How do you guys beat RG eldrazi? TKS, Smasher and BBelf are so much value
I beat it twice in Phoenix. Part of it is due to it being a midrange deck and my list was already tinkered to hedge slightly harder for those matchups (with BBE as additional clock/threat and value engine). The main thing I can say about that matchup is throw a million tokens under the bus repeatedly. They only have 4 bolts with which to kill Peezy. I sideboard like so (out: 3x Inquisition of Kozilek, 2x Collective Brutality. In: 3x Molten Rain, 2x Surgical Extraction). Molten Rain is mainly in there for reach and because there are not enough other good cards to bring in. Especially on the play though, disrupting their mana can really set them back. This is the only fair matchup where I bring in Surgicals. You really really really want to hit their Reality Smashers.
Be careful of Obligators taking things like Reveler and Hazoret but you aren't very worried about the obligator itself. Survive the early turns and then just gum up the ground with as many tokens as possible. Hazoret is insane in this matchup because it clocks them, blocks Smashers at worst, gives you reach and is impossible for them to get off the board. Pyromancers tend to multiply once the first one goes unanswered and then you start trading Bolts/souls/kommands for TKS and Reality Smashers.
Alright guys. Unfortunately WordPress for my website is being super funky this week and not letting me upload my Tournament report. So here is the publish of the google doc instead. Normally I'd post the entire report here but it's like 10 pages so I figured a link would be best. Had a fantastic GP Phoenix on the whole and I hope you guys enjoy the report.
I totally think Mardu (and the 4c variants) are in an extremely good place overall in the meta and I think with time they will probably even out Jund in numbers. IMO Jund is seeing more play than it should right now because people want to play with their new toys and it's been a while since this many people were happy to play Jund. As someone who played loads of Jund pre-BBE unban it's ironically just the opposite for me. The Jund list has very little wiggle-room anymore and I honestly feel the power level in Mardu is higher. The biggest change IMO that BBE put the final nail in the coffin for is Abzan. If you want to play a Lingering Soul midrange deck, Mardu Pyro is where you want to be.
For some reason I can't load the picture, but Mardu Pyro got 22nd at the GP! I didn't see it listed for Day 2, so I didn't even realize someone made it. Interesting notes: 3 Moons main (!!!???), 0 LOTv in the 75, 1 Hazoret side (so 12 threats only in the main).
1st time I see a version with 3 Blood Moon main. Will try this version of the deck tonight a my local tournament. Wondering if, with only 2 molten rain, we need to bring Surgical vs Tron ?
Also , for the Blood Moon debate, I feel that if you are not playing Blood Moon you need to play Lili .
I disagree and don't think it's absolute. I think our deck is a lot like Jund pre-BBE. There is like 4 or 5 acceptable variations on the deck with like 5-10 cards with quantities that are swapable all based on meta preference. Big thing to remember is just because this list did well at this GP, that does not mean it's the gospel going forward. You gotta be both lucky and good to place well at a GP.
Tested yesterday with a friend. I'm running list with 2 Lilly and 0 Moons.
He was using a RG Eldrazy (with Bloodbraid Elf)
We did about 10 games.
Pre side it depends, if I was able to discard/kill his Reality Smasher, the other things was not impossible. Some games he put 2 of those and problem is trample...
Post side, I had really no idea what to side in (just a lilly last hope and hazoret), but he out 4 Eldrazi Obligator for join 2 explosives and 2 Relic of Progenitus and Kozilek's Return (don't remember that he leaved). In a couple of games when seen both together he leaved me really underwear!
I really missed Stony Silence (that instead I have in other deck sun and moon).
Any thoughts?
Another question, what do you think to create a table with matchups list with side in/out?
Thanks
My board plan for RG Eldrazi has been to bring in 3x molten rain and 2x Surgicals. I cut my 3 IoK and 2 brutality. Surgical is for Smasher and BBE (worst case Obligator or TKS if you just need or want to hit something). Smasher is just really tough to deal with and you can't chump it. Everything else in the deck is extremely beatable. Name of the game is throw gobs of dudes under the bus. There have been instances where I have 4 tokens and I jam them all under TKS and take 6 from 2 BBE's for example. If your pyromancers are sticking around you are gonna run away with the game eventually.
