Formerly Esper Amulet, playing toward a blow out with Torment of Hailfire and Approach as a side board back up.
Looking for a new Approach to winning through life gain in Standard.
Straight up Azorius Control is better for Approach, but this version does some nutty things and will when 1-0-1 every once in awhile.
Game one is usually a battle of identifying threats, as the opponent will almost immediately adjust their game plan to work around field wipes which will save us some life in the early turns.
Games 2 and 3 are much more difficult, as they now know speed is key to defeating us, but that also means we work into that with our side board. On the other hand, some matches (such as control variants) become much more difficult to beat after game one. We have less dead cards than them, but a few good counterspells leaves us dead to a Gearhulk.
I lose to bad side boarding a lot, but otherwise, this deck, albeit a little slow, can hold it's own against most decks in the possible meta.
Energy being the toughest matchup, obviously, even post banning.
WHY Primal Amulet
AND Approach of the Second Sun?
Amulet's front side makes a lot of our spells just better in general, and makes Approach cost 6 or less.
Once it flips, it doubles up our counterspells at worst. Double bounce from Perilous Voyage, 8 life and 2 draws from Ritual, or 12 life from Faith is good. 4X life from Sacrament is my favorite.
Most importantly, copying Approach will NEVER win you then game if the original gets countered. The first cast, if copied, gains you 14 life, and the original gets tucked.
If you're casting it the second time, you gain 7 life, THEN win. Unless the original gets countered or bounced. Then you still get he 7 life.
Also, considering working this into a straight up Turbo Fog build. Might be the time to revive it.
