Good deck +1 from me

what would be your constant win con(s)?

Gearhulk, Planeswalkers but specifically sorrin, sphinx against control, sometimes kalitas. Since the last edit this deck is like 13-1 and all the edits together has been like 55-10 on win loss.

I like it a lot, and it is very close to what I ran at games day.

Only thing I would suggest is pitching the 4th Baral as it is rare to get value from it, and add in another Fumigate or Descend Upon the Sinful.

Against B/G matchup it is amazing to have more wipes. I would drop 2x Transgress for 2x Authority of the Consols for aggro or jeskai matchups, and the overwhelming denials for Fragmentise or Consulate Crackdown.

Now your meta may vary, so I'm guessing there is reason why your sideboard is how it is, but against the top decks right now having extra answers is amazing. Ive run Mardu Vehicles off the table with a well timed Crackdown or Fumigate, and getting Heart of Kirin turn 2/3 can be vital.

I think i am going to take out transgress overall, it is not doing that much, that card is better in the sb of an aggro or midranfe deck. I have also considered taking out the sb baral. I have 3 cards I want to side in being Flaying Tendrils, Authority of the Consuls, and To the Slaughter. Flaying wipes out recurring threats like Scrapheap Scrounger and Haunted Dead, and can take out the early game creatures of vehicles and energy decks so that they cannot crew or grow in energy. Authority stops copycat while also slowing vehicles by not allowing a pseudo haste through the crew action. To the Slaughter takes out a few harder to reach threats like Sphinx of the Final Word. I already have blessed alliance to force them to sac things like sphinx, so that may not be the route to go, but the other 2 cards for sure would make the deck stronger.

I was also sadly unable to test this deck on game day due to me having pretty bad bronchitis right now.

lords2001 I have made the edits to be a little more effective as transgress was not doing much: added 1 fumigate, 2 tendrils, and 2 authority. This deck was doing fine against the decks you mentioned before and will now be even more effective. Overwhelming Denial is invaluable against control. Descend upon the Sinful is only ok for 6 mana. Crackdown is not needed with negate, anguished unmaking, and other creature removal. Fragmentize is also not really needed because of the above and is sorcery speed which hurts. Thanks for the input.

Part of me likes Baral and another part wants to ditch him. I feel like I want a few more answers in the deck and not him. He comes down, is heavily targeted by removal, and doesn't always do a thing. I loot every once and awhile, he sometimes edges out things with 1 cost less, he sometimes blocks as a 1/3, but I just don't know if he is a dead card in hand and when played. I might remove him to add in some more sideboard thing and pull 2 Flaying Tendrils and a Fumigate to the mainboard since I feel like I want a few board wipes in the mainboard. I could then figure out 3 more answers to problems in my sideboard which would be nice. Possibly some other finisher type card in the side. What do people think?

If you want to see how it has evolved check the archive, it feels nearly finished and will have a few more changes, just some final tweaking until the next set is released hopefully. Glad you like the deck.

I made a pretty large revision, Baral was not doing enough and is now gone for some mass removal in the mainboard. The sideboard changed slightly to add 2 threat/removal cards in the white/black gearhulks and the addition of 2 dispels.

I like it much better this way.

Only thing I could think of would perhaps to find a bit of room for Liliana, the Last Hope and Yahenni's Expertise as one is the premier early play plainswalker and can really do a number on any aggro decks in the format, while the other can be really solid in clearing threats and comboing off into digging for cards, throwing down that Liliana etc.

But your meta may vary.

I don't find liliana that strong in control, or at least not unless it is a delirium centric control deck like sultai control. While minusing to get back a gearhulk is nice, it is niche and its price is twice as much as torrential gearhulk. Its plus will not help that much and ult is far away compared to my other walkers. I don't like yahenni's expertise in this deck either as i don't really have anything I want to cast off it, it is a turn slower than tendrils and does not exile, and does not kill the creatures fumigate does for 1 more mana and nets me life. The card is just not a good fit.

Nice deck. Been looking to build something similar. Question: No Shambling Vent?

