@CurdBros: Been great! I think I'm going to be playing some form of delver whether that be UR, UW, Jeskai, or Temur. I'm leaning towards UR or UW because the mana base can easily support Archmage's Charm and Mystic Sanctuary. If someone can demonstrate if the DMA can be safely applied to a Jeskai list then I'm all for it. My old Jeskai Delver build with Spell Queller was one of my favorite decks to play before all these new cards took over. Otherwise I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like because of work and the holidays. It feels like there's always something to do on the weekends that's preventing me from going to the store. MTGO is always an option, but Force of Negation's are just too expensive and feel almost required in almost all of the delver lists I play.
Otherwise, I hope you had a blast of the last couple of weeks!
@CurdBros: Been great! I think I'm going to be playing some form of delver whether that be UR, UW, Jeskai, or Temur. I'm leaning towards UR or UW because the mana base can easily support Archmage's Charm and Mystic Sanctuary. If someone can demonstrate if the DMA can be safely applied to a Jeskai list then I'm all for it. My old Jeskai Delver build with Spell Queller was one of my favorite decks to play before all these new cards took over. Otherwise I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like because of work and the holidays. It feels like there's always something to do on the weekends that's preventing me from going to the store. MTGO is always an option, but Force of Negation's are just too expensive and feel almost required in almost all of the delver lists I play.
Otherwise, I hope you had a blast of the last couple of weeks!
Hi ManDolphin. I'm glad to hear all is well. This time of year is always a low point for magic. There is just so little time to fit it in and with no new sets and pioneer modern has been on the back burner a bit. I do see a lot of people coming back to modern though.
There is good news and bad news for us right now. The good news is that the current meta is actually very good for us. Patrick just said on the SCG stream that the one card he would love to be playing right now is remand. He said that the decks are so dependent on 3-4 CMC spells and are full of air that a deck with a decent clock backed up by remand is a great place. That's us!
I have had no problem casting Archmage's Charm in a jeskai list. With that said, I have a very light splash for white. I play two path, two helix, and one Geist. All of these spells are not really needed in the early game (maybe helix). I don't think you could play it in a three color deck that needs a lot of white or red. I just made sure that every land in my deck produces blue mana except for the mountain and plains. I also didn't include any double white or double red spells. I cut the sacred foundry because I really didn't want any lands that didn't tap for blue mana.
As for Force of Negation it is, unfortunately, almost a must play in a delver deck right now for the best possible outcome in most metas. That's not to say you can't win or build a deck without it. Spell pierce does a great impression and can be better in a lot of places. The good news is that even just two copies is likely enough. I love the card so I play three copies, but i think a lot of players play two copies. I have heard that it has been dropping in price so hopefully that keeps happening. Part of the reason delver is tough for a lot of people is the cost of FON, snapcaster, 3teferi, etc.
I think you could definitely come up with a UW list that is really strong. Are you a delver-blade fan with Stoneforge mystic? That list would be really cool. I think the spell queller/teferi interaction is something that a lot of people haven't really worked on too much yet and is super powerful. Spell Queller is really really well positioned right now.
I really hope that some day soon we get another 1 mana threat that is efficient or scales well. That is really all that the deck is lacking. I love swiftspear, but we really need something that takes less effort to be good. A blue threat would be great.
There were 3 delver decks in the 5-0 dump this week. Two of them were RUG which is to be expected right now with oko and veil currently still legal and one UR. I think delver may see a resurgence soon and in that cast jeskai will definitely be looked into by some of the best players. Here is to hoping!
So far I don't see anything from Theros that jumps out as something we would definitely want. Thassa's intervention is interesting and I will definitely test a 1-of copy, but other than that I am not really excited about anything. I think there is one more UR uncommon and possibly 1 more UW rare to be spoiled so I will keep my fingers crossed for a model spell of some sort.
I have been off Jeskia for a while now. Not that the deck is bad but with out FoN I feel the deck is not as strong in the meta I play. I am not impressed with the theros block yet. Nice for limited, but blah for modern. Just thought I would post to let you all know my Holidays were good and that I am still lurking.
I have been off Jeskia for a while now. Not that the deck is bad but with out FoN I feel the deck is not as strong in the meta I play. I am not impressed with the theros block yet. Nice for limited, but blah for modern. Just thought I would post to let you all know my Holidays were good and that I am still lurking.
Glad to see you are still around WickedApp and that your holidays were great. I am a jeskai lifer through good times and bad so I will always be here :). I too am very unimpressed with Theros. I have seen some people who are really excited for the set, but that may be from a standard or pioneer perspective. I haven't seen much in the way of affecting modern. I have actually been very happy with the jeskai list in modern right now. I am very excited to see what happens on Monday in terms of bans because I think they are going to really spice things up with several bans in modern. I am hopeful for a preorain unban, but I doubt that will happen. I have heard some clamoring for a splinter twin unban, but I am one of the few izzet players who doesn't think that is a good idea at the moment. As a delver player I like the twin matchup, but I wasn't a huge fan on twin's affect on the format overall (causing players to play very passively after turn 2 because they could lose). But that is entire subject on it own.
Monday will be a very important day for the modern format and will give us a little insight into how wizards will be handling modern in the future with Pioneer now an option.
The mana base may hurt to a degree if I need to bolt on turn one, however most UR Delver lists aren't running the Mountain either so I'm thinking we can get away with no basic lands other than Island. Otherwise this is as close as I can make it where I'd feel comfortable running Archmage's Charm and Mystic Sanctuary in the same deck with a third color. It's possible I need to shave a spell and run a 21st land, but we'll see how the tourney goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Hi all,
haven't posted for a while because I really got fed up with the degenerated Modern meta full of bullsh*t cards like Oko.
Wizards unfortunately destroyed the whole format for me personally over the course of last year. The power creep made me stray from our righteous Delver path but Saheeli couldn't make me happy either.
I got so annoyed that I actually sold my whole card collection, my precious Jeskai deck and everything else, and bought a new PC for 900 Euros on which I am now enjoying Divinity: Original Sin 2...
