Esper Control Breakdown

• Titans
• Stitched Drake
• Hero of Bladehold, Golem tokens, and Stormblood Berserkers, as mentioned above.

…

Yeah, that’s about it. Also, the only Titans that get played outside the control mirror are Primeval Titans, and those are a lot less scary without their accompanying manlands. In the mirror, of course, Elesh sucks, but a seven-mana sorcery-speed spell is going to be bad in the control mirror regardless.

So against a large chunk of the metagame, Elesh is pretty close to seven mana: you win the game. It’s still seven mana, of course, but the difference between having a late-game trump and not is enormous. Take a deck like U/B Control, the list I won Brisbane with. How often can it beat a resolved Mirran Crusader + an O-Ring for an attempted Consecrated Sphinx? Answer: Pretty much never, unless you mise your single copy of Black Sun’s Zenith. You can buy time with Snapcaster Mages, and if you’re really good, you’ll have a second copy of Sphinx to clean up where the first one failed, but it’s telling that even a couple simple, commonly played cards like those put you really under the gun. Similarly, Illusions resolving a couple beaters backed up by a single Vapor Snag is very tough to beat, or a Dispatch from Tempered Steel. The removal is a game-changer; instead of survive till turn 6, cast a bomb, turn it around, win—which is not all that hard usually—you need the additional condition of your bomb staying in play. That’s becoming a lot harder, and it costs you a ton of percentage points across the field.

Now compare a bomb like Sphinx to a bomb like Elesh. It matters not at all if Elesh gets Vapor Snagged because if it lives to see a pass of priority, they don’t have any more creatures in play. You’ll take zero damage on the attack and cast it again next turn. Tempered Steel can literally never Dispatch it unless they manage to keep their namesake enchantment in play—literally not at all; all their enablers are creatures with toughness two or less. If they haven’t drawn Tempered Steel, or they have and you Mana Leaked/O-Ringed it, Elesh Norn is actually seven mana: win the game. It was on the back of that play that I defeated both Shuhei Nakamura and Matt Nass at Worlds.

The second reason that white is a good control color now is rather more prosaic. Wrath of God has been a fundamental piece of control decks in Standard ever since the days of Alpha. It’s always been excellent in decks that play relatively few creatures, but in the current metagame, it’s more than that; it’s essential. Recall that Mirran Crusader + Oblivion Ring scenario again. If you add Day of Judgment to the equation, you have outs even if you can’t find an Elesh, and if you’re playing a couple Oblivion Rings as well, Mirran Crusader ceases to be even a particularly worrisome threat. Day similarly deals with Dungrove Elders, Geist of Saint Traft, hexproof Phantasmal Images, Phyrexian Crusaders, and everything else barring Shrine of Burning Rage.

Even not taking into account its unique ability to kill every problematic creature under the sun, Day of Judgment is very well placed. Most aggressive decks these days are base white and are trying to kill you with a critical mass of creatures; they plan to go one-drop, two-drop, three-drop (Mono-Red is the notable exception). Illusions, Tempered Steel, G/W Tokens, and U/W Humans are all very vulnerable to the efficient sweepers, and unlike Slagstorm and Black Sun’s Zenith, Day really can’t be played around with Stitched Drake, double Phantasmal Image on Lord of the Unreal, or Hero of Bladehold. Day of Judgment misses on Glint Hawk Idol, doesn’t help a ton against Moorland Haunt, and allows them to resolve a planeswalker, so it’s not perfect, but it typically slows an aggressive draw down by at least two to three turns. Best case, it three- or four-for-ones and puts you far enough ahead that basically you can’t lose.

If I were to play a Standard tournament tomorrow, I would run this list:

Esper Control

Jeremy Neeman

Test deck on 12-25-2011

Standard

Creatures (7)

• 1 Grave Titan
• 2 Consecrated Sphinx
• 2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 2 Snapcaster Mage

Planeswalkers (1)

• 1 Gideon Jura

Lands (27)

• 4 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Island
• 2 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 3 Darkslick Shores
• 3 Isolated Chapel

Spells (25)

• 3 Dissipate
• 4 Mana Leak
• 4 Think Twice
• 2 Oblivion Ring
• 4 Doom Blade
• 4 Day of Judgment
• 4 Forbidden Alchemy

4 Think Twice: I think four of these is not optional. In a reactive control deck that wants to tap out as rarely as possible, Think Twice is the premier card drawing spell, and you can’t expect to be a control deck if you can’t draw cards. Unlike Forbidden Alchemy, it’s fairly cheap to flashback and is the only spell in your deck that gets you pure card advantage before turn 8. You would probably play five if you could.

