Jace is good card advantage, but I can see him not being mainboard at all in an aggro heavy meta. Now that Bloodbraid is legal again, it might be wise to stay off mainboard Jace for the first few weeks. Jace doesn't match very well against Bloodbraid. He's good against midrange decks and good in the control mirror, but we're already good against most midrange decks and we could become more aggressive against control. I'll pick him up when an opportunity arises, but it's definitely not on my priority list.
I would run Jace over most other planeswalkers. We don't play Nahiri at all anymore. Ajani/Gideon can still have a role. It's safest to have 2 Jace main and Ajani/Gideon in the side depending on meta.
You wouldn't want to run more than 2 copies since it's legendary and the second one is really, really bad. You can flip it to gain mana to activate Windbrisk Heights if you meet the requirements. The activated ability on Adanto would provide a very powerful source of dudes. Land hate against a silly mono white deck is unheard of so there's realistically very few scenarios where we lose an engine.
I see too many people die against Dredge because they used Surgical. 4 life if you want to use it to get rid of a good amount of cards is a lot. And no, Surgical is not "great" against non-combo decks.
Surgical is a bad card even in the matchups where it's supposed to be good. What's better in your opening hand? A Surgical Extraction that may or may not be useful during the game, or a spell that contributes to your gameplan? I can't think of any deck that I want to be playing such an unreliable card as Surgical Extraction against.
I like GQ over tec edge but it depends on your 75.. if you are playing more control you want tec edge since you want to be land neutral... GQ is better if you are on the tempo plan..
Ive been rethinking the usefulness of either though in favor of a loothouse.. although i go back and forth on the colorless land choices week to week...
I run 2 utility lands always. I'm running 25 lands, including GQ and Loothouse. I'm unimpressed by GQ against everything but manlands. Unless I'm doing something, a GQ against a Tron deck does next to nothing since they can usually assemble the Tron in a few turns. It's not uncommon for them to start trying to cast Wurmcoil without Tron online. A Tec Edge will slow them down or take away Tron, but it rarely prevents from getting Tron. This gives a 1 turn window where you can get rid of a land and maybe do things. With GQ you can prevent them from getting Tron or take away Tron but the magnitude of stalling them is far less than with Tec Edge. GQ sucks as the game goes longer, but Tec Edge can keep relevance. If the opponent has Tron lands and a forest, you can take away 2-5 mana from them in exchange for 1 land. With GQ you take away 1-4 mana in exchange for 1 land. The argument that Tec Edge has a harder activation cost is barely relevant because we have nothing better to do with our mana.
It gets even worse against Eldrazi Tron since they are actively pressuring us with threats, rather than threatening to cast something big. GQ is better for tempo plays, but tempo plays against Eldrazi Tron are not a great plan since they have so many threats. Tec Edge is better here because you can trade 1 land for 1-5 mana, as opposed to GQ which trades 1 land for 0-4 mana. Tec Edge is higher value. The argument that Tec Edge has an activation cost is relevant because we want to be responding to threats, but if we're going to play land hate there's no reason not to play Tec Edge. We lose tempo to blow up a land no matter what we do, so we might as well lose tempo for higher payoff. Spreading Seas is better here than either GQ or Tec Edge, but the slightly slower Tec Edge will grant us a greater reward.
To gear against Valakut I think 2 sideboard Shadow of Doubt and 2 Spreading Seas is the thing to do in the sideboard, with 1-2 Tec Edge mainboard. Shadow of Doubt blanks a Scapeshift and nerfs a Primeval Titan. I'm still wary about the card since it's a single matchup worth bringing it in against. The last time I played it, the meta had Scapeshift and Pod as big players, which made it definitely worth including.
I don't see any possible benefit playing the whole deck at instant speed. If you're going to be holding up a certain amount of mana every turn, why not use excess mana? The only card we want instant speed that isn't instant speed is Supreme Verdict. Playing Opt over Serum Visions for instant speed makes no sense to me. On turn 1 on the play there is nothing we want to do more than Serum Visions. Opt is the inferior card. Opt is more useful on T2 some of the time when we want to hold up counter magic. On T3 when we have 3 mana, enough to Serum Visions and hold up a counterspell, Opt sucks and continues to be a worse Serum Visions for the rest of the game. T2 is the only time where it could be better.
Blessed Alliance should already replace Timely Reinforcements. It's a more useful card and instant speed is relevant, unlike on Opt. Rest for the Weary sucks because it only gains life. This could gain you time against burn, but Blessed Alliance is a much better sideboard card because it's valuable in many matchups.
Opt doesn't replace Serum Visions, but will hopefully replace those pesky Think Twices that some people are tricked into running. I'll stick with Glimmer of Genius since it's a stronger effect, but Opt might have some use specifically because it's an instant.
Hey guys, I have a PPTQ on September 9th, and I think I might play Jeskai because I like it a lot more than UW. That being said, I have a list for critique.
The Polluted Delta are because of budget, I can't afford Tarns. Another thing is that I'm not really into playing less than 4 Cryptic, I could be convinced of three if there's logic behind it. Thanks!
We've been over how mediocre Think Twice is in this thread before, so it doesn't need saying. You should replace them all with Spell Queller and make room for a 4th Snap. My cuts would be all Think Twice, Ajani, and a Verdict. It would make the deck more aggressive and give it a better clock. Generally the clock isn't much of an issue but since you're light on burn spells and Snaps you definitely need it.
I'm a big fan of disallow and occasionally run it in the sideboard because it is good against Storm but couldn't justify playing a 3CMC counter in the deck as everyone else has mentioned. But I am also against Logic Knot.. I find that it is only strong against control deck mirror matches that are stalled out. Against the aggressive decks in the format now you don't have the time to build up a big enough graveyard to delve and what is in the graveyard is often important for snapcaster mage.
I think that remand is a card that may make a comeback. It seems so good right now because it stops their plans for a turn and keeps you digging into your deck.
Logic Knot is better than Mana Leak past turn 5. It keeps relevance when the match takes a while, whereas Mana Leak becomes worse each turn it's not played. Neither Mana Leak nor Logic Knot are good counterspells but we have to run 2CMC counterspells or we lose.
I wouldn't replace a 2CMC counter with a 3CMC counter unless it's incredibly good. Disallow is not good enough to justify the extra cost.
If you want to compare it to Cryptic, that's another matter. Don't go below 2 Cryptics ever, but you could justifiably run 1 Disallow in place of a Cryptic.
Why would you ever want to cast that chain of Shadow > Snap > Shadow?
Never. It's such a bad play in almost every scenario. Perhaps if you have spare mana and you require a Snap to chump block it could be an option but it's still a trash option. Shadow of Doubt shouldn't be played at the moment. Its time was during the Pod-Scapeshift meta, and that was 3 years ago.
I used to run Valourous Stance a few years ago when it came out. It was generally underwhelming against all but the Siege Rhino decks. It seems decent against Eldrazi but I prefer Cast Out or Detention Sphere in that matchup. They're more versatile and you can make good use of them with Cryptic. Stance can be Snapped back but it doesn't hit everything and has no use against decks that aren't Eldrazi. De Sphere and Cast Out work against Tron and random decks.
Electrolyze is great against Affinity but not necessary. The nature of this deck is always powerful against Affinity. I've never lost the matchup and no Electrolyze mainboard doesn't seem like too big of a loss if the pilot knows what they're doing. There's a lot of splash damage the sideboard with Staticaster and Anger of the Gods. Engineered Explosives is perhaps the sideboard card with the most splash damage against random decks.
4 Nahiri is correct. It's not a clunky thing you have in your hand because if you draw two you can loot the other away or use it as a backup. You can run 3 Ancestral Vision because you don't get the effect for several turns and it sucks to draw several, but why run fewer Nahiris? It's a gas card.
Why is this a debate? Nahiri is a win con and a utility card. More copies of her is good in the Nahiri build.
Think Twice is a standard card, not a modern one. Glimmer of Genius is more mana efficient and does the job better than Think Twice. Serum Visions covers your early game. Rev covers late game. Add in a Glimmer or two if you want more card draw and you're done.
Lightning Bolt is an amazing card and, yes, the reason to run red. Play 4 copies. Playing less than 4 makes no sense. There were some lists that placed with fewer Bolts. It's cutting removal and making the deck slower. That's a bad idea because it's making the deck far, far more niche. Sure, it can pound the easy matchups more, but that won't help you when you're struggling. Glorified UW control, and I don't like UW control.
Control has always been well positioned against these kinds of decks. We can police the policemen. People like to doomsay and pretend that control is dead, but now is just another time that control is a great choice. Big mana is currently being beaten up which makes our deck quite viable.
First mode is a strictly worse Mana Leak so you'll primarily use it for the second mode.
Second half is an Augur of Bolas without the body, and Augur is unplayable currently.
I see no use for the card. Serum Visions already digs and sets up draws. Mana Leak already counters spells. Supreme Will digs a bit further, but if we need to dig there are other options. Jace AoT -2 is quite a lot better for the job.
I would run Jace over most other planeswalkers. We don't play Nahiri at all anymore. Ajani/Gideon can still have a role. It's safest to have 2 Jace main and Ajani/Gideon in the side depending on meta.
Surgical is a bad card even in the matchups where it's supposed to be good. What's better in your opening hand? A Surgical Extraction that may or may not be useful during the game, or a spell that contributes to your gameplan? I can't think of any deck that I want to be playing such an unreliable card as Surgical Extraction against.
