An esper control deck focused on exploiting the exile zone, with Kaya at the helm.
In the mainboard:
Exile your opponent's creatures and nonland permanents with
Seal Away
,
Settle the Score
,
Ixalan's Binding
, and
Deputy of Detention
.
Settle the Wreckage
and
Cry of the Carnarium
provide mass removal that also exiles.
Remorseful Cleric
provides a cheap flyer that doubles as a way to exile your opponent's graveyards.
All of this exiling has synergy with
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
, which exiles your opponent's graveyard slowly while building up to a massive life exchange.
Absorb
,
Thought Collapse
and
Syncopate
are our counterspells and help us stall.
Thought Collapse
helps fill our opponent's graveyard, and
Syncopate
also adds directly to the exile zone for
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
.
Mortify
and
Thought Erasure
provide further removal while also helping to fill our opponent's graveyard with cards to be exiled.
Chemister's Insight
provides a means of card advantage.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
provides great card advantage and a possible alternate win con that also feeds into Kaya's ultimate. Both this and
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
out together is a serious threat, amounting to the prospect of endlessly having your permanents exiled and being life drained for each one.
In the sideboard:
Amulet of Safekeeping
shuts down both tokens decks and some control and burn.
Chaos Wand
provides an alternate win condition via casting your opponent's spells.
Chromium, the Mutable
is an alternate win condition and a strong card for control matchups.
Fall of the Thran
provides a way to clear the board of lands in combo with having your key planeswalkers
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
and/or
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
already out, buying you time to develop the board and gain loyalty while exiling your opponents cards further to deny them getting their lands back as quickly, pretty much guaranteeing victory by putting your opponent at a severe disadvantage that is hard to recover from.
Kaya's Wrath
provides further mass removal that gets around creatures and players with hexproof.
Negate
provides a good option for control matchups and is just an all around good card.
Phyrexian Scriptures
provides an additional form of mass removal while also synergizing with having one solid creature out and ultimately exiling your opponent's graveyard.
Unmoored Ego
is excellent way to directly exile key of problematic cards in an opponent's deck.
Vraska's Contempt
provides further exiling that helps out against planeswalker heavy decks.