However, for now I kept my MTGO collection and I am still playing two decks there mainly:
This mono-white deck is based on a deck I discovered on Death's Shadow's YouTube channel. I thought that if I might start playing with physical cards again a mono-colored deck is much cheaper and since I like cards like Brimaz, Gideon and Elspeth I gave it a try. It's a lot of fun and quite competitive.
Last week I went back to one of my oldest builds though and started playing this Jeskai Delver again
Funny thing is that I am winning quite a lot of matches with this deck. But still, if they don't ban Urza and/or Oko and/or Astrolabe (and Lattice if you ask me) and if the meta doesn't normalize and stays in the current state I might quit playing Modern comletely -_-
@ManDolphin: Interesting list. Did it do well on Saturday?
Hi Stevomat! Good to hear from you. You aren't alone. A lot of people have been fed up with WOTC's lack of interest in helping modern out over the past year. I think their strong preference towards getting Pioneer started made them put modern on the back burner at a very bad time. Hopefully tomorrow they drop the major ban hammer and make some big changes to the format again. I have been fighting through the stinky meta with my delver list. I am a delver lifer through good and bad :). I have actually found the meta to be rather good for delver. Of course oko can take over some games, but I haven't ran into a lot of jund and the bant/sultai decks have been decent matchups (probably 50/50).
I'm sorry to hear you sold your collection. WOTC has been making it harder and harder to play physical magic lately and I am a little worried they have lost sight of what magic's magic a great game. Digital is the way of the future, but the game is still a card game for gathering.
Back onto modern- There has been a very strong push on twitter for a preordain and/or Ponder unban in the last two days. That would be GREAT for us! I would really love ponder, but I will settle with preordain.
ManDolphin- I hope saturday went well and you didn't run into too much oko.
I was going to post last week on my thoughts and observations of pioneer and modern but decided against it. Now that we have others commenting and saying exactly how I see things i think its safe. I also feel WOTC wants a hard reset. By that I mean modern and legacy to cease existing on any competitive level. I think it will only get worse. I have a feeling legacy will be completely neglected from now on and they will start to do the same with modern in the coming years. I havent played much lately bc its just not the same anymore. I think all of these new decks present a whole new level of degenerate play that I feel what was the point of banning faithless looting? So that everyone will play oko? Ive been playing alot of commander with my friends lately I havent touched modern but ive been paying attention to it. I think this year wotc will push pioneer even harder I hear that it will be added to arena too. Perhaps modern is dying? or they want it to die.
however I have tested a few cards against the current field and this is what i have found.
I think that the adventure cards are very very good. Primarily bonecrusher giant and brazen borrower. They are fantastic sideboard or main deck cards. I have opted to only play two bonecrusher giants in my sideboard and will side them in vs decks that cant handle burn all that well or we need to be faster agsint. Jund is one of them of course.
Mystical dispute is really good right now too.
Ceremonious rejection is also another must have in the side and I consider it a permanent sideboard staple.
FoN is a must as others have said.
archmages charm.. this card gives me mixed results so i cant recommend it or bash it. I guess it just really depends on your style.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
I was going to post last week on my thoughts and observations of pioneer and modern but decided against it. Now that we have others commenting and saying exactly how I see things i think its safe. I also feel WOTC wants a hard reset. By that I mean modern and legacy to cease existing on any competitive level. I think it will only get worse. I have a feeling legacy will be completely neglected from now on and they will start to do the same with modern in the coming years. I havent played much lately bc its just not the same anymore. I think all of these new decks present a whole new level of degenerate play that I feel what was the point of banning faithless looting? So that everyone will play oko? Ive been playing alot of commander with my friends lately I havent touched modern but ive been paying attention to it. I think this year wotc will push pioneer even harder I hear that it will be added to arena too. Perhaps modern is dying? or they want it to die.
however I have tested a few cards against the current field and this is what i have found.
I think that the adventure cards are very very good. Primarily bonecrusher giant and brazen borrower. They are fantastic sideboard or main deck cards. I have opted to only play two bonecrusher giants in my sideboard and will side them in vs decks that cant handle burn all that well or we need to be faster agsint. Jund is one of them of course.
Mystical dispute is really good right now too.
Ceremonious rejection is also another must have in the side and I consider it a permanent sideboard staple.
FoN is a must as others have said.
archmages charm.. this card gives me mixed results so i cant recommend it or bash it. I guess it just really depends on your style.
Wow. You read my mind on the second part.
As for modern and legacy. I can totally see why you feel this way and I can't say that you are wrong. There has been no doubt that when WOTC introduced Pioneer they put other formats on the back burner. WOTC and SCG haven't really supported legacy for a long time. I feel as though they feel like legacy is a player run format at this point similar to commander. Although they are supporting commander with commander zone and commander products. I think they will still support modern at least in the immediate future. It is still a very popular format and has a decent following. It is also a security blanket when standard goes bad so there are still two viable money making formats (pioneer and modern). Maro stated that Modern Horizons was a financial success so they will likely do another Modern Horizons in the future.
As for the second part, you are spot on my dude. The adventure cards were a large gain for our deck in some tough matchups. I am currently running two borrower maindeck and two bonecrusher. I am deciding on whether to move the bonecrusher to the sideboard and I think you helped me with my decision. Bonecrushers are great in certain matchups, but in some matchups its just a 2 CMC shock because I never want to spend the mana at sorcery speed for a 4/3. I do think bonecrusher is a great option against midrange style decks.
All of your thoughts seem great to me. Especially Archmage's Charm. I recently cut it from my list. It is extremely good if you are playing a more controlling UR strategy. It fits great into the delver/young pyromancer strategy. I just found it to be a bit lackluster and that is stuck in my hand too many times. It also asks a lot of the mana base. With Veil of Summer, Mystical Dispute, and even spell pierce seeing more play, its tough to run a 3cmc counter spell that you really want to hit on turn 3. I have gone back to something similar to my original list. I was really hoping for a preordain unban to replace my serum visions. I have cut it down to 2 serum visions. I am going to test tonight and see what I feel works best again. It is great to have modern feel fresh again. At least for a little while.
