I don't really think you need another mainboard wincon. Between Silumgar, Ashiok, Elspeth, and Ugin, you have 6 cards that can easily win you the game.

I've been playing with a Jace, the Living Guildpact lately, and actually really like him. A 4 mana PW who comes in with what is essentially 6 loyalty (unless you decide to -3 him). People often leave him alone too long, and he lets you draw a few good cards, and even that small advantage can be enough to win. And obviously if you manage it, his -8 is just GG.

TheHroth That is a good point. Thanks I think I'll try him as well

What decks have you play tested against? FNM records? I like it though! Have any bad luck where you just draw all wincons and no control? A danger for every control deck, but it feels like it could happen more with this deck seeing all those main board wincons.

I also appreciate your thoughts on your spell choice, just wondering how it was testing against the field.

thatwendell It's not testing too terribly. The main board doesn't have that many win cons, Silumgar isn't a win con, he's a stabilizer. Archfiend is a beater with an up side. Jace is not really a win con but it certainly does help. I have playtested it against 2 types of decks, tempo and midrange. Aggro hasn't been tested much against but I feel after game 1 against aggro, this deck gets a lot better. The tempo decks I've playtested it against are of my very own FNM 2x winning decks (both decks won 2x at FNM): Jeskai Tempo & Mardu Tempo. Game 1 for each, although the life totals didn't exactly show you the complete breakdown of the game, it was still pretty close but in the Tempo deck's favor, although a couple of times, a game 1 was won. After boarding, this deck did what a control deck does, depleted all their resources and strung it out and hung it up. Although, a very small amount of games were lost to top decks. But it happens. Against midrange decks, this deck wrecks. Not too much of a contest. Played against a G/R monsters deck, Sultai Whip deck, and Abzan deck. Each time, it was a long, drawn out game where this deck pulled ahead in the late game. The whip deck did give me some problems but the answer, Bile Blight and Utter End along with some counterspells.

TheHroth What do you think of the build now?

I still don't like Enhanced Awareness, but I see your point about it filling up the yard for delve I guess...

Other than that this looks good to me, though I think you may want Drown in Sorrow in the main. Having mass removal against the aggro decks game 1 is better than having more spot removal against the midrange decks... You can already beat them easily, and can board into more cards against them.

I ran my version of Esper Control at the Game Day this weekend and came in second - let me tell you, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver does a ton of good work and heavy lifting. I'm actually up to running 3 in my mb currently. I've also recently cut Jace, the Living Guildpact as I've found the running 2 copies of Prognostic Sphinx seems to work better for me. I much prefer scrying 3 over looking at 2 and graveyarding one. Though thats a personal preference and is affected by how much delve is in your list - you run Murderous Cut where I don't, and you have more Dig Through Time as well. Reading through your comments, I definitely agree with Utter End over Banishing Light, especially if you're running Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

I really like your list, +1 from me. How are you liking Silumgar, the Drifting Death? I've considered it but I just don't know. Check out my list if you've got the time - any and all thoughts are appreciated.

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TheHroth I caved and took your side about Jace's Ingenuity over Enhanced Awareness. I don't need the extra delve help when I am 1 for 1 -ing the whole time and Jace himself does help delve. Also, I only mainboarded 1 Drown in Sorrow and sided a Murderous Cut because I felt like I have so much early removal, I don't want to get stuck with a Drown in Sorrow in hand late game with my Elspeth pushing out tokens on my board. By that point I probably won't need the Drown, but I don't want to have too many dead draws in the deck. So at least game 1 against aggro, I do have that answer in there, and then game 2, I just up the ante. What do you think about that?

TheHroth Disregard the previous comment because I just changed up the deck a bit. But I think I may need some help with mana fixing. Any suggestions?

At this point, the lands we are using is the only relevant difference between our two decks, except for how many boardwipes we are using. I've opted for a full set of End Hostilities in the main, as we as 2 Drown in Sorrow. You have creatures instead (most notably Nyx-Fleece Ram) so the extra sweepers aren't necessary here.

For a long time, I was using a full set of each temple, fetches, and basics for my lands.

The problem with that is that it makes it very hard to hit both by T2 for Bile Blight and for Dissolve on T3.

I cut my numbers of non- temples, and added Dismal Backwater.

While the scrying may seem better, the deck is essentially a control deck with added for late game potential, so hitting mana early isn't necessary.

It has been working very well for me since I opted for a more mana base, and I've been very happy with it. I'm considering even more Dismal Backwater than I already have because the results have just been way better than expected.

That's the best advice on the mana base I can give! The deck keeps getting better man!

