Hostage Taker makes me want access to Blue and Champion of Wits was something I wanted access to before. Between Hostage Taker coming in and Endless One leaving, I feel like moving the list to Esper. I'm preserving the original older list here so I can reference it later.
An interactive combo deck that seeks to use God-Pharaoh's Gift to win the game. In the early game, it seeks to use Walking Ballista and some flexible removal to control our opponents board, with Ballista picking off early threats and the ability to exile any substantial threats. In-between, cycling Horror of the Broken Lands and Winged Shepherd keeps our mana use efficient, and lets us dig a bit deeper to find the Gift or a Gate to the Afterlife. Once a gate is down, each X cost creature is a 0-mana way to filter the top of our deck and work towards searching for a God-Pharaoh's Gift. Once a gift is online, it handles closing out the game while the rest of your hand has been filtered to be as gas-filled as possible.
To help ensure that Gift can win the game, some pricier (cmc-wise) cards are included.
If your opponent is truly uninteractive, both Marionette Master and Angel of Invention become fast clocks when their base stats are changed to 4/4, but they are most interesting when you want servos. The angel is a combined 8 power and toughness, with 4 of it being evasive, vigilant, and lifelink.
The puppeteer provides the same seven power both ways, but when each servo triggers 4 lost life points on death, they're psuedo-unblockable. Lastly, because the tokens are copies of the original cards, they keep their cmc. Neither of the top-ends die to any form of Fatal Push.
It is a control deck, and I intend to start trying it out right after launch (the 2 God-Pharaoh's Gifts are all I'm missing now), so it's interaction isn't quite balanced. I leaned a little hard on the "hits everything" removal and hoped Ballista is enough to pick up the early slack, but both the maindeck intetaction and sideboard cards have serious room to improve. I'm open to suggestions if someone has experience with W/B control in more recent Standard.
4x Aether Hub (KLD)
2x Angel of Invention (KLD)
3x Anguished Unmaking (SOI)
2x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim (OGW)
2x Cast Out (AKH)
4x Concealed Courtyard (KLD)
2x Dawn (AKH)
4x Endless One (BFZ)
2x Fairgrounds Warden (KLD)
4x Gate to the Afterlife (AKH)
2x Geier Reach Sanitarium (EMN)
2x God-Pharaoh's Gift (HOU)
3x Horror of the Broken Lands (AKH)
2x Marionette Master (KLD)
4x Plains
2x Shadow of the Grave (AKH)
4x Shambling Vent (BFZ)
5x Swamp
4x Walking Ballista (AER)
3x Winged Shepherd (AKH)
