Welcome Magic lovers!
As the Standard Regional Championship Qualifier season hurtles on, racing through Aetherdrift and setting its sights on the gathering storm on Tarkir, one may think the format has started to become stale. After all, tired, old Domain won the Pro Tour again, a Standard deck that's existed in one form or another for a full two years now, while Dimir Midrange and Gruul Aggro have been around since before last year's rotation, yet combined, they still manage to make up almost 50% of the metagame.
However, as this past weekend's Standard Showcase Challenge on Magic Online has shown us, the metagame changes as often as the weather, with innovations and tweaks being made to several new archetypes, in particular Esper Pixie. A dominant performance by the Esper players put three copies of the deck into the top four of the tournament, with another copy just missing top eight, in no small part due to the work that incredible deck-builders, like the infamous 'cftsoc' on Magic Online (who ended up taking down the whole tournament), are putting into the deck.
What’s especially interesting are the differences between the several copies that made it all the way to the top four, demonstrating that the final, ‘optimal’ configuration has yet to be discovered. Despite the deck obviously not being in its final form, it still put almost four copies into the top eight of a two-hundred-and-fifty-five player tournament.
Is Esper Pixie the best deck in the format? Let's find out.
The Plan
For those who may be new to the deck, the plan is simple: pressure the opponent's life total with cheap threats, play Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, while simultaneously chewing up their hand with efficient discard effects that can be bounced and replayed over and over again via Nurturing Pixie and Fear of Isolation.
Oh, and Stormchaser's Talent and This Town Ain't Big Enough are also here to loop for infinite value.
While the core plan of the deck remains consistent across the various lists from the top four of the Standard Showcase Challenge, some subtle, yet very important differences present themselves.
Starting at the top, with first-place finisher cftsoc's list, we see some notable changes from previous versions of the deck. First, the adoption of a pair of Overlord of the Balemurk has been an incredible innovation for the deck, giving it some real staying power and redundancy that can grind with almost any deck in the format that wants to go to either the mid or late-game. Bringing back almost any creature in the deck is fantastic, while hitting a Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is truly incredible. Then consider the fact that it can be picked up with Fear of Isolation and Nurturing Pixie in order to continue pulling threats from the graveyard, and one quickly realizes how potent it becomes in this shell. Only one other list in the top four found the power of the black Overlord, though I expect this addition to become a staple if it hasn't already.
Another card we see across all the new Esper Pixie lists is Momentum Breaker, a new, Aetherdrift addition that's perfect in the deck, as it combines the effect of the two previously-played, wildly-mediocre cards, Tinybones Joins Up and Tithing Blade, into one elegant solution. Now the Esper pilot gets their repeatable sacrifice and discard in just one card. Cftsoc decided to run a pair, which feels better to me, while the other two lists left one copy in the sideboard.
After that, things start to diverge.
The biggest change that sets cftsoc's list apart is two-fold: the omission of key cards, Optimistic Scavenger and Spiteful Hexmage. An early stalwart in the deck, the Hexmage's popularity has faded over time, with many previous lists having eschewed it already. However, the Optimistic Scavenger has been run as a playset in almost every list of Esper Pixie thus far, and cutting it is a huge shift for the deck.
It's the difference between tuning the Esper Pixie deck to be something far rawer and more aggressive, which is optimal in a world where one expects to play against plenty of slow, plodding Domain Overlords, versus finessing it into a much more flexible, defensive version that can post a better matchup against Gruul Aggro and, most importantly, the mirror match, while also retaining a solid game against the late-game decks.
Cards like Preacher of the Schism are not only excellent against aggressive, red decks, but they're also great against Nowhere to Run, which has largely supplanted Go for the Throat in these Esper lists. It's also a card that demands an answer from the slower decks, as it threatens to snowball card advantage.
Another new, Aetherdrift addition to cftsoc's list that seems to be popping up everywhere is Stock Up. This incredible draw spell is cheap enough to still make sense in this deck's mana curve, while providing the kind of card advantage needed to run with late game lists such as Domain Overlords and the newly-reemerged Azorius Control decks. Ruining the opponent's hand with discard spells like Hopeless Nightmare and Momentum Breaker, while getting to buy Stock Up back later using Stormchaser's Talent in order to keep the gas flowing in slower matchups and beat the control decks at their own game feels amazing as well.
The last thing that stood out in cftsoc's list is the single, main-deck Destroy Evil, which may seem odd, but actually makes plenty of sense when one considers that this version of the deck is a bit slower, and therefore a touch softer, to Domain Overlords in the mid-late game. Even one copy of a powerful, instant-speed enchantment removal spell can easily tip the scales against Domain, especially when one can buy it back in a long game with Stormchaser's Talent.
The Mana
The mana across the various lists is relatively consistent, with only one basic Swamp and then dual lands as far as the eye can see; a necessity in a three-color deck with plenty of various mana pips. One or two Restless Anchorage are usually present, while cftsoc opted to also run a single Restless Reef.
There isn’t much room for innovation here, as colorless utility lands would push the mana base beyond the point where it's consistently functional.
The Sideboard
This is where things get interesting, and again, cftsoc's list seems like it's got the upper hand. A pair of Break the Spell are not only amazing against Domain, but also do great work against the Esper Pixie mirror, as well as the Omniscience Combo decks, one of which also made the same top eight. Alongside another two copies of Destroy Evil, this list is ready to destroy all enchantments in its path.
This list also seems much better prepared for the Esper Pixie mirror match with a pair of Pest Control ready to come in and wreak havoc against the versions playing eleven one-mana creatures to cftsoc’s four.
Ghost Vacuum is the graveyard-hate weapon of choice here over Rest in Peace, coming in against Omniscience Combo, as well as Jeskai Oculus, while a third Preacher of the Schism and a pair of Temporary Lockdown come in against both Gruul aggro and the mirror match. Ghost Vacuum gets the nod here because Rest in Peace would interfere with our Overlord of the Balemurk late-game value plan.
Dreams of Steel and Oil is an interesting, proactive choice for disruption, rather than relying on the more reactive, No More Lies, that the other lists are playing. It makes more sense if one is expecting Domain to start running more Cavern of Souls, which they have already started doing in order to beat Azorius Control.
Conclusion
Legendary deckbuilder, cftsoc, is really showing why they have the reputation that they do, and their results speak for themselves. This list of Esper seems well thought out, having been massaged into something a little slower, a little more elegant, and a lot more potent against the most popular decks in the field. Esper Pixie feels like the deck to beat in Standard at the moment, and it still hasn't even reached its final form.