MTG Salvation

Today's FNM was great. I went 4-0!
Round 1
2-0 against a kid with a budget UR Wizards deck
Round 2
2-0 against a Jeskai Control deck
Round 3
2-1 against Grixis Control
Round 4
2-0 against Grixis Shadow
So 8-1 in games, that felt pretty good
The match against Grixis Control was awesome. Third game we went over time but then a card I just traded before the FNM and put in my SB for fun won me the match on the fifths extra turn: Precognition Field
Since we talked about it in the forum I thought I should give it a try in grindy matches and it doesn't get much grindier than Grixis Control.
During the last turns I was able to exile two lands from the top of my library and finally found the last burn spell, a Helix, on top of my library after my draw on extra turn 5. With Dispel in hand and my opponent at 1 life that was the match winning card.

I want 3-1-1 last day. If I had won the last I had won the FNM. But against burn and you don't draw good yeah is over :P.

Yeah is to much white lands of basic.. But I gona buy sea chrome 1x. Mayby go with castle not sure yet.

Aurelia is soo good in my deck. She is gona stay in main. But risk factor is not so value in this deck. Is not doing so much for me so one more removel or another interesting card.

Grixis control 1-1 draw
Goblin aggro 2-0 won
Mill deck 2-0 won
Mono black 2-0 won
Burn 0-2 I lost

Against mono black first round that was over for him after 4 turn.
I got 2x delver 1x mantis on start. Second mantis on turn 3.
Så on turn 3 I did 9 dmg
Turn 4 12 dmg.

Awesome start

Great finishes MrWickard and StevomatUWR! It's always fun to have a winning record, especially a 3-1 and 4-0. As the meta becomes more combo oriented we get even better. I went 3-0-1 on Thursday (split the last round). I played against arclight burn, hardened scales affinity, and dredge. Last round was UW control. I will do a write up as well. It's great to hear everyone is doing well!

@MrWickard: You wrote that Aurelia is very good in your deck. What makes her so good? Do you use her as a 4/5 attacker most of the time? Is she much better than another 4-drop like Hero of Bladehold would be?
Against Mono Black it sounds like you were super lucky if your opponent didn't have any removal for either your Delvers or your Mantis Rider

@CurdBros: I am really interested in reading about your matches against arclight burn, hardened scales affinity, and dredge since these decks are very competitive and you managed to beat all of them. Good job!

Hey Guys,

I was honestly a little bit underwhelmed by the deck in the past weeks and frustrated as I had a horrible loosing row at FNM for 3 weeks. My Deck was a very aggressive built with swiftspears and I just felt that after 4-5 turns I didnt have the opportunity to attack anymore with any of my creatures.

So I decided to add more evasion with 3 Mantis Riders. I dont love them too much however they offer more evasive threats. I have also added 2 Resto Angels for flickering the blocked geist.
Additionaly, I am using the new mission briefing as a 3 off - snapcaster replacement on a budget. It doesnt offer the body, but the effect of having access to my instants and sorceries in my graveyard offers a nice amount of flexibility. And I can finally do bolt - briefing - bolt

I am really happy with the Deck so far.

My Sideboard is still a work in progress - I know it is of course meta specific but do you guys have any comments on my SB? I suuuper like the oldschool God of Izzet. Was super awesome so far against the grindy decks - an additional card or a free lightning bolt really killed them.

Thanks for the hint on precognition Field btw. I really like the card and ordered some copies

My deck is here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/23-06-18-jeskai-geist/?cb=1540823409

I appreciate all your comments!

Didn't reply to your earlier post, but here's my list that I played with good success several months ago (before Dominaria):



Ignore the god, I was just testing some silliness

As for flipping delver, you should aim for 40-45% enablers, ie 25-28 instant/sorceries. Also, from experience Mentor is too slow and Emerge Unscathed has worked wonders.

Round 1- Arclight burn

This round was against a player that is always trying the "new best deck". I think he had a few bugs to work out because the deck really didn't do a ton. I think he may have kept some slow hands or flooded but I'm not sure. I have practiced against this deck a bit and have played with it during practice and I noticed that if you don't have early plays the deck doesn't work well. In game one he played a Runaway Steam Kin on turn two. He bolted my swiftspear and cast an arclight phoenix later in the game, but it was too late. Geist carried the day with removal.

