UW is always a tough match up for me. If they hit multiple Cyrptic Commands, they usually buy themselves enough time to win or stabilize. So I tried [c/]nevermore[c] targeting that card. I lost G2 due to mana screw, and never got to try nevermore again vs UW.
In honor of the Modern Mythic Championship the matchup of the week will be Bridgeless Hogak!
Overall- I found this matchup not to be as bad as I expected. In game one we want to make sure they stay off of Hogak and Carion Feeder. The matchup is pretty straight forward. Counter faithless looting and kill creatures. All while killing them.
Post board, the matchup gets way better. Deflecting Palm, Celestial Purge, Surgical Extraction, any other graveyard hare, and sweepers are all great. D.Palm has won me several games that they landed an early hogak. Snapcaster mage also does some major work here.
I am one person who doesn't think this deck is way to busted. I do think if looting was banned, this deck would be totally fine. I think they will err on the side of safety and ban hogak.
Enemy number one in my opinion is carrion feeder. It saves hogaak from being exiled which is dam annoying. Ive been on 2x celestial purge in the side so that has helped but its still a tough match up without serious GY hate which i dont have in the sb.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
So, what do you thinks it's better to play along that shell? Whir of Invention, Counters, Removal?
That's a topic I have never really spent a ton of time on. I did run Saheeli Rai for a long time, but more for the value with reveler and snapcaster mage.
I will think about it. My initial assumption is to play a more control/combo build. Force of Negation should be very good because you can tap out for Saheeli and still have protection.
That's where I would start too. I think people are really under rating path to exile right now alongside lightning bolt and force of negation. Remand is also really great right now, but it's harder to have a deck that really plays well with remand. With that said I do think remand would work well in your deck since you will be able to win games on the spot and just need to buy time.
Hi guys, sorry for the long absence.
I needed a break after Magic Fest Barcelona.
I went there with my family and enjoyed the city doing sightseeing, so there was no time for me to get any byes.
Saturday I started at 9 am into this 1500 player tournament. Rounds were 50 minutes but since someone always played slow af so there was always a waiting time of 30 minutes between each two rounds. -_-
To make it short: I played five rounds and then I dropped out and spent the rest of that day with my family.
Good news first: I was able to win the first game in all of these five rounds. Bad news: I lost game 2 & 3 in three of these rounds, ending up 2-3.
I lost against Humans, Eldrazi Tron and Hogaak, won against Hogaak and Sultai Snow.
Against Humans I flooded game 2, game 3 I had Path and Snap in hand and was tapped out after a few turns. Opponent of course took Path with Freebooter and played Meddling on Snap both during his following turn. I drew Spell Pierce, he added Mantis Rider to the board...
Against Eldrazi Tron I lost game 2 to a Chalice on 1 with 2x Path and 2x Opt in hand, and game 3 against TKS into Smasher into 2nd Smasher I think.
Against Hogaak I had no answer to his T2 Hogaak in game 2. Game 3 Ashiok kept him at bay for a while. I played Lavinia so he couldn't cast Hogaak, but because of that I had use my Deflecting Palms on his Vengevine. Eventually I died to continuous attacks from his small creatures.
I felt that my draws were pretty unlucky but nevertheless the deck didn't seem strong enough to compete with the current Tier 1 decks.
Sorry if the following part is a bit off topic, but back home I watched Hammer Time and spend 13 Tix to take a break from Delver.
I really enjoyed destroying several opponents by hitting them for 22 on T2 or T3 After 10 matches (6-4) however I think that this deck is not competitive enough. I added better lands but this deck really needs Leyline of Sanctity against hand disruption.
Anyway, I'll try my Jeskai Tempo list again with Spell Quellers (which I had always shunned so far) but this time I was really close at selling my whole collection.
@ stevo
sorry your results were bad. The mulligan rule I think really benifits those decks more than ours. Our hands are more versatile and forgiving with the draw.
Hammertime looks like a new bogles style deck. have the same weakness. Still I like the deck and plan to build it as i already have most of the extra cards.
@ccc1522: I actually thought about selling my physical cards and only play on MTGO in the future. During big tournaments for some reason I am always too tense and too stressed to think clearly and make the best plays with perfect sequencing. That might have cost me 2 or 3 games over these 5 rounds. When I am at home playing on MTGO I play better and my win rate is much higher.
