Esper Sentinel

Artifact Creature — Human Soldier

Whenever an opponent casts their first noncreature spell each turn, draw a card unless that player pays {X}, where X is this creature's power.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (43)

multimedia on Urza's Legacy

2 weeks ago

Hey, some interesting card choices for upgrades to the precon. I can tell your deck is based on the precon because I see Darksteel Juggernaut.

A kink here to work on is the avg. CMC. The mana curve is very high at 4.3 not including Organic Extinction and Mycosynth Golem. The precon mana curve is already high at 3.5 not including Thought Monitor. A higher mana curve would be fine if supported with lots more low mana cost ramp, but you cut most of the low mana cost ramp (Signets, Liquimetal, Vessel) from the precon. There's only 6 ramp sources here 3 CMC or less which is low.

You could have a difficult time casting Urza using artifact creature affinity with only 7 artifact creatures 3 CMC or less. You really can't count on Urza's artifact affinity to first cast him and having not many ramp sources, ramp can't be counted on either. Master Transmuter is a great upgrade, she helps a lot when playing a lower amount of ramp. To improve the mana curve which will help gameplay consider choosing a few of the better high mana cost cards and cutting the others? Most 4 drops here are much better than the 5-7+ drops and that's good for the mana curve.

Research Thief, The Mightstone and Weakstone  ^Meld, Blightsteel Colossus, Mycosynth Golem, Thopter Assembly, Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, Organic Extinction, Darksteel Forge, Mycosynth Lattice, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Cyberdrive Awakener these are the better 5-7 CMC cards here. The others could be cut to lower the mana curve because they're simply not as good as these.

• Thief, it's repeatable draw effect is good when you want to be attacking with Constructs.
• Weakstone because you have Urza, Lord Protector  ^Meld.
• Blightsteel, best secondary attacker and because you have Master Transmuter.
• Golem because Urza is a consistent way to create artifacts.
• Assembly because you have Time Sieve.
• Tezzeret because of Constructs.
• Extinction because of Constructs.
• Forge, best protection for all artifacts and because you have Lattice, Transmuter and Padeem.
• Awakener flying for Constructs.

Some upgrades at your price point to consider:

• Esper Sentinel, Mystic Remora
• Diabolic Intent, Fabricate
• Skullclamp (in the precon), Baleful Strix (in the precon)
• Ornithopter of Paradise, Signets and Liquimetal (in the precon)
• The Reality Chip + Sensei's Divining Top combo
• Spellskite, Skrelv, Defector Mite, Ethersworn Canonist
• Skrelv's Hive
• Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares (in the precon)

Good luck with your deck.

DemonDragonJ on Commander Masters Previews and Speculation

3 weeks ago

WotC has officially announced that there shall be a Commander Masters set, so let us begin speculating about it!

Thus far, only three cards have been revealed, but they are all excellent, so I am hoping that the remainder of the set shall be comparable.

If The Ur-Dragon is being reprinted (and it needs to be), I also would like to see Edgar Markov reprinted, because he also is expensive, as well as Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, mainly because he has never been reprinted (except as a judge promo), so I would like to see him in the new card frame.

Given that Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, and Smothering Tithe were all reprinted, recently, I would like to see Esper Sentinel reprinted, mainly to keep its price low and availability high.

I have said this, before, but I shall again pray for reprints of Book of Rass and Claws of Gix, mainly to see them in the new frame.

Sol Ring and Command Tower are almost certain to be in this set, but I also would like to see Reflecting Pool and Chromatic Lantern, to keep their prices low.

Akroma's Memorial, Mirari's Wake, and Privileged Position would all be great, as well.

What does everyone else say about this? What card would you like to see reprinted in Commander Masters?

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

3 weeks ago

Change Log 27-Feb-2023

Move to Maybe Board:

• Cathars' Crusade
• Esper Sentinel

Move to Main Board/Add:

• Authority of the Consuls
• Phyrexian Arena

Michigone on Isshin for a Fight

3 weeks ago

In the interest of squashing the curve, and with the purpose of getting more consistent card draw without table interaction, which inevitably draws attention to the piece and attention to myself, I'm testing out the deck with Phyrexian Arena in for Esper Sentinel and Authority of the Consuls in for Cathars' Crusade. My concern is that Crusade is a wincon, which I am cutting for lifegain, but as noted in earlier posts and in discussions with Crow-Umbra, resolving it takes a long time, and trying to set it up is often an exercise in futility as it is a lode-stone for removal. With Authority, I gain some small amount of lifegain, enough to keep me at the table longer, and I gain the added combat utility of having potential blockers on my opponent's boards entering tapped, allowing me to get more swings in. Feels like a little more control/stax, which I am not opposed to.

griffstick on top cards of each color

3 weeks ago

{W} Esper Sentinel

{W} Swords to Plowshares

{U} Rhystic Study

{U} Expropriate

{B} Bolas's Citadel

{B} Vampiric Tutor

{R} Dockside Extortionist

{R} Jeska's Will

{G} The Great Henge

{G} Return of the Wildspeaker

Dencoan on Spirit Squad building

3 weeks ago

For Draw:

Cut:

• Occult Epiphany
• Spectral Sailor if kept not good source of card draw

Add:

• Mystic Remora
• Rhystic Study
• Archmage's Charm fills multiple possible needs in one card
• Esper Sentinel
• Ponder
• Brainstorm or maybe Windfall

Coward_Token on March of the Machine

1 month ago

Minor wall of text for Katilda and Lier Show

So, this lets you basically play Snapcaster Mage for 1 mana, but without the flash*. Not bad, as you got e.g. Esper Sentinel, Noble Hierarch, and Mother of Runes to work with. Probably not worth it to go over mana value 2 unless it's also a good spellslinger card? I feel like the Human tribal part is less important. There's some pretty good Humans with actual flash too, e.g. Zulaport Duelist and Cathar Commando.

I wish the trigger was on ETB for other nontoken Humans rather than casting; I don't see much abuse from flickering. At least you can be a Johnny with Crib Swap I guess.

Flavor and card references aside, I feel like this should have been a jeskai card?

• Humans are primarily associated with white
• In order to afford flashbacking, the card incitivizes casting small creatures, which is more of a white thing; green likes them big.
• The creature side of things feels like it's subservient to the spellslinging, which makes it kinda weird when blue is the only color in the arc that's really into nonpermanents.

Because of the above reasons, I feel that green is largely superflous to white's role in the card's ability, and would be better served replaced by red, the other spellslinging-oriented color. Plus, only having until end of turn to flashback feels a lot like red impulsive draw. However, I can see the merit in filling the niche of a bant spellslinger commander, and flavoring could be though for jeskai too.

(Rethinking things, you could instead go for mana value 1-2 for spell cards and just treat the flashbacking as Human cantriping.)

zapyourtumor on Boros of Destiny

1 month ago

Deck definitely seems a bit outdated with some of the card choices (like Path) which aren't really modern playable anymore. And there are a lot of creatures in boros colors like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Esper Sentinel that you could probably run here too.

But that stuff aside I think the new Nahiri, the Unforgiving could be pretty interesting here as a top end threat (instead of Thundermaw Hellkite). The +1 abilities can get rid of blockers, loot away bad cards, or generate card advantage when hellbent, while the 0 ability is especially strong with Keldon Marauders.