Sideboard- Negate, Celestial Purge, Dispel, Deflecting Palm.

Game two was a bit different, but had the same outcome. This time he did have a faithless looting into a arclight phoenix, but it took him awhile to sculpt a hand to get the phoenix back. There were two key plays. I was able to Spell Pierce a Blood Moon on turn 3 and was able to remand a tormenting voice. With that said, I was still down to three life and if he top decked a burn spell he would win. I was able to basically keep up with him with one to one removal which I don't think will work often against this deck.

Overall- I don't believe this was a typical game against this deck, but it does show some of the weaknesses of the deck. It did make me feel like I needed additional life gain in my sideboard.


Round 2- Hardened Scales Affinity

Game 1- Local affinity lover. I was off to a fast start and then everything slowed down for me. I had a hand with two delvers and some burn. I played the two delvers and they flipped (I think on turn 3) so I was feeling pretty good about the game even though he had turn one Hardened Scales. A Walking Ballista followed by a Hangarback Walker changed my mood :). I was able to burn him down a bit, but the board become overwhelming and I lost rather badly.

Sideboard- Deflecting Palm, Abrade, Wear // Tear, Engineered Explosives.

Game 2- This one went much better. I had abrade in my opening hand and decided to kept. I was able to answer most of his threats one for one and an engineered explosives blew the game open. I had done enough damage that I could burn him out.

Game 3- This one was super close. I didn't really take many notes, but at one point he had a hangarback walker on 5 that he sacrificed to Throne of Geth to block my spell queller. I had Echoing Truth and was able to bounce all of the tokens. A walking ballista did help prolong the game but a bedlam reveler gave me too much card advantage with snapcaster mage. I was excited to see I can win a post board game without sideboard cards being drawn.

Overall- I think this is a tough matchup, but winnable. I have had pretty good luck against it. Sweepers are great and so is staticaster. If they get a lot of thopters it can be tough to get through.

Round 3- Dredge

Game 1- I was starting to sense a theme here because I lost game one again. He started with faithless looting into two dredgers and his board just was to overwhelming to quick to deal with. Text book good dredge hand. If they draw well we really have little to no chance in game one.

Sideboard- Deflecting Palm, 3x Surgical Extraction, Negate, Celestial Purge, Izzet Staticaster.

Game 2- My strategy against dredge is to mulligan aggressively for graveyard hate unless I have a great opener. In this case I had a great opener and kept. It had two delvers, a bolt, a helix, two lands, and an opt or serum visions (I can't remember which one). The delvers flipped early and did some major damage. He was able to conflagrate the delvers away, but it was too little to late and he died to bolt snap bolt.

Game 3- This time I did mulligan to a 6 card hand with surgical and snapcaster mage, but only one land. I typically go for conflagrate first, then the threats. I know some people like to go after the dredgers and that may be the best plan. I haven't implemented it yet. I was able to spell snare a Tormenting Voice which helped. I snapcastered back the surgical for all of the Prized Amalgams. The Crippling Chills are super annoying and prolonged the game, but without conflagrate in the end game he had no way to finish me off and couldn't block with his Bloodghasts. I squeeked by at 5 life (after a helix).

Overall- I think dredge is just a super tough matchup. Game 1 is very bad and post board you either have to get a god hand or have ample graveyard removal. Even with that, you can still lose. Crippling Chill really made this matchup so much harder because I used to just try to burn them out, but they are gaining 6-9 life every game. I would say I only beat dredge half the time at best, likely less than half.


Round 4- UW control.

It was late and this is a grindy matchup so we drew.

Here are my thoughts on the other topics:

Delver spell count-

I prefer 26+ spells, but I think 24+ is fine. With 8 burn spells, 5 path/bounce, 4-5 counter spells, and 6-8 cantrips already gets you 23-26 spells so if you add an electrolyze, mana tithe, etc then it's pretty easy to have 25+ spells.

