Esper Discussion - Extra Speed?

Necessary?

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

I wanted to talk about some of the changes that I'm thinking of making to Esper today.  The one thing that I noticed during the tournament that I played in last week was that the deck was at the mercy of topdecks a lot of the time.  Often, if I needed to find a Supreme Verdict it was up to the top of my deck to just produce one.  Sure, I could Sphinx's Rev for one, but that didn't happen often or I could use Jace's -2 to search, but again, that didn't seem to happening all of the time.  I felt like I was a little bit weak against creatures, which is the opposite of what the theory behind this deck is.  With plenty of sweapers and some spot removal, I shouldn't feel that terrible against aggro, but if you don't draw the necessary cards, it doesn't matter what you've got in your deck.

So that's what got me thinking about extra draw.  If I have some more draw power in this deck, I would have a better chance of finding the cards that I'm looking for.  Honestly, what I've really learned from this format so far is how amazing Think Twice is.  I took it for granted last format to have 4 draw spells in my deck that I could cycle early and then cycle again at any point that it was convenient for me to do so.  That's what my current Esper deck is begging for: Think Twice.  Of course, that's no longer an option for Standard, so what other options are there that I could use?

Draw Options:

1. Divination
2. Quicken
3. Read the Bones

 Maybe there are others, but I can't think of them right now.  Regardless, these three should provide a stable place to start looking at draw cards.

Divination: Not flashy, but simple and effective. 2U - Draw 2.  It gets the job done.

Quicken: Only draws one card (so, effectively, it just cycles itself) for U but it does have the added benefit of letting me cast a sorcery at instant speed.  The real advantage to this would be being able to play Supreme Verdict on my opponent's turn, allowing me to untap into a clear board, letting me use my mana better or hold up counter magic to their next play.

Read the Bones: Black divination with a couple tweaks.  2B - Scry 2, draw 2, and then lose 2 life.  A little bit worse against hyper aggro decks than Divination is due to the life loss, but the Scry 2 seems to make up for it.  In my opinion, this is strictly better than Divination because of the scry.  Yes, sometimes 2 life matters against Mono Red but I'm willing to take that chance to play a better card.

Looking at these, it seems obvious that I should be playing Read the Bones.  I really do like Quicken, so maybe I could fit it in as a 1 of to test it out.  It can't be that bad, even if I'm just cycling it.  Regardless of Quicken, I want to fit in 3 Read the Bones.  So I'm looking for at least 3 (and maybe 4) cards to take out of the deck for them... possibilities include:

1. Omenspeaker
2. Obzedat
3. Syncopate

I have to test Omenspeaker a little bit more before I decide how many to take out.  It was an alright card last week, helping me sometimes and being a bit underwhelming others.  Now take that with a grain of salt because I never played against aggro, so she may prove her worth later, but for now I'm considering dropping at least one of her.  Looking at it like this, the first way I think I'll try changing the deck around is:

-2 Omenspeaker
-1 Obzedat
-1 Syncopate

+3 Read the Bones
+1 Quicken

I'll test the Quicken out over 1 Syncopate and see how much I miss the counterspell.  Obzedat wasn't bad and maybe he should be in the sideboard, but his mana requirements were a little but clunky and both Blood Baron and Aetherling were better.  For now, this is what I'll go with.

Last Note: I do plan on making a list up for a budget GR Ramp deck soon.  My friend wants to make the deck but doesn't want to spend too much money, so I'll be posting that list here.  That should go up in a couple days, so if you're interested in that keep yourself updated :)

See you guys later.