Following up on my results on Saturday I want 3-1 with my Jeskai delver list. Here's the breakdown of what I played against.
Round 1: Grixis Control (2-0)
Having multiple Stoneforge Mystics came in clutch because I was able to consistently bounce Batterskull to avoid being hit by his Kolaghan's Commands round one. Delver of Secrets always died on turn one or two, but this was fine because I knew the real threat was coming afterwards. To note this was the only time the Deprive/Mystic Sanctuary interaction came into play and, while powerful, it can still be fought through by particularly careful opponents. A very fun match, but I felt my opponent didn't have much experience playing against delver strategies.
A rough match up since my version lacks Lightning Helix, but Force of Negation and Sword of War and Peace out of side board reign it back towards us slightly. I figured Stoneforge Mystic will always die so equipping snappy boy or delver with a sword is my path to victory game one. Which is exactly how I won games two and three.
He slipped a Oko, Thief of Crowns early both games he won so... yay that happened. Delver of Secrets took one game home when I managed to have enough counters to stop his key spells. In this match up I feel UR is probably better positioned because they have more counter spells, but I suppose this doesn't matter now because Oko, Thief of Crowns and Mox Opal are both banned.
Delver of Secrets did amazing work round one with a hand of two of our buggy friend, two lands, and cantrips/counter spells. I managed to keep him off balance long enough until bolt-snap-bolt finished him off. Game two I had the perfect hand of Force of Negation his Expedition Map into Delver of Secrets. This delayed Tron long enough for me to find a Damping Sphere. Playing six and seven mana threats against delver is exactly where we want to be.
Conclusion:
The core of the deck felt fantastic, but I can see how UR is better in specific match ups than Jeskai and vise versa. My primary objective, which was testing if Deprive, Mystic Sanctuary, and Archmage's Charm, could be reliably played in a three color delver shell was a success and my conclusion is that yes, it can be played reliably, however moving forward I think I'm going to cut the charms and leave in the land and the 2 CMC counterspell. Forcing a good 3 CMC spell that's incredibly tough to cast is not worth it in my opinion and these slots can be better used elsewhere. What impressed me was Deprive's longevity into the late game and Mystic Sanctuary's ability to flip Delver of Secrets in the mid and late game. Deprive may be tough to cast at times, but it's much easier to include into a three color deck than Archmage's Charm while adding a single Mystic Sanctuary into our deck barely hurts our mana base.
I hope you all liked my breakdown of my tournament! Hopefully the recent bans spice up the format a bit because I was beginning to chafe under the pressure of Oko, Thief of Crowns like everyone else.
Following up on my results on Saturday I want 3-1 with my Jeskai delver list. Here's the breakdown of what I played against.
Round 1: Grixis Control (2-0)
Having multiple Stoneforge Mystics came in clutch because I was able to consistently bounce Batterskull to avoid being hit by his Kolaghan's Commands round one. Delver of Secrets always died on turn one or two, but this was fine because I knew the real threat was coming afterwards. To note this was the only time the Deprive/Mystic Sanctuary interaction came into play and, while powerful, it can still be fought through by particularly careful opponents. A very fun match, but I felt my opponent didn't have much experience playing against delver strategies.
A rough match up since my version lacks Lightning Helix, but Force of Negation and Sword of War and Peace out of side board reign it back towards us slightly. I figured Stoneforge Mystic will always die so equipping snappy boy or delver with a sword is my path to victory game one. Which is exactly how I won games two and three.
He slipped a Oko, Thief of Crowns early both games he won so... yay that happened. Delver of Secrets took one game home when I managed to have enough counters to stop his key spells. In this match up I feel UR is probably better positioned because they have more counter spells, but I suppose this doesn't matter now because Oko, Thief of Crowns and Mox Opal are both banned.
Delver of Secrets did amazing work round one with a hand of two of our buggy friend, two lands, and cantrips/counter spells. I managed to keep him off balance long enough until bolt-snap-bolt finished him off. Game two I had the perfect hand of Force of Negation his Expedition Map into Delver of Secrets. This delayed Tron long enough for me to find a Damping Sphere. Playing six and seven mana threats against delver is exactly where we want to be.
Conclusion:
The core of the deck felt fantastic, but I can see how UR is better in specific match ups than Jeskai and vise versa. My primary objective, which was testing if Deprive, Mystic Sanctuary, and Archmage's Charm, could be reliably played in a three color delver shell was a success and my conclusion is that yes, it can be played reliably, however moving forward I think I'm going to cut the charms and leave in the land and the 2 CMC counterspell. Forcing a good 3 CMC spell that's incredibly tough to cast is not worth it in my opinion and these slots can be better used elsewhere. What impressed me was Deprive's longevity into the late game and Mystic Sanctuary's ability to flip Delver of Secrets in the mid and late game. Deprive may be tough to cast at times, but it's much easier to include into a three color deck than Archmage's Charm while adding a single Mystic Sanctuary into our deck barely hurts our mana base.
I hope you all liked my breakdown of my tournament! Hopefully the recent bans spice up the format a bit because I was beginning to chafe under the pressure of Oko, Thief of Crowns like everyone else.
Congrats on the 3-1! Almost a 4-0 if that guy/girl wasn't playing so many banned cards in their deck :). Thanks for the tournament report. I love reading these reports.
I came to a very similar conclusion to you recently. I have found that archmage's charm just doesn't add enough to the deck to warrant the UUU cost. I prefer to be a bit more proactive and it just didn't fit my gameplan enough. In the grindy games it was great, but in all other matchups it was normally just a harder to cast Cancel. The 1 mana option did come up sometimes, but often when I played that option I was already winning. Taking a late swiftspear, aether vial, death shadow, etc is noramlly too late in the game to make a comeback from that play. It only really worked out well in the shadow matchup and I already feel really favored in that matchup with burn, path, and counter magic. They do a lot of the work for us.
