I really get all of that. The point you keep missing or seem to be avoiding is that even though we have the best of what's available, that doesn't make this deck the best thing to be playing. Playing creatures or combo is just more efficient right now. That's the summation of what Jim Davis messaged me. Yes, that means sometimes there are just free wins, but for a given metagame, he also reduces his chance of an awful matchup.
And to your final point, I would argue that Valakut and Ad Nauseam are fairly bad matches. Like abysmal.
I simply haven't seen a Jeskai Control list without Nahiri that I like so far. I've tried a lot with Jeskai Flash, mostly around Spell Queller, but I often find myself losing games I wouldvé won with a single Nahiri, and the upsides not outweighing the downsides.
I'll again make clear that I'm very much open to new angles for jeskai control; I'm not gonna sit here pretending that the current Nahiri build is working as intended, official results are just very lacking right now. From what I've seen and brewed myself however, Nahiri is still the most succesful Jeskai build.
I agree as well that Nahiri seems like the best Jeskai build, but I also have felt a bit frustrated with the deck the last couple times I've played it (which has been a while as I've tried diving into Legacy -- a different subject...). Which is a shame, as I really like the Jeskai colors and the general feel of the deck.
On the subject of 'predictability': what I mean isn't so much that the opponent knows the deck as much as feeling like the opponent knows how to play against the deck without fear of being 'blown out'. And when the opponent doesn't really have to play with any reservation and our one-for-one removal plan is a bit lacking at times, it seems like it doesn't bode well for us.
Legacy Miracles is fairly predictable in its game plan, but the threat of a Terminus is always present, so aggressive decks have to decide whether to go 'all in' or hold threats in reserve, which buys Miracles the time it needs to set up a lock. Obviously Modern is different, and Jeskai Harbinger is as well, but Grixis Delver, a UR deck pros have played recently, seems to similarly pose more challenges in how to play against the deck due to pressure from Delver of Secrets and potential 'blowouts' with Snapcaster + Kolaghan's Command interactions. Obviously it doesn't change the opponents' play as dramatically as Miracles, but it might give them a little more pause in being aggressive, committing to the board, etc. So too would a more sweeper-heavy UW or UWB build.
I wonder if Jeskai Harbinger is a little too invested in one-for-one'ing opponents and resolving Ancestral Vision. It's a good plan when our ability to one-for-one is effective, but on the other hand, I feel like it sort of encourages aggressive decks to play to the board and attack, because we either have spot removal or we don't, so why not just make us have it? Whereas if we relied more on card advantage that plays to the board -- sweepers (or Electrolyze if it was well-positioned) instead of Ancestral Vision, for example -- perhaps we might be able to make the aggressive decks slow down a bit for fear of losing their entire board. I wonder if it makes sense to cut AV and up the land count and add a Verdict or two into the main board, and gain our card advantage that way. (Might also make sense if Fatal Push encourages larger, non-Boltable creatures to be played, though I sort of doubt it will have that much of an effect.) Perhaps 'heretical', but we could possibly even shave a Nahiri to keep the curve low? If we have more sweepers, our Bolts and Helixes could also be pointed more freely at our opponents, which would make us less reliant on Nahiri as an almost singular win condition.
I'm confident enough against BGx without AV due to Cryptic. I was comfortable before AV's unban, and I'm comfortable now. Grixis Control has always been a tougher matchup but I find that an unchecked Nahiri will steal G1, leaving G2 (and G3) as sideboard games.
I'm on board with dropping AV for extra 'do-something' cards and a second Ghost Quarter. I like 2 Ghost Quarters because they do a lot of work against Tron in G1.
In general, modern control is just not that great considering the aggro decks are so hyper efficient and there are so many archetypes hitting the format from completely different angles. Diversity is great, but it makes playing control much more difficult. Like for the counter suite, how would you want to make it better? There are no better counterspells than the ones we play, and in general counterspells aren't even as good as you often have to trade down in mana. The same goes for wincons; what wincon would serve better than Nahiri against a diverse field? Kiki is only one turn faster than Nahiri and infinitely more fragile, a mix of other Planeswalkers as was popular before Nahiri's printing is guesswork and often completely dead against combo.
In general I still think Jeskai Nahiri is a very solid deck, with the vast majority of matchups being 50/50 preboard and favourable postboard. However if you look at the format from a pro's perspective, it's much safer and easier to pick something that has a ton of free wins against a predicted field, like tron, infect or dredge. I don't think there is any matchup that is a free win for us, but in exchange there also aren't any matchups for us that are as poor as tron's infect matchup for example, or merfolk's affinity matchup.
