So, when I wrote last week's article, I didn't yet realize that Esper Enchantments (or "Esper Pixie" or "Esper Self-Bounce") was going to quickly become one of the hottest decks in Standard. But here we have it... It's risen to the fourth-most played deck online, and was the third most popular macro archetype of last weekend's gigantic Spotlight event.

It is increasingly a deck that is worth talking about, and mastering it will help you not only if you want to play it yourself, but in preparation for playing against the format's rising It Girl.

Here's the version I've mostly been testing...

Esper | FDN Standard | Edel, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

• Creatures (19)
• 3 Floodpits Drowner
• 4 Fear of Isolation
• 4 Nurturing Pixie
• 4 Optimistic Scavenger
• 4 Spyglass Siren

• Instants (4)
• 4 This Town Ain't Big Enough

• Enchantments (15)
• 3 Sheltered by Ghosts
• 4 Hopeless Nightmare
• 4 Nowhere to Run
• 4 Stormchaser's Talent

• Lands (22)
• 2 Caves of Koilos
• 4 Adarkar Wastes
• 4 Concealed Courtyard
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Underground River

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Authority of the Consuls
• 2 Destroy Evil
• 2 Final Vengeance
• 2 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
• 3 No More Lies
• 1 Sheltered by Ghosts
• 3 Shrouded Shepherd

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Full disclosure: I chose this version precisely because it is less Wildcard-intensive than some other builds. Rather than playing four copies of Kaito, Bane of Nightmares in the main, EDEL's has zero. Some builds go with Spiteful Hexmage, EDEL's the common Spyglass Siren. All the cards are good, and have advantages in some matchups or other... But this one just has most of its Wildcard equity in the lands.

Let's start there.

1. There Are Some Games You Just Aren't Going to Win

I grabbed this shot as soon as my opponent made their first play.

In the abstract, my opener is a keeper: Three lands, all cheap cards. I could plot out proactive plays and set myself up for some two-spell turns as early as turn three.

The problem is that the mana is painful. While the EDEL version maxes out on Concealed Courtyard, Darkslick Shores, and Seachrome Coast... There are still ten Ice Age-style "pain" lands... and I drew three of them in this opener.

In some matchups that wouldn't matter very much, but I knew it would be challenging to win against a first turn Heartfire Hero if I were doing 1-2 points to myself every single turn.

It was.

And I didn't.

The problem is that Sheltered by Ghosts isn't a lock if they have so much as a Shock and three lands. I actually drew two copies of Sheltered by Ghosts this game and ended up losing at -2 life (two Shocks and two Slickshot Show-Offs).

I think the thing that I found most puzzling and most frustrating about this deck is its vulnerability to Red Aggro. This is a strategy that is clearly built to beat up on certain kinds of aggro decks. When I wrote There's Nowhere to Run for Boros Auras, the Esper deck didn't exist yet, but some players had already identified Nowhere to Run as a great card for fighting not only Heartfire Hero, but opposing Sheltered by Ghosts.

If you get the pain-free lands and a Nowhere to Run, you can positively run over Red Aggro.

You might not be able to make it out, but my Nurturing Pixies is actually wearing double Sheltered by Ghosts to make it super difficult to kill via double Ward 2. The third toughness means that if the opponent has a Lightning Strike (not a Shock) they still need 6 mana to stop flying lifelink. Easy race!

But this is a game where I wasn't putting a ton of pressure on my own life total, and wasn't essentially playing behind the whole time.

The implication here is that Esper's draws are among the most uneven in Standard.

2. This is a Deck Where You Can Just Draw the Wrong Side

It might be worthwhile to talk a little bit about the history of the Two-for-One deck.

This strategy really matured around the time of the first Invasion Block, when the most popular deck featured an eight-pack of these:

Flametongue Kavu was considered one of the best cards in Standard (and certainly Block Constructed)... So good it was often the only Red card in a deck's seventy-five. They'd splash just for the 4/2!

While there were four decks in the Top 8 of Pro Tour Tokyo in 2001, none of them made the finals. Tsuyoshi Fujita - future Hall of Famer and probably the best "beatdown" deck designer of all time - made his big stage debut with this as his two-for-one:

The story twenty-four years later is that EDEL Esper can build either its own Flametongue Kavu or its own Ravenous Rats... It just has to make a down payment first.

This deck doesn't really have a coherent strategy... More of a unifying theme.

Its goal is to just generate value via two-for-ones, generally by using creatures to pick up enchantments with enters the battlefield effects, to grind out small amounts of value via repeated use. The problem is that you can kind of draw the wrong half.

If you draw all Hopeless Nightmares, one thing that comes up surprisingly often is that your opponent just won't have any cards. There are other potential issues. Destroying the opponent's hand might not be good enough if they're beating you badly enough on the battlefield. Repeated Hopeless Nightmare is actually pretty great against "Control" but can and will be eventually outpaced by Caretaker's Talent and Enduring Innocence.

