Flash Police

Modern Competitive Control Counters Primer Tempo WUB (Esper)

charleslacelle

Land (24)

• 3x Celestial Colonnade
• 2x Creeping Tar Pit
• 4x Flooded Strand
• 2x Ghost Quarter
• 2x Hallowed Fountain
• 3x Island
• 1x Plains
• 4x Polluted Delta
• 1x Swamp
• 2x Watery Grave

Instant (25)

• 3x Cryptic Command
• 4x Esper Charm
• 2x Fatal Push
• 2x Negate
• 4x Opt
• 4x Path to Exile
• 2x Spell Snare
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation
• 3x Think Twice

Creature (11)

• 2x Restoration Angel
• 4x Snapcaster Mage
• 4x Spell Queller
• 1x Vendilion Clique

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Sideboard

Enchantment (7)

• 3x Leyline of Sanctity
• 2x Rest in Peace
• 2x Stony Silence

Creature (1)

• 1x Vendilion Clique

Instant (4)

• 2x Celestial Purge
• 2x Ceremonious Rejection

Sorcery (3)

• 2x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Timely Reinforcements

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Blessed Alliance
• 2x Countersquall
• 1x Surgical Extraction
• 1x Zealous Persecution

Creature (1)

• 1x Torrential Gearhulk

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Combining pure satisfaction of casting flashy threats, game states where you have full control of the game and navigating through your deck to find answers to any problem, Flash Police is my take on the original Esper Draw/Go deck made popular by Guillaume Wafo-Tapa at Grand Prix Boston-Worcester 2014.

Since then, many new cards became viable for the deck, like Fatal Push, the allied fetchlands Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand, Spell Queller and the old Invasion card newly introduced to modern: Opt. Since its arrival, it has replaced Serum Visions in many decks and it is now possible to have a deck constructed entirely around instants and flash creatures (before sideboards). Apart from the lands, every single card in the maindeck can be played at instant speed.

It is a fun and skill-intensive deck to play and a bit more creature heavy than the average Esper Draw/Go control decks. If you have any suggestions, or you really enjoy the deck, feel free to upvote or comment!

Card Choices

Lands

The objecive of lands in a normal Esper Control deck is to have on time for Cryptic Command, on time for Supreme Verdict/Wrath of God and within turn 3 for Esper Charm.

-Flooded Strand and Polluted Delta are necessary to be able to consistently have all colors on turn 3, have on turn 4 and to trigger revolt for Fatal Push. Fetchlands also help thinning the deck to find your answers quicker.

-Hallowed Fountain and Watery Grave are necessary to fix your colors on time. It is also important to run at least 2 of each so any fetchland can still search for alternate colors like white or black after a Ghost Quarter or any land destruction.

-Island, Plains and Swamp are necessary to fight against Blood Moon decks. The 3 Island are necessary to cast Cryptic Command, 2 Plains for Supreme Verdict/Wrath of God and a single Swamp for all black spells.

-Celestial Colonnade is the primary man-land for this deck. The card in itself is a win condition and is used as a turn 1 play, along with Opt or Creeping Tar Pit.

-Creeping Tar Pit is the secondary man-land for this deck and is used for the same reasons as Celestial Colonnade. It is a slower alternate win condition and is an earlier threat against planeswalkers like Liliana of the Veil. Also, Surgical Extraction is less devastating when it hits your Celestial Colonnade.

-Ghost Quarter is the only utility land in this deck. It is an answer to any man-land, it is also very good in a metagame prevalent of Tron lands and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.

Instants

-Esper Charm is the namesake card of the deck. It is a Divination, Mind Rot or a Demystify on a single spell and at instant speed. Most of the time you will use it to gain raw card advantage, but sometimes, mind rotting an opponent at the right moment can be devastating. It forces instant speed spells to come out when you choose and other times it makes them discard threats that could possibly make them win.

-Cryptic Command is the most powerful counterspell in the modern format for its flexibility. It can tempo your opponent out with the bounce mode and timewalking creature decks with the tap all creature mode. It is also possible to return your own Snapcaster Mage to your hand for extra value. It can permanently answer threats by countering spells. The only downside is that it can clutter your opening hand.

-Opt may not go as deep as Serum Visions does, but it makes cards like Spell Snare and Snapcaster Mage way better. When on the draw, it might be hard to make the decision to Serum Visions or leave a Spell Snare up, but with an Opt in hand instead of a Serum Visions, there is no need to bother.

-Spell Snare is amazing against midrange decks, blue mirrors and affinity because it can effectively hard counter a 2 mana play like Tarmogoyf or most counterspells in the format for a single mana. Opt makes this card a tad bit better.

