one of my buddy's generals hinder what I wanna do with this deck, so I run Necropotence and so I can still keep getting cards in my hand, and life isn't too much of a problem because of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic's trigger for life every turn, and other triggers which we'll get to in a second. Yes, I do run Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel for no maximum hand size. Anyways, when my buddy's general isn't out, I also have Phyrexian Arena for an additional draw each turn, and I run spells like Jace's Ingenuity, Rhystic Study, and Brainstorm for more cards. I also included a few artifacts which allow me to draw more cards like Mind's Eyes and Alhammarret's Archive for double life and drawing double the cards with spells or triggers. I abuse this trigger with Well of Lost Dreams, and Mind's Eye. So with Alhammarret's Archive, it pretty much states that all life you gain is doubled and you draw double the cards and with Well of Lost Dreams, whenever I gain life i may pay X to draw X cards, where X is less than or equal to the amount of life gained. Well if they're both out, I gain double life which allows me to be able to draw double the cards, which triggers Alhammarret's Archive so I draw double that. It's pretty confusing to explain, but it's super simple when you have it set up.
Here's a scenario which may help understand:Well of Lost Dreams and Alhammarret's Archive are both in play, and you gain 4 life. So that life you gain becomes 8 because of Alhammarret's Archive trigger so you can pay 8 or less to draw a maximum of 16 cards because all card draws are doubled except the card you draw in your draw step.
Have I mentioned Aetherflux Reservoir yet? Well, you're in for a treat. This card is... confusing. It takes a lot of mental work to understand. It states that whenever you cast a spell, you gain 1 life for each spell cast that turn. So if Aetherflux Reservoir comes into play, you'll be gaining at least 1 life because it's that turn. Now if you play 2 more spells, I've read it becomes 5. Not sure how, unless I'm dumb. But until I figure out exactly how it works, we'll just say you'd gain 3 because you've cast 3 spells that turn, and if Alhammarret's Archive is out, congratulations, you gained 6 life this turn. Oh and yeah you can kind nuke someone for 50 by paying 50, which again, isn't that bad in this deck because of the amount of card draw you have.
On to some of the counter spells for this deck. Firstly, we have everyone's favourite Force of Will. This card is a given, it's super strong and allows you to tap out all your mana and still make sure you have a way of countering. Pact of Negation is also good, but if you play it in the first couple turns of the game (WHICH I HOPE YOU DON'T), you lose. Next, we have another fan favourite: Cryptic Command. Everyone loves hearing "counter, draw", and why not be that guy as well? We also have a really fun and annoying counter: Mana Drain. For 2 blue, it's mediocre. But getting X mana where X is the converted mana cost of the countered spell is dumb, and great for ramping up super fast. And because this is EDH and artifacts and creatures are everywhere, why not throw in Desertion to really upset those guys that pay 17 mana on a Hydra, only for you to take control of it. Thanks for the big 15/15 trampling Hydra! Lastly, I have Declaration of Naught (more like Declaration of NOT) to name someone's general and just not let them play them. Ever. So if one of your group members have a deck that relies on their general to do work, you can tell them that Stupherstump on tappedout.net was kind enough to show you this card.
Let's go over some sorcery cards, because these are fun and do fun things to REALLY. BE. A FUN. GUY. We're esper, so we have access to white. Ah yes, the removal colour. Yes we got Wrath of God, yes we have Terminus and yes, we also have Toxic Deluge. Because we ramp life, I'll gladly pay 10 life to give everything -10/-10. And because we're in black, Damnation to be that guy. I also have Entreat the Angels for a nice ambush of 4/4 flying Angels coming out of no where, and a new card I recently discovered called Promise of Power. Do you like card advantage, or being able to generate big, flying Demons onto the battlefield? This card is for you. May be a 5 cost, but pay 4 more and do both. I'll gladly pay 9 for 5 cards and a big Demon with flying.
Let's talk about other creatures we run, because we're always gaining life, Archangel of Thune is almost a must, she scales really nicely. Talking about scaling, we run Solemn Simulacrum to tutor a basic land and put it on the battlefield tapped when he enters the battlefield, and when he dies we draw a card. It's a win-win. We have Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to cast creatures in other people's turns if need be, and we even make our lives easier by making all instants only castable as sorceries. Next up is Dread. Newer card I discovered, nothing like a beefy 6/6 with Fear. Oh did I mention that he also has a built in No Mercy? Yeah, it's good. 6 mana for No Mercy and a 6/6 beater with Fear, count me in. He also gets shuffled back into library when he dies, so he won't be going away that easily. Finally we have our good pal Empress Galina. You like your general? Me too! You like your legendary lands? Me too! You like those Gods that you automatically assume are amazing and make our life 17827189x easier? WOW! ME TOO! Thanks for that, I'll make sure to treat them well.
Other than that, we run some basic enchantments like Propaganda and Ghostly Prison to negate a lot of damage that we may take from creatures. Remember, we need that life to spend on other stuff! LIKE CARD DRAW!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you did. Hopefully it was helpful, and hopefully you were able to learn something and hopefully get inspiration for a deck you may be making with the same general concept.
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