Esper Raffine Deck Guide

Esper Raffine Legends Variant

Lands

4 Fortified Beachhead 

2 Shattered Sanctum

2 Shipwreck Marsh 

4 Raffine's Tower 

4 Plaza of Heroes 

1 Caves of Koilos 

2 Underground River 

2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire 

2 Otawara, Soaring City 

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

1 Plains 

1 Swamp 

1 Island

Creatures

4 Raffine, Scheming Seer 

1 Brutal Cathar 

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

3 Dennick, Pious Apprentice 

2 Ao, the Dawn Sky 

1 Ertai Resurrected 

2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse 

1 The Reality Chip

3 Harbin, Vanguard Aviator 

1 Ratadrabik of Urborg  

1 Loran of the Third Path

2 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar 

1 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor 

1 The Raven Man

1 Myrel, Shield of Argive

1 Ludevic, Necrogenius

Non-Creature Spells

1 Destroy Evil

1 Cut Down 

1 Void Rend

1 The Wandering Emperor 

Sideboard

2 Void Rend 

1 Cut Down 

1 Dreams of Steel and Oil 

1 Brutal Cathar

2 Negate

2 Duress

1 Ao, the Dawn Sky

2 Brutal Cathar

1 Unlicensed Hearse

1 Loran of the Third Path

1 Ertai Resurrected

Methodology

This deck came about starting at a prediction; Harbin and Fortified Beachhead together make Raffine decks much stronger.  You take less damage from your lands and they come into play untapped often.  Harbin kills people extremely quickly and is hard to block unless your opponent is also playing Raffine.  From there I sketched out a rough list, played 30ish matches while ranking up, and then took a lot of inspiration from the Challenge winning list, which got me to cut Wedding Announcement, add a 4th Thalia, and play a lot fewer interactive cards.

Why Play Esper Raffine? (Legends Variant)

This deck has access to a lot of unbeatable draws, and I say that with as little hyperbole as possible.  Thalia into Raffine on the play means an unkillable Raffine which also won't die to any sweepers.  When things stall out, you also have access to an incredible long game, with 13 of your lands having spell like effects or cycling, and plenty of card advantage sources like Wandering Emperor, Dennick, and Gix.  You also have the luxury of playing a few silver bullets such as Loran and Brutal Cathar, which when good are quite incredible.  Every single card in the deck is individually strong, and you're often winning naturally by just casting better cards than everyone else.  As it stands, Esper Raffine is the best deck in Standard.

The Ugly

This deck while great, is not perfect.  You have a lot of trouble with cards like Invoke Despair if the board is anywhere close to neutral, and really struggle in game one vs. control decks and other Raffine decks if you're on the draw.  Your deck is full of legends, and sometimes you keep a hand with 2 Thalias, draw another one, and your Raffine dies.  Not like I'd know anything about that.  There's a lot of singletons which vastly change your sequencing if you draw them and are easy to screw up with.  Ratadrabik specifically will have you making incredibly wacky plays like casting a 2nd Thalia to legend rule it and have it come back for the double tax.

Digital vs. Paper Play

Currently Fortified Beachhead will pause the game if you have a Soldier in hand, even if you have one in play already.  While this is true to the card, this card leaks serious information in digital and isn't enough better than Adarkar Wastes to justify it.  I don't hate playing 4 Adarkar Wastes instead, especially if you start trimming on Soldiers.  In paper or at lower levels of ladder play, I believe that Beachhead is better and worth playing.

General Tips

• "Always Loot"  Attack with Raffine aggressively, triggering it as many times as possible.  Finding your unbeatable Brutal Cathar or Sheoldred is a lot easier when you're seeing 3-5 cards a turn every turn.
• Don't be afraid to discard your spells, even if they're pretty good.  Getting a bunch of counters on your creatures makes them even harder to deal with in the future, and will even make them unkillable vs. decks relying on Cut Down, Voltage Surge, etc.
• Mulligan aggressively.  Don't keep a hand without all 3 colors, don't keep a no Raffine/no 2 drop hand.  If the hand looks mediocre, just go to 6.
• Intentional legend ruling.  This comes up a lot with Ao and Ratadrabik, sometimes you'll want to legend rule your own stuff so that you can either make a copy, put 2 counters on everything, or find a specific permanent.
• Loran/Sheoldred, BFF's.  Having both players draw a card is quite strong when it makes your opponent take 2, and you gain 2.  As long as you're endstepping the Loran activation you don't have to worry much about them drawing a removal spell you helped them find.  Still, use with caution.

