How to play against Esper Dragons
Standard forum
Posted on May 1, 2015, 6:29 p.m. by SwaggyMcSwagglepants
Hey guys!
So, if you don't know, I run a Abzan Control deck (not posting list, Epochalyptik, got to be happy about that :D). What I want to know, since I think I've had the fortune(?) of not playing against it, is there any card in Abzan colors (other than Thoughtseize) or archetype that is just very good against Esper Dragons? It might be a tough matchup for my deck, and I want to make changes accordingly.
Thanks, and Happy Tapping!
omnipotato says... #3
Foul-Tongue Invocation is pretty good against them. A lot of times they tap out for a hexproof threat and you can catch them off guard with that.
May 1, 2015 6:37 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #4
I think so to, but I got no dragons in my list! Self-Inflicted Wound also seems nice against Ojutai. But I might just have to add some to sideboard, since there also is a Chromantiflayer player.
May 1, 2015 6:44 p.m.
doctorsmegma says... #5
Nah. Foul-Tongue Invocation they DO expect and a good player wont summon a dragon until they have 2 extra mana for Silumgar's Scorn. Its nearly impossible to beat them unless youre playing blue, which youre not. Or if they mess up and miss an anticipate or something.
If you find the answer, be sure to lmk asap. Because now I switched my deck to include blue and its been working out. But id rather go back to my old setup
May 1, 2015 6:57 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #6
Well, another thing I've been considering is Reanimator. They can't counter all your stuff, and if you T4 whip under the radar, they're fucked. If they kill something, its coming back. If they counter a dude, its coming back. And Ojutai has a hard time dealing with hornet tokens. Silumgar can kill the tokens, but the original queen is still there to kill him, and you can whip that back for tokens again.
May 1, 2015 7:04 p.m.
omnipotato says... #7
doctorsmegma They expect it in the mirror match, not in an Abzan deck that isn't playing dragons.
May 1, 2015 7:12 p.m.
doctorsmegma says... #8
Dude. I just opened a pack and realized Rending Volley. May not answer your questions but for red, this is a necessity
May 1, 2015 7:49 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #9
Yeah, but it only hits Ojutai. I'm much less concerned about killing him than Baby Silumgar. 7 toughness... holy fuck.
May 1, 2015 8:01 p.m.
Playing against control is all about leveraging diverse threats in hopes that they are unable to efficiently 1-for-1 you. In standard, that menas cards like Nissa, Worldwaker, Crater's Claws, Xenagos, the Reveler, Thunderbreak Regent, Stormbreath Dragon, Genesis Hydra, and Whisperwood Elemental. For Abzan, you're best off using stuff like Den Protector, Fleecemane Lion, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, etc.
Standard currently only runs 4 copies capable of straight up killing a walker. They also have a suite of counters. That's why you have to maybe run a few threats into them to make sequencing their removal hard. Remeber, you only really need 5 power on board to threaten control.
It is possible to out tempo them. Oujitai requires 7 mana to safely play. For Abzan control, if he resolves, you're mostly trying to play around Elspeth's -3.
May 1, 2015 9:15 p.m.
Beating control is easy. You just need to play the cards right.
With or without dragons in the deck, Foul-Tongue Invocation is great against control. It either kills a dragon (awesome!!) or eats a counterspell (great, only 7 left to fight through!).
The easiest way to victory is just to land enough threats. Keep the board mostly clear, to draw out the Crux of Fate, then just slam more threats than the control player can deal with.
Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor are the two hardest cards for a control player to play against. Especially together. Without a counterspell, Den Protector will always be an Eternal Witness for the Abzan player, and well that's bad news for the control player. Any way to recur threats is a huge advantage against control. Whip of Erebos, Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang are all great cards for that reason.
Other great ways to beat control are planeswalkers. Dragons runs 3-4 downfalls, and between all the creatures in the decks, and a few copies of Elspeth, Sun's Champion and Nissa, Worldwaker (maybe Garruk, Apex Predator too, some lists I've seen run him and he is great), control just can't deal with everything, and will eventually just collapse.