I tried your maindeck tonight at thursday night modern and went 3-1 beating Bushwhacker Zoo, 4c Planeswalkers, 4c Saheeli, and losing to a BW Aggro/Go Wide deck with Lilianas and Sorins. In the loss I never really got going game 1 and in game two I mulled to five and he hit me with a Leyline of the Void to start so there was never really a chance.
The list definitely felt more powerful than standard Mardu Pyro but at the cost of having really clunky hands at times filled to the brim with expensive creature cards. Additionally, the mana was pretty rough but I'll chock that up to general inexperience navigating the manabase as I threw it together literally five minutes before the event started. I'll give it a go tomorrow night at a different modern event as well and see if I can iron out some of the issues I faced.
Makes sense. Glad you are giving it a shot, I played in GP PHX this weekend and will have an article posted hopefully by tomorrow which I'll post a link for with the tournament report. I personally loved it all weekend and really didn't run into the clunkiness but it does come from experience with the manabase. Essentially I try to get 1 black source, 1 green source and the sacred foundry every single game unless you are costed into something else (for example playing against burn you don't need white usually in game 1. Casting lingering souls from hand won't happen on turn 3 in that matchup usually pre-board so you can often choose to fetch a basic instead. Games 2-3 you prioritize white and black before green because of Kambal. I will say as a preview I have some notes on swaping Manamorphose for BBE #4 and Fatal push #3 and I was very very happy with it. As for excess creatures, don't fee required to keep them in hand. They can be refetched with Kommand if you need them later when you have the mana and it's far better to have a creature and not need it than need a creature and not have it. Also with this list you don't discard a lot of lands early unless you are being flooded as is. Once you get to 4-5 mana, don't play out lands anymore unless you are about to Reveler them away.
Generally I agree but I never liked Flayer in any games I saw him. He died too easily or couldn't get through the board. He was mana restrictive and I just felt there were better options. I could see running him if you go all the way to Traverse but as you can see from my list, I did not. I like BBE as a pure value threat and the access to some sideboard cards that I feel help in a few matchups that RBw doesn't quite cut it. Like Golgari Charm is great, unique and versatile. Ancient Grudge is good against Lantern and I have liked having it's flashback as an option in other artifact driven matchups. If you are not playing Moon, the splash has been extremely easy and I haven't been hampered by it and again the speed and consistency of getting threats into play is huge.
So I have been testing out Decandio's 4c version of the deck and while it certainly has a higher power ceiling, I'm not sure if I like sacrificing the consistency we have enjoyed with straight Mardu. While Traverse and BBE were amazing IMO, playing cards like Bauble and Architects of Will hampered the gameplan too much at times leaving you with fewer instants and sorceries in yard. This led to worse Pyromancers and Revelers as well. I also feel that 18 lands was pure lunacy to try to actively cast 4 drops. So last night I decided to do a bit of combining of the two. This is ofcourse a non-blood moon version of the deck because you are splashing for 2 colors (green and white). White is literally just Lingering Souls and sideboard cards and Green is just Bloodbraid Elf and sideboard cards. It worked extremely well last night. BBE was good as advertised. The only time I was a little sad to see it was the more niche situations where you are empty handed and cascade into a faithless looting. Maybe it's right to just looting anyway on the off chance of binning more lootings and souls but I opted not to last night, maybe that's wrong. Gonna need some more testing. It's the same Mardu we know and love but I ran into very few games where I ran out of threats. The burn matchup is hurt a little by not running fast lands and instead relying on fetches and shocks but it did not feel that much worse than usual because BBE did help close out games in a quicker fashion than normal Mardu does consistently. I will admit I only played burn 3 times last night in my limited jamming and the players I played were... not the best (one had double skullcrack with Kambul out and decided to cast the 2nd one with the first on the stack after the Kambul trigger had already resolved. Thanks guy.) but none of the games where there was an obvious misplay seemed to actually cost them games. One game in particular (the one with the skullcrack play mentioned above) he was probably a <10% out but that play made it 0.
I think it's a metagame dependent decision. If you are looking to beat Midrange/Control and creature decks all day you go with the 4c version. If you suspect more burn, big mana and other such decks, you go with the classic build. I'm in the process of trying to determine which one I am taking to GP Phx. Been playing a pretty stock Gerry T style list and it's been great so far but the lack of threats does come back to bite you sometimes.
