Working on Esper control for Dragons of Tarkir. Rating removal and counters.
Standard forum
Posted on March 9, 2015, 4:07 p.m. by Ohthenoises
I plan on making an Esper control list for standard when Dragons of Tarkir, and more specifically Narset Transcendent, is legal.
Space for counters and kill spells is a premium and I'd like to get some opinions on their power. Now obviously things will change and so on but I can start getting a rough idea now.
On a separate scale I'd like opinions on the ranking of the following. (Please, if I missed something, feel free to add.)
Removal
Reality Shift
Ultimate Price
Murderous Cut
Hero's Downfall
Valorous Stance
Bile Blight
Counters
Nullify
Dissipate
Dissolve
Ojutai's Command
Negate
Silumgar's Scorn
branston567 says... #3
I think Ultimate Price will be good, definitely want some Hero's Downfall as well as walkers will be back in force. I would run End Hostilities over Crux of Fate as dragons well be relevant.
March 9, 2015 4:24 p.m.
Alexasmaoao says... #4
Nullify and Dissipate are almost always worse than Dissolve and maybe 1 or 2 Negate. Disdainful Stroke is nice as a 1-2 of aswell. Radiant Purge, Drown in Sorrow and most importantly Glare of Heresy are good sideboard removal.
March 9, 2015 4:24 p.m.
Removal: Id play 3 Bile Blights, 2 Hero's Downfall, 3 End Hostilities, 1 Murderous Cut, and 1 Ultimate Price. Also sideboard Glare of Heresy and possibly some of the dtk color hate cards.
Counterspells: I'd play 4 Dissolves, 2 Dissolves, 2 Negate, and 1 Ojutai's Command.
March 9, 2015 4:25 p.m.
sorry for double post, but forgot about Disdainful Stroke. I'd take out the Ojutai's Command and a Nullify for 2 strokes. Also I meant 2 nullifys last post not 2 dissolves.
March 9, 2015 4:27 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #7
Sorry, I should have specified "Spot removal". I've already got the wipes covered.
Thank you guys for opinions so far. Keep em coming.
March 9, 2015 4:27 p.m.
Reality Shift 5/10 not very good potentially gives card advantage to the opponent
Ultimate Price 8/10 pretty good aside from Abzan matchups
Murderous Cut 9/10 very good can be extremely cheap
Hero's Downfall 10/10 hits creatures AND planeswalkers so stronk
Valorous Stance 10/10 protection + killing anything relevant in standart, very flexible
Bile Blight 7/10 needs token matchup for efficiency, but still good against aggro
Nullify 6/10 needs double blue
Dissipate 7/10 slightly better, still needs double blue
Dissolve 7/10 same as above
Ojutai's Command 4/10 expensive at 4 cmc and doesn't hit non-creature spells
Negate 8/10 very relevant
Silumgar's Shitpile 0/10 bullshit card
Cards you might want to consider:
Suspension Field, Banishing Light, Glare of Heresy for removal
Neutralizing Blast, Disdainful Stroke for counter
March 9, 2015 4:27 p.m.
branston567 says... #9
Also add a sideboard option I would consider Dark Betrayal
March 9, 2015 4:33 p.m.
As a current U/B player. Depending on what you're doing, you probably only want to splash the white for narset. At least this is my plan.
Don't under-estimate the power of Perilous Vault and Silence the Believers. The exile is too good. Reality Shift is a maybe. That's because decks are using more morph and manifest currently. But if you have a lot of azban/sultai in your meta, go for reality shift.
My idea is similar to this:
Removal
- 4x Hero's Downfall
- 4x Bile Blight
- 3x Crux of Fate
- 2x Perilous Vault
- 2x Murderous Cut
Counters
- 4x Dissolve
- 2x Disdainful Stroke
- 2x Negate
Main.
Side is undecided at the moment.
Which is really a change from the same numbers except:
- 4x crux of fate
- 0x vaults
- 1x silence the believers
Side has 2x Stroke and 2x silence.
I know the vault seems counterproductive, but you want that sweeper for their (non-creature mostly) permanents you can't counter/remove. X amount of ugin's also work, but would not consider him or the vault interchangable. The vaults turn 4 into 5 exile sweeper is important. Playing vault on turn <=10 is almost always better than ugin. 11 forward for ugin to hold up counter and/or dig mana.
