Esper Control Brawl

Standard Brawl* Artifact Competitive Control Cruel Control Land Destruction WUB (Esper)

itsbuzzi

Land (24)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Detection Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 8x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Memorial to Genius
• 3x Plains
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Watery Grave

Creature (4)

• 1x Gleaming Barrier
• 1x Jhoira's Familiar
• 1x Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
• 1x Traxos, Scourge of Kroog

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Golden Demise
• 1x One with the Machine
• 1x Settle the Score

Artifact (11)

• 1x Azorius Locket
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Dimir Locket
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Navigator's Compass
• 1x Orazca Relic
• 1x Tezzeret's Gatebreaker
• 1x Thran Temporal Gateway
• 1x Traveler's Amulet
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza
• 1x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 1x Tezzeret, Artifice Master

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Fall of the Thran
• 1x Phyrexian Scriptures
• 1x The Antiquities War

Commander (1)

Instant (11)

• 1x Costly Plunder
• 1x Disdainful Stroke
• 1x Essence Scatter
• 1x Hornswoggle
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Sinister Sabotage
• 1x Spell Swindle
• 1x Uncomfortable Chill
• 1x Unwind
• 1x Vona's Hunger

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Maybeboard

Creature (9)

• 1x Azor, the Lawbringer
• 1x Baird, Steward of Argive
• 1x Mishra's Self-Replicator
• 1x Rona, Disciple of Gix
• 1x Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1x Skittering Surveyor
• 1x Skyscanner
• 1x Suspicious Bookcase
• 1x Voltaic Servant

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Board the Weatherlight
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Mastermind's Acquisition
• 1x Ritual of Soot
• 1x Secrets of the Golden City
• 1x Slaughter the Strong
• 1x Sleep
• 1x Sphinx's Decree

Instant (9)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Artful Takedown
• 1x Blink of an Eye
• 1x Cast Down
• 1x Chemister's Insight
• 1x Demystify
• 1x Gideon's Reproach
• 1x Price of Fame
• 1x Radical Idea

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Oath of Teferi
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip
• 1x Time of Ice

Artifact (8)

• 1x Fountain of Renewal
• 1x Manalith
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Sentinel Totem
• 1x Silent Gravestone
• 1x Sleek Schooner
• 1x Urza's Tome
• 1x Weatherlight

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist

Land (1)

• 1x Field of Ruin

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Esper Control Brawl. Random creation one day trying to make a standard deck. Anything in the maybeboard was cut but could be swapped out for anything else.

General Idea

What you want to do with the deck is to get your artifacts out, the more mana rocks the better and search for others. Do this while holding up answers for anything trying to disrupt your deck. After a while most of your turns can be played on your opponents turns via flash effects. Most permanents are historical and trigger other type effects.

Breakdown

Lands

We run 24 lands and so far the amount of each color has worked out well.

Arch of Orazca : A good ascend trigger that can draw a card if we ran out of cards in hand or need more cards. Playing this early game with no other ascend triggers is fine as long as you blow up lands then play this again.

Detection Tower : We have some spot removal so removing hexproof is a good ability to have.

Drowned Catacomb and Watery Grave : Just a blue black land.

Evolving Wilds : For mana fixing and typically nothing is placed turn 1 anyway and is reuseable with Crucible of Worlds .

Glacial Fortress : Just a blue white land.

Island Plains Swamp : Mana has been checked and what is left over is what we run for basics.

Isolated Chapel : Just a white black land.

Memorial to Genius : Another draw effect that we could use and it's reuseable with Crucible of Worlds .

Reliquary Tower : Being able to hold up even more answers is good. You can draw a lot per turn and this will help.

Enchantments

These are mainly historical sagas and help out. There are only 3 that made the cut.

Fall of the Thran : So this is a fun one. At some point this can be played at instant speed. Make sure you have enough mana rocks to continue on playing other things. The last two chapters can be negated by use of removal of the saga or in conjunction with Phyrexian Scriptures

Phyrexian Scriptures : A good board wipe. You can spare a nonartifact creature you have (at time of writing there is 2 one being the commander) The exile effect works well with Fall of the Thran is played right before.

The Antiquities War : A great search card and a wonderful finisher. You can get many artifacts out some in the form of treasure tokens and swing for the kill later on. Many cards in the deck are artifacts so you don't miss too often but when you do it's typically 5 lands you didn't want to draw anyway.

