DIfferent bases for Esper Flyer Control, which do you like?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Nov. 20, 2015, 2:18 a.m. by kengiczar
If you were going to design a nontraditional Esper flyer Control which direction would you go?
A: Overwhelming board presence
B: Minimal threats (Like traditional Draw/GO)
C: 15ish removal with a mix of threat and support
Potential List for option A -
4x Judge's Familiar
4x Squadron Hawk
4x Esper Stormblade
4x Lingering Souls
2x Bitterblossom
2x Pride of the Clouds
2x Skirsdag High Priest
2x Ojutai's Command
Threat List for option B-
2-3x Wydwen, the Biting Gale
3-4x Lingering Souls
1-2x Pride of the Clouds
4x Delver of Secrets
Flip
Support Cards:
Bitterblossom - Lets you grind
Hushwing Gryff - Shuts down ETB
Judge's Familiar - Instant/Sorcery Counter + Skirsdag High Priest trigger
Silumgar Sorcerer - Creature Counter
Stormscape Familiar - Cost Reduction
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Anti-Removal
Aven Mindcensor - Can stymie a tutor such as Congregation at Dawn or Scapeshift
Nectar Faerie - For Lifegain
Oona's Blackguard
Oona's Prowler - for Unburial rights vs "Fair" decks
Stinkweed Imp - For Unburial rights decks
Removal:
Supreme Verdict - Can't be stopped
Wrath of God - Kills Thrun, the Last Troll
Path to Exile - Cheap, prevents recursion
Inquisition of Kozilek - Hits everything but Splinter Twin that we care about
Threats :
Delver of Secrets
Flip - Fast, but requires tons of spells
Squadron Hawk
Esper Stormblade
Pride of the Clouds
Lingering Souls
Cloudfin Raptor
Flickerwisp - Can flicker Plains for T3 threat + Path to Exile
Skirsdag High Priest - Gives us our biggest fliers but requires lots of creatures
Vendilion Clique - Can get rid of a bad card in our hand or the opponents hand
@ TheDevicer - Esper Stormblade is very nice with the Judge's Familar and Pride ofthe Clouds. I will put him in the threat list.
I still don't understand quite what makes a deck tempo. I mean I recognize that 
or 
can be played as tempo and those are easy to recognize. But would you consider Mardu Token Bloodbath. midrange (becaues it typically wins once it's able to develop an unpenatrable board state), tempo (because of all the threats and removal) or control (because 15+ removal)?
What I'm really aiming at is developing 2-3 Esper flyer decks that play differently as part of a larger series I will be calling "Breaking the Box" where I break down traditional thinking and expose the plethora of options available focusing on tri-color decks. For example one article will be called "Jund: Why 
and mana dorks are bad" as I notice a lot of new players, myself included, make the mistake or did for a long time of trying to overly focus on green when Jund is really a deck with a few cards that happen to fit the strategy (Abrupt Decay and Tarmogoyf As seen by traditional Jund)
For all of this to matter though I am starting with Esper flyers as it's a relatively unexplored archetype since the banning of SFM which led to the death of Caw Blade. Over the next 8 days I'll be focusing on the first two Esper decks, since I have school and am busy friday/saturday/sunday there will be a slight lag at first.
November 20, 2015 2:38 a.m.
MADMatt7777 says... #4
In simplistic terms, Tempo is the rate at which you reduce your opponents life total to 0. Essentially, it is making sure that on every single one of your turns, you are moving closer and closer to winning the game, be that with creatures or spells. This is basically the opposite of Draw Go, as you are waiting to respond to your opponents tempo and disrupt them so that you can further your chances of winning due to your opponents lack of tempo.
Here is a link to an article about tempo:
Personally, I've always felt that tempo decks are just better than Draw Go decks, but that's just me.
November 20, 2015 3:06 a.m.
Tempo means playing value cards in quick succession to gain an advantage over your opponent. Any color can be played with tempo in mind since you accomplish it through things like a low curve, mana acceleration, and pretty much anything that time walks an opponent. Gameplans revolving around killing people fit there. I'd label your deck as tempo.
