I'm on the opposite trail of thought personally, I think RIP is much better positioned now than it used to be. Yesterday I played against Reanimator and Dredge and a turn 2 RIP just ended it right there. Extraction would of been pretty good there too but there's just so many targets to choose from (Griselbrand, Emrakul, Vengenace, Breach, BloodGhast, Amalgam, Conflagrate, Haunted Dead.)
Against Lantern, Extracting a Bridge sounds awesome so you can smash face with Colonnade, but there's a fair chance the Lantern player is going to get a Needle down with the consistency of the deck shutting off our man lands. They play something like 3-4 Needles, and 4 Ancient Stirrings to find them so I say the odds are in their favour to get anything problematic on lock-down with a needle soon enough. I think Stony Silence is overall more versatile/powerful and better against Tron and Lantern to buy us the time to get set up in the contained games.
I just think RIP and Stony Silence are better positioned because these decks like Tron, Dredge, Lantern are very consistent and resilient. By shutting off their core game plan, it either buys us so much time to get to the late game and take over from there, or just flat out wins sometimes. As awesome as Surgical Extraction is, I just don't trust the card if we're looking at it from a consistency perspective compared to how these decks operate.
Top 8 GP Brisbane featured:
Dredge - RIP
Lantern - Stony Silence/RIP
Dredge - RIP
Junk - NA/RIP
Tron - Stony Silence
Living End - RIP
WR Prison - NA
Affinity - Stony Silence
Looking at those decks, 6-7/8 lists range from getting crippled/severley crippled to not being able to even function in the presence of either RIP or Stony Silence. I'm just not sure if Surgical Extraction is going to have that "KIND" of effect and I feel that we need that "KIND" of effect to match their level of consistency/resiliency and fight them on their own axis.
Looking at Junk, It's a very powerful deck, but I think we have a solid chance in the match up just by playing fair without needing anything to hateful but RIP is also an option that can do some work in the match up too. WR Prison is an interesting one on the rise, where I think having access to some Celestial Purge or Disenchant effects wouldn't be a bad idea in the side. Maybe cards like Negate/Thoughtseize could be good here too for some extra planeswalker defence, but I expect Chalice set to 1 could be a common theme here so Negate seems like a better option. I do like having a way like Celestial Purge or Disenchant to remove something once it's already in play since the deck does power these things out early with a SSG so I can imagine them being able to get under our counters sometimes.
I'm personally trying to develop a "Jeskai Black" draw-go deck, including cards such as Esper Charm that can double up as a "removal" spell against the big creature decks like Eldrazi by making them discard 2 creatures on the turn 3/4 mark, while also being great against the combo decks. Charm/Snap/Charm turn 4/5 is sometimes even more brutal than Bolt/Snap/Bolt. That's 4 cards right there, "removed" from the game. I'm basically trying to keep the Mclaren removal package of Bolt, Helix, Path, but am using Esper Charm as a "hard removal" spell by dumping thier hand before they even get a chance to play out their stuff, leaving them to only topdecks to "nut me out." What's cool about Charm is that it's never a dead card in any match up. It just makes in game decisions more difficult, but I think the versatility is worth it.
Not playing nahiri then, I assume?
I've played a fair amount of 4 color control, with basically the exact same premise (I like jeskai, but I want more card draw, so I'll splash for esper charm).
Its worked out ok. Being able to play esper charm and kolaghan's command for card advantage, bolt/helix/electrolyze for burn, and path/terminate/whatever for hard removal seems like it would be really good, but the deck has just never panned out for me as well as I hoped it would.
Maybe you'll have better luck.
Eldrazi tron sometimes plays 1 cavern of souls. With map, they can usually find it pretty quickly if they have it, but luckily its somewhat uncommon.
Pretty sure wear/tear is stronger than disenchant as a rule. I don't think I've ever really seen anyone play disenchant in this deck.
If you want digging, peer through depths is "playable" but the fact that it isn't actually card advantage is rough. Atleast its an instant.
Ajani is definitely stronger than he seems.
I've never been a huge fan of him in nahiri, but basically any other UWR control deck benefits greatly from him.
This just came to me the other day, and I've haven't put even the slightest bit of testing into it, but what about thing in the ice as a second angle of attack?
If they devote a lot of resources to stopping it, thats fine, but its trivial for us to flip, it pressures quite well, and it blocks well, meaning nahiri can eat creatures that run into it.
Maybe its too cute, but maybe theres some merit to it.
