Honestly, if you can figure out that match-up, I'd gladly hear any suggestions. I've cracked open the match-ups against all of the big pillars of the format with a control strategy excluding this. My deck laughs at Jeskai Black unless I literally draw all land, Bant megamorph is even when they board in countermagic, but my deck's plays require minimal thinking so I'm much less likely to make a mistake, and I feel really bad for Abzan and the aristocrats match-ups. But ramp... in testing (even implementing strategies to maximize the match-up) I've gone 1-11 in games against it so far. The match-up is atrocious for control.

Well, there isn't that much uncounterable in standard except for The Unspeakable... names have power, and it shall have no power here.

So let's think strategy. Do you counter Dorks? Or save the Horribly Awry for Woodland Wanderer, Undergrowth Champion, Akoum Firebird, and Thunderbreak Regent?

Next thing, I recon sideboard would look like Disdainful Stroke and Infinite Obliteration to hit Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and company (No Collected Company pun intended). Side out would be Foul-Tongue Invocation and Languish, since after turn four it'll be pointless.

We could also try spare Utter End, Planar Outburst/End Hostilities, and Quarantine Field.

Could also side out Silumgar, the Drifting Death for more responses.

What are your thoughts?

Infinite Obliteration works, just remember Ulamog only needs to be cast to pretty much seal your fate. And they can get him out by turn 6 with a proper hand. His exile ability likely puts you 2 land back, which really hurts. And with the lands, they can tutor for more flying spaghetti monsters upon cast. Which is why it hurts. Their threats don't necessarily need to hit the table until they need to finish us off, and they get rid of most of our finishers as well. It's like playing a R/G Tron match-up with U/W/x control in modern, but without access to real counterspells or Path to Exile

So Esper's defense against that deck lines up as following:

Duress: Spell based ramp is what they're doing, they don't care about most of our removal.

Transgress the Mind:Same reason for Duress, but also gets rid of Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Permanently.

Infinite Obliteration: But it has to be before turn 6, which means you basically need the full set boarded for just this 1 match-up.

Secure the Wastes+Gideon, Ally of Zendikar: With an emblem, Secure is basically a White Sun's Zenith, but this also doesn't happen fast enough for this match-up more often than not.

Even after considering these and testing them out, the match-up still feels extremely hard to beat. We do have tools, but you really need to hit them hard turn 3 with an Infinite Obliteration to seal the game away. You have 2-3 chances to get the card in hand before you basically straight up lose to Ulamog or Ugin.

In a sense, it feels more proper to fight the ramp by letting them ramp and sculpting your hand before they can cast their doomsday devices.

I think that Transgress the Mind is better than Duress, since there should be basically nothing it doesn't hit. Hits Natural Connection, Explosive Vegetation, Nissa's Renewal, See the Unwritten etc etc etc.

I'm going to change my sideboard as follows:

-2 Sphinx's Tutelage

-2 Dispel

+4 Transgress the Mind.

Those four cards were all against control, and fortunately, Transgress the Mind will work against control too. So my ramp Matchup will now look like this, I guess:

+4 Infinite Obliteration

+4 Transgress the Mind

+2 Disdainful Stroke

-4 Languish

-2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death

-3 Horribly Awry

-1 Foul-Tongue Invocation

This sounds like a solid plan of attack. I'm going to keep testing, and I'll post any breakthroughs on that match up.

AngelOfDivinity is love AngelOfDivinity is life. Favorite deck 2012, I stole this idea and just replaced ur lizards with 6 Eldrazi and a few diff. spells, super fun. thanks for the idea +1. dont worry i cited u and this deck in my intro.

No problem, that's super cool! Post a link?

oh yes i should have before. Bada Bing Bada Boop, first FNM, should be fun! oh yes and i decided to go with Eldrazi because i had them and not your lizards. Thanks

Ok, so I got beat up pretty bad last night by sac mechanics. Here's the breakdown:

2-2

Round 1: Jeskai Black: Loss, 1-2 (Actually, we clocked out and rolled for it on game three, I lost the die roll).

Round 2: Control: Loss 0-2

Round 3: Ramp: Win 2-0

Round 4: RDW: Win 2-0.

So, trend here: I lose when my opponent has Crackling Doom, Foul-Tongue Invocation, Blighted Fen.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Drop all wincons except 4 Ob Nixilis Reignited.

So wam, just like that, sac effects, removal that isn't Ruinous Path, and Infinite Obliteration are useless. But is the Nixi Pixie really strong enough to be soul win condition?

I'm also considering dropping white (again) because Nixi could possibly be a safer bet than Dragonlord Ojutai anyway, and I will regardless have to remove Orator of Ojutai from my sideboard which can become Complete Disregard, leaving the only white cards in the deck as Utter End, Planar Outburst, and Quarantine Field (totally replaceable), and forget any chance of mana issues or not having 2 basics, plus I could also run Blighted Fen or Blighted Cataract now that I'm not so color strapped.

OR

I could run 2-4 Nixi Pixies and keep MD a pair of Silumgar, the Drifting Death, since that straight beats a lot of decks, and then side him out against anything with sac effects.

So here's what I'm asking: For now I'm going to try cutting white again. Do you guys think this is justified? Also, how good is Ob Nixilis Reignited, or the Nixi Pixie as I like to call him?

Obs is susceptible to Display of Dominance still which I side in for the control matchup.

I would hate to see you drop the white. I feel that playing 1xDragonlord Ojutai 1xOjutai's Command 1xNarset Transcendent 1xOb Nixilis Reignited instead of 4x"Nixi Pixi" would work very well here. just my 2 rupees. I think your loss of Ojutai alone is not worth the drop.

