top of page

Esper Stoneblade Primer [Modern]

Updated: Oct 8, 2019

Hello everybody,

today I will talk you about my favourite deck in Modern: Esper Stoneblade, with a decklist created and tuned by myself.

I will explain all the card choice and some cards that could be included.

First of all: don't die!

With this color mix, you've access to a lot of card that let you to stay alive.

Early Disruption

With the disruption provided by this 1 CMC card, you can easily manage a lot of fair and unfair strategies, the only decks that can survive to this type of cards are tron decks.

I really like this package because, in a perfect scenario, you can do: Turn 1 Discard, Turn 2 Stoneforge, Turn 3 Stoneforge activation plus removal, and this sounds very great. Even if you don't do this, this cards let you to survive on the first turns and then overcome your opponent.

I suggest to play at least 5 discard and at least 5 removal. Personally I play 4 IoK, 2 Thoughtseize, 3 Path to Exile, 2 Fatal push.

Get Card Advantage.

After that you managed you first turn, now you have to keep card advantage, because you want to have response for your opponent's threats while beating him, and these are the best cards that let you to stay ahead in card advantage:

Card Advantage

Well, what I can say about Snapcaster: he can defend, he can attack, but most importantly, he can flashback, so, after getting value of the flashbacked card, he can start the beat or can defend your planeswalker. And you've a really great planeswalker to defend: Jace, the Mind Sculptor. If he stays on board more than 2 turn, the win is really near. Brainstorm every turn is great, and with fetchlands you can just shuffle away the card that you don't need. Moreover, in some matchup (like Burn) you can use his Fateseal ability to remove troublesome card from your opponent topdeck while upping him to reach the ultimate. The last card is one of my favourite mtg card. The most used modes are counter/draw, but don't forget that you can bounce your snapcaster to get even more value, you can tap all your opponent creature to act as pseudo mass removal and/or to strike your opponent with the creature to the death.

I suggest to play at leas 2 Snapcaster, 1 Jace and 1 Cryptic, but personally I play 3 Snapcaster, 2 Jace and 2 Cryptic Command

Support Spells

After disruption and card advantage I will talk about support spells. These cards are here to support your gameplan, letting you to play more proficient game.


Support the Plan

Well, T3feri is a really big deal, because lock your opponent istant, let you to cast sorcery in your opponent's turn (hey, discard after your opponent draw is great!) and can bounce a lot of problematic permanents, like Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, Aether Vial and so on. You can bounce your Snapcaster to get a ton of value, this play is like a 3-for-1.

Then you've Opt. There's no much to say, it's not the best cantrip ever printed, but Ponder, Brainstorm and Preordain are not legal, so we have to use this. It could help you to get the card that you need on the time that you need it, so you've to play this.

After we have the new addition from Throne of Edlraine, Drown in the Loch. Man, I'm really excited about this, it's helpful against all type of decks except tron decks. Multimodal spell are always great, but this is really wonderful. In this deck this act as removal number 6 and 7 and as counter number 5 and 6.

Last you've Force of Negation. Slamming a Jace or a SFM and protecting them with FoN for free is great, and it's great against card like Life from the Loam. But you can hard cast it because it isn't so much expensive.

Personally I play 2 Teferi, 4 Opt, 2 Drown and 2 FoN.

Stoneforge Package

Now we have our first payoff, the Stoneforge package

Stoneforge Package

Well, there's not too much to say, Turn 2 Stoneforge for turn 3 Batterskull is a really hard to deal for some decks, and against other decks Sword of Feast and Famine let you to get virtual card advantage (discarding your opponent card) and to stay always with mana open. You could try Sword of Fire and Ice instead of Sword of Feast and Famine. I play 3 SFM, 1 Batterskull and 1 SoFaF.

Other Payoff

We have to up the number of wincon, because we are very low on them, so we play this alternative wincon:

Alternative Wincon

Geist here is absolutely great, because with 7 removal plus 6 discard plus Snapcaster, it's simple to have an empty board for Geist. If left unchecked, Geist is a 3 turn clock, and if he's equipped with sword or bs, the clock is even faster.

This card shines in MU like Jund, Tron, UW control/midrange, Burn because they're low on creature and high on removal. Personally i play 2 of this

The other wincon is Liliana. She's pretty good here, because all the abilities are relevent: with +1 you lower the clock of your opponent and sometimes you can even kill some creatures (snapcaster, thalia, noble hierarch, etc...). With -2 you can get from your graveyard your creature, to get value from them and the ultimate is the wincon. I play 1 of this.

The last card

The last card is a card that i really appreciate:

Jack of all Trades

Well, this could act as mass removal for craeture or can be a spot removal for planeswalker or other annoying permanents. I play 1 of this for its incredible eclecticism.

The Manabase

Now we talk about the last 23 cards of the deck: the lands.

Complex Manabase

Usually you want to have black source in the first turn of the game, a white source in second turn and a lot of blue mana for the late game. So I play 8 fetches, 3 Darkslick Shores, 1 Watery Grave, 2 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Godless Shrine, 1 Glacial Fortress, 2 Island, 1 Swamp and 1 Plain.

I've inserted 3 Field of Ruin because Tron is a really bad matchup.

The Sideboard

The side inlcudes hate against graveyard and artifact, land denial, more removal and counter and some value engine

Very wide sideboard

With this color combination you've a really wide choice of the card, and you can shift to a more aggro plan with the introduction of Lingering Souls, Monastery Mentor and Fulminator, to a more control game, with the introduction of more removal.

The side is: 2 Disdainful Stroke, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Lingering souls, 2 Monastery Mentor, 1 Disenchant, 2 Fulminator Mage, 1 Supreme Verdict, 1 Fatal Push, 1 Celestial Purge and 1 Stony Silence

All together and honorable mention

Well, all together the deck will be like this:

Crujiff's Esper Mentor

The 2 upsided card are Drown in the Loch. The deck felt super strong because you can play against every deck and you don't feel that a matchup is unwinnable.

You've to shuffle a lot because you've a lot of 2-3X and you want to find the right card at the right time. Here you can find an exportable list.

These are the cards that could be played here:

Honorable Mention

The downside of Dark Confidant is mitigated by the lifegain provided by Batterskull, and if he's left unchecked he could provide a lot of Card Advantage.

Instead, Unearth and Dusk//Dawn are great Support Card, because they can get you back your creature from graveyard with fun interaction like Unearth -> Snap -> Unearth -> Geist is a great play. With Dusk, you can clear the board and attack with your Geist, because he has power 2, but this card really depends on your local meta.

Final Thoughts

That's it, the article is long enough and I don't want to bore you with matchup analysis, I will write another article about this topic.

And you, what do you think about this deck? Do you like this?

Regards

Vito


P.s. Feel free to follow me on Facebook!

Edit: Here you can find the guide where I explain how to play it

1,834 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page