Esper Control Standard deck - A thought

A friend of mine is asking me quite often if I'm going to play some standard and I always say that I have build a deck first. Today I decided to give it thought so I'll share them. I'm not playing t2 and I have no idea how this is going to work but in theory it should. I spent some time sorting Gatecrash cards and former edition cards so I know what cards are available. I just did not look at them the way a player of this format would.

Last time I played standard was at RTR Game Day which I managed to win and the time before that it was the before last Game Day in which I came out second because mono white was too fast and killed me on turn 4 so no wrath could safe me (played Solar Flare). At the RTR GD I played Bant Control. The deck was slow as hell but was capable of beating quite a lot of decks. I had problems with resolved Rakdos's Return and really fast aggro decks. Zombies and RDW were giving me a hard time. I could deal with UWx and something slower. But true control still beat me. The deck needed to be rebuild and I did that. Played with it few times just for fun (winning) but not playing at a tournament. What helped the deck was more Azorius Charms against fast decks and Nephalia Drownyard for the really slow ones^^. Anyway I wanted to build something like one of these decks.

The colors should be - White and Blue for certain but not sure about the other color. So I wrote down some cards by color. (cards in bold are the ones that would make it to main deck)

Blue-White
Supreme Verdict
Detention Sphere
Azorius Charm
Feeling of Dread

Blue
Dissipate
Snapcaster Mage
Augur of Bolas
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Jace, Architect of Thought
Jace, Memory Adept

White
Terminus
Restoration Angel
Oblivion Ring
Blind Obediance

Black
Lingering Souls
Forbidden Alchemy
Obzedat, Ghost Council
Merciless Eviction
Dimir Charm

Red
Searing Spear
Aurelia's Fury
Pillar of Flame

Green
Thragtusk
Farseek
Centaur Healer

After looking at this I realized that there is Dimir Charm and Obzedat and Lingering Souls at one place. Thus the third color was chosen - Black.

So what the deck needs? Something to survive early threats. For that there is Ultimate Price, Dimir Charm or Azorius Charm. In Dimir Charm's range there's quite a lot of creatures so it seems to be pretty valid. It also helps milling or looking for a card and can counter a sorcery spell. Azorius Charm slows down or draws a card and Ultimate price does just one thing and I decided to drop that card. I should be able to play some Wrath effect if this works and won't be useless because of Boros Charm I can play my win con in this case that would be Obzedat.

This deck can mill via Nephalia's Drownyard and could possible use Memory Adept to its advantage. I think that there are many annoying cards that can slow down and if that means surviving till 6 lands there's Merciless Eviction that can deal with indestructible creatures or annoying walkers. Obzedat and Jace, Memory Adept are both cards that can win a game at this point. It will take time but it should work. Not to mention the fact that we still have here Lingering Souls and we all know the power of this card.

Anyway I really wanted to play Dimir Charm. The card not only works as removal but can prepare Terminus for the next round or find a missing land. That is something I really needed in my previous decks. Obzedat is a fun card but I think that it deserves to be played. It's not that bad as everyone claims it to be. And Blind Obedience is really awesome. The card is really good. Now after I put all those cards I like together there is a deck I would actually like to take to a tournament.

Esper Control

3 Augur of Bolas
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

3 Azorius Charm
2 Blind Obedience
2 Detention Sphere
3 Dimir Charm
3 Dissipate
3 Lingering Souls
3 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Terminus

4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Godless Shrine
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Watery Grave

Super Dungeon Explore - Ironscale

I painted the Ironscale Kobolds today/yesterday. They look nice in reality. All the photos seem bad....hmph...But well I need to still work on the Kobolds but in general they are ok for the time being.

Drawing exercise - Aurelia

I wanted to try out copics on something more complex but I had to give up...This is not going to look good even if I spend half a day more on it...

My first experience with doing a custom playmat

Last year I wanted to start working on a custom playmat. The first time I saw a custom playmat I knew that I would want to create one by myself. I had no idea what it should be. For quite some time I was trying to figure out what should be portrayed on the mat. In the end I came with two ideas - first one features Stoneforge Mystic, a bird and a sword and the other one featured planeswalkers.

Step 1 - What
In the end I settled on manga style planeswalkers for several reasons. The first one being this - I was no capable of drawing Stoneforge Mystic and the background the way I wanted. The second reason was because it was simply too difficult to do if you had no idea how copic markers work when used for something other than manga. I've already done manga style pictures with copic markers on paper so at least I knew that this shouldn't be such a problem.