I agree that one Mystic Sanctuary is almost a free roll for our deck. I haven't had any problems with it yet. Sometimes it does come in tapped, but it's still worth the risk. I have won several games just putting burn back on top. I am not currently running Deprive, but I will be testing them in place of my remands. Hard counters are great to have, especially later in the mid game/late game.
Thanks again for the report and congrats again on the 3-1! I feel good vibes for jeskai delver variants in modern in the near future.
@ManDolphin; Congrats on the 3-1, and thank you for the write up. A lot of what you said is how I felt and thought, both about card selection and WOTC attitude moving forward.
@StevomatUWR [q] I am now enjoying Divinity: Original Sin 2... [/q] thats funny I started playing Divinity Original Sin EE edition this december over magic.
I have been playing a home brew Mardu Pox deck that is closer to jeskia tempo play, choosing to just play the best hate cards and not interact with my opponent.
@ManDolphin; Congrats on the 3-1, and thank you for the write up. A lot of what you said is how I felt and thought, both about card selection and WOTC attitude moving forward.
@StevomatUWR [q] I am now enjoying Divinity: Original Sin 2... [/q] thats funny I started playing Divinity Original Sin EE edition this december over magic.
I have been playing a home brew Mardu Pox deck that is closer to jeskia tempo play, choosing to just play the best hate cards and not interact with my opponent.
That's what modern currently is unfortunately. I hope the bans will help this out a bit. Do to all of the combo decks and big mana decks lately I have been experimenting with UR and URx prowess style builds to get out a bit quicker. The deck is less counter based and more aggressive. I will let you guys know when I end up on a list that I think can be consistently good.
With the current meta of super value decks like jund and snow control along with super aggressive and big mana decks, it is really hard to play a tempo deck and do well consistently. I am going to basically go with two different lists. A jeskai list that is more aggro-control without the swiftspears with delver, geist, brazen borrower, snapcaster, and the usual suspects and then a more aggressive prowess build I have been working on. I will keep you all posted as to which I prefer as the meta slowly starts to settle after the bans.
I wish I could play those games. They look really cool. Two young kiddos takes up all my time so I am only allowed two hobbies; golf and magic .
I played four matches yesterday on MTGO and it seemed like everyone was trying out creature decks after the bans. I ran into Humans twice and also played against Goblins and Spirits.
I played with my old Jeskai Delver deck with a little update. During my matches with the mono-white deck (see above) I learned how powerful Ranger-Captain of Eos is and so I added two copies to my Delver deck while using the following CMC1 creatures as tutor targets: 3x Delver, 2x Giver of Runes, 1x Lavamancer.
It went okay-ish. I ended up 2-2. With so much burn these creature decks should be good match-ups but the synergy in these decks is very strong and they're all very fast and disruptive. I have to tweak my SB to be better prepared for these decks.
I played four matches yesterday on MTGO and it seemed like everyone was trying out creature decks after the bans. I ran into Humans twice and also played against Goblins and Spirits.
I played with my old Jeskai Delver deck with a little update. During my matches with the mono-white deck (see above) I learned how powerful Ranger-Captain of Eos is and so I added two copies to my Delver deck while using the following CMC1 creatures as tutor targets: 3x Delver, 2x Giver of Runes, 1x Lavamancer.
It went okay-ish. I ended up 2-2. With so much burn these creature decks should be good match-ups but the synergy in these decks is very strong and they're all very fast and disruptive. I have to tweak my SB to be better prepared for these decks.
I have been tweaking and playing around a bit with my build as well. It's really tough to do well in a league when you are tweaking deck lists. I have found that is the best way to see if a deck is working or not. After two or three leagues you can get a good view of what is working and what isn't. It takes me like two weeks to play 3 leagues though :). I am always happy with a 3-2 or better finish. I have had a couple 4-1's but haven't had a 5-0 yet. I did have an 0-5 once when I played with the wrong mana base. I thought I could still a win or two, but it didn't happen :).
I have noticed that modern has been much better since the ban. Lots of humans, jund, and some wierd stuff. There are still a ton of super linear decks and a TON of titan based decks, but those can be ok matchups. Field of the Dead has made the amulet titan matchup way worse. Valakut has always been rather tough before boarding. It's funny because I think the meta got a little tougher for use after the bans, but that's ok. It's a ton more fun to play against different stuff.
I am still working on my new delver deck idea and am having a ton of fun. I will run it through a couple leagues and see how if feels against more competitive opponents.
Unfortunately a lot of decks got really sick toys with Theros but Jeskai Delver ended up empty handed. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove in Scapeshift is stupidly overpowered and might get banned when Scapeshift decks reach a certain percentage in the meta. Dream Trawler is the perfect finisher for UW Control. Thassa's Oracle is insane in Ad Nauseam (watch this to see for yourself). Ox of Agonas is very strong in classic Dredge, and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger seems like a fun addition for Jund.
The deck we love just becomes more and more insignificant because it can't keep up with the crazy power level of other decks.
Unfortunately a lot of decks got really sick toys with Theros but Jeskai Delver ended up empty handed. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove in Scapeshift is stupidly overpowered and might get banned when Scapeshift decks reach a certain percentage in the meta. Dream Trawler is the perfect finisher for UW Control. Thassa's Oracle is insane in Ad Nauseam (watch this to see for yourself). Ox of Agonas is very strong in classic Dredge, and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger seems like a fun addition for Jund.
The deck we love just becomes more and more insignificant because it can't keep up with the crazy power level of other decks.
I wish I could disagree but I fear you are correct. We really need another early threat or modal tempo spell at 2 cmc or powerful mods spell at 3 cmc like kohlgans command. Right now the power level at the top end of some decks combined with the speed of other decks makes it nearly impossible to play a more midrange or te
Ok build unless it’s just crazy value like jund or nov-mizzet. Even then it’s tough.
I am currently playing a new UR brew I made and am having grey results and a lot of fun. It’s a delver list of course bc I can’t leave my guy behind, but it’s more tempo/Aggro oriented. I will share it on the UR delver forums in here and the other site. I can share it here too if no one minds that it’s not jeskai. I might try to fit white in at some point but I’m still fairly early I’m the testing phase of the brew.
