|
On December 26 2011 09:49 Shotcoder wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 23:59 Judicator wrote:
The fact that you have a Black Sun's in Esper on top of Days means you have no clue what you are doing. Other signs include considering Grave Titans and Frost Titans (both are just no), Unburial Rites (just no), Batterskull (no). Your deck just looks like a mish-mash of control cards. Double Blue, Black, White along with a triple White and Blue with the mana base in standard? No thanks.
Flare shits on you straight up. You will not beat it with just 2 Surgicals (especially Surgicals). Your match up against Red is also pretty terrible...along with Ilusion variants.
Edit:
And it's not correct metagaming. Anyone who takes a look at your mana base will just shake their head. 2 GQs with that mana distribution and spells?
I also like how you think that running board sweepers means your match up against aggro will be somehow be "good" or even better. You sound like a friend of mine who likes to beat down other people's decks with little to no thought about actual match ups and just spews non sense about how bad the match up is against his deck. The fact is this deck is serious 5 to 6 cards different than that of the esper control list that was in the top 8 at Charolette. I could net deck but what benefit would i get from that when I get blown out from decks the people around me play and not the meta game of Charolette? Black sun and grave Titan are easily castable with the mana base and running three colors with the current lands in extremely stable if you know what hands to mulligan. You don't win every game by being better than the opponent, there's a great deal of luck, knowledge of the opponent and deck, and surprise or special tactics. Why do you think decks like four color control and tricks control did s well when they were first unveiled? Because they were great for the meta game and no one knew how to combat the deck. This is o different. Just sit down and test the deck before you bash it. I have yet to take it to fm due to building it this passed week but in cockatrice testing it has been extremely consistent and doesn't get "blown out". Check channel fireball and lsv's videos about it to see how well the deck actually functions. I have only seen the deck lose close games and win close games and that margin comes down to how good the pilot is just like any other control deck.
I did check out LSV's videos. He isn't trying to be that greedy with your mana base like you are. 5 to 6 cards different is a world of difference for control decks. If you think somehow Esper control is like oh shit new deck, then I would like to point you back to 2 months ago. Before Worlds. Before Jeremy Neeman's deck.
Your match up against aggro is still terrible, especially against Red. If you really can't figure out why, then there's no point in continuing this conversation.
As for my knowledge of the deck...I have ran about 1k+ test games with Solar Flare and about 500 test games with Esper now against pretty much every respectable deck that has hit the meta since ISD Standard. I haven't played any other deck heavily except the Esper-colored variants. I ran WSZ before kiddies realized that was a good card.
Hint, your list that you posted, its an early rendition of what I already tested 3 months ago where Grave Titans/Sphinxes were good because of the mirror. Then Esper/Flare switched to Sun Titans and Images, then they realized that was complete ass against Spellbomb/Extraction/Doom Blades so we moved to Wurmcoils which is where we stand now in Flare as a tier 2 deck.
Your card choices are old in the Esper development curve, you aren't meta-gaming, you're pretending to be meta-gaming. Go look at your mana symbol costs for your cards, then tell me how you plan on casting them consistently. Black Sun's out of the board? Really? You hope to cast a double black card consistently? So without mana fixing you HOPE to get to UU, then WW, then BB to be able to play all your cards. Oh you also hope to hit single B consistently without your lands entering play tapped. That's a lot of hoping to not blank cards in your hands. Oh you're also running 2 GQs main.
But wait, I am not even done with your sideboard, Go for the Throats for what, just run Purges if you are worried about Grixis or Dismember/Gut Shot for anything else. So again, how the fuck is this list tuned or even good? Or do you just netdeck and put terrible cards that anyone who's tested this deck consistently knows is terrible in?
3 Flashfreezes with 3 GQs seems like a good idea...go think about that one for a second.
|
judicator is just abit harsh in how he says things. you have to extract the important points out of all the hate =P
I havent been following standard much, but i know that if you think the mana base right now is even CLOSE to that of 4cc or even zendikar/scars you are kidding yourself and need to learn how to build mana bases. 3color mana in this standard is a joke if you are trying to get double of everything. heck 2color enemy is already hard to build. and then you are playing control against some of the most aggressive/proactive decks in recent T2 history with a mana base that either time walks you or makes you play lands in a funky order?
|
I would honestly listen to Judicator when he says stuff. He tends to be right. He also follows standard the most out of all of us. I also see WSZ as a much better win con in esper control than titans/sphinxes. Also, Why do people that play control love ghost quarter so much? I never see any successful control deck run it.
|
You have to have Ghost Quarter. Lands that do things are the best cards in Magic. And this Standard has a lot of lands that do things. Not like ZEN/SOM but it's enough that it's a problem for Control Decks. Do you want to Oblivion Ring their Moorland Haunt? Are you going to Doom Blade their Gavony? Dissipate Drownyard?