Me having one dragon main, isn't enough to consider the new counter, for myself and probably not going to change it up.
But all of these have served me well. The only losses I suffered is really about the variance. If my draw engine and/or land isn't going, I've lost. If I don't mulligan correctly I've lost.
March 9, 2015 4:36 p.m.
Though, talking earlier with someone and he's probably right, narset for my style of play maybe bad, since she's a tap out control style of play, where I really prefer draw-go.
March 9, 2015 4:37 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #12
Am I the only one to notice that Ultimate Price is not standard legal anymore...?
March 9, 2015 4:39 p.m.
Keep in mind that Hero's Downfall is going to rotate soon so you might want to ween yourself off of that Ohthenoises
March 9, 2015 4:41 p.m.
And that means the best CC in the format Dissolve will be going bye bye soon too
March 9, 2015 4:41 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #17
FAMOUSWATERMELON It's returning. It was spoiled like 2 days ago. So yes, you are the only one.
gufymike I mostly will be using Narset for a draw engine although a -2 with End Hostilities is pretttty funny.
March 9, 2015 4:43 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #18
Oops, got fooled by the art. Forget what I said then.
March 9, 2015 4:45 p.m.
TheGreatLiar says... #19
I think you need to make a decision as to whether white or black is your splash color. Blue will be a main color because you will want 4x Dissolve and probably 2 or 3 (maybe 4?) dig through time. I think black is the stronger major color because Hero's Downfall is huge, and will likely want to be on curve. I think the only thing white as a main color gives you that is better than black is end hostilities as stormbreath is relevant. But Downfall on curve, and bile blight make up for the difference in power.
So, in short, if you want to run Downfall or bile blight, run crux of fate. If you want to run end hostilities, run either ultimate price/radiant purge, and utter end for walkers.
March 9, 2015 4:50 p.m.
Alexasmaoao says... #20
Playing an B/W and only splashing blue for Negate, Disdainful Stroke, Dig Through Time and Narset Transcendent is always an option.
March 9, 2015 4:51 p.m.
TheGreatLiar says... #21
The New Esper Control is what I'm working on. It is the splash white version.
March 9, 2015 4:59 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #22
I am taking all of this information in. I'll be getting a list in place at some point.
Thank you all, specifically Kroto, you gave me exactly what I was looking for.
Would you run Scorn if you had 3 Dragonlord Ojutai and 2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death as your wincons?
March 9, 2015 5:05 p.m.
Alexasmaoao says... #23
Can you reliably cast a UU-spell on turn 2? If it's not cast on turn 2 I would run Negate instead
March 9, 2015 5:19 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #24
To help you potential Esper players make correct deck building decisions here is some info as it pertains to Esper's mana base:
To reliably(90% of the time) cast these cards on curve = you need this many colored mana sources in your deck.
Dissolve on turn 3 = 19 
Hero's Downfall on turn 3 = 19
Bile Blight on turn 2 = 20
Dig Through Time on turn 5 = 16
Elspeth, Sun's Champion on turn 6 = 15
Narset, Enlightened Master on turn 4 = 11 and 11 favoring temples/gainlands.
Thoughtseize on turn 1 = 14 untapped
Thoughtseize on turn 2 = 13
Banishing Light on turn 3 = 12
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver on turn 3 = 12 and 12 favoring temples/gainlands.
Radiant Purge on turn 2 = 13
March 9, 2015 5:21 p.m.
ChrisHansonBiomancin says... #25
You want just enough 2-drop removal/counters (which tend to be conditional) to hold off aggro and make tempo plays, while having hard counters and removal that's flexible carrying the primary load. You also want 4-ish wrath effects.
Given that you want to run 26-28 lands, 3-5 win conditions, and 6-8 draw spells (Narest would be included here), that leaves room for about 23 answers:
3x Thoughtseize (only 3 since we don't want too many)
4x Bile Blight (fantastic since it has potential for value as a 2-drop)
2x Negate (tempo plays)
1x Disdainful Stroke (more tempo plays, but completely useless in some matchups so only one main)
4x Dissolve (better than Dissipate since the Scry is very often relevant)
3x Hero's Downfall (defines flexible hard removal)
2x Banishing Light (covers Enchantments and other UB weaknesses)
2x Crux of Fate (Silumgar, the Drifting Death)
2x End Hostilities (otherwise a better wrath)
0x Perilous Vault- let's see if we can do without this clunky Artifact thanks to White's inclusion
March 9, 2015 6:46 p.m.
branston567 says... #26
Personally I believe that the Ultimate Price will be better main than the Bile Blight as the mana demands are much less and getting two swamps for the first two land drops is very bad for the esper list
March 9, 2015 7:01 p.m.
