MTG Salvation

Vs traditional tron is also bring in the Pithing Needle and cut a burn spell (probably helix). Tron wins most of their games vs UWx on the back of either Karn or Ugin, and Pithing needle can shut both down. There’s not much else to cut, although if you don’t want to go down further on your burn I’d trim a Logic Knot since they often have a ton of extra mana.

I think that it is almost never right to cut visions when boarding, cut a card that’s actually dead opposed to one that helps you find what you need. Along those lines, Logic Knot and cryptic both lose utility against decks that play Cavern like E tron. I’m also not convinced that it’s worth playing Stony and Needle vs E tron. Shutting down Balista and Endbringer (in the case of Needle) is nice, but in either case they still leave behind a problematically large body. Electrolyze also has no place being left in vs E tron. I’m torn on cutting Snare. On one hand it’s only real target is chalice for 1. On the other stopping a chalice for 1 is how we can survive most games.

As a more general note, I personally dislike Stony Silence in the board right now. The only deck it is truly stellar against is Lantern and that deck isn’t widely played. While good against affinity it doesn’t stop their most problematic card (Champion), and against Tron while it does shut down map and O-Stone, it’s not incredible because it can be removed. Personally I like a mix of Wear//Tear (instant speed and can hit enchantments) and D Sphere (can hit any troublesome permanent) over Stony right now.

Hello guys! I will try Nikolich Draw-Go list tomorrow but I would like to add the 4th Snapcaster, the 4th bolt and if possible a maindeck vendilion clique! What would you take out? I personally do not like the single spell snare, it is too casual in 1 copy only! Concerning the second spot I was thinking about negate and/or do not even adding the 4th bolt cause we already have 3 helixes and 2 electrolyze! What do you also think about the 2 supreme verdict maindeck? Do they worth? Thanks for your opinions!

The Negate and the Snare is probably the right option. Supreme Verdict depends on the meta. Against a field of Humans and Death's Shadow it is quite good.

Quote from rick90 »

Quote from repeatsyx2 »

Hello guys! I will try Nikolich Draw-Go list tomorrow but I would like to add the 4th Snapcaster, the 4th bolt and if possible a maindeck vendilion clique! What would you take out? I personally do not like the single spell snare, it is too casual in 1 copy only! Concerning the second spot I was thinking about negate and/or do not even adding the 4th bolt cause we already have 3 helixes and 2 electrolyze! What do you also think about the 2 supreme verdict maindeck? Do they worth? Thanks for your opinions!

The Negate and the Snare is probably the right option. Supreme Verdict depends on the meta. Against a field of Humans and Death's Shadow it is quite good.

I can base my decision upon the previous two tournament I did in that LGS. I played 3 merfolks, 1 Grixis DS, 1 Humans, 1 GB Rock, 1 Saheeli evolution, 1 RB hollowine, 2 naya blitz, so yes, having supreme verdict can be useful! But since I saw some combos and tron as well I wanted to put a vendilion clique anyway! Maybe cutting a spot removal since this deck is really full of them!

I'd be tempted into Anger of the Gods in your meta. I know Jeskai has gone off Anger recently but with low to the floor aggro all around you it seems like a good card for your meta. I terms of Verdict- you should definitely rub 2 or more copies I would say. Good against all those decks.

So the pro tour results were I think quite favourable for us: big mana got completely stomped, and although jeskai did not get far, it had a good conversion rate. The decks that did go far were either swarm decks or lantern, which we can make quite favourable postboard. The one UR control deck that got far really just got punked out vs mardu tokens but clearly had a good standing vs the field

I only just took out stony silence and izzet staticaster out of my sideboard but I guess they are back in.

It only had a good day 2 rate, its top 8 conversion was terrible, it got stomped out hard...

Top 8 conversion means nothing, it's too small of a sample to be in any way significant

IIRC we had a 73% day 2 conversion rate, which is really impressive

when you consider the fact draft was a part of that day 2 conversion, and the pure Modern records had only 1 UWR (Tempo) in the top like 32?

I disagree sadly..

In fact, I believe it was two UW Control decks (likely on the backs of good JDS/GDS match ups) that represented Uxx Control in the top 16 pure modern records, with 1 Grixis Control (Corey...) and then a few more Grixis down with the UWR Tempo build.

UWR Control didnt do anything.

Which is a shame, because I've found there is nothing I want to play really otherwise, but it is what it is.

Well sorry but you're just wrong in that case, it's always a matter of sample size in a single event so IF you want to assess anything, day 2 conversion is the best to look at. Top 8 conversion is basically noise; Gerry Thompson's mardu list had an awful conversion rate for example. Also important is that our poor matchups had a low showing

Quote from Bearscape »

Well sorry but you're just wrong in that case, it's always a matter of sample size in a single event so IF you want to assess anything, day 2 conversion is the best to look at. Top 8 conversion is basically noise; Gerry Thompson's mardu list had an awful conversion rate for example. Also important is that our poor matchups had a low showing

Well, more than half (63%)of the players made day 2 in this tournament, so making day 2 may not be that impressive. In the end, the top results for Jeskai was not the strongest, with only two 7-3's and three 6-4's, so we're now down from 3rd to 7th place in the MTGOGoldfish meta: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#paper