I already have 1x Hazoret in the side and don't want a 2nd. Tracker i think is actively bad against Jeskai since it gets hit by all their removal spells and queller.
@Exatraz, did you even read my latest post? The numbers literally prove you wrong. Tron is fine. If you want to win it there are ways. Even if you are a Control player, you can go UW Control with Spreading Seas and Field Of Ruins all playsets. If you want to smash them, add 1-2 Ceremonious Rejection and 1-2 Disdainful Stroke in your sideboard. The first card is also great vs other popular colourless or artifact decks like Lantern, Affinity, Eldrazis and the second one is great vs Scapeshift or Titanshift decks, great in the UW Walker mirrors, Storm, Ad Nauseam.
I did read your comments but you are also wrong. It does warp the format. The fact the death shadow decks have moved to running Temur Battle Rage and cutting IoK is further examples of them having to warp to adjust to Tron. Titanshift is far less of a problem but Tron has warped the format. You could play UWx with Seas and Field of Ruins hoping to beat Tron but you lose to most of the other decks in the field. That is the problem.
Sweet! All these are good options. I forgot about adding Thragtusk to my list I also like Regisaur Alpha because while he doesn't pad your life total, he does help in the aggro matchup and his main body dodges bolt/helix. Essentially I do like the option of a 5 drop or something like Thrun, the Last Troll. Something awkward to counter and/or hard to remove. Thrun is sort of like that, being weak to Queller is the lone exception. I'm mainly worried about the Tempo Variants (queller/burn) because that is primarily what I expect to see at GP Santa Clara (of the 3 variants).
Bow seems awkward. It gets countered by everything, it doesn't kill quellers, gaining 3 life is relevant but not how i feel like we are winning the matchup and the deathtouch seems irrelevant since our creatures are bigger than theirs anyway. I'm just not convinced it's the right tool for the job.
This is not true as I posted before. It's done well ALL year (2nd most top 8's at GPs this year). Yes OKC was the first time it's put up insane numbers but Tron has been consistent throughout the year at putting up numbers.
GDS had a better 2017 performance than Tron and no one is going crazy about that deck now.
It has been talked about by Pros as well. One of the primary reason I've seen people back off is because it's a beatable deck that people had to get used to playing against (Tron isn't like that, you either win quick or lose horribly), and it's a symptom of the problem with the format. Big mana is forcing people that want to try to play interactive decks to be able to also be an aggro deck. This is why the most popular versions of Jeskai are the Queller variants which can essentially transition to be a burn deck if needed.
Even if Tron becomes a problem after the PT (it isn't now no matter how many Mishra's Workshop comparisons or matchup lottery complaints are made), there's no way Wizards bans a Tron land. They didn't kill Temple AND Eye after the worst Modern ever in Eldrazi Winter. They definitely won't kill Tron after just two events. They would ban something like Map or Stirrings instead, just like Probe and GGT and Bloom before.
These exact same things were said about Twin before it was axed. "If they ban anything, it'll just be Exarch", "they'd never kill twin". It's not just 2 events, it's been all year and it's not just about the numbers but what it does to deck construction for the entire format.
I played in 2 more events over the weekend, a 1k in which I got 16th (losing 2 win and in's yet again) and my team placed 6th in a Team Trios event (though it was a cut to top 4 and we ended up at 2-2 overall) as I prep for Santa Clara. I didn't take notes this weekend as I forgot my notepad at home so I don't have a full tournament report but I will say, I got flooded a TON. Many many of my losses were games where I drew 3 lands in a row. The strange thing is on MTGO I'm having the opposite problem on the exact same 75. Many many 1 land unkeepable openers that I have to throw back. Oddly enough I think I am going to trim back to 23 lands in paper to either go to 7 MB Discard or 7 MB spot removal spells (kinda feel like adding the 4th Push).
All in all I felt great on both days playing the deck. The 1k Meta was extremely weird as there were 0 Traditional Tron decks in the room and only 2 E. Tron and 2 Scapeshift. Outside of that, there was a ton of Uxx type decks. This is pretty par the course for my meta anyway (people love their u based control decks) and people really can't/don't shift drastically in paper when decks start performing well at GPs. It's just too costly for most.
