#espercontrol

Something to consider about lands in Esper is that there is a very fine balance between shocks and duals. The ideal scenario, and I’m sure you’ll agree, is one shock and the rest duels, ideally for the rest of the game. This is unrealistic, but ideal. I like Hallowed Fountain, Glacial Fortress, Drowned Catacomb, and Nephalia hands, and rarely lose with them if the remaining three cards are removal spells, which they typically are.

The designer of my particular list, David, came to me one day with what he described as the “hard-solved” manabase. You’ll note that it’s exactly the one I play.

4 Hallowed Fountain3 Watery Grave2 Godless Shrine4 Isolated Chapel4 Glacial Fortress4 Drowned Catacomb2 Island1 Plains3 Nephalia Drownyard

The reason why this mana is perfect for non-Lingering Souls deck variants is because it sets us up for the ideal hand: one shock, the rest duels. 7 blue shocks allows us to do things like consistently cast Dissipate on turn 3, which is a dominating factor in control-like mirrors. We came off of a list which ran more Godless Shrines because at an SCG IQ, we both had critical moments where turn 3 Dissipate was impossible due to solely white and black mana sources.

The important thing to realize is that this is a UW Control deck which splashes black for some removal and Drownyard. Black sources are necessary but we don’t need many. Hands with multiple Godless Shrines are bad, but a Godless Shrine turns on a Catacomb-based hand fairly effectively, and while not totally shafting us from casting t4 Verdict. The need for t4 Verdict is why we need less Watery Graves: they don’t enable that as effectively. Hallowed Fountain at 4 is required: what land do we want more than a Hallowed Fountain on turn 1, which enables a t2 miracle-Terminus. If we don’t run Liliana of the Veil, we don’t need double black on t3 any more, making Hallowed Fountain our perfect land.

I would speculate that the reason you had so much difficulty with your manabase is that you’re rocking Godless Shrine at 4 instead of fountain, and you also play a maindeck Swamp, which really isn’t necessary in a format where Ghost Quarter sees fringe-play at best.

As for your sideboard, I actually really like the looks of it. It seems a lot more live and flexible than my board is: the diversity is powerful. My only critique is that Psychic Spiral is probably more powerful than the third Negate, because you don’t play more than one Dissipate. This lack of heavy counterspell play and the presence of Obzedat makes your position, post-board, in the mirror and Flash matchups a bit more aggressive than reactive, so having a card which can instantaneously win you the game like Spiral is very powerful. Spiral is extremely punishing, and because it’s instant speed, it can help you overload your opponent’s mana and resources at the end of their turn so that you can tap out for Jace. Esper needs threat-density or inevitability to beat Flash (I personally hate the matchup, but this was before Reckoner Flash, back when people played the Pike).

My only other commentary on your board is that Witchbane Orb is a potent tool against Jund. Jund’s non-creature spells are game-winning, so Negate is useful, but Negate is there to provide you early insurance (alongside Dissipate, at least in my list), from attack thrown at you after an early Farseek. Against Jund, the turn after the Farseek is your scariest time, and the time when they’re most ahead, because there is exactly /nothing/ you can do if they land a t3 Slaughter Games on you. Witchbane Orb allows you (if you don’t get hate-nutted) to breathe a little easier about Jund’s fantastic tools like Rakdos’s Return et al.

I wish you the best of luck in Vegas! You should send me the list you finalize. I’d highly recommend you not play Lingering Souls, but to each their own.