Hopefully this helps!
May 1, 2015 10:27 p.m.
Alright I've been playing Esper Dragons for a while now and I think the mistake people are making is putting U/B and Esper Dragons into the same basket. Yes, they are both control decks and it's possible to apply some general concepts, however their way of winning the game differ greatly ; U/B is extremely slow to win while Esper Dragons can go on the beatdown plan and outrace. Ojutai is an extremely powerful win condition and sidedeck strategies should adapt to the card.
Mistake #1 : Trying to go over Esper
In Abzan and Mardu for example that would mean siding in disruption spells, card draw and planeswalkers. That used to work fine against U/B, but with a turn 5 Ojutai your ''go over the top plan'' will crumble. Elspeth isnt even that good in her best situation (playing her -3 after a tappedout ojutai), ok you've destroyed Ojutai, then next turn they just downfall Eslpeth and leave counter magic up, or worse, slam Silumgar, the Drifting Death. I've never smashed as much planeswalkers as with this deck, Ojutai is the real hunter, not Garruk! Nissa used to be good against Perilous Vault U/B, against Esper Dragons she's terrible, Ojutai smashes her and then removing the land isn't even card disadvantage anymore. I don't even mind Mastery of the Unseen anymore, I've done plenty of testing against my friend who plays G/W devotion and I simply outrace him every game. Conclusion : long game strategies do not work against Esper. The only ''over the top'' card I consider good against Esper is Outpost Siege in a beatdown/burn deck that manages to drop my life total very low and finish it off turn 7-8-9 with constant threats or burn.
Mistake #2 : Trying to side in ways to kill the dragons.
Anything except Valorous Stance is not a very good strategy. You might catch the first dragon off guard, the next ones are going to be protected and you'll be losing your turns trying to kill them. The dragons ain't the weakness of the deck, speed is.
HOW TO BEAT ESPER DRAGONS
1 : Go under them
Esper wins faster than U/B, but its slower and slightly less consistent mana makes early pressure hard to deal with. Going under them means playing Mono-Red wins. I've played 7 games in a row against Mono-Red and won only 1 game, it's near impossible to beat the deck with Esper.
2 : Playing cheap resilient threats alongside disruption
The best at that is Abzan aggro hands down with Fleecemane Lion, Rakshasa Deathdealer and Thoughtseize. U/W heroic is another very good option. Another very popular choice is the Deathmist Raptor
+
Den Protector
engine.
3 : Becoming Esper
Practice the mirror, commit 1-2 more sideboard slots to the matchup, there ya go.
Hope that helps some of you!
May 1, 2015 11:21 p.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #13
TheHroth is correct about control especially esper dragons, it is easy to deal with. You can always just use cards that prevent them from being able to use their counterspells so they virtually become dead cards. And then they have to start either playing their own threats and tapping out for them, which leaves you able to utilize your hand more and then they have to start killing stuff and they then fall behind, you see what I'm saying? So my favorite way to beat control is via Mastery of the Unseen. You can use Whip of Erebos as well, but Mastery I feel is more resilient. Also, in my Naya deck, I run 30 threats! 30! And each threat is a must kind of die in the sense where if will kill a control player if they do nothing about it. It's a Naya Mastery Dragons list. You can find it on my page. So just playing more threats than the control player can kill, and playing threats that cannot be countered due to Mastery putting them into play, just floods the opponent. Also, if they stumble 1x, I can just pull away because my deck is more consistent than theirs. Den Protector with Deathmist Raptor is very very good. Also add Ashcloud Phoenix into the mix, extra good.
May 2, 2015 10:40 a.m.
apple41792 says... #14
Dragonlord Dromoka can stop esper dragons if it doesn't have a way to kill it on the esper players turn. That will give u free reign until they can find the answer. And like others have said playing the long game against dragons is not smart. Granted I don't really fear aggro decks as much either with my list. The esper decks can just dig and find what they need better than most other decks. Thoughtseize and Siege Rhino at right times can be very good for abzan but esper dragons is just a really tough match up right now for almost all other control and midrange decks.