Logic Knot is an excellent counter. In Modern it is practically Counterspell. My personal experience has been great with it. However I would never run it in Nahiri build because the possibility of having to discard Emrakul is real (which, incidentally is the reason I dropped Nahiri altogether, as I seemed to simply draw Emrakul too much in my opening Hand or first turns).
Unpredictability doesn't get you very far though. Yes I get spiked by some guy going "end of turn resto, untap, kiki" but then I go "yeah ok you got me" and just not tap out anymore. And if that strategy would start spiking big events, people know about it and will bring in more specific hate cards, and the unprepared meta that a jeskai kiki build thrived in suddenly disappears. Unpredictability works only for a very short while and does not create tier 1 decks; I can pretty safely say I could write down 60 out of 75 cards of any given decklist of one of the tier 1 decks from the top of my head. Nahiri being easy to hate out I also strongly disagree on; yes, people can bring in Pithing Needle or Dreadbore but people already run creature removal to deal with Jeskai Flash; having very few creatures to make their mainboard removal dead is a huge upside of running Nahiri as a wincon in fact. Nahiri's power as a wincon, and why I still think it is the best Modern control wincon, is that she is fast, difficult to beat, multifunctional and effective against a large scala of decks. Although she is clunky against some decks where it becomes difficult to tap out for her, no other wincon we have available has such a wide applicability.
As for pros not picking up Jeskai Nahiri, they also don't pick up any other versions of the deck. The people spiking events with Grixis or alternate Jeskai strategies are rarely pros, but just want to play control and are good at it. This is because if your main incentive of choosing a deck is "I want to win", then choosing control is just not the right option. Even if there is a tier 1 control deck hidden in the modern cardpool, it is just much easier to find a powerful noninteractive deck in modern.
All this being said, I still really want to urge someone here to write a new general Jeskai Control primer; I could give some input but I don't have time to be the main writer. While I am convinced Jeskai Nahiri is the most effective control build right now I definitely want to see new strategies evolved as Nahiri is also clearly flawed. MTGS not having a jeskai control primer right now is a big loss.
A Pure Jeskai Control Primer would be awesome indeed.
My friend was the one who got 3rd. You can blame SCG for those Rewinds that should very obviously be Remand.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out some Magic Gameplay and Commentary videos here, including Modern Grixis, Jeskai, and Esper videos as well as some Standard and Drafts too: My YouTube Channel!
I agree with you, and interestingly enough, your list is almost the same that i've been using for 6 month or so.
The only differences are:
-1 SV -2 Lands +3 AV
and in place of verdicts (that are in side) i run 2 angers
Honestly i've never missed the 4th Nahiri and the 2 CC were always amazing, even in the fast meta that we've just let behind our back.
The only misconception IMO is that Ancestral Vision is critical for a control deck in modern. It gave me enough advantage vs BGX decks and midrange in general that i wouldn't run less than 3, see Grixis Control that packs the full set.
Yeah, I was mostly just brainstorming a bit. Ancestral Vision does seem hard to leave behind, and I suppose that Anger of the Gods does a pretty decent job as a main-deck sweeper (or a 1-1 split between Anger and Verdict, perhaps).
I do like that the Jeskai Harbinger list that took 3rd at the SCG Richmond Classic (link) has two main-deck sweepers, and a third in the side. For a long time I felt a bit of tension between playing multiple sweepers and using sideboard slots for even more when our burn spells double as creature removal, but I think there's some merit to this approach. Two Colonnades seems reasonable, but the mix of 3 Spirebluff Canal with one Glacial Fortress strikes me as a little odd. Two copies of Blessed Alliance in the sideboard is also interesting -- perhaps it makes sense as additional lifegain since a Helix has been cut for a second Anger in the main. I like the main-deck Cryptic as well.
Anyway, nice to see the deck place, even if 'only' at an SCG Classic.
So in my search for new ideas, I delved into the history of Jeskai control decks. Just what they looked like, what the metagame looked like at the top and so forth. It's really amazing to note how similar what we're playing now is to a 3-year old version of the Jeskai control ("flash" variants in particular).
So in my search for new ideas, I delved into the history of Jeskai control decks. Just what they looked like, what the metagame looked like at the top and so forth. It's really amazing to note how similar what we're playing now is to a 3-year old version of the Jeskai control ("flash" variants in particular).