Artifacts

These are the bulk of the deck. This is basically Artifact Control with the help of these.

Crucible of Worlds : Sometimes this doesn't do much. It's a historical card, and you get to play either Evolving Wilds or Memorial to Genius over and over again; never miss your land drops again! Where this really shines is when you hit a Fall of the Thran and exile everyone elses' graveyards. Plenty of land drops now.

Dimir Locket : The only locket so far we can run. A good mana rock that late game can draw cards. Wonderful! Next set I recommend running the other two lockets you can because they are fairly good for that late game draw.

Gilded Lotus : A great card. It drops for 5 but can tap for 3 more only leaving it acting as a 2 drop. This goes well with combining multiple mana rocks in a turn. Also good to help leave mana up or to draw cards with One with the Machine This card is our highest artifact converted cost and drawing 5 for 4 is really strong albeit at sorcery speed.

Manalith : A good card. Perhaps not as good as the lockets but it's the only one we can run at the time. The mana of any color has come in handly sometimes but replacing this with another on-color locket seems really good but it's a strong card nonetheless. Replaced with Azorius Locket . As mentioned the mana of any color upside doesn't really add anything of value if we have all our 3 colors and are playing 2 color lockets anyway. The upside of adding another locket for late game card draw is not negated therefore Manalith has been replaced. This specific locket was added due to the splash of black and white when compared to blue; it would be easier to activate the draw cards ability with blue instead of black or white.

Mox Amber : A great 0 drop historical trigger. You need one of the 6 legendary permanents to actually tap for mana but otherwise it's a solid 0 drop artifact not to mention 1 of the 6 is our commander.

Navigator's Compass : A 1 drop that gains us some life is good and the extra mana fixing is helpful too. This could be replaced with something else but for now it's alright.

Orazca Relic : Good mana rock. It has an ascend trigger and can gain life and draw a card late game.

Tezzeret's Gatebreaker : A good search card I love getting this with The Antiquities War because we get to search twice and once the Saga pops sac the Gatebreaker to make everything unblockable.

Thran Temporal Gateway : One of our ways to be able to play historical things at instant speed. Planeswalkers may not be too good at instant speed unless you want to avoid it getting removed on your turn. Artifacts and mana rocks being played with this isn't as strong because you spend more mana. Where this is good is being able to play Sagas at instant speed because you can play this on their end step get a trigger then on your draw step get another trigger. Especially with Phyrexian Scriptures you save a creature on their end step then you kill everything else on your draw step. Almost the same as making your guys unblockable.

Traveler's Amulet : Pretty much mana fixing or a 1 drop historical trigger. Good to save until after Fall of the Thran so you have another land.

Treasure Map  : A good scry engine and artifact creator. This turns into a land at your trigger so do this when you know it won't die right away. The ability to sac a treasure to draw a card is very helpful as well once it flips.

Planeswalkers

These guys really help filter out the deck in different ways.

Karn, Scion of Urza : This guy is good. His plus filters the deck and puts all the lands in your hand (Obviously they will pick a land over any other card.) Little do they know Fall of the Thran is coming. With all those lands in hand you are prepared. His neg can get a card under him in your hand which is good card selection once you plus him enough. His second neg is great because we have tons of artifacts so they can start around 5/5's or get crazy at my record of 15/15's.

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria : This guy is obviously great, everyone else uses him too. He draws a card and untaps some lands to work with the deck allowing you to play your turn on their turn just like you want to. His neg can return something to your deck to play again like a Saga or can return something of theirs until we get a counter spell ready. His ultimate is of course great if you can get it off with all our card draw.

Tezzeret, Artifice Master : This guy is real good in the deck. He can plus and make some blockers or add to the artifact count, his 0 typically will draw 2 cards which is very helpful. His ultimate if you can get there is crazy dumb to be able to just drop whatever we want on the battlefield. It says "Put onto the battlefield" So I do not think they can be countered either so Sagas are good here or anything else.

Creatures

There aren't many of these guys at all. The Commander will be explained here as well.

Chromium, the Mutable : This guy is the only Commander right now that allows you to play this deck. At first I didn't think he really fit at all but being able to be played at instant speed by himself is wonderful and the ability to ignore any removal is like a counter spell in itself. We typically have plenty of cards in hand for that anyway. A good finisher.

Gleaming Barrier : A good card to stop some aggressive decks. A 0/4 for 2 does that fairly well. When it eventually dies you still get an artifact so your artifact count remains the same.

