Hey, everyone. Time for another straightforward, no BS post about what I plan to play out of the gate once Guilds of Ravnica releases.
Why Jeskai?
In short, I believe red removal is exactly where you want to be in the opening weeks of this format. It gives you lots of game against all the small-ball creature decks and synergy decks that incorporate small creatures that people are sure to try out. The old adage "bolt the bird" is foremost amongst these since people are going to think Llanowar Elves is less likely to get Chainwhirlered away and thus more likely to try and play them. It also helps shore up the most aggressive decks' draws and gives you a fighting chance. This is super important against cards like Legion Warboss and Tajic, Legion's Edge, letting you nullify them before they get out of hand.
The other half to this conclusion is that the blue and white control cards are SO powerful that you are doing yourself a disservice to not sleeve them up. Between Search For Azcanta, Settle the Wreckage, and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, you have a great core for a control deck and the white cards in particular are strong enough that they will help carry you into the late game in a majority of situations. All you really need to be concerned about is making it out of the early game, which is why I paired it with the red removal as stated above.
Alright, let's get this out of the way first, since it's really the most pressing issue when considering playing this archetype.
My initial drafts of the mana were a bit more conservative, only playing three Sacred Foundry and a couple Clifftop Retreat with a few more basics to round out the numbers, but over time I decided that it was just too important to have a shock in the early turns to help smooth the mana and the basics were less functional than I would have preferred. Thus, I've ended up on these numbers.
There are 12 sources for your Glacial Fortress to come into play untapped, 11 for Sulfur Falls, and 11 for Clifftop Retreat, with Field of Ruin available to potentially help set this up (and let's be real, most people are going to be playing a heap of non-basics in this format). This is not as great as if we had access to Hallowed Fountain as well, but for the time being it's been working out fine. The Field of Ruin are also somewhat of a necessary evil I feel, to help fight over Search for Azcanta in the control mirrors.
Also, you'll notice that in the main deck there are only five cards that actually require double of a single color of mana (3 Settle the Wreckage, 2 Sinister Sabotage), which definitely helps make things flow more easily. We'll talk a bit more about this later once I touch on a few of the individual cards.
This has been one of the more common topics in reference to playing Jeskai over something like Grixis, where Sabotage is easier to cast. I don't disagree with that necessarily, but it's not like the card is uncastable in this list either. For the sake of easing the mana requirements, though, I've opted to lean in favor of Ionize. The two damage is mostly irrelevant, but only requiring a single blue is going to be a godsend when your mana doesn't want to cooperate.
Man, this card is such a sweet pickup for a control deck. I don't think there's any debate that Inspiration isn't making anyone's "all time greats" list any time soon, but being able to double-up on it later in the game and pitch your useless removal spells against a control deck or excess lands in the late game is such great flexability and certainly shouldn't be underestimated. Because the deck has a lot of things to do with its mana (planeswalkers, Azcanta activations, etc.) I'm only going with three copies, but I could certainly see why you might want to be on the full set.
This is a card that I think will be fairly good, though there are certainly situations where he'll be subpar. He really wants you to lead off on a number of your cheap cards in the early game and then come down either on an empty field or with a solitary threat that he can kill on the turn you cast him. This isn't much different than Teferi, but Teferi is less contingent on your graveyard being stocked for his removal ability and also allows some mana advantage to help protect him (i.e. playing him on turn 7 and having four up to cast Settle on your opponent's turn). So in short, I do want to try him out, but I think 1-2 copies is probably correct. I've dropped a Teferi in consideration of the curve, but it could certainly be correct to drop a Ral and be on 4 Teferi, 1 Ral instead.
These are your early game interaction cards, and while Seal Away has been a proven card when played alongside Teferi, I feel like the red cards warrant a moment of attention. Obviously, they're great for dealing with all of the early problem creatures, but they also scale decently well into the middle turns of the game. Having Lava Coil gives you extra game against Steel Leaf Champion, Shalai, Nicol Bolas, and Rekindling Phoenix, all of which are sure to be around in some numbers initially. Shivan Fire can also assist with those cards as well, though I would expect most of the time you are going to be using it as a Shock more than anything, but it is nice to have the option to scale into the later turns. Between all three of these cards and being backed up by Settle, there aren't a whole lot of the commonly played creatures that will escape unscathed.
This is another instance of a card that has a cost that makes it easier to play in a three color list. You will almost exclusively be playing this as a Sweltering Suns, which is more than fine against the decks you want it against, but the fact it only requires one red mana is extremely convenient. I had already been contemplating running Fiery Cannonade in place of this, but when this got spoiled I figured the extra damage was probably worth the downgrade to being a sorcery. I don't always believe this to be the case, but the third point of damage will be nice if people are playing mentor cards, Benalish Marshal, or other such things that might push their creatures above the two-toughness threshold.