I prefer to have top end that regains value that we lose by starting with a tempo oriented game plan. Because we tend to send a larger than average number of burn spells to the opponents face. Therefore, I like my top end to remain fairly aggressive, but still offer card advantage. Cars like Bedlam Reveler, Hazoret, the Fervent, Snapcaster Mage, and planeswalkers are my personal favorite. This highly depends on your style of deck though.

I am also very interested add Distortion Strike back into the deck because it adds a little speed to the deck and I have an open slot. I love distortion strike and slip through space. How have they been performing for you lately Dzung?

Also MR. Tzoulis- has chart a course perfomed well for you? I have seen this card in the izzet arclight decks and was wondering how it's been going for your.

Finally, on the risk factor topic I can say that it has been good for me. Not great or game changing, but fine. I will be interested to see how it does if Jund picks up in popularity.

I tend to agree. I always like Distortion Strike in the builds that have swiftspear and geist. It can just win games on the spot. I am going to add the old faithful back into the deck for the time being. Often people don't realize just how good it is on Swiftspear for early damage. Emerge Unscathed is one of my old favorites as well.

I have thought about noxious revival before, but it just seems like a dead card to often. I almost think Gut Shot would be more useful. Postmortem Lunge just seems to narrow unless you play Faithless Looting.

Hi again. Answer to your question about Aurelia.
Is flying with mentor and give 2/0 to one creature. Flying always nice against your oppents. Bladehold is 3/4 and 2x 1/1 coming at combat. It like that card but is not enough for me.
Lucky against mono black? Nah better start hand and counters

I run 21 lands and 23 spells to hit the delvers.
Gona test narset planwalker tomorrow :).

Quote from MrWickard »

Bladehold is 3/4 and 2x 1/1 coming at combat. It like that card but is not enough for me.

You shouldn't forget about the Battle Cry ability.
T3 Geist into T4 Bladehold let's you attack for 15 on T5 (3/4 Bladehold, 2x 2/1 Soldiers, 3/2 Geist, 5/4 Angel)
T3 Geist into T4 Aurelia let's you attack for 11 on T5 (4/5 Aurelia, 3/3 Geist, 4/4 Angel)
Of course this is totally hypothetically, against an opponent who has no counters and no removal
Considering that you already profit from Aurelia's last ability on T4 I'd say Hero of Bladehold and Aurelia have the same power level.
Which one is better is highly situational and depends on the match-up, the opponent's hand, the board state, the timing etc...
Both cards also can be compared to Elspeth in the CMC4 slot and one could argue that she's just as good as these two in exactly as many situations.
So, we can all just play the card that's most fun for us atm and then switch it up when the next nice CMC4 card gets printed

I am trying Shalai atm in my top end slot because she protects all my other from removal and from Lilly and she protects me as well from burn and hand disruption (even though hand disruption usually happens before T4, I know).
At yesterday's FNM I only drew her in round 2 which I won. But yesterday didn't go as well as it did the last weeks. First round I lost against Eldrazi Tron in round one (T3 Thought-Knot Seer, T4 Reality Smasher, T5 Reality Smasher in game 1, when I kept up Spell Pierce against Chalice, and T3 Chalice on 1 into Balista into Smasher and again another Smasher in game 2) and I lost against Martyr Proc in round three. That match-up is a nightmare. I think my opponent gained over 60 life points during our 3 games. So sad that I couldn't find my SB Sulfur Elemental which would have shut down that stupid Martyr of Sands perfectly.

I didn’t get to play this week so no reports from me. I will be testing tomorrow and will share some notes.

I have long held the belief that Martyr Proc is the single worst matchup for us. I’m not sure I have ever beat them. Luckily it’s not around much. There is a guy here that plays it but I think that’s it.

Eldrazi can be super tough too. I really like deflecting palm against them. If they land an early chalice it’s basically game over for us. You had some really tough matchups.

Hi, a whole week has passed so it's time to post some stuff again

Yesterday I played at FNM and wnt 4-0 again.
Round 1 - 2-0 vs UR Phoenix
First game I barely survived with 1 life after getting hit by an 8/4 Drake, but I won on the backswing.
Second game was over quickly since I had Surgical and RiP in my starting hand.

