affykay

Hello! I played against you on Untap.in today and promised to post a comment with suggestions. Heeeere we go!

Your curve is really heavy towards late-game and you don't have a lot of ramp to justify playing high-drops efficiently, meaning when you go to cast stuff you're not going to be doing it until turns 5-6 on average. Come on, man, you deserve to play earlier than that. To combat this issue I recommend the following RAMP SPELLS:

CREATURES -- Elvish Mystic/Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, Sakura Tribe-Elder, Oracle of Mul Daya, Lotus Cobra
INSTANTS/SORCERIES -- Skyshroud Claim, Nature's Lore, Cultivate, Far Wanderings, Kodama's Reach
ENCHANTMENTS -- Exploration

Don't need all of the above, but some are staples and there's simply no reason not to run them when you have access to them and want to utilize tons of mana.

I can see you have a lot of combos in your deck that synergize with your Commander! That's really awesome! But you need to be able to protect your slimeguy once he's out. You have some amount of counter-magic but it's not exactly, like, enough. I recommend more cards that will protect your Experiment Kraj. So here are some cards I'd like to see (personal favorites, mind you) that count as COMBO PROTECTION CARDS:

INSTANTS/SORCERIES -- Savage Summoning, Logic Knot, Remand, Stifle, Trickbind, Misdirection
ENCHANTMENTS -- Asceticism, Leyline of Anticipation

I definitely recommend losing Leyline of Vitality in favor of Anticipation. If you'd like another life-gain card, run Essence Warden instead. She's a one-drop Soul Sister.

CARD ADVANTAGE ENGINES:

INSTANTS/SORCERIES -- Harmonize, Ancestral Visions,
ENCHANTMENTS -- Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Sylvan Library

And here's some stuff that just makes for FUN SYNERGY:

CREATURES -- Horizon Chimera (w/Fathom Mage), Prime Speaker Zegana (w/your whole deck), Phantasmal Image/Clever Impersonator (for fun).

I'm sure I could think of more but these are some cards I definitely see your deck wanting, potentially needing. The ramp suite at the very least. Remember that jank is fun, but you need to get to the point of casting it for it to work. Running 1-2 ramp spells means you have a "1-in-X (where X is the number of cards in your library)" chance of drawing that effect, which is not very reliable.

Well Cloudpost/Glimmerpost are banned in Modern and Tron isn't a thing in Legacy; in Legacy they have Show & Tell. I always consider practical playability when criticizing decks.

Here's a list you might like if you like mono-green and you like the idea of dropping 'drazi. Happy trails! :)

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1205503

Fuck yeah! BWR BURN! And you even have the right mana base going on, right-on, brother, right-on!

My only suggestions:

Lose Dark Confidant in favor of Vexing Devil because it's either 1/5 of their life total for 1 mana, or it's 4 damage a turn! Bob is just too slow for you, don't let it happen. Don't be dumb.

Also lose Rakdos's Return and Blightning in favor of Goblin Guides. You want immediate damage done as fast as possible. You aren't going to have enough mana ever for Rakdos's Return to be valuable, and Jesus Christ Blightning is so slow.

Here are some cards you could add!

Frostweb Spider -- It grows!
Jungle Weaver -- Heavy on the mana cost, but it has cycling.
Asceticism seems like it would be fun in here. Regenerate my death touch spider? GG?
Bow of Nylea -- Kills fliers, gains you life, and it recurs spiders.

Just so you know, Emrakul and Ulamog are often played in a Tron shell in Modern.

Tron is composed of Urza's Mine, Power Plant, and Tower. It says "I have 7 mana on Turn 3." You run lots of things that let you search for and play lands and then you play big things.

I think your deck could benefit from that if only to help you out by giving you up to 7 mana on your third turn.

Posted a couple thorough replies on different decks. This is a real good idea. Nice job getting so much support for it!

http://www.mtgvault.com/reekojacks/decks/esper-control-budget/
http://www.mtgvault.com/cloudcontrol/decks/modern-infect/

Modern player here. It looks like the format you want this to work in should be modern before anything else, because Control isn't a thing outside of Miracles in Legacy.

Our definitions of "budget" are probably different, but here's a deck list that at max would cost you $300 and could probably do decently well at a Modern FNM:

http://www.mtgvault.com/affykay/decks/esper-control-budget-gifts/

I'll explain things here for you.

This is an Esper Gifts build on a budget.

The Gifts Ungiven combo works where you Take Gifts Ungiven and grab Unburial Rites and one extremely big dude, then let both go to the grave, then Unburial Rites your really big dude with cheats. Because you want budgety I figured this was a good way for you to run a bunch of one-ofs and not have to blow $120 on Snapcaster Mages, and Isochron Scepter is a bad card outside of UWR where you can burn people out.

Because of the control shell of the deck, we run removal and counter-magic. I like Remand because it's a card that replaces itself immediately. Spell Snare is really good in modern and there's no reason to NOT run 2 of them. Path to Exile is our primary removal spell because it hits every single creature that's important in modern, including Tarmogoyf and Voice of Resurgence. Dismember is also just an insane card, it's -5/-5 for 1 mana, how can you complain about that?

So. Unburial Gifts. For your targets I chose Sundering Titan and Elesh Norn. Elesh Norn is an amazing card that's a removal spell upon ETB. Why Sundering Titan? Because it's hilarious and it works well with Academy Ruins in the chance you ever hard-cast Unburial Rites. It also crushes most land bases in Modern, where we often play three colors or off-color lands for sideboard cards.

Additionally you run Academy Ruins for Engineered Explosives, which really only matters when locked at 1, 2, or 3. This way you can constantly recur it. It's good against Affinity. And you can get Academy Ruins with Gifts Ungiven. Value!

And of course we run hand disruption and other one-ofs that we can Gifts Ungiven for, like Detention Sphere, Lingering Souls, Timely Reinforcements, and Supreme Verdict. Gifts is a deck where you can play to the situation. It's also a tough deck to pilot because you need to know your lines of play inside and out like the back of your hand to be super successful with it. But Gifts decks have control shells and if you're comfortable with it I say try this list.

Like I said, control is bad in Legacy outside of Miracles, and even though this is more than the "budget" you had in mind, the list is better, it's playable in a format with more players, and even though it's sub-optimal it's not a bad list to get started with. Your mana will be strange without fetches, but I plugged in fast lands and shocks to try to help aide that.

Hopefully I've explained enough but if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Hi! I want to make a couple suggestions for you.

I'd say you want Cathedral of War as a one-of land maybe in place of a forest because it's actually really good in place of Noble Hierarch for you. Lose Tezzeret's Gambit, replace it with Apostle's Blessing in the main-deck. Don't play Gambit at all, it's too slow for your deck. T3 is the turn you want to win. And take the Blessings out of the board in place of something like Dispel. Idk those two spaces can be used better than for Blessings that should be in the main-deck. Bow of Nylea is also too slow.

You don't need fetches between shocks and checks, but I'd say find room for two pain lands (Yavimaya Coast) over forests as well. Your mana base will look something like: 4 Inkmoth Nexus, 4 Breeding Pool, 4 Hinterland Harbor, 1 Cathedral of War, 2 Yavimaya Coast, 4 Forest.

I really like this list. Instead of Hierarch play Cathedral of War, and don't forget your Pendelhaven.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1205394

Suggested changes:

-2x Heliod || -1x Fabled Hero || -1x Aetherling || -1x Brimaz || -2x Cyclonic Rift || - 3x Banishing Light || -2x Jace Memory Adept
+2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion || +4x Dissolve || +1x Sphinx's Revelation || +1x Syncopate || +3x Jace, Architect of Thought || +1x Temple of Enlightenment

Your sideboard is a little screwy, too. I don't like it at all for what you're going for.

-2x Murmuring Phantasm || -3x Arrest || -2x Revoke Existence
+1x Nyx-Fleece Ram || +2x Negate || +1x Last Breath || +2x Dispel || +1x Jace, Memory Adept

Explanation:

I see what you're going for and what you want out of your deck. The problem is you're looking to play control and currently have 0 counter spells, your control mirror will be terrible, and there's nothing you can do about it. The changes I've suggested bring you closer to your standard UW Control list but give you more versatility and leverage to not-die. There's a lot of things you just didn't have answers for and that's a serious problem.

So you get to keep your dudes here. All your little dudes. Since you're running 4x Banisher Priest you don't need 4x Banishing Light *and* 4x Detention Sphere so I cut the number down. Made room for Elspeth, better-Jace, and counter spells. I personally think you should run 3x Sphinx's Revelation because it's an amazing card.

Brimaz is legendary, you don't really want the full four. Three seems like a healthy number.

Syncopate rules.

Fabled Hero is just bad when you're never going to trigger heroic.

You never want more than one Aetherling. Ever.

Two Heliods seems bad as well. If anything I'd put him in the board but he just doesn't do anything for you. Cut for another land.

I've copied your list and I'm gonna link the way I'm suggesting you do it to you:

http://www.mtgvault.com/affykay/decks/uw-high-end-control-copy/