I think that pilot would generally rely on Nahiri to power out a Kiki-Jiki. Otherwise the mana base for those types of decks is notoriously terrible. The deck seems like it's trying to do too much for my liking but it for 9th place. /shrug
The deck that made 9th place at SCG Charlotte caught my eye, but I've been wondering a bit about the Kiki-Jiki combo. The mana base has only 4 sources that actually tap for R, including a non-searchable one, while it also needs to tap for XUU and 1UUU past turn 2 and 4. Did the pilot only intend to play Kiki-Jiki through Nahiri, the Harbinger, or was his mana base strong enough to play it from his hand?
Yeah, the mana seems very light on red for playing kiki-jiki. He doesn't even play a mountain, but plays 2 plains and 3 island. Just 3 fetchable red shocklands and one sulfur falls. List looks very clunky and mana-hungry with 11 4-5 drops.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
Well, jeskai is better able to switch gears from a deffensive to an offensive game plan when we have our red spells. People are shocking themselves so much in modern that we often don't need that many creature hits and burn spells to face to close the game out.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
It is a valid question to ask why we do what we do. To attack the free and open exchange of ideas by claiming that your judgment is being denigrated harms the dialogue that is essential for people to convey ideas. Since trading ideas is a fundamental human activity, shutting that down dehumanizes people.
I can't answer for anyone else why they play Jeskai and not Esper, UW or Grixis. Here's why I play:
1. I invested in the deck and don't have a ton of money to throw at another deck. Budget is a restraint on me.
2. I enjoy the deck. It's really fun to play with snapcaster mage and Nahiri.
3. It's not a terrible deck. Jeskai Nahiri is one of many serviceable decks in the format, and I believe that skill in playing your deck is more important long-term than hopping to the deck that is, ceteris paribus, the "top deck." Here's an explanation of the philosophy by a better player than me: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/master-modern/
4. Lightning bolt has a track record of excellence and, long term, I expect it to be a good card in modern. I also love control. Therefore, by the time that I have time to play significant modern events, I expect that the deck has a reasonable chance of being serviceable.
Nope, it's still the best. Especially together with snapcaster. "EOT BSB" gives control such a sudden change of momentum and a way to close out the game, UR is still the best control color combination. The only question is whether you'd rather have jeskai or grixis.
I was on Grixis and didn't like how it played. I felt that it was more pure control deck with few threats : we are counter-burn while being draw-go at the same time. Grixis is good for tempo or aggro, but in control, there's Chapin or Burkhart that can pilot it. It's faded away into limbo because of DS. Jeskai has always been and will always be the premier control deck of the format through a long timeframe.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
If answering your question is an "attack," then I'm guilty as charged. You'll note my initial response was for you to do what you do, which is where I'm going to end my participation with you.
I want some specifics from you guys about some matchups : Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Burn and Grixis Death's Shadow. I'm most probably going to a 226 event and I'm going to sleeve up Jeskai control (draw-go spefically). It will be my first major tournament with anything else than Ad Nauseam, so I'd like to hear some of your tips and tricks (sideboarding, things to watch out, etc.). Eldrazi Tron and Grixis Death's Shadow being the most problematic for me.
Ah yes, both of you posted in the same smug condescending tone so I hope you can onderstand my confusion.
Play whatever you want, jeskai4lyfe
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
If answering your question is an "attack," then I'm guilty as charged. You'll note my initial response was for you to do what you do, which is where I'm going to end my participation with you.
I see that you answered my question. Not trying to start anything, just trying to understand why Jeskai is still playable with Push being one of the best removal spells in the format. Looking back through the comments, I asked " Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push." And you responded by saying that "And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question. " Maybe I phrased my question badly, but I never meant that I thought Jeskai was bad. I was trying to see why Jeskai still had advantages in the meta as a control deck that excluded Push, as Push is extremely good right now. Not sure how that's an empty question, and I really don't see how I'm baiting people. Sorry if I offended you, that was not my aim.
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
If answering your question is an "attack," then I'm guilty as charged. You'll note my initial response was for you to do what you do, which is where I'm going to end my participation with you.
I see that you answered my question. Not trying to start anything, just trying to understand why Jeskai is still playable with Push being one of the best removal spells in the format. Looking back through the comments, I asked " Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push." And you responded by saying that "And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question. " Maybe I phrased my question badly, but I never meant that I thought Jeskai was bad. I was trying to see why Jeskai still had advantages in the meta as a control deck that excluded Push, as Push is extremely good right now. Not sure how that's an empty question, and I really don't see how I'm baiting people. Sorry if I offended you, that was not my aim.
I've not been on the deck for TOO long, but I have some observations.
For one, Jeskai gets the white sideboard cards that help save post-board games. I've enjoyed Timely Reinforcements a lot, for example. Yeah, you've got to be careful about their uncracked fetchlands, but when it works, the card is sweet. Obviously Stony Silence and Wear // Tear are great against affinity. We also get RIP and Leyline of Sanctity etc.
