I have been playing this sweet control deck since before Jeff Hoogland made it slightly cool. The idea is simple, tap out to make things happen. When you tap out isn't an issue,but when you secure for 7 at end of turn and the drop a Gideon/Sorin, anthem/+1, and swing for 14 plus shambling vents or removal back up, Life is good. To get to that point, you've killed. You've killed every single card your opponent has laid on the table( not lands, I wish) and that is why this deck features an impressive, and terrifying host of removal spells.To find our way to these sweet killing machines we need card draw. This deck's biggest weakness is card draw, but read the bones and Ob Nixilis do a fine job getting us extra cards when we need them.
Matchups: Let's start with the two elephants in the room, Rally and Ramp.
Rally: This matchup is shall we say, difficult. Game 1 is a nightmare and you're more relying on them beating themselves or you seeing a Kalitas. Post-board we have two real games to play, although they are certainly an uphill battle. Luckily this deck will be leaving us in just a few short weeks.
Ramp: Ewww, Infinite Obliteration is all I can really say here. If you can grab game 1 with an early Gideon and Secure, then you will be naming World Breaker so fast your vocal cords strain in game 2 and 3. Shut down their acceleration with hand destruction and hope they see few threats.
Everything else: Listed in order of difficulty
Bant Company: They go wide, You wipe the board.
Atarka Red: 50:50 who draws a better seven.
anything else: you should crush every other deck you come across including but not limited to Dark jeskai, any form of abzan or Mardu(Whatever the kids are calling it these days, R/B Dragons,any lower cmc eldrazi/ artifact strategy, any aggro deck that isn't killing you on turn 3 or 4 and brews of all shapes and sizes.
The Future: This deck is about to become insanely powerful. Rotation costs us 5 mainboard spells and we have already seen replacements for all of them and then some with Shadows Over Innistrad. We also lose Scoured barrens from the mana base, but it has been replaced with a functional orzhov guildgate
:( and hopefully more cards that have yet to be spoiled. So if you think that blue is just a dirty color,and you want to play Everything Must Die!Control, then this is the deck for you.
Quick note, I don't think any Esper deck has been built that wins their games fast enough to end rounds and that is why I don't feel it is currently viable, Except Esper Dragons of course.
Pioneer Update- some years later.
So I'm gonna try and convert this to a pioneer deck, let's see how this goes.
