So this is my first control/superfriends deck. I really liked the one you have The_Riddlebox so would you mind giving some tips on this

I wrote a long ass post, and for whatever reason I can't post it from my phone, so I will copy/paste, save it somewhere and attempt to post the little help I had to offer when I get home from work.

Lol no problem anything helps honestly. I await the complete rethinking of this deck afterwards

You asked for it.

First off you need a more clear direction in which way you want your deck to go, since it looks like you have a few things going on. I am assuming the route you want to go with is control since you mentioned it yourself.

You really need to run 26 lands in my opinion. Control decks cannot afford to miss land drops, and 24 feels adeguate for mid range decks but not for something like esper control.

Now lets talk about how you interact with your opponent: counters & removal.

I like the mainboard Dispel since it hits a lot of things mainly Company and Rally. I cant say, however, that I like Negate in the main. You are a control deck, and while Negate is nice side board tech you should really be running catch all counters like Scatter to the Winds or Clash of Wills. Even Ojutai's Command is pretty good to have as a 1 or 2 of.

Your removal is very situational, and much like my thoughts on negate, you need more catch all removal. Ultimate Price is not bad, it kind of misses two of Abzan's biggest threats, and all eldrazi, amngst others; it does however hit a lot of targets and depending on your meta it may be worth running in the mainboard but I would still limit it to a 2 of. I understand you mention this a post rotation deck, which means you will probably not want to run things like Utter End or Murderous Cut, but you may want to consider them for the time being. I would also consider a couple of copies of Ruinous Path as it hits all creatures, shy of a few exceptions, as well as walkers, albeit at sorcery speed; the Awaken is semi relevant too. I would also shoot for more sweepers since you really wont be dropping your threats until later when you have the board under control. Which sweeper you want to run can depend on your meta, but I would shoot 2 to 3 sweepers in the MB, and preferably ones that cover different scenarios. I also really dislike Immolating Glare as there are a few creatures that can be problematic even if they don't attack, and since you have already looked at SOI I am surprised you didn't chose to go for Declaration In Stone instead; while it is true that it isn't instant speed, it does allow for many more targets to be hit, and the draw back is really not that bad, the main thing here is that it exiles. Removals worth mentioning as well are Grasp of Darkness, Silkwrap, Stasis Snare, and even Silumgar's Command isn't that bad here.

As far as your walkers/creatures I think you are somewhat on the right track but I would completely cut Liliana and the Relentless Dead. Liliana will be hard to flip and offers no real advantage for you when she is in walker form. Along the same lines, without a sac engine to abuse or other zombies to recur (i get you can recur another copy if you want to) to me it's going to be a card that does not do much for you. I would, however, look into running a couple of Dragonlord Ojutai's, as not only does ot offer some awesome card advantage paired with a fast clock, but it also offers more dragons to help you get some life back with the Invocation. I do thin Narset Transcendent might be worth a shot here as a 1 of, maybe even Ugin, but that's up to preference.

Now, time for some sweet card draw talk. I think that 4 Truths is excessive, but I guess that's up to taste, but blue has many ways of drawing cards, a decent choice for example would be Anticipate. You have blue, the best color for card advantage, use it :)

Alternatively you could swap to Dragons Control and incorporate things like Crux of Fate and Silumgar's Scorn, but that's neither here or there since esper control can work fine without taking the dragon route. I would also look into building a sideboard with some miscellanous tools in there like more Duress, as well as Transgress the Mind, Infinite Obliteration and so on. I know its hard building a SB with post rotation in mind, but having something is better than nothing.

I am writing this from work so I am sure I missed some obvious suggestions, but if you want more ideas you can check out esper dragon control deck. You can also search Channelfireball on youtube as they have an Esper Control deck tech, as well as a few games played with it, that might give you a better idea of at least better direction and atructure.

I hope that helped you out at least a little. Feel free to question any of my suggestions, or ask anything else if you need to.

Sorry for the double post but apparently splitting it up worked. Have fun reading that :)

The thoughts on removal was i wanted more destroy creature than exile that way i can abuse kalitas eating the zombies produced by it. Tossing relentless dead under the bus lets lilly flip. I choose lilly also for the hand disruption as the last thing opponents need is to play or recurring relentless dead after kalitas eats him. I like ojutai just dont have any copies and he is a little up there in price so i would reevaluate after SOI hits though declaration will definitely make it. Ill be doing some more work on it when i get home. Are the oaths worth looking at

Kalitas is good because he punishes your opponents hard for doing something you already normally would, and the zombies are a plus; however, I would not skip over good removal simply because it wouldn't trigger him though. There are going to me time where you face certain threats and you won't have Kalitas out on the field, actually that's going to be often, and you won't be able to appropriately deal with threats. Here are a couple of examples: World Breaker is not something you want your opponent to recur, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is something you can't hit with any of your removal, Deathmist Raptor is going to pick up play again and you definitely don't want that to be in their graveyard, and of course there are the Aristocrat decks and it's nice to get rid of a problem without triggering multiple Zulaport Cutthroats. Kalitas is nice, but he is not a build around card in standard.