I don't know how mtggoldfish does their stats if a single tournament influences their standings that much. But regardless that doesn't change that not making top 8 is not in any way a sign that we're doing poorly

Quote from Bearscape »

I don't know how mtggoldfish does their stats if a single tournament influences their standings that much. But regardless that doesn't change that not making top 8 is not in any way a sign that we're doing poorly

Top 8 is one thing, but there's no Jeskai among the top 30 modern decks. It looks like the top jeskai deck was Toru Inoue at 41st and Yuta Takahashi at 60th (both playing 4 geists and 2 Field of Ruins), if the order here is correct:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptrix/21-23-point-decklists-2018-02-03

Quote from Bearscape »

Well sorry but you're just wrong in that case, it's always a matter of sample size in a single event so IF you want to assess anything, day 2 conversion is the best to look at. Top 8 conversion is basically noise; Gerry Thompson's mardu list had an awful conversion rate for example. Also important is that our poor matchups had a low showing

Day 2 conversion rate also includes the draft from day 1. So the statistics from conversion rate don't tell the full picture. Exactly because it is a small sample size you need to take into account all parameters. Thus if a deck has a good day 2 conversion rate but poor top 32 conversion rate, then it didn't do that great (UWR). If a deck had both then it did well (UW). Grixis control also had a good conversion rate in day 2 AND in positive scores. Gerry Thompson had one of the best modern records, so there is also that. There are different parameters and, unfortunately, UWR control didn't do that well. I think if there were more draw-go lists and less Queller/Geist it would have been better.

Actually that's a great point. In a meta looking to deal with Humans, 2/3 bolt fodder is probably not where people wanted to be.

I don't think its really surprising at all. My prediction before the PT was that jeskai would both underperform and be underrepresented, while UW would perform a lot better.
Grixis doing well-ish was a surprise to me, but still.

The fact that jeskai was doing so well leading up to the pro tour is actually a negative. People are prepared for it and it has a target painted on its head.
Everyone going to the pt would build a deck with jeskai in mind.

PT metagames rarely favor control decks because the skill cap is very high, and the average PT player is much better than the average Open player so there’s not as much advantage from playing a Control deck like Jeskai at the PT.

Quote from rick90 »

I think that pro tour metagame is always something on its own! Apart from this, for sure 4 geists are not the way. IMHO geist is not anymore a mainboard card, it is too much match-up dependant, I played the tempo midrange version for months and I felt geist quite clunky sometimes. So that I just moved to the draw-go version with 2 geist in the sideboard because there are some match up where you want him absolutely (Burn and Tron for examples).

P.s. I dont think it is a big deal that Jeskai did not perform well at PT. On the other hand, always better to stay in the shadow rather than becoming public enemy number 1 (humans).

Personally when playing the UWR Tempo lists, I side out 2 Geist versus Burn. I think it's actually really easy to beat Burn with Azcanta Control.

Corey is a really good player playing the deck he's known for.
Its possible he had mostly good matchups. Its also very likely he did well in draft.
Also, big jeskai usually does play ~2 field of ruins. Its harder to make it work in jeskai tempo though. Its a different style of deck.

Running Field of Ruin is not something I am against in a Control List. Take Nikolich's Open winning list for example, with 2x Search for Azcanta and 1x Nahiri, the Harbinger, the 1x Desolate Lighthouse becomes a bit redundant with all that other MD selection. Swapping it for a FoR is easy. Then for a 2nd copy we could go +1 FoR -1 spell or -1 dual land +1 FoR. I think the opportunity cost is low for 2 copies and the potential utility high. There is even an argument that 25 lands is a good place to be in control deck wanting to slam a 6-drop fatcaster on time.

Running MD FoR increases the value of any sideboard land hate you run as well, since it would contribute to a certain 'critical mass' that just 2 or 3 copies of Spreading Seas or Molten Rain (for example) in the SB can't so on it's own. 3 seas and 2 FoR though, and who knows, maybe g2 and g3 against tron goes up 10% points? Maybe it doesn't... but the card is good, so it deserves a test IMO.

Control lists need more outs to Big Mana than Tempo, as well, since you can't just t3 Geist + Burn Face + Pray.

Quote from 0oSunnYo0 »

Running Field of Ruin is not something I am against in a Control List. Take Nikolich's Open winning list for example, with 2x Search for Azcanta and 1x Nahiri, the Harbinger, the 1x Desolate Lighthouse becomes a bit redundant with all that other MD selection. Swapping it for a FoR is easy. Then for a 2nd copy we could go +1 FoR -1 spell or -1 dual land +1 FoR. I think the opportunity cost is low for 2 copies and the potential utility high. There is even an argument that 25 lands is a good place to be in control deck wanting to slam a 6-drop fatcaster on time.

Running MD FoR increases the value of any sideboard land hate you run as well, since it would contribute to a certain 'critical mass' that just 2 or 3 copies of Spreading Seas or Molten Rain (for example) in the SB can't so on it's own. 3 seas and 2 FoR though, and who knows, maybe g2 and g3 against tron goes up 10% points? Maybe it doesn't... but the card is good, so it deserves a test IMO.

Control lists need more outs to Big Mana than Tempo, as well, since you can't just t3 Geist + Burn Face + Pray.

Totally agree. It was also "painful" to watch Nicolich and Jones fighting each other's Azcanta with Cryptics to maybe prevent one or two activations.