I used to have Shambling Vent in here, I might add it back. It is a tapped land that has no way to hasten it which hurts. Manlands also got a lot worse due to Fatal Push, i have not seen any but the hexproof one actually do well since fatal push, they just die and you're down mana.

Good point. Forgot about Push.

No Gideon?

I have thought about Gideon, while good, I am unsure if he belongs in this deck. All my walkers currently actually have a +1 that draws me a card to keep my card advantage going. They all also nearly just win off their ults and have removal minus'. Gideon is a bit different, he functions more as a hard to deal with creature, he would also put out a blocker with the token. I am not sure I would rather cut anything for him: he eats into my answers, my draw engine, or my wincons that double as answers. He is also rather expensive and I am already justifying getting the Torrential Gearhulks and Kalitas and don't want to fully break the bank for 2-4 gideons. I also feel he is not as great in control as he is in aggro or midrange.

How would you feel about replacing the Hubs for Evolving Wilds to get more mileage out of push? I know it does hurt to not have Untapped Mama on T1 but it seems like some matchups might like the change.

Btw, I think you're right about not having Gideon MB, though he is certainly great in control matchups and may be worth considering in SB? But then again, even the sideboard is pretty well tuned and may be just as hard to make cuts in.

In control matchups I will side in Sphinx of the Final Word and that is basically game as there are about 8 answers to him in standard and only about 4 actually good answers. none of the 8 are in temur colors either, so temur tower just loses games 2-3 cause they don't have an answer to it. I cannot take out the Aether Hubs, they work too well. AHK is coming up and I will be updating the deck and I am open to discussion. I might even be changing the engine/shell that makes the deck tick. I might also jump ship to sultai control depending upon what I see. Expect me to be posting updates this week, I will be posting links in my description to test decks with possibly crazy ideas and once I have thoroughly tested all my options will update the deck here. I will likely post both and esper and sultai deck as well as an izzet prowess aggro; various zombie things in rakdos, orzhov, esper, grixis, or mardu; BGx -1 counter aggro/midrange; and other ideas. Spoilers are over and brewing season has started!

I run a very similar deck to this, but mine hasn't been updated since Aether Revolt. I found that fumigate was good as a 2-3 of main board and definitely like seeing 4 in the 75. I have Live Fast and Die Young in there too. They are both really good with glimmer. Not sure how the new sets stack up as far as toughness, but I was never very impressed with Flaying Tendrils.You can take a look at my list if you'd like http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/esper-control-standard-kaladesh/

I do not have 4 fumigate because of the tendrils and cataclysmic gearhulk, 6 board wipes in the 75, game day today i sadly could not find a deal on any kalitas and will be running another cataclysmic gearhulk. I also have enough card draw between glimmer, the cycle lands, and the walkers. Tendrils is mainly for vehicles, zombies, and bg energy though as it destroys those decks. It is also t3 vs t5, so it comes down a bit faster. I am thinking about running 2 dispossess sb just for marvel, cause i do not want to be losing to that deck today.

So updates on performance after gameday?

I am thinking that if Ulamog was not in the format Cast Out would be great, but that card is dead in that matchup, and it is 4 mana in control matchups when it could be removed. I am thinking of getting rid of it for other answers, 3 Anguished Mainboard might be pretty good. I am to the point against marvel of mainboarding some specific hate for it, that shell is just so hard to deal with and my LGS is getting overrun with marvel variants (around 25% of the decks and growing).

