ESPER WISHBONE BO1

Deck Record

LADDER Platinum:  34-15 

LADDER Mythic: 12-8

PREFACE

I had been fiddling around with Esper control shells for awhile, but was getting trounced by mono-red and rakdos sac.  I went with a Jeskai control build to pull me through Gold on the Ladder, which just didn't hold up against control mirrors in Diamond.  I switched back to Temur Rec to get through diamond, then decided to give this deck a shot at Platinum.  After a total of 50 matches, I managed to hit Mythic for the first time ever using only this deck in Best of One!

To boot, I also made some changes to my sideboard during this run, mostly due to my not reading the text on Fae of Wishes.  I went to pull a Thassa out of the sideboard ftw and realized that we can only grab non-creatures.  I dumped some incorrect sideboard cards, and tried to keep it mostly to low-cost utility stuff that can get you out of a pinch fast.  Lo and behold, my winrate with my first sideboard was 55%, second round of sideboard 63%, and this round 85% (17-3).  I'm sure most of this is due to just getting better at piloting the deck, but the sideboard stuff does matter in more games than you'd think.  The low-cost utility cards have saved me in quite a few games.  Being able to tutor up an Elderspell or Duress, or in a longer match Thought Collapse or Nicol Bolas, Dragon God feels really powerful, especially in BO1.

Fae of Wishes is the MVP of the deck.  It seems to be a large enough body to act as a great blocker against aggro decks right now as well.  Since mono-red right now is a Cavalcade of Calamity build with a lot of Scorch Spitter and Fervent Champion, the body shuts down your opponent's ability to attack.  It is also out of range of Shock and Scorching Dragonfire.  At best, you'll be trading the Fae for a creature and a spell with a deck that can generate much more card advantage than aggro.

This deck was supposed to be an experiment in sideboarding.  I feel that black has some of the best focused answers in the format, and I wanted to test out my ability to find the right one at any given time.

CURVE

I came to realize this is such a useful card, that we should have one copy in the maindeck.  Almost every deck has at least one card you'd like to exile, and many decks you just want to dump their whole graveyard.  I've also used this to set up a killer ultimate with Ashiok, Nightmare Muse.  Worst case scenario, you can just sac this at instant speed for 1 to draw a card, which is similar value to a 2 mana cycler like Wilt that decks are running in main's not to combat ECD and Wilderness Reclamation.

One copy of disenchant should be sufficient to allow us to survive against Temur rec or a control mirror until we are capable of casting more expensive answers to enchantments.  Casket is a good cheap removal spell for things you'd prefer to exile, like Anax, Hardened in the Forge or Grim Initiate.  Additionally, it takes care of those pesky flying shark tokens, and you can flicker it with Yorion to snag another one.

Thought Erasure took me awhile to understand how to use.  Late game, it's wonderful for dumping your opponent's most powerful spell, but early game it's better used to ensure that you don't lose a tempo race.  If you can cast this on 2 and guarantee that your opponent can't cast a card on the next turn, always do it!  Well... almost always, sometimes you have to dump a wincon.  With an extra turn, though, you can use cards like Omen of the Sea to find an answer for the card you know they are going to play next. 

This is where we get into some brain-games.  If there is a land available with the surveil or the scry, I will often try to leave it on-top.  Leaving 1 card on top with the Omen or Surveil after you've seen the opponents hand can make them think you found the answer to their threat, and are comfortably waiting to destroy their gameplan.  Often they will play around this by casting cheaper cards, or holing their threat, which just buys you more time to actually find an answer.

Six counterspells seems to be enough in most matchups.  You have to get lucky against Temur Rec, but that deck is just a teir one, super powerful, come out of nowhere and finish you kind of deck.  I generally try to play with a blue and a white open to bluff Dovin's Veto at all times.  The Dispute is great to keep in an opening hand if you see your opponent is playing Yorion as well.  It also helps us that many of the Esper control lists are playing no countermagic, so sometimes folks will just tap out expecting all of your answers to be reactive.