Ghost Quarter isn't really pretty but it saves you from getting run over by their incremental advantage in the mid to late game. That's about it.
|
On December 27 2011 09:05 dignity wrote:
I would honestly listen to Judicator when he says stuff. He tends to be right. He also follows standard the most out of all of us. I also see WSZ as a much better win con in esper control than titans/sphinxes. Also, Why do people that play control love ghost quarter so much? I never see any successful control deck run it.
You don't have a choice, otherwise your match up versus Wolfrun is terrible. Same for Nephalia where UB can just sit back and mill you to oblivion in a control mirror. Inkmoth means you must save your Doom Blades for it. Moorland Haunt is also a very legitimate threat against control as well.
Sphinxes > WSZ in terms of effectiveness. I have never lost any game where I drew cards off of Sphinx. WSZ has better chance of resolving in most match ups and a more efficient use of your mana later on. WWW isn't a big issue since you're trying to set up for a "safe" Day in most games anyways, and most Esper decks are (at least the good ones) are only splashing black for Doom Blade and flashback on Alchemy.
The problem with control decks in general right now is that you can't answer everything efficiently. To clarify, we had Jace in T2 (before Caw-Blade) before this, and we had Cryptic Command before that. Those are highly efficient control cards for a variety of situations. It's impossible to run a generic control deck or even netdeck one without tuning 5 to 8 cards (sideboard included). LSV himself tuned Neeman's list from Worlds (4th mainboard Day for example). I tuned Neeman's list for a meta I would expect at PTQs and tinkered around with some experimental cards that worked well for me when I was testing Flare (Blade Splicers, Azure Mage, Mirran Crusaders and Mimic Vat). I can tell you that the deck is extremely vulnerable to non-traditional (read non-creature) threats, namely Shrine of Burning Rage and PWs. The deck suffers enormously while being on the draw versus on the play against any aggro/mid range deck. LSV ran into to some major trouble against a Sorin Markov in his Gauntlet series and I can tell you right now that the deck cannot let a Garruk/Elspeth resolve. You're only interaction with PWs post resolution pre-board is one of 2 O-rings. Same goes for Shrine. Same goes for Mana Barbs.
Right now, I want to remove the Think Twices (for Divination/Azure Mage/BlueSZ), or maybe go the 4-2 FA-TT split over 3-3 that both LSV and Neeman is running. Then I want to do something about the creature base, Wurmcoils need to be in that deck.
In either case, if you watched LSV's videos, you notice he was really excited about the deck when he starts introducing it and noticeably less so at the end of his Gauntlet series, that should tell you all you need to know about control in the current meta.
Lastly, the reason I was shitting on your list Shotcoder is because you got defensive while proving nothing in that little rant of yours. I got no problem with criticism, but you better bring more than the "no experience", "better pilot" crap that every scrubby (in the literal definition of the word) player online likes to spew out.
Edit:
@Slyboogie
You can't O-Ring lands. If you could, I would have been all over that in Modern. Knight of Reliquary/BBElf/Land Destruction, yes please.
|
I know. You should re-read what I wrote in a different tone. Cause you can't doom blade facing township either.
|
On December 27 2011 10:54 slyboogie wrote:
I know. You should re-read what I wrote in a different tone. Cause you can't doom blade facing township either.
Sorry, just saw o-ring lands, it's a common mistake for players 
|
I guess my opinion of ghost quarter is kind of skewed when every player I faced that ran them used it way too early. I need to play against better control players...
I really should start playing control but I always have such a hard time with mana base building for control decks since I pretty much only play aggro/midrange decks. Anyone got advice for that?
|
On December 27 2011 12:37 dignity wrote:
I guess my opinion of ghost quarter is kind of skewed when every player I faced that ran them used it way too early. I need to play against better control players...
I really should start playing control but I always have such a hard time with mana base building for control decks since I pretty much only play aggro/midrange decks. Anyone got advice for that?