The idea is basically to get out ahead early and bounce things and gain card advantage throughout the game. Here are the main interaction
Vapor Snag + Light up the Stage- a way to trigger spectacle easily and gain card advantage
Light up the State + Counter Magic- this is something I had not seen before, but if you light up the stage you can have counter magic up. Obviously the opponent can play around said counter magic because they know it's there, but they are forced to play around it. Unfortunately you can't use the blue card exiled from light up the stage to pay force of negations alternate cost, but you can use a force of negation that has been exiled by light up the stage by discarding a blue card that is in your hand.
Prowess and bounce spells- This is fairly straightforward, but powerful. Bounce spells are great with delver and prowess creatures. The damage adds up quickly and often opponents lose with 4-5 cards still in hand.
Another thing I have questioned is whether I should run a main deck Spell Pierce instead of a fourth light up the stage. I have played both ways and it didn't change a ton. I think in game one we want to win quickly and can side in additional counter magic if we need to.
I have tested it for about a week now and am loving it. I will run it through a couple of leagues and see how it goes. Let me know what changes you think I should make. I will likely give jeskai a try too with path in the list and helix, but I want to test with just UR for starters.
Also at @stevomatUWR- Ben Freidman loves your deck!
His article on Starcity says Jeskai Saheeli is the best deck in modern. It's paid content so you may not be able to read it, but he basically talks about how it has a decent matchup against all of the meta right now. Not 70-30 against anything, but is advantaged post board against nearly every single deck.
Thanks wickedapp. I have been having a ton of fun playing it. It looks weird on paper but it plays very well so far. I’m just trying not to get too greedy and adding white to the list but I will have to scratch that itch at some point 😀
I recently bought some cards and started playing Jeskai tempo. Sorry if this goes a bit off topic as I have not played Delver. Still this topic has been interesting to read and I like the Delver deck a lot too.
I wanted to build a deck similar to Hoogland's version. Below is what I played yesterday and went 4-0 at a LGS. Games were super fun and tough. I really like this style of deck.
As you can see the manabase is still missing a few pieces, but is somewhat playable.
The new double cards feel really good. They add so much value and work really well in most situations.
Awesome list man and welcome! Just for the future this doesnt have to be delver oriented as long as your in jeskai colors ppl here would love to dicuss it. We have ppl here posting strict delver lists, some oare on saheeli combo, others like myself are on geist mid range, and i believe ive seen some other really control heavy decks so as long as youre in jeskai i think you are in the right place.
right off the bat I have to agree whole heartedly on the double sided cards. The more i think about it the more i feel that they will slowly become main deck musts just because of the shear value they provide. Once you cast the adventure it turns into a card that basically permanently stays in your hand so you ALWAYS have an option. They are very versatile and for jeskai they are perfect for the create an opening, close out the game tactic that jeskai decks tend to follow.
congrats on your 4-0! Do you mind posting what your opponents were on?
i see no problem with your sideboard. You have ashiok for graveyard and titan decks, purge for jund and RBx decks, abrade for the vial decks What deck do you side in wear//tear for though?
as for the mainboard I would suggest adding in force of negation. I would maybe even go on a limb and say cut all but 1 cryptic and add in 2-3 force of negation simply because your deck seems very aggressive. At the very least put two FoN into your side board. I feel its a must somewhere in the 75.
lastly, have you considered trimming down a celestial colonnade? How useful was it for your 4-0? I am always curious to know how colonnade does in a more aggro style deck. There are man my reasons I think colonnade may not be optimal in an aggro style deck but im on a midrange deck so i am severely uneducated on the play style of the aggro one when it comes to colonnade and lack of counters. Especially in a list with no force of negations at all.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Otherwise, I hope you had a blast of the last couple of weeks!
Hi ManDolphin. I'm glad to hear all is well. This time of year is always a low point for magic. There is just so little time to fit it in and with no new sets and pioneer modern has been on the back burner a bit. I do see a lot of people coming back to modern though.
There is good news and bad news for us right now. The good news is that the current meta is actually very good for us. Patrick just said on the SCG stream that the one card he would love to be playing right now is remand. He said that the decks are so dependent on 3-4 CMC spells and are full of air that a deck with a decent clock backed up by remand is a great place. That's us!
I have had no problem casting Archmage's Charm in a jeskai list. With that said, I have a very light splash for white. I play two path, two helix, and one Geist. All of these spells are not really needed in the early game (maybe helix). I don't think you could play it in a three color deck that needs a lot of white or red. I just made sure that every land in my deck produces blue mana except for the mountain and plains. I also didn't include any double white or double red spells. I cut the sacred foundry because I really didn't want any lands that didn't tap for blue mana.
As for Force of Negation it is, unfortunately, almost a must play in a delver deck right now for the best possible outcome in most metas. That's not to say you can't win or build a deck without it. Spell pierce does a great impression and can be better in a lot of places. The good news is that even just two copies is likely enough. I love the card so I play three copies, but i think a lot of players play two copies. I have heard that it has been dropping in price so hopefully that keeps happening. Part of the reason delver is tough for a lot of people is the cost of FON, snapcaster, 3teferi, etc.
I think you could definitely come up with a UW list that is really strong. Are you a delver-blade fan with Stoneforge mystic? That list would be really cool. I think the spell queller/teferi interaction is something that a lot of people haven't really worked on too much yet and is super powerful. Spell Queller is really really well positioned right now.
I really hope that some day soon we get another 1 mana threat that is efficient or scales well. That is really all that the deck is lacking. I love swiftspear, but we really need something that takes less effort to be good. A blue threat would be great.
So far I don't see anything from Theros that jumps out as something we would definitely want. Thassa's intervention is interesting and I will definitely test a 1-of copy, but other than that I am not really excited about anything. I think there is one more UR uncommon and possibly 1 more UW rare to be spoiled so I will keep my fingers crossed for a model spell of some sort.
Glad to see you are still around WickedApp and that your holidays were great. I am a jeskai lifer through good times and bad so I will always be here :). I too am very unimpressed with Theros. I have seen some people who are really excited for the set, but that may be from a standard or pioneer perspective. I haven't seen much in the way of affecting modern. I have actually been very happy with the jeskai list in modern right now. I am very excited to see what happens on Monday in terms of bans because I think they are going to really spice things up with several bans in modern. I am hopeful for a preorain unban, but I doubt that will happen. I have heard some clamoring for a splinter twin unban, but I am one of the few izzet players who doesn't think that is a good idea at the moment. As a delver player I like the twin matchup, but I wasn't a huge fan on twin's affect on the format overall (causing players to play very passively after turn 2 because they could lose). But that is entire subject on it own.
Monday will be a very important day for the modern format and will give us a little insight into how wizards will be handling modern in the future with Pioneer now an option.
Creatuers (12)
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Stoneforge Mystic
Artifacts (2)
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Batterskull
Instants and Sorceries (26)
4x Opt
4x Serum Visions
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
3x Deprive
3x Archmage's Charm
4x Force of Negation
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Flooded Strand
2x Steam Vents
2x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Seachrome Coast
1x Spirebluff Canal
1x Mystic Sanctuary
3x Island
1x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Spell Snare
2x Abrade
3x Damping Sphere
1x Wear // Tear
2x Mystical Dispute
1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
1x Sword of War and Peace
2x The Royal Scions
The mana base may hurt to a degree if I need to bolt on turn one, however most UR Delver lists aren't running the Mountain either so I'm thinking we can get away with no basic lands other than Island. Otherwise this is as close as I can make it where I'd feel comfortable running Archmage's Charm and Mystic Sanctuary in the same deck with a third color. It's possible I need to shave a spell and run a 21st land, but we'll see how the tourney goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!
haven't posted for a while because I really got fed up with the degenerated Modern meta full of bullsh*t cards like Oko.
Wizards unfortunately destroyed the whole format for me personally over the course of last year. The power creep made me stray from our righteous Delver path but Saheeli couldn't make me happy either.
I got so annoyed that I actually sold my whole card collection, my precious Jeskai deck and everything else, and bought a new PC for 900 Euros on which I am now enjoying Divinity: Original Sin 2...
However, for now I kept my MTGO collection and I am still playing two decks there mainly:
This mono-white deck is based on a deck I discovered on Death's Shadow's YouTube channel. I thought that if I might start playing with physical cards again a mono-colored deck is much cheaper and since I like cards like Brimaz, Gideon and Elspeth I gave it a try. It's a lot of fun and quite competitive.
Last week I went back to one of my oldest builds though and started playing this Jeskai Delver again
Funny thing is that I am winning quite a lot of matches with this deck. But still, if they don't ban Urza and/or Oko and/or Astrolabe (and Lattice if you ask me) and if the meta doesn't normalize and stays in the current state I might quit playing Modern comletely -_-
@ManDolphin: Interesting list. Did it do well on Saturday?
I'm sorry to hear you sold your collection. WOTC has been making it harder and harder to play physical magic lately and I am a little worried they have lost sight of what magic's magic a great game. Digital is the way of the future, but the game is still a card game for gathering.
Back onto modern- There has been a very strong push on twitter for a preordain and/or Ponder unban in the last two days. That would be GREAT for us! I would really love ponder, but I will settle with preordain.
ManDolphin- I hope saturday went well and you didn't run into too much oko.
however I have tested a few cards against the current field and this is what i have found.
I think that the adventure cards are very very good. Primarily bonecrusher giant and brazen borrower. They are fantastic sideboard or main deck cards. I have opted to only play two bonecrusher giants in my sideboard and will side them in vs decks that cant handle burn all that well or we need to be faster agsint. Jund is one of them of course.
Mystical dispute is really good right now too.
Ceremonious rejection is also another must have in the side and I consider it a permanent sideboard staple.
FoN is a must as others have said.
archmages charm.. this card gives me mixed results so i cant recommend it or bash it. I guess it just really depends on your style.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
Wow. You read my mind on the second part.
As for modern and legacy. I can totally see why you feel this way and I can't say that you are wrong. There has been no doubt that when WOTC introduced Pioneer they put other formats on the back burner. WOTC and SCG haven't really supported legacy for a long time. I feel as though they feel like legacy is a player run format at this point similar to commander. Although they are supporting commander with commander zone and commander products. I think they will still support modern at least in the immediate future. It is still a very popular format and has a decent following. It is also a security blanket when standard goes bad so there are still two viable money making formats (pioneer and modern). Maro stated that Modern Horizons was a financial success so they will likely do another Modern Horizons in the future.
As for the second part, you are spot on my dude. The adventure cards were a large gain for our deck in some tough matchups. I am currently running two borrower maindeck and two bonecrusher. I am deciding on whether to move the bonecrusher to the sideboard and I think you helped me with my decision. Bonecrushers are great in certain matchups, but in some matchups its just a 2 CMC shock because I never want to spend the mana at sorcery speed for a 4/3. I do think bonecrusher is a great option against midrange style decks.
All of your thoughts seem great to me. Especially Archmage's Charm. I recently cut it from my list. It is extremely good if you are playing a more controlling UR strategy. It fits great into the delver/young pyromancer strategy. I just found it to be a bit lackluster and that is stuck in my hand too many times. It also asks a lot of the mana base. With Veil of Summer, Mystical Dispute, and even spell pierce seeing more play, its tough to run a 3cmc counter spell that you really want to hit on turn 3. I have gone back to something similar to my original list. I was really hoping for a preordain unban to replace my serum visions. I have cut it down to 2 serum visions. I am going to test tonight and see what I feel works best again. It is great to have modern feel fresh again. At least for a little while.
