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I've really never liked Esper Control.
Like, never.
The one time I kind of grudgingly had to accept that there might be some reason a rational thinker would bring the controlling color combination to war was way back at US Nationals 2010. I had just come off of unseating a newly minted Pro Tour Top 8 competitor and his Azorius Control deck in the Feature Match area. High on life and higher on my deck, I stood faithful in Izzet's ability to outmaneuver an opponent with clunky Wrath of God variants and slow Counterspells. It was then that my friend Patrick Chapin asked for a fun game between rounds.
Turn two, bam!
Pyromancer Ascension was on the battlefield!
If I could sneak this key permanent under the conditional permission of that era's control decks, it often didn't matter what I did after. It would accrue extra cards, more than enough extra cards, that victory would become inevitable... Even if I didn't know what form that would take on turn two.
So, Our Hero started to rock back and forth in his chair, thinking about the cantrip hoops he'd jump through the next couple of turns, before unleashing a flurry of combo-tacular instants and sorceries on the master of Ignite Memories himself. Truly this would be a Fun Game!
"Um, Esper Charm?"
Patrick just tapped three mana and killed my Ascension before it acquired a single counter.
Yeah, didn't win that one.
Esper Control hasn't impressed me much more than that at any point in the last dozen years. I did like the occasional Lingering Souls splash in StoneBlade variants in formats various... But Lingering Souls isn't even an Orzhov card (unless you're playing Commander). While novel on the back side, that card is about as Sultai as Tatsunari, Toad Rider today.
Why bring this up just now?
Weirdly, Esper Control has picked up some fans and even loyal adherents for current Standard play. There are many conflicting builds. Some do cool stuff like touching for a couple of copies of Kotose, the Silent Spider; though many and most are largely Blue for Kaito Shizuki. Others are reminiscent of the original Orzhov Blood Money deck, albeit with less Blood on the Snow (for perhaps obvious reasons); and if you can think of the more recent Orzhov Tokens deck as a distinct archetype, maybe they look like that deck... but with some Malevolent Hermit // Benevolent Geists.
There is no one single, monolithic, Standard Esper Control that I've seen adopted. But they all have one thing in common: I don't see why you would actually want to play it. Following are...
The Top 8 Reasons Esper Control Kind of Sucks:
1. Kotose, the Silent Spider, When Played, is Under-Utilized
This is a softball call; because it's easily remedied.
This card is kind of insane. Which is not to say that it needs to be played in Esper, versus other color combinations in Standard.
In the era of the original Kamigawa, I very consistently played the card Cranial Extraction, at least in my sideboards. We splashed it in the dominant Jushi Blue deck that only lost to itself in the entirety of the State Championships; and we played it in Josh Ravitz's nominally Mono-Red deck from the Top 8 of US Nationals. While Cranial Extraction had its detractors (it could sometimes be card-disadvantageous), giving up a single card in exchange for control over the opponent's entire strategy made for a reasonable option in many sideboard games; especially those where you did not plan to be under early creature pressure.
Kotose offers a compelling update to the Extraction model. You can't play Kotose indiscriminately. In fact, she probably works best when the opponent tees the play up for you. But in exchange you actually draw three cards while potentially crippling the opponent's future topdecks.
Interestingly, it was an encounter against Kotose that largely inspired this article.
I was on Mono-Black Control and my Esper opponent had rolled higher on initiative. I tapped early for Hunt for Specimens... Which is what the opponent used to fuel Kotose.
This was kind of awful for me! The first Hunt for Specimens wasn't a big deal... I had already cast it, after all. But the opponent would theoretically have a stack of Elvish Visionaries with upside... Except they didn't.
I was playing a Best-of-One Event; and my opponent... Didn't play a sideboard (or at least a Wish sideboard). So instead of drawing an extra hand of substantial upgrades to Spirited Companion... The opponent merely rummaged with the Kotose extras. Sure, they were still extra cards (and extra bodies) but it could have been so much worse if the opponent had made one small tweak.
So, here's your softball upgrade, Esper mages! If you're going to play Kotose in Best-of-One, make a sideboard on the off chance that you'll get access to it. You lose nothing, but might draw a ton of extra cards!
2. Kaito Shizuki is Not a Worthwhile Splash
I don't think I've ever been less impressed by what is essentially the Flagship card of an archetype.
I mean, the card is fine. If you're setting Kaito up properly, with either his own Ninja or maybe some Samurai Support from The Wandering Emperor, he can rub up against Teferi or Jace.
... Except contextually in Esper Control Kaito is so thoroughly unexciting. For the same mana you could just play Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity. Why not play both! I don't know? One of the best versions of Orzhov Control (see below) doesn't even play Wedding Announcement main deck; so theoretically an overabundance of three mana plays that just make one 1/1 might not be the best place to break the Rule of Four.
