Yup. Early game - use inquisition and thought seize to take out their immediate threats. Mid game - start playing the two for ones like liliana, wrench mind, blightning, and whispers of emrakul. Late game - prevent them from casting anything they top deck. You can do this by busting their mana sources with cards like blood moon or small pox, with instant speed discard using funeral charm, mindlash sliver, and kolaghan's command, or with ensnaring bridge. At some point in there, you'll have played a shrieking affliction or a rack, and your enemy will die eventually.
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To finish my thoughts on the matter... Playing esper means you'll want to play sorcery speed, which means you don't get to play a lot of the best control... So, you basically need to mainboard 4 chalice, play lots of board wipes, lots of discard, liliana, jace, detention spheres, etc... And you need every proactive card to be just as good as the instant speed answers that Jeskai brings to the table.
Yup sorry. It wasn't a real deck. I was just talking to a buddy on the phone and threw it up so show him why Dimir + X is bad.
Oh haha, sorry. I just threw this up to give my buddy an idea of why I think esper (or even Dimir + X) control is bad. The issue is that the cards you want to play in black (lingering souls, inquisition, liliana, and thought seize) are all sorcery speed cards. But you're also kind of forced to play instant speeds as well - path, counters, push, etc... And dividing up a control deck between reactive and proactive is never good... You either want to play all proactive or all reactive.
To be honest, I play tested it with Street Wraith and it ended up getting to be a bit much for me. I prefer dark-confident and playing super low mana cost.
I'm currently playing this UB control : https://www.mtgvault.com/slothosaurus/decks/modern-ub-control/ That I made after I got tired of grixis death shadow. Thinking of converting the deck into the esper control posted above, or maybe into a weird mill deck like this one I've been theory crafting around with tonight:https://www.mtgvault.com/slothosaurus/decks/modern-mill/... I'll probably do both though :) The mill conversion is a lot cheaper though, so I'll probably do it first
Should really be playing signal pest, but if you're playing both signal pest and ornithopter, you might as well be playing affinity.
I think it's shaping up to be a mildly playable deck. I still think that Jeskai is strictly better than Esper, but I like playing esper a lot more. I agree that I'm pretty short on win-cons, but I'm not sure I would want to put more than 2x in game. I like griselbrand, but I also like grave titan and wurmcoil engine. They're just expensive and really leave me open to attack. I could see an argument for playing 2x death's shadow as well. By the time I'm stabilized, I'll likely have lots quite a bit of life, and it given the low cost, it means I can play it and still leave mana open for other spells. On the other hand, I could see putting in a go-wide strategy too and play 2 elspeths or like a sorin, lord of innistrad or something. They give me blockers and also a win-condition (and sorin even gives life-link to help stabilize). I'm just not sure... I cut serum visions and opt out. It really hurts not to see them in the deck.
Why are there so many 1-of's... It's important to play the most of the best cards you have. You should be playing a much smaller variety of cards, and a lot of 3-of and 4-ofs, maybe the occasional 2-of depending on the card and deck type.
This deck seems really bad. Like, incredibly horribly bad. First of all, it's not legal in any format, and secondly, you forgot about everything that makes eldrazi good : being able to actually put them on the field before someone else kills you. Check out something like this. It will be competitive in modern, and is fully viable: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-eldrazi-tron-26966#paper
$300 isn't *horrible* for modern.
i like the overall concept of the deck, though i'm not sure if 4 days is right, especially when i think 3 gideons might be more right as he's a bit more versatile, in that he can be a win con as well. also, wurmcoil does seem good, i definitely thought of throwing him in there. i'm not sure if 7 counters is the way to go, from playing my deck i generally only use counters turns 2 and 3, then lay down a day or stonehorn or something, so i'm not sure if a 3 mana one is right, though i do very much like the card. i also like blade splicer, and as far as moorland haunt goes, i feel like even if it only comes in handy once or twice a game, it's still worth just 2 of when without it you'll be rocking a TON of basics. spellskite is solid card too... i feel like the main difference between yours and mine is that you focused a lot more on control than i did. i ended up with a few more wincons than you and i feel like that might end up making mine just a little bit better in the end.