Round 1: Grixis Control (2-0)
Having multiple Stoneforge Mystics came in clutch because I was able to consistently bounce Batterskull to avoid being hit by his Kolaghan's Commands round one. Delver of Secrets always died on turn one or two, but this was fine because I knew the real threat was coming afterwards. To note this was the only time the Deprive/Mystic Sanctuary interaction came into play and, while powerful, it can still be fought through by particularly careful opponents. A very fun match, but I felt my opponent didn't have much experience playing against delver strategies.
Out:
2x Force of Negation
In:
2x The Royal Scions
Round 2: Burn (2-1)
A rough match up since my version lacks Lightning Helix, but Force of Negation and Sword of War and Peace out of side board reign it back towards us slightly. I figured Stoneforge Mystic will always die so equipping snappy boy or delver with a sword is my path to victory game one. Which is exactly how I won games two and three.
Out:
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
2x Path to Exile
In:
1x Sword of War and Peace
2x Spell Snare
Round 3: Simic Urza (1-2)
He slipped a Oko, Thief of Crowns early both games he won so... yay that happened. Delver of Secrets took one game home when I managed to have enough counters to stop his key spells. In this match up I feel UR is probably better positioned because they have more counter spells, but I suppose this doesn't matter now because Oko, Thief of Crowns and Mox Opal are both banned.
Out:
4x Lightning Bolt
In:
2x Mystical Dispute
1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
1x Wear // Tear
Round 4: G Tron (2-0)
Delver of Secrets did amazing work round one with a hand of two of our buggy friend, two lands, and cantrips/counter spells. I managed to keep him off balance long enough until bolt-snap-bolt finished him off. Game two I had the perfect hand of Force of Negation his Expedition Map into Delver of Secrets. This delayed Tron long enough for me to find a Damping Sphere. Playing six and seven mana threats against delver is exactly where we want to be.
Out:
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Path to Exile
In:
1x Ceremonious Rejection
3x Damping Sphere
Conclusion:
The core of the deck felt fantastic, but I can see how UR is better in specific match ups than Jeskai and vise versa. My primary objective, which was testing if Deprive, Mystic Sanctuary, and Archmage's Charm, could be reliably played in a three color delver shell was a success and my conclusion is that yes, it can be played reliably, however moving forward I think I'm going to cut the charms and leave in the land and the 2 CMC counterspell. Forcing a good 3 CMC spell that's incredibly tough to cast is not worth it in my opinion and these slots can be better used elsewhere. What impressed me was Deprive's longevity into the late game and Mystic Sanctuary's ability to flip Delver of Secrets in the mid and late game. Deprive may be tough to cast at times, but it's much easier to include into a three color deck than Archmage's Charm while adding a single Mystic Sanctuary into our deck barely hurts our mana base.
I hope you all liked my breakdown of my tournament! Hopefully the recent bans spice up the format a bit because I was beginning to chafe under the pressure of Oko, Thief of Crowns like everyone else.
Congrats on the 3-1! Almost a 4-0 if that guy/girl wasn't playing so many banned cards in their deck :). Thanks for the tournament report. I love reading these reports.
I came to a very similar conclusion to you recently. I have found that archmage's charm just doesn't add enough to the deck to warrant the UUU cost. I prefer to be a bit more proactive and it just didn't fit my gameplan enough. In the grindy games it was great, but in all other matchups it was normally just a harder to cast Cancel. The 1 mana option did come up sometimes, but often when I played that option I was already winning. Taking a late swiftspear, aether vial, death shadow, etc is noramlly too late in the game to make a comeback from that play. It only really worked out well in the shadow matchup and I already feel really favored in that matchup with burn, path, and counter magic. They do a lot of the work for us.
I agree that one Mystic Sanctuary is almost a free roll for our deck. I haven't had any problems with it yet. Sometimes it does come in tapped, but it's still worth the risk. I have won several games just putting burn back on top. I am not currently running Deprive, but I will be testing them in place of my remands. Hard counters are great to have, especially later in the mid game/late game.
Thanks again for the report and congrats again on the 3-1! I feel good vibes for jeskai delver variants in modern in the near future.
@StevomatUWR [q] I am now enjoying Divinity: Original Sin 2... [/q] thats funny I started playing Divinity Original Sin EE edition this december over magic.
I have been playing a home brew Mardu Pox deck that is closer to jeskia tempo play, choosing to just play the best hate cards and not interact with my opponent.
That's what modern currently is unfortunately. I hope the bans will help this out a bit. Do to all of the combo decks and big mana decks lately I have been experimenting with UR and URx prowess style builds to get out a bit quicker. The deck is less counter based and more aggressive. I will let you guys know when I end up on a list that I think can be consistently good.
With the current meta of super value decks like jund and snow control along with super aggressive and big mana decks, it is really hard to play a tempo deck and do well consistently. I am going to basically go with two different lists. A jeskai list that is more aggro-control without the swiftspears with delver, geist, brazen borrower, snapcaster, and the usual suspects and then a more aggressive prowess build I have been working on. I will keep you all posted as to which I prefer as the meta slowly starts to settle after the bans.
I wish I could play those games. They look really cool. Two young kiddos takes up all my time so I am only allowed two hobbies; golf and magic .
I played with my old Jeskai Delver deck with a little update. During my matches with the mono-white deck (see above) I learned how powerful Ranger-Captain of Eos is and so I added two copies to my Delver deck while using the following CMC1 creatures as tutor targets: 3x Delver, 2x Giver of Runes, 1x Lavamancer.
It went okay-ish. I ended up 2-2. With so much burn these creature decks should be good match-ups but the synergy in these decks is very strong and they're all very fast and disruptive. I have to tweak my SB to be better prepared for these decks.
I have been tweaking and playing around a bit with my build as well. It's really tough to do well in a league when you are tweaking deck lists. I have found that is the best way to see if a deck is working or not. After two or three leagues you can get a good view of what is working and what isn't. It takes me like two weeks to play 3 leagues though :). I am always happy with a 3-2 or better finish. I have had a couple 4-1's but haven't had a 5-0 yet. I did have an 0-5 once when I played with the wrong mana base. I thought I could still a win or two, but it didn't happen :).
