Hows it performing?? Any PPTQs?

Can you take a look at my Orzhov control, give me any advice? I actually won this week.. Hope it performs tonight.

I went 3-1 tonight, as follows:

Round 1: GW aggro: Win 2-0

Round 2: GW aggro: Win 2-0

Round 3: Jeskai Black: Loss 0-2

Roud 4: Assault formation: Win 2-0

I'll check it out.

+1 from me, you are now at 45!

I am interested in hearing about your loss against Jeskai Black. Were you having mana issues, just not getting the draws needed, etc?

Hmmm, let's think...

I guess it was just the threat-per-cubic-centimeter of the deck. I would get out an Ojutai and he'd Crackling Doom, then he'd cast a Mantis Rider and a jace next turn and Dispel my counter and then I'd next turn Foul-Tongue Invocation and get rid of his rider but he'd flip up jace... I guess he just out played me? He also managed to kill my Shambling Vents which was good for him. Awaken ended up just enabling him to kill my lands. At some point he cast 2 Dig Through Time in the same turn, and I could only counter one of them. I guess if I'd had greater access to the right responses it probably would have turned out better, like well timed Languishes. Nothing exactly stands out in my mind as "why I lost."

Think of his deck as having a high pressure in newtons where newtons is high value things.

Yeah, Jeskai Black has a lot of answers and potent threats. They can potentially have a lot of dead cards in hand though, say if you do not allow them to get maximum value out of cards like:

- Fiery Impulse
- Kolaghan's Command
- Crackling Doom

This is exactly what I am doing with my latest brew, check it out:

Esper Instant Control Playtest

Standard haysmafia1

SCORE: 1 | 0 COMMENTS | 73 VIEWS

Alright, here's how last night went:

3-1

Round one: Flip-flying Jeskai Black: Loss: 0-2

2: Boros Aggro: Win: 2-0

3: Kolaghan Aggro: Win: 2-0

4: Orzhov Warriors: Win: 2-0

Pulled the best card in the set though.... Full-art Island!

I sided in Horribly Awry over Silumgar's Scorn every game... Should I maybe maindeck it? Does it possibly make more sense than Silumgar's Scorn in the deck since it's a strictly worse hybrid of Force Spike and Clash of Wills unless I have a dragon? But if I do it's Counterspell! Struggling.

EDIT: I am going to try that for now, but that's where I'd like some feedback. Thanks!

I would run Crux of Fate over Planar Outburst

I've thought about that, but I keep coming to this conclusion:

1) The late game 4/4 haste as the only thing on the field requires a response and is nice, especially if it's Shambling Vent.

2) If I have a draconian presence, I most likely have control over the board.

3) Ergo, the two times I'm most likely to cast a boardwipe would be either T5-T6, when I probably don't have any creatures; or late game if my opponent has have a board shift in their favor when I may not have a creature in which case the 4/4 is a strict upgrade.

But ultimately you're correct, it is more risky to run Planar Outburst over Crux of Fate. But I, for myself, prefer the higher risk-reward.

Thank you for your input!

Do you have delve problems since you aren't running fetches?

No. Not that I wouldn't totally run them if I wanted to buy them though lol.

Most recent FNM:

2-1-1

Round 1: Golgari Elves Aggro: Win: 2-1

Round 2: RDW: Win: 2-1

Round 3: 4-Color, not-blue, bunch of value things...: Tie.

Round 4: Assault formation: Loss: 1-2

Reason for Round 4 Loss: kept a hand with 3 lands, none of which were blue sources. Reason: Had a dragon, multiple Foul-Tongue Invocation, and Utter End. Did not draw the fourth land. Instead I drew 2 more Utter End and a couple of counters...

Make sure you test for the Ramp match up. People are figuring it out and it's atrocious for control. Knocked me out of top 8 this week, and it feels borderline hopeless as far as the match up's concerned.

What do you recommend? What did you learn?

The one asset control players actually have: The ability to learn and adapt, and make other people think we are actually capable of doing anything else...

Strangely enough, the best way for us to beat the ramp match-up seems to go underneath it. The real problem is if Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger gets cast, it sets us really far back unless we have the board basically flooded and have them heavily pressured before they get to that point. The only saving grace once he gets cast is making sure they don't have another in hand before dropping a Dragonlord Silumgar. Still not a great match-up even in these instances because we have to basically convert to an aggro deck to really go underneath them.

Honestly, if you can figure out that match-up, I'd gladly hear any suggestions. I've cracked open the match-ups against all of the big pillars of the format with a control strategy excluding this. My deck laughs at Jeskai Black unless I literally draw all land, Bant megamorph is even when they board in countermagic, but my deck's plays require minimal thinking so I'm much less likely to make a mistake, and I feel really bad for Abzan and the aristocrats match-ups. But ramp... in testing (even implementing strategies to maximize the match-up) I've gone 1-11 in games against it so far. The match-up is atrocious for control.

