MTG Salvation

Pia and Kiran also should come in vs UW, they should be cutting a lot of removal and getting PnK wrathed or pathed are both good trades.

Against tron wear/tear is okish on the play if you can snipe a map but other than t1 map and maybe an occasional poorly timed ostone there aren't any targets. Considering your list is really poorly set vs tron (this js completely fine btw) you could bring in Lyra just so you have something to smash face with and steal a win

Alpine Moon vs Damping sphere actually is an interesting conversation to have here. I feel AlpineMoon is very narrow, almost only hitting tron; valakut is fairly uncommon, and that's about it I think; what other deck would you bring it in against? Something with exceptionally strong manlands like infect /maybe/, for lack of better sb cards? Some awful nykthos deck which you beat anyways? Damping sphere is I think equally good vs tron, and also hits storm, KCI and ad nauseam. However it is also twice as expensive and can sometimes be negative to our snapcasters, which cant be ignored.

@TheAller, I like the look of the Kiki list you posted earlier. I've been having mixed results playing UW Miracles in paper, and I was thinking about returing to UWR where I seem to have more success.

It's interesting to see that you are thinking about moving away from Remand for Logic Knot and Spell Queller as I had similar thoughts. My thought was changing the maindeck like so: -1 Helix -4 Remand -4 Opt -> +2 Serum Visions +2 Peek +2 Queller +2 Knot +1 Knot/Remand/Snare

Remand seems quite good against UW and a few other decks and it can always cycle. Had you considered Wall of Omens? It sounded like you thought Resto didn't need any more help in the deck as it performed fine, but it does make a good target. It also helps ensure Teferi sticks. 2 Walls could take a cantrip slot, but perhaps the 2 mana at sorcery speed is a little too at odds with the instant speed nature of the build.

A hidden downside of wall of omens is also that when I see a jeskai list drop a wall, I am instantly suspicious of kiki combo

My own plan of deviation right now is to run a jeskai list with no mainboard wraths but 4 of bolt, helix and lyze, having a strong burn plan as a backup vs any poor matchup or when an opponent stumbles. I'm not sure yet whether I will integrate that into a Teferi list or go queller burn

A hidden downside of wall of omens is also that when I see a jeskai list drop a wall, I am instantly suspicious of kiki combo

That's a good point that I hadn't considered. The split between Peek and Serum Visions was a sort of hedge. I'm interested in trying out Peek because I think it could be useful in conjunction with Queller and Kiki. It would let you know if you're safe to combo into open mana or if they have an answer to your Queller. The information can be VERY useful, but the card does very little to dig for cards. On the flip side, I think Serum is generically more powerful than Opt. Keeping a one/two lander with Serum is possible, but it's a bit more loose with Opt.

Nikolich went heavy on Peek lately in a control build and seemed to like, so I thought it might be worth experimenting with.

Two PPTQ's with the following list;

Jeskai Control (U/W/R): Jeskai Control - Build (C) - Miracles



Shared via TopDecked MTG https://www.topdecked.me/decks/0ff923d0-a2c7-43d9-9f61-e719097e41da

4-1-2 finish in Swiss at a 70 player event, not good enough for top 8.

G/W Company: 1-1 - D
R/B BriBridgeVine: 2-0 W
U/W Control: 0-1 L
KCI: 2-0 W
Humans: 2-1 W
Jeskai Control: 1-1 D
Dredge: 2-0 W

4-1-1 finish in Swiss, at a 34 player event. My final round loss ended up being the win and in for top 8.

Traditional Affinity: 2-0 W
R/B BridgeVine: 2-1 W
U/B Infect: 2-1 W
Mono-Green Tron: 2-0 W
U/W Control: 1-1 D
Mardu Pyromancer: 0-2 L

Over my testing period and then the two PPTQs I would put my game 1 match-ups with this build as follows;

Humans: Favored
Hollow One: Heavily Favored
KCI: Favored
Affinity: Slightly Favored
Modular Affinity: Even / Slightly Unfavored
Mardu Pyro: Even
Dredge: Even
Tron: Slightly Favored
Burn: Favored
UW Control: ?
Jeskai Control: ?
Infect: Slightly Favored
Company Decks: Favored
Storm; Un-favored
BridgeVine: Even/Slightly Favored
Jund: Heavily Favored

I was pretty happy with my build for the events that I played. There was a heavy Graveyard and UWx Control presence, and for once I wasn't hoping to dodge Dredge. I would describe the list as UW splashing red for Helix, Lavamancer, Engineered Explosives and Counterflux.

Telling time felt underwhelming whenever I cast it except for my one match against Humans where it set up t3 and t4 Miracles in games 1 and 2. So even though I have reservations about it, we'll see where it goes. Possible replacements are a singleton Serum Visions, Think Twice, Hieroglyphic Illumination, or Electrolyze.

I do need to work on my G1 in a UWx mirror, as well as my play speed, and further testing will reveal if the lack of lightning bolt affects the Humans / Affinity match ups significantly. Any criticisms or questions about choices and match ups welcome.


Edit; Played a few rounds against a friend on Modular Affinity and although i went up 3-2 in games, he rolled me in game 1 and 2. The lavamancers in the board help me come back, as well as stony silence. Game 1, pre-board looks like it relies on a timely miracle or a very good path-snap-path type hand.

interesting take. what did you think of the mana base?

also why 2x lavamancer? not that the card is bad, but you arent exactly hurting in the removal or sweepers department, and those slots seem better served with basically...anything. abrade, wear/tear, another EE, purge, more countermagic, etc.

Quote from tronix »

interesting take. what did you think of the mana base?

also why 2x lavamancer? not that the card is bad, but you arent exactly hurting in the removal or sweepers department, and those slots seem better served with basically...anything. abrade, wear/tear, another EE, purge, more countermagic, etc.

I feel like you might be right about the Lavamancers. I didn't get the match-ups I wanted them for, though, so I may persist with them. They were mainly insurance for the lower burn count in the main 60, for Vial decks, Affinity, Vizier Combo, and Infect. Abrade is a very tempting alternative. I also wouldn't mind an extra Ancestral Vision or a Wear // Tear either.

As for the mana base, I would say I could always guarantee myself a t4 shock-free helix, with about 50% of hands being able to cast a shock-free helix on turn 2, and about 80-90% of hands are capable of casting a t2 Helix with a shock. If I were to include lightning bolt then I would have to go back to a traditional mana base with fewer basics. A middle ground I have been considering is simply going back to the full 4 scalding tarn (from my current 3) and back to 3 Islands. Other options include adding a 2nd Steam Vents, or a singleton Sulfur Falls. Having said that, I have enjoyed having a high basic count very much, and it is especially important I feel with Field of Ruin (not to mention Blood Moon).

Have you guys seen this card?

Could this help i any match up?

shapeshifter’s marrow

I really dislike this current trend of tuning jeskai to be as close as possible to UW. A lot of very good players do this but I think it just ends up being spread too thin and worse at beating the meta than straight UW which can run 4 FOR, stony and rip. If that is your gameplan, just play UW.

I think that if you want to play Jeskai now, you should focus on the advantages it has over UW, ie being able to pivot into an aggressive burn deck. Up your humans and burn matchup and weaken your big mana or grave matchups

well its not like the trend came out of nowhere. with UW doing so well, its only natural to see if there is anything worth incorporating. though i agree that we probably dont want to move to far away from the elements that make jeskai good; namely the burn package. that said, if someone wants to test something else out, far be it from me to get in their way.

creature decks are always looking to invalidate spot removal at every turn. it just so happens that right now some of those decks are succeeding. humans has bugler to reload, hardened scales has modular + ballista/hangerbalk, hollow one demands a breadth of answers, bant spirits leverages flash and hexproof, etc.

jeskai's extreme density of removal still probably gives us an edge, but it isnt as pronounced. since we lose matchup equity to gain this edge, it only makes sense to see if there are adjustments to be had so we dont fall behind.

The jeskai-uw hybrid is basically that UW doesn't have enough spot removal without playing bad cards, so splashing makes sense.
I don't personally think that jeskai can get away with 0 jace, 0 terminus builds right now. There are too many decks that are otherwise very difficult matchups.

Won a PPTQ yesterday with a Resto-Kiki build similar to what TheAller had posted before. 4-0-2 in the swiss to get the 2nd seed for T8. I really enjoyed having the Resto beat down plan, but I think the 2 Spell Queller really overperformed. I believe I only assembled the combo twice during the tournament in games 2&3 against Amulet Titan. Sticking to flash while ditching the Kiki-jikis for better mana might be my preferred option going forward.

Some notes:

Hardened Scales Affinity is far more difficult for UWR than for UW with Terminus. You'd rather play against normal Affinity any day.

AV came out of the side for a matchup against another UWR deck and it was decent. Could be something to go if Assassin's Trophy pops up in high numbers and make Teferi or Azcanta less reliable.

Settle the Wreckage out of the board was useful, but the fear it instills in your opponent can be a huge advantage. I legitimately should have lost in the Semi's but I think my opponent was concerned about getting blown out by this card (I had already cast and snap-cast my only copy, but he may have assumed I had others).

Alpine Moon performed well. I brought in one copy against the Affinity matches and UWR and both against Valakut and Amulet Titan. Turning your opponents Colonnades off while keeping yours is quite good.

Im thinking of doing the same in my jeskai geist build. Im making the switch from all serum visions to 3/1 opt/peek split after playing a serum visions and getting punished for it yesterday. I feel sorcery speed cantrips are simply not good anymore especially in jeskai geist builds.

The peek should help alot with making correct plays like when to hold removal or turn on the aggro.

i guess from now on the singleton Negate will be replaced by Ionize. i like.

I dont think that will be the case. 2 mana is far better than 3 and two damage. Its not impossible but theres soo many 3 mana counters that are pretty good.

I wish so badly they would stop this little game and just print counterspell. They are already running out of things to do with the 3 mana counterspells and are even printing them at 2 different per set. Wel have 3 in standard now if im not mistaken.

On the conspiracy side of things i think that wotc including goblin electromancer and these counterspells is an experiment to see how counterspell would perform in standard to see if they can actually print it.

Theres been news that counterspell was tested in dominaria but r&d decided it may be too strong at this time it was said on the masters of modern podcast.

We'll be playing a format where Assassin's Trophy is legal but Counterspell is too strong, lol. It's time to find room for spell snare again in the 75.

I'm cautiously interested in the new Niv Mizzet as a postboard value spell, cause even though it's a 6drop boy is that some ludicrous value

I agree Spell Snare is in as for Niv seems too hard too cast in a Jeskai Deck if you ask but I guess in the Mirror you will have plenty of time to get enough lands and mana together.

I hadnt even seen the new izzet split card yet. It's a bit of a bummer Explosion is UURRX and not UURX but the flexibility is very interesting. I've always thought fork effects are just a tad away from being playable but with a wincon and removal spell tagged onto it it might be enough.

The utility you get from having both on one card kinda means it had to have a drawback somewhere. The CMC is usually where they get you for such things.