Esper Solemnity

Historic* Combo Control Forcefeed Mill Pillow Fort Prison WUB (Esper)

Chasmolinker

Land (17)

• 3x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Goldmire Bridge
• 1x Hengegate Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Island
• 1x Mistvault Bridge
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Plains
• 1x Razortide Bridge
• 2x Seachrome Coast
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Temple of Silence

Instant (19)

• 4x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Dispel
• 2x Ice Out
• 2x Negate
• 4x Opt
• 3x Revel in Silence  ^Flip
• 1x Rowan's Grim Search
• 2x Saw it Coming

Artifact (3)

• 2x Candy Trail
• 1x Folio of Fancies

Enchantment (15)

• 2x Cooped Up
• 2x Forced Fruition
• 4x Phyrexian Unlife
• 4x Planar Disruption
• 3x Solemnity

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Path of Peril
• 4x Thoughtseize

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Beseech the Mirror
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Idyllic Tutor

Artifact (1)

• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

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A CONTROL deck that makes use of the Phyrexian Unlife + Solemnity lock and aims to MILL the opponent in the late game with either Folio of Fancies or Forced Fruition. Discard and countermagic keep the deck alive until a win condition is found. Cheers! Suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

Gameplay

Early Game:
Discard, Scry, and Imprisonment
The early game is all about keeping the opponent at bay long enough to find the combo pieces needed to lock out the opponent. This is done with Thoughtseize to pick their hand clean of any enchantment removal. Seeing multiple creature removal spells and small creatures means we have some time to get our feet planted. Seeing planeswalkers and enchantment removal means we need to hold up countermagic. Planar Disruption and Cooped Up are great for preventing any action on the opponents' side of the board. Revel in Silence   is a nice card to lock them out of the early game or in some cases to cast your combo pieces through countermagic once you have enough mana.

Mid Game:
Play the lock
By T5 you should be looking to get the lock in play ASAP if you haven't already. You have until T8 before you can start moving into the win-con of this deck. Unless you've been able to stabilize the board and maintain a healthy life total, you are running out of time if you haven't played Phyrexian Unlife + Solemnity . Once you get these in play you can relax a little bit so long as you have countermagic for the rare enchantment removal spell. Perhaps you've already foretold a copy of Saw it Coming and are safe from discard effects. Move cautiously as you work your way into the late game.

Late Game:
Win-Con
If you've made it into the late game, chances are you are stuck on 6 mana or haven't drawn a win-con yet. Forced Fruition pairs nicely with Folio of Fancies. Forcing the opponent to draw 7 every time they try to "pick the lock" fills their hand to the point that you can spend 3 mana and mill them for a ton of cards. You'll want to hold up countermagic when you go to cast Forced Fruition as you don't want them to get a window to remove Phyrexian Unlife and you just lose on the spot.

Finding the pieces

There are a variety of scry effects in the deck from the Temple Lands, Candy Trail and Opt. Digging through the top of the deck is key to finding the combo by T3 or T4. Though it is most often best to wait until T5+ to hold up countermagic once you resolve your enchantments. Rowan's Grim Search and Grim Tutor give the deck a way to reliably find the pieces of the combo. The former at instant speed.

Countermagic

The primary concern for this deck is cards like Naturalize. As such we are running one copy of Dispel and 4 copies of An Offer You Can't Refuse. The cheapest removal spells for the majority of the types of spells that can remove enchantments. For the occasional creature spell we run Ice Out and Saw it Coming to handle cards like Glissa Sunslayer or Skyclave Apparition.

Win-Con

In a rather drawn out way, this is a mill deck. You could add cards as alternate win-cons but they can be used against you in certain match-ups with Etali, Primal Storm effects. This deck intentionally has no cards that can be used to remove our own permanents in these match-ups.

Good to know

Combat damage happens simultaneously. So any damage, besides first strike, that takes you below zero won’t give you poison counters that turn if you have Phyrexian Unlife.

Phyrexian Unlife + Solemnity doesn't prevent combat damage. Cards like Glissa Sunslayer will still trigger if it is able to attack.

Having 2 copies of each half of the lock in play protects against Boseiju, Who Endures effects that can't be easily countered.

Thoughtseize is perfect information late game when you aren't sure how to spend your mana.

Sac the Bridge Lands to trigger "bargain"

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Key combos	Phyrexian Unlife + Solemnity
Legality	This deck is Historic legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 25 - 0 Rares 6 - 0 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.16
Tokens	Foretell, Treasure
Folders	Decks to try