In general, people say that control is a losing strategy in Modern. That’s typically because there’s such a huge breadth of powerful linear strategies that you can’t realistically prepare for them all. This is especially true if you still want to be able to compete against the powerful midrange decks like Jund and Abzan. For a couple weeks, Jeskai decks were able to use Lightning Bolt and Snapcaster Mage to contain fast opponents long enough to put Emrakul into play, but the format has just sped up in response. So what’s a dedicated control mage to do?

Esper Control - Modern | Curryvore, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (13)
• 4 Kitchen Finks
• 4 Restoration Angel
• 4 Wall of Omens
• 1 Snapcaster Mage

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Gideon Jura
• 1 Jace, Architect of Thought

• Spells (20)
• 4 Detention Sphere
• 4 Path to Exile
• 4 Supreme Verdict
• 2 Collective Brutality
• 2 Esper Charm
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 2 Runed Halo

• Lands (25)
• 2 Island
• 3 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 3 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Celestial Colonnade
• 2 Mystic Gate
• 2 Shambling Vent
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Watery Grave

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Collective Brutality
• 2 Runed Halo
• 3 Dispel
• 2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 4 Negate
• 2 Surgical Extraction

Buy This Deck

This take on Esper by Curryvore is a great place to start if you’re looking to cast Blue spells in Modern right now. This is more of a tap-out style of control deck, featuring many sorcery-speed answers and value creatures that can help grind out advantages. There’s a lot of things to like about this strategy in the current format. The backbone of Wall of Omens, Kitchen Finks, and Restoration Angel buy you a lot of time in most of the aggro matchups. Even in matchups like Bant Eldrazi, where your creatures certainly can’t compete head on, the ability to stall out the ground while you hit land drops and dig for removal spells.

In addition to the backbone being a reasonable strategy in the format, there’s also a number of powerful effects that Curryvore is playing that interact favorably with the format right now. First, Supreme Verdict. Lots of people are preparing to fight against efficient spot removal with cards like Vines of Vastwood and Dispel. Others are prepared to fight against Pyroclasm and Anger of the Gods with Arcbound Ravager and Gavony Township. Relatively few decks are packing the likes of Selfless Spirit to fight against Supreme Verdict. As long as you can survive until turn four, this card is great against everything from infect and affinity to Elves and Eldrazi.

The second card that makes a big splash here is Runed Halo. This is a card that lets you proactively shut down your opponent’s ability to interact with your life total in a way that is mana efficient and does not target or destroy. Importantly, this is a card that lets you shut off Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, Murderous Redcap, Inkmoth Nexus, and more. The presence of Runed Halo in your deck takes an enormous amount of pressure off of your Path to Exiles and Ghost Quarters, since you can just name Raging Ravine or Death's Shadow while also giving you ways to beat Scapeshift and Hexproof in game one.

Add to all of this that the Black splash gives you access to Collective Brutality as a super efficient discard spell, Lingering Souls to further solidify your matchup against infect and affinity, and Shambling Vent to help keep your head above water against burn, and this is seems like a fine choice for any mage who’s looking to get their control on.