So for you first comment, consider that every powerful deck in our current meta has an Innistrad land as a backbone. GW thrives with a Gavony in play. UW and Illusions will have far more threats than you have answers with a Moorland Haunt. Wolf Run Ramp plays it's namesake. And to a lesser extent, UB Control uses Drownyard as a totally graceful win condition. But those lands don't really come into play until the midgame or when the early game is fading. Ghost Quarter is your answer. Is it the perfect answer? No. Is it the best one we have? Yeah, probably.
That being said, all this talk of Esper and Grixis Control..I just don't think there's the mana base to support it. Grixis looks a little better because of the nature of red spells but it isn't that much better. U/B and U/W can definitely run...2? Maybe 3? Ghost Quarters without too much problem.
|
Sorry Judicatory, I'm not going to argue, I've just done testing and the majority of decks I tend to lose to are mono black infect which just out race you, see a lot of play in my area, and conveniently dodge doom blade. Which is why I have the side board throats. Also I'm leaning toward the second wsz and 4th day in the main while siding artifact removal for things like shrine. But I don't think it's greedy hitting a grave Titan on turn 10 with this mana base. Black sun yea probably, I'll admit to that. I just hate people that spew shit like you did in the first post. I'm also willing to take criticism but it's tough when you post it like you did.
Also about ghost quarter, the deck needs 3 in some combination of board or main.
I also don't know how I feel about dropping think twice. I like the ability to draw whenever I need to and alchemy gets worse as the game goes on.
I'm coming off of playing haunted humans and Mage blade which don't have the issues this deck has. I'm trying to branch out my skill set from the stereotypical aggro and mid range player to a more all round player with some control experience. Decks like this make me really miss jace beleren.
Just a little background on te meta game in my area. Mono black infect, illusions, haunted humans, wolf run, and uw control are almost the only decks I see. Tempered steel had it's moment and so did solar flare but those are few and far between now. And mono red fluctuates depending on who shows up.
So to kinda offer a peace what do you suggest besides removing the greediness of grave Titan and black sun? Dismember is probably the correct choice over throats but what's wrong with flash freeze? I'm also ot a fan of what lsv did with sun Titan and image out of the side. Images for thrun make sense but the sun Titan seems greed to me. Ok maybe image instead of flash freeze is correct then?
Edit: 3 color decks are certainly viable. There are time you get things like a doom blade stuck in hand for a turn or two but with correct mulligans and playing lands in the correct order you can fix a lot of the negatives.
|
Turn or 2? Dude. You're dead if you have a card you can't cast because you can't conjure up a Darkslick Shore. That's not okay for a control deck. And you can't squeeze those 3(!) GQs into a manabase like that and get away with it over 6 or 7 rounds. I haven't made a spreadsheet or anything, and 3 color control might be fine, but I don't feel good about it.
In regards to your MBI problem, just play Dismember for Crusader and Gut Shot for the other stuff. Disperse is okay too, not great.
|
Getting to Grave Titan on 10 is for what? Why throw in a BB card for no reason which nets you relatively nothing? It's not that Grave Titan is bad, but you have to look at the card and think about what it does and what you need it to do. No, winning the game is not a legit answer to that question, there are numerous 6 drops that win you the game without messing up your mana base and costing you consistency. Sun Titan and Image is lackluster out of the board, there are literally 0 match ups where I was like let me bring both in. Sun Titan is infinitely better after board and only after board. The image, I am not so sure about, maybe in a control mirror where I know for sure they're running Sphinxes and/or Wurmcoils.
If you're losing to MBI, GftT is not the answer. You're blanking yourself to Inkmoth which is a bigger problem than anything else. MBI shouldn't outrace you, it's not a race deck as much as people like to think it is.
MBI/Wolfrun you really should not have issues with, it's like 6-4 in your favor right now provided you know how to play the match ups. MBI is closer to 8-2, that deck isn't a real deck at this point. Wolfrun is only hard if they let them resolve PWs. Play around Veil and letting them resolve Titan isn't a big deal, not with the GQs in your library.
Illusions/Red, you need to tempo them by killing their 1-drops. I am using Gut Shots out of the board right now just for that reason. The game is much easier when they don't have a legitimate clock from 1. It's like 9-1 in my favor if they don't have a legit 1 drop (Ponder doesn't count), its like 3-7 in theirs if they have anything. Then I am stuck behind them permanently and all the Think Twices and Alchemies are like dead cards if you have your Leaks in your hand for for the first 3 turns.