The bigger issue is that most Esper variants in Standard are just splash offshoots of Orzhov (which is itself just a sub-genre of Blood Money) that trade in powerful Planeswalkers for... Kaito Shizuki apparently? I am thoroughly not convinced Kaito is a better card than Lolth, Spider Queen; despite the gulf between them in mana cost. It's marginally better against decks far slower than you are. But try holding off a deck like Mono-Green with one-fourth the power and a remarkably less reliable sweeper finding ability. If Kaito were free to play, I think I could wrap my head around him, but he is literally what Esper is splashing a third color for!
3. The Archetype Lacks Significant Control Capability
It's not strictly correct to say that Esper is splashing for Kaito. Most builds seem to be splashing for Kaito and as many as four copies of Malevolent Hermit // Benevolent Geist.
Malevolent Hermit is an even less impressive card to appear in your splash color! At least main deck.
When the Hermit really hit the winners' circle around Worlds last autumn, it was perhaps best utilized in a Grixis deck that made meaningful and strategically unique use of not only its mana, but its approach to mana utilization. Why did they play a third color? They identified that key three-mana permanent The Celestus could give them exactly one mana of any color the turn they just tapped out for it. This made main-deck Duress a legitimately viable alternative to permission, and created a real reason someone would want to play Fading Hope in the dark. Demon Bolt and Spikefield Hazard // Spikefield Cave, played haphazardly in many Izzet sub-archetypes, were never better. Of course, both Duress and Fading Hope complimented the Grixis semi-soft lock Lier, Disciple of the Drowned perfectly.
Part of the reason all this was so good was that Black was the splash color. The Celestus - again, not only a very good but door-opening, reason to tap out on turn three - unlocked the mana base. Look at Malevolent Hermit a second. Remember, Blue is the splash color here:
Unless you're going to tap out for literally the world's worst Professor of Symbology on turn two, the Hermit tends to maximize its impact only after turn three. Ideally, you want to resolve it with U open; which generally begs for 
on turn three.
Except Blue is your splash color!
I'm not going to argue you don't have your first Blue; but because 6+ sources of Blue in the Esper deck are coming off of Pathways, actively choosing Blue over Black or White could have devastating downriver effects. At a minimum baseline, it's really hard for Esper to play one of the best cards that Mono-Black has largely adopted as a four-of, and Orzhov is coming around to:
If nothing else, the mere presence of Malevolent Hermit in your starting sixty can make your Doomskar or The Meathook Massacre annoying to cast on time.
4. The Gold Cards are Confusing, At Best
Edgar, Charmed Groom // Edgar Markov's Coffin was cool for a hot minute.
But in some ways the Vampire grandpa may be a victim of his own success. I am pretty medium on playing Edgar, Charmed Groom in a world where many players operate under the assumption that Orzhov Control is the best; and are themselves running token production + Rite of Oblivion as a main attraction to that color combination.
It's not that Edgar is bad, per se; but his whole unique shtick is undone by anyone who actually agrees with you, if that makes any sense. I'd literally rather play Lolth than Edgar, Sorin, or The Wandering Emperor; and in a more supportive context.
What is even more interesting is how different gold cards interact. I watched a top streamer get pummeled this week by, embarrassingly, Edgar, Charmed Groom. His hand was full of Vanishing Verse. I've always been medium on Vanishing Verse. You might remember when I first achieved Mythic with a Blood Money variant myself, I compared it unfavorably to Binding the Old Gods. While it is undoubtedly stronger against specifically Hullbreaker Horror (the worst card for Esper Control to face, admittedly) it's not like Vanishing Verse in Esper is somehow any better than what a non-Blue Orzhov deck can use to defend itself, or for that matter, Fateful Absence in Azorius. Binding the Old Gods is so much better against everyone but Hullbreaker Horror, and in fact supports your underlying strategy at the same time.
5. Farewell is Not Blood on the Snow
I understand the desire to not play Blood on the Snow for some Black-adjacent Control mages. Snow lands are by nature restrictive. You're more-or-less either Mono-Black or giving up the opportunity to play some of the best dual lands Standard has seen since Badlands or at least Watery Grave.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a big Farewell fan. I was joking to my friend Brian David-Marshall that I had managed to get both my Hullbreaker Horrors caught by a Farewell after botching some math the other week. The ability to catch any amount of Treasure or de-fang a Blood on the Snow that hasn't been cast yet are both exciting.
But you can't deny the fundamental mana efficiency of Blood on the Snow's reanimation bonus round. Or, for that matter, its ability to sweep Planeswalkers (a liability that has come up time and again when facing Esper Control opponents). I've had to say Farewell to... Everything but my Lolth already in play more than once. That has generally not gone well for the Esper opponent.