Sideboarding

General sideboarding with this deck is pretty impossible right now, standard is very wide open still and people will play a lot of random cards even in established decks.

Almost always:

+ 1 Ao

- 1 Loran/Brutal Cathar

Loran is there to be a silver bullet, and is bad more often than it's good.  Brutal Cathar against control decks is quite similar.  Ao gets better in postboard games as they typically go longer as decks are better at fighting each other.

Raffine Decks

Creature Version (Did they play Thalia?)

In

+ 1 Cut Down

+ 1 Ao

+ 1 Ertai

+ 3 Brutal Cathar

You need to kill your opponents Raffine, and be able to play a long grindy game as well..

Out

- 1 Loran

- 1 Myrel

- 4 Thalia

Thalia is not so hot against a deck with 25+ creatures and a bunch of spell lands that get around the tax.  Loran is a 3 mana 2/1 and Myrel struggles to attack profitably.

Midrange Version (Multiple Cut Downs, Go for the Throat, Wedding Announcement)

In

+ 2 Duress

+ 1 Ertai

+ 1 Ao

+ 2 Void Rend

+ 1 Cut Down

Boarding here is tough.  Negate might be good but it's tough to tell without seeing a lot of their cards.  Pay a lot of attention and be willing to board differently!

Out

- 2 Thalia

- 1 Myrel

- 1 Brutal Cathar

- 1 Loran

- 2 Adeline

They might have sweepers, they might have a ton of removal spells.  Once again, be willing to adapt.  Thalia might be insane or it could be one of the worst cards in your deck.  Hopefully you won game 1 and can hedge and game 2 and go 4 or 0 in game 3.

Invoke Despair Decks (Grixis/Mono Black, others) Farewell Decks (Mono White Midrange, Others)

In

+ 2 Duress

+ 2 Negate

+1 Ao

+1 Ertai

Out

- 1 Loran

- 1 Brutal Cathar

- 2 Sheoldred

- 1 Destroy Evil

- 1 Cut Down

Like various versions of Raffine, pay attention and adapt accordingly.  Ratadrabik sucks against Farewell, you might want Cut Down against Third Path Iconoclast.

Until next time,

Kevin

Standard Mono Blue Tempo Deck Guide

Deck List

Lands

18 Island

2 Otawara, Soaring City 

Spells

2 Spell Pierce 

2 Shore Up 

2 Slip Out the Back 

2 Fading Hope 

4 Combat Research

4 Consider

4 Impulse 

3 Make Disappear 

2 Essence Scatter

2 Negate

1 Ertai's Scorn

Creatures

4 Ledger Shredder 

4 Faerie Vandal

4 Haughty Djinn

Sideboard

1 Negate

4 Witness Protection

2 Disdainful Stroke

4 Thirst for Discovery

2 Overcharged Amalgam 

2 Field of Ruin 

Game Plan

The goal of this deck is to put Combat Research on an evasive creature and counter all of your opponent's relevant spells.  Use Impulse/Consider to find missing pieces, Spell Pierce, Shore Up and Slip Out the Back to protect your creatures, and Fading Hope/Otawara to push the final points or protect yourself.  It is very easy to win when you're drawing 2 cards a turn and getting progressively bigger creatures.

Opponents will typically have Cut Down and Voltage Surge, which you can outscale with all of the creatures in the deck.  You can protect yourself from sweepers/Liliana of the Veil with Slip Out the Back, targeted removal with Shore Up, and anything expensive with Spell Pierce or Make Disappear.

This deck is incredibly strong and unforgiving on the play, and not so good on the draw, much more so than other decks.

Differences From Delver

This deck is very similar to Delver, obviously with no Delver and no Tolarian Terror.  I don't like Delver because it doesn't flip naturally at a rate I'm happy with, dies to all of the commonly played removal spells, and requires you to play weak cards to flip it.  If I'm casting a Fading Hope or Otherworldly Gaze in hopes of flipping my Delver, I should just be doing something else.  Tolarian Terror often clogs up my hand during the key early turns of the game, and isn't strong enough even when it's really good.

Card Choices

18 Islands

2 Otawara

This deck only needs 2 lands to operate early on.  You draw lots of cards, loot often, and have a lot of selection.  Less lands means discarding more spells to Ledger Shredder, which also pumps Haughty Djinn.

2 Spell Pierce

2 Slip Out the Back

2 Shore Up

All generally function as protection spells here, but each has its own perks.  Slip is really awkward because of the way opponents will typically time their removal spell, meaning you can't block or won't draw a card from Combat Research, but it's incredibly versatile because you can remove one of your opponents creatures from play for a turn.

4 Ledger Shredder 

4 Faerie Vandal

4 Haughty Djinn

All of these creatures are surprisingly synergistic with each other.  Shredder triggers grow Vandal and often Djinn as well, Djinn makes it easier to cast 2 spells a turn, Vandal helps trigger Shredder on your opponents turn and reaps a lot of the benefits.  Flashing in a Faerie Vandal to sacrifice it to Make Disappear occasionally comes up and is incredibly nice.

Opening Hand

A good opening hand has a 2 mana creature, 2 lands, Combat Research, and a protection spell.  You should mulligan aggressively for a good hand, especially on the play.  Once you set-up Faerie Vandal + Research and protect it once, the game is generally over.  

One land hands on the play are not worth it no matter how many Consider, and aren't much better on the draw.  1 Island (not Otawara because of the risk of ruin) and 2 Consider I'd keep on the draw.

Hands full of air are auto mulligans.  3 Islands 2 Consider 2 Impulse?  By the time you find something to do, you're dead.

Same goes for hands full of creatures.  2 Islands 5 creatures, 3 Islands 4 creatures, etc.  Once again these hands do absolutely nothing.  If your hand needs to draw 2+ specific classes of cards (Combat Research, Protection Spells, Creatures, Cantrips) it sucks and needs to get sent back

Sideboarding

The entire sideboard is there to either increase your win % on the draw or pivot away from Combat Research post board against decks with tons of removal.  You also need to be better against Duress; most decks in Standard are Black and run anywhere from 2 - 4 copies.  Combat tricks like Shore Up absolutely suck vs. Duress, your opponent can easily strand them in your hand or set-up to retrick you with a removal spell.

General Sideboarding

In:

4 Thirst for Discovery

2 Field of Ruin

2 Witness Protection

Out:

4 Combat Research

2 Shore Up

2 Slip out the Back

Thirst for Discovery replaces Combat Research against removal heavy decks.  While they sit on Infernal Grasp, you're drawing cards at instant speed and playing the game on your terms.  

Stock sideboarding is really tough for this deck past this advice.  For example, sometimes you'll play against Esper Raffine and they have 0-1 Void Rend and your combat tricks are awful, but if they have 3/4 they're the best cards in your deck.  Opponent aggressively plays around "Counter unless you pay 2" effects like Spell Pierce?  Board them out.  In match-ups like Gruul/Mono Red, I'll board in Field of Ruin just to make it less likely I miss land drops because those match-ups are so good that's typically the only way I can lose.

Speaking of Field of Ruin, I rarely if ever activate it, and it's generally nothing more than basic Wastes.  When taking out 4 one mana spells and adding 4 3 mana spells that make you want to discard lands, you really want more lands.  Pro tip for post sideboard games, play out Otawara/Field of Ruin and hold basics so that you can discard them to Thirst.  It sounds trivial but that's what this deck is all about.

Overcharged Amalgam often comes in with Thirst as a counter spell that can't get Negated, and is another huge reason to add lands.

Problem Cards

Raffine, Scheming Seer

This deck often beats people up with creature sizing and needs to be able to deal combat damage in the air.  A flying 1/4 definitely mucks that all up.  Counter on sight.

Liliana of the Veil

If you are considering any play and it's bad against Liliana, don't do it.  Casting a 2 drop on the draw and then getting Liliana -2'd the following turn is insurmountable.  You're better off not casting anything at all and hoping they don't play it.

Void Rend

Uncounterable, enough said.  Terrible against the combat tricks though.

Graveyard Trespasser

Eats away at Haughty Djinn's resources, can drain you out at a low life total, if you want to bounce it you discard a card.  Another counter on sight.

Otawara, Soaring City

Like Void Rend, this is uncounterable unless you have Overcharged Amalgam, and unlike Eiganjo you can't just outgrow it.  People only play one, but sometimes it just kills you.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

A resolved Sheoldred is as close to unbeatable as it gets.  Always try to save Otawara or Fading Hope for Sheoldred, and remember that you can Slip out the Back her in your opponents upkeep to stop them from gaining life or hurting you for a full turn cycle.  This card is MUCH harder to resolve against you in practice than you'd expect, but it's the reason you're always boarding in Witness Protection.

Tricks/Set-Ups

Haughty Djinn

Unless you're playing against an opponent that can't kill it or are desperate, do not play this on turn 3/with 3 lands.  Play it with protection available.  Almost everyone can kill it once, killing it twice is much more difficult.

Be very mindful of how big Djinn is and how many attacks it'll take to kill your opponent.  You can often drastically shorten the clock by spewing your spells; casting Spell Pierce on things it won't counter, aggressively discarding them to Consider/Shredder, end step tricks that you also counter.  

Thalia is not a commonly played card right now but Djinn will offset Thalia's tax cost.

Faerie Vandal

Play it before your Combat Research trigger goes off for the counter.

If you want to counter an opponents spell and control a Ledger Shredder, cast Vandal, then the counter the spell.  If your opponent casts anything else, your 2nd Shredder Trigger gives you a Vandal counter.  Really nice when there's any sort of counter war.

Ambush!  If your opponent sequences poorly, which will often happen because of how people try to play around counter spells, you can cast Vandal to block an X/1.

Ledger Shredder

Be mindful of how you stack the triggers with multiple Shredders.  You'll often have one Summoning Sick, one not.  If you save the second loot for the non-sick Shredder you can almost always get it a +1/+1 counter.

Shredder prison.  If you control multiple Shredders/Vandals, your opponent gets severely punished for casting 2 spells in a given turn.  Games that stall out, which is rare, typically end up with you having this type of board.  Try to force your opponent to get into counter wars/have to do multiple things on their own turn for maximum punishment.

Combat Research Priority

Faerie Vandal --> Ledger Shredder --> Haughty Djinn

Faerie Vandal does nothing on it's own, you often take on the least risk putting an enchantment on it.  Haughty Djinn is already a removal lightning rod, don't put all of your eggs in that basked it you can avoid it.

Set 6.5: Navigating a Midset Downgrade

Set 6.5 is not it.  It hasn't even been a full week since release and nearly every complaint the set deserves has been said.

Rehashing Said Complaints

• 3 Trait units, their abundance in general, especially at lower costs (Sejuani, Rek'sai)
• Augment Power level, True Two's and Rich Get Richer are both gold augments. What.
• Bad designs.  Silco. The Colossus trait, which is exactly what should be removed during mid-set.
• Awful balance.  Syndicate units are awful across the board, Hextech units are broken across the board.

If you're trying to win, the bad aspects of the set are really important to know.  It's easy to say "unit X is broken" hyperbolically, meaning it's a good unit.  Here, "Silco is broken" is not hyperbolic at all, there's no other way to describe him.  Hextech is broken.  Once again, zero hyperbole.

The Early Game

Never buy Darius.  Do not buy Brand.  Do not buy Caitlyn.  If it's not an Innovator or Hextech, don't buy it.  Yordles are alright if you're in a good spot to play Corki, Illaoi for Mercs, and I've found Kassadin to be extremely strong now that he has Protector built in and gained the Scholar tag.  Twitch?  A good itemholder at 2 star and good for the reroll comp.  Camille?  Only if you're playing Innovators.

• Ezreal, Singed, Twitch --> Innovators, Twitch Reroll, Renata
• Nocturne, Jarvan IV --> Hextech Sivir
• Ziggs, Poppy --> Corki Reroll
• Kassadin --> Strong as a random unit, Mutants has the potential to be strong in some games

This covers every playable comp right now.  Notably absent are Syndicate, 5 costs, Debonair, Assassins.  With the augment system, everything has its moments, so don't ignore that VIP Draven just because generally Debonair comps are bad.

The most important item is Statik Shiv.  I blame this item for most of the sets problems.  How oppressive would Hextech be if it didn't effectively give true damage on hit?  How dangerous is Silco's attack speed buff without an item that procs every 3rd attack?  Item priority in the early game is heavily warped by Shiv.

From Top to Bottom:

Tear

Bow

Rod

Glove

Sword?

Belt

Chain

Cloak

I'm not confident in Sword's placement, I think it might actually be dead last but it feels weird to put it there.  Everything else is solid.

Tear is number one because of Shiv, but also because of Blue Buff, which multiple comps want, and Redemption, which is the best defensive item this patch.  The only bad item is Frozen Heart, which is still strong on Ekko and Nocturne, units you'll often be playing without trying too hard.  Every comp wants multiple Tears.

The Mid Game

There's a substantial amount less to say about the midgame, as it's largely about fleshing out your early game, and will change dependent on everything that happened then.  

Leveling/Rolling at 3-2 is pretty common,  I suggest doing it so that you don't take 40 damage on stage 3.  If you have 0 pairs and don't have a clear, likely unit you can hit (for example, a Gnar to enable 4 Striker, not a specific 4 cost), don't roll, save your money/HP the best you can, and assume you'll have to roll deep on 4-1 or 4-2 if you need to level to 8.

Econ Augments suck at 3-3, so don't be taking Rich Get Richer, ever.  Sivir is so broken that if you have a Shiv it's worth holding at a substantial cost to you, but it's probably even better on your board.

I'll reiterate:  Silco is broken.  If you spike a Silco on 7, it is going on your board.  Twitch Reroll/Vertical Hextech might not want him based on your spot, but you'll probably want to put him in as soon as you hit 8 anyway.  If you catch yourself thinking "Silco doesn't seem that good here", or "I don't think I can fit Silco", this is a good indication that you're doing something wrong.  

The Late Game

Sivir 2 is better than Jayce 2.  Don't expect to spike a 2 star 5 cost at 8, Renata/Sivir are better than everything you could even hit, anyways. Viktor 2 is good but only with a good supporting cast.  Galio is nearly useless, as is Kai'sa.  Zeri is very strong even without VIP, but is only going to better than Sivir at 2 star with Sniper turned on.  Zeri/Jayce/Cait/Vi and then 5 other upgraded expensive units.

In terms of win conditions, a lot of the usual suspects don't work this patch.  You can't expect to make a 3 star 4 cost most of the time because the units are all so contested; this goes for Vi, Sivir, Irelia, and Renata.  I haven't experimented with making a random Orianna/Seraphine 3 Double Up style, but it's REALLY hard to have enough money to put a 2 star 4 cost on your bench, and then hit 6 more copies.

Going 9 is pretty pointless because everything you want is available at level 8, and there's generally nothing special you can fit at 9 aside from 4 Enforcer or a random Jayce 2.  Tahm Kench is also not the greatest wincon because of all his nerfs during Set 6, but will carry the game once in a while.  My "go 9" process generally involves a long win streak, and I'll flesh out and upgrade my board heavily at 8 before I go 9.  There's no reason to go fast 9 unless you have the Level-Up augment.

A Quick Note on Augments

Augment power level is all over the place this set, and Hextech is broken on this patch.

• Take Hextech Augments.  The Silver and Gold +1 Hextech augments are insanely strong, and Stored Power is strong as well as long as you have some Hextech units early on.  Note that it doesn't work during the creep round, no clue if it's a bug or intended.
• Knife's Edge is substantially less good in this set.  Striker's already have 30/65 flat AD, more AD isn't an efficient way to get more damage.  Challengers want Draven this time around, who really doesn't want to be in the front two rows.
• Second Wind is awful.  I'm not sure if they were too conservative with the numbers, or if it's a metagame thing, but every time I see this augment it doesn't do anything.

Combat augments seem to be so strong, that if you take an econ augment you can never make up the difference and you're forced to sacrifice the short term.  Junkyard/Thieving Rascalls are exceptions, as it's very easy to turn extra items into something as strong as an augment.

I've been doing pretty well this set so far, so hopefully this won't be my one article of the set and I'll have more to say this time.

Kevin