Looking great! I've got one question. Do you think 3 Snap and 3 Knot is too much graveyard stress?

@tlhunter07

I think it is a little too much stress, and can be especially weak to graveyard hate from our opponents, but not by too much. I just think that Snapcaster is generally better in this deck as a 2-of. Playing 3 leaves you flooding on them too often.

Play Opt. Put Opt in your deck. Now

I'm not sold on Opt yet jhunter

@jhunter and kameenook You can bet that I will test out Opt, but I only "publish" the decklist that I feel is most competitive after extensive testing. If I decide that Opt is worth the inclusion, it will make its way into the decklist here.

Four copies of Alliance in the 75 is altogether too much. I'd run 2, maybe 3 at most.

Yeah, sorry. I meant to play 3 Alliances in the 75, but I forgot I was trimming a Push instead of an Alliance mb to make room for the set of Opts, and put the Alliance I thought I had cut into the board. I've changed it to a Settle the Wreckage (over a Verdict/Wrath mainly for Dredge).

You ever think with only 6 true black cards in your 75 you could make your mana base a little different? With my straight UW deck I have been considering adding black for the same few cards that you have. Esper Charm is amazing!! But with the addition of just a handful of black cards I was considering running 4 Field of Ruin. This can search for the solo swamp. It is color fixing but also helps verse the big mana decks and greedy mana base decks. maybe run 6 fetches (cutting 2 fetches and 2 ghost quarters for 4 ruins). I don't know....just an idea. But I guess with more colorless sources would make less turn 3 esper charms.

T12H It's less about the quantity of black cards and more about the strictness of the deck's mana costs in general. More than 3 colorless sources is suicide in this build of the deck, since I'm supporting and by turn 4, by turn 3, and by turn 2. Even one Field can prevent me from casting Knot on 2, and in fact most Esper players don't play any LD lands at all (okay, maybe 1 sometimes). I'm staunch on playing 2, since lands can be the toughest things to answer in some cases, but I'm sure you already know that. :)

That said, it'd been some time since I updated the list, and so here it is again for you to critique -- I've been playing straight UW for quite some time now, but brewing Esper on the backburner, and I came up with some of the same stuff you did.

Have you thought about Teferi? Hes been great in Jeskai but I havent had the chance to test him in Esper.

tlhunter07 I have actually -- I'm testing a Teferi in the Jace slot right now, but I think that Jace is a more impactful one-of for taking over the game. Brainstorms just put you into a game way faster than mana+cantrip, even if you can't shuffle. The biggest plus to Teferi is being able to tuck problem permanents while trying to stabilize. That said, if I wanted another planeswalker slot, it'd either be a Teferi or a 2nd Jace I think.

Gotcha. I figured Jace was more impactful here but thought Id ask. Its surprising how low impact hes been. IMO a Teferi and a Jace/2 Teferi is better in Jeskai