Well, there isn't that much uncounterable in standard except for The Unspeakable... names have power, and it shall have no power here.

So let's think strategy. Do you counter Dorks? Or save the Horribly Awry for Woodland Wanderer, Undergrowth Champion, Akoum Firebird, and Thunderbreak Regent?

Next thing, I recon sideboard would look like Disdainful Stroke and Infinite Obliteration to hit Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and company (No Collected Company pun intended). Side out would be Foul-Tongue Invocation and Languish, since after turn four it'll be pointless.

We could also try spare Utter End, Planar Outburst/End Hostilities, and Quarantine Field.

Could also side out Silumgar, the Drifting Death for more responses.

What are your thoughts?

Infinite Obliteration works, just remember Ulamog only needs to be cast to pretty much seal your fate. And they can get him out by turn 6 with a proper hand. His exile ability likely puts you 2 land back, which really hurts. And with the lands, they can tutor for more flying spaghetti monsters upon cast. Which is why it hurts. Their threats don't necessarily need to hit the table until they need to finish us off, and they get rid of most of our finishers as well. It's like playing a R/G Tron match-up with U/W/x control in modern, but without access to real counterspells or Path to Exile

So Esper's defense against that deck lines up as following:

Duress: Spell based ramp is what they're doing, they don't care about most of our removal.

Transgress the Mind:Same reason for Duress, but also gets rid of Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Permanently.

Infinite Obliteration: But it has to be before turn 6, which means you basically need the full set boarded for just this 1 match-up.

Secure the Wastes+Gideon, Ally of Zendikar: With an emblem, Secure is basically a White Sun's Zenith, but this also doesn't happen fast enough for this match-up more often than not.

Even after considering these and testing them out, the match-up still feels extremely hard to beat. We do have tools, but you really need to hit them hard turn 3 with an Infinite Obliteration to seal the game away. You have 2-3 chances to get the card in hand before you basically straight up lose to Ulamog or Ugin.

In a sense, it feels more proper to fight the ramp by letting them ramp and sculpting your hand before they can cast their doomsday devices.

I think that Transgress the Mind is better than Duress, since there should be basically nothing it doesn't hit. Hits Natural Connection, Explosive Vegetation, Nissa's Renewal, See the Unwritten etc etc etc.

I'm going to change my sideboard as follows:

-2 Sphinx's Tutelage

-2 Dispel

+4 Transgress the Mind.

Those four cards were all against control, and fortunately, Transgress the Mind will work against control too. So my ramp Matchup will now look like this, I guess:

+4 Infinite Obliteration

+4 Transgress the Mind

+2 Disdainful Stroke

-4 Languish

-2 Silumgar, the Drifting Death

-3 Horribly Awry

-1 Foul-Tongue Invocation

This sounds like a solid plan of attack. I'm going to keep testing, and I'll post any breakthroughs on that match up.

AngelOfDivinity is love AngelOfDivinity is life. Favorite deck 2012, I stole this idea and just replaced ur lizards with 6 Eldrazi and a few diff. spells, super fun. thanks for the idea +1. dont worry i cited u and this deck in my intro.

No problem, that's super cool! Post a link?

oh yes i should have before. Bada Bing Bada Boop, first FNM, should be fun! oh yes and i decided to go with Eldrazi because i had them and not your lizards. Thanks

Ok, so I got beat up pretty bad last night by sac mechanics. Here's the breakdown:

2-2

Round 1: Jeskai Black: Loss, 1-2 (Actually, we clocked out and rolled for it on game three, I lost the die roll).

Round 2: Control: Loss 0-2

Round 3: Ramp: Win 2-0

Round 4: RDW: Win 2-0.

So, trend here: I lose when my opponent has Crackling Doom, Foul-Tongue Invocation, Blighted Fen.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Drop all wincons except 4 Ob Nixilis Reignited.

So wam, just like that, sac effects, removal that isn't Ruinous Path, and Infinite Obliteration are useless. But is the Nixi Pixie really strong enough to be soul win condition?

I'm also considering dropping white (again) because Nixi could possibly be a safer bet than Dragonlord Ojutai anyway, and I will regardless have to remove Orator of Ojutai from my sideboard which can become Complete Disregard, leaving the only white cards in the deck as Utter End, Planar Outburst, and Quarantine Field (totally replaceable), and forget any chance of mana issues or not having 2 basics, plus I could also run Blighted Fen or Blighted Cataract now that I'm not so color strapped.

OR

I could run 2-4 Nixi Pixies and keep MD a pair of Silumgar, the Drifting Death, since that straight beats a lot of decks, and then side him out against anything with sac effects.

So here's what I'm asking: For now I'm going to try cutting white again. Do you guys think this is justified? Also, how good is Ob Nixilis Reignited, or the Nixi Pixie as I like to call him?

Obs is susceptible to Display of Dominance still which I side in for the control matchup.