For its part, Nowhere to Run is very much a surgeon's tool.

It's one of the best things you can draw against specifically Boros Auras, and quite good against any cards or decks that are closely related to Boros Auras. Because it reduces power and toughness instead of just destroying a creature, it can blunt the "death" trigger on a Heartfire Hero. Its last paragraph slices through the Ward on opposing Sheltered by Ghosts. I was surprised the first time I didn't have to pay Ward on a This Town Ain't Big Enough... My previously-cast Nowhere to Run was already doing double duty!

But this card is not only not very good against some strategies (any aforementioned "Control" is not going to care about it)... And it's bad even against some creatures (read large creatures). One of the most challenging matchups I found was against opposing Dimir decks, but that have Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I could be ahead. They could even be empty-handed! And a topdecked Sheoldred might turn it around. I'd have to draw double Nowhere to Run (probably) or have a ton of mana and a catalyzing self-bounce or I'd be cooked.

Overall the deck has no real, simple, say-it-in-one-sentence plan. It's just trying to build two-for-one advantages in the hopes that they'll be good enough. But even beyond potentially drawing the wrong half of your deck, the cards themselves are not individually powerful. Therefore there is a bonus issue that your opponent actually has to care about a 1/1 or 2/2 and the enchantment you're re-casting or you'll fall further behind.

On the bright side...

3. Sometimes You Just Burn Them Out

Sometimes Hopeless Nightmare is just a terrible Lava Spike.

Remember when I said they don't have any cards in hand?

A topdecked Hopeless Nightmare is just two then, instead of three.

On the other hand you will have had to have done some work to get them to no cards in hand, and their life total is probably pretty black-and-blue at that point.

As much as I was just complaining that the deck has no coherent plan, a plan can reveal itself; and the most surprising and resonant one to me was the backdoor burn.

You might look over - having never attacked - and the opponent might already be at 14 or 12. How much self-bounce are you going to need at this point? How many Hopeless Nightmares did you draw? All of a sudden your flyers are looking better even if they never get a second attack in, and you might be trying to figure out how to force damage in with Floodpits Drowner instead of preventing incoming damage.

I hate the term "tempo deck" (is there such a thing as a "card advantage deck"?) but if there is one, EDEL Esper can play that role. Earlier today I was in a race with conventional Dimir that I was probably supposed to lose on the merits. They sunk n-1 mana into a Restless Reef. When I surprised it with my Floodpits Drowner that was like a double Time Walk. I eked out the race as a result.

This deck is often operating on low margins because the cards are not individually powerful, so it can do one of my favorite things: Use Every Part of the Buffalo.

I was today years old when I realized you could bounce two of your own permanents with This Town Ain't Big Enough. I don't know that I've ever paid the full five; my mode use has always been to bounce their incoming Screaming Nemesis or whatever and one of my 187 enchantments (or their attacker and a creature they just spent removal on)... But sometimes you have to Hopeless Nightmares and this card is setting up four burn next turn.

4. Maybe It Shouldn't Be Esper at All

Dimir Midrange | FDN Standard | Scott Mcnamara, Magic Spotlight: Foundations

• Creatures (15)
• 3 Enduring Curiosity
• 4 Fear of Isolation
• 4 Floodpits Drowner
• 4 Spyglass Siren

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares

• Instants (7)
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 2 Cut Down
• 4 This Town Ain't Big Enough

• Enchantments (11)
• 3 Hopeless Nightmare
• 4 Nowhere to Run
• 4 Stormchaser's Talent

• Lands (24)
• 2 Soulstone Sanctuary
• 2 Restless Reef
• 4 Gloomlake Verge
• 4 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Underground River

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Gix's Command
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Negate
• 2 Duress
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 2 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 3 Preacher of the Schism
• 1 Get Out

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The highest placing Esper Enchantments deck at last weekend's Showcase wasn't Esper at all... Only Dimir.

Scott McNamara basically cut some of the self-bounce via Nurturing Pixie and replaced it with traditional Dimir deck DNA.

This deck is primarily structured as Esper Enchantments, but has shorn up a lot of the issues I highlighted with the EDEL build. Most notably there are four pain lands instead of ten. You just aren't going to damage yourself as badly against Red Decks. Second, it's got a Go for the Throat in the main to better handle cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

There are trade-offs to losing the White, of course. You don't have Authority of the Consuls as an ace against Urabrask's Forge in the sideboard. You're less redundant around the self-bounce; you don't get the Optimistic outlier offense draws... Ever (because no Optimistic Scavenger). Still, I think the improved mana alone might be worth shaving off White.

And on the subject of mana?

Soulstone Sanctuary is a Ninja. At least, if you want it to be.

I think I'd rather play four Restless Reefs instead of the 2/2 split, but I assume the Bane of Nightmares disagrees with me.

LOVE

MIKE