I think this is only other card I want to touch on for the moment, because it isn't abundantly clear where you want it. Essentially, I'm not interested in playing the 35 turn games against opposing control decks that may have stuff like Duress, Arguel's Blood Fast, Thought Erasure, and other strong black anti-control cards. To aid in this, I've added the full set of these guys to just straight up punch other control decks in the mouth. It's the classic strategy of siding in an efficient and powerful creature after the opponent boards out all of the best removal for it. The most likely cards to stick around in your opponent's decks that can answer a resolved Warboss are things like Vraska's Contempt or Oblivion Ring effects that can hit your planeswalkers, so if you can present additional targets for them to need to use those cards on, you can really tax them and force them to play their turns sub-optimally.
In Conclusion
Those are my initial thoughts on the deck right now and I'm open to questions or constructive criticism. I think Jeskai is poised to do well in the coming weeks and probably has the necessary tools to adjust according to how the format develops, so I'll probably be on this for awhile. Lastly, the sideboard is just an approximation of what I think I'll need, but you should tailor it to your local meta (obviously).
I feel like people are evaluating ral with teferi colored lenses. Teferi isn't really a 5cmc planeswalker, he's a 3 cmc walker that comes out turn 5. You don't have to go "shields down" to resolve him and start clocking/building your board.
On the other hand, it feels bad to tap out for Ral and get a Sleight of Hand for 5 mana, or maybe a roast. I think he's a very strong card vs the mirror and in other situations, but I definitely don't think he gets mainboard play.
I also think that Lava Coil is a weird choice mainboard. Given the amount of value creatures in standard right now I'd rather deal with them before they resolve, not after. Essence Scatter is available to us and blue mana is, as you say earlier, not that difficult to make. I think coil makes more sense in the SB too.
I could see Ral being a sideboard card. I guess I wanted to have plenty of high impact cards to help mitigate the presence of Assassin's Trophy, which I feel is going to be overrepresented in Standard initially.
I can also see wanting Essence Scatter over Lava Coil, but there are going to be times where something sneaks through the shields and you'll need to be able to respond with something relatively cost-efficient. On the draw against a Steel Leaf Champion, for example.
I appreciate your response. Hoping to have more conversation here. 🙂
Ral should really be play tested out to see what he does. If he doesn't perform well he probably should not be in the deck. If your gonna do jeskai at least do it for a good reason besides burn spells. I mean it get it they kill smaller guys and aggro but thing is UW control already kinda deals with this better and if your going to do counter burn style then shouldn't you just be a wizards deck at that point?
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
I actually think Electrostatic Field probably deserves an inclusion. It's really strong vs lots of early aggro with it's 0/4 body, and the incremental damage really adds up over time, especially in the builds that plan to win with either teferi lock or burn damage. Kind of reminds me of wall of omens except instead of replacing itself it's a clock of sorts and much better in multiples.
I actually think Electrostatic Field probably deserves an inclusion. It's really strong vs lots of early aggro with it's 0/4 body, and the incremental damage really adds up over time, especially in the builds that plan to win with either teferi lock or burn damage. Kind of reminds me of wall of omens except instead of replacing itself it's a clock of sorts and much better in multiples.
I think that's starting to tread into the territory of a whole different deck. There was the Thermo-Alchemist UR burn deck a few formats ago that would've liked this card, but that's a vastly different strategy.
The issue is that control decks don't really care about the chip damage. Normally when we start winning, we're winning in large chunks, so getting a few points here or there carries less weight. Wall of Omens was acceptable because it replaced itself and helped you hit your early land drops, neither of which Electrostatic Field does.
I suppose if you wanted to build a base red Jeskai deck that looks to roast people out, you might want this, but traditional control decks will take a pass 99% of the time.
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States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
"To keep things 100, anything I state is an opinion and not intended to be a fact. Any and all suggestions I give are a 100% opinion. If you need further clarification take the conversation to a PM. I am not in the business of assuming things. I'm only interested in 1 business and that business serves 2 things, Cold L's and Hot Dub's."
I'm curious to know why there's not 4 Chemister's Insights in the lists. I always want to have access to the card so I can do something in my opp's end of turn when he plays around counterspells (= he plays nothing and goes on attacking with a single beef). Even with 4 copies, I end up not using my mana a couple turns every game.
if your going to do counter burn style then shouldn't you just be a wizards deck at that point?
Or a Drake deck !