I run 2 utility lands always. I'm running 25 lands, including GQ and Loothouse. I'm unimpressed by GQ against everything but manlands. Unless I'm doing something, a GQ against a Tron deck does next to nothing since they can usually assemble the Tron in a few turns. It's not uncommon for them to start trying to cast Wurmcoil without Tron online. A Tec Edge will slow them down or take away Tron, but it rarely prevents from getting Tron. This gives a 1 turn window where you can get rid of a land and maybe do things. With GQ you can prevent them from getting Tron or take away Tron but the magnitude of stalling them is far less than with Tec Edge. GQ sucks as the game goes longer, but Tec Edge can keep relevance. If the opponent has Tron lands and a forest, you can take away 2-5 mana from them in exchange for 1 land. With GQ you take away 1-4 mana in exchange for 1 land. The argument that Tec Edge has a harder activation cost is barely relevant because we have nothing better to do with our mana.
It gets even worse against Eldrazi Tron since they are actively pressuring us with threats, rather than threatening to cast something big. GQ is better for tempo plays, but tempo plays against Eldrazi Tron are not a great plan since they have so many threats. Tec Edge is better here because you can trade 1 land for 1-5 mana, as opposed to GQ which trades 1 land for 0-4 mana. Tec Edge is higher value. The argument that Tec Edge has an activation cost is relevant because we want to be responding to threats, but if we're going to play land hate there's no reason not to play Tec Edge. We lose tempo to blow up a land no matter what we do, so we might as well lose tempo for higher payoff. Spreading Seas is better here than either GQ or Tec Edge, but the slightly slower Tec Edge will grant us a greater reward.
I don't see any possible benefit playing the whole deck at instant speed. If you're going to be holding up a certain amount of mana every turn, why not use excess mana? The only card we want instant speed that isn't instant speed is Supreme Verdict. Playing Opt over Serum Visions for instant speed makes no sense to me. On turn 1 on the play there is nothing we want to do more than Serum Visions. Opt is the inferior card. Opt is more useful on T2 some of the time when we want to hold up counter magic. On T3 when we have 3 mana, enough to Serum Visions and hold up a counterspell, Opt sucks and continues to be a worse Serum Visions for the rest of the game. T2 is the only time where it could be better.
Blessed Alliance should already replace Timely Reinforcements. It's a more useful card and instant speed is relevant, unlike on Opt. Rest for the Weary sucks because it only gains life. This could gain you time against burn, but Blessed Alliance is a much better sideboard card because it's valuable in many matchups.
We've been over how mediocre Think Twice is in this thread before, so it doesn't need saying. You should replace them all with Spell Queller and make room for a 4th Snap. My cuts would be all Think Twice, Ajani, and a Verdict. It would make the deck more aggressive and give it a better clock. Generally the clock isn't much of an issue but since you're light on burn spells and Snaps you definitely need it.
Logic Knot is better than Mana Leak past turn 5. It keeps relevance when the match takes a while, whereas Mana Leak becomes worse each turn it's not played. Neither Mana Leak nor Logic Knot are good counterspells but we have to run 2CMC counterspells or we lose.
If you want to compare it to Cryptic, that's another matter. Don't go below 2 Cryptics ever, but you could justifiably run 1 Disallow in place of a Cryptic.
Never. It's such a bad play in almost every scenario. Perhaps if you have spare mana and you require a Snap to chump block it could be an option but it's still a trash option. Shadow of Doubt shouldn't be played at the moment. Its time was during the Pod-Scapeshift meta, and that was 3 years ago.
4 Nahiri is correct. It's not a clunky thing you have in your hand because if you draw two you can loot the other away or use it as a backup. You can run 3 Ancestral Vision because you don't get the effect for several turns and it sucks to draw several, but why run fewer Nahiris? It's a gas card.
Why is this a debate? Nahiri is a win con and a utility card. More copies of her is good in the Nahiri build.
Think Twice is a standard card, not a modern one. Glimmer of Genius is more mana efficient and does the job better than Think Twice. Serum Visions covers your early game. Rev covers late game. Add in a Glimmer or two if you want more card draw and you're done.
Lightning Bolt is an amazing card and, yes, the reason to run red. Play 4 copies. Playing less than 4 makes no sense. There were some lists that placed with fewer Bolts. It's cutting removal and making the deck slower. That's a bad idea because it's making the deck far, far more niche. Sure, it can pound the easy matchups more, but that won't help you when you're struggling. Glorified UW control, and I don't like UW control.
Second half is an Augur of Bolas without the body, and Augur is unplayable currently.
I see no use for the card. Serum Visions already digs and sets up draws. Mana Leak already counters spells. Supreme Will digs a bit further, but if we need to dig there are other options. Jace AoT -2 is quite a lot better for the job.