4 Forbidden Alchemy: Three to four of these is probably the right number. It’s good in that it gives you that extra bit of consistency, but it’s fairly clunky, and you don’t want to draw too many; unless you’re playing a control mirror that goes for a thousand turns, you’re unlikely to flashback more than one. You do want to draw as many as possible if you are playing the control mirror though, and it’s good to draw one in pretty much every matchup, so I’m running four. Cutting one is reasonable if you expect a lot of red, for example.

4 Doom Blade: So this and Forbidden Alchemy are the sole reasons you have black sources in your deck. The problem with pure U/W control is you have no good options for spot removal. They play a Stromkirk Noble turn 1; what do you do? Twiddle your thumbs and take increasing amounts of damage until you can Wrath it, and you can’t ever kill a Glint Hawk Idol. Having access to spot removal also makes Snapcaster Mage a ton better, and the splash is not very painful; your lands come into play tapped a lot more than they would otherwise, but provided you don’t go nuts and try to cast Liliana, your mana usually works. Because there isn’t a good colorless land for U/W control and because there’s nothing in the format that punishes nonbasics, you lose very little.

As for the choice of spot removal itself, even with the moderate rise of Mono-Black Infect, there’s nothing that comes close to Doom Blade. It kills basically everything that doesn’t have hexproof for the very low price of two mana. It’s great against every single aggro deck, still good against control and ramp (unlike Gut Shot), and not even dead against MBI—they all run four Inkmoth Nexus. Our original list had three and a Ratchet Bomb, but I prefer four; it’s just so efficient.

4 Mana Leak: Well, duh.

3 Dissipate: This is another card that is not exactly essential and does get sided out a lot. But you want more than just four counterspells, and Dissipate does what you want it to, even if not particularly efficiently. You need to stop planeswalkers one way or another, and you need hard counterspells in the late game. Bear in mind that instants are twice as important as usual in decks that have Snapcaster Mage. Running a few Dissipates makes Snapcasters that much better in matches where you expect to go past turn 10.

2 Oblivion Ring: This is your catch-all. They’ve resolved a Tempered Steel? No problem. Garruk Relentless is churning out Wolves? O-Ring’s got your back. Shrine of Burning Rage is about to go lethal? Make like a telephone and Ring. Like Dissipate, it’s clunky, but like Dissipate, it solves what needs to be solved. It’s particularly good against the aforementioned Shrine, which is otherwise a huge issue for you. Could reasonably go up to three.

4 Day of Judgment: Could be three with one in the board; that’s what I played at Worlds, but I think the pendulum of the metagame has swung far enough in the direction of aggro that it’s correct to max out on sweepers main. See my previous comments on this card; it’s very well placed, and Wrath has always been a game-changer.

1 Gideon Jura: Kind of the fifth Day, but it’s much better to draw one of each than two Days. It cleans up against the aggro decks, which is an effect you often need with Moorland Haunt getting so much play, and Gideon, unlike Day, is never useless.

2 Snapcaster Mage: Only two might be surprising, but there just aren’t all that many instants and sorceries you want to flashback. Doom Blade and Mana Leak are the two you’re most excited about, but Dissipate is only great in the slower matchups, and Wrath is a little counterproductive, seeing as it kills Snapcaster itself. Snapcaster needs your cheaper control cards to be good, but it doesn’t exactly break anything even when it is; to refer to my earlier article, it’s a Hummingbird with fairly low upside, relative to the powerful spells like Consecrated Sphinx and Elesh Norn. I’d consider up to three, but four is definitely excessive.