Lili is going to be hard to flip for you as you are hoping your opponent will either remove your Relentless Dead or that you will have something to block, and generally as a control player if you HAVE to block that means your opponent is already at an advantage as you didn't control his board. Just to hit on a light note, Relentless Dead has a harsh casting cost with the , and after rotation without fetches might be tough to achieve early game when you also want to have mana open for counters. What you have is a good idea, but in the wrong deck. Lili's hand disruption also works against you, a control deck wants card advantage they don't really want to get rid out their own resources unless it comes coupled with advantage such as "draw a card and discard a card" style of effects. Lili is good in decks where people make use of their own graveyard so they can add fuel while disrupting your opponent at the same time. Here it's fairly lack luster, not to mention that without a reliable sac outlet like Nantuko Husk where you can sac at no cost in response to removal, Lili will almost always get killed before flipping in this deck. There are just better options for control this type of deck, and if you are after disruption running more Duress or Transgress the Mind might work better for you.

I do like the minor changes you made, primarily the catch all counters, but I am not sure I agree with Death Wind over Grasp of Darkness. If you were running some sort of accelerator like Mage-Ring Network then it might be a decent pick, but let's take a look at how the numbers pan out. To get rid of a 1 toughness creature Wind requires 2 mana, for 2 toughness it's 3 mana, for 3 toughness it's 4 mana, and for 4 toughness it's 5 mana; you end up paying more mana to do the same job that Grasp does for only 2. There are going to be times where you will face something with higher than 4 toughness and then that may come in handy, but at that point a counter or one of your other removals should have covered it. Most creatures in standard at the moment fall under 1-4 toughness bracket, and as a control deck you need to be as efficient with your mana as possible, and in that sense Grasp of Darkness is just better.

With how you originally shaped your deck and with your comment explaining some of your choices I have to ask: have you considered monoblack control? Here is a link to a fun looking deck that's been floating around tapped out: Remorseless Punishment For The Win!.

Ultimately this is your deck, an you shape it how you want to, I am just offering ideas based on what would work better in my opinion, but what matters the most is that the deck is fun to you. Keep brewing!

I see the inefficiency with deathwind was just worrying about the double black with the mana you pointed to though i cant argue that 2 mana vs 5 mana is much better. Ill be honest lilli is really just my favorite so was trying her out and hoping for a new one, along with jace and likely sorin. A few cards i want to run by you. Sidisi's Faithful can exploit itself flipping lilly and bouncing something but you have given me reason to remove her most likely for a new one or may drop for stasis snare to grab problematic creatures. Any of the oaths but i dont think i have enough walkers to be viable there. Ugin's Insight as card draw but i really didnt think another 5 drop would help

I get how you feel about Lili. I love her story, artwork, and design. She is by far my favorite walker and I try to get my hands on every printing released of her....but sometimes functionality should take priority :)

The Oaths are very hit or miss depending on the deck. Oath of Nissa is awesome, but unfortunately you can't run it. Oath of Chandra is very sub par in my opinion. Oath of Gideon is ok, the two bodies it offers are decent for blocking or getting in a few points of damage, and it has an obvious synergy with Gideon, and also work well with Sorin; I am running 3 of them in my super friends deck, they provide bodies but I can't say the additional counter on the walkers ever did much for me either so am considering removing them for more card draw/answers. Finally we have Oath of Jace whoch looks decent enough, but I can't personally say if it is good or bad.

If you want more card draw in your case Dragonlord's Prerogative might be better than Ugin's Insight as you can keep mana open for counters or removal, and if opponent does nothing you can end of turn draw. It's also half relevant that it can't be countered I guess? Dig Through Time is a beast, and I would use it for the last month that it has in rotation, it even dropped in price as well.

Ok so been catching up on all the previews we are getting and would like opinions on a few cards that caught my eye. Anguished Unmaking and Declaration in stone as removal. Startled awake for repetitive mill. Thing in the ice as a new creature and Kothophed, Soul Hoarder as something old that might be worth looking at

Declaration in Stone is definitely worth a slot in either mainboard or sideboard. I believe it is good enough for the sideboard, but I have seen some players think of it as a sideboard card vs tokens due to it being sorcery speed, but don't forget that it's to get rid of something for good, and if there are more than one copy of it in the field then those go too. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

Anguished Unmaking is definitely good, BUT you have to be careful with it. Depending on the deck this can be a 1-4 copies. As an example, in a control deck that has 0 ways to gain life, 2 is the most I would include, but if you run Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Shambling Vent then you could probably afford to run 3/4, I mean it is a 3cmc instant speed removal to everything shy of lands; or, on the other hand, I would be surprised if this is not an auto include as a playset in Ally decks where they can gain life quite easily to make up for the life loss.

Startled Awake could be decent disruption, and depending if more support for mill is offered it can definitely be a thing. I mean, Sphinx's Tutelage is still a thing; I mean, Esper Mill Control was a thing in the old Innistrad, so it may come to life again in the return to set.

Kothophed, Soul Hoarder is something I would not look at. You don't accelerate or ramp, so you should have already used up a good chunk of removal to get rid of early/mid-range beaters, so his effect already loses strength, as at this point you want to drop serious threats and use your counter-magic to protect it and Kothophed just isn't the best threat you can have. On the other hand, Thing in the Ice definitely is a late game threat, or a mid game threat depending how fast you get rid of those Ice Counters, as it also has a nice bounce effect tacked onto it.

So changed it up some with the new things that are coming out. Am i missing anything that should obviously be in here?

Is budget an issue for you? If not I would say that Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip is better than the new Jace, especially when it's sharing the same slot of a better 6 mana walker. Honestly you got a pretty solid start to an Esper control build, just need to eventually test it and play around with exactly what removal to keep in, what to take out, and how much of what you need/want. Other wise all I could suggest is to try out Narset Transcendent and/or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon as a one of.

Just took a second quick look before posting comment, you could use sweepers. I know that Declaration in Stone can at times act as a pseudo-sweeper, and I am not saying to take it out either, I think the card is great, but having something like Languish, Planar Outburst, or even Flaying Tendrils (Which might be pretty decent in the new standard with all the small aggressive creatures running around), will often save you since if your opponent plays 2 or 3 creatures per turn or you miss removal for a turn or two, you can start to fall behind in keeping the board clear. I am not particularly counting Thing in the Ice as a sweeper either simply because it takes a bit of work to get him online.

Oh and I would also suggest more card draw if you can fit it in there.

Yea budget does come up. I mostly negotiate trades around for any of the money cards in this (thank god the lucky expedition got me a kalitas and gideons). Ill add back the 1 of planar outburst back i had and possibly languish. At this point i can pick up ojutai or narset with ugin rotating and currently sitting at 35$ he isnt viable for me

Fair enough, I forgot Ugin was in Fate Reforged and not in Dragons.

No Ancient Crab? Downvote.

As a Control player I would like to point out that your deck is severely lacking in serious card advantage. You may want a full set of Anticipate and another Painful Truths

Skyrim belongs to the Nords! Long live Ulfric Stormcloak!

Awesome useage of Thing in the Ice  ^Flip

Once again I call to thee The_Riddlebox. Look over my deck and offer advice por favor

Man, I haven't touched this site in a while. I will look it over and give you my opinion when I get off work.

No worries.If you get to it thanks if not its all cool; just back into brewing with a new set coming out

As a starting point it seem relatively fine. The main changes that I would make are as follows:

-Land count: not sure if you have play tested this, or if 25 lands has worked for you in the past, but when I play control decks I normally feel much more confident with 26 lands.

-Liliana: I love this walker, and I think her new printing is being underestimated, but I don't think that an Esper control/superfriends deck can make good use of her. You don't have anything that takes advantage of chucking things in the grave. I feel like in a control deck she works very nicely hand in hand with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip, but is otherwise fairly lackluster in my opinion. Her +1 is obviously a better version than Jace's as it can even kill some targets, and her -7 can be a wincon by itself; but again, I feel like you could fit better things in here like more card advantage or just one more copy of each one of the other walkers.

-card advantage: I don't feel like you have enough of it, but I might be wrong here. I feel like this will be highly impacted by what is being played in your meta. If slower decks are being played, then you are fine as once Sorin and Jace get online you can keep fueling your hand; however, if a lot of faster decks are being played I feel like you would run out of answers before you get a chance to get your walkers online.

-Imprisoned in the Moon: I am not sold on this card. You already have Anguished Unmaking which does the job better in most cases, I guess the upside of Imprisoned in the Moon is that you can shut down manlands or cut your opponent out of a color source, but are those two "upsides" worth taking up 3 slots in your side? Otherwise if you just need more answers to other walkers, why not just run another copy of Unmaking in the side along with Ruinous Path which is still a good pick to have.

-Dragonlord Ojutai: where is he? I feel like he belongs in every control deck that can run him. He has pseudo-hexproof, he is a fast clock with evasion, and he provides a repeatable Anticipate. Players stopped running this guy once more removal that can deal with him more effectively started coming out, but he is still a great pick either in the main or side as at least a 2 of. Both of the premier Esper decks that made top 16 at the SOI pro-tour ran him for a reason.

I hope that helps. I have been out of the standard loop for almost 2 months so most of what I said might not apply to you or anyone in general, but I hope it helped. Sorry I couldn't make any real suggestions other than telling you what you shouldn't play, but I am "re-learning" standard and would rather not give bad suggestions if I can help it.

Not going to lie, I'm a tad disappointed that there were no Mountains to climb in this deck with horses.

Hi, im in a league that is Standard format. i need a little help before i go to it this Thursday with my esper control deck. it just doesn't flow right. I only need this idea for a deck until after this week until Eldritch Moon rotates in. Can you help, Thanks.

Here it is:

My deck:

One Last Time - Esper Dragon Control

Standard* dragonsandgoblins85

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