Jhoira's Familiar : If you can stick this it gets crazy. Pretty much anything permanent you now play costs 1 less. That works even better for mana rocks which can tap when they enter anyway making it very possible to play many more mana rocks per turn or planeswalkers or Sagas or artifacts. This thing is wonderful, one of my favorites to play. The flying is fun too to still get in for damage.

Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage : This is where it gets pretty dumb. Now everything you play is an instant other than lands or soceries. And at flash he works very similar to our commander. He is also flying which makes him evasive.

Traxos, Scourge of Kroog : A great finisher. Your oppoents may think he won't untap this time but with a current number of 21 historical things I'm sorry but he's swinging for 7 again. The 4 drop is great too plus once you can play anything with flash or other things with flash he can block too!

Instant/Sorcery

Control decks need spells to play. There were many that could have fit but these lasted until the final iteration. Others could work these are just the ones I picked.

Costly Plunder : 2 drop instant speed to draw 2 cards is great. You'll almost always have an artifact to sac. Don't sac creatures unless they are going to die anyway or are your blocking Gleaming Barrier .

Disdainful Stroke : One of my favorite counter spells. Works great on most commanders and big stuff you don't want.

Essence Scatter : Another good counter spell. Not many things we run are very low drops so being able to counter those small things are good.

Golden Demise : In case we didn't counter the small stuff or we were waiting for a few of them we use this card. Good ascend trigger on it although most of the time that part doesn't matter. One of the few sorcreies we have but a solid board wipe.

Hornswoggle : A great counter spell we have. Gets us an artifact too. What's not to like.

Mission Briefing : A great card. It does a good amount of whatever you really want it to do. You don't usually count on the first ability, it just helps filter the deck, you pretty much always have the card you wanted to recast already in the graveyard. Need another counter spell or maybe another draw spell, here it is.

One with the Machine : A pretty good draw spell. It may be better than Secrets of the Golden City or it might not I'm just using it for now. It will typically draw for 3, as many artifacts are 3, some are 4 and one of them is 5. Don't play this if you have no artifacts over 2. It's not that good at that rate.

Settle the Score : Ever since I saw this card spoiled I wanted to use it somewhere. It is one of the only point removal cards and does wonders getting rid of anything plus with the added value of putting 2 loyalty counters on any planeswalker you have it can help combo with an ultimate.

Settle the Wreckage : This card is really good. I haven't gotten the chance to combo it with Phyrexian Scriptures and Fall of the Thran . In case you don't see it you play Phyrexian Scriptures first. Your opponent sees that their creatures are going to die anyway so they swing out. You Settle the Wreckage to exile all the creatures (Skipped a chapter of Scriptures) and they get all their basic lands out. Now you Fall of the Thran to blow up all those lands they just found and all the others too. Then you are all set up to exile their graveyard by triggering Phyrexian Scriptures first then using Fall of the Thran to get back 2 of your lands (Your opponents now can't get any lands back because you exiled their graveyard). Hey I didn't say this deck was pretty. Even if you don't get that combo going it's still a pretty good board wipe.

Sinister Sabotage : Strictly better than Cancel good to filter the deck and hold up an early counter spell.

Spell Swindle : This card is wonderful. You don't use it to counter something small. You 2 for 1 them. Counter something at least 5 cost maybe a little less always bigger if you can. They lose their thing and you get a ton of treasures. Somehow I always get this right before The Antiquities War pops. I think countering a Ghalta, Primal Hunger was the best.

Uncomfortable Chill : Another board wipe type thing. It really just saves you a turn and draws you a card. Pretty good for what it does. Many of the cards in this deck target all opponents like this card does so even in multiplayer games this is great and gets more value.

Unwind : Another card I always really wanted to use other than in draft. It works well here to counter something while still leaving lands up to perhaps play some things with flash or now have flash.

Vona's Hunger : Another ascend card that works well. Notice how it says each opponent. Now a full on board wipe but it helps bring the power level of the board down.

Let me know what you think! I personally love the deck and although I probably won't be playing Brawl maybe you will! Just be prepared to have another deck in a different format ready after this one goes off because no one will want to play you again. Any suggestions welcome.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	RG
Legality	This deck is not Standard Brawl legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 18 - 0 Rares 9 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.36
Tokens	City's Blessing, Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Emblem Tezzeret, Artifice Master, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders	Old Decks, cool ideas, Brawl