I am still planning to run Jund at GP Santa Clara but I've also added GB Tron, Humans and Jeskai to my testing radar for the event. I really really don't want to play Tron but I'm falling into that reasoning, "If you think it's doing the most busted broken things in the format, you should be playing it at competitive events". It would have been really really good this weekend too *puts gun in mouth*.
Still, if I end up going with Jund, I am totally happy with that. It's a deck I play well and I love my overall list. Rabblemaster is insane as usual and I'm even in my losses, I never regretted sleeving up Jund for both events. I would like to figure out a better SB plan for Jeskai however. It's a bit tough as it feels like there are 40 million iterations of the deck which all function slightly differently. Currently the 1 flex slot in my sideboard that I haven't been needing is my 1x Kalitas. He's a great card but I think I am moving on to something else. I'm not sure what that thing will be but I do think I want something that puts a hamper on Jeskai. If I got a choice, I'd love it to be something that dodges Queller, bolt/helix and doesn't feel awful getting pathed. I think it'd also be nice to have it be an aggressive card so I can bring it in during matchups I wanted to be the beatdown anyway and while maybe it's not as back breaking, it still be pretty good. Here is a short list of random options for that slot (notably these don't answer all these criterias but usually meet 2/3) [warning: some of these go pretty deep]:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Honestly, the card has been pretty meh for me overall. It gets hit by spell queller and rarely did i ever enjoy using it's minus. I don't think it's good enough but it's a popular choice among others.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow - So I played this MB in a more delirium heavy version of Abzan a while back and it was better than Seige Rhino. Delirium isn't insanely hard to turn on in my experience and if this thing gets to resolve it creates an army of dudes that block and kill Spell Quellers nicely. It also benefits by being great against Lingering Souls and Affinity (like we need help there though) My problem with the card is it isn't agressive and 5 cmc is a lot. If you don't have delirium it's also not great either.
Stormbreath Dragon - I am giving this card serious consideration. The most common variants of Jeskai I have been seeing would really really struggle to fight this card if it resolves. A good portion are running zero sweepers and it only dies to bolt snap bolt (or bolt and occasional Clique block), god forbid this card becomes monstrous, it probably just kills them. This fits the aggressive plan well because while 5cmc is a lot, in matchups where you want to be the aggressor, dropping a big threat every turn you can is important and the haste would be nice. I think if I had this in my SB and it was proving to be good enough I wouldn't be dropping the 24th land, instead I'd just deal with the flooding knowing I had a good payoff should I draw it.
Vance's Blasting Cannons - This is the effect we want most of the time out of Chandra but without the vulnerability of being attacked. Enchantment removal is also far less likely. This card isn't great when we are the aggressor but in the Jeskai mirror I like the option of not just getting a free card a turn but also flipping this into a bolt land if we need to. In those matchups it's kind of nice to stockpile spells (so you don't run into the "they counter everything you play" plan and instead get to drop multiple threats in a turn where 1 is going to resolve in the end) so getting to 3 spells isn't unheard of. Even when you are not flipping this, it's getting you value in a way that Jeskai likely won't be bringing in to deal with (Jeskai isn't bringing in Wear//Tear for game 2 and even if they see it and bring it in for game 3, that card is dead against the rest of the deck). The Jeskai variants also have a lot less land hate than their UW cousins so once it's flipped, they'll have to bounce it with Cryptic or it can cause serious problems for them. Now I don't necessarily think this card is at it's best with the way our deck is currently configured. If we had more "2 spells for 1 card for cheap" than I'd feel better about it. Examples of that are Claim//Fame and Traverse. Both cards give you the option of casting 2 spells for 3 mana so getting to storm 3 is pretty reasonable. Unfortunately our deck doesn't really do that. This card is "digging pretty deep" when considering the slot to fill but it's at least worth the thought exercise IMO.
Boil/Choke: I could just go the hate route and try to bone my opponent out of the game. I think these options are fine but way too narrow. I'd rather have something that I can use in other matches as well.