May 3, 2015 7:21 p.m.
Dragonlord Dromoka shuts down there deck every time. They can't cast counter spells and they can't cast Dig Through Time or Anticipate to get to the stuff they need for their turn. Throw a Gift of Immortality on that puppy, give it protection/hexproof/indestructibility and they are down for the night.
May 5, 2015 5:07 p.m.
I'm not sure Esper is as good as people say it is. I've run it the last few weeks and have gotten crushed. Den Protector and Disruption via TS and Duress, that can be brought back can leave a control players with nothing in hand.
Traditional U/B is slower but it has the right tools to go long and way more exile effects. I'm seeing a lot of Esper players revert back to U/B style control with Vaults and MB Dissipate. I'm seeing Negate MB with some decks running 8-10 Counters along side walkers.
Esper was good but, it's weaknesses have been exploioted to the point that it's not really much of a functioning deck anymore. It's alright, but 12 tap lands make you slow and removal still gets rid of Ojutai. Every Abzan player knows that vs Esper, their cards will give them more value over time. Where as Abzan just got a regrowth on legs than can attack and loop itself, Esper has very few exile effects which means mathematically it can not keep up.
How to halt Den Protector loops? Exile them. The only way to do this in a timely fashion is to run Ashiok, Vaults, Crux's to sweep and Ugin's to exile more. Slence the Believer's Should be in every U/B Deck now, so should MB Vaults. If a control player doesn't pack the Counters to prevent disruption or Plan for it, then the games will close out quickly.
May 11, 2015 11:39 p.m.
I agree with you RacerXen. The deck was so good that everyone started hating the deck, writing articles on to how to beat it, building specifically against it, so on and so forth. It's fun to see that this standard auto-balances itself out though, I heard it wasn't the case a year ago!
I'm also thinking about reverting back to ''Fate Reforged'' U/B. It's kind of sad though, I like the fact that Ojutai can win games super fast, U/B is so methodical it becomes a drag sometimes.
May 11, 2015 11:46 p.m.
Well, control was and always has been methodical. It's linear approach and permission/ removal suite is what makes control reactive. Slamming down a Dragon felt so unnatural for me (a classic control player) and while I did think it was great to have an early finisher on the board, it was only a matter time before other decks adapted to play around scorn and dragons in U/B. to make matters worse scorn is more often than not a force spike, and while that's not bad T2 or T3, later on it's really bad.
It's not the deck is "bad" it's that it no longer poses a threat in the meta. It has been figured out and it's inherit flaws are easy to exploit. 6 Counters and no exile effects won't do and it's why U/B Control pre Dargons was already force to reckoned with. It made use of sweepers, and exile effects all the while bringing in powerful walkers. Ashiok, Liliana, Ugin and Hex proof finishers like Silumgar the Drifting Death. PLA was my finisher of Choice and his clock was real. So many players laugh at PLA, but when he comes down End of Turn and enters on a aready cleaned up open board, that clock becomes real.
May 12, 2015 2:03 a.m.
If you check out my deck, The Best Control of Tarkir, you'll see I already switched back to 
/
.
Dissipate, as sad as it may be, is better than Dissolve in standard right now, and it is a switch that must be made. It hurts to lose the scry, but it is worth the loss to exile key cards, especially Deathmist Raptor.
I need to add Perilous Vault to my list again, and I'm just not too sure where. Perhaps I could lose the singleton Foul-Tongue Invocation...
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #2
UpperDeckerTaco and TheHroth I'm not quite sure if you run Esper Dragons, but I thought it might be likely that you know the cards good against Esper in general, and as I've said, I think you guys are the resident experts (that I know of) of Esper in Standard.
May 1, 2015 6:31 p.m.