But lately I am also very annoyed by the power creep which is getting worse and worse with every set. I understand that Hasbro wants to sell new cards, but this is getting ridiculous pretty soon.
Anyway, I haven't sold anything yet. Yesterday in fact I bought a playset of Spell Quellers and amended my deck online. I played with 3x Geist, 3x Queller, 1x Gideon of the Trials, 1x Teferi, Time Raveler and 1x Steel of the Godhead and it was wonderful when my Hardened Scales opponent scooped Game 2 the moment I was casting Godhead targeting Geist.
The power creep is getting a bit out of control. They need to make sure to get modern back to a turn 4 format (or at least turn 3). Hogaak should have been banned originally and probably faithless looting.
I'm glad you got to make a vacation out of it and spend time with the family. I too have a growing family and it is really tough to make time for magic. However, it is important to me to make time for magic so I have something to relax and do for fun (and golf). It's crazy that you won a bunch of game 1's and not 2 and 3. We typically do the opposite :). Bad luck and variance stinks sometimes. The reason you prefer online is likely because the sample size is so much larger so the bad variance doesn't seem as bad as when you start a tournament and get unlucky in two of the first three matches. If you had average or good variance you would be 5-0. People often wonder how the best players always do so well, but with 2 or 3 byes they can go 3-2 on day one and end 6-2. If they go 5-3 on day two they finish with a great 11-5 record, but really just had a slightly above average 8-5 record.
Playing in a live tournament can be tough, but I think it is the single most fun way to play the game.
Here are my thoughts on the jeskai deck right now and in general. It's a little long so I put it under a drop box spoiler.
I think you made the correct choice in going more control. I think right now you really have to go a little towards the extremes to complete. You have to be more aggro or more control. Midrange is dominated by Jund and to a lesser extent mardu right now We can do midrange with teferi and narset, but jund just does midrange better. In addition, UW control and the new Bant soulherder deck do control/card advantage a little better than we can. So this leads to the question of why play jeskai? Sometimes the answer to this questions is that jeskai is not as well positioned at this point in time. During those periods I tweak my deck as best as I can and play it because it gives me personally the best chance to win due to experience. Other players may chose to change decks during those times.
So let's get back to the question at hand- why play jeskai in general? The real reason to play jeskai and, more specifically, delver is to steal games, have good matchups against the extreme decks, and have access to burn spells that other decks don't have. Basically we have the best access to counter magic and burn. We can flip the script better than another other deck in modern. That way we can play the foil to combo and control matchups or anything on the extremes. We get most of our easiest wins against very linear strategies. In addition we can win games out of nowhere from 9-12 life with burn spells.
The cards in our list that are really strong at this moment, in my opinion, are Remand, Force of Negation, and Path to Exile, and Spell Queller. Now we just have to build a deck that works well with those cards and plays a predicable game plan. I prefer the more aggressive approach with burn to take advantage of remand and FON and to mitigate the downside of path. However, to support this you do have to have some late game card advantage in the form of snapcaster, reveler, and a planweswalker or two to complete with jund and other midrange decks (this can also be done via sideboard).
I think in more fringe decks it is super important to remember the plan of the deck. Because there aren't articles and vidoes that dig into the deck, the sideboard plans, etc, it's often much harder, and more rewarding, to pick the correct cards for the gameplan. This is also a huge benefit to playing a more fringe deck. People just are not prepared to play against a deck with remand, FON, and burn spells.
In the end jeskai can be a tough deck to play sometimes. It doesn't necessarily mulligan very well so it took a hit with the new mulligan rule. Also, it can draw the wrong half of the deck and/or flood sometimes. These weaknesses can cause the deck to feel underpowered when things are not going well. The strengths of the deck are that it is the most malleable or flexible deck in all of modern so it can be whatever you need it to be in a specific game. It can also steal games with burn. Also, it inhabits a place in the modern meta game that is often hard to play against for a lot of players. Really Death shadow is the only other deck that is truly an aggro-control style deck in modern. I think as we get more acquainted with Force of Negation the deck will get better and better.
I think you need a little more disruption and less combo pieces. I am not really well antiquated with the deck so I am not exactly sure how it plays , but I feel like it would play more smoothly with 4 copies of opt and/or sleight of hand and less copies of liquid metal coating, alter of the brood, and maybe one less logic knot. Without opt you don't have a lot of food for Logic Knot and FON. I would probably just play three copies of alter and coating and two copies of logic knot and add 4 copies of Opt.