Marvel Rant: The shell is just annoying cause it can go wide mainly with Whirler Virtuoso and go big with Ulamog. So, if you deal with the go wide, you didn't deal with aetherworks or ulamog. If you deal with aetherworks, you get beat down by the rest of the shell. Something that Eastside Rock said over on his grixis control deck is that against aggro/midrange you side in more removal and against control/combo you side in more counters. When a deck does something on both sides of that structure emerges, control can barely deal with it. It is why the 4 color cat did better than the jeskai cat. Control and Combo are on the same side of the spectrum, while the 4 color was on the opposite. Cat combo had more points of reaction and I minded it less than this as you had to get 2 things out for it to work so you could still use on board removal. Marvel you have to stop on the stack or before, once it hits the field, there is no interaction, they tap and ulamog. I Dispossessed marvel 4 games and still only won 1, got steamrolled by virtuoso once, and got hard cast ulamog twice on because this deck is meant to stabilize and win over a long game. The ulamog is fairly uninteractable as he has a cast trigger that is hard to deal with, is a large indestructible creature, and has another ability that allows him to win without dealing damage. If he had 2 of those 3 things it would be bad but no unbearable, but the 3 are bad. It's kinda funny that cat was holding back such a worse deck for the format. The deck also puts 4 dispel and sphinx of the final word in the side to spite control. This is the stock version; flamecaller, sultai, and control are so much worse. The flamecaller version just has more threats coming off top, chandra is not awful to deal with though unless virtuoso is going nuts too. The deck just spins marvel or makes thopters if you target anything though. The sultai deck has even scarier cards like ishkanah and pulls ulamog and other stuff back from the grave adding a recursive element making it that much harder to stop. The control version still packs large threats like flamecaller, but waits for mana and does marvel when they can hold up 2 counterspells while applying pressure with refiner and virtuoso. I am having to side more than ever for just one archtype where I only had 2 consuls for cat cause my other stuff was sufficient. Overall, it is just a really tough match. I am hearing from other people Dispossess and Lost Legacy are not cutting it, it's just disappointing how untouchable the deck is right now. People playing it said they thought the deck felt bad and it was like rolling a die, but is easy to pilot and uninteractive. I am just trying to find stuff for this, probably going to take Cast Out out of the deck and put To the Slaughter in the side to hit flamecaller and ulamog at once at the hard cast point. Might try Lost Legacy and Transgress the Mind as well. Just having to side in a lot.

Zomnbies: Zombies was pretty easy to deal with, I kept Lord of the Accursed from hitting the table and pumping so all the creatures were within Flaying Tendrils Range so they couldn't recur and also kept Liliana's Master off as well. This deck is good because it is fast, grows, and is recursive; if you prevent it from growing and recurring, gg.

Vehicles: Flaying Tendrils once again kept all the low drops off the baord and made it where scrapheap couldn't come back. Marvel being in the format hindered this deck more as I had Dispossess and Ceremonious Rejection in the side. The Planeswalker sideboard was also pretty easy to deal with. The deck is good because it's threats are evasive and fast and it has a morph sidebaord. Esper is well equipped for evasive threats like Gideon, Heart of Kiran, Scrounger, and Walkers.

Other combos: Aethflux and New Perspectives are the 2 other main combos and hinge around 1 card so heavily that if you keep that card off you're fine. These decks are good because they don't card about your board state much. Marvel is a cmobo deck that doesn't hinge around it's combo going off, that's why it's an issue.

B/G/X: Non evasive and non recurring threats, easiest matchup.

Control: Izzet breaks to Sphinx and I have exile and sac effects that remove things you can't otherwise which makes control in general pretty easy, could use a touch more for in the side.

Other decks: Metalwork colossus is a surprising weak point as colossus is big, recurring, and sanctum of ugin being a cast trigger means that 3 usually come out at once around turn 4-5. I have to keep Hedron Archive especially from hitting in this matchup as it is 6 towards a colossus. Improvise decks are pretty easy, Cataclysmic Gearhulk just wins here. Izzet Emerge is interesting with cast triggers, explosive turns, instant speed threats, and recursiveness, a tough but doable matchup though. Humans is nonrecursive, which makes board wipes and life gain back breaking and an easy match.

Overall: The deck is still very good, I will update it soon. I have basically every matchup except marvel figured out, but that fault in the deck is exceedingly glaring. If anyone has suggestions let me know. My meta just has a very large variaty of decks and is still pretty healthy. Marvel is slowly consuming it though. I am also on cockatrice with the same username if anyone is interesting in deck testing.

Dear viper im a huge fan of ur deck testing it alot and its doin grt. Ur right bout marvel tho it aint an easy matchup. Shaheen soorani also made a black blue control im following. He spoke of how he counters marvel and he is doin grt it seems.check him out it may help. In all cases i looooove ur deck dude testing it hard too