Gain 3 life, and deal 3 to any target for 3 is a great deal.  Obviously great to flicker with Yorion.  3-of seems fine, it's nice to have in play as an option to flicker or bounce & recast with Teferi, but drawing into 4 of these doesn't feel like it's going to win us any games.

I started with 4 Shatter's in this deck, but there are quite a few times when you would rather use Extinction Event.  Both generally get the job done, but being able to use leave your token creatures on the board, or your Yorion alive has been really useful.  Additionally, we may have access to our opponent's Exiled cards with Ashiok at some point.  Extinction is great vs mono-red; it's easier to cast than Shatter, and you can get rid of all their 1-drops & Anax at the same time without the card draw or a sea of 1/1 tokens.

Not much to say here; we all know this card is good.  Don't feel to bad about (-)ing your walkers into the yard if it benefit's your position, sometime's it's a better play as you can bring it back with an extra loyalty counter.  Same goes for shatter the sky with Yorion in play.

The main walker suite here is our classic Teferi Narset lockout package.  Narset creates insane card advantage, and Teferi let's us comfortably cast our spells against control mirrors.  This is the first deck I've played a full suite of Ashiok in, and I love it.  The Ult is not hard to reach, and it feels awesome.  Whether they exile their own cards through escape, or we do it ourselves, the prevalance and necessity of exile effects in the format really play into this Ashiok walker.  Three free spells is pretty difficult to overcome, especially if it's your opponent's best three spells.  This is the most fun wincon I've ever played; casting a Nissa, Vraska, and Casualties of War without spending cards or mana is a blast.

Kaya is a great one-of that can gain us some life while exiling dangerous graveyard cards, and powering up our Ashiok ult.  I've both won, and saved myself in a few games with her (-) as well.  I think she may be good enough to put an extra copy in the sideboard, although I generally will grab the Soul-Guide lantern first.  Liliana is another one-of that can run away with the game.  We tend to lack hand refills late in the game, Liliana can act as a great threat as well as let us pull away with card advantage.

I outlined in the preface why I think this card is great.  This card has both saved me from terrible situations, grabbed that perfect card to take me way ahead, and also just acted as a great 2-drop flying defensive creature to pull me through a Scorch Spitter onslaught.  Being able to pull sideboard cards into BO1 games can really give you an edge.  I originally thought this was going to be a deck to test for BO3, but I think I prefer to stay in BO1 and have an answer for every deck.  It is a lot of fun to be able to flip the switch on opponents in a grindy matchup by tutoring up the perfect card.

SIDEBOARD

Mostly this is a collection of value answers like The Elderspell, another copy of Soul-Guide Lantern and Duress.  Additionally there are some expensive spells that really take over the game like Thought Distortion, or Nicol Bolas, Dragon God.  I keep Shark Typhoon in here in case I find myself playing against a deck missing white or green; Black, blue, and red have a lot of trouble removing enchantments from the board, and this is a hard-castable card if you find yourself in a late-game against rakdos, grixis, izzet, or dimir (watch out for Thought Erasure with the last one, though).

I think I'd like a copy of Ugin, the Ineffable in here, but I am hesitant to waste a wildcard crafting anything that will rotate out of standard soon.  Please let me know if you have sideboard suggestions!

I may have to condense this a bit and try to make a BO3 board and see how the deck fares in a traditional format, but for right now I may see where this gets me to in Mythic BO1!  Pumped to have finally made it!

UPDATES

As the new set is about to drop, it doesn't seem worth updating the decklist or making a new one for Mythic.  You tend to see a bit more focused meta here it seems so I swapped in some Duress, Birth of Melitis, and a Chemister's insight (seeing a few discard decks running around).  Still a 60% winrate right now.  Not sure how the rankings work as I seem to be going down even as I win games.  I guess everybody is grinding for the last couple days of Ladder.  Can't wait to get into the M21 cards!