Also I am interested to see how the creature removal works out. I love the idea of going pure combo and having counter magic and sweepers. I just want to make sure that it works out not having path to exile. Let us know how it goes and how some games play out and we can continue to tinker!
Jeff Hoogland is continuing to fight the good fight by playing Jeskai Tempo
He wrote up a nice Jeskai Tempo Primer.
Check it out if you have the time. It's a deck with 24 lands but it tries to win the same way like we all do.
Jeff Hoogland is continuing to fight the good fight by playing Jeskai Tempo
He wrote up a nice Jeskai Tempo Primer.
Check it out if you have the time. It's a deck with 24 lands but it tries to win the same way like we all do.
Thanks for sharing! I love these articles. I really like seeing different versions of this deck. I watched him stream with the list and it looked really solid. I agree with you that spell queller was really strong in his games when I watched. I may have to squeeze one or two back into the list. I wish I could play more copies of little teferi, but I can only fit one in my list. His list is way more towards the midrange/control end of the spectrum so he can play a lot more 3 drops. I think playing jeskai tempo/midrange is probably a great choice right now. I know steel of the godhead is not his style of card, but I think a copy in the sideboard would be awesome in a list running spell queller.
I cant tell you how much I agree with you about the power creep.
Godhead on geist is so so good I dont know why its not played more often. Its good with queller and with geist. It used to be my favorite thing to do and now with force of negation steel of the godhead can be used as toss fodder.
Let me know if you play anymore games with the geist + godhead combo id love to hear how youre doing.
I feel that if steel of the god head is gonna be played it would be a good idea to run peek too so you can check the coast is clear. I know ive brought this up before but ive used peek to turn up the aggression.
I remember one game I was fighting over a teferi vs UW control
I had 6 mana up and they played little teferi with 3 mana left.
I snapped into peek to see if i could drop a queller safely or if i should go in with a logic knot to make sure teferi didnt come back. The peek revealed a dovins veto a supreme verdict and the rest were lands. I dropped a queller and turned up the aggro seeing as that they didnt have much else. Had they had a path to exile I would have logic knotted teferi to make sure it was gone for good.
Thats one example of how peek really gave me alot to work with.
@mrwickard
I have been thinking lately to run two wall of omens in the side. I know that card is great with resto angel. I dont run resto but i have been pondering lately that more self replacing spells would be good in the side like wall of omens, shadow of doubt, spreading seas, etc etc
I think these spells are tons of value
Another spell thats good with angel is blade splicer. Ive seen that before.
On amother note have any of you tried thalia heretic cathar in the side?
I want to try 2 in the side vs tron, and 3 color decks alongside the shadow of doubts i have. I feel she may be worth it. Her stats are pretty dam good.
Ill post my new sideboard later to get some opinions as wel as some new prospects ive been looking at.
EDIT: kitchen finks is also very good with resto angel. That new 2 drop shapeshifter that gives your creatures hexproof would be good perhaps even deputy of detention would be good too. If you play wall of omens or that shapeshifter you also may want to consider an ojutai’s command as bringing back a wall of omens from the grave and picking another mode is excellent value.
I moved down in abrade as siding in two felt like it messed my plan up since it usually goes in for aether vial decks. Its starting to seem like blowing up the vial isnt all that critical in many games. I moved to two thundermaw hellkites. The rise in jund and Etron has called for highly aggressive game enders in the case of etron and aggressive late game plays in the case of jund and hellkite has done both for me. Vs etron however that match up is so dam hard to win that It feels useless to even try.
Shadow of doubt is ok. Only ok. Reason being I side it in vs 3 color decks which usually have IoK and thoughtseize. This takes the surprise factor away and leaves me with a 2 mana draw a card instant. My thought's behind the card was a self replacing card vs jund and BGx decks with hand disruption. I think a good way to win vs those decks is play alot of value cards that replace themselves. Which leads me want to try out wall of omens in that spot.
Force of negation has been OK for me. Many times i just want everything in my hand and unless its to close out a game I probably wont pitch anything to it. I think its best used in the last game determining turns such as to stop a wrath or PW and swing for lethal the following turn. Other then that its been an okay card. Its good vs other control decks but dovin's veto makes me very hesitant to use this cards effect.
Ive been wanting to switch timely for a steel of the godhead. But timely is so good vs burn and dredge that i hesitate, thats not to say that steel of the godhead isnt good in those match ups but timely has been a staple in my SB since i built the deck and id miss it too much.
Another card thats pretty good is echoing truth. I ran it mainboard for sometime in place of 1 cryptic but recently have switched back to cryptic for no particular reason. I may go back though because having it mainboard has been useful.
This leads me to this next point. Spell snare. I feel its just too reliant on the early game to be good. The whole deck i love but spell snare is such a feel bad card to draw in the late game. I have been thinking of changing it for a combination of lightning helix, mana leak, logic knot, wall of omens, search for azcanta, echiong truth.. But I would like to keep the spell i replace it with at one mana as it will maintain my curve exactly where the decks built to be at.
what other one mana spells can i do? I have been thinking another serum visions + lightning helix or 2 x mana leak, or serum visions + echoing truth, or serum visions + logic knot, or serum visions + forked bolt, or 2x forked bolt. What do you guys think should I replace the spell snares with? Should I stick to one mana spells or does bumping those up to 2 mana not hurt me as much as i think it does..?
EDIT: also guys check out this list i found that went 4-1 its pretty cool
Hi all. Sorry I have been absent for a few days. Family stuff kept me from playing magic.
ccc1522- That sideboard looks awesome. I can't really add much to it.
Gofytomcat- This looks like a solid Gofytomcat deck. You know I am a huge Lightning Angel fan so I am a sucker for her. With that said, Mantis Rider is likely just a better card right now. I know it dies to bolt, but landing a turn earlier makes a huge difference.
A card I was wondering about lately is Abrade in the main deck. It has been somewhat underwhelming for me. It can be really great or just a bad draw. I am thinking about replacing it. What do you all think?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Enthusiasts
Current Decks/Archetypes
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Overall- I found this matchup not to be as bad as I expected. In game one we want to make sure they stay off of Hogak and Carion Feeder. The matchup is pretty straight forward. Counter faithless looting and kill creatures. All while killing them.
Post board, the matchup gets way better. Deflecting Palm, Celestial Purge, Surgical Extraction, any other graveyard hare, and sweepers are all great. D.Palm has won me several games that they landed an early hogak. Snapcaster mage also does some major work here.
I am one person who doesn't think this deck is way to busted. I do think if looting was banned, this deck would be totally fine. I think they will err on the side of safety and ban hogak.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
T1 Altar of the Brood
T2 Liquimetal Coating
T3 Saheeli Rai
Or the conventional one Saheeli + Felidar Guardian
So, what do you thinks it's better to play along that shell? Whir of Invention, Counters, Removal?
So you can protect yourself while you assemble the combo.
Thats what I would do but i never played or play combo its just what makes sense to me.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
That's a topic I have never really spent a ton of time on. I did run Saheeli Rai for a long time, but more for the value with reveler and snapcaster mage.
I will think about it. My initial assumption is to play a more control/combo build. Force of Negation should be very good because you can tap out for Saheeli and still have protection.
That's where I would start too. I think people are really under rating path to exile right now alongside lightning bolt and force of negation. Remand is also really great right now, but it's harder to have a deck that really plays well with remand. With that said I do think remand would work well in your deck since you will be able to win games on the spot and just need to buy time.
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Altar of the Brood
4 Liquimetal Coating
4 Felidar Guardian
2 Cryptic Command
2 Force of Negation
3 Logic Knot
4 Remand
2 Whir of Invention
4 Serum Visions
Board removal
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Wrath of God
I needed a break after Magic Fest Barcelona.
I went there with my family and enjoyed the city doing sightseeing, so there was no time for me to get any byes.
Saturday I started at 9 am into this 1500 player tournament. Rounds were 50 minutes but since someone always played slow af so there was always a waiting time of 30 minutes between each two rounds. -_-
To make it short: I played five rounds and then I dropped out and spent the rest of that day with my family.
Good news first: I was able to win the first game in all of these five rounds. Bad news: I lost game 2 & 3 in three of these rounds, ending up 2-3.
I lost against Humans, Eldrazi Tron and Hogaak, won against Hogaak and Sultai Snow.
Against Humans I flooded game 2, game 3 I had Path and Snap in hand and was tapped out after a few turns. Opponent of course took Path with Freebooter and played Meddling on Snap both during his following turn. I drew Spell Pierce, he added Mantis Rider to the board...
Against Eldrazi Tron I lost game 2 to a Chalice on 1 with 2x Path and 2x Opt in hand, and game 3 against TKS into Smasher into 2nd Smasher I think.
Against Hogaak I had no answer to his T2 Hogaak in game 2. Game 3 Ashiok kept him at bay for a while. I played Lavinia so he couldn't cast Hogaak, but because of that I had use my Deflecting Palms on his Vengevine. Eventually I died to continuous attacks from his small creatures.
I felt that my draws were pretty unlucky but nevertheless the deck didn't seem strong enough to compete with the current Tier 1 decks.
Sorry if the following part is a bit off topic, but back home I watched Hammer Time and spend 13 Tix to take a break from Delver.
I really enjoyed destroying several opponents by hitting them for 22 on T2 or T3 After 10 matches (6-4) however I think that this deck is not competitive enough. I added better lands but this deck really needs Leyline of Sanctity against hand disruption.
Anyway, I'll try my Jeskai Tempo list again with Spell Quellers (which I had always shunned so far) but this time I was really close at selling my whole collection.
And you were gonna sell your collection? So quite magic too??
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
sorry your results were bad. The mulligan rule I think really benifits those decks more than ours. Our hands are more versatile and forgiving with the draw.
Hammertime looks like a new bogles style deck. have the same weakness. Still I like the deck and plan to build it as i already have most of the extra cards.
But lately I am also very annoyed by the power creep which is getting worse and worse with every set. I understand that Hasbro wants to sell new cards, but this is getting ridiculous pretty soon.
Anyway, I haven't sold anything yet. Yesterday in fact I bought a playset of Spell Quellers and amended my deck online. I played with 3x Geist, 3x Queller, 1x Gideon of the Trials, 1x Teferi, Time Raveler and 1x Steel of the Godhead and it was wonderful when my Hardened Scales opponent scooped Game 2 the moment I was casting Godhead targeting Geist.
I'm glad you got to make a vacation out of it and spend time with the family. I too have a growing family and it is really tough to make time for magic. However, it is important to me to make time for magic so I have something to relax and do for fun (and golf). It's crazy that you won a bunch of game 1's and not 2 and 3. We typically do the opposite :). Bad luck and variance stinks sometimes. The reason you prefer online is likely because the sample size is so much larger so the bad variance doesn't seem as bad as when you start a tournament and get unlucky in two of the first three matches. If you had average or good variance you would be 5-0. People often wonder how the best players always do so well, but with 2 or 3 byes they can go 3-2 on day one and end 6-2. If they go 5-3 on day two they finish with a great 11-5 record, but really just had a slightly above average 8-5 record.
Playing in a live tournament can be tough, but I think it is the single most fun way to play the game.
Here are my thoughts on the jeskai deck right now and in general. It's a little long so I put it under a drop box spoiler.
I think you made the correct choice in going more control. I think right now you really have to go a little towards the extremes to complete. You have to be more aggro or more control. Midrange is dominated by Jund and to a lesser extent mardu right now We can do midrange with teferi and narset, but jund just does midrange better. In addition, UW control and the new Bant soulherder deck do control/card advantage a little better than we can. So this leads to the question of why play jeskai? Sometimes the answer to this questions is that jeskai is not as well positioned at this point in time. During those periods I tweak my deck as best as I can and play it because it gives me personally the best chance to win due to experience. Other players may chose to change decks during those times.
So let's get back to the question at hand- why play jeskai in general? The real reason to play jeskai and, more specifically, delver is to steal games, have good matchups against the extreme decks, and have access to burn spells that other decks don't have. Basically we have the best access to counter magic and burn. We can flip the script better than another other deck in modern. That way we can play the foil to combo and control matchups or anything on the extremes. We get most of our easiest wins against very linear strategies. In addition we can win games out of nowhere from 9-12 life with burn spells.
The cards in our list that are really strong at this moment, in my opinion, are Remand, Force of Negation, and Path to Exile, and Spell Queller. Now we just have to build a deck that works well with those cards and plays a predicable game plan. I prefer the more aggressive approach with burn to take advantage of remand and FON and to mitigate the downside of path. However, to support this you do have to have some late game card advantage in the form of snapcaster, reveler, and a planweswalker or two to complete with jund and other midrange decks (this can also be done via sideboard).