Shaper's Sanctuary: With the removal of sweepers and reliance on spot removal, this can come in under hate cards and really make life awkward for Jeskai. We don't get as much use out of it as a deck like Elves does but again, I'm just going over options as they come off the top of my head.
Anathemancer: I have long loved this card and it is an option. Unearth means that even if it's bolted or helixed, we can bring it back later. When I've played with it before it did an average of 2-5 damage when it entered which is not unreasonable and can potentially really put the hurt to Jeskai. While this card isn't very versatile, it does give us another card to bring in and be aggressive which I like.
There are probably lots more options out there, I expect to see a lot more Jeskai moving forward as it seems to have a great "against the field" type matchups with only a few bad ones (like Tron). It'd be nice to not feel like such a dog in that fight.
I cannot think of a single other card in the format on which the playability of so many other cards rests. Is this not format warping?
For me it's not just that it impacts the format. Cards like Thoughtseize, Push and Bolt all impact the format as well but it's the fact we do not have good answers to Tron. None of the tools we have are really good enough because they are either too slow/expensive, not good enough or it costs Tron less to recover than it did to set them back. The problem also lies that the kind of answer we'd need aren't things that would be printed in a Standard set and without any products that print direct to Modern, I think it leaves us with no choice for the time being.
One of the biggest reasons Tron was acceptable before was that while it could prey on the midrange and fair decks on the format, it wasn't putting up any real results at large events due to the high variants of it's matchups. That has changed because of all the reasons I wrote about above and in previous posts. I'd also agree that I think all fast mana isn't healthy for Modern but without a giant sweep where you get it all, I think addressing the biggest offender has become a necessity. Modern is in a great place deck diversity-wise but it needs better archetype diversity. The last piece of the Rock/Paper/Scissors that was Pod/Twin/Tron needs to go.
I beat it twice in Phoenix. Part of it is due to it being a midrange deck and my list was already tinkered to hedge slightly harder for those matchups (with BBE as additional clock/threat and value engine). The main thing I can say about that matchup is throw a million tokens under the bus repeatedly. They only have 4 bolts with which to kill Peezy. I sideboard like so (out: 3x Inquisition of Kozilek, 2x Collective Brutality. In: 3x Molten Rain, 2x Surgical Extraction). Molten Rain is mainly in there for reach and because there are not enough other good cards to bring in. Especially on the play though, disrupting their mana can really set them back. This is the only fair matchup where I bring in Surgicals. You really really really want to hit their Reality Smashers.
Be careful of Obligators taking things like Reveler and Hazoret but you aren't very worried about the obligator itself. Survive the early turns and then just gum up the ground with as many tokens as possible. Hazoret is insane in this matchup because it clocks them, blocks Smashers at worst, gives you reach and is impossible for them to get off the board. Pyromancers tend to multiply once the first one goes unanswered and then you start trading Bolts/souls/kommands for TKS and Reality Smashers.
I disagree and don't think it's absolute. I think our deck is a lot like Jund pre-BBE. There is like 4 or 5 acceptable variations on the deck with like 5-10 cards with quantities that are swapable all based on meta preference. Big thing to remember is just because this list did well at this GP, that does not mean it's the gospel going forward. You gotta be both lucky and good to place well at a GP.
My board plan for RG Eldrazi has been to bring in 3x molten rain and 2x Surgicals. I cut my 3 IoK and 2 brutality. Surgical is for Smasher and BBE (worst case Obligator or TKS if you just need or want to hit something). Smasher is just really tough to deal with and you can't chump it. Everything else in the deck is extremely beatable. Name of the game is throw gobs of dudes under the bus. There have been instances where I have 4 tokens and I jam them all under TKS and take 6 from 2 BBE's for example. If your pyromancers are sticking around you are gonna run away with the game eventually.