2 Consecrated Sphinx/1 Grave Titan: I like this split of six-drop win conditions. Wurmcoil is much better against red but much worse against O-Ring, which is pretty widely played. Sphinx is better mostly because it has flying; there is nothing that a 4/6 flier doesn’t beat, whereas Grave Titan sometimes looks up at Insectile Aberrations, Glint Hawk Idols, Spirit tokens, and Signal Pests. It is better against Vapor Snag and Dispatch though, and it kills much faster. More Grave Titans could be correct in a slightly different build, but with only nine black sources you sometimes can’t cast it, whereas basically any combination of six lands will cast Sphinx.

2 Elesh Norn: See my earlier ranting and raving about how great this card is. Despite all that, it still costs seven, and there’s a limit to how many of a legendary seven-drop you can reasonably run. Even with two, Forbidden Alchemy will often find you one when you need it, though.

The mana: 17 blue, 15 white, 9 black is about right. Two Ghost Quarters—at Worlds I played three, but it’s not very much fun to activate before turn 7, seeing how important it is to hit your land drops. Also, the colors are pretty good, but they aren’t perfect; I targeted one of my own lands with Ghost Quarter more often than one of my opponents’. Very good against Moorland Haunt, Kessig Wolf Run, and Nephalia Drownyard, though.

The sideboard:

4 Timely Reinforcements: Not negotiable. As it stands, Mono-Red and Delver Red are two of these decks’ worst matchups. It just so happens that they improve dramatically after board, thanks to you boarding in the best card possible against them, which can also be Snapcastered for fun and profit. You also want three or so copies against Tempered Steel and U/W Humans.

2-3 Ratchet Bomb: Reasonable across the board against aggro. It’s pretty cool that this kills a flipped guy when blown for zero. It’s particularly good against Tempered Steel, and if people are playing Shrine of Loyal Legions, you really want it, and it does a reasonable-if-clunky-as-anything job of handling Shrine of Burning Rage.

2-3 Surgical Extraction: These are huge in the control mirror. You eliminate all copies of a counterspell or Forbidden Alchemy, come back for seconds with Snapcaster Mage, and even get to look at their hand, which for control-on-control is a very big deal. The late game belongs to whoever resolved more Surgicals, and Surgical + Ghost Quarter is your out to the otherwise devastating Nephalia Drownyard.

0-2 Gut Shot: If you have spare slots for the aggro matchups, in particular white-based beatdown, this is good. Gut Shot costs zero mana and almost always has a good target, so it’s definitely worthwhile, but it’s certainly not Day of Judgment or Elesh Norn.

0-2 White Sun’s Zenith: Two were maindeck in my Worlds build, and I sided them out almost every single round (five out of six). Control mirrors just aren’t that widespread. It does break them open, and I have to admit that round 1 was won entirely on the back of this card, but the meta has shifted to the point where I’d rather board them. Illusions, G/W, U/W Humans, red, Steel, and Ramp altogether are a lot bigger than Solar Flare.

1 Ghost Quarter: You want to board up to 28 land in the control mirrors, and this is the best one to bring in; it hits Nephalia Drownyard, and what does it matter if you can’t cast Day on turn 4??

0-1 Snapcaster Mage: Thanks to boarding in Timely against beatdown and Extraction/more counterspells against aggro, Snapcaster gets better across the board, and you want more copies games two and three than you do game one. It’s not a usual sideboard card, but if you can find the slot, you could do a lot worse.

0-1 Elesh Norn: You could certainly board the third Elesh, and it might even be very good; a lot of matchups you do really want to hit it always on turn 7. Drawing two copies too early is very bad, and I haven’t tested three yet, so I’m not sure, but it is definitely something I’m looking to try.

2 – 3 Phantasmal Image: This is one of the best possible cards against Ramp – copying Thrun, Solemn, or Acidic Slime for two mana is great, and copying Primeval Titan is just insane. In Brisbane, I also sided it against G/W Tokens, as you need to kill Thrun one way or the other, and copying a Blade Splicer or Hero of Bladehold is still very reasonable. If Birthing Pod gains in popularity, it’s good there as well – it’s just a very versatile card, particularly against green decks. It can also be sideboarded against Geist of Saint Traft from Illusions.

I think this deck is the best choice for Standard right now, and I don’t say that lightly. Don’t be afraid to get your Alchemy on.

Until next time,

Jeremy