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Sep 4, 2012 -- 7:07PM, Burning_Forest wrote:

pretty much the one good thing going for UB is a good delver matchup.  the zombies matchup is bad at best i think and birds decks are difficult since they have SOOO many things to play.

Got to agree on the Zombies match up not being pleasant but it is winnable, bassically you struggle if they get turn 3 Messenger, but that's why you run mana leak, obviously a cavern with it truly sucks but how often will they have cavern and messenger for turn 3, run the odds, it's probably the worst matchup but my win rate against it is probably better than 50/50, it may be that I haven't played the best list of it or the best player though. I only came up against it once at the ptqs I played and I steamrolled it 2-0 with relatively easy games, I perhaps lucked out.

I don't agree on the birds decks, Curse is so good in that MU, it turns off around a third of their non-lands, add to that the power of BSZ against them and well, it's not a bad MU at all, though if they get a turn 2 thalia it's very hard to recover (note she's normally in the board and normally not as a 4-of afaik). They've mostly stopped running strangleroot geist which helps us a lot, I'd say it's a better MU than delver, but I am going only from my own experience,.

All of this is getting quite irrelevent now as rotation approaches and UB is dead untill Gatecrash IMO, the mana for it will just suck compared to other combinations and there are so many good cards in red that the idea is a little silly, looking at all the colour fixing it will almost certainly be right for control to be at least 3 colour now.

Sep 6, 2012 -- 3:50AM, CyrusBales wrote:

Nothing can be countered anymore, so counterspells are pretty much dead. Threats and removal and memoricide all go right on through a counterwall. This annoys me since it will be impacting on modern soon.

Anyway Richard, your sample size is pretty small for your results, as it's just a couple of PTQ's. I've had streaks in testing where I've beaten RB zombies 6 times in a row with Delver, but I know in the larger picture, it's an unfavourable match up.

I tested the deck before taking it to the ptqs... But you're right I could well be basing my opinion on too small a sample.

All of this is now quite irrelevent though.

(I won't comment on the other point as this is a standard forum and I'm not a modern player yet anyway).

Sep 7, 2012 -- 7:27PM, StyleRipper wrote:

Set up my Esper Control deck to be standard when Scars block leaves, and it seems to be doing well against other aggro decks that are set up the same way.  Took out a lot of the permission cards and replaced them with removal.  Is Esper Control still too slow to be effective in standard?  The reason I ask is because I don't play too much at all in tournaments, but as much as possible I try to play with a competitive deck in case I do ever get the chance to play in a tournament.

There have been some espyr lists being played recently, I haven't played one myself since February so can't comment that much on how they stack up, I don't think taking out all the permission is the way to go but we'll have to see how the new meta shapes up, it may be that permission can't be used for some reason, it may be that 10 counterspells.dec will be the way to go (I doubt it but I'd love it, I think 5 is a more realistic number),  a deck with no RTR cards in probably won't be good enough though.

I see what you all mean.  Thanks for the input.  Definitely excited to see what RtR has in store for control decks, since aggro has been dominant lately.  Just hoping control can stay competitive, it's always been my style of playing.

As for my Esper Control deck, I'm only running about 5 permission cards (2 Negate s and 3 Dissipate s) and it seems to be enough.  My biggest concerns are late game Bonfire of the Damned and Devil's Play along with any Planeswalkers that might wanna resolve.  Running 4 Tragic Slip s along with 2 Tribute to Hunger s and 3 Liliana of the Veil s for either removal or discard.  Not a lot of decks can discard from the hand and still be effective like Esper Control.  Do people sideboard Grafdigger's Cage or the artifact that exiles graveyards?  That could be a problem for this deck.

Sep 12, 2012 -- 3:27PM, Burning_Forest wrote:

esper will be basically unplayable after rotation since it will only have 1 guild to draw power from.  you've better off switching to UWR or just going straight UW.

besides, apart from lingering souls, there aren't any black cards worth playing in a UW/x shell. 

Disagreed,  even with the Azorius gold cards, there are still plenty of mono colored and hybrid cards to use- and pretty good ones at that.