Playing Lyra and niv is very greedy. Especially with no cheap cantrips to help smooth your mana. IMO this deck is best as ur dominant with four foundry three retreat four fortress as white sources.
That is also a lot of spot removal to rot in your hand in the mirror.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Regarding Golgari, better answers (depending on the build) would be Tocatli or Remorseful Cleric.
Regarding Niv, he's fine as a win con. He isnt difficult to cast because you arent looking to slam him on turn 6. As with most Control deck wincons, you want counter backup. Also consider you have access to a fair bit of card draw/filtering to make it easier
Regarding Lyra, I dont like her maindeck because she's not what I want to see vs Control
Control at this moment is like trying to play darts but with a blindfold, you are severely handicapped against every deck. There are (once again) no good answers and therefore you need to metagame and pray to whatever it is you believe in that you get decent match ups and draw the right cards. You can not tap out on turn 2 ever since an unanswered History is game. However you need to drop Search for Azcanta because you need the filtering, since you need to draw everything on point to have some sort of chance to win the game. You don't want Lava Coil main deck since it's bad in a lot of matches but you need it against BG. Justice Strike is what we got but it sucks against tokens and Boros Angels. You don't have an catch all answer so you die to sideboard cards like Dawn of Hope and Ajani.. Just max out on cards that are good, probably Teferi, and hope it's enough.
A resolved benalia deals two damage to you if you have deafening clarion.
If you load your deck with spot removal yes you get clobbered in the mirror. But with cantrips filtering and mostly counters and sweepers every match feels fine. I don’t know that you beat burn without a clarion and resolves planeswalkers are pretty rough but I’ve never felt like I lost because I drew the wrong half of my deck. Play more filtering and less spot removal. Stop playing essence scatter. Teferi and dream eater are your catch all’s as is sinister sabotage...
well in the mirror it absolutely *****s on you. I was playing esper and didn't hit any hand disruption or 2 mana counters and got it down turn 2. I was dead as soon as I tapped out first game as I didn't realize it untapped when it flipped. 2nd game went a little longer, but azcanta and azor's in play he had way more card advantage and I just lost the race.
Haven’t tested it but I’d worry about how durdly it is vs fast red decks. You can board it out of course but yeah you’ll be a while flipping it and then might not have enough life to actually win from there
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
You realize that if you exile Expansion / Explosion to it (I know its not optimal) it auto transforms right? Plus you have Teferi which will flip it. In theory, the deck can Banefire someone out on Turn 3 that is not a red deck.
You realize that if you exile Expansion / Explosion to it (I know its not optimal) it auto transforms right? Plus you have Teferi which will flip it. In theory, the deck can Banefire someone out on Turn 3 that is not a red deck.
Not sure what you mean by 'auto transforms'. It takes 5 activations to flip the Gateway. Expansion / Explosion is 1 card with CMC 6. Teferi is 1 card with CMC 5. Can you outline the sequence to Banefire on Turn 3?
I’m finding the arena meta more hostile to this deck lately. The Phoenix deck is tough as we can’t stop them from bringing phoenixes out of the grave so we take six or nine and hope to have a clarion. And then they can still just do it again next turn.
I see more grixis and dimir decks with eldest reborn and vraskas contempt to easily take out teferi and niv. Golgari decks can have the same and carnage tyrant and wild growth walker to boot.
My one consolation is I don’t see how the grixis, dimir, and Phoenix decks ever beat Monored. But yeah there are just a lot more things that are harder to handle than a few weeks ago when it was tokens, angels, burn and golgari value.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Lava coil is bad vs control. Seal away is bad vs control and golgari. Both are weak vs tokens.
You can tune jeskai to beat any one deck The problem is you need to beat everything not just one deck. Playing lava coil over justice strike is cool until tapping on your turn lets them resolve something you could have syncopated. Seal away over lightning strike is fun until it's Vivien Reid landing and doing minus three on your Niv and your other threats are drakes. Etc.
That being said I still take the point. If I think the meta is moving to Phoenix decks and less control and golgari then seal away and lava coil may be more important than lightning strike and justice strike
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
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Lava coil is bad vs control. Seal away is bad vs control and golgari. Both are weak vs tokens.
You can tune jeskai to beat any one deck The problem is you need to beat everything not just one deck. Playing lava coil over justice strike is cool until tapping on your turn lets them resolve something you could have syncopated. Seal away over lightning strike is fun until it's Vivien Reid landing and doing minus three on your Niv and your other threats are drakes. Etc.
That being said I still take the point. If I think the meta is moving to Phoenix decks and less control and golgari then seal away and lava coil may be more important than lightning strike and justice strike
Yeah, no one here is disputing any of that. Also, you're always going to have suboptimal cards in your main deck versus whatever you get paired up against; that's what sideboards are for. The question isn't "how can I beat everything with my starting 60", but rather "what is the configuration that will give me the best chance to win game one against the widest range of decks?"
Right now with Phoenix decks and Adanto Vanguard decks popping up, playing exiling removal is the smart call. No one is claiming that Seal Away is the nuts against Golgari or that Lava Coil dumpsters control, because neither of those statements are accurate and most people in this thread have enough common sense to understand that.
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Post Ravnica Allegiance Type 2 - WUB Control
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
It was more suggested that we can’t lose to these cards because lava coil and seal away exist. Except I don’t play them main because they do not hit enough of the meta. Yes it’s an option but these are not auto included in every list.
How do people feel about star of extinction? I’ve been trying it but so far it’s been a bad cleansing nova every time.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
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I think Star of Extinction is WAY too slow in the current meta. When the meta consisted of different flavors of Golgari Mid-Range, the Star was great since it could totally wipe the field of any value producing permanents.
But, with the rise of Boros Aggro/White Weenie and Izzet Drakes the Star is quite simply too slow. I think that playing Cleansing Nova is strictly better since it hits the field much earlier.
I've been running a 3/2/2 split of Deafening Clarion/Settle the Wreckage/Cleansing Nova currently. I've found that this is a great mix of mass removal effects currently since each respective Wrath hits the board at critical points during the game. Clarion should kill any type of creature based Aggro deck on T3. Wreckage is fantastic against the surge of Drake decks I've been seeing on Arena currently and I actually have a third copy in the Board to combat the Drakes matchup. The incidental ability to handle Carnage Tyrant with the Settle is fantastic and helps shore up the Golgari matchup with its infinite recursion elements. And Cleansing Nova comes on T5 after I've refilled my hand via Chemister's Insight after clearing the Board on T3/T4.
Can I talk about how extremely awesome Shivan Fire is right now? It kills early creatures from White Weenie decks and can be kicked to kill Crackling Drakes in the mid-game. It's also a fine T1 play against Mono-Blue Tempo decks when they cast some stupid T1 evasive creature. I'm really high on the Fire right now and have a 2/2 split of them in my mainboard and Sideboard currently. I've been very pleased with how well the Fire has been performing and I think that it's well positioned in the meta right now.
I really like having 3 copies of the Parun in the main because he is an absolute devastation for Izzet Drake decks. I'm happy to ping their Arclight Phoenixes for free WHILE drawing cards, thank you very much. And if you can stabilize against any type of Weenie deck with the Parun in play you pretty much have complete board control simply by playing our primary strategy of draw-go. The incidental pinging of creatures is extremely relevant in the games that I've played.
Yes, I don't play Expansion // Explosion. And that's because it's far too slow in the current meta, as I'm reading it. Spending 6 mana to kill an X/2 creature and draw 2 cards isn't good enough right now. If the meta shifts back towards Control again, then I'll probably adjust my list to bring them back in.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy has been pretty good in actual gameplay. I can usually kill any creature on the board with his minus ability and his plus ability is obviously good. His emblem, though, is the reason I like him so much. Once that emblem is online, it's almost impossible to lose. Any counter war that you engage in can be potentially lethal for your opponent and makes cards like Revitalize stay effective in the late game.
Anyways, this is the list I've been running on Arena that I've been having good success with. I hope it helps others!
So instead of playing so many wrath’s you could play drakes. They block and kill most of the things you want to settle have excellent synergy with clarion (survive and gain a bunch of life) and give you some additional win conditions that generally two shot someone in the late game.
They are less dead than the wrath’s in the mirror and don’t give your opponent lands to nonbo with syncopate
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
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@BadMcFadden
Great idea! I'll adopt that suggestion immediately. There does come a time where I have too many Wrath effects in hand and they usually get discarded to Chemister's Insight.
Also I dropped azcanta for the same reason you described with expansion - too slow and unnecessary. I'm running anticipates in what id say are those slots to find what I want at instant speed while feeding drakes.
I like your list. It looks really streamlined. What does your sideboard look like? Do you find that you're short on removal effects? While I know you plan on having some Drakes trade in combat to act as removal effects and a win condition I really like having multiple copies of Shivan Fire in the main to keep ahead of White Weenie and Mono-Red.
I’m only doing single queues on arena so no sideboard. This deck is excellent vs burn, golgari and benalia decks. It’s solid in control mirrors but bad vs drakes and blue djinn.
Most of that comes from focusing on clarion instead of seal away or shivan fire. Dive down and four toughness drakes are just brutal vs clarion. But clarion is amazing Vs red and benalia. You pick your battles as you can’t do everything.
Lately I’ve gone from like a 75 percent win where most losses were mana screw or a minor misplay to like a 40 percent win where I just get creamed with no hope by djinn drake and even esper decks w chromium. Is that a meta shift or bad luck? Unclear. If you run seal away and shivan fire you cut something and then some other match isn’t great. Too much removal and too few Chen insight is bad ba control. Too little removal and too much Chen insight is bad vs aggro etc
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
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4x Sacred Foundry
4x Steam Vents
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Sulfur Falls
4x Clifftop Retreat
3x Island
2x Mountain
1x Field of Ruin
Creatures (2)
2x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Instant (18)
4x Ionize
4x Chemister's Insight
2x Essence Scatter
2x Syncopate
2x Expansion // Explosion
2x Lightning Strike
2x Justice Strike
3x Deafening Clarion
2x Lava Coil
2x Cleansing Nova
Enchantment (2)
2x Search for Azcanta
Planeswalker (5)
3x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2x Ral, Izzet Viceroy
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Dawn of Hope
2x Negate
2x Lyra Dawnbringer
2x Settle the Wreckage
2x Seal Away
2x Ixalan's Binding
1x Invoke the Divine
https://www.mtgcanada.com/general/jeskai-control-in-standard/
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
That is also a lot of spot removal to rot in your hand in the mirror.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Regarding Niv, he's fine as a win con. He isnt difficult to cast because you arent looking to slam him on turn 6. As with most Control deck wincons, you want counter backup. Also consider you have access to a fair bit of card draw/filtering to make it easier
Regarding Lyra, I dont like her maindeck because she's not what I want to see vs Control
If you load your deck with spot removal yes you get clobbered in the mirror. But with cantrips filtering and mostly counters and sweepers every match feels fine. I don’t know that you beat burn without a clarion and resolves planeswalkers are pretty rough but I’ve never felt like I lost because I drew the wrong half of my deck. Play more filtering and less spot removal. Stop playing essence scatter. Teferi and dream eater are your catch all’s as is sinister sabotage...
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Is Azor's Gateway really the truth? I haven't tested it at all, so I'm curious to hear from those of you that have.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Not sure what you mean by 'auto transforms'. It takes 5 activations to flip the Gateway. Expansion / Explosion is 1 card with CMC 6. Teferi is 1 card with CMC 5. Can you outline the sequence to Banefire on Turn 3?
I see more grixis and dimir decks with eldest reborn and vraskas contempt to easily take out teferi and niv. Golgari decks can have the same and carnage tyrant and wild growth walker to boot.
My one consolation is I don’t see how the grixis, dimir, and Phoenix decks ever beat Monored. But yeah there are just a lot more things that are harder to handle than a few weeks ago when it was tokens, angels, burn and golgari value.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I was just going to say this as well. The move to more white removal at the moment should help stave off the recursive threats.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
Lava coil is bad vs control. Seal away is bad vs control and golgari. Both are weak vs tokens.
You can tune jeskai to beat any one deck The problem is you need to beat everything not just one deck. Playing lava coil over justice strike is cool until tapping on your turn lets them resolve something you could have syncopated. Seal away over lightning strike is fun until it's Vivien Reid landing and doing minus three on your Niv and your other threats are drakes. Etc.
That being said I still take the point. If I think the meta is moving to Phoenix decks and less control and golgari then seal away and lava coil may be more important than lightning strike and justice strike
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Yeah, no one here is disputing any of that. Also, you're always going to have suboptimal cards in your main deck versus whatever you get paired up against; that's what sideboards are for. The question isn't "how can I beat everything with my starting 60", but rather "what is the configuration that will give me the best chance to win game one against the widest range of decks?"
Right now with Phoenix decks and Adanto Vanguard decks popping up, playing exiling removal is the smart call. No one is claiming that Seal Away is the nuts against Golgari or that Lava Coil dumpsters control, because neither of those statements are accurate and most people in this thread have enough common sense to understand that.
States '09: 14th place. Aiming for better next year.
States '10: 12th place. Aiming for better next year.
Idaho State Champ: 2011
States '12: 5th place.