Makes sense. Glad you are giving it a shot, I played in GP PHX this weekend and will have an article posted hopefully by tomorrow which I'll post a link for with the tournament report. I personally loved it all weekend and really didn't run into the clunkiness but it does come from experience with the manabase. Essentially I try to get 1 black source, 1 green source and the sacred foundry every single game unless you are costed into something else (for example playing against burn you don't need white usually in game 1. Casting lingering souls from hand won't happen on turn 3 in that matchup usually pre-board so you can often choose to fetch a basic instead. Games 2-3 you prioritize white and black before green because of Kambal. I will say as a preview I have some notes on swaping Manamorphose for BBE #4 and Fatal push #3 and I was very very happy with it. As for excess creatures, don't fee required to keep them in hand. They can be refetched with Kommand if you need them later when you have the mana and it's far better to have a creature and not need it than need a creature and not have it. Also with this list you don't discard a lot of lands early unless you are being flooded as is. Once you get to 4-5 mana, don't play out lands anymore unless you are about to Reveler them away.
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Marsh Flats
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
Creatures (13):
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dreadbore
4 Lingering Souls
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Collective Brutality
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Fatal Push
3 Molten Rain
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Golgari Charm
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Collective Brutality
2 Surgical Extraction
I already have 1x Hazoret in the side and don't want a 2nd. Tracker i think is actively bad against Jeskai since it gets hit by all their removal spells and queller.
I did read your comments but you are also wrong. It does warp the format. The fact the death shadow decks have moved to running Temur Battle Rage and cutting IoK is further examples of them having to warp to adjust to Tron. Titanshift is far less of a problem but Tron has warped the format. You could play UWx with Seas and Field of Ruins hoping to beat Tron but you lose to most of the other decks in the field. That is the problem.
Bow seems awkward. It gets countered by everything, it doesn't kill quellers, gaining 3 life is relevant but not how i feel like we are winning the matchup and the deathtouch seems irrelevant since our creatures are bigger than theirs anyway. I'm just not convinced it's the right tool for the job.
This is not true as I posted before. It's done well ALL year (2nd most top 8's at GPs this year). Yes OKC was the first time it's put up insane numbers but Tron has been consistent throughout the year at putting up numbers.
It has been talked about by Pros as well. One of the primary reason I've seen people back off is because it's a beatable deck that people had to get used to playing against (Tron isn't like that, you either win quick or lose horribly), and it's a symptom of the problem with the format. Big mana is forcing people that want to try to play interactive decks to be able to also be an aggro deck. This is why the most popular versions of Jeskai are the Queller variants which can essentially transition to be a burn deck if needed.
These exact same things were said about Twin before it was axed. "If they ban anything, it'll just be Exarch", "they'd never kill twin". It's not just 2 events, it's been all year and it's not just about the numbers but what it does to deck construction for the entire format.
All in all I felt great on both days playing the deck. The 1k Meta was extremely weird as there were 0 Traditional Tron decks in the room and only 2 E. Tron and 2 Scapeshift. Outside of that, there was a ton of Uxx type decks. This is pretty par the course for my meta anyway (people love their u based control decks) and people really can't/don't shift drastically in paper when decks start performing well at GPs. It's just too costly for most.
I am still planning to run Jund at GP Santa Clara but I've also added GB Tron, Humans and Jeskai to my testing radar for the event. I really really don't want to play Tron but I'm falling into that reasoning, "If you think it's doing the most busted broken things in the format, you should be playing it at competitive events". It would have been really really good this weekend too *puts gun in mouth*.
Still, if I end up going with Jund, I am totally happy with that. It's a deck I play well and I love my overall list. Rabblemaster is insane as usual and I'm even in my losses, I never regretted sleeving up Jund for both events. I would like to figure out a better SB plan for Jeskai however. It's a bit tough as it feels like there are 40 million iterations of the deck which all function slightly differently. Currently the 1 flex slot in my sideboard that I haven't been needing is my 1x Kalitas. He's a great card but I think I am moving on to something else. I'm not sure what that thing will be but I do think I want something that puts a hamper on Jeskai. If I got a choice, I'd love it to be something that dodges Queller, bolt/helix and doesn't feel awful getting pathed. I think it'd also be nice to have it be an aggressive card so I can bring it in during matchups I wanted to be the beatdown anyway and while maybe it's not as back breaking, it still be pretty good. Here is a short list of random options for that slot (notably these don't answer all these criterias but usually meet 2/3) [warning: some of these go pretty deep]:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Honestly, the card has been pretty meh for me overall. It gets hit by spell queller and rarely did i ever enjoy using it's minus. I don't think it's good enough but it's a popular choice among others.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow - So I played this MB in a more delirium heavy version of Abzan a while back and it was better than Seige Rhino. Delirium isn't insanely hard to turn on in my experience and if this thing gets to resolve it creates an army of dudes that block and kill Spell Quellers nicely. It also benefits by being great against Lingering Souls and Affinity (like we need help there though) My problem with the card is it isn't agressive and 5 cmc is a lot. If you don't have delirium it's also not great either.
