Esper Tournament Report #2

Simply amazing.

Hey guys, it's GuitarSlam.

So after a few Wednesdays of being really busy, I was finally able to go to my local Standard tournament yesterday.  I had initially decided to run my exact same build of Esper that I had been posting about, but when I got to the store my friend decided that he wanted to trade in some stuff from his binder for store credit, so I figured that I would do the same.  A lot of the stuff was from last format and I really don't need my excess shock lands right now, so I traded in nearly my entire binder (which wasn't very big, honestly) and got $109 in store credit!  With that I bought an Elspeth, Sun's Champion, 3 Temple of Silences, 4 Temple of Deceits, 2 Hero's Downfall, and 2 Glare of Heresys.  For not spending any money of my own, I think I made out pretty well :D

I wish I could tell you guys exactly the changes that I made, but I'm at school right now (meaning I don't have my deck with me) and I really can't remember, so I'll make an update soon as a follow-up post.  I made a few changes after the tournament anyway based on what happened during the night, so when I post my next build it'll be what I'm running currently.  So without further talk, here's how my tournament went.

Round 1: Esper Control v. Golgari Aggro

My opponent told me that he was letting his friend (who was playing next to me, conveniently) borrow his
Selesnya Aggro deck so he made up Golgari Aggro for the tournament.  It doesn't go as over the top on mana curve like Selesnya does (who can compete with Loxodon Smiter and Fleecemane Lion anyway?) but it runs a lot of spot removal to clear the way for its creatures.

Game 1: He mulligans down to five and I open with a Supreme Verdict.  Pretty anti-climatic start to this tournament.

Game 2: He keeps and starts out very aggressive with a Dryad Militant.  I play the game of "dig for the Verdict" but I was never able to get one.  He ended up over extending his board and told me, "If you have it, you win," but I wasn't able to draw a Wrath.  He killed me the next turn.

Game 3: This was a good back and fourth game where I played Verdict on turn 4 but he was able to mount a solid comeback.  I had to start relying on my spot removal (which I was running extra of this week) but we were both low on threats late in the game.  I have an Aetherling on the field.  He has a Polukranos, World Eater (tapped) and a Kalonian Hydra (untapped) with 4 +1/+1 counters on it.  I have 6 life and he has 12.  On my turn I draw another Aetherling.
I figure that my only plan is to attack with Aetherling, get him down to 8, play my Aetherling with the intention of blocking his Hydra, and play Away on his turn (assuming that he will sac Polukranos).  When I attack he decided to block my Aetherling with Kalonian Hydra, causing it to be just a chump block (as Aetherling is a 4/5).  I'm not sure if he forgot what Aetherling's toughness is or what, but I was really surprised by this block.  I played my Aetherling and he ended up conceding on his turn.

1-0

Round 2: Esper Control v. Big Naya

This is the same opponent that I played in round 1 of my last tournament report.  I wasn't sure if he was still going to be playing Junk, but obviously he had switched.  We actually started talking about the NFL while shuffling up, which was pretty cool and fairly unexpected.

Game 1: I just drew land after land and he played plenty of good and efficient Naya creatures.  He demolished me.

Game 2: I was able to Wrath and use spot removal on all of his early creatures, so I began feeling pretty good about my chances.  We were getting later in the game, he was low on resources, and I had plenty of lands.  He then played a Xenagos which made a hasty Satyr and hit me for 2.  I figured that it was alright when I drew  Jace, Architect of Thought next turn, played it, used his +1, and ended.  I didn't expect him to then play a Purphoros, God of the Forge.  He played a Satyr, dealt 2 to Jace, hit Jace for 2 more (1 for each token), and ended.  This wasn't looking good.  I drew a Doom Blade which really didn't help me that much.  Next turn he made another token, shocked Jace, played a Goblin Wardriver, killed Jace with Purphoros, played a Boros Wreckoner, shocking me, and attacked.  There really wasn't anything that I could do.  He just overwhelmed me with a Planeswalker and an Indestructable Creature that I couldn't deal with.  I didn't expect this deck coming into the night at all, but it was really cool to see.

1-1.

Round 3: Esper Control v. Jund Aggro

I had never seen this guy before and it turned out that it was only his second tournament at this store too.  He was a really nice guy and we had some genuine laughs when we got talking about our experiences at other tournaments.  His version of Jund Aggro focused on abusing Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and creatures with +1/+1 counters.

Game 1: I Wrathed him twice and played a Blood Baron after that.  Needless to say, I won.

Game 2: He ended up having a very fast start, filling up the board with around five or six creatures, a Domri, and a Chandra.  I never drew a way to remove his planeswalkers but I was able to stabilize with one of my own; Elspeth, Sun's Champion.  Her +1 was amazing.  Even though she never got to ultimate (despite me using her +1 ability close to 8 times) because of Chandra pinging her every turn, the fact that I created so many blockers allowed me to find time to draw a Sphinx's Revelation and thus, find an Aetherling and win.  Without Elspeth stalling for time, I would've certainly lost that game.

2-1

Round 4: Esper Control v. BRW Control

I never expected to see this deck at all and even if I did, I wouldn't have expected to see all of the cards that
he was playing.  It was a removal heavy deck full of Doom Blades, Hero's Downfalls, Dreadbores, and Mizzium Mortars that played Blood Barons, Obzedats, Stormbreath Dragons, Desecration Demons, and, as you'll see, an extremely powerful 1 copy of Aurelia, the Warleader.

Game 1: We were trading removal back and fourth for a while until he was able to resolve a Whip of Erebos.  Other than Detention Sphere I didn't have any main decked answers against that and, naturally, I never drew a D Sphere.  He was able to generate so much advantage from that Whip that I eventually lost despite having a very powerful hand throughout most of the game.  I'm able to kill his creatures once but it's impossible for me to have enough removal to kill them all twice.

Game 2: I Thoughtseized him early and saw that he kept a top heavy, land light hand.  I had a decent hand and figured that as long as I was able to disrupt his plays and play around the Rakdos's Return that he had (I had to take a Slaughter Games with Thoughtseize) that I would be fine.  He drew plenty lands in his next few draw steps, including 2 scry lands, and ended up playing an Aurelia on his sixth turn with a Desecration Demon already on the battlefield.  I would've been able to answer the Desecration Demon in the following turns and had thought that there was no way that he was going to kill me out of nowhere.  Oh, how wrong I was.  He slammed that Aurelia, hit me for 9, untapped his creatures, and did it again, killing me.  Wow.  I did not see that coming.  I liked his list a lot looking back at it, but I definitely didn't think I would be playing against that during my time at the tournament.

2-2

Another average 2-2 finish.  My deck performed well overall but what I realized was the power of non-creature threats against me.  Other than 2 Hero's Downfalls and 2 Detention Spheres I had absolutely no way to deal with Planeswalkers and against Gods and their weapons I only had the D Spheres to help.  I never really worried about creatures during the night; between Supreme Verdict and my plethora of removal spells, I never felt like I was in danger of getting overrun (that only happened once).  What I need was more defense against these non-creature permanents, which is why after the tournament ended I went and picked up 2 more D Spheres.  They seem like the only thing that can really help me in this situation so I'm going to try main decking the full 4 and see how that goes.  Even if I don't like 4, I can always do a 3-1 split between the main and side.

I'll be posting up my updated deck list soon after I finalize all of my changes.  If you guys have any comments about my matches or want to discuss your own experience at tournaments, please leave a comment!  I always enjoy hearing what you guys have to say :)

See you guys later.