This is a control deck. The primary win-con is Nahiri/Emrakul. The secondary win-con is flying creatures. It main-decks powerful hate-cards. It has decent draw. It has a tutorable toolbox of answers. The curve tops out at 4 cmc, which means you can run fewer lands than in most other control decks and it infrequently has mana problems of any sort.
I have shared it in other threads but it is significantly different from R/W Lockdown and Boros aggro. It has been tested a bit and so far it has been solid, with no obviously back-breaking weaknesses.
First I'd like to discuss the card draw. White has typically had only a few very targeted draw cards. (e.g. Land Tax) Red draws pretty well, but usually by cycling. I stumbled across the Thraben Inspector as a possible solution recently. My own first impression of the card was to dismiss it as fodder, but this was based on an incomplete evaluation of the "Clue" mechanic. While the clue token seems fragile, it would be a net card disadvantage for your opponent to target it for removal. It is unlikely that you will fail to draw that card. Then during play-testing I discovered that the Thraben Inspector is also an unusually good top-deck for a 1 cmc creature. It becomes "3 mana - draw a card and add a blocker". If that were a blue card I wouldn't need to explain the applications, but instead it's a white card that can come down on T1 and be a threat afterward.
Add Wall of Omens for a similar effect, and Heliod's Pilgrim which does better than draw - it tutors. Nahiri cycles and Ranger of Eos tutors 2 cards at once! All of a sudden you've got card advantage.
Next the removal. 7 Red staples, 2 tutorable white "removal" auras, two PtE, 1 Grim Lavamancer and 3 Nahiri. Add them up and you've got as many as 15 removal spells in your mainboard, with lifegain and sturdy blockers in front of you.
Hate cards include 3 Blood Moons, 3 Spellskites, and 3 Aven Mindcensors. They punish the usual things, and 6 of the 9 cards are also core pieces of your backup plan.
Gryff's Boon is tutorable, repeatable flight. It's a white Rancor, except it's a lot harder to remove from play. Slayers' Stronghold in conjunction with Gryff's Boon and a Spellskite = a difficult threat for your opponent.
But of course the main line of play is to throw out blocking creatures that draw even more blocking creatures and let them sit in front of Nahiri while she ticks up to her ultimate.
Why would you play this when you could just play Jeskai? I like it better personally. It has different weaknesses (and strengths). I like that most of the obvious sideboard cards are already incorporated into your gameplan, which allows more space in your 15 to target the weakest matchups.
Updated to include one additional angle I had missed (1x Ranger of Eos) and to make the PtEs official. I figured it would be better than attempting to justify any other card.
In case you're not sure about all this - I assure you that this is a very solid build. There's a ton of minor efficiencies that aren't obvious until you've seen it in action a few times. Your creature count plays bigger than it looks. Your removal also shows up in your hand more often than you expect it to.
Matchups are proceeding. First is Jund Mid-range. I did quite a few test matchups against Jund while I was building this deck.
Jund has answers for blood moon but they have a pretty greedy mana-base and there have been times when they kept a hand with no fetches and then a third-turn Blood Moon would completely shut them down. They need both black and green to turn on their removal, and there's been a fair number of matches in which one color or the other gets shut off. Liliana requires 2 swamps, so Blood Moon is usually at least a good bet to delay her arrival. Spellskite can shut off their lightning bolts and Aven Mindcensor occasionally bricks their fetch-land activations.
The Jund discard spells are not particularly strong plays here. Blockdown has no combo card dependencies for thoughtseize to target and there's always another draw effect on the way, so the net effect is card advantage for the Blockdown player.
Dark Confidant can't stay on the board, leaving Jund leaning heavily on their creatures to carry them. Tarmagoyf and Scooze get stronger as the game progresses and Jund players will want to push toward a longer game. Jund will want to force Blockdown into situations where they need either a PtE or a Chained to the Rocks in order to eliminate threats. The Blockdown player can take advantage of multiples of Nahiri if he hopes to counter this.
These matches sometimes alternate between each side taking turns as the beatdown. Blockdown more frequently takes that role in the early game and it's not uncommon for the Jund player to have taken 5-10 points of damage before stabilizing. Jund does best when they run card advantage creatures like Huntmaster of the Fells.
From the Blockdown perspective it feels like an even or slightly advantageous match-up for the Blockdown side. Nahiri is the main reason for this, as the Jund player will be under pressure to push through enough damage to eliminate her. Jund sometimes continues to deteriorate health-wise compared to the Blockdown player, and can't always present a quick answer to the latest in the never-ending stream of small fliers.
Comparing present versions of Jund to Boros Blockdown, Blockdown has had more wins than losses. I estimate about 60-70% favorability for Blockdown, but that percentage comes to you with an asterisk. Jund decks are not at all optimised to deal with Blockdown. Jund players should be expected to tweak their builds to have a better game against Blockdown if Blockdown ever managed to achieve any sort of tier status. In light of those presumed alterations, I believe this match-up is likely to be more or less even. Jund players could easily push it into being favorable if they wished, but pressure from the rest of the format should limit the extent of their optimization.