Stormbreath Dragon - I am giving this card serious consideration. The most common variants of Jeskai I have been seeing would really really struggle to fight this card if it resolves. A good portion are running zero sweepers and it only dies to bolt snap bolt (or bolt and occasional Clique block), god forbid this card becomes monstrous, it probably just kills them. This fits the aggressive plan well because while 5cmc is a lot, in matchups where you want to be the aggressor, dropping a big threat every turn you can is important and the haste would be nice. I think if I had this in my SB and it was proving to be good enough I wouldn't be dropping the 24th land, instead I'd just deal with the flooding knowing I had a good payoff should I draw it.
Vance's Blasting Cannons - This is the effect we want most of the time out of Chandra but without the vulnerability of being attacked. Enchantment removal is also far less likely. This card isn't great when we are the aggressor but in the Jeskai mirror I like the option of not just getting a free card a turn but also flipping this into a bolt land if we need to. In those matchups it's kind of nice to stockpile spells (so you don't run into the "they counter everything you play" plan and instead get to drop multiple threats in a turn where 1 is going to resolve in the end) so getting to 3 spells isn't unheard of. Even when you are not flipping this, it's getting you value in a way that Jeskai likely won't be bringing in to deal with (Jeskai isn't bringing in Wear//Tear for game 2 and even if they see it and bring it in for game 3, that card is dead against the rest of the deck). The Jeskai variants also have a lot less land hate than their UW cousins so once it's flipped, they'll have to bounce it with Cryptic or it can cause serious problems for them. Now I don't necessarily think this card is at it's best with the way our deck is currently configured. If we had more "2 spells for 1 card for cheap" than I'd feel better about it. Examples of that are Claim//Fame and Traverse. Both cards give you the option of casting 2 spells for 3 mana so getting to storm 3 is pretty reasonable. Unfortunately our deck doesn't really do that. This card is "digging pretty deep" when considering the slot to fill but it's at least worth the thought exercise IMO.
Boil/Choke: I could just go the hate route and try to bone my opponent out of the game. I think these options are fine but way too narrow. I'd rather have something that I can use in other matches as well.
Shaper's Sanctuary: With the removal of sweepers and reliance on spot removal, this can come in under hate cards and really make life awkward for Jeskai. We don't get as much use out of it as a deck like Elves does but again, I'm just going over options as they come off the top of my head.
Anathemancer: I have long loved this card and it is an option. Unearth means that even if it's bolted or helixed, we can bring it back later. When I've played with it before it did an average of 2-5 damage when it entered which is not unreasonable and can potentially really put the hurt to Jeskai. While this card isn't very versatile, it does give us another card to bring in and be aggressive which I like.
There are probably lots more options out there, I expect to see a lot more Jeskai moving forward as it seems to have a great "against the field" type matchups with only a few bad ones (like Tron). It'd be nice to not feel like such a dog in that fight.
For me it's not just that it impacts the format. Cards like Thoughtseize, Push and Bolt all impact the format as well but it's the fact we do not have good answers to Tron. None of the tools we have are really good enough because they are either too slow/expensive, not good enough or it costs Tron less to recover than it did to set them back. The problem also lies that the kind of answer we'd need aren't things that would be printed in a Standard set and without any products that print direct to Modern, I think it leaves us with no choice for the time being.
One of the biggest reasons Tron was acceptable before was that while it could prey on the midrange and fair decks on the format, it wasn't putting up any real results at large events due to the high variants of it's matchups. That has changed because of all the reasons I wrote about above and in previous posts. I'd also agree that I think all fast mana isn't healthy for Modern but without a giant sweep where you get it all, I think addressing the biggest offender has become a necessity. Modern is in a great place deck diversity-wise but it needs better archetype diversity. The last piece of the Rock/Paper/Scissors that was Pod/Twin/Tron needs to go.