The mainboard white cards are great too though. Path knocks out anything you need to without sacrificing mana efficiency. Wrath effects like Verdict and *** really punish go-wide strategies or, if nothing else, kill about anything. Outs to Etched Champion are generally great. Blessed Alliance is a card that seems super promising--I only got my first copy in the mail yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to play with it, but I'm looking forward to having another big creature removal spell for the eldrazi tron matchup. The sequence of bolt their matter reshaper, make them sack their bigger thing seems really fun. Being another hedge against the burn and boggles matchups at the same time is appealing.
We also get burn though. That's sweet for a number of reasons. It lets us close the game more quickly and is less often dead than strictly removal cards like path and push when your opponent isn't interested in mauling you with creatures, like Ad Nauseum. Also burn has more utility against planeswalkers than push.
So being a control deck with access to white and red is sweet for these reasons. Obviously there are problems, but I don't really care since I've decided to outweigh them by eventually becoming an expert pilot of the deck.
Also I play Nahiri, which you can't do outside Jeskai unless you go 4c. I don't know whether she's the real deal or not and might switch to draw-go some day, but I've liked having an answer to enchantments in the mainboard, and a way to close the game super quickly is really handy.
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
If answering your question is an "attack," then I'm guilty as charged. You'll note my initial response was for you to do what you do, which is where I'm going to end my participation with you.
I see that you answered my question. Not trying to start anything, just trying to understand why Jeskai is still playable with Push being one of the best removal spells in the format. Looking back through the comments, I asked " Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push." And you responded by saying that "And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question. " Maybe I phrased my question badly, but I never meant that I thought Jeskai was bad. I was trying to see why Jeskai still had advantages in the meta as a control deck that excluded Push, as Push is extremely good right now. Not sure how that's an empty question, and I really don't see how I'm baiting people. Sorry if I offended you, that was not my aim.
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on why Jeskai draw-go is better than Esper, or vice versa. I keep going back and forth between the two but I know it would be best to settle on one of them and learn it through and through. I am personally leaning towards Jeskai because I like the way it feels and I like being able to shift gears and end a game with burn if necessary. I personally do not see the attraction to Esper Charm. Usually when I draw it, I wish it were anything else. But I do understand the value of Fatal Push and I have felt firsthand the diminished value of Lightning Bolt in the format currently.
Honestly, play what you want to play. That's the best thing to do in Modern. As for which is better, I'd say Esper. If you actually play a lot of games with Esper, you'd be in love with Charm. I'd give Esper a try, but if you like Jeskai more, stick with it.
Disclaimer: I've never played strictly draw go jeskai so I might be totally off base.
I've played nearly every control strategy in modern, esper draw go, esper delve, blue moon, jeskai nahiri, jeskai geist, uw draw go, uw midrange, UW land control. In my opinion if your aim is to play draw go esper is where it's at. It has great instant speed interaction in bolt and charm. I see some people confused about charms effectiveness and I promise it's one of those cards you have to play with to understand how useful it is.
I don't think esper draw go is very good right now. Draw go just isn't an archetype you can play if your goal is competitive success (winning a GP or open or something). That's why I'm on a jeskai geist/queller list. I think that specific strategy is the strongest one control has available to it at the moment. Jeskai excels in comparison to esper because it has a lot of other gimmicks beyond draw go. You can play jeskai midrange, jeskai geist, jeskai nahiri or jeskai draw go. It's a very modular deck with a lot of directions you can move into should the meta require it. There is also a nonzero benefit to your opponents not knowing what version you're on at first.
The discussion around here is getting pretty mixed up with all the variants that are discussed at the same time. Maybe it could be a good idea to make a primer for draw-go, one for 4-off and another one for all other variants (Kiki-Resto, Nahiri, whatever)... I see that the primer is not updated at all and since I've settled on playing the deck a lot until DS gets out of the way, I'm willing to contribute (heck I've made one for Four-Color Control).
The discussion around here is getting pretty mixed up with all the variants that are discussed at the same time. Maybe it could be a good idea to make a primer for draw-go, one for 4-off and another one for all other variants (Kiki-Resto, Nahiri, whatever)... I see that the primer is not updated at all and since I've settled on playing the deck a lot until DS gets out of the way, I'm willing to contribute (heck I've made one for Four-Color Control).
Yes! It would be great to have a thread dedicated to improving/discussing each of the Jeskai variants separately.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Yeah, the mana seems very light on red for playing kiki-jiki. He doesn't even play a mountain, but plays 2 plains and 3 island. Just 3 fetchable red shocklands and one sulfur falls. List looks very clunky and mana-hungry with 11 4-5 drops.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
Umm, how was I condescending? Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
Well, jeskai is better able to switch gears from a deffensive to an offensive game plan when we have our red spells. People are shocking themselves so much in modern that we often don't need that many creature hits and burn spells to face to close the game out.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question.
It is a valid question to ask why we do what we do. To attack the free and open exchange of ideas by claiming that your judgment is being denigrated harms the dialogue that is essential for people to convey ideas. Since trading ideas is a fundamental human activity, shutting that down dehumanizes people.
