Esper + Resounding Wave

So after something like a month, I finally logged back into Magic Online today!

The process has been a harrowing one that culminated in my figuring out how to install Windows onto my new (savage) iMac via Parallels. Long story short – I was able to brew in a practical format.

I won’t bore you with all the little details that went into the inclusion of Resounding Wave in the current build of Esper, but it has been pretty good. I felt that Esper was the strongest Standard deck pre-Worldwake, being the control deck that could not only compete with Jund and terrorize Naya, but consistently crush other control decks (primarily Grixis Control).

Our friend Thomas Dodd even made Top 8 of a MTGO PE with the Esper deck. I decided to go with Thomas’s “cut an expensive card from the Flores list” strategy, so I cut one Sorin Markov for one Elspeth, Knight-Errant in the main of this version:

Sorin Markov Flair version 3.0

2 Sorin Markov

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Resounding Wave
4 Spreading Seas
4 Treasure Hunt

4 Esper Charm

4 Day of Judgment
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Martial Coup
4 Path to Exile

4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Halimar Depths
2 Island
4 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
3 Swamp
4 Tectonic Edge

sb:
4 Duress
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Countersquall
4 Baneslayer Angel

Philosophically this is the beloved Esper deck even if the end game looks a bit different.

From Worldwake we have added Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Treasure Hunt (largely replacing Divination and the previous Jace Beleren), Halimar Depths, and Tectonic Edge.

This is very much one of “my” tap-out control decks. There are no counterspells main deck, and the first match I lost was one where I realized mid-way through the second game that I had no Countersquall for his Open the Vaults (managed to get the first game with triple Planeswalkers). Luckily I remembered for subsequent matches (though I have yet to actually side in, let alone play, a Countersquall).

So why Esper?

Can you really think of anything better you can do with your three mana than an Esper Charm? I mean really?

Neither can I.

Rundown:

2 Sorin Markov
I went with Thomas’s numbers; nevertheless, Sorin is probably our best card and might make it back to three-of by Regionals.

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
This card replaced both our previous Jace Belerens and all the finishers. The previous Esper deck, if you recall, played four Banelsayer Angel and four Sphinx of Lost Truths main deck. This deck wins by a combination of Jace-driven resource suppression and Sorin-plus-man lands-based offense. I don’t know which is better objectively, but this version has been running cleanly against a variety of opponents so far.

4 Resounding Wave
Another big change with this version (despite Resounding Wave not being a, you know, new card). With the previous version, the main complaint was that “Esper has no Cruel Ultimatum” … Well Resounding Wave is our Ultimatum. I actually ran the three mana version three times over against the Empty the Vaults deck to make him discard 3-4 times, losing to the fact that I never got to a fourth land (or in fact a Swamp to use the three copies of Duress in my hand, any of which would have pre-empted the lethal Filigree Angel combo).

So one of my original ideas with Resounding Wave was to supplement the Spreading Seas portion of the deck. Especially on the play you can leave your opponent having made no plays when you get your third turn. You can at that point aim a Resounding Wave at his land and force him to discard. There are some other subtle advantages with this card; it gives you two (or depending on tuning, even three) different colors of instant speed creature defense; at full bore it can target a near-ultimate Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Iona, Shield of Emeria without fear of interaction. Overall, a much better card than its level of play to date would seem to indicate.

4 Spreading Seas
A top-five card in Standard, I think.

4 Treasure Hunt
We’ll write a lot more about this one before too long; for now just think about its advantages with 28 land and Tectonic Edge in particular; in a Spreading Seas (or Spreading Seas + Resounding Wave) mana control strategy.

4 Esper Charm
Is there anything better to do with three mana? I mean really? (Okay, but you can’t play Esper Charm and Blightning together outside of mono-Cascade… believe me, I’ve tried!)

4 Day of Judgment
Upgraded from three copies to four… With fewer creatures in this version, we need more creature defense, especially with the rise in decks like G/W and White Weenie.

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
If we can convince Thomas to write about his experiences with the previous version of Esper, we will probably find out why this card is good enough! So far, it has been good.

1 Martial Coup
I haven’t drawn it yet; chalk this one up to needing even more copies of Day of Judgment… Also an additional way to win, of course.

4 Path to Exile
Basically a given.

… A bunch of lands…

4 Tectonic Edge
I was actually surprised I didn’t blow a lot of people out with these. Tectonic Edge is highly synergistic with the other cards we have talked about (Spreading Seas and sometimes Resounding Wave); it is also quite good with Treasure Hunt. Treasure Hunt helps you draw more lands than the opponent so that parity plays like a Tectonic Edge one-for-one can imply profitability.

The sideboard needs a bit of work. Moving so many creatures out of the main kind of glutted the sideboard, and the ability to go creature “overload” (though really just becoming a mid-range creature deck) is less of a possibility with this build.

I think the sideboard needs a set of Celestial Purge; I lost some very close matches (mostly based on mis-clicking due to lack of practice and lack of familiarity with Jace, the Mind Sculptor) where Celestial Purge would have given me a bit of margin. You know; the usual stuff… Hell’s Thunder or whatever. Don’t forget that Celestial Purge is also quite effective against Ajani Vengeant. I also think the deck could benefit from a pair of Countersqualls in the main, similar to the last build.

One card that is not in this version is Everflowing Chalice aka Motherlovin Cup. The mana costs are so all over the place (BBB, UUU, WW) that I wanted to play lots of colors-producing mana sources; the Tectonic Edges by themselves are bad enough. So I decided to go with a heavy Halimar Depths plan with Treasure Hunt… The old “hit my land drops” rather than “accelerate with a Signet” line of plays. Might not be optimal from the bird’s eye view, but for a deck with Esper colors, I do think it is right.

LOVE
MIKE