Nov 16, 20227 min read

Deck of the Week: Modern Esper Food

Updated: Aug 23, 2023

4th Place at Webway Game's Store Championship 11/6/22

Tournament Overview

Going into the tournament, I didn’t make a metagame choice to play the Time Sieve deck. It was the deck I had built, and I enjoyed playing at FNM at that store. I had missed the past few FNMs but planned for the following decks to be present: Living End, Murktide, Tron, Burn, various control decks - mainly UW, and some midrange decks, in addition to the decks other members of Kirkwood Bros Gaming were playing.

The team brought 4c Omnath, 5c Rhinos, Death and Taxes, RG Ponza, and Skred. I was also aware of the possibility of Goblins, Amulet Titan, Yawgmoth, and Creativity or Persist Archon of Cruelty decks as other powerful archetypes I’d seen at the store. I was ready for Blood Moon to be a player at the store due to the influx of domain decks into the overall meta and its potential potency in our local meta.

Deckbuilding decisions

I had an essentially stock main deck, and I decided not to switch out Shadowspear for main deck Pithing Needle due to the expectation of Murktide and Burn. The sideboard had some changes compared to the stock list:

I wanted to run four Flusterstorm for the expected cascade decks, Living End and Rhinos, but I couldn’t find the cards in time. Thus I opted for one Flusterstorm, one Teferi, Time Raveler (double duty against control), and two Thoughtseize (double duty against unfavored matchups like Tron).
I considered cutting the fourth Prismatic Ending due to no Hammer Time presence in favor of the second Teferi, Time Raveler but opted to keep it as more removal for Burn.
Murderous Cut was a gameday decision over Bone Shards, the latter being better against Karn, the Great Creator, but thinking there would be more Murktide than Tron, I opted for Murderous Cut.

I ended up being happy with my choices, although the second Flusterstorm over the first Teferi may have changed one of the games where I had to mulligan a one-land hand with Teferi that might have been a keep if it was Flusterstorm.

Match One: Ponza

In match one, I got paired against my teammate Rich Nowak who was on RG Ponza. I didn’t know he was on Ponza and thought he may have brought Tron until I saw him play Utopia Sprawl on turn one on the play, knowing Omnath decks were usually playing Abundant Growth, and I knew he had Ponza built. I fetched basics proactively and didn’t face Blood Moon, eventually taking infinite turns by turn five for the win. I brought in Thoughtseize and a couple of Prismatic Endings, not knowing what hate cards he would bring in, with the plan being to fetch basics proactively.

In game two, I faced a turn two Klothys, God of Destiny, that essentially went coast-to-coast with me not quite able to stabilize and getting burned out. In game three, I brought Shadowspear back in and won a close game under Blood Moon and Klothys thanks to a large Ledger Shredder carrying the Shadowspear to a 2-1 victory.

Match Two: 5c Zoo

I was on the draw against 5c Zoo in match two, my opponent opting for Territorial Kavus instead of Crashing Footfalls. I got beat down in game one, not finding Asmo, and boarded in all six removal spells for game two, with the plan being to use Asmo to kill everything and win.

Game two was awkward, where we both kept very interactive hands. I would play out an Asmo to control the board, and he would kill it. Then we both sat there with removal in hand until he played a creature, and I used Asmo to kill it, and then he answered Asmo. Eventually, after three Asmos died, I only had a couple of pieces of removal, and he overwhelmed my resources to hand me a 0-2 loss.

Match Three: UW Control

In match three, I got paired against UW Control. I enjoy playing against control to some extent because I like creating as much pressure as I can with only a few resources. This way, I can force them to make a play they don’t want to make before deploying another threat to keep chipping away. I won game one and faced Chalice of the Void and Rest in Peace in game two, but I had correctly anticipated RIP and brought in Prismatic Ending. However, it didn’t quite work out, and we went to game three. I won game three on the back of Urza’s Saga tokens by dodging Chalice and RIP and being too fast of a clock.

Match Four: UW Wrenn and Six

Match four was another UW control deck, playing Wrenn and Six. I lost game one on the draw with what I thought was a good one-land keep, but I couldn’t find a second land and got beat by Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Game two was a grindy game where I beat down with Asmo attacks and won a fairly tight game.