I can't answer for anyone else why they play Jeskai and not Esper, UW or Grixis. Here's why I play:
1. I invested in the deck and don't have a ton of money to throw at another deck. Budget is a restraint on me.
2. I enjoy the deck. It's really fun to play with snapcaster mage and Nahiri.
3. It's not a terrible deck. Jeskai Nahiri is one of many serviceable decks in the format, and I believe that skill in playing your deck is more important long-term than hopping to the deck that is, ceteris paribus, the "top deck." Here's an explanation of the philosophy by a better player than me:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/master-modern/
4. Lightning bolt has a track record of excellence and, long term, I expect it to be a good card in modern. I also love control. Therefore, by the time that I have time to play significant modern events, I expect that the deck has a reasonable chance of being serviceable.
I was on Grixis and didn't like how it played. I felt that it was more pure control deck with few threats : we are counter-burn while being draw-go at the same time. Grixis is good for tempo or aggro, but in control, there's Chapin or Burkhart that can pilot it. It's faded away into limbo because of DS. Jeskai has always been and will always be the premier control deck of the format through a long timeframe.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
I just wanted to know if building Jeskai was still viable. Not meaning to start a flame war or anything, you were the one who saw my comments as inflammatory and attacked me about them.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
If answering your question is an "attack," then I'm guilty as charged. You'll note my initial response was for you to do what you do, which is where I'm going to end my participation with you.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
I see that you answered my question. Not trying to start anything, just trying to understand why Jeskai is still playable with Push being one of the best removal spells in the format. Looking back through the comments, I asked " Only asking why you guys play Jeskai post-push." And you responded by saying that "And what purpose would you have for doing beyond starting a flame war? You already declared that you don't see a point in playing draw-go Jeskai after the printing of Fatal Push. So just do what you want and quit baiting people because nothing good will come from responding to your seemingly empty question. " Maybe I phrased my question badly, but I never meant that I thought Jeskai was bad. I was trying to see why Jeskai still had advantages in the meta as a control deck that excluded Push, as Push is extremely good right now. Not sure how that's an empty question, and I really don't see how I'm baiting people. Sorry if I offended you, that was not my aim.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
I've not been on the deck for TOO long, but I have some observations.
For one, Jeskai gets the white sideboard cards that help save post-board games. I've enjoyed Timely Reinforcements a lot, for example. Yeah, you've got to be careful about their uncracked fetchlands, but when it works, the card is sweet. Obviously Stony Silence and Wear // Tear are great against affinity. We also get RIP and Leyline of Sanctity etc.
The mainboard white cards are great too though. Path knocks out anything you need to without sacrificing mana efficiency. Wrath effects like Verdict and *** really punish go-wide strategies or, if nothing else, kill about anything. Outs to Etched Champion are generally great. Blessed Alliance is a card that seems super promising--I only got my first copy in the mail yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to play with it, but I'm looking forward to having another big creature removal spell for the eldrazi tron matchup. The sequence of bolt their matter reshaper, make them sack their bigger thing seems really fun. Being another hedge against the burn and boggles matchups at the same time is appealing.
We also get burn though. That's sweet for a number of reasons. It lets us close the game more quickly and is less often dead than strictly removal cards like path and push when your opponent isn't interested in mauling you with creatures, like Ad Nauseum. Also burn has more utility against planeswalkers than push.
So being a control deck with access to white and red is sweet for these reasons. Obviously there are problems, but I don't really care since I've decided to outweigh them by eventually becoming an expert pilot of the deck.
Also I play Nahiri, which you can't do outside Jeskai unless you go 4c. I don't know whether she's the real deal or not and might switch to draw-go some day, but I've liked having an answer to enchantments in the mainboard, and a way to close the game super quickly is really handy.
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on why Jeskai draw-go is better than Esper, or vice versa. I keep going back and forth between the two but I know it would be best to settle on one of them and learn it through and through. I am personally leaning towards Jeskai because I like the way it feels and I like being able to shift gears and end a game with burn if necessary. I personally do not see the attraction to Esper Charm. Usually when I draw it, I wish it were anything else. But I do understand the value of Fatal Push and I have felt firsthand the diminished value of Lightning Bolt in the format currently.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
I've played nearly every control strategy in modern, esper draw go, esper delve, blue moon, jeskai nahiri, jeskai geist, uw draw go, uw midrange, UW land control. In my opinion if your aim is to play draw go esper is where it's at. It has great instant speed interaction in bolt and charm. I see some people confused about charms effectiveness and I promise it's one of those cards you have to play with to understand how useful it is.
I don't think esper draw go is very good right now. Draw go just isn't an archetype you can play if your goal is competitive success (winning a GP or open or something). That's why I'm on a jeskai geist/queller list. I think that specific strategy is the strongest one control has available to it at the moment. Jeskai excels in comparison to esper because it has a lot of other gimmicks beyond draw go. You can play jeskai midrange, jeskai geist, jeskai nahiri or jeskai draw go. It's a very modular deck with a lot of directions you can move into should the meta require it. There is also a nonzero benefit to your opponents not knowing what version you're on at first.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Yes! It would be great to have a thread dedicated to improving/discussing each of the Jeskai variants separately.