Also, you could throw in 1xSorin, Solemn Visitor in place of the 1xOjutai's Command. this is sounding pretty groovy to me. Again, just a few rupees

If this is a viable option, i would run 1xSilumgar, the Drifting Death, and sideboard 1xDragonlord Silumgar for the big doods. this way u can keep the 5xWincons and this deck = euphoric

That's good thinking, thanks. I think I was overreacting to the number of decks running sacrifice things in my meta. So I'll go back to Esper, but move the focus from dragons to "Dragons and Plansewalkers."

I'll add Narset Transcendent when I trade for her, I don't want to buy one.

What do you think of this? I feel like Ob Nixilis Reignited is better than Dragonlord Silumgar, since while Silumgar is removal, Ob Nixilis is Less mana, recurrent removal, card advantage, and harder to kill.

Should I decrease my dragon count? I'm pretty on the fence about it.

nice deck I was a control player before rotation and recently swapped to ramp and aristocrats been 100% top 8 with both decks. I have a few things for ya.

Horribly Awry is a perfect card in this meta for control most decks right now are 4cmc or less creature aggro with just a few big guys.

Infinite Obliteration is definitely the go to card for the ramp decks since they will be using ulamog as the main win con. just gotta focus on shutting down the ramp turn 2 with Clash of Wills and this will set most ramps down a turn or 2 which is enough to take control of the match.

Ob Nixilis Reignited is a great card but i will say this do not drop to only one win con it will hurt you a lot.

yes the sacrifice can kill off your dragons but i would suggest adding 4x Sphinx's Tutelage in the sideboard for the control match ups also Dispel would be a good add to fight control..... honestly you need to sit down with the deck look at the sideboard and say what have i not used really at all maybe you put it in the sb thinking about a matchup but you haven't seen it and now you are seeing something else thats giving you trouble so if that continues happening try setting up about 6-8 spots in the sideboard to fight against a deck you are having troubles with.

TBH you have a great main board for aggro lists and you are set up in the sideboard for a few other specific aggro lists that the main board is already set up for. last set i had a hard time vs control game 2 so i had to devote about 7 cards in the sb just for the one matchup bc half my fnm was control.

Hope i have helped if you need any specific info please feel free to recomment here i reply within a day or 2 depending on my schedule i try to get back asap especially if its friday just to help anyone that wants it.

Excellent point about aggro there syncronym- my deck pretty much never loses to aggro... why the heck do I have side board slots dedicated to it? Thanks, that frees up four slots (one playset of slots =P)

Ok, I'll see how it works to side a playset of tutelage. Here's what my new matchup against control should look like:

-3 Horribly Awry

-4 Languish

-2 Dragonlord Ojutai

-2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death

-1 Planar Outburst

-1 Utter End

-2 Clash of Wills

+4 Infinite Obliteration

+4 Sphinx's Tutelage

+4 Transgress the Mind

+3 Disdainful Stroke

By siding out all my creatures their removal/sac effects are rendered useless, as well as the Infinite Obliteration they'll bring in game 2.

AngelOfDivinity

im not sure exactly why you are bringing in Infinite Obliteration vs control i would honestly keep 1 Utter End 2 Clash of Wills they will still work very well vs control but again i don't understand why you are bringing IB into that matchup.

If it hit non creature spells then sure id say it would work amazing.

i might suggest dropping one of the dragon lords in the main board and running a narset she would work awesome vs control or maybe drop one Transgress the Mind in the SB

Infinite obliteration is fantastic against control. What else, other than ramp, would I even board it in against? I name dragonlord Ojutai or something... I have made a control player forfeit because they were not capable of winning the game after I transgressed their sole Ugin, then lobotomized their 2 creature wincons. It's made to beat up on control. It is a staple against control decks, just like Slaughter Games was... I don't understand why it doesn't immediately scream control-hate to you.

As I stated in one of the previous comments, I will get a Narset Transcendent once I can trade for one because I'm cheap and (mostly) unemployed (I sell candy around my school, so, unemployed). Yeah, she's a great card lol.

Infinite Obliteration is good against any deck that runs a resilient threat in a pack of 4. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip in control, Deathmist Raptor in megamorph strategies, and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in Ramp strategies just to name a few. If they're running dragon based control, Dragonlord Ojutai also basically shuts them down.

I know XD

I've both done that, and had it done to me. I should know lol.

I do think, though, at least against Dimir control, that I should side out Ob Nixilis Reignited instead of an Utter End and a Clash of Wills. If they're just UB there's no way they can remove a Sphinx's Tutelage, and they definitely have Ruinous Path, another thing which will be dead in hand. Against Esper and their Utter End, that is another story...

Hi nice deck! Thinking about building this since it looks rly cool! question tho i got 4 flooded strands lyin around somewhere. How do you think these fit in best in the deck? Thanks!

Remedie id say drop -3 island and -1 swamp to add the strands in

AngelOfDivinity sorry i didn't remember you said you were looking to trade for a narset but yea its a great card..... and Infinite Obliteration i can understand now my local meta runs 0 creatures in their control decks or just 1 which isn't too game changing for me since i have the answers for it but if your meta is using only creature win cons then it makes total sense.

@Remedie I'd drop 2 Caves of Koilos and two island since you want basics for the battle lands, and caves are basically in there for a white mana source that's lightly better than Plains, but fetch lands definitely top pain lands.

@syncronym, yeah, it would be pretty pointless if all you saw was plansewalkers running around in control lol. Love it since it sides in against so many things- ramp, control, combo, Jeskai black... My favorite play is probably a turn two Transgress the Mind into a turn 3 Infinite Obliteration! like NOPE!