ChrisHansonBiomancin You gotta understand that Hero's Downfall and Dissolve is going to rotate out soon, Better to ween off of them to find replacements now than have to scramble come rotation.
March 9, 2015 7:03 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #28
Caligula 6 months feels like a long time to be playing worse cards and probably losing because of it for no real reason other than rotation happens at the end of that time period.
March 9, 2015 7:10 p.m.
6 Months? Shit, For some reason I was thinking it's sooner.
Ah well.
March 9, 2015 7:11 p.m.
ChrisHansonBiomancin says... #30
Trying to make a deck "rotation-proof" is futile. Almost every deck loses tons of key pieces, and some cards that were good suddenly aren't anymore due to the new meta (and vice versa). Cross that bridge when it comes.
March 9, 2015 7:30 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #31
I'm not making a rotation deck, that is silly, there is still a set to get through before rotation actually happens.
March 9, 2015 7:36 p.m.
If you run 5 dragons that's too few. For Scorn to be worth it you'd have to run at least 10. In UB or Esper control that is just unrealistic. It's better to run a couple Frost Walkers which will slow aggro and provide ferocious trigger for Stubborn Denial. In UB you'll have 2 mana counters for everything relevant anyways and most of them will only require 1 colored mana. If Scorn was only 1 colored mana as well I'd maybe consider it, but 2 B limits your plays on the following turns too much early and if you have a manabase to support Scorn + the other counter/removal spells you'll be in a position to play any other spell anyways. Effectively it only hinders your early game.
Regarding the other DTK spells I'd recommend Self-Inflicted Wound, Encase in Ice, Surge of Rightousness and Mirror Mockery. The only creature spell you want to counter are good ETB effect creatures such as Rhino and Hornet Queen anyways. These creatures tend to have 4+ cmc mana cost so Stubborn Denial will be the best way to counter those for 2 CMC. Anything other relevant will be hit by removal before it does much. The only problem would be hexproof creatures, but you will have your Dissolve for those.
March 9, 2015 8:09 p.m.
Whops meant to write Disdainful Stroke not Stubborn Denial in the lower section of my previous post.
March 9, 2015 8:12 p.m.
TheGreatLiar says... #34
Rasta_Viking29, that list is crazy useful. But with control decks, so many of the spells are not necessary on curve. You don't typically want to cast narset on turn 4 since it leaves her very vulnerable and allows your opponent a chance to resolve something pretty big. The counters and removal are useful, though, especially the 5 mana sweepers.
March 9, 2015 10:23 p.m.
ChrisHansonBiomancin says... #35
I would say that it's most important for the removal to be on curve, and thus your lands should be catered to hitting those costs consistently.
March 9, 2015 10:58 p.m.
In esper don't forget our powerful postboard items like Erase and Radiant Purge. As far as main board, I still like Bile Blight, the mana for that is tough but for control the glorious two for one is something we capitalize on. Downfall is absolutely necessary.Caves of Koilos helps with untapped two black on turn two. I would also like to point out foul tounge invocation. Oh, you thought that Valorous Stance would save you? That's cute.
April 8, 2015 4:06 a.m.
In esper don't forget our powerful postboard items like Erase and Radiant Purge. As far as main board, I still like Bile Blight, the mana for that is tough but for control the glorious two for one is something we capitalize on. Downfall is absolutely necessary.Caves of Koilos helps with untapped two black on turn two. I would also like to point out Foul-Tounge Invocation. Oh, you thought that Valorous Stance would save your creature? That's cute.
GlistenerAgent says... #2
Removal: Four Bile Blights, 3ish Hero's Downfall, 3 Crux of Fate, maybe a couple of Murderous Cuts.
Counterspells: Four Dissolves, 2ish Nullify, maybe 1-2 Negate.
The other cards all suck with the exception of Ojutai's Command, which doesn't answer Siege Rhino on the draw which can be a huge problem.
March 9, 2015 4:17 p.m.