In game three, I was on the draw with a great hand, and when my opponent played a Raugrin Triome and Wrenn and Six on turn three, I untapped and took infinite turns, having precisely the cards I needed. My opponent could have held up Dovin’s Veto but instead played Wrenn and Six, not expecting me to have a land, Academy Manufactor, and Time Sieve in hand and then go for it, unafraid of Force of Negation. Thus I got another 2-1 win to put me at 3-1 overall and in a spot to draw my fifth match into the top eight.

Top Eight

The top eight featured eight different decks; myself on Esper Food, my teammate Katie Kirkwood on 5c Rhinos, and Rakdos Midrange, Living End, 5c Zoo (the player I lost to in Match two), UR Prowess, Grixis Control, and UR Murktide. Unfortunately, I got paired against my teammate in round one, so we couldn’t get two team members into the top four. Katie has her own article about her trip into the top eight, which you can find here.

Match One: 5c Rhinos

In game one, I had Asmo control the influx of rhinos, one of the primary game plans in this matchup, and eventually took infinite turns to win. Game two was a similar story, with my three-toughness creatures putting a strain on Fury’s usual ability to kill a pair of creatures and the overwhelming amount of artifacts making Force of Vigor insufficient. A 2-0 win secured me at least 4th place.

Match Two: Living End

In match two, I was paired against Living End, and on turn three, I naturally drew the one-of Nihil Spellbomb, to which my opponent conceded. In game two, I kept a one-land hand with the singular Nihil Spellbomb, only for my opponent to cast Grief and take it away. I couldn’t fill my graveyard and realized that while sideboarding, I had forgotten to take out Unearth, a card that defeats the primary game plan against Living End, which is they reanimate my stuff too, and my creatures take infinite turns while theirs don’t. Then when they cascaded and were revealing cards from their library, I saw my worst nightmare - Leyline of the Void.

Leyline isn’t a popular card in the meta due to the limited traction of dedicated graveyard decks like Dredge. Even Living End isn’t cold to it, as they play Foundation Breaker and Force of Vigor; however, I have nothing to do against Leyline unless I use Springleaf Drum for blue or red mana and Prismatic Ending for four colors. I also think Leyline is worse in Living End than Endurance, which I had expected. I can play around Endurance since I can use The Underworld Cookbook to discard creatures in response to Living End after they Endurance my graveyard.

In game three, my opening seven had one land and Teferi, making me wish I had Flusterstorm but causing me to mulligan. My opponent mulliganed to five and found Leyline of the Void, along with cyclers, three lands, Force of Vigor, a Green card, and Shardless Agent. Sometimes they just have it all. I went into the tournament knowing if I saw Leyline of the Void, I’d probably lose that game, so I was still happy with my result and chalked it up to being unlucky. The final round was between 5c Zoo and Living End, the only decks I lost matches to, with Living End taking home first place.

Post-Tournament Notes

I was happy with my result and enjoyed playing each round. My deck felt great, and I don't think I ran particularly hot, either. Part of my advantage lies in piloting a complicated deck and my opponents struggling to assess what kind of danger they were in. One of the things I like the most about the deck is how it can change game plans reasonably quickly. It can switch from combo to creature aggro, to grinding out value, or to controlling the board, which is good against the whole field except big mana decks like Tron, which I was lucky to dodge.

The decks from the tournament were:

Esper Food
5c rhinos
4c Omnath
Skred
Death and Taxes
Ponza
Living End
5c Zoo
UW Control
UW Wrenn and Six
Grixis Control
UR Prowess
Rakdos Midrange
2x Tron
2x Murktide
UB Affinity
Infect.

Notable missing archetypes were Burn (a popular FNM deck), creativity (popular online with one being played during FNM), and Yawgmoth combo (the store has this deck for rent, and I’ve played against it at FNM).

Will this warrant deck adjustments? Probably not too many, although Pithing Needle may have lost some stock, and the confirmation of no Hammer Time means three Prismatic Endings could be enough. With The Brothers’ War coming out, Tron may be on the rise, and I could run into Karn, the Great Creator more often, so Bone Shards may switch back in. I’ve considered running a pair of Fulminator Mages in the sideboard that would work well with my four Unearths. Of course, I’d lose Jegantha, the Wellspring post-board, but Jegantha is mostly discard fodder and a Blood Moon playable 5/5, so I think it’s worth it.

I hope to bring this deck to more major tournaments after a good showing; wish me luck!