yeah, i definitely thought about dropping a frosty for a sun titan, but then i realized that there really isn't shit for me to be ripping out with sun titan unless i go up for 3 images, and i'm not sure if i really want to do that. if anything i think i'd drop a sphinx, because by the time i can comfortably cast sphinx, i really already have the game and don't need it... i mean generally speaking that is, of course there are exceptions, but i tend to focus on having multiple modes of stabilization on each turn before i drop a sphinx, with days, gideons, and stonehorns that's not such a big deal but still, i feel like sphinx has just ended up as a win-moar card for me, and i might like to replace it with a wurmcoil, which would help against the grim lavamancer or other assorted bullshit decks that my only real answer to is o-ring and spellskite onto your next point though, i am definitely of accord with you on the giving snapcaster more to gobble up, but i really don't know what i want in there besides disperse and MAYBE a negate for control matchups game 1 and against like shrine of burning rage, which can be a very, VERY big problem... thanks for the feedback though! i appreciate it. :)
eh, life link, cradle, and vitality probably wouldn't make the cut in my book, and neither would a few of the knights. sun titan would be a good card to top out on, as would hero of bladehold. definitely also add some more removal in there, o-rings, journeys, etc... throw out lionheart (unless you go up to 4 armored ascension or grab some angelic destiny) throw out caravan escort, and probably lightwielder (though that one MAY be worth keeping in the SB) move a few of the better ones up to 4 of, the 2/2 lifelink first strike for 2, hell yes, also try some phyrexian metamorph in there and run 4 knight exemplars, so you can make everything of everything indestructable. from my experience with aggro, and with playing against aggro, you really want to go like this t1: creature t2: creature t3: removal / alter board state t4: creature + removal / alter board state t5: big creature as long as you're not walking into a trap, in which case, sit and attack. even the most aggro decks out there need cards which give them an advantage some way over the opponent. if i were to make knights, then i'd probably rock white blue, for cards like unsummon, mana leak, phyrexian metamorph, and some draw effects. winning on turn 3 is rare but not impossible, stabalizing on 4 or 5 is not only not impossible, but very probably if you're not playing a well constructed deck. you have to have a well constructed deck and maybe lose a turn or two of your win in order to ensure your win every time, and to help make your win more consistent. :)
thanks! it's nice to know that some people appreciate the work i put into decks like this one. i probably have, since i made the deck right after m12, around 30 hours of playtesting actively to improve, 5 hours theory crafting, then around 30 hours playing it, and since i made this one i've had around 10 hours playtesting actively, 10 hours theory crafting, and around 15 hours playing it. i feel like this kind of deck is exactly what the format needs to shake it up and show them what real control can do to tempered steel, vamps, and aggro decks in general. i think the matchup with UB control is kind of a tossup really. against a core UB build with no tricks that i've actively seen and nothing too weird about it, my plan is this. -4 stonehorn -3 venser -3 day +2 geist +2 hero of bladehold +3 negate +1 o-ring +2 celestial purge any thoughts? and yeah, see, it's even rogue decks like yours that mine is catered to beat. basically anything that attacks to win me the game and isn't full of kill spells & counterspells, i've got in the bag.
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=207643 that was the first stonehorn lockdown deck i put together, that also made it to the front page. it was posted a few days after i had created it and tested it on cockatrice and it did very well. my biggest problem was (besides red goblin pingers, which i've actually seen like 5 people play believe it or not) valakut, of course, b/c of harrow and what not still getting in the way, even though he couldn't attack. so i ended up adding 2 leylines to my SB. and they served me well. however, leyline is out of standard now, and i basically have to rely on negate - which helps against the UB control matchup, as well as hits to the face. i mean, luckily, no one is bad enough at the game to play lava axe, even though it would probably hit me pretty damn hard... they do often play goblin grenade, which i can take care of with leak, negate, and spellskite, as well as flashfreeze, and i can exile their lavamancer with celestial purge and o-ring. red is a pretty rough matchup for me, so there's a lot of things for it SB, and the spellskites are preboarded in basically.
no i agree, having jace and that card, along with think twice in your deck and you're doing awesomely, and can feed the hell out of a skabb ruinator. these UW aggro control decks though are what i said this deck wasn't at the very beginning of my description. xD and i'm not sure if 4 ponders and 1 sphinx is enough CA for my taste actually, i miss my jace and baby jace... :/ i might have to throw in 2 think twice in there, i'm just not totally sure where. also, when you read this if it's after 15 minutes after i posted reread the top of the description, i'm looking for a few ideas about potential cards to add.
yeah divination isn't as good for a reason, it means you can't leak, though it is nice on turn 6 when you can save mana open for leak and still use divination. and yeah, i definitely don't think visions of beyond is worth it in a deck that doesn't focus specifically on milling. i mean sure MAYBE on turn like 30 or something it'll help refill your hand, but until then, it's just a cantrip, compared to ponder which reorders your top cards then cantrips.
@Majician whoa now... i never said that ponder was better, just that decks that try to put 2 cards together to create more power than you'd already have... those decks want ponder, where as think twice is for those decks that just want pure CA. or at least that's my opinion. to me, it's like the difference between a tutor and say, 1 mana draw 2. they just have different purposes.
yeah i've actually heard a lot about that, but i still believe 2 things. 1. think twice is 2 mana, with a three mana flashback, and although it's still awesome for a card, it isn't as selective and thusly not as good for a deck that wants to combo into sweet finishers like my does. 2. ponder, compared to think twice, is just more selective. sometimes i'll need a stonehorn or a venser or a day or whatever and relying on think twice to get me there just isn't cutting it, or so i feel after the play testing. to give you a good analogy. i play an edh match that looks for a super sweet combo, do i search for it as best i can, or just get a bit more cool stuff from think twice? i'd like to search for it myself... maybe it's that i like to win-moar, but i feel like my deck has a lot of interactions, and digging them up seems more handy than straight draw.
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