Round 2 - 2-1 vs Sultai Midrange
First game my opponent destroyed three of my permanents with Ass trophy and ramped me pretty good.
When I was at 6 lands including Slayers' Stronghold it was easy to kill him with a hasty Geist and a hasty Lavamancer.
Game 2 I kept one land with SV on the draw and couldn't find the second land until turn 4. Of course I lost.
Third game I had T2 RiP and T3 Search for Azcanta which I could resolve because my opponent had to take two mulligans. I won that one pretty fast with Delver and burn spells. Karma was on his side in game 2 and on my side in game 3

Round 3 - 2-0 vs Dredge
MVP card in game 1: Echoing Truth! That card is so good against Dredge. I used it twice with Snap to bounce his stuff and resolved 2 Helixes during the game and still only beat him by a hairbreadth with 2 life because if his attacks, 2 Creeping Chills and a Conflagrate for 7 to my face.
G2 I was super lucky again. T1 Delver, T2 Delver flip with Bolt, play RiP, T3 he had Nature's Claim but I attacked and burned him and played a second Delver, T4 Delver flip with Helix... swift victory.

Round 4 - 2-0 vs Amulet Titan
Perfect starting hand for the match-up in game 1 with Delver, Clique and 2 Remands. Remanded his Titan twice and then he was already dead.
Second game my opponent kept a very bad hand. I had a fast flipping Delver again and a Clique and he basically did nothing this game other than playing a lot of lands. He couldn't find his pay-off cards.

This time I played 23 enablers for Delver. During three games I had instant flips, during my second game against Sultai the Delvers didn't flip for 5 turns... (they would have flipped after two turns if I hadn't used Remand and drawn an instant from the top) I think it's pure luck and it doesn't matter if you play 22-23 or 25-26 enablers.

Here's what I used last Friday:
Mainboard


Lands & Sideboard


I cut my CMC4 cards again even though I love them. The deck just runs more smooth with a lower curve. Clique is back main and it's awesome. I added Surgical to my 2 RiPs to fight the new wave of Dredge decks and I added a 2nd Anger too because of Dredge and because there are a few Elf and Spirit players in my local store.

Hi HeXmex,
I just looked at your list and personally I'd make the following 6 changes:
-2 Boros Charm -> +2 Lightning Helix
-1 Electrolyze, -1 Hieroglyphic Illumination -> +2 Jeskai Charm
-2 Gods Willing -> +2 Emerge Unscathed
Other then that the list looks very good

Congrats on the 4-0 Stevomat. I love the meta you play in. You always get to play against a few really cool rouge decks like Sultai Midrange. There aren't too many rogue decks where I play often. I wish there were.

HeXmex- Thanks for the write up. I totally agree that this style of deck takes a ton of practice to master. Every time you play it you learn something new or a new line to take. As for the matchups I agree that Humans is a great matchup for us. We are heavily favored with all of our removal. Storm is typically a decent matchup for us with all of our early counter magic and removal for their 2 drop creatures. With that said, their god hands can just be tough to beat. You can't do much about someone who goes off on turn 2 and turn 3 in the next game. That's variance sometimes. I don't play against a lot of storm, but I don't think that they go off on turn 2 and 3 all that often.

I really want to play against that Whir deck. I haven't run into it yet, but I may have our practice playgroup make it so I can play against it.

If you are already going 2-2 against some tough opponents with only playing the deck two times you will probably be 3-1 and 4-0 rather soon as you get more and more comfortable for the deck. I agree with Stevomat that Emerge Unscathed is a great option. Lightning Helix is almost a must right now with the aggro decks running around. I personally prefer electrolyze over jeskai charm, but that is a personal preference. Also, I can see why you prefer Boros Charm since your deck has a lot of tokens. The indestructible option helps against sweepers. I would still cut one copy for an additional helix since you also have emerge unscathed/gods willing.


I haven't gotten to play a ton lately so I'm glad you guys are sharing your reports. It's always fun to see how these matchups play out. Thanks for sharing.

I also prefer Electrolyze over Jeskai Charm in a "normal deck" but in a token deck with 2x Monastery Mentor & 4x Young Pyromancer I would ALWAYS play Jeskai Charm. Just imagine you have 1 Mentor, 1 Pyro, and 1 Monk token in play (just as an example) and play Charm... that would give you:
1 4/4 with lifelink, 2 3/3 with lifelink, 1 3/2 with lifelink, 1 2/2 with lifelink !!!

