Hello everyone, this is a great time for Arizona Magic, with the conclusion of last week’s Grand Prix Phoenix clocking in at 1461 people. This will be the largest Magic event that Phoenix has ever seen. Having lived here since August of 2006, I am immensely proud of the AZ Magic scene to pull in this amount of people. I have been testing for this GP for a few hours now, and aside from playing a few odd ball decks (which I will be talking about) I’m 100% sold on Esper Control as it’s been the deck I’m most familiar with as well as the deck that I’ve played the most in this format. For the PTQ that was at ManaWerx I was playing Mono Blue Devotion and wished the entire time that I was playing Esper Control, after 2 rounds of either missing a large amount of land drops or never casting spells I decided to give in to my fate and dropped from the tournament. This decision had allowed me to complete my Level 1 Judge test.
The Esper deck that I am going to be playing in the main event I have been working on with help from a few friends. To get things started, this is the list I’ve been working with:
| Creatures (1) 1 AEtherling Spells (33) 2 Thoughtseize 1 Doom Blade 2 Syncopate 4 Jace, Architect of Thought 4 Dissolve 1 Negate 4 Detention Sphere 4 Sphinx’s Revelation 4 Supreme Verdict 3 Elsepth Sun’s Champion 2 Last Breath 2 Celestial Flare Lands (27) 4 Plains 3 Island 3 Mutavault 4 Temple of Deceit 4 Temple of Silence 4 Temple of Enlightenment 4 Hallowed Fountain 1 Watery Grave | Sideboard (15) 2 Pithing Needlde 1 Dispel 1 Negate 1 Gainsay 1 revoke Eistence 2 Blind Obedience 2 Fiendslayer Paladin 1 Duress 1 Thoughtseize 2 Dark Betrayal 1 Doom Blade |
Some of the numbers might be a little strange, Celestial Flare allows for some pretty neat tricks in combat. If an opponent attacks with a Mutavault and a God for instance, you can block the Mutavault with your own, chump block the God, and after damage has been dealt but before leaving combat you can cast Flare and kill the God as it’s still attacking until the end of the end of combat step. I do feel that after last week’s Invitational, the hate for Esper will die off a little bit which is why I’m still going with the Alara Shard control deck.
Another deck that I was tinkering with is Ali Antrazi’s 5 color Ramp deck:
This list is pretty spicy, a bunch of one ofs, some of the hardest to remove creatures in the format currently as well as the two most powerful X spells to dump your mana. You have not lived until you cast an end of turn Sphinx’s Revelation into a giant Rakdos’s Return. The deck does have some issues with Mono Black Devotion/Aggro as well as the Red aligned decks in the format so this deck will be relegated to the back burner for now.
The last deck that I’m going to be talking about is a Junk Reanimator deck that Brad Nelson mentioned briefly in one of his previous SCG articles and Brian Braun-Duin posted on Twitter the night before the grinders had started as well:
| Creatures (24) 4 Elvish Mystic 4 Satyr Wayfinder 4 Sylvan Caryatid 4 Sin Collector 2 Obzedat, Ghost Council 2 Shadowborn Demon 4 Sylvan Primordial Spells (13) 4 Grisly Salvage 2 Whip of Erebos 4 Obzedat’s Aid 3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion Lands (23) 4 Temple Garden 4 Temple of Plenty 4 Godless Shrine 4 Temple of Silence 4 Overgrown Tomb 3 Forest | Sideboard (15) 3 Centaur Healer 3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa 3 Thoughtseize 3 Abrupt Decay 2 Doom Blade 1 Shadowborn Demon |
4 Sylvan Primordial? 4 Obzedat’s Aid? Whip of Erebos and Obzedat himself in this deck? Sign me up already. For those of you that didn’t know I have a special place in my heart for Junk based Reanimator decks, having Top 8ing Spring States at Desert Sky Games as well as Top 8ing an SCGIQ at Phoenix Comic Con. Sure the deck doesn’t have Thragtusk and his two BFFs Restoration Angel and Unburial Rites, but Obzedat’s Aid and Whip of Erebos do their best flashback impression. I have started to play this list with some tweaks in FNM and managed to get into T8 with a 12 card sideboard (thank you new sideboarding rules!) However, with the spoiling of the new BW god Athreos, I feel that an Aristocrat like deck could be coming back with a vengeance.