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
I'm curious to know why there's not 4 Chemister's Insights in the lists. I always want to have access to the card so I can do something in my opp's end of turn when he plays around counterspells (= he plays nothing and goes on attacking with a single beef). Even with 4 copies, I end up not using my mana a couple turns every game.
It's basically the same reason why you never ran the full set of Glimmer of Genius in your control decks in this format. You often don't have time to sit there and draw cards the whole game because you need to be reacting to what your opponent is doing. I'm playing three because I do want to see one at some point in the game, but I don't want to be clogged on them. Also, you have a lot of card advantage built into your planeswalkers, so it isn't as necessary to play cut and dry card drawing spells. Besides, one kind of begets the others in that each one represents a look at four more cards, which is likely to draw you into another copy fairly quick.
As I mentioned above, I could see wanting the full set, but right now I personally feel three is just fine.
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States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
First of all, I decided that Field of Ruin was unnecessary for the time being. I cut both of them for another Island and Plains and haven't regretted it yet.
I got a bit scared off of Seal Away, and have since abandoned it completely. At first I thought it would be kind of a necessary evil, but between the cheap red spells and Settle the Wreckage, I've been able to hold off just about every resolved threat. I also dumped the Karns because it always felt a bit strange casting him early and letting the shields go down on kind of a pivotal turn. I could see throwing him back in, but for now he doesn't feel necessary.
Shivan Fire has been outstanding; more so than I initially expected. Being able to pick off Legion Warboss, Tajic, or any random early X/2 creature has been awesome, but the flexibility of using the same card to kill something like Shalai has been great too (been seeing a lot of Shalai, for the record). In conjunction with Lava Coil and Justice Strike, most small to medium sized creatures are locked down. Justice Strike has varied in its usefulness a little more than I would like. Sometimes you get to snipe a Lyra or Doom Whisperer and other times you're looking at Shalai or Lazav and you wish it were a Seal Away or something. It's a fine card, but not as reliable as would be preferred; I'll keep it for the time being.
An odd card that I'm sure most people would be curious about is the addition of a single Tezzeret, Artifice Master. This is mainly a concession to diversifying our win conditions in game one situations. The first round I played with the deck I immediately had my Teferi eaten by an Ixalan's Binding, with the other two rotting in my hand the whole game. My followup Ral a couple turns later met the same fate. I did end up winning that one thanks to some Karn tokens, but it was kind of dicey. For the same reason, I've included a single Blink of an Eye to give me an out in those situations.
Speaking of Ral, he's been pretty nice so far. Average damage has been in the 4-7 range and only gets better the later the game goes (obviously). I haven't used his ult yet, but the other two abilities have been totally solid.
I've also been toying around with the numbers of different wraths and I believe the configuration I'm on right now covers things optimally. The one Deafening Clarion has been great in the main deck so far and it's been so good in general that I decided to keep the additional two for the fast aggro matchups. Very rarely can I see myself wanting to go up to all eight wraths (Cleansing Nova being the final two), but they each serve different purposes. For example, the Novas are much better against G/x midrange decks where against the Boros aggro decks you'd much rather have Clarion.
Last note about the main deck, I decided on a single copy of Expansion / Explosion over the fourth Chemister's Insight for a couple reasons. First, the utility of having another counterspell against opposing control decks is pretty nice and when you don't need to use it for that purpose you can just reload. Secondly, I tried the fourth Chemister's because I felt like I was getting flooded a bit more than I wanted to on occasion, but it didn't seem to provide a meaningful difference versus having just three copies. Explosion at least gives you the chance to rip a card that will single-handedly pull you way ahead in the game once both players have one-for-oned each other into the ground. In very niche cases, you can even just use it as another removal spell, doubling up on a Shivan Fire or whatever. For a one-of, I've been pleased with it.
As for the sideboard, I had several cards come in and out of it, but eventually decided that the only change that I really needed was -1 Negate and +1 Ixalan's Binding. I just wanted to have a catchall card for problematic non-land permanents and Ixalan's Binding seems like the most high-impact card for that role. I ended up moving the Negate into the main deck over the singleton Disdainful Stroke, so we can maintain a good number of Negates against other control decks in the post-board games.
Anyway, testing has been going pretty well so far. I'll probably be diving into a league or two in the next couple of days, so we'll see how that ends up going. Anyone else been testing this style of control deck?
EDIT: And of course as soon as I post this saying I would probably never want all eight wraths, I play against the Selesnya mono-creatures deck and eight wraths just absolutely lays him out. Paired with a Ral ult and Teferi not far behind... yeah, he conceded pretty quick.