Quote from Mazereon »

So with the next banned and restricted announcement just around the corner I wanted to ask you guys something. Stoneforge Mystic is the card nearly everyone wants to have unbanned, I for one would like to get jitte but thats not going to happen.
If SFM is getting unbanned, does this do anything for us? Would an unbanning of SFM open up the possibility for us to run like 3 SFMs and a sword package, or would it just be to fragile and slow in the current state of modern?

I actually tested stoneforge a bit in the past and it works really well with a card that noone has really touched on which is Ojutai's Command. Even if they kill SFM it comes right back to the board and nets you another equipment. It as seriously super strong in UW Control. I think that is where it would really shine. I was seriously amazed how good SFM was with Ojutai's command.

As for our purposes I there will definitely be a more tempo based Jeskai Stoneblade deck similar to the ones that dominated legacy in years past. Delver and Stoneforge with swords make a good team. Snapcaster also carries a sword well. It will definitely be interesting to see how the meta shifts if SFM get unbanned. I can guarantee I will be testing with SFM if it gets unbanned.

UW control won't play Stoneforge, it plays 5-6 wraths and most lists are tight as is, they won't find room for a do nothing 6-7 card combo. Midrange decks on the other hand, like UWx Midrange, will definitely get a boost, and probably make decks such as UWR Delver lean more on tempo and speed, rather than grindy cards.

Stoneforge Mystic is a very interesting topic. There are several interesting articles and discussions about SFM. Most suggest that it would be good but not great in Abzan or Mardu lists or combined with JTMS in UW Cawblade or in Mono-White Hatebears or Eldrazi and Taxes and I wouldn't like to play against the latter two – that's for sure.
Including a proper SFM package in a UWR Delver deck seems very difficult.
To include
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Batterskull (in a Delver deck I'd prefer them over swords because the swords would be too slow)
1 Ojutai's Command
we would have to cut 7 cards and I wouldn't even know where to start.
Considering that Delvers don't go well with artifacts I think I'd end up building a completely new midrangy Jeskai deck which I then wouldn't like because it lacks early action and maybe wouldn't even be that powerful

I tend to agree with the other sentiments. SFM is a super card, but really only fits well in a more midrange strategy. It can definitely be played in a tempo style "stoneblade" list with delver, snap, etc, but I think that is likely just a worst version of a more midrange version of the deck.

One thing I do disagree with is that UW Control won't play SFM. I think they will definitely play a package of SFM and batterskull for certain matchups. It may be a sideboard package, but I do think it can help them since when they cast the sweepers the Batterskull stays on the board and can even be bounced back. I'm not sure because I don't play control very often, but that is just my theory. I personally think SFM can be unbanned without incident. It will be interesting to see if the meta becomes more midrange if/when SFM is unbaned. If SFM gets unbanned I will likely build some type of Jeskai midrange deck with Monastery Mentor and Stoneforge Mystic for fun. It probably wouldn't be the best SFM build, but it would be a lot of fun.

I think Preordain is a more interesting topic for our deck. I would definitely be taking out my serum visions and replacing them with preordain. I don't think that Storm becomes too good with preordain. I feel like it was another casualty of Twin being in the format similar to Ancestral Visions. Often in the past when we talked about unbanning a blue card the argument ended with "that makes Twin too good". Now that the boogy man is gone I think they could definitely unban preordain.

Another card that affects us is Birthing Pod. This was a super tough matchup in the past for Jeskai delver, but was super fun to play against. With Abrade and Kologhan's Command now in the format, I wonder if they think birthing pod would be ok. I highly doubt it as they have stated in the past that birthing pod makes it hard to make any great creaures, but it would be a fun experiment. I knew a lot of players that LOVED playing birthing pod decks. To be honest, I loved playing against them because it was such a grindy matchup.

I do agree that if SFM becomes unbanned and especially if Birthing Pod gets unbanned we will lean a bit more towards aggro-tempo to deal with these new decks. It's an exciting time!

