Name of the title says almost everything. With the rotation of many of the Theros Staples, Esper Dragons has lost a lot in terms of late game pieces and high powered counter spells.
Key note is that i'm trying to make this deck play like it played before rotations and so you won't see Ob Nixilis Reignited in this version.
So lets get started with the land base.
You'll notice from the colour pie that it seems a bit wonky, i'm yet to fix the configurations for the colours so bare with me. However, with BFZ coming in, i feel that it is best to run the full 8 fetches in the colours so to make certain that tango lands come in consistently untapped and as a result, makes control deck react faster.The
Haven of the Spirit Dragon
is there to usually get back
Dragonlord Ojutai
but can also get back Ugin, the Spirit Dragon as well as
Silumgar, the Drifting Death
and Dragonlord Silumgar post sideboard.Blighted Cataract is there for late game card draw which control players will love.
Sorceries:
not very much to say here, the new addition of Transgress the Mind will secure your late game in the way that you'll take away 2 copies of some major threat. Also coming into sorcery speed is bad Hero's Downfall, Ruinous Path. It is still highly playable at sorcery speed as it kills planeswalkers and non-hexproof creatures. Due to its Sorcery speed, 3 may be a bit much in the way that it plays like Dreadbore. Though you'll have to watch out for
Gaea's Revenge
which i've been seeing more in my local meta.Languish and Crux of Fate are very self explanatory.
Instants:
Now we go a bit stupid. Somethings were left the same from the initial shell of esper dragons like 3 copies of Dig Through Time and Foul-Tongue Invocation and 4 copies of Silumgar's Scorn. Normally from there it would be 3 copies of Dissolve but having it rotate out with
Dissipate
has left us with rare Cancel in Scatter to the Winds and conditional
Dissipate
in
Spell Shrivel
. Origins gave us strictly worse Syncopate in
Clash of Wills
, but were more than happy to play them in the respective places. Here for week 1, i'll be trying a combination of the 3 spells and making a decision on how they played individually to make up my final numbers. I've added a
Murderous Cut
here just for the sake of instant speed removal.
Planeswalkers:
So like i said at the beginning of the primer, I wanted to make it play out similar to old esper dragons and so in place of Elspeth, Sun's Champion, I've gotten a lite version of her in the form of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Not sure how this will work out, but overall brings the esper dragons curve, down. The 1 of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon needs no words.
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
is gone from the format so, I don't see a way to fill this slot in this season.
Creatures:
Ok now for the last section on creatures. 4
Dragonlord Ojutai
is a staple in this deck along side the 1 of
Silumgar, the Drifting Death
. They're hexproof and as a result durable threats/finishers/walls/whatever you need them for. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
is a relatively new addition to the list and i don't see why its in the deck but my own reasoning is that, he allows you to keep more hands due to the loot ability. Flipping him into his planeswalker form also lets you get back almost anything you need for a specific situation from killing a creature/planeswalker by flashing back a ruinous path, to clearing a gummed up board with crux of fate. saying that it is snapcaster-lite mage is probably what you'll be doing.
sideboard:
complete list and considerations yet to come.
So like always,advice on this list is highly welcome and I encourage POSITIVE DISCUSSION about my lists.