Step 2 - What colors

After this I started drawing sketches and then started figuring out what colors I should use. I was already decided that I would use Copic markers because I simply love the product. The colors are so beautiful and working with them (on paper that is) feels really good and I just love the brush tips. I bought colors for both drafts thus and it cost me roughly about 240USD. I already got few markers as a gift before (I don't count that). It wasn't really easy on choosing the colors. Yeah each walker has its own color so they are in shades of that color mostly. But still there are so many shades of that particular color....in the end I made a list of 30 colors I'd like to use and bought those. I used all of them except one color (I actually used it as a shade color for yellow red something but primary use was meant for Chandra's 'armor'). Believe it or not but this took me few hours. Coloring the drafts took me about 6 hours (SFM) and 8 hours (Walkers) respectively.

Stoneforge Mystic
Girl Planeswalkers

Step 3 - Measuring
After doing a A4 draft I had to figure out how big this should be on a mat. The size of it should have been something like 23.9 x 14.1. But in the end it was a bit smaller (I compared it with the other Ultra Pro mats that I own and it was the actual mat being smaller not the measurements being wrong). Anyway I created the playmat size version of the draft and wondered how the hell I should place it on the mat. My 'walker girls were not really placed well in the draft so I had to change that and had to place them at a very specific place. It took ages to figure out but in the end it worked out well. (The primary problem was that I don't have a scanner nor printer, that is why I did everything in hand and had to use rulers and such^_^).

After drawing these...it seemed that it would take me ages when doing it 'for real'.

Step 4 - Playmat and pencil, playmat and copic marker
After this I decided to take a mat and try to do some strokes with the copics and pencil. I was scared! The colors were extremely bright and I couldn't take the pencil out of the mat! Also the copic marker left TOO much color on the mat and I had no idea how to work with it not causing stains, smudges and simply not precise lines. It was really frustrating. Also I realized that I won't be able to do the lineart with copic marker as it is 'soluble' (or rather the colors mix up) by another copic marker. So I had to try my luck with multiliners. And with these I encountered another problem....I started doing a line and then the tip ended deep inside the textile. Fortunately there is a brush tip multiliner as well and that does NOT have this problem.

Step 5 - Playmat and pencil, playmat and copic marker
The real thing! At this point I was almost ready to start working on the actual thing. But I had to buy the playmat. I got it along with Gatecrash booster boxes. (First I had to open the boxes, sort the cards, write down what I have, the prices etc etc...). Few hours later I finally grabbed a ruler, pencil, multiliners, copic markers and THIS shiny white Ultra Pro mat.

I started measuring and made few dots and lines. They weren't that precise as I wanted them to be. While doing this I managed to smear something on the mat. I was enraged. I tried to get it off with water, soap ... simply anything but it did not work that much and I knew that it was in the place of Tamiyo's face. I was wondering if I should abandon this mat or not. But I continued on. The part I started on was relatively wet so I had to wait quite some time till it dried. Some parts were still wet and the colors went in all the directions they could. This was NOT good. Anyway I started doing a pencil sketch, then multiliner one and finally started using copic markers.

I almost managed to overcome the multiliner problem. I had to use much less force than I'm used to and then it was quite fine. I had to be doing the strokes also from certain position. That meant that I had to be moving the mat all over the table (wasn't fun as there's hardly place for it - especially when there are cards everywhere all over it). Next time I should also start from right to left. I noted that the color gets on my hand and then when I put my hand on something not dry it makes the colors blend together and when it is a combination of a very light color and dark one there's nothing you can do with that. It also leaves marks on the blank mat. So as I use my left hand to draw I should start on the right side. It would avoid at least this problem. It annoyed me MANY times. I started to use local game store's life tracker 'notepad' so this wouldn't happen again. Not sure what paper was used for it but it sucks color pretty well unlike any kind of anything made of paper I have in this flat and does not let it soak back to the textile.

After finishing coloring Elspeth I realized that the pencil drawing is hardly visible. At least that was a good news. Actually it felt really good after I finished Elspeth. She looked good. Also encountered many more problems. But the one that bothered me the most is that. If I want to achieve something and make it look the way I want the color needs to be quite wet. When it dries it is not possible to make any other changes. So next time I need to be more critical during the coloring process. There are many things I'd like to change on the drawing but I couldn't as it dried in the meantime.

The finished product is somewhere on this blog.

It felt good after finishing that. I was smiling! Today I used it in two events. It was so nice...

My First Custom Playmat