Runnin with this one in MTGA, will try to remove 1Risk Factor and 1Sinister Sabotage, for additional lands, but main problem is early defence, sometimes you enter turn 4 with 10 health and desperate need of settle. Don't know about Seal Away it' very helpful against agro(boros may be exeption) and it's great ability to defend Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, but deck has troubles with planeswalkers, boros vigilance so i'm considering Ixalan's Binding(what's a point of Conclave Tribunal when you cant use convoke most of the time)
Runnin with this one in MTGA, will try to remove 1Risk Factor and 1Sinister Sabotage, for additional lands, but main problem is early defence, sometimes you enter turn 4 with 10 health and desperate need of settle. Don't know about Seal Away it' very helpful against agro(boros may be exeption) and it's great ability to defend Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, but deck has troubles with planeswalkers, boros vigilance so i'm considering Ixalan's Binding(what's a point of Conclave Tribunal when you cant use convoke most of the time)
Yeah, I'm off Seal Away for now. The card can be really good in some situations, but absolutely terrible in others. I would look into A) replacing Seal Away with some other cheap removal spell (I'm obviously pretty high on Shivan Fire) and B) definitely get 2-3 more lands in there. 24 lands in a deck that doesn't want to miss land drops... basically ever, is a bit ambitious.
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States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
She is just such a pure beat stick and the synergy with Lyra makes the potential for an immediate swing response when both get an attack in. That being said, if I had to cut something it would probably be her. I know there is a big interest in Boros aggro in my area and we have been play testing some t4/t5 wins out of it.
You know, the Electrostatic Field is not a terrible sideboard option to help with the fast aggro decks that also nets some value over the long haul and survives Deafening Clarion.
I'm currently liking a build that uses Ionize to soften an opponent up and then uses the back half of Fight With Fire to finish them off. Shocklands will make this easier to accomplish. Teferi is great, but only 4 wincons is low. Fight with Fire doubles as reasonable removal early and a wincon that removal can't touch late. This is my initial build.
Update: I put this together on Arena and jammed 15 games after tuning it a bit more towards Aggro. Crushed really hard. Obviously Arena isn't perfect for testing, but it's a good start. My favorite was vs Sultai that was grinding me out. Topdecked the 9th land for the win the turn before he killed me.
I'm currently liking a build that uses Ionize to soften an opponent up and then uses the back half of Fight With Fire to finish them off. Shocklands will make this easier to accomplish. Teferi is great, but only 4 wincons is low. Fight with Fire doubles as reasonable removal early and a wincon that removal can't touch late. This is my initial build.
Update: I put this together on Arena and jammed 15 games after tuning it a bit more towards Aggro. Crushed really hard. Obviously Arena isn't perfect for testing, but it's a good start. My favorite was vs Sultai that was grinding me out. Topdecked the 9th land for the win the turn before he killed me.
Yeah, Jeskai absolutely eats small creature decks for breakfast. Doesn't surprise me you had good results, but still good to know
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States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Of course this is not the end all be all of the deck, but I must say it performed extremely well. Deafening Clarionhas been the perfect answer to all of the early threats, while Settle the Wreckage and Cleansing Nova have cleaned up anything else that I couldn't catch early on. The biggest surprise, however, is how fast Niv-Mizzet, Paruncan close a game out. I just wanted to try him out, but he exceeded all expectations by a mile. Surprisingly enough, the strict mana specifications haven't been that big of an issue. Rarely are you trying to jam him out there on turn 6. All in all the deck has been great. I'll keep you guys updated with any further changes, and/or results!
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Dead at birth as we slowly decay - We're born only to fade away
We got no future, we got no hope
Our life is pain and it's hard to cope.
Of course this is not the end all be all of the deck, but I must say it performed extremely well. Deafening Clarionhas been the perfect answer to all of the early threats, while Settle the Wreckage and Cleansing Nova have cleaned up anything else that I couldn't catch early on. The biggest surprise, however, is how fast Niv-Mizzet, Paruncan close a game out. I just wanted to try him out, but he exceeded all expectations by a mile. Surprisingly enough, the strict mana specifications haven't been that big of an issue. Rarely are you trying to jam him out there on turn 6. All in all the deck has been great. I'll keep you guys updated with any further changes, and/or results!
I like the look of this list. We definitely have different card choices, but all of the ones in your list are definitely defensible. Glad to hear you've been having success with it I've been waffling a bit on the Legion Warboss sideboard plan I have and could definitely see something more like the Dawn of Hope package you've got instead. I might have to try out a few different things in place of the 'Boss and see if I like it better or not.
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States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Managed to bust out a 5-0 in a competitive league on magic online with this list. Played against Boros aggro, GW Tokens, Abzan Midrange, and 2 esper control decks. Really liked Expansion//Explosion a lot. Card won me several game all on it's own, some I had no business winning.