I have noticed that modern has been much better since the ban. Lots of humans, jund, and some wierd stuff. There are still a ton of super linear decks and a TON of titan based decks, but those can be ok matchups. Field of the Dead has made the amulet titan matchup way worse. Valakut has always been rather tough before boarding. It's funny because I think the meta got a little tougher for use after the bans, but that's ok. It's a ton more fun to play against different stuff.
I am still working on my new delver deck idea and am having a ton of fun. I will run it through a couple leagues and see how if feels against more competitive opponents.
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove in Scapeshift is stupidly overpowered and might get banned when Scapeshift decks reach a certain percentage in the meta. Dream Trawler is the perfect finisher for UW Control. Thassa's Oracle is insane in Ad Nauseam (watch this to see for yourself). Ox of Agonas is very strong in classic Dredge, and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger seems like a fun addition for Jund.
The deck we love just becomes more and more insignificant because it can't keep up with the crazy power level of other decks.
I wish I could disagree but I fear you are correct. We really need another early threat or modal tempo spell at 2 cmc or powerful mods spell at 3 cmc like kohlgans command. Right now the power level at the top end of some decks combined with the speed of other decks makes it nearly impossible to play a more midrange or te
Ok build unless it’s just crazy value like jund or nov-mizzet. Even then it’s tough.
I am currently playing a new UR brew I made and am having grey results and a lot of fun. It’s a delver list of course bc I can’t leave my guy behind, but it’s more tempo/Aggro oriented. I will share it on the UR delver forums in here and the other site. I can share it here too if no one minds that it’s not jeskai. I might try to fit white in at some point but I’m still fairly early I’m the testing phase of the brew.
3 Monastery Swiftspear
1 Soul-Scar Mage
2 Brazen Borrower
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Bedlam Reveler
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Burst Lightning
4 Light up the Stage
3 Vapor Snag
1 Echoing Truth
2 Remand
3 Force of Negation
1 Spell Snare
4 Opt
1 Serum Visions
1 The Royal Scions
1 Chandra Torch of Defiance
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
4 Island
1 Mountain
2 Fiery Islet
2 Graffdigger's Cage
2 Ashiok, Dream Render
1 Abrade
1 Bonecrusher Giant
1 Mystical Dispute
2 Dragon's Claw
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Narset Parter of Veils
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Surgical Extraction
The idea is basically to get out ahead early and bounce things and gain card advantage throughout the game. Here are the main interaction
Vapor Snag + Light up the Stage- a way to trigger spectacle easily and gain card advantage
Light up the State + Counter Magic- this is something I had not seen before, but if you light up the stage you can have counter magic up. Obviously the opponent can play around said counter magic because they know it's there, but they are forced to play around it. Unfortunately you can't use the blue card exiled from light up the stage to pay force of negations alternate cost, but you can use a force of negation that has been exiled by light up the stage by discarding a blue card that is in your hand.
Prowess and bounce spells- This is fairly straightforward, but powerful. Bounce spells are great with delver and prowess creatures. The damage adds up quickly and often opponents lose with 4-5 cards still in hand.
The last sideboard slot I wasn't sure about. It really depends on the meta. I have thought about Spreading Seas, Anger of the Gods, flusterstorm, Grim Lavamancer, etc. There are tons of options.
Another thing I have questioned is whether I should run a main deck Spell Pierce instead of a fourth light up the stage. I have played both ways and it didn't change a ton. I think in game one we want to win quickly and can side in additional counter magic if we need to.
I have tested it for about a week now and am loving it. I will run it through a couple of leagues and see how it goes. Let me know what changes you think I should make. I will likely give jeskai a try too with path in the list and helix, but I want to test with just UR for starters.
His article on Starcity says Jeskai Saheeli is the best deck in modern. It's paid content so you may not be able to read it, but he basically talks about how it has a decent matchup against all of the meta right now. Not 70-30 against anything, but is advantaged post board against nearly every single deck.
I wanted to build a deck similar to Hoogland's version. Below is what I played yesterday and went 4-0 at a LGS. Games were super fun and tough. I really like this style of deck.
As you can see the manabase is still missing a few pieces, but is somewhat playable.
The new double cards feel really good. They add so much value and work really well in most situations.
For future I want to cut Restoration Angel and Cryptic Command. They feel too slow and just bad cards overall. I will try a 3/3/3 split with Brazen Borrower, Bonecrusher Giant and Teferi, Time Raveler.
Sideboard was a pile of cards I own. That can be upgraded a lot too.
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spell Queller
2 Brazen Borrower
3 Bonecrusher Giant
1 Restoration Angel
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Helix
4 Opt
1 Spell Snare
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 The Royal Scions
2 Cryptic Command
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
1 Spirebluff Canal
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Inspiring Vantage
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Ashiok, Dream Render
2 Celestial Purge
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Dispel
1 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Wear // Tear
right off the bat I have to agree whole heartedly on the double sided cards. The more i think about it the more i feel that they will slowly become main deck musts just because of the shear value they provide. Once you cast the adventure it turns into a card that basically permanently stays in your hand so you ALWAYS have an option. They are very versatile and for jeskai they are perfect for the create an opening, close out the game tactic that jeskai decks tend to follow.
congrats on your 4-0! Do you mind posting what your opponents were on?
i see no problem with your sideboard. You have ashiok for graveyard and titan decks, purge for jund and RBx decks, abrade for the vial decks What deck do you side in wear//tear for though?
as for the mainboard I would suggest adding in force of negation. I would maybe even go on a limb and say cut all but 1 cryptic and add in 2-3 force of negation simply because your deck seems very aggressive. At the very least put two FoN into your side board. I feel its a must somewhere in the 75.
lastly, have you considered trimming down a celestial colonnade? How useful was it for your 4-0? I am always curious to know how colonnade does in a more aggro style deck. There are man my reasons I think colonnade may not be optimal in an aggro style deck but im on a midrange deck so i am severely uneducated on the play style of the aggro one when it comes to colonnade and lack of counters. Especially in a list with no force of negations at all.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB