Esper Control. Absolution at it’s finest. The control of Azorius centered colors but when black is introduced, you end up creating a cycle that covers nearly every aspect of MTG conceivable. Hand hate. Graveyard hate. Trigger denial. Board presence denial. An aspect of magic that was lost when Big Teferi rotated out along with several other spells however even compared to the previous iterations of Esper Control, it lacked a win-con outside of a Teferi ult. This deck addresses that.
The Mainboard is pretty standard and self explanatory; Teferi and Narset choking the opponents on resources while giving you breathing room to react, gain card advantage and generally being a problem to deal with. Thought Erasure for hand hate whenever possible, throwing off anyones tempo, and omens of the sea for card advantage on the opponents turn. Atris is popular be he’s a threat and despite his ability being at the mercy of your opponent, either way they will pull something you need. However since TBD introduced the Escape mechanic, graveyard play has been available in every color combination, even white and with simic or simic/X running rampant, affecting the graveyard to further throw off tempo and disrupt LTB effects are more important than ever.
Enter, Kunoros. He’s a good boy. An overloaded kit with the ability to affect targeting the graveyard and LTB effects is fantastic. For 3 mana, he’s an instant threat although not a win-con, gives you alot of breathing room which is what a control player needs. Lastly there’s Dream Trawler as your late game threat and half the time it’s very presence can cause opponents to submit. Now for breaking tempo and ensuring the opponent is on their back foot, don’t think I forgot about Ashiok. Ashiok is a literal nightmare. It’s ult although not difficult to reach is ok depending on your matchups; the more creatures the better. But the ability to starve the opponent of resources, contain library hate and then bounce stuff to hand and exile something in it? Really difficult to deal with. This set up climbed me further out of platinum the more time I invested in it.
For the sideboard I left it a little versatile. Kaya’s wrath was brought in for an anti-aggro set up because I’ve found cry of the carnarium simply isnt enough to deal with early aggro. Dovin’s Veto for the obvious anti-control. Despark is great to have around for the big walkers like Nissa and Chandra (Awakened inferno cant be countered). Its an amazing option for when you want to hold onto your counter but you know you cant let things like Nissa resolve. And that’s okay now! Let her resolve. Tick her up even. The moment the opponent does, exile her while you still have a counter or other removal in hand. Completely ruins a midrange decks plans. Elspeth Conquers Death for another hard removal with a bit of recursion because eventually someones gonna kill a walker or creature. Whether you intentionally sacrifice it or it gets removed. Whatever the reasons, this isn’t a goodbye but a “see you soon”. Lastly the most controversial spell being Unmoored Ego. I personally just dont care what people think, this spell isn’t amazing. It simply gets the job done and allows me not to worry about a key piece to a deck or a problem I can’t easily address. Again, I’m personally sick of seing Nissa, Uro, and Teferi’s (yes i know, im using him) but to be fair, with the exception of the last Mythic Championship, midrange and aggro decks have been running rampant and control decks have fallen behind. Now they’ve caught up and they’re really needed to balance out the state of the meta right now and Unmoored Ego deals with problem cards. Witch’s oven/Stupid cat? Nissa? Uro? Combo engines. Say byebye. As a Control player you dont care about what a player draws, but what they cast. Now Heliods intervention is still in the air and I’ve only needed it once vs. an Orzhov deck using Smothering tithe and a Jund Food matchup but Elspeths Nightmare is also an underrated card in the mainboard. Removing a 2 power creature isnt whats important. Seing the opponents hand and exiling their graveyard as a graveyard hate option gives alot of value and has been proving its usefulness for a bit now.
I am not a big Control player and it’s an aspect of the game I dont like because I believe in the philosophy that people should play the game and beat the opponent on skill, not on cheese or expense. However...I have learned how important that control aspect is when the meta is currently run by out of control aggro and midrange decks. If anyone has better alternatives for this deck or suggestions, I am all ears because I want to become a better Control player. So good luck and godspeed, planeswalkers!