Add Nyx-Fleece Ram to the MB. Besides destroying aggro, it also takes care of burn and regular life-gain is always very nice.

FAMOUSWATERMELON In place of what?

UpperDeckerTaco

Sorry I took some time to respond, I saw the comment but then forgot about it...

I would take out the Bile Blight, or put them in the sideboard. Drown in Sorrow works fine for early removal, provides some scrying (important for early game) and not many decks run tokens in standard anyways (besides Jeskai, but there's a much bigger chance of you facing something else - I guess it depends on your meta). For example, Bile Blight won't hurt many warrior aggro type decks, since they run many different creatures whereas Drown in Sorrow will kill most of them.

The Ram will work fine against both aggro (only two mana and solid toughness) and midrange (it can eat a Siege Rhino and live to tell the tale), besides providing some extra lifegain that works well early VS burn. Bile Blight should be in sideboard against eventual token matchups, but even against those, Drown in Sorrow is likely to work better (if you have to choose between Goblins or Monks, for example, Drown will hit both).

FAMOUSWATERMELON So what you're saying is side all 3 Bile Blight and main 2 Nyx-Fleece Ram and 1 more Drown in Sorrow or 1 more End Hostilities.

Preferably one more Drown in Sorrow, and two ram, yes.

The burn matchup is the only matchup where I'd rather have Nyx-Fleece Ram in the mainboard than Bile Blight. Against aggro decks, removing their creatures is just better than blocking them. Lifegain is nice, but not necessary.

With Sorin, Solemn Visitor in here right now, he provides more than enough lifegain on his own (provided you can protect both him and his Vampire token), and with Elspeth, Sun's Champion provides more than just a decent amount of lifegain. Definitely enough to beat the aggro decks, provided enough removal spells are drawn.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor feels bad. you have 5 cards in the deck that work with his plus, he doesn't feel good enough to be in here. I would recommend a Bile Blight and a Silumgar, the Drifting Death in his place. or at least silumgars over Prognostic Sphinx out of sideboard.

asasinater13, Sorin, Solemn Visitor is too good in here. He won me a ton of matches last week even though in a couple of them he was the only 1 on the board for me. He's great on an empty board, but terrible if the opponent is so far ahead and I don't have a board sweeper. The reason why I chose to take out Silumgar, the Drifting Death was for the Prognostic Sphinx, because the sphinx helps with the top decks as well as works very well with Tasigur, the Golden Fang. The ability giving my opponent's creatures -1/-1 with the dragon I felt was irrelevant because of the sweepers and Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight I have. And it allows me to have both Sphinx's and Tasigur on the board. Maybe it's wrong to do so, but I felt that that was a better play than just having Silumgar on the board and virtually only good against token or weenie warrior decks

Tasigur, the Golden Fang is a beast in my deck

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(you saw it when it was midaggro a while back, I think), but he is just GOOD. Tussles with Siege Rhinos, kill a lot of early threats like Goblin Rabblemasters and friends early on, easy delving, generates card advantage, hits players hard, and fills up yard again for other delve spells. Mainboarding a 1 of seems like a much better option than having 3 End Hostilities. Besides, I feel like leaning your back on walkers could be dangerous, even w/ tokens, because there are most definitely decks with Bile Blight, AEtherspouts, Drown in Sorrow, and Scouring Sands running around. You need a big dude to come out once in a while. Also, those turns when your opponent does nothing, you have a mana dump, and with the quality of devling and cards you have, you should get something screwed up every time.

SwaggyMcSwagglepants I feel like I don't want to main deck threat. I would rather side them and then board them in as needed because it would give too much info away Game 1 as to what creatures, if any, that I am running. I could be wrong though. But I want to let my spot removal and sweepers to do the job. My biggest question is if I should main deck the Perilous Vault or not...

@UpperDeckerTaco

Maindecking Perilous Vault is an idea I have toyed with a lot as well, but the problem with our decks is that it would simply be too disadvantageous to us at times, due to the number of planeswalkers we are using.

The sole exception to this is Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. Activating his -X, and then activating Perilous Vault in response is the most troll thing to do in Standard right now. Getting a creature and wiping the entire board is pretty sweet.

I's really up to preference I think. I may swap my Vault and an End Hostilities. Though ideally I'd like to acquire a second Vault.

TheHroth I see what you mean about the vault. I main decked it in place of Utter End to test it out. I was wondering on your opinion if I even need Utter End in the sideboard. Should I just replace it with a Bile Blight in the side. I mean, if I am not running any maindeck Utter End then obviously game two, to get rid of the things I struggle with (Ascendancy or Whip decks), I'd add in Erase for those matchups so is Utter End even worth it?