In what way? (Not keen to repeat your research to find out what you're referring to. )
Mostly the same counter magic, burn/removal options and win-cons. There have been some improvements due to new cards and the un-banning of Ancestral Vision. The metagame is aalso a bit different in that the last year has seen more non-interactive decks getting played all around the same events then they would likely see at GPs and PTs.
Theres not really anything (besides nahiri and AV) thats worth doing in jeskai that wasn't worth doing three years ago.
Simply put, two new cards and whatever meta changes have happened are really the only differences in three years.
Many popular decks didn't even exist three years ago, and many that did are radically different in terms of bans/new printings.
Even jund has gotten kolaghan's command, collective brutality, grim flayer, multiple 4-drops, liliana the last hope, among other things, and yet jeskai, which is supposed to be a similar "play the best cards in 3 colors" has gotten almost nothing.
I'm with Leakymana, I feel some sweepers might be useful. One particular 'sweeper' I've been thinking about is Baral's Expertise (BE). I got to this thread by trying to imagine what the best card or cards to cheat in with BE would be. I figured Ancestral Vision or < 5cmc Planeswalkers would be best, and this deck likes to play both - plus I have experience with the deck. I know 5 mana is a lot, but when you are sweeping a board plus resolving a planeswalker that has a high probability of winning the game, it seems good.
I've also been thinking that using PTE as a ramp spell would be pretty good if you happen to find yourself with BE and Nahiri, which makes me want to mess around with Wall of Omens and Resto again as well. I could see the deck taking a few different directions using BE actually, I'm probably going to test a Quicken version, and I will probably even test out a 4 Nahiri, 0 Emrakul version running Titan/s instead to ensure a good follow-up turn after BE (though I suspect Emrakul to still be the best bet).
Anyone else thought about BE? Or have any suggestions for my upcoming testing using it?
To come back to the previous discussion of sweepers; don't people generally run sweepers in stock Nahiri's flex slots anyways? Right now my flex slots are Clique, Anger of the Gods and Engineered Explosives. I'm not a fan of mainboarding more than two sweepers considering them being completely dead in some matchups.
I'm also definitely not a fan of going off AV, I think it is one of our most powerful cards and resolving it generally means a win and there are very few matchups where I don't want them.
Hi guys! I have recently started following the thread! I have always loved to play Jeskai colors and I am curious about the deck!
Just a question: in which match-ups does the Geist of Saint Traft come in from sideboard? thanks!
Basically any matchup where it is crucial to win as fast as possible, or where tapping out for Nahiri might be difficult or dangerous; the combo matchups are why he is generally ran (tron, ad nauseam, valakut decks) but varying between pilots you can also bring him in against other control decks. I personally also like bringing them in against burn and infect. It's not a set in stone rule, but generally against any decks that are poor at blocking Geist, you can consider bringing him in.
To come back to the previous discussion of sweepers; don't people generally run sweepers in stock Nahiri's flex slots anyways? Right now my flex slots are Clique, Anger of the Gods and Engineered Explosives. I'm not a fan of mainboarding more than two sweepers considering them being completely dead in some matchups.
I'm also definitely not a fan of going off AV, I think it is one of our most powerful cards and resolving it generally means a win and there are very few matchups where I don't want them.
Hi guys! I have recently started following the thread! I have always loved to play Jeskai colors and I am curious about the deck!
Just a question: in which match-ups does the Geist of Saint Traft come in from sideboard? thanks!
Basically any matchup where it is crucial to win as fast as possible, or where tapping out for Nahiri might be difficult or dangerous; the combo matchups are why he is generally ran (tron, ad nauseam, valakut decks) but varying between pilots you can also bring him in against other control decks. I personally also like bringing them in against burn and infect. It's not a set in stone rule, but generally against any decks that are poor at blocking Geist, you can consider bringing him in.
Where do you want Ancestral Visions and where don't you?
Also on the matter of tron, in siding into Geist, are you trying to be the beatdown every post-board game?
Against hyperaggressive decks like infect, burn and zooicide, I shave one copy as drawing multiples can be dangerous. I take all AVs out against tron, as card advantage doesn't mean much there. Against dredge I am still not sure as card advantage is not really a factor in that matchup, but seeing more individual cards is.
As for geist in the tron MU, yes, I always go for beatdown postboard, you have to as they will always win the long game
Where do you want Ancestral Visions and where don't you?
Also on the matter of tron, in siding into Geist, are you trying to be the beatdown every post-board game?
I would argue that Ancestral Vision shines against aggro decks. You spend so much of the early turns either looking or hoping for specific cards, or they exhaust your resources quickly and leave you looking or hoping for more cards in general so I tend to leave these in. However, they can become dead draws. For instance, you might keep a nice 6- or 7-card hand and end up drawing an Ancestral Vision on turn 3. That could essentially be a dead card when you really need anything else there (possibly even land).
As for Tron, you are the beat down. They have inevitability on their side. You will never out-value or outlast them. If the board is clear on turn 2 and I have a Snapcaster Mage in your hand, I will automatically play it during their end step for zero extra value. It's that kind of party. The best blue-based decks against Tron tend to be Delver and Merfolk decks that have a tempo-control plan so, the way I see it, our best plan is to imitate them as best we can. Geist of Saint Traft does a lot of work if you can get it down on turn 3 and untap with it. At one point, I had three of them in my sideboard for Tron, but Crumble to Dust -> Snapcaster Mage -> Crumble to Dust is also a pretty sweet plan. In either case, you still have to kill them as quickly as possible because Tron still has threats capable of doing serious damage to you without needing crazy amounts of mana, such as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Wurmcoil Engine, World Breaker and possibly other stuff depending on which variant you're facing. It just becomes more manageable.
After reading through all the problems this deck has on pages 79 and 80 on this thread, I now understand why Sun and Moon became a deck and this one disappeared. Sad really, Jeskai colors are so fun.
Would something like counterspell or force of will even help if they were modern legal? I'm inclined to say they wouldn't even help blue decks like this out much.
Edit: I guess my point is, people seem to blame blue being bad on the quality of the counter spells, but I don't think that bad counterspells are the culprit of blues poor results.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
And to your final point, I would argue that Valakut and Ad Nauseam are fairly bad matches. Like abysmal.
I'll again make clear that I'm very much open to new angles for jeskai control; I'm not gonna sit here pretending that the current Nahiri build is working as intended, official results are just very lacking right now. From what I've seen and brewed myself however, Nahiri is still the most succesful Jeskai build.
On the subject of 'predictability': what I mean isn't so much that the opponent knows the deck as much as feeling like the opponent knows how to play against the deck without fear of being 'blown out'. And when the opponent doesn't really have to play with any reservation and our one-for-one removal plan is a bit lacking at times, it seems like it doesn't bode well for us.
Legacy Miracles is fairly predictable in its game plan, but the threat of a Terminus is always present, so aggressive decks have to decide whether to go 'all in' or hold threats in reserve, which buys Miracles the time it needs to set up a lock. Obviously Modern is different, and Jeskai Harbinger is as well, but Grixis Delver, a UR deck pros have played recently, seems to similarly pose more challenges in how to play against the deck due to pressure from Delver of Secrets and potential 'blowouts' with Snapcaster + Kolaghan's Command interactions. Obviously it doesn't change the opponents' play as dramatically as Miracles, but it might give them a little more pause in being aggressive, committing to the board, etc. So too would a more sweeper-heavy UW or UWB build.
I wonder if Jeskai Harbinger is a little too invested in one-for-one'ing opponents and resolving Ancestral Vision. It's a good plan when our ability to one-for-one is effective, but on the other hand, I feel like it sort of encourages aggressive decks to play to the board and attack, because we either have spot removal or we don't, so why not just make us have it? Whereas if we relied more on card advantage that plays to the board -- sweepers (or Electrolyze if it was well-positioned) instead of Ancestral Vision, for example -- perhaps we might be able to make the aggressive decks slow down a bit for fear of losing their entire board. I wonder if it makes sense to cut AV and up the land count and add a Verdict or two into the main board, and gain our card advantage that way. (Might also make sense if Fatal Push encourages larger, non-Boltable creatures to be played, though I sort of doubt it will have that much of an effect.) Perhaps 'heretical', but we could possibly even shave a Nahiri to keep the curve low? If we have more sweepers, our Bolts and Helixes could also be pointed more freely at our opponents, which would make us less reliant on Nahiri as an almost singular win condition.
Something like this (just as a rough cut):
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Planeswalker (3)
3 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Instant (20)
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
4 Serum Visions
2 Supreme Verdict
Anyway, just musing / theorycrafting. Thoughts appreciated, of course.
I'm on board with dropping AV for extra 'do-something' cards and a second Ghost Quarter. I like 2 Ghost Quarters because they do a lot of work against Tron in G1.