I think in more fringe decks it is super important to remember the plan of the deck. Because there aren't articles and vidoes that dig into the deck, the sideboard plans, etc, it's often much harder, and more rewarding, to pick the correct cards for the gameplan. This is also a huge benefit to playing a more fringe deck. People just are not prepared to play against a deck with remand, FON, and burn spells.
In the end jeskai can be a tough deck to play sometimes. It doesn't necessarily mulligan very well so it took a hit with the new mulligan rule. Also, it can draw the wrong half of the deck and/or flood sometimes. These weaknesses can cause the deck to feel underpowered when things are not going well. The strengths of the deck are that it is the most malleable or flexible deck in all of modern so it can be whatever you need it to be in a specific game. It can also steal games with burn. Also, it inhabits a place in the modern meta game that is often hard to play against for a lot of players. Really Death shadow is the only other deck that is truly an aggro-control style deck in modern. I think as we get more acquainted with Force of Negation the deck will get better and better.
I think you need a little more disruption and less combo pieces. I am not really well antiquated with the deck so I am not exactly sure how it plays , but I feel like it would play more smoothly with 4 copies of opt and/or sleight of hand and less copies of liquid metal coating, alter of the brood, and maybe one less logic knot. Without opt you don't have a lot of food for Logic Knot and FON. I would probably just play three copies of alter and coating and two copies of logic knot and add 4 copies of Opt.
Also I am interested to see how the creature removal works out. I love the idea of going pure combo and having counter magic and sweepers. I just want to make sure that it works out not having path to exile. Let us know how it goes and how some games play out and we can continue to tinker!
He wrote up a nice Jeskai Tempo Primer.
Check it out if you have the time. It's a deck with 24 lands but it tries to win the same way like we all do.
Thanks for sharing! I love these articles. I really like seeing different versions of this deck. I watched him stream with the list and it looked really solid. I agree with you that spell queller was really strong in his games when I watched. I may have to squeeze one or two back into the list. I wish I could play more copies of little teferi, but I can only fit one in my list. His list is way more towards the midrange/control end of the spectrum so he can play a lot more 3 drops. I think playing jeskai tempo/midrange is probably a great choice right now. I know steel of the godhead is not his style of card, but I think a copy in the sideboard would be awesome in a list running spell queller.
Godhead on geist is so so good I dont know why its not played more often. Its good with queller and with geist. It used to be my favorite thing to do and now with force of negation steel of the godhead can be used as toss fodder.
Let me know if you play anymore games with the geist + godhead combo id love to hear how youre doing.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
I have build my deck with some different now.
4x delver
4x snappy
2x vendilion click
3x restoration angel.
Buy but mayby put in a another threat. And what are more good with rest angel?
I feel that if steel of the god head is gonna be played it would be a good idea to run peek too so you can check the coast is clear. I know ive brought this up before but ive used peek to turn up the aggression.
I remember one game I was fighting over a teferi vs UW control
I had 6 mana up and they played little teferi with 3 mana left.
I snapped into peek to see if i could drop a queller safely or if i should go in with a logic knot to make sure teferi didnt come back. The peek revealed a dovins veto a supreme verdict and the rest were lands. I dropped a queller and turned up the aggro seeing as that they didnt have much else. Had they had a path to exile I would have logic knotted teferi to make sure it was gone for good.
Thats one example of how peek really gave me alot to work with.
@mrwickard
I have been thinking lately to run two wall of omens in the side. I know that card is great with resto angel. I dont run resto but i have been pondering lately that more self replacing spells would be good in the side like wall of omens, shadow of doubt, spreading seas, etc etc
I think these spells are tons of value
Another spell thats good with angel is blade splicer. Ive seen that before.
On amother note have any of you tried thalia heretic cathar in the side?
I want to try 2 in the side vs tron, and 3 color decks alongside the shadow of doubts i have. I feel she may be worth it. Her stats are pretty dam good.
Ill post my new sideboard later to get some opinions as wel as some new prospects ive been looking at.
