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