The reason I push for the creature-heavy lists is that draw-go playstyles would not like top decking into a 2 mana 1/1 10 turns into the game. U/W control variants just have better things to do. Oh, and if you're going the creature heavy list, Restoration Angel and Dragonlord Ojutai are strong candidates as finishers.
I also really don't like Skirsdag High Priest as tapping your creatures makes them non-threats to your opponent. Yeah, the potential value is great, but it's too slow here. I highly recommend Spellstutter Sprite instead, something that should have been listed here already esp. considering the Bitterblossoms.
November 20, 2015 3:07 a.m. Edited.
@ MADMatt7777 / TheDevicer - Thanks I understand it a lot better compared to reading that intro to tempo article (I have read it 3 times over the last 2 years _). So long as you're moving your opponents life closer to 0, or trying to by playing threats, each turn, then having some removal doesn't mean you aren't tempo.
I can agree then that Tempo is just better than Draw GO in modern.
@ TheDevicer - When I design the Draw/Go deck it's only creatures will be the in conditions. It'll for sure use Dragonlord Ojutai or Dragonlord Silumgar (perhaps both in the 75). Of course Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls may still go in, they are great value.
As far as Restoration Angel and Dragonlord Ojutai, right now I'm building the "Go Wide" version Breaking the Box - Esper Flyers - Go Wide.
Right now it's in the baby stages. I haven't tested it yet but I think out of those Dragonlord Ojutai might be better.
November 20, 2015 3:26 a.m.
I love my flyers. :p So evasive. I'd be interested in this article. This kind of makes me want to brew my own list. Thanks for the idea!! I'll try to remember you name and give you credit for the idea. I won't steal any of your ideas if I can help it, but tempo is almost always my approach to building modern. I just like the playstyle. Good luck in testing!
November 20, 2015 7:05 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #8
If I were to put together an Esper flyers list, it'd look like this.
4x Lingering Souls,
2x Doom Blade, 2x Far / Away, 2x Vapor Snag, 4x Mana Leak, 3x Favorable Winds, 4x Serum Visions
23x Lands
Sideboard could shift to a larger flyers package, get smaller, or just bring in a bunch of hate cards. Either way, I like the evasive tempo build for this deck.
November 20, 2015 9:27 a.m.
The Moorland Haunt fits the creature-based list better, esp if you have only a light touch of black splashed.
November 20, 2015 11:46 a.m.
Moorland Haunt would be a great way to utilize dead Squadron Hawks that's for sure.
From the list I posted earlier Breaking the Box - Esper Flyers - Go Wide I definitely need some Thunderclap Wyvern, I think in place of Ojutai. I was testing Ojutai vs 3 different Mardu decks (Mine, Mardu Midrange and Femme_Fatales) and Ojutai seeemed slow. Perhaps the Silumgar Sorcerer would help with that but for now I"M going to throw in some Wyverns and then go to bed. I haven't slept in over 20 hours and I have school in 3 : P
November 20, 2015 12:24 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #11
A better example of tempo would be to play stuff that serves multiple purposes/2-for-1's the opponent/disrupts the opponent from doing something while being a threat.
For example, in a GW shell, Flickerwisp and Fiend Hunter can be considered tempo cards. Flickerwisp slows the opponent's creatures down, resets countes, and can even obstruct fort game plans like Ensnaring Bridge, all the while being a very significant threat. Fiend Hunter chucks a creature, forcing the opponent to use removal on a weak creature that isn't killing them to get the creature back. As long as you were able to get some additional damage out because Fiend Hunter chucked a creature for a while, then it has served its purpose. Languish, Engineered Explosives and damage wraths can be considered massive tempo plays as you are doing a one sided wipe when you use these cards.
Arvail says... #2
You're forgetting Esper Stormblade. Could be worth running if you go 4x Judge's Familiar and 4x Pride of the Clouds. My personal take on this is that you want to go for a tempo-based list with about 8 to 14 reactive cards. You'll need a suite of efficient countermagic, some spot removal, and whatever utility you want. If going the tempo route, you could also just drop
if you are on a budget.
November 20, 2015 2:24 a.m.