Managed to bust out a 5-0 in a competitive league on magic online with this list. Played against Boros aggro, GW Tokens, Abzan Midrange, and 2 esper control decks. Really liked Expansion//Explosion a lot. Card won me several game all on it's own, some I had no business winning.
Congrats on the 5-0, that list looks like a lot of fun to play!
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Why Jeskai?
In short, I believe red removal is exactly where you want to be in the opening weeks of this format. It gives you lots of game against all the small-ball creature decks and synergy decks that incorporate small creatures that people are sure to try out. The old adage "bolt the bird" is foremost amongst these since people are going to think Llanowar Elves is less likely to get Chainwhirlered away and thus more likely to try and play them. It also helps shore up the most aggressive decks' draws and gives you a fighting chance. This is super important against cards like Legion Warboss and Tajic, Legion's Edge, letting you nullify them before they get out of hand.
The other half to this conclusion is that the blue and white control cards are SO powerful that you are doing yourself a disservice to not sleeve them up. Between Search For Azcanta, Settle the Wreckage, and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, you have a great core for a control deck and the white cards in particular are strong enough that they will help carry you into the late game in a majority of situations. All you really need to be concerned about is making it out of the early game, which is why I paired it with the red removal as stated above.
So let's get to the list and we'll go from there: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jeskai-control-wguilds/?cb=1537430748
4 Steam Vents
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Clifftop Retreat
2 Plains
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Field of Ruin
Instants/Sorceries
3 Settle the Wreckage
3 Chemister's Insight
3 Opt
2 Sinister Sabotage
1 Disdainful Stroke
4 Shivan Fire
2 Lava Coil
3 Ionize
3 Seal Away
3 Search for Azcanta
Planeswalkers
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
3 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Cleansing Nova
3 Lyra Dawnbringer
1 Disdainful Stroke
3 Negate
4 Legion Warboss
2 Deafening Clarion
The Mana
Alright, let's get this out of the way first, since it's really the most pressing issue when considering playing this archetype.
My initial drafts of the mana were a bit more conservative, only playing three Sacred Foundry and a couple Clifftop Retreat with a few more basics to round out the numbers, but over time I decided that it was just too important to have a shock in the early turns to help smooth the mana and the basics were less functional than I would have preferred. Thus, I've ended up on these numbers.
There are 12 sources for your Glacial Fortress to come into play untapped, 11 for Sulfur Falls, and 11 for Clifftop Retreat, with Field of Ruin available to potentially help set this up (and let's be real, most people are going to be playing a heap of non-basics in this format). This is not as great as if we had access to Hallowed Fountain as well, but for the time being it's been working out fine. The Field of Ruin are also somewhat of a necessary evil I feel, to help fight over Search for Azcanta in the control mirrors.
Also, you'll notice that in the main deck there are only five cards that actually require double of a single color of mana (3 Settle the Wreckage, 2 Sinister Sabotage), which definitely helps make things flow more easily. We'll talk a bit more about this later once I touch on a few of the individual cards.
Ionize vs Sinister Sabotage
This has been one of the more common topics in reference to playing Jeskai over something like Grixis, where Sabotage is easier to cast. I don't disagree with that necessarily, but it's not like the card is uncastable in this list either. For the sake of easing the mana requirements, though, I've opted to lean in favor of Ionize. The two damage is mostly irrelevant, but only requiring a single blue is going to be a godsend when your mana doesn't want to cooperate.
Chemister's Insight
Man, this card is such a sweet pickup for a control deck. I don't think there's any debate that Inspiration isn't making anyone's "all time greats" list any time soon, but being able to double-up on it later in the game and pitch your useless removal spells against a control deck or excess lands in the late game is such great flexability and certainly shouldn't be underestimated. Because the deck has a lot of things to do with its mana (planeswalkers, Azcanta activations, etc.) I'm only going with three copies, but I could certainly see why you might want to be on the full set.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy
This is a card that I think will be fairly good, though there are certainly situations where he'll be subpar. He really wants you to lead off on a number of your cheap cards in the early game and then come down either on an empty field or with a solitary threat that he can kill on the turn you cast him. This isn't much different than Teferi, but Teferi is less contingent on your graveyard being stocked for his removal ability and also allows some mana advantage to help protect him (i.e. playing him on turn 7 and having four up to cast Settle on your opponent's turn). So in short, I do want to try him out, but I think 1-2 copies is probably correct. I've dropped a Teferi in consideration of the curve, but it could certainly be correct to drop a Ral and be on 4 Teferi, 1 Ral instead.