How do people feel about star of extinction? I’ve been trying it but so far it’s been a bad cleansing nova every time.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
But, with the rise of Boros Aggro/White Weenie and Izzet Drakes the Star is quite simply too slow. I think that playing Cleansing Nova is strictly better since it hits the field much earlier.
I've been running a 3/2/2 split of Deafening Clarion/Settle the Wreckage/Cleansing Nova currently. I've found that this is a great mix of mass removal effects currently since each respective Wrath hits the board at critical points during the game. Clarion should kill any type of creature based Aggro deck on T3. Wreckage is fantastic against the surge of Drake decks I've been seeing on Arena currently and I actually have a third copy in the Board to combat the Drakes matchup. The incidental ability to handle Carnage Tyrant with the Settle is fantastic and helps shore up the Golgari matchup with its infinite recursion elements. And Cleansing Nova comes on T5 after I've refilled my hand via Chemister's Insight after clearing the Board on T3/T4.
Can I talk about how extremely awesome Shivan Fire is right now? It kills early creatures from White Weenie decks and can be kicked to kill Crackling Drakes in the mid-game. It's also a fine T1 play against Mono-Blue Tempo decks when they cast some stupid T1 evasive creature. I'm really high on the Fire right now and have a 2/2 split of them in my mainboard and Sideboard currently. I've been very pleased with how well the Fire has been performing and I think that it's well positioned in the meta right now.
My list, for reference:
3x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Planeswalkers (5)
3x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2x Ral, Izzet Viceroy
Non-Creature (28)
2x Shivan Fire
2x Syncopate
4x Revitalize
2x Seal Away
1x Search for Azcanta
1x Justice Strike
3x Deafening Clarion
3x Sinister Sabotage
3x Ionize
2x Settle the Wreckage
3x Chemister's Insight
2x Cleansing Nova
2x Plains
2x Island
1x Memorial to Genius
1x Mountain
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls
3x Clifftop Retreat
3x Sacred Foundry
1x Detection Tower
2x Shivan Fire
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Negate
1x Lightning Strike
1x Justice Strike
1x Sinister Sabotage
1x Ionize
1x Settle the Wreckage
3x Lyra Dawnbringer
1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
I really like having 3 copies of the Parun in the main because he is an absolute devastation for Izzet Drake decks. I'm happy to ping their Arclight Phoenixes for free WHILE drawing cards, thank you very much. And if you can stabilize against any type of Weenie deck with the Parun in play you pretty much have complete board control simply by playing our primary strategy of draw-go. The incidental pinging of creatures is extremely relevant in the games that I've played.
Yes, I don't play Expansion // Explosion. And that's because it's far too slow in the current meta, as I'm reading it. Spending 6 mana to kill an X/2 creature and draw 2 cards isn't good enough right now. If the meta shifts back towards Control again, then I'll probably adjust my list to bring them back in.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy has been pretty good in actual gameplay. I can usually kill any creature on the board with his minus ability and his plus ability is obviously good. His emblem, though, is the reason I like him so much. Once that emblem is online, it's almost impossible to lose. Any counter war that you engage in can be potentially lethal for your opponent and makes cards like Revitalize stay effective in the late game.
Anyways, this is the list I've been running on Arena that I've been having good success with. I hope it helps others!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
They are less dead than the wrath’s in the mirror and don’t give your opponent lands to nonbo with syncopate
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Great idea! I'll adopt that suggestion immediately. There does come a time where I have too many Wrath effects in hand and they usually get discarded to Chemister's Insight.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
2 revitalize
2 anticipate
2 chemister's insight
4 sinister sabotage
2 essence scatter
2 syncopate
1 negate
1 cleansing nova
1 Shivan fire
3 teferi, hero of dominaria
1 ral, izzet viceroy
4 crackling drake
2 Niv mizet, parun
8 shock
5 island
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Most of that comes from focusing on clarion instead of seal away or shivan fire. Dive down and four toughness drakes are just brutal vs clarion. But clarion is amazing Vs red and benalia. You pick your battles as you can’t do everything.
Lately I’ve gone from like a 75 percent win where most losses were mana screw or a minor misplay to like a 40 percent win where I just get creamed with no hope by djinn drake and even esper decks w chromium. Is that a meta shift or bad luck? Unclear. If you run seal away and shivan fire you cut something and then some other match isn’t great. Too much removal and too few Chen insight is bad ba control. Too little removal and too much Chen insight is bad vs aggro etc
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron