The evolution of esper throughout the history of Duel commander

Esper is currently one of the best colour combinations in duel commander and in many other formats too. It is known for having both tempo and control decks. A lot has changed since the begginning of the format. In this article I will go over every esper commander that was played during these 9 years and how these colours evolved over time. If people like articles like this, I will continue this series in the future.

2014 - The rule of Oloro

The early history of duel commander was much different than today and was dominated by powerful tempo commanders like Marath, Will of the Wild and Anafenza the Foremost. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic was one of the control commanders but he wasn't that popular as Geist of the Saint Traft overpowered any different commander. 

He was also popular as a reanimator commander as his passive ability allowed you to survive longer against aggressive decks so that you had time to reanimate creatures like Griselbrand, Sphinx of Uthuun and more. The passive life gain of your commander enabled you to also play cards that required you to pay life much easier. Entomb was also legal at this time which boosted the deck quite a bit.

At some point during the summer of 2014 the comitee decided to put Oloro on the banlist, probably because of the passive ability he provided. Players probably didn't really like facing the deck as it didn't even need to play any real win conditions thanks to Oloro. In my opinion this was a reasonable ban and the card would prove problematic in the future if not banned.

2015-2017 - Dark times

After the eventual ban of Oloro, there weren't that many other esper commanders. Some players tried Sen Triplets as the new reanimator commander however that didn't really work that well, especially after the ban of Entomb in 2015. As for control, it was overtaken by the newly released Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Narset, Enlightened Master.

The year 2016 brought commander 2016 and with it the introduction of partner to both EDH and duel commander. These new commanders completely took over the meta overpowering every other non-partner deck. Legends like Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and Thrasios became the best control commanders while Reyhan and Bruse Tarl dominated the aggressive decks.

2018-2021 - Arrival of Aminatou

Commander 2018 was the release which brought esper back after a 3 year old slumber. Aminatou was one of the new commander planeswalkers which these new preconstructed decks were themed around. The early versions of the deck had the usual control gameplan as Aminatou provided a ton of value for a commander. She allows you to both find answers and get more value from your creatures via her abilities. Already great cards like Baleful Strix and Snapcaster Mage became even better thanks to Aminatou.

Aminatou was a solid choice for a control deck but she was nowhere near the most popular. There were just simply better choices like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath or Kess, Dissident Mage. She really became popular in 2021 when there was no other commander stopping her. Players also started to figure out a reanimator build of the deck and slowly bringing it more and more to tournaments.

2022- today - New Capenna revives esper

Streets of New Capenna was released in the spring of 2022. It was meaby a controversial set as some people didn't like the theme but it was unboubtedly powerful. It introduced a ton of powerful cards for many formats like Ledger Shredder, Proffesional Face Breaker and the new triomes. The set also included not one but actually two new broken esper commanders. 

Raffine, Scheeming Seer was the newest metagame threat on the radar. She was not only a powerful value card but she was also really hard to deal with because of the big amount of toughness and ward which meant that a lot of aggro decks had trouble getting rid of her, especially if your opponent had one of the many protection spells in hand. The deck was really popular and started winning a lot of the bigger tournaments. The deck was so powerful that some players actually wanted to see the card get banned, which never happened though and Raffine still remains as one of the most popular choices for tournament competitors.

Tivit, Seller of Secrets was the second new powerful commander on the rise. The commander was similar to Raffine in that he provided a ton of value and was hard to remove. The deck however was quite different, being a control deck with Tivit as the finisher of choice. He gave you pretty much anything you wanted from a control commander: card draw, treasures for mana and a chonky body that was hard to deal with and could end the game in a few turns. All of these abilities made him quite the powerful commander which eventually overpowered the Aminatou control shells. Tivit was actually powerful enough to start seeing play in cEDH mostly thanks to his combo with Time Sieve giving you infinite turns.

Conclusion

In conclusion, esper has been a powerful colour combination since the beggining of the format as has stayed strong for all these years. Powerful tempo and control esper decks sometimes dominated the metagame. Esper remains as one of the strongest decks in the duel commander metagame and I doubt that will change anytime soon.

Author: Tomas Solovic

Date: December 6th, 2023