A weird side effect of playing such a wide variety of different, cool, spells is a de-concentration of both power and consistency that Esper inflicts on itself. Like, a build might have one Doomskar and two copies of The Meathook Massacre as sweepers (instead of the eight you might see in Mono-Black). Obviously, that's horrid when you're up against hated Mono-White. But it's also weirdly annoying in Control quasi-mirrors. Late games often come down to The Meathook Massacre asymmetry; and the fact that Esper can usually only build its advantages by overplaying its Planeswalkers is not a great recipe against those with the right combination of card advantage and removal.
6. The Third Color Doesn't Actually Solve Any Problems
Usually when you splash an extra color it's to fix a matchup. Like do you remember the first time you saw a Mono-Black Blood Money mage break a Treasure to Test of Talents the hated Alrund's Epiphany... main deck?
"That deck, except with Counterspell" is as age-old as Sleight-Knight in the 1990s. Or adding Duress or Cabal Therapy to Goblins to make those hasty creatures one turn faster (rather than one turn slower) than the combo boogeymen of their era.
Esper adds Blue for Kaito Shizuki; which is basically a cheaper - albeit far, far weaker - Lolth, and the least surprising Counterspell ever. Which might not be that bad if you were always playing against other mid-range board control decks. Being two turns behind on Planeswalker, and having to contend with the Hermit before resolving your big sorceries is actually a legitimate pair of conundrums, if that were the only thing a Blood Money player had to consider.
Except!
Orzhov, all other things held equal, is probably a little ahead of Mono-Black. Black has the edge in both power and consistency; but the first time you lose your Eyetwitch or Shambling Ghast to their Eyetwitch or Shambling Ghast off of a Rite of Oblivion you learn to respect the elegance and efficacy of their shift toward White. I've literally lost matches where I'd pin the entire duel on turn two. Games that went 10+ turns but where I just never got past the seemingly tiny advantage given the magnitude of spells being thrown around later. A missed land drop; their made land drop; discarding to hand size one time to Invoke over-draw because of a mid-game stumble.
Getting a little faster on Planeswalkers or getting access to Malevolent Hermit don't really help against 
or 
Hullbreaker Horror decks. That's where you need your splash to help out! The version has Unexpected Windfall, which is something a Counterspell-less Control deck literally never wants to see, and the u-w one hits all its land drops while playing at instant speed.
Pair all that with the fact that the true problem matchups also have catch-up cards like The Battle of Frost and Fire, Burn Down the House, or sometimes Devastating Mastery... And your plan of committing more and more Planeswalkers to the battlefield with no Counterspell protection makes increasingly less sense.
To be clear: Esper's clunkier mana, non-access to Snow, and de-concentration of consistent defensive cards does zero favors in the beatdown matchups.
7. Esper Tends to be Less Powerful Than Antecedent Archetypes
I am not going to argue that Esper isn't faster, ideally, than the archetypes it tends to compete with. Orzhov shifted the six-mana battle cruisers of Mono-Black to Sorin and Edgar at four; Esper pulls that further down to three. If your Blue pip comes out all right, Kaito Shizuki is indeed faster than its parents and grandparents. Which doesn't necessarily mean you get to keep it; but if you just want to get on the field faster, Kaito is faster. He is not, however, faster than Wedding Announcement. Or on defense. In Mono-Black, for example, Fell Stinger / no Exploit is one of my favorite plays to buy time against Selesnya Enchantments.
Compare whatever Esper list you think is good to the Mono-Black that I like right now:
Mono-Black | NEO Standard | Michael Flores
- Creatures (14)
- 2 Dockside Chef
- 4 Eyetwitch
- 4 Fell Stinger
- 4 Shambling Ghast
- Planeswalkers (4)
- 4 Lolth, Spider Queen
- Instants (4)
- 4 Deadly Dispute
- Sorceries (11)
- 3 Hunt for Specimens
- 4 Blood on the Snow
- 4 Invoke Despair
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 The Meathook Massacre
Even assuming Esper comes out faster, it can't put Black away fast enough that that really matters. Black's job is to keep hitting land drops past turn six; but its Lesson / Learn sideboard and many resource-building creatures help with that.
Once the quasi-mirror is deep in the mid-game, Black is throwing Invoke Despair - if not something bigger - every single turn. Esper - with maybe two copies of The Meathook Massacre - is inevitably going to fall behind in The Meathook Massacre sub-game. It's not just a 2:4 disadvantage on the key enchantment... It's that Black has four copies of Invoke Despair to chew up enchantments while drawing even more cards.