It basically aims to play as a Jeskai Control deck in the early game against aggro, use Esper Charm to pull ahead or remove the opponents hand depending on the match up in the mid game, then set up for a Cruel Ultimatum in the late game against the fair decks like Jund, Junk, Eldrazi which wipes out their hand and leaves my Creeping Tar Pits unopposed by removal which turns the corner in an instant. Against the unfair decks, I try to play counter/burn with 4 Bolt/Helix/Electrolyze while Esper Charm serves mainly as a Discard tool where you can easily dump 4 cards out of their hand in an instant with the help of Snapcaster Mage. Electrolyze, Remand, Cryptic pick up the slack for drawing cards when Esper Charm is used to discard while I've hopefully got a Snapcaster Mage swinging for 2 a turn. Creeping Tar Pit over Celestial Colonnade as it's activation cost is much more efficient and helps with the "burn em out" game plan. I basically wanted to give the deck a "Counter-Punch" feel to it. That's why I've chosen cards like Cruel Ultimatum, Electrolyze, Remand over Sphinx's Revelation, Kolaghan's Command, Logic Knot. When I'm drawing cards, killing things or countering spells, I want to also be effecting the board or stack at the same time so I can keep up with my opponent and start to inch towards an inevitable Cruel Ultimatum, or just running my opponent out of resources and start swinging with the man lands and threatening top deck burn.
Mana base is very tight and my aggro match ups are much better than expected for a 4 colour deck probably because of the Lightning Helix. I'm pretty set on the mainboard but with the sideboard, which is IMO friggin hard to optimise for 4c deck, I'm torn between 2 different set ups.
Setup (A) - Involves what I was trying to talk about in the Esper thread. It basically is a 7 card sideboard, with Rest in Peace and Stony Silence being a mandatory 8 for the reasons that both graveyard and artifact decks operate on a completely different axis to anything else in the format and both RIP & SS are the biggest "NO" cards we have access to that can turn the post board match ups somewhat in our favour since game 1's are pretty much expected to lose since we have no real way to interact with them. Both Dredge and Lantern epitomise the respective strategies IMO because they are both highly resilient, and highly consistent that to stand a chance and not completely fold to them, I've opted to go for the full 4 of each as in most cases, we need to have our hate piece pretty much on turn 2. I also wanted 2-4 slots for actual enchantment/artifact removal for stuff like Ghirapur Aether Grid and Blood Moon to name a couple since again, they are both game winning cards that are very difficult to interact with efficiently. So I'm currently at 2 Wear//Tear for that specific role but I'm also including 2 Engineered Explosives here too and it also fills the role of a sweepers against decks like Merfolk, Elves and Tokens which can get out of hand. Still not sure, if EE and Stony Silence will cause any "nonbos" but I guess I'll see in testing. Otherwise, Engineered Explosives could just be more Wear//Tears or even a couple Pyroclasm. With my sideboarding theory, that now leaves 3 slots left and am currently running 2 Blessed Alliance and 1 Vendilion Clique. No matter how much I want to remove Blessed Alliance, it always is so darn good, against so many things and I do feel it's important to have some hard removal sacrifice effects for Hexproof and Eldrazi. Last slot is currently a Vendilion Clique since it's a clock against combo decks once I've hopefully slowed them down with my disruption.
Setup (B) - Is a more overall versatile approach. I've got Thoughtseizes instead of Stony Silence here which provide a similar role in the combo match ups and works better against Tron/Valakut with a game plan involving trying to out-tempo them with Snaps and Bolts. With Lantern recently winning GP Brisbane, I'm reconsidering Thoughtseize and in Sideboard (A) above, I've replaced them with Stony Silence. The rest of the sideboard is set up similar to Sideboard (A) with 1 flex slot remaining which is currently at Crumble to Dust for Valakut decks but I'm not even sure Crumble is needed with Charm/Snap/Charm doing the rounds.
Truth be told, I'm currently leaning towards Sideboard (A), I just think a base of 4 RIP/ 4 SS, with some additional artifact/enchantment removal is where I want to be these days with very hard to interact with Prison decks getting more popular. I feel the mainboard does enough in majority of creature/combo match ups, with the exception of being a bit light against decks with Hexproof (UWR Midrange Geist, Bogles) and big guys with Cavern of Souls ala Bant Eldrazi, which I've tried to hedge against with a couple Blessed Alliance in the side. Cruel Ultimatum is actually pretty strong against both these decks too.
Other than those sideboarding issues, I'm actually very happy with the mana base and I can't really complain too much, the deck does what it does and struggles against what it struggles against, but I usually feel I've got a chance either main board and/or post board.
@ax92 We're generally not beating most combo decks anyway (at least in game 1) so I'm not sure why that's a consideration. I also didn't say we should necessarily add a bunch of Supreme Verdict in the main deck. What I'm asking is why we don't consider more of their (UW) spells for me our main deck where applicable?
Of course, Dig through Time would be great but that's in magical Christmas land now. So what's the point bringing it up?
