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BMoor's Magic
The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Eternal Esperzoa
March 1, 2010
Hello good day Sir!
I've been wanting you to review my deck. Well, this might be
a little too late since we are now in WWK block but please
do help.
The deck is focused on the synergies with Esperzoa, hence
the name. The deck looks like this.
Lands
2 Arcane Sanctum
6 Island
4 Plains
4 Swamp
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Mistvein Borderpost
Creatures
4 Etherium Sculptor
4 Esperzoa
3 Ethersworn Shieldmage
3 Glaze Fiend
3 Parasitic Strix
3 Sanctum Gargoyle
2 Glassdust Hulk
Other spells
2 Sleep
2 Kaleidostone
2 Thopter Foundry
4 Doom Blade
4 Negate
There you go. So maybe it was working nicely for quite a
long time, but it still lacks power to finish the enemy. And
long games are a problem too, not to mention it also does
not perform well in 2-headed games. I really can't decide
whether to stay midrange or go aggro or go control. In terms
of aggro, I actually don't want mine to be a replica of the
famous Esper Stoneblade that placed 8th in Honolulu
Pro-tour. In terms of control, I don't wanna use Master
Transmuter.
Please help!!!
So here are my conditions. The revisions and card
additions...please keep it standard at least, because I have
a difficulty looking for older cards. Also, my casual group
includes these deck archetypes : Orzhov Control, MonoW Life
Gain, UW Control, Boros Wins, RG Zoo, MonoG Elf Tribal, RB
Pinger, MonoR Chandra.
Thank you very much Sir! Hoping for your quick reply!!
- Muchi
Well, Muchi, you say that the decks lacks power, runs out of
gas in long games, and can't handle two-headed matches? It
sounds to me like you definitely need to make some major
corrections to your play style, which means abandoning the
midrange tack. We'll switch to control, since you
wanted to avoid becoming an Esper Stoneblade clone, and I'm
better at building control decks with Esper anyway.
Now, the trick with control is that you want to build up
lots of incremental advantages over your opponent. Eke out
that little extra wherever you can, and wait for the other
guy to run out of steam, before progressing to your
inevitable victory. Using Kaleidostone in concert with
Esperzoa is useful here, since you get to draw two cards a
turn while your opponent draws one. Since it's common for
players to "trade" during matches (not literally-- in this
case, "trading" means using one of your cards to kill or
counter one of your opponent's cards) drawing extra cards
gives you an advantage.
Kaleidostone is a useful tool to do that with, but you
should also add Everflowing Chalice. Why? Well, not only is
it good for ramping your mana, it's also a 0-cost artifact.
You can bounce it to your hand and replay it for free, if
you don't need it to tap for mana anymore. Or, if you
dropped it on turn two with one counter, and now you have
more mana and an Etherium Sculptor or two, you can bounce it
with the Esperzoa and replay it to increase the charge
counters. Remember, you can then tap it immediately after
playing it if you have other spells to cast that turn.
Another card that works well with Esperzoa is Faerie
Mechanist. Not as easy to cast turn after turn as
Kaleidostone or the Chalice could be, but you get to Ponder
for an artifact when it comes into play. Even without a way
to repeatedly bounce and replay it, that's a very big
advantage-- a 2/2 flier and another artifact of your choice
in your hand. Since we're running this as a control deck,
the Mechanist can replace Glaze Fiend.
It's also important to have the right card for the job, and
luckliy there's a card in Standard that can ensure you have
the right card for the job. Take out one copy each of any
four cards you choose that you already have four of, and add
in a playset of Fabricate. With Fabricate, you no longer
need to run 4x any artifact, since the reduced odds of
drawing the card are mitigated by the fact that if you draw
a Fabricate you can go get the card.
Note that this doesn't apply to Borderposts, since you'll
likely need them before you can cast a Fabricate. Or to
Etherium Sculptor, because its effect stacks and you might
enjoy actually having four.
Speaking of what to remove, I'd suggest Sleep, since we're
no longer really concerned with alpha strikes, and Parasitic
Strix, since we've got Faerie Mechanist filling the role of
artifact creature with ETB ability.
Finally, you probably want some sort of crippling
super-play, the kind that if it resolves will devastate your
opponent. Most Sphinxes of Esper qualify, especially Sphinx
of the Steel Wind or Sharuum the Hegemon. Enigma Sphinx can
gain you a much subtler advantage, as not only does it get
you a second spell right out of your deck, if it dies it can
be re-drawn into, and recast, for a... second second spell.
If you're not interested in Sphinxes, you could also try
Open the Vaults, to immediately replay every artifact in
your graveyard. Sure, your opponent may benefit too, but not
nearly as much as you will!
Good luck!
~BMoor
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