I've written today about a lot of direct comparisons between Esper and decks like it (notably Orzhov and Mono-Black). The reason is that I want you to ask yourself what Esper can actually do that you would want to play it versus a simpler, and more consistent deck. "I get to play Kaito Shizuki" is only a partial answer. What does Kaito actually do for you? Because I gotta tell you, I have never seen a spot where the Ultimate was the right Planeswalker activation, and the Ninja is usually a flat-out terrible contribution of loyalty.
But that's not entirely fair. You can choose either of Esper's other two-color combinations and come up with interesting questions. I don't know that I would actually advocate for Dimir; but it certainly has card interactions I might want to try that are different from what Orzhov offers. Like, can we make a great Dimir Lier deck? Or try pairing The Meathook Massacre with Unlikely Hero Geistwave?
You probably know how I feel about Azorius, though. Great deck. And with permission and three copies of Hullbreaker Horror? Would put every version of Esper I've seen on their backsides, consistently.
8. Esper Violates the Prime Directive
-Patrick Chapin, Winning a PTQ, Not Violating the Prime Directive
Way back in 1997 I sent a Rakdos (though we didn't call it "Rakdos" back then) beatdown deck to the then-greatest deck designer in the world, Erik Lauer. My deck was full of Dauthi Horrors, supplemented with Shocks. The creatures were marginally more evasive than in a more well-traveled archetype, even going up to a pair of Suq'Ata Lancers at the three.
"Why would you ever want to play that?" Erik asked me. "This is just a bad Sligh."
My creatures were... Kind of? Better? But my mana was atrocious. Not only did I have the expected Sulfurous Springs that would prove liabilities in beatdown mirrors, but every kind of Gemstone Mine. Basic Mountain AND basic Swamp. Gross. No room for Wasteland. And for what? Shock wasn't even a great card in a multicolored deck!
In the years since I've won significant tournaments with both straight Black beatdown and more-or-less straight Red. Much of that focus came from the email exchange with Lauer. Every version of Esper I've seen for the current Standard is just a bad Orzhov. They don't have Chapin's wonderful Esper Charms from 2010. They don't sneakily Counterspell Hullbreaker Horror (which is something Orzhov would desperately like to do, were it somehow possible).
Interestingly, if you want to play an Orzhov-like deck with meaningfully different capabilities... Let me introduce you to Orzhov:
B/W Never Loses | NEO Standard | Michael Flores
- Creatures (8)
- 1 Legion Angel
- 3 Henrika Domnathi // Henrika, Infernal Seer
- 4 Biting-Palm Ninja
- Planeswalkers (3)
- 3 The Wandering Emperor
- Instants (6)
- 2 March of Otherworldly Light
- 4 Vanishing Verse
- Sorceries (6)
- 1 Farewell
- 1 Emeria's Call // Emeria, Shattered Skyclave
- 4 Invoke Despair
- Enchantments (7)
- 3 The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration
- 4 Life of Toshiro Umezawa // Memory of Toshiro
- Artifacts (3)
- 3 Reckoner Bankbuster
This is the deck my friend WHO WILL INEXPLICABLY REMAIN NAMELESS has been playing day in and day out in best-of-three Events. He dubbed it "B/W Never Loses" because... Well... It should be obvious.
The deck's win rate in Best-of-Three has been impressive...
But what's been maybe more impressive is how different this deck is than the stock Orzhov.
Like, where are the Wedding Announcements? In the sideboard? Mr. E. actually got me to start playing Invoke Despair. We were having a theoretical conversation about the card; and I was like "That's actually the reason to play Mono-Black... Orzhov might be the better deck but it can't -" at which point he cut me off to tell me his Orzhov deck plays four Invoke Despair.
How cool is Biting-Palm Ninja?
Probably even cooler than you realized initially.
This deck plays my call for the secret best card in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty:
I wasn't actually sure Okiba Reckoner Raid // Nezumi Road Captain would be so good a Standard card. It is one of the most exciting cards to try in Modern for me... Two-thirds of a Lighting Helix and a 2/2 body for half the cost... But in Standard it does something different and special.
"Blue-White can't beat Okiba Reckoner Raid," he told me. It's too fast to counter, and they don't have a good way to interact with it once it's already down. Then it sets up Biting-Palm Ninja which sets up the Okiba Reckoner Raid again... Which gets around their sweepers.
Remember when we were talking about finding legitimate solutions to problem matchups, like Hullbreaker Horror? This pair from the new set Voltron together to do something different, something special. With Menace, they can get past defenders; and the Biting-Palm Ninja's Menace counter can steal the only card that matters out of the opponent's hand while dealing three and leaving a significant threat. Sometimes that's just their Counterspell so you can resolve your own next big spell.
Orzhov? You can build it multiple ways; some of which are both cool and really good. Esper though? Kind of sucks.
LOVE
MIKE
