Esper GPG (Standard)

So yeah I wanted to take a bit of time to try and explain the thoughts behind at least the more interesting card choices in this rather unconventionel God Pharaoh's Gift deck.
I am sorry if my English isn't that great, I am just a german student, but I will try my best!

Without further ado let's get right to the "deck tech".

I wanted to make this deck as consistent as possible to complement my playstyle and therefore had to sacrifice a few power cards. This is why the manacurve is that low (at 2,35). One could argue that it is even lower, due to the fact that you will almost never hardcast a God-Pharaoh's Gift (further reffered to as "GPG"). Also for the sake of consistency I kicked the colour white completely, to get a more stable manabase and to reduce the complexity of the deck from an Esper deck to a Dimir one. In conclusion I am sacrificing the perks of being able to play cards like Angel of Invention, Fumigate and Refurbish to get a better early game to compete better against Energy deck lists and Ramunap Aggro variants that make up almost 50% of the meta right now (14.10.2017).

The more common cards in the deck are of course the 4 Gate to the Afterlife (further reffered to as GTA (San Andreas xD)) as our win condition recruiter.
To use it we have to gather 6 creatures in our graveyard and therfore need to mill and discard a lot. Lucky us that GTA does a small part of that all by its own while also generating some life to get a better matchup against aggro decks. Once this condition is fulfilled we get to tudor our God Pharaohs Gift directly from our deck to win basically every late game matchup excluding control decks. For those decks we have a special little goodie in the side board, including a pretty powerful strategie mixup.

So with the win conditions out of the way let's talk creatures.
Champion of Wits is one of the powerhouses of the deck, providing both early game mill to fulfill the condition for GTA and mid to lategame card advantage. It blocks okay vs aggro and especially Long Tusk Cub and can also eternalize itself without the help of GPG if the game goes to the late game.
Minister of Inquiries is our only onedrop creature and also helps to fill our graveyard with the much needed six monster. It just feels awesome to mill three creatures off of this effect and basically accomplish half of your win condition with a single one drop. Mathematically speaking you should on average hit just under two creatures with this effect so better calculate with one hit. It also blocks really good vs the aggro decks' early aggression and provides a bit of energy to be used alternatively by Aether Hub or Aethersphere Harvester in the side board.

Next there is Trophy Mage, a pretty simple card to search for GTA which later on will tudor GPG. What a chain of events.
You can even revive one of these bad boys with GPG to search directly for another GTA, as a backup plan vs powerfull removal like Abrade or Cast Out, which is by the way the only reason in standard we want to play two copies of GPG in the main. Trophy Mage is a good way to make this deck more consistent whicht is exactly what we want.

Walking Ballista is just such a great card it would be a bummer to not include it in a deck like this. It is a great mana sink, since we don't need any mana in the later turns due to GPGs effect being basically without cost and it is great removal vs the aggro decks. In special cases you can cast this card for 0, resulting in its immediate destruction to fill your grave to that crucial 6 creature mark or to trigger GTA to dig for answers.

Gifted Aetherborn is my special baby in this deck and I'll tell you why. He does it all, he blocks exeptionally well against any kind of aggro, keeps your lifetotal high thanks to his lifelink effect and is the best out vs hexproof creatures like Bristling Hydra and Carnage Tyrant. Double black seems a little problematic but I think our CONSISTENT (ouh I get off when I hear that word xD) mana base should be able to handle it.
It is also a great target for GPG since we have no access to Angel of Invention as a lifelink effect in this built.

Seekers' Squire is another card that grew on me. First I didn't like it that much but gave it a look because of all the other decklists online playing a full playset of this card. I have got to say it does a great job of filtering for lands or putting creatures in our gaveyard. Since there are only 10 cards in this deck that aren't a good hit we only get dissappointet every 6. time we resolve this effect. That is a price I am willing to pay for more consistent mana output or a 2/3 twodrop that mills me a creature.

Then there are the two copies of Hostage Taker, a card that fits pretty good in any blue black deck but in this one in particular. Since there are no other fourdrops in the deck it fills that spot a little bit and it is a great out against Hazoret and Glorybringer, both cards that are nightmares to deal with in this deck since we don't have any flying effects whatsoever and it also is a great out in the mirrormatch. But it gets kind of ridiculus if you target this bad boy with GPG to steal yet another card from their board. Like I already mentioned we don't really need our mana in the late game that much so the stealing effect of this card is another great mana sink. Sadly I didn't find room for more copies but Hostagetaker number 3 and 4 would be the 61. and 62. cards in my list I'll tell you that much.

To round up the creatures I play the one copy of The Scarab God. It is basically another walking GPG and is a great top of our manacurve (not counting GPG) and is also by itself a great wincondition. It is also a great target for GPG since it getting haste allows it to use its ability immediatly after summoning. It is a great mana sink, a repetitive threat and can bring Hostage Taker back in the opponents turn to disrupt their plays. The one copy is enough though, because you mill and draw so much with this deck you will get to him eventually, either in person or as a token copy.