EDIT: kitchen finks is also very good with resto angel. That new 2 drop shapeshifter that gives your creatures hexproof would be good perhaps even deputy of detention would be good too. If you play wall of omens or that shapeshifter you also may want to consider an ojutai’s command as bringing back a wall of omens from the grave and picking another mode is excellent value.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
My Decklist is here
1x Vendilion Clique
2x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Spell Queller
4x Snapcaster mage
Instant
4x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Lightning helix
2x Electrolyze
2x Spell snare
2x logic knot
4x Cryptic Command
2x Peek
2x Serum Visions
Lands
3x celestial colonnade
4x flooded strand
3x scalding tarn
1x arid mesa
2x hallowed fountain
2x steam vents
1x sacred foundry
1x sulfur falls
1x glacial fortress
1x spirebluff canal
3x island
1x island
1x mountain
Sideboard
2x ceremonious rejection
1x abrade
1x surgical extraction
1x engineered explosives
2x thundermaw hellkite
1x force of negation
1x spell pierce
2x shadow of doubt
1x timely reinforcements
1x echoing truth
I moved down in abrade as siding in two felt like it messed my plan up since it usually goes in for aether vial decks. Its starting to seem like blowing up the vial isnt all that critical in many games. I moved to two thundermaw hellkites. The rise in jund and Etron has called for highly aggressive game enders in the case of etron and aggressive late game plays in the case of jund and hellkite has done both for me. Vs etron however that match up is so dam hard to win that It feels useless to even try.
Shadow of doubt is ok. Only ok. Reason being I side it in vs 3 color decks which usually have IoK and thoughtseize. This takes the surprise factor away and leaves me with a 2 mana draw a card instant. My thought's behind the card was a self replacing card vs jund and BGx decks with hand disruption. I think a good way to win vs those decks is play alot of value cards that replace themselves. Which leads me want to try out wall of omens in that spot.
Force of negation has been OK for me. Many times i just want everything in my hand and unless its to close out a game I probably wont pitch anything to it. I think its best used in the last game determining turns such as to stop a wrath or PW and swing for lethal the following turn. Other then that its been an okay card. Its good vs other control decks but dovin's veto makes me very hesitant to use this cards effect.
Ive been wanting to switch timely for a steel of the godhead. But timely is so good vs burn and dredge that i hesitate, thats not to say that steel of the godhead isnt good in those match ups but timely has been a staple in my SB since i built the deck and id miss it too much.
Another card thats pretty good is echoing truth. I ran it mainboard for sometime in place of 1 cryptic but recently have switched back to cryptic for no particular reason. I may go back though because having it mainboard has been useful.
This leads me to this next point. Spell snare. I feel its just too reliant on the early game to be good. The whole deck i love but spell snare is such a feel bad card to draw in the late game. I have been thinking of changing it for a combination of lightning helix, mana leak, logic knot, wall of omens, search for azcanta, echiong truth.. But I would like to keep the spell i replace it with at one mana as it will maintain my curve exactly where the decks built to be at.
what other one mana spells can i do? I have been thinking another serum visions + lightning helix or 2 x mana leak, or serum visions + echoing truth, or serum visions + logic knot, or serum visions + forked bolt, or 2x forked bolt. What do you guys think should I replace the spell snares with? Should I stick to one mana spells or does bumping those up to 2 mana not hurt me as much as i think it does..?
EDIT: also guys check out this list i found that went 4-1 its pretty cool
https://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/deck/241073/show/
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
I think I have finalised my deck list for the time being:
2x Arid Mesa
3x Celestial Colonnade
1x Eiganjo Castle
2x Fiery Islet
4x Flooded Strand
1x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
1x Mountain
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Steam Vents
1x Sunbaked Canyon
2x Abrade
3x Electrolyze
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Path to Exile
4x Remand
Creature (14)
4x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Lightning Angel
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Vendilion Clique
Planeswalker (2)
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Enchantment (1)
1x Steel of the Godhead
2x Damping Sphere
3x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Chandra, Awakened Inferno
1x Lyra Dawnbringer
2x Rest in Peace
2x Dovin's Veto
1x Surgical Extraction
2x Settle the Wreckage
1x Wear
ccc1522- That sideboard looks awesome. I can't really add much to it.
Gofytomcat- This looks like a solid Gofytomcat deck. You know I am a huge Lightning Angel fan so I am a sucker for her. With that said, Mantis Rider is likely just a better card right now. I know it dies to bolt, but landing a turn earlier makes a huge difference.
A card I was wondering about lately is Abrade in the main deck. It has been somewhat underwhelming for me. It can be really great or just a bad draw. I am thinking about replacing it. What do you all think?