MTG Salvation

i mean i was on the 4x serum visions 24 lands deal for a long time, actually probably longer than most since i wrote off opt rather quickly when it was printed into modern. so it was difficult for me to see the nuances until i played GDS (w/serums) for a bit, played opt in jeskai/UW, and even more recently with UR phoenix which is a case study on cantrip usage. serum is obviously a slam dunk in phoenix, but even with GDS the deck is already built to accommodate mixing and matching sorcery and instant speed plays; in which case the superior selection (among other interactions like street wraith/bauble triggers) shines.

you want to lean into your advantages, or at the least surround seemingly weaker cards with others that create more cohesive play patterns. sounds kinda obvious on the surface, however just like teferi wasnt 'obvious' to most in lieu of a dominating control finisher being present in jtms; you just play with the card and it 'clicks' with the other things you are doing. hieroglyphic is kinda like that in jeskai. its not reinvigorating the archetype like teferi or azcanta, but the synergy of being instant speed card draw with a floor of an instant speed cycle makes it a subtle upgrade in my book.

Has anyone played against the U/B Emerge Eldrazi deck? .-. it feels like such a bad match-up since most of the removal doesn't line up. Just looking for some advice on the match-up since I keep getting paired against it at FNM.

Quote from DesuBunny »

Has anyone played against the U/B Emerge Eldrazi deck? .-. it feels like such a bad match-up since most of the removal doesn't line up. Just looking for some advice on the match-up since I keep getting paired against it at FNM.

..which threats are troublesome, so that Path, Supreme Verdict, Settle the Wreckage, Logic Knot and Cryptic Command cannot handle them ?

It's weird, the deck runs Abundant Maw, Distended Mindbender, Wretched Gryff and Elder Deep Fiend so when you try to use spot removal they just emerge over it. As well as Skyspawner and Eternal Scourge not lining up the best either with spot removal. He mains like 3 Relics to keep exiling the Scourge if you do anything but Terminus to it then it comes back. Matter Reshaper, Reality Smasher, Thought-Knot Seer are also great threats too, not to mention 4 cavern of souls to hate out counter magic. It just feels like control is made to lose against the deck.

I'd like to talk about Hieroglyphic Illumination a bit. Lately I've been foregoing conventional cantrips over it and I think I'm sticking with that. I feel that, if you do not get some additional advantage off Serum Vision or Opt (triggering Terminus more reliably, spells matter effects like phoenix or pyromancer), they just don't do that much. Losing some filtering power for free card advantage later in the game with Hieroglyph has been very powerful

So, I’ve been out of the Jeskai game for a while, but is there any particular reason we don’t play the Kiki/Resto combo? Having an instant-kill to handle the unfair decks and playing the snap/bolt tempo game against the fair decks always seemed to work well for twin. I know Kiki/Resto is 1 turn slower, but it still seems better than praying to draw your sideboard cards.

I don't know why this combo keeps getting brought up. It is supremely sketchy to rely on a 2-toughness creature to get you across the finish line in almost any combo/unfair match, and what Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker does to your mana base is not a small thing either.

Jeskai isn't that good right now because Lightning Bolt is of questionable usefulness. That combined with it's inefficiency at dealing with graveyard-based decks makes it not so good against the top tier decks right now. Against the rest of the field, it seems fine but not stellar.

Sorry if I’m going over old ground, I looked back a few pages and didn’t see discussion of it.

I don’t understand the relevance of the 2/2 body in unfair matchups. What are Dredge or Hardened Scales or Amulet or Tron doing to disrupt us that cares about the toughness of our creatures?

ballista? abrade? Spatial contortion? darkblast? potentially conflagrate?
Obviously decks like burn or phoenix that we might want to race have easy answers to 2/2s.

Dredge, in general, is too fast for us. Assuming they don't have average draws, it's still a slog for Jeskai to get a game win. Amulet is too fast and makes all your Bolt effects worthless. Cavern of Souls naming Giant takes care of the rest. Tron just does Tron things and we generally fall over. We could get lucky with Bolt-Snap-Bolt, but you're never landing your combo against their average draws. Hardened Scales goes big pretty fast if they get to start off with their namesake enchantment. Otherwise, we can handle it as we would most Affinity matches. It's still easy for our Bolts to become useless though, and applying pressure to finally win can be awkward.

Of all those matches, Amulet Titan is probably the only one where I would want the combo. That's not enough for me to wreck my mana base.

The issue with running Kiki combo in a low creature count deck is that even against decks with very few interactive spells, they will have stockpiled a removal spell by the time you go off simply because there are no other targets. Another consideration is that getting triple red for kiki also really warps your manabase in a 3 color deck. If you want to win with kiki combo I would recommend the Vannifar Pod decks, from what I've seen they are fairly reasonable in that you win if you untap with Vannifar, and it runs so many creatures that it will overload removal even vs removal heavy decks.


As for jeskai in general, I wouldn't recommend to play any control deck in modern atm. If you really insist on control, UW Miracles with mainboard rest in peace is reasonable, but still not worth the slog at a big tournament. For me I currently just play Jeskai at FNM because I adore the deck; I've actually been brewing with Nahiri the Harbinger again and it has felt reasonable

hello everyone, new to the jeskai control deck , been playing with the deck 1 and a half month
ive been enjoing it so far , looked some guides also for some hard mu's
at my Lcg's couldnt find a way to defeat this new BW eldra taxes with the kaya
the eldrazi where really hard for me to deal with them and flikerwishp and displacer made my spot removal look silly

do you have any advice or something to spot out from sb would be nice
thanks in andvance!

An interesting article of Jeskai control by Shaheen Soorani: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38447_From-Izzet-Phoenix-To-Jeskai-Control.html

Quote from Ym1r »

An interesting article of Jeskai control by Shaheen Soorani: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38447_From-Izzet-Phoenix-To-Jeskai-Control.html

I like his ideas about 2 Spell Snare and running the full 4 Surgical and Field. However, I've been trying to cram 4 Field of Ruin in my Jeskai lists for a while now but the mana always seems shaky; in that list too there are only 11 red sources, and at some point the percentage you gain over UW because of access to Helix will just be undone by all the extra land damage you take. I think that if you want 4 Field of Ruin it might be right to just play 26 lands.

I also loathe Settle the Wreckage and 4 mainboard wraths seems excessive

Quote from Bearscape »

Quote from Ym1r »

An interesting article of Jeskai control by Shaheen Soorani: http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38447_From-Izzet-Phoenix-To-Jeskai-Control.html

I like his ideas about 2 Spell Snare and running the full 4 Surgical and Field. However, I've been trying to cram 4 Field of Ruin in my Jeskai lists for a while now but the mana always seems shaky; in that list too there are only 11 red sources, and at some point the percentage you gain over UW because of access to Helix will just be undone by all the extra land damage you take. I think that if you want 4 Field of Ruin it might be right to just play 26 lands.

I also loathe Settle the Wreckage and 4 mainboard wraths seems excessive

Basically I agree with you. At the point where you are cutting almost all bolts and basically you are splashing red to play 4 Helix, maybe you shoudl reconsider your options.

I love 4 Field of Ruin but it is really tough on the mana base. Heck, sometimes it is even hard for UW decks!

However Spell Snare is in a great position atm and I think we should play it more in any type of control.

I do think Lightning Helix is that good, though. I've ran lists where 4x Helix is the only mainboard red card before. Crushing burn and enabling you to run 4x snap is IMO reason enough to run jeskai just for helix. It does come at a cost however and between needing 20 U for cryptic, 13 R for helix and 15 W for Verdict, that cost tends to be that you just can't reliably run all four field of ruin. Maybe 26 lands is worthwhile?

I think 26 lands is fine. The shaun mclaren pt bng list is 26 with 4 tec edges, so playing field of ruin is theoretically just better for color requirements. (and he played anger over verdict, which is worse for colors)

Well, I am headed to GP Calgary, and thought I would post up the list I will be bringing, and get some feedback on it to make any last minute changes. I feel pretty good about the deck as is though, but the hive mind is always good for pointing out my mistakes.



This will be my first GP, and I plan on looking for 2 more Scalding Tarns to borrow for the day, but as of now, I only have 1. I really think the only oddball card in the main deck is very obviously the Talisman of Progress. I just really liked in when I was playing UW control. It turbos out T3 Cryptic on the play, with Spell Snare, Opt, or Path up if I feel I need it and can spare the 1 life. I also know that my board looks messed up, and probably not the greatest, but I feel like all the cards in it are good, and hopefully not too narrow. I like having at least 1 Timely in the 75 for burn. I hate losing to Burn, so I like to pack as much hate for them as reasonably possible. CoP Red is great in Burn, and Phoenix which is expected in droves, which can possibly leave my paths for the bigger blue creatures in a perfect world. Runed Halo is also a card I enjoy against Burn naming Eidolon and then watching them hurt themselves while I counter there stuff as per normal, and I bring it in against Valakut decks. Alpine Moon is also for Valakut and Tron to hopefully squeeze out some wins over Tron if I can't surgical a land fast enough.

As I said though, I am not set in stone on the list, so if anyone brings up some good points I will likely change some cards around. All in all though, I feel pretty confident in the list.

Your list is fairly stock, so not much to note. Some pickups:

-that Talisman of Progress seems incredibly random
-I'd run at least one more cmc2 counterspell mainboard (over the talisman probably)
-Your manabase can't reliably cast Anger of the Gods on 3, I don't think you need it to begin with
-sideboard 1-2 Celestial Purge, it's the stones right now
-I'd add either some Cliques or some Quellers in the 75, UWx is always overrepresented at big tournaments

Control is hard to play at big events, you don't get much time for a break so have water and a snack with you. Time is of the essence, so play quickly but clearly. And good luck of course!

I actually think the manabase is fine for Anger (maybe not mathematically, I don't know that part). You'll have to make concessions to aggressively fetching double red in the matchups where you want Anger, but that's generally fine to do in those matchups. You probably don't NEED to have the Angers in the board given that you're playing Settle in the main.

Talisman is definitely weird. I don't know that I hate it, but as of now it's the weakest card until you shore up the tings Bearscape mentioned. I also think having some number of Rule of Law type effects in your board is good right now.