Shivan Fire, Lava Coil, and Seal Away
These are your early game interaction cards, and while Seal Away has been a proven card when played alongside Teferi, I feel like the red cards warrant a moment of attention. Obviously, they're great for dealing with all of the early problem creatures, but they also scale decently well into the middle turns of the game. Having Lava Coil gives you extra game against Steel Leaf Champion, Shalai, Nicol Bolas, and Rekindling Phoenix, all of which are sure to be around in some numbers initially. Shivan Fire can also assist with those cards as well, though I would expect most of the time you are going to be using it as a Shock more than anything, but it is nice to have the option to scale into the later turns. Between all three of these cards and being backed up by Settle, there aren't a whole lot of the commonly played creatures that will escape unscathed.
Sideboard: Deafening Clarion
This is another instance of a card that has a cost that makes it easier to play in a three color list. You will almost exclusively be playing this as a Sweltering Suns, which is more than fine against the decks you want it against, but the fact it only requires one red mana is extremely convenient. I had already been contemplating running Fiery Cannonade in place of this, but when this got spoiled I figured the extra damage was probably worth the downgrade to being a sorcery. I don't always believe this to be the case, but the third point of damage will be nice if people are playing mentor cards, Benalish Marshal, or other such things that might push their creatures above the two-toughness threshold.
Sideboard: Legion Warboss
I think this is only other card I want to touch on for the moment, because it isn't abundantly clear where you want it. Essentially, I'm not interested in playing the 35 turn games against opposing control decks that may have stuff like Duress, Arguel's Blood Fast, Thought Erasure, and other strong black anti-control cards. To aid in this, I've added the full set of these guys to just straight up punch other control decks in the mouth. It's the classic strategy of siding in an efficient and powerful creature after the opponent boards out all of the best removal for it. The most likely cards to stick around in your opponent's decks that can answer a resolved Warboss are things like Vraska's Contempt or Oblivion Ring effects that can hit your planeswalkers, so if you can present additional targets for them to need to use those cards on, you can really tax them and force them to play their turns sub-optimally.
In Conclusion
Those are my initial thoughts on the deck right now and I'm open to questions or constructive criticism. I think Jeskai is poised to do well in the coming weeks and probably has the necessary tools to adjust according to how the format develops, so I'll probably be on this for awhile. Lastly, the sideboard is just an approximation of what I think I'll need, but you should tailor it to your local meta (obviously).
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
On the other hand, it feels bad to tap out for Ral and get a Sleight of Hand for 5 mana, or maybe a roast. I think he's a very strong card vs the mirror and in other situations, but I definitely don't think he gets mainboard play.
I also think that Lava Coil is a weird choice mainboard. Given the amount of value creatures in standard right now I'd rather deal with them before they resolve, not after. Essence Scatter is available to us and blue mana is, as you say earlier, not that difficult to make. I think coil makes more sense in the SB too.
Here's the list i'm running:
4 Ionize
4 Lightning Strike
3 Shock
3 Sinister Sabotage
2 Essence Scatter
2 Seal Away
2 Chemister's Insight
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Cleansing Nova
2 Mission Briefing
2 Search for Azcanta
1 Deafening Clarion
1 Expansion // Explosion
4 Steam Vents
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
2 Mountain
1 Plains
My build wins with Teferi and burn to the face
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
I can also see wanting Essence Scatter over Lava Coil, but there are going to be times where something sneaks through the shields and you'll need to be able to respond with something relatively cost-efficient. On the draw against a Steel Leaf Champion, for example.
I appreciate your response. Hoping to have more conversation here. 🙂
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
-Stay Frosty
Sounds good, my man.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
I think that's starting to tread into the territory of a whole different deck. There was the Thermo-Alchemist UR burn deck a few formats ago that would've liked this card, but that's a vastly different strategy.
The issue is that control decks don't really care about the chip damage. Normally when we start winning, we're winning in large chunks, so getting a few points here or there carries less weight. Wall of Omens was acceptable because it replaced itself and helped you hit your early land drops, neither of which Electrostatic Field does.
I suppose if you wanted to build a base red Jeskai deck that looks to roast people out, you might want this, but traditional control decks will take a pass 99% of the time.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
-Stay Frosty
Or a Drake deck !
It's basically the same reason why you never ran the full set of Glimmer of Genius in your control decks in this format. You often don't have time to sit there and draw cards the whole game because you need to be reacting to what your opponent is doing. I'm playing three because I do want to see one at some point in the game, but I don't want to be clogged on them. Also, you have a lot of card advantage built into your planeswalkers, so it isn't as necessary to play cut and dry card drawing spells. Besides, one kind of begets the others in that each one represents a look at four more cards, which is likely to draw you into another copy fairly quick.