For other cards in the Main there are just the 4 copies of Fatal Push as a no-brainer. The most powerfull removal of the format in a deck that uses black is truly nothing special. You can even trigger its revolt effect by using GTA or Ipnu Rivulet in this deck, and it helps us vs Long Tusk Cup and aggro as a whole? It's just perfect!

The mana base of this deck should be kind of optimal by now since I worked a lot on it and simply need to test on how many Aether Hubs are perfect. Note that Ipnu Rivulet is an amazing land in this deck to allow you to mill extra creatures. In the mid to late game this card is basically just a 2 mana spell that lets you mill four and I know that doesn't sound that impressive but trust me you will more often then not mill the last 2 creatures needed with this and go to town.

With the Main deck out of the way lets talk side board!
Control decks are especially hard for this anti aggro oriented built since they can just counter our GTA, stopping us in our tracks.
I tried a lot and trust me after a while I just had to accept the fact, that Negate, Disallow and friends just mess this deck up. But that gave me a great idea. So hear me out I know this sounds a little weird and maybe a bit crazy but we are going to side the whole GPG engine out as a whole ... ... ... ... ... Still there? GREAT! Now here are the reasons why. Like I already mentioned to resolve our win condition against these decks isn't that easy and even if we would manage to do that we would just get a Cast Out to the face since the most popular control deck right now is UW Approach. What deck type has the best control matchup? RIGHT it's aggro! So basically we just try to punch our opponent to oblivion with our little creatures and overall low mana curve, and putting our opponents on a clock!

The best creature to utilize for this in a black deck and a graveyard based strategy is of course Scrapheap Scrounger!
This card alone is a reason for every Control deck player to wake up screaming in the middle of the night only seconds before they recognize they shat themselves. So we side out 4 Fatal Push, 4 GTA, 2 GPG and 2 Hostage Takers to side in 4 Negates, 4 Scrapheap Scroungers, 2 Spell Pierce and two... Aethersphere Harvester...?! Yeah exactly I wanted the one target for the Trophy Mages so they can at least search for one card ... It isn't that bad in the matchup since it can fly over torrential gearhulks and gives even our 1/1 and 1/2s a little more power by crewing it. It is not perfect but hey I try to get creative here okay!? xD

This little strategy mixup works quite well, since control doesn't have a great out against the returning threat of Scrapheap Scrounger and we get to it really fast by turbo milling the shit out of the deck. You have to take care of Settle the wreckage but you should be able to play around it by only attacking with certain creatures when they leave 4 mana up. From there you just beat them up like an aggro deck, it is actually pretty efficient but not really thaaaat fun tbh.

On the other hand you don't need to mixup your strategy against aggro decks since this deck is built to have an easier time with this deck type.
For a little more lifegain you put in the 2 Aethersphere Harverster which can also be searched by Trophy Mage and the two Yahenni's Expertise as a board whipe. Note that YE allows you to cast a 3 or less-cost-card from your hand meaning almost EVERY CARD in the deck so that is a nice upside too. Cleaning their board while playing my own GTA in turn four yes please!
I often times side out the 2nd GPG since there is no threat of getting removed from play in red aggro decks and also reduce the amount of GTA to get more of my anti aggro cards early on ... and of course kick the one Scarab God from the main ... that one is way too clunky in the matchup. But yeah other than that you are good to go!

Our matchup against midrange, especialy Temur/4Coulour Energy shouldn't be that bad, you just need to side those negates and Spell Pierces to stand your ground against Planeswalkers and GPG removal like Abrade and Conviscation Coup.

For my maybe board there are actually 3 cards I want to discuss and those are Angel of Invention, Hostile Desert and Ruin Rat.
Angel of Invention didn't quite make the cut because there is no white in the deck and I couldn't hardcast it at all. But it was close tho, so please appreciate the fact that this card is so powerfull in this decktype that I almost put it in without even having white mana available... CRAZY CARD!

Hostile Desert has almost always the lands in the grave to transform in a 3/4 creature in this deck for obvious reasons.
In the end I didn't put it in because it would mess with the consistency of the mana base and you should know by now that consistency is my fetish so no Hostile Desert either.

The last card that didn't make the cut is Ruin Rat. That card got replaced with Seekers' Squire and was in here as another piece of pseudo removal against Carnage Tyrant and friends. I thought Dino Trybal would be a much bigger threat right away then it turned out to be so less fear of Carnage Tyrant means less outs for Carnage Tyrant needed. It was also a great card against other graveyard based strats with its banning effect but Seekers' Squire is just the better Magic Card!

And that is it, thank you if you read the whole thing. I just wanted to write down all the thoughts behind my card choices and explain them.
If you have ANY feedback, and I mean ANY, please comment. Is that even a thing on here? I don't quite know to be honest, I am new on here but if you can comment please do it! Do you have any ideas on how to twist the deck to become even stronger? If so let me now :)
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