I have shared it in other threads but it is significantly different from R/W Lockdown and Boros aggro. It has been tested a bit and so far it has been solid, with no obviously back-breaking weaknesses.
2x Heliod's Pilgrim
4x Thraben Inspector
3x Aven Mindcensor
4x Wall of Omens
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Spellskite
1x Ranger of Eos
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Blood Moon
1x Gelid Shackles
1x Chained to the Rocks
1x Gryff's Boon
Instants (9)
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Lightning Helix
2x Path to Exile
3x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Lands (23)
4x Arid Mesa
2x Ghost Quarter
3x Slayers' Stronghold
1x Sacred Foundry
6x Snow-Covered Mountain
7x Snow-Covered Plains
First I'd like to discuss the card draw. White has typically had only a few very targeted draw cards. (e.g. Land Tax) Red draws pretty well, but usually by cycling. I stumbled across the Thraben Inspector as a possible solution recently. My own first impression of the card was to dismiss it as fodder, but this was based on an incomplete evaluation of the "Clue" mechanic. While the clue token seems fragile, it would be a net card disadvantage for your opponent to target it for removal. It is unlikely that you will fail to draw that card. Then during play-testing I discovered that the Thraben Inspector is also an unusually good top-deck for a 1 cmc creature. It becomes "3 mana - draw a card and add a blocker". If that were a blue card I wouldn't need to explain the applications, but instead it's a white card that can come down on T1 and be a threat afterward.
Add Wall of Omens for a similar effect, and Heliod's Pilgrim which does better than draw - it tutors. Nahiri cycles and Ranger of Eos tutors 2 cards at once! All of a sudden you've got card advantage.
Next the removal. 7 Red staples, 2 tutorable white "removal" auras, two PtE, 1 Grim Lavamancer and 3 Nahiri. Add them up and you've got as many as 15 removal spells in your mainboard, with lifegain and sturdy blockers in front of you.
Hate cards include 3 Blood Moons, 3 Spellskites, and 3 Aven Mindcensors. They punish the usual things, and 6 of the 9 cards are also core pieces of your backup plan.
Gryff's Boon is tutorable, repeatable flight. It's a white Rancor, except it's a lot harder to remove from play. Slayers' Stronghold in conjunction with Gryff's Boon and a Spellskite = a difficult threat for your opponent.
But of course the main line of play is to throw out blocking creatures that draw even more blocking creatures and let them sit in front of Nahiri while she ticks up to her ultimate.
Why would you play this when you could just play Jeskai? I like it better personally. It has different weaknesses (and strengths). I like that most of the obvious sideboard cards are already incorporated into your gameplan, which allows more space in your 15 to target the weakest matchups.
In case you're not sure about all this - I assure you that this is a very solid build. There's a ton of minor efficiencies that aren't obvious until you've seen it in action a few times. Your creature count plays bigger than it looks. Your removal also shows up in your hand more often than you expect it to.
Jund has answers for blood moon but they have a pretty greedy mana-base and there have been times when they kept a hand with no fetches and then a third-turn Blood Moon would completely shut them down. They need both black and green to turn on their removal, and there's been a fair number of matches in which one color or the other gets shut off. Liliana requires 2 swamps, so Blood Moon is usually at least a good bet to delay her arrival. Spellskite can shut off their lightning bolts and Aven Mindcensor occasionally bricks their fetch-land activations.
The Jund discard spells are not particularly strong plays here. Blockdown has no combo card dependencies for thoughtseize to target and there's always another draw effect on the way, so the net effect is card advantage for the Blockdown player.
Dark Confidant can't stay on the board, leaving Jund leaning heavily on their creatures to carry them. Tarmagoyf and Scooze get stronger as the game progresses and Jund players will want to push toward a longer game. Jund will want to force Blockdown into situations where they need either a PtE or a Chained to the Rocks in order to eliminate threats. The Blockdown player can take advantage of multiples of Nahiri if he hopes to counter this.
These matches sometimes alternate between each side taking turns as the beatdown. Blockdown more frequently takes that role in the early game and it's not uncommon for the Jund player to have taken 5-10 points of damage before stabilizing. Jund does best when they run card advantage creatures like Huntmaster of the Fells.
From the Blockdown perspective it feels like an even or slightly advantageous match-up for the Blockdown side. Nahiri is the main reason for this, as the Jund player will be under pressure to push through enough damage to eliminate her. Jund sometimes continues to deteriorate health-wise compared to the Blockdown player, and can't always present a quick answer to the latest in the never-ending stream of small fliers.
Comparing present versions of Jund to Boros Blockdown, Blockdown has had more wins than losses. I estimate about 60-70% favorability for Blockdown, but that percentage comes to you with an asterisk. Jund decks are not at all optimised to deal with Blockdown. Jund players should be expected to tweak their builds to have a better game against Blockdown if Blockdown ever managed to achieve any sort of tier status. In light of those presumed alterations, I believe this match-up is likely to be more or less even. Jund players could easily push it into being favorable if they wished, but pressure from the rest of the format should limit the extent of their optimization.