Humans, keep them off of PWs and just Wrath the board, don't be scared of trading your Snapcasters as removal. Pretty much they shouldn't kill you unless you kept a weak hand. Much easier to handle than the others.
I have no clue which version of UW control, but from messing around the deck, both PV's version and Martell's actual list, it feels like a miserable match up.
And for the people who still don't have a clue why running a bunch of double colored costing cards in standard in 3 colors is terrible...shuffle 26-28 lands of an Esper deck's manabase...now draw 3 of them...go look at your deck list and think what you can play and how many cards are blanked...now draw 2 more lands...go look at your deck list and think what is blanked.
Edit:
I have no idea where you get the idea a turn or 2 is ok for any deck, understand that you have done 0 effective plays in those 2 turns and your opponent is clocking you. Those turns are time walks for the opponent (look up Time Walk) for free at no cost in any kind of resources for them.
Better yet, think about your lines of play when you are on the draw versus when you are on the play. If you cannot grasp this, then you need to play a lot more and think about these things before you attempt to do any kind of tweaking to any deck.
Edit 2:
@slyboogie, you actually can if you treat GQs as spells and not lands. I am at 28 lands right now with 4 GQs (kind of cheating) with a very mild splash into Black. I like Neeman's/Durward's approach to the diversity problem for control, it works even though it doesn't look like it should. There have been other posts on Esper control in this thread earlier by others. The GQs should NOT be breaking the mana base.
Edit 3:
On December 27 2011 12:37 dignity wrote:
I guess my opinion of ghost quarter is kind of skewed when every player I faced that ran them used it way too early. I need to play against better control players...
I really should start playing control but I always have such a hard time with mana base building for control decks since I pretty much only play aggro/midrange decks. Anyone got advice for that?
Think about cards that you would want to cast on turn X consistently. Then castable cards on turn Y. I think about it in that way. You can read Shuhei Nakamura's article on Channelfireball about his 4 color control in modern (basically a teachings deck) that he played at worlds. In particular, how he wanted his mana base to assemble was very important in his land distribution. Obviously the manabase in Modern is infinitely better than T2 right now, but the concept is the same.
|
Hrm, that's interesting. It's not dissimilar to the Pristine Amulet concept, where you have a colorless mana source that provides a powerful effect. I'm at 27 lands with 4 Ghost Quarters that's just U/W though. For the Pristine players, I'd be panicked by the potential flood.
Most interesting control shift in the last month? Snapcaster Mage! I'm down to 2 and I'm seriously considering cutting even further down. If a really nice instant speed draw spell is printed, he'll storm back with a fury, but I don't run Ponder at the moment and I don't think the current U/W Shell is home for him. I just want to flashback Cruel Ultimatum with him in Modern. Mmmmmmm.
U/W Control is in a funny place at the moment. People are just so ready for WSZ, smart players never get too cute. But it seems to be the best win condition, or at least a very reliable one. Still, nothing like playing a U/W Humans player in game two and thinking: "Did this asshole board in Day? He did. This asshole plays Day in the board. Asshole."
|
Uw control you can flood all you want. They run 2 Karns and handful of Zeniths. The deck doesnt want Snapcasters because of a serious lack of legitimate targets.
|
That's what I mean about Snapcaster Mage, at least. Two months ago, people were shoving four of him into every blue deck like he was Mana Leak, which he only sort of is. Of course, he's wonderful but I don't think he's the best creature ever printed - at least not yet. Though by his very nature, he can really only grows more powerful in Legacy and Modern with every passing release.
|
He's certainly powerful. That 2 power isn't anything to scoff at either. I'd say he is about as good as Bob which is powerful enough.
|
They need to stop asking players to make cards...
We got Bob, Snappy, Crucible of worlds, etc etc.
|
Ranger of Eos, Solemn Simulacrum and Meddling Mage are nice, too. Dunno the other ones. They must be bad...stupid players >_>
|
I know u/w control isn't exactly super popular in modern atm, but what should someone run if he really wanted?
|
Mana leak, dissipate, white sun, Gideon, day of judgment, elspeth, jace, oblivion ring, timely reinforcements, elesh norn, sun Titan, phantasmal images, frost titan.
I'm not a huge fan of the deck right now so I'll let sly and judicator flesh out the list and give you numbers. In all reality I think it's dependent on wha version you want to run too. Because karn, venser, and tumble magnet are also options.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