That’s a really good point Mazeron. UW Tron was something I didn’t even think about. I do agree with you that not all UW control will run SFM. I think it will likely be a new UW midrange style control deck that runs it and the Teferi control decks will still be around without SFM.

Birthing Pod decks are a ton of fun to play and are really really good. With all the creature based infinite combos currently in modern I highly doubt they will unban it. Back when I played against pod it was either a super value deck or it was a combo style build with kikki jikki. I don’t see them unbanning it any time soon because of the vizier combo but it does add another fun deck to modern.

I totally agree about the preordain foils. It needs a reprint. I bought some foil copies way back when I thought it would be unbanned right after the twin ban but it didn’t happen. I don’t remember what I paid but I know it was at least $40 a copy I think even then.

They took probe away from us so they owe us preordain 😀

I have a couple of notes from testing/playing lately.

1. I'm just not sold on Risk Factor. I played a copy for awhile and it was decent, but just doesn't warrant a slot in my build. I replaced it with the most popular card in modern right now Faithless Looting which works well with Bedlam Reveler.

2 Remand remains strong and I have added a third copy.

3. Experimental Frenzy is AMAZING against attrition decks. It has been great every single time I play it. It will be tough to remove it from the sideboard at any point.

4. Graveyard hate is a must and more than usual. I have two Surgical Extraction and added one Ravenous Trap. The trap hasn't really been all that great so I may just go with three extractions. If you can play Rest in Peace without an a problem, it's obviously a great choice.

5. Geist of Saint Traft is great as a 2-of in the deck. I think 2 copies is great for the aggro-control builds. I noticed sometimes that I had multiple copies when I was running 3. That is mainly due to the fact that I have 10-12 cantrips/deck manipulation spells in the deck (opt, serum visions, faithless looting, and remand). In a typical game I get through more than half of my deck so I only really need 2 copies. Control has declined slightly also so two copies is great.


Now to the matchup of the week- Izzet Phoenix TITI

I have been practicing against this deck and I can say it's a tough matchup for sure. We can definitely out tempo them in game one, but if the game goes long we are likely losing game one. They have so much recursion it's impossible to keep up. After piloting the deck a bunch (to help other people play against the deck) I can say that having faithless looting in the opener is almost a must unless you are going with the TITI plan. The deck can kinda sputter and does suffer against decks with removal for TITI. I saw that Ross Merriam said he cut the Bedlam Reveler for Crackling Drake. I understand his reasoning, but reveler was quite good for me, especially with Fiery Temper.

Sideboard- Any graveyard hate you have is great (especially against the bedlam reveler builds). I also side in Negate, Dispel, and Celestial Purge. Bounce spells are also good against their Arclight Phoenix.

Overall- Like nearly every matchup in modern I think game one is 45-55 in their favor and the post sideboard games are 60-40 in our favor. It's a fun matchup to play against and is a great deck. I hope it sticks around.

Quote from Dzung »

Hi guys do you think they might unban Dig Through Time? Or do you guys think it is too strong?

I would LOVE if they unbanned it. I honestly think it wouldn't be too strong. It's very strong in combo style decks, but those often don't really put a ton of cards in the graveyard. Valakut would be my main worry. If it were to be unbanned it would be an auto inclusion in our deck (probably as a 2 of). I do hope they unban it, but it's more likely it was reprinted for the new competitive format that a lot of people think is coming. Something like post modern.

I'll only comment on the trap and the Izzet Phoenix deck (which I've been playing religiously the pas 3 weeks).

Trap is useless as a 1-of, it's like Leyline in that you need 3-4 of them. I'm playing 3 of them in the phoenix deck and it's been nothing short of amazing. It can be faster than rip, and nuking the whole GY is more relevant than taking away 1 piece. I've gotten all my Phoenixes and things extracted and still won because my GY was intact.

As for the Izzet Phoenix matchup, from the Izzet side, I feel it preys on any deck that relies on creatures to win. TiTi, combined with burn and a difficult manabase from the delver side compounds this.

Hello everyone! I have been following this thread for a while now, and decided to make an MTGS account. This is my take on Jeskai Delver:

Solemnity is my tech against Infect, Hardened Scales, Affinity, and Humans.
Any help/advice you could give me is greatly appreciated!