This past weekend a new breed of Esper Control emerged, making the Top 8 of both a StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Orlando and a Magic Online PTQ. Simon Goertzen gushed about the deck on Twitter and piqued my curiosity, so I’ve decided to run it through some queues.
I’m playing the deck exactly as Simon played it, which is a slight modification of the deck he got from John Rojas.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (28)
Spells (21)
Sideboard
My opponent’s deck was pretty interesting. I have no idea how it fares against other decks, but I definitely get what he’s up to. It seems like it might be a little slow, and I’m not sure if he has a plan to beat graveyard hate that is as robust as G/B/W’s plan.
Anyway, game 1 certainly highlighted the vulnerability this deck has to Rakdos’s Return, although I was able to beat it in game 3 when my deck was set up better for the matchup. However, a control deck with very few counters is definitely going to have issues with Rakdos’s Return (and fear of Rakdos’s Return is one of the primary reasons I championed Witchbane Orb in the sideboard of Esper in my article yesterday).
For the most part, I was happy with this deck’s ability to transform away from the tokens and into a more traditional control deck, even if it left me a little light on countermagic.
This would have been a lot more difficult if my opponent had just killed my Sorin in his main phase when I thought he was going to rather than waiting until my end step to put it to one. After that mistake, Sorin basically won the game by himself, with a little help from Azorius Charm on Aurelia, the Warleader.
Game 2 highlighted another card this configuration is potentially vulnerable to, but it came down late enough that I was able to just ignore it and win the race with Nephalia Drownyard. I think it’s possible there was a turn in there somewhere when I should have cast a Sphinx’s Revelation for around two, but it was right to never skip a Drownyard activation for it. It either would have resolved or would have gotten countered and neither would have changed anything about the way the rest of the game played out.
Again, I was happy with my ability to just play as a regular Drownyard deck after sideboarding.
That was fairly noncompetitive, which you’d expect when I stumble against an aggressive deck. The opponent’s mana in game 2 was very clunky, but mine was as well. Then I flooded out a bit at the end, which is certainly not unlikely with 28 lands in my deck—it’s possible I can never side out a Sphinx’s Revelation without siding out a land or two. It’s also possible Nephalia Drownyard should come out in that kind of matchup.
Either way, it definitely felt rough, and it’d have been even worse if he’d had Thundermaw Hellkite. 1/1s just aren’t a great way to defend against the large creatures he was attacking with. I suspect this is one of the more difficult matchups, though my draws could certainly have been quite a bit better, and I can imagine Gloom Surgeon doing great work.
That felt completely different. The additional one-toughness creatures make blocking much easier, and the top of his deck has a little less push, which makes the incidental life gain and small blockers a much bigger deal. It also helped that my draws were excellent.
That Brimstone Volley definitely got me by surprise, but I don’t think there was any reason to do anything differently (I don’t know that it really mattered how I played for the most part at that point).
Overall, the deck felt pretty good. I like its curve and flexibility, but with 28 lands with only Azorius Charm and Sphinx’s Revelation to draw cards, it certainly risks running low on business sometimes. It’s a little low on defense against decks with creatures with high toughness that can beat a Supreme Verdict.
Thanks for watching,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter