At My Wit's End

[Coffee Vampire]

Hi all. I am trying to make a {Battle of Wits} deck, yet have hit a dead end in my brain. I can't think of ways to make it better.

The colors are esper. I won't tell you a decklist because I don't want your mind limited to the ideas in the deck. Just share your suggestions of what I should have in there, for starters.

Any help would be nice. Just put your thinking caps on and get creative!

[Ace]

I would take out the white and put in green, U need to have a lot of draw spells and a lot of ramp to try to thin out the deck as much as u can. With the green and blue u can get a lot of stall and big blockers

[InfinitiveDivinity]

I would take out the white and put in green, U need to have a lot of draw spells and a lot of ramp to try to thin out the deck as much as u can. With the green and blue u can get a lot of stall and big blockers

Battle of Turbo Fog? Lol

Well for starters, you need all of the Tutors we have available, my buddy had an Esper Wits deck, I'll have to ask him about it

[Fenster]

Dimir feat {Arcane melee} or even grixis with {Goblin electromancer} add a bunch of control and draw and it'd be very viable i believe.

[Wally]

Make it 98% permenants and run green for {Primal Surge}?

[Greg54js]

Make it 98% permenants and run green for {Primal Surge}?

I would love to see this... 👆

Alright who's got 4 battle of wits and 4 primal surge they want to trade me. I'm gonna do it....

[Greg54js]

Make it 98% permenants and run green for {Primal Surge}?

I would love to see this... 👆

Alright who's got 4 battle of wits and 4 primal surge they want to trade me. I'm gonna do it....

You'll also need a lot of fetch elves. With {Primal Surge} you won't want {Cultivates} or other fetch spells in your deck.

I'm thinking birthing pod and lots of defenders to use with the new stuff from rtr

[Wally]

Hold on. Standard or otherwise?

[Greg54js]

Hold on. Standard or otherwise?

Mine's casual

[Wally]

Have a look at my extended 'elf wave' deck (now found in other) at least for the green part.
Also a card which I never had but probably should have  {Craterhoof Behemoth}

[KulrathKnight]

If you run {Primal Surge} and you want the {Battle of Wits} to win you the game, you should have a {Terminus} in hand before you cast it. And make sure 90% of those permanents are creatures.

[Coffee Vampire]

Hi guys, thanks for all the help. Sorry should have said this is for standard lol

One thing I am sure of: I am keeping it esper colors. Not because green isn't freakintastic, just because I have all the expensive blue white cards and zero expensive green cards. Man that surge deck sounds cool though. Let me know how it turns out!

I am splashing red ONLY for {Mystic Retrieval}. It is the only card that lets me pull of the {Mirror-Mad Phantasm} + {Psychic Spiral} combo without any cards other than him being drawn.

Black is mainly for tutors and forbidden alch flashback. Maybe I'll run lingerie souls. We'll see.

Do you think some kind of {Unburial Rites} shinanigans could be pulled here?

Again thanks for your help...now that I decided to go esper we can be more focussed.

[Wally]

I think you have two options.

Firstly you can run plenty of different/alternative win cons in the deck so that you aren't hopeless against 80% of agro decks.

Secondly you need to tutor incredibly well. The issue here is that it takes time to set up, and the standard tutors are cmc expensive.

Personally I like the first option combined with whatever tutoring you can fit.
You will need plenty of stuff to buy you more time (extra turns even) and plenty of stuff you can replay or set off combos.
I said {Primal Surge} because with a bit of mana ramp you can land plenty of stuff on the battlefield (lands and otherwise) and hopefully set yourself up for a final punch. Now of course there's the better option when running spells and graveyard mechanics, {Genesis Wave} but that's now rotated out of standard
Some of those unlimited mana combos would be a great option to hit in a deck like this. {Sphinx's Revelation} and {Psychic Spiral} would be awesome, {Increasing Confusion} another great hit with unlimited {X} mana.

Drawing cards to find what you need will be your only hope. If you can trigger this at any possible opportunity, combos that help you ({Guttersnipe} or {Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius} & {Curiosity}) will be your bread and butter here.