Hatebears in esper
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 6, 2017, 1:55 p.m. by Qolorful
I have a standard deck featuring The Scarab God reanimating creatures that have control aspects to them, such as Spell Queller, Torrential Gearhulk, Noxious Gearhulk, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and other similar cards. The problem is that most of the good cards for said strategy are in the SOI block. As such I have two choices. Come September I can overhaul the deck to be less control and more just midrange, potentially using the cycling creatures from the AMK block, or I could eternalize the deck (ha, get it?) by making it modern, or even frontier instead. I'm not to familiar with modern as of now, so I was hoping to get a list of hatebears in the esper colors, or just other good creatures for this form of control. What suggestions do you have?
That seems like a solid option. The other one I know of would be Leonin Arbiter. Do you know of anything else I could use?
August 6, 2017 2:13 p.m.
Kataki, War's Wage comes to mind, as does Aven Mindcensor. I'd also throw in a set of Aether Vial so you can drop a creature and still have mana available
August 6, 2017 2:57 p.m.
WizardOfTheNorthernCoast says... #5
Judge's Familiar, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter + Path to Exile/Ghost Quarter, Meddling Mage, Tidehollow Sculler, Flickerwisp, Restoration Angel, Blade Splicer and Aether Vial would be a start :)
August 6, 2017 3:04 p.m.
Not sure if you use it already, but Mausoleum Wanderer is actually great in this kind of deck, better than Judge's Familiar at least!
August 6, 2017 3:15 p.m.
WizardOfTheNorthernCoast says... #7
Not better tbh, cuz Familiar is castable with a single white mana aswell. So just casting any of those T1 doesn't make any difference, except you could cast Familiar with any white/blue source. You can't with Wanderer.
Now if you're willing to put in some Geist of Saint Traft and a playset of Wanderers then yes, it's obviously better :)
August 6, 2017 3:30 p.m.
No, in a Scarab God deck it's better because you eternalize it as a 4/4, so it's a better Mana Leak on a creature at that point since it checks power. That way it scales with the game!
August 6, 2017 3:41 p.m.
Wow! There's a lot to work with here! Thanks all! I like the idea of Aether Vial for such a deck quite a bit, and I like the idea of Mausoleum Wanderer and Giest of Saint Traft as well, especially since I'm considering spell queller.
I will definitely end up with Path to Exile and Ghost Quarter to pair with Leonin Arbiter. That's a brutal combo I wouldn't have seen right away.
As far as all the other suggestions, I like them, but I will have to see what my modern meta ends up looking like, I'm in between homes and don't have an lgs at the moment, so last decisions would be made after seeing it
August 6, 2017 5:36 p.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #10
At this point, with most of the above comments and suggestions, screw hatebears, just build death and taxes. Youll have the basic necessities (thalia, leonin, etc etc) the rest are pretty much flex spots. Which is whats so great about D&T anyway, you can be really creative with creature selection. With Tidehollow Sculler you could basically build b/w taxes, and splash blue for queller and geist of traft!
August 7, 2017 1:15 a.m.
WizardOfTheNorthernCoast says... #11
abby315 then it makes sense, but I didn't understand he wanted to keep the God in there. And I wouldn't in modern :)
August 7, 2017 3:59 a.m.
I've played Esper Hatebears in Modern before and honestly it's just kind of "meh."
You basically mess with your opponent a bunch, they topdeck a large creature or win condition, and then you can't race them with your 2/2s. The issue I had was there really wasn't a way to pump your team up consistently. Little Kid decks have Gavony Township and Wilt-Leaf Liege. D&T has Honor of the Pure affect every creature you play.
It's not like you have Wasteland and Rishadan Port, either, to really make the most out of Aether Vial. You get your mana freed up so you can attack with Creeping Tar Pit and Shambling Vent more easily, but often those slow you down when you want to play Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Geist of Saint Traft on-curve.
Then there's the whole not having Collected Company thing. You're also not a deck that plays blue or black's strongest cards in Modern. You get Fatal Push and Meddling Mage, which is nice, but Dark Confidant is too slow in the deck, Liliana of the Veil does almost nothing,Snapcaster Mage has too few targets, and Serum Visions isn't what you want at all. There are a plethora of useful planeswalkers for the deck, but at that point you'll just be wondering "Why am I not playing tokens?"
Go with Spirits, Bant/Abzan CoCo, Maverick, Little Kid Abzan, W/B D&T, or really any deck that isn't Esper Hatebears. The deck just doesn't have enough "oomph!" in it to close out games once you've locked your opponent down the way other hatebear decks can. You also can't outrace decks like Naya Burn or Zooicide, but at the same time, don't have enough hate to deal with so many different threats (like, you'll name Lightning Bolt with Meddling Mage and they'll just kill you with Lava Spikes anyway).
August 7, 2017 10:31 p.m.
You make some interesting points. Like I said before, I don't know what my meta will look like, so I don't know what I will have to do to make a deck that plays well. This is just something I'm considering doing.
After hearing all the comments, it seems likely that I will just make my deck more Midrange stompy standard and build something else in modern. I just don't know that I want to buy a playset of aether vials for a deck that can't finish games well. I do like the idea of bant company, so that may end up happening
August 7, 2017 10:55 p.m.
Bulldawg1310 says... #14
If you build B/W taxes you should be able to finish just fine. Then your purchase of a playset of vials can be justified. Plus its a fun archetype to play, almost every game is gonna be different and there is a ton of player interaction.
Wurmlover says... #2
it would be cool to make it in modern with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
August 6, 2017 2:06 p.m.