-Negate is amazing against a lot of the threats in the current metagame, like Karn Liberated, Scapeshift, Ad Nauseam or Collected Company. It is also very good at protecting our creatures against spot removal and wrath effects. Depending on the format, Logic Knot might be worth considering.

-Think Twice is another source of raw card advantage to help you make your land drops and is an alternative to Esper Charm when used to Mind Rot an opponent. It is also very good when facing a Liliana of the Veil as an answer to her +1.

-Sphinx's Revelation is most of the time a game ender when cast for X=4 or 5. It gains you life against aggro decks and let's you find more answers against your opponent's threats.

-Path to Exile is the best removal in the format and it unconditionally kills most creatures in the format for good. The extra land is most of the time irrelevant against our deck.

-Fatal Push is also an amazing spot removal that can kill most creatures in the format. It works best with fetchlands and is played over wrath effects because we run more creatures than usual.

Creatures

-Snapcaster Mage is the best blue creature and probably the best blue card in the modern format. In this version of the deck, there is a lot of cheap spells that make the use of Snapcaster Mage even more relevant. This version also doesn't run delve spells like Logic Knot, so it is better to just run a full playset. It can also be used to chain Cryptic Command and to get extra value from spot removal or cards like Opt. It is most of the time a two for one, since it re-uses cards that would normally be left untouched. Also, Snapcaster Mage makes opponents rethink their sideboard strategy to fight against graveyards, which swings in our favor since we are not as graveyard reliant as Grixis decks using delve.

-Spell Queller is our secondary source of counterspells and is also used to gain tempo over our opponent. Cards like Negate help protecting the flyer and half of the time, the original spell will return with no targets, or at a time where resolving it is less beneficial. It can block (and kill) Lingering Souls tokens, unchecked Snapcaster Mage/Dark Confidant/Goblin Guide. Flying gives evasion and helps flying over bigger threats to hit planeswalkers. Also, exiling the spell means we can counter Supreme Verdict or Abrupt Decay. It can also hit cards cast with Boseiju, Who Shelters All or Cavern of Souls. Most of the time, Spell Queller only delays a spell for a turn, particularly against removal heavy decks like Jeskai Tempo, or Grixis Death's Shadow, but it worked like a Remand for us, except they lost resources to answer it, and meanwhile, we are getting ahead on mana and it is one less removal spell that can target our other threats like Celestial Colonnade. Also, it makes opponents think if they need to keep removal post sideboard, which is another swing in our favor because their deck will be less threat intensive.

-Restoration Angel is another evasive threat that can give late game value with Snapcaster Mage and Vendilion Clique. It also helps protecting your creatures from spot removal, it is a fast clock, a good blocker and harder to kill than your other creatures.

-Vendilion Clique is our last evasive threat. It helps cycle through our own deck, while also being able to take the best card out of our opponents hand. It is best used during the draw step of our opponents turn. Vendilion Clique is also another fast clock that helps close out games quicker.

Sideboard

-Supreme Verdict does well against creature heavy decks like Merfolk or Elves, any iterations of Company decks, even burn matchups. It also takes out creatures with hexproof like Geist of Saint Traft or Slippery Bogle.

-Ceremonious Rejection is the best and cheapest counterspell against any Tron/Eldrazi decks or any decks that play artifacts, like lantern control or affinity.

-Celestial Purge is an amazing spot removal against any red or black decks like Grixis Death's Shadow, BGx midrange decks (Liliana of the Veil/Dark Confidant), Blood Moon decks and even Burn.

-Leyline of Sanctity is amazing against discard like Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek and helps winning games against Burn, which is one of the worst matchups.

-Rest in Peace swings the game in our favor against delve decks like Grixis Death's Shadow, Delver of Secrets   decks and any BGx midrange decks that play Tarmogoyf/Kitchen Finks/Lingering Souls. It is also game winning against decks like Dredge, Storm or Living End.

-Stony Silence is a game ender against Affinity and prevents many abilities in Tron strategies: E.g. Expedition Map. It is also very good against Lantern Control and KCI decks.

-Timely Reinforcements is another card to help against Burn matchups. Burn players will need two extra burn spells to finish us and creatures generated by Timely Reinforcements can help blocking for up to three turns.

-Vendilion Clique helps removing key pieces from combo decks and is another threat that speeds our clock.

Still working on the sideboard

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Splash colors	B
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 1 Mythic Rares 26 - 9 Rares 14 - 5 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.22
Tokens	Soldier 1/1 W
Folders	Control