What can I add to the sideboard to help against Esper dragons?
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on June 20, 2015, 2:20 p.m. by abenz419
abzan mastery Playtest
Standard
SCORE: 5 | 7 COMMENTS | 323 VIEWS
this is the deck I"ve been playing at FNM for a while now. It's done really well against all of the different variety of decks that have been in and out of standard recently. Lately though, the biggest problem I've been having is with Esper Dragon control.
The two biggest reasons I have a harder time against that deck are 1. lots of forced sacrifice and cheap counters keep me from gaining any early advantage and 2. Silumgar, the Drifting Death is a hassle especially after another dragon hits the board. With things like Self-Inflicted Wound and Foul-Tongue Shriek its very easy for them to answer anything that hits the board early, regardless of what creature it is. This also means landing a Sylvan Caryatid is hard to do and that prevents me from gaining any kind of tempo advantage through ramp. As far as the dragons go, the biggest issue is that Silumgar, the Drifting Death is hexproof. It means I have limited ways to interact with it and all are easily responded to by the control deck with mana available and I can't just attack through it. Plus, even with the ability to create un-counterable 2/2's and gain life to stabilize, landing a second dragon on the board essentially wins them the game. Being able to trigger the -1/-1 multiple times in a single attack is devastating and basically becomes a repeatable boardwipe against my army of manifested cards. The match-up isn't a total loss and is one that I can still one, but it is easily the toughest match up that I see on a regular basis and I want to improve that.
i would recommend Crux of Fate to destroy all of your opponent's dragons while leaving your army untouched
June 20, 2015 6:42 p.m.
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I don't have a good reason for avoiding foul- tongue, mostly it was because I don't have the dragons to get the extra value from it and I felt better running a 3 mana targeted removal spell over that if I wasn't getting the extra value. Also, the esper match up is the only match up I feel requires this effect so it was easier to be more prepared for the other things I saw. But Esper has definitely picked up steam locally so I'm facing it more and more often.
@CheeseBro Well I already run Crux of Fate in my sideboard for that exact reason. It does have it's uses in other matchups, but I don't feel it's something I need for most match ups and why it's not main board. I was more or less looking for new ideas.
June 21, 2015 1:53 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #5
abenz419 Or you could use Merciless Executioner mainboard, perhaps?
June 21, 2015 12:09 p.m.
ahh I did forget about him. It was something I considered when I originally was putting the deck together, but was afraid manifesting it would be a problem since it was essentially only there for it's ETB ability. Now that I have more experience with the deck, that may not be as big of an issue as I originally thought, but it does probably mean that I have to take out Grim Haruspex for them, and personally that card has easily exceeded and out performed any expectations that I originally had. It would definitely be a difficult cut.
CanadianShinobi says... #2
I would suggest playing some sacrifice cards of your own. While you may not gain as much value from it as Esper Dragons, Foul-Tongue Invocation can help deal with Silumgar, the Drifting Death and an Dragonlord Ojutai who hasn't attacked yet.
June 20, 2015 3:22 p.m.