MTG Salvation

Imo disallow is better than ionize as it can cut off mana, stop O-stone, stop planewalker abilities, azcanta act, etc etc

I think its a best 3 mana counter thus far.

I mean thats not impossible now with wizards retort, gobi electro mancer, ionize, etc 2 mana counterspells are deff a thing now especially once you reach 5 mana with tefferi

Can somebody tell me a strategy to beat Mardu Pyromancer as Jeskai Control? I'm assuming the better Jeskai players know how to make this matchup close to 50/50.

In my testing, the discard paves way for Blood Moon and the presence of Blood Moon in the 60 makes fetching for Jeskai awkward. The discard also often gives the Young Peezy some time to develop some buddies. Jeskai has no clock outside of a land per turn, then Secure the Wastes/SCM/Secure and burn.

How do you approach the matchup?

You need to fight over flashed back Faithless, kill the Pyro (or better yet, Snare it) and have an answer to 1/1 tokens. Its not a hopeless match up by any means, if you can keep them off the value cards, UWR does have the better card quality I feel.

A clock is not that important in this match up, UWR has the inevitability I feel.

I found that one resolved Bedlam Reveler swings the game back and they can do that easily by doing Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize in the late game. I have been playing it right now and with 1 card in hand for Mardu Pyromancer, I went for Cryptic Command, modes Countering Bedlam Reveler and bouncing Snapcaster Mage. The card...that had been drawn 2 turns ago...was Fatal Push. I knew the safer play, but I went for it. Ended up losing that one badly after Inquisition of Kozilek and Blood Moon were drawn by my opponent.

I personally feel that Mardu has the inevitability. I could definitely be wrong. I've played around 40 preboard games and only 4 sideboarded games (I know, I know...).

Not sure but it seemed in my more recent games that they had cut back on Reveler, I still think that preventing them from getting wide is the more critical thing as a single reveler can just eat a path.

It's not so much the Bedlam Reveler itself that is the threat. It is the 3 cards, which could range from barely anything to a Lingering Souls, a Faithless Looting, and a discard spell (which is a gassy Reveler draw). But, I'll try to test more and see what I find.

I would disagree with countering the faithless lootings, flashbacked or otherwise.
You want to hold up interaction for spells that matter, since the discard will keep you light on counters.
You need to protect your sources of card advantage at all costs, because otherwise, as you mentioned, a resolved reveler becomes very hard to beat.

Eh Maybe if its Hollow One Deck but if they don't have that then nope.

Id say Mardu reveler is a decent matchup if you have a way to deal with lingering souls and are able to not get punked by blood moon. Reveler is busted but they often have to faithless looting a bunch first which is card disadvantage; our CA is better. I wouldn't counter faithless looting most of the time. Peezy should instantly die on resolution (I keep all my burn in and cut 2 paths) and lightnong helix makes incidental damage by 1/1s irrelevant. They draw a lot of cards but the quality is much lower than ours.

In other news, with the printing of Mission Briefing, how many snapcasters do we really want to play?

Quote from Bearscape »

In other news, with the printing of Mission Briefing, how many snapcasters do we really want to play?

the 4 is still a given imo. testing 1 or 2 briefings seems worthwhile though. UU is really prohibitive for us. i mean you'd need quad blue for logic knot.

Yes i mean mission briefing on top of 4 snaps, so snap 5-8 essentially. Build dependent but with a lot jeskai curve I wouldnt mind 2 mission briefing next to 4 snaps.

In low burn miracle lists, mission briefing also has ups over snap as you get to dig for terminus

Mission Briefing looks sweet, in my Miracles list it will replace Telling Time immidiately and another copy might even take the slot of Snapcaster #3 to take me to 2 snap 2 Mission Briefing.

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/is-u-w-based-control-the-best-deck-in-modern/

Not sure if you folks saw this, but I quite like the list.

looks like a fairly straightforward combining of the two decks. the power level is off the charts, with the notable main deck exclusion being electrolyze.

its greedy, but im willing to try it out.

the sideboard configuration is interesting though, and oddly appealing. less emphasis on counter magic and overloading on permanent based disruption. guess they cant natures claim everything.

I'm still a bit skeptical about these UW lists splashing R (althought this list gets more out of it with 7 burn spells), I think the strain on the manabase is not to be underestimated. 1UUU on turn 4 becomes shaky with 19 blue sources and I'm always a huge fan of Gideon of the Trials, which is also rough with 16 white sources. You are also guaranteed to take much more damage off your lands than UW does. Playing such a high curve, stumbling on mana for even a turn gets punished hard.

The argument for splashing for more spot removal is sound though, bolt is sill the best spell in modern. I'd personally max out on lightning helix before adding the first bolt since burning people out isn't ever really the game's gameplan. Looking at the future with Assassin's Trophy, I;d also try to fit in one or two snares and another basic Island.

The greed in the mana base is next level, its way too much for me to handle personally but the list still looks pretty awesome. :]

Regarding Jeskai Miracles; I came up with a nearly identical list (3/3 Bolt/Helix, 2 Fields) a couple of weeks ago in a middle-of-the-night "aha!" moment. On paper, the deck looks nearly perfect. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm shifted to confusion, then frustration.

Simply put, the mana is terrible.

The standard 25-land, 2 FoR Jeskai manabase is generally considered shaky as-is; factor in that you are replacing Serum Visions with Opt, and the mana falls apart noticeably in my testing. Serum Visions is MUCH better than Opt at digging for lands.

I play a lot of GBx, and I'm currently on a 25-land Jund build. Playing a 25-land deck without cantrips highlights how vulnerable you are to variance with regards to flood/screw. Jund can kind of get away with it because it can operate on 3 lands reasonably well until it eventually hits #4. Control decks can't do this, especially when your 3-colour deck plays 2 colourless lands and needs R, U, RW, UU, UUU in the first 4 land drops.

TL;DR: Jeskai Miracles mana is terrible because the colour requirements + playing Opt over Visions.

Addendum: Helix is much better than Bolt in this type of list; recouping life helps to mitigate the cost of adding a 3rd colour, and you have Terminus to catch you up on tempo compared to Bolt. Another big point is that T1 red mana is tough in this deck. As someone also mentioned above, your plan isn't winning with burn when you play 5 walkers + 2 SfA.

P.P.S. One tenable solution is to cut Fields altogether for actual coloured mana sources, but that sucks for obvious reasons. Another is to sacrifice Terminus equity by playing Serum Visions over Opt. *shrugs shoulders*

While its only personal experience, I've been playing jeskai blood moon with only 22 lands. Still playing cryptic command. The mana has honestly been fine. Once in a while it will get awkward, but not any more than any other three color deck I've played.

With all due respect, you are a madman