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
A Pure Jeskai Control Primer would be awesome indeed.
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
2 Steam Vents
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
3 Rewind
2 Spell Snare
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Serum Visions
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Dispel
2 Negate
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Supreme Verdict
Thanks.
Yeah, I was mostly just brainstorming a bit. Ancestral Vision does seem hard to leave behind, and I suppose that Anger of the Gods does a pretty decent job as a main-deck sweeper (or a 1-1 split between Anger and Verdict, perhaps).
I do like that the Jeskai Harbinger list that took 3rd at the SCG Richmond Classic (link) has two main-deck sweepers, and a third in the side. For a long time I felt a bit of tension between playing multiple sweepers and using sideboard slots for even more when our burn spells double as creature removal, but I think there's some merit to this approach. Two Colonnades seems reasonable, but the mix of 3 Spirebluff Canal with one Glacial Fortress strikes me as a little odd. Two copies of Blessed Alliance in the sideboard is also interesting -- perhaps it makes sense as additional lifegain since a Helix has been cut for a second Anger in the main. I like the main-deck Cryptic as well.
Anyway, nice to see the deck place, even if 'only' at an SCG Classic.
In what way? (Not keen to repeat your research to find out what you're referring to. )
Simply put, two new cards and whatever meta changes have happened are really the only differences in three years.
Many popular decks didn't even exist three years ago, and many that did are radically different in terms of bans/new printings.
Even jund has gotten kolaghan's command, collective brutality, grim flayer, multiple 4-drops, liliana the last hope, among other things, and yet jeskai, which is supposed to be a similar "play the best cards in 3 colors" has gotten almost nothing.
I've also been thinking that using PTE as a ramp spell would be pretty good if you happen to find yourself with BE and Nahiri, which makes me want to mess around with Wall of Omens and Resto again as well. I could see the deck taking a few different directions using BE actually, I'm probably going to test a Quicken version, and I will probably even test out a 4 Nahiri, 0 Emrakul version running Titan/s instead to ensure a good follow-up turn after BE (though I suspect Emrakul to still be the best bet).
Anyone else thought about BE? Or have any suggestions for my upcoming testing using it?
I'm also definitely not a fan of going off AV, I think it is one of our most powerful cards and resolving it generally means a win and there are very few matchups where I don't want them.
Basically any matchup where it is crucial to win as fast as possible, or where tapping out for Nahiri might be difficult or dangerous; the combo matchups are why he is generally ran (tron, ad nauseam, valakut decks) but varying between pilots you can also bring him in against other control decks. I personally also like bringing them in against burn and infect. It's not a set in stone rule, but generally against any decks that are poor at blocking Geist, you can consider bringing him in.
Where do you want Ancestral Visions and where don't you?
Also on the matter of tron, in siding into Geist, are you trying to be the beatdown every post-board game?
As for geist in the tron MU, yes, I always go for beatdown postboard, you have to as they will always win the long game
I would argue that Ancestral Vision shines against aggro decks. You spend so much of the early turns either looking or hoping for specific cards, or they exhaust your resources quickly and leave you looking or hoping for more cards in general so I tend to leave these in. However, they can become dead draws. For instance, you might keep a nice 6- or 7-card hand and end up drawing an Ancestral Vision on turn 3. That could essentially be a dead card when you really need anything else there (possibly even land).
As for Tron, you are the beat down. They have inevitability on their side. You will never out-value or outlast them. If the board is clear on turn 2 and I have a Snapcaster Mage in your hand, I will automatically play it during their end step for zero extra value. It's that kind of party. The best blue-based decks against Tron tend to be Delver and Merfolk decks that have a tempo-control plan so, the way I see it, our best plan is to imitate them as best we can. Geist of Saint Traft does a lot of work if you can get it down on turn 3 and untap with it. At one point, I had three of them in my sideboard for Tron, but Crumble to Dust -> Snapcaster Mage -> Crumble to Dust is also a pretty sweet plan. In either case, you still have to kill them as quickly as possible because Tron still has threats capable of doing serious damage to you without needing crazy amounts of mana, such as Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Wurmcoil Engine, World Breaker and possibly other stuff depending on which variant you're facing. It just becomes more manageable.
Would something like counterspell or force of will even help if they were modern legal? I'm inclined to say they wouldn't even help blue decks like this out much.
Edit: I guess my point is, people seem to blame blue being bad on the quality of the counter spells, but I don't think that bad counterspells are the culprit of blues poor results.