Thopter/Sword, Stage/Depths. Control shell.
Fabricate/Enlightened Tutor get Thopter/Sword, or Expedition Map which gets Academy ruins, then Stage/Depths. With Ruins, you can recur any combo piece that got killed, or recur Expedition Map for a land based wincon. Tolaria West tutors for Stage/Depths as well as Engineered Explosives. Engineered Explosives and Baleful Strix are nuts with Academy Ruins. Trinket Mage gets Explosives, Map, or Top, and since Explosives and Map are key to the gameplan, it seemed like enough targets. That's basically the core of the deck, everything else is just goodstuff Esper control.
As for the control card choices, It seems that the best decks in the format are Abzan goodstuff aggro/midrange, Geist tempo, and Ezuri elfball. I'm torn between edict effects, counterspells, and infest effects. Edicts are good against Geist, fine against Abzan, but bad against Ezuri, counterspells are good against Geist, and good against Abzan and Elves until they play cavern of souls, and infest effects are good against Geist and Ezuri, but often blank against Abzan. Spot removal outside of StP and maybe smother seems bad, since they miss Geist, are mediocre against Abzan's value guys and powerful generals, and are bad once Elves resolves Ezuri. Counterspells have the added advantage of being generally good against an unknown field, since they hit everything. For now, I went heavy on the counterspells, and I try to save wasteland for Cavern of Souls. I would appreciate any input on that choice, or card choices generally.
The sideboard plan is to have a few silver bullet cards, and cards that almost make the main, but blank against certain decks.
Black Sun's Zenith always comes in against Elves and small creature decks, and comes in against almost any creature decks when on the play.
Chill and Blue Elemental Blast/Hydroblast come in against mono red, and the blast duo comes in against most decks with red, since they counter or kill a general for U, and sometimes get other stuff.
Crucible of Worlds comes in against Geist, pox, control, and midrange, just missing the main since its terrible against all aggro. Perish comes in against Ezuri, and usually comes in for Abzan and Zoo.
The spellbomb is a hedge against graveyard decks, but can come in against any deck that abuses Academy Ruins or Volrath's Stronghold.
Ratchet bomb comes in against elves, token strategies, and against control using Thopter/Depths. It also has a place against Geist and Abzan on the play, since it hits their best guys and swords when on 3.
Spell Snare comes in against any deck with a 2 mana commander, and almost any deck on the draw. It almost always has a target, and countering a turn two SFM off one land is the nuts.
Shackles is at it's best against midrange decks, but can be situationally good against most creature decks. It also is good against fringe decks like merfolk, black based aggro, and Thalia.
I should probably devote another slot or two specifically to infest effects since Ezuri and Geist are soft against them, but they are kinda bad on the draw, and 10 cards is a tight sideboard. The red hosers would be the obvious cuts, but chill just wins against monored, and can be tutored with Enlightened Tutor. The blasts are similarly nuts against monored, and amazing against any r/x/x or r/x deck that runs red guys, a red combo piece like pyromancer's swath, or relies on their general. While Ezuri and Geist are worse matchups, I don't think any sideboard tech against them is nearly as effective as the anti-red cards are against red.
Finally, I'm debating between Merieke and Sydri for the commander. Merieke is an always available removal spell, while Sydri gives me another wincon and blows up artifact lands.