As I mentioned above, I could see wanting the full set, but right now I personally feel three is just fine.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
4 Steam Vents
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Clifftop Retreat
3 Plains
3 Island
1 Mountain
Instants/Sorceries
3 Settle the Wreckage
3 Chemister's Insight
3 Opt
3 Sinister Sabotage
1 Negate
1 Blink of an Eye
4 Shivan Fire
1 Lava Coil
2 Justice Strike
3 Ionize
1 Expansion // Explosion
1 Deafening Clarion
2 Search for Azcanta
Planeswalkers
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
3 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
2 Cleansing Nova
3 Lyra Dawnbringer
1 Ixalan's Binding
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Negate
4 Legion Warboss
2 Deafening Clarion
First of all, I decided that Field of Ruin was unnecessary for the time being. I cut both of them for another Island and Plains and haven't regretted it yet.
I got a bit scared off of Seal Away, and have since abandoned it completely. At first I thought it would be kind of a necessary evil, but between the cheap red spells and Settle the Wreckage, I've been able to hold off just about every resolved threat. I also dumped the Karns because it always felt a bit strange casting him early and letting the shields go down on kind of a pivotal turn. I could see throwing him back in, but for now he doesn't feel necessary.
Shivan Fire has been outstanding; more so than I initially expected. Being able to pick off Legion Warboss, Tajic, or any random early X/2 creature has been awesome, but the flexibility of using the same card to kill something like Shalai has been great too (been seeing a lot of Shalai, for the record). In conjunction with Lava Coil and Justice Strike, most small to medium sized creatures are locked down. Justice Strike has varied in its usefulness a little more than I would like. Sometimes you get to snipe a Lyra or Doom Whisperer and other times you're looking at Shalai or Lazav and you wish it were a Seal Away or something. It's a fine card, but not as reliable as would be preferred; I'll keep it for the time being.
An odd card that I'm sure most people would be curious about is the addition of a single Tezzeret, Artifice Master. This is mainly a concession to diversifying our win conditions in game one situations. The first round I played with the deck I immediately had my Teferi eaten by an Ixalan's Binding, with the other two rotting in my hand the whole game. My followup Ral a couple turns later met the same fate. I did end up winning that one thanks to some Karn tokens, but it was kind of dicey. For the same reason, I've included a single Blink of an Eye to give me an out in those situations.
Speaking of Ral, he's been pretty nice so far. Average damage has been in the 4-7 range and only gets better the later the game goes (obviously). I haven't used his ult yet, but the other two abilities have been totally solid.
I've also been toying around with the numbers of different wraths and I believe the configuration I'm on right now covers things optimally. The one Deafening Clarion has been great in the main deck so far and it's been so good in general that I decided to keep the additional two for the fast aggro matchups. Very rarely can I see myself wanting to go up to all eight wraths (Cleansing Nova being the final two), but they each serve different purposes. For example, the Novas are much better against G/x midrange decks where against the Boros aggro decks you'd much rather have Clarion.
Last note about the main deck, I decided on a single copy of Expansion / Explosion over the fourth Chemister's Insight for a couple reasons. First, the utility of having another counterspell against opposing control decks is pretty nice and when you don't need to use it for that purpose you can just reload. Secondly, I tried the fourth Chemister's because I felt like I was getting flooded a bit more than I wanted to on occasion, but it didn't seem to provide a meaningful difference versus having just three copies. Explosion at least gives you the chance to rip a card that will single-handedly pull you way ahead in the game once both players have one-for-oned each other into the ground. In very niche cases, you can even just use it as another removal spell, doubling up on a Shivan Fire or whatever. For a one-of, I've been pleased with it.
As for the sideboard, I had several cards come in and out of it, but eventually decided that the only change that I really needed was -1 Negate and +1 Ixalan's Binding. I just wanted to have a catchall card for problematic non-land permanents and Ixalan's Binding seems like the most high-impact card for that role. I ended up moving the Negate into the main deck over the singleton Disdainful Stroke, so we can maintain a good number of Negates against other control decks in the post-board games.
Anyway, testing has been going pretty well so far. I'll probably be diving into a league or two in the next couple of days, so we'll see how that ends up going. Anyone else been testing this style of control deck?
EDIT: And of course as soon as I post this saying I would probably never want all eight wraths, I play against the Selesnya mono-creatures deck and eight wraths just absolutely lays him out. Paired with a Ral ult and Teferi not far behind... yeah, he conceded pretty quick.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
2 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
2 Lyra Dawnbringer
Instants:
3 Chemister's Insight
2 Essence Scatter
1 Expansion / Explosion
3 Ionize
4 Lightning Strike
3 Settle the Wreckage
3 Sinister Sabotage
Sorceries:
3 Deafening Clarion
Enchantments:
2 Conclave Tribunal
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
3 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Lands:
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Plains
2 Cleansing Nova
2 Dawn of Hope
1 Deafening Clarion
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Essence Scatter
2 Negate
2 Niv-Mizzet, Parun
2 Resplendent Angel
1 Settle the Wreckage
Interesting. What's the thought behind Aurelia? She sticks out a bit to me, though everything else makes sense.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
4 Electrostatic Field
Instants:
4 Chemister's Insight
4 Risk Factor
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Ionize
4 Lightning Strike
3 Sinister Sabotage
2 Mission Briefing
1 Banefire
1 Cleansing Nova
Enchantments:
3 Seal Away
2 Search for Azcanta
Planeswalkers:
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Lands:
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Sacred Foundry
Yeah, I'm off Seal Away for now. The card can be really good in some situations, but absolutely terrible in others. I would look into A) replacing Seal Away with some other cheap removal spell (I'm obviously pretty high on Shivan Fire) and B) definitely get 2-3 more lands in there. 24 lands in a deck that doesn't want to miss land drops... basically ever, is a bit ambitious.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
4 Justice Strike
3 Essence Scatter
2 Synchopate
2 Mission Briefing
4 Ionize
2 Deafening Clarion
3 Fight with Fire
3 Settle the Wreckage
3 Chemister's Insight
1 Cleansing Nova
4 Steam Vents
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Field of Ruin
3 Plains
1 Island
Update: I put this together on Arena and jammed 15 games after tuning it a bit more towards Aggro. Crushed really hard. Obviously Arena isn't perfect for testing, but it's a good start. My favorite was vs Sultai that was grinding me out. Topdecked the 9th land for the win the turn before he killed me.
Modern: UW Spirits
Yeah, Jeskai absolutely eats small creature decks for breakfast. Doesn't surprise me you had good results, but still good to know
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
PLANESWALKERS (6):
2x Ral, Izzet Viceroy
4x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
CARD ADVANTAGE (9):
2x Radical Idea
2x Mission Briefing
2x Chemister's Insight
1x Expansion / Explosion
2x Search for Azcanta
REMOVAL (12):
3x Shivan Fire
2x Seal Away
1x Lava Coil
2x Deafening Clarion
3x Settle the Wreckage
1x Cleansing Nova
4x Sinister Sabotage
2x Syncopate
LANDS (26):
3x Clifftop Retreat
2x Field of Ruin
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Sacred Foundry
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls
3x Island
2x Plains
2x Dawn of Hope
2x Invoke the Divine
1x Cleansing Nova
1x Lyra Dawnbringer
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Essence Scatter
2x Negate
2x Dire Fleet Daredevil
1x Deafening Clarion
Of course this is not the end all be all of the deck, but I must say it performed extremely well. Deafening Clarionhas been the perfect answer to all of the early threats, while Settle the Wreckage and Cleansing Nova have cleaned up anything else that I couldn't catch early on. The biggest surprise, however, is how fast Niv-Mizzet, Paruncan close a game out. I just wanted to try him out, but he exceeded all expectations by a mile. Surprisingly enough, the strict mana specifications haven't been that big of an issue. Rarely are you trying to jam him out there on turn 6. All in all the deck has been great. I'll keep you guys updated with any further changes, and/or results!
We got no future, we got no hope
Our life is pain and it's hard to cope.
I like the look of this list. We definitely have different card choices, but all of the ones in your list are definitely defensible. Glad to hear you've been having success with it I've been waffling a bit on the Legion Warboss sideboard plan I have and could definitely see something more like the Dawn of Hope package you've got instead. I might have to try out a few different things in place of the 'Boss and see if I like it better or not.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
Modern: UW Spirits
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Glacial Fortress
5 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Clifftop Retreat
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Seal Away
4 Justice Strike
2 Negate
2 Essence Scatter
1 Disdainful Stroke
4 Sinister Sabotage
2 Deafening Clarion
4 Chemister's Insight
2 Settle The Wreckage
2 Cleansing Nova
3 Expansion//Explosion
2 Ral, Izzet Viceroy
1 Lyra Dawnbringer
4 Legion Warboss
3 Fiery Cannonade
2 Lava Coil
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
2 Negate
2 Disdainful Stroke
Managed to bust out a 5-0 in a competitive league on magic online with this list. Played against Boros aggro, GW Tokens, Abzan Midrange, and 2 esper control decks. Really liked Expansion//Explosion a lot. Card won me several game all on it's own, some I had no business winning.
Congrats on the 5-0, that list looks like a lot of fun to play!