I am a fan of sweepers, I do think 2 main deck sounds about right if you can find the room, but still, finding the room is hard enough when lists are tight. The issue I've found with sweepers (4 mana wraths,) is that if you're not interacting in the early game and taking your licks until turn 4 when you wrath, a lot of damage has been done and you can get blown out by either a burn spell, a CoCo, a selfless spirit or some haste creatures like bushwackers or Mutavaults on the crack back. And if you're going to play a high amount of cheap removal spells in addition to sweepers, it kind of defeats the purpose of sweeping in the first place since you've already picked off their stuff with you spot removal, now paying 4 mana sorcery speed to kill 1, maybe 2 creatures isn't the best use of resources IMO.
The role I now view sweepers as, is more of a sideboard card to deal with predominately wide decks like Elves and Merfolk, which can be beaten by spot removal spells, but sometimes they can get ahead just a bit too quickly so having a couple sweepers handy in the side for those particular match ups is nice. From what I've heard from Merfolk, Engineered Explosives seems to be the sweeper of choice which holds value in nearly any match up.
Sweepers are good against Eldrazi too, but first we have to hope Thought-Knot Seer doesn't take it since we can't respond to his ability on the stack with a sorcery and also against Reality Smasher we are taking 5. I'm thinking Blessed Alliance might be a better choice than 4 mana wraths as a hard removal spell that gets annoying stuff like Geist, Bogles, Reality Smasher in addition to being great vs burn and zoo while being very efficient at 2 mana instant speed.
In regards to Combo decks. I can't say I agree about how it shouldn't be a consideration. Yes, we, and every control deck in the format is a dog to combo game 1. But. Just by virtue of playing Snap/Bolt, we can most definitely take game 1's. Add in 3-4 Helix's and topdecking that burn spell for the win becomes a real scenario. Combo decks aren't always super consistent. Sometimes they have slow draws and Jeskai can punish them better than any other control deck out there. The removal spells 'are' win conditions for Jeskai. I've tested a straight UB Control deck and can tell you how miserable it is playing against Tron game 1 where I have no way to race them. Hitting for 2 a turn off of Snapcaster Mage is pretty dismal. Adding some Bolts into the deck makes a world of difference in these match ups, it really does.
Christmas is over already!? Was wishing Santa would of brought me some of those foil DTTs
Is Thoughtseize still worth it in the SB if I'm not playing any extraction effects?
Epic question, just because I've been thinking that same question. Anyone with more experience have a good answer for it?
I'll have a go anyway with my theory of Thoughtseize:
I first used Thoughtseize before I even had any extraction effects. I saw it as a strong card against all the unfair combo decks out there. This was without me adding a single extraction to my sideboard. I then added extraction effects and realised the potential of Thoughtseize/Surgical Extraction.
But after some pondering due to realising how similar Lantern Control is to pre-ban Dredge in it's consistency and resiliency factor, I've noticed a trend in the match ups where I wanted Thoughtseize. I found that most combo decks have a fair weakness against either "permanent" grave yard hate (Rest in Peace) or "permanent" activated artifact ability hate (Stony Silence.)
Restore Balance - Stony Silence
Ad Nauseam - Stony Silence
Cheerios - Stony Silence
Tron - Stony Silence
Lantern - Stony Silence
Living End - Rest in Peace
Reanimator - Rest in Peace
Storm - Rest in Peace
Abzan CoCo - Rest in Peace
I'm sure there's a few more combo decks that I'm missing but the gist of it is that Rest in Peace and Stony Silence are both a 1 card combo that ranges from severely slowing them down to outright winning the match up.
Now, I've adopted my current sideboard to test 4 Stony Silence and 4 Rest in Peace as the mandatory slots against the most random, unfair stuff out there, which technically leaves me with a 7 card sideboard slots. This lead me to cut my Thoughtseize since I've only got so much space left and I feel that both Stony Silence and Rest in Peace deal with nearly all the things Thoughtseize did, but in a much more powerful and efficient way. I'm also considering having a Vendilion Clique in the side to capitalise on slowing them down to a crawl while giving me that extra bit of hand disruption that Thoughtseize provided.
At the moment I'm testing a 4/4 split of RIP/SS because I was reading some Lantern Control articles today and a common thing the Lantern Players were saying was that it's hard to actually win a match against Lantern if you're only packing 1-2 Stony Silence post-board because you really need to see them before turn 3-4 when the Lantern lock gets established, so if you're not playing enough hate in your sideboard, than odds are you won't see them in the first 9-10 cards and by then it's usually too late as a Lantern and Mill Rocks are in play, preventing you from going to ever draw one. Sounds similar to Dredge doesn't it in the sense that you need to be packing a fair amount of hate.
Well Mystical Teachings is kind of a tutor effect to find those counters but I don't know, it's really good when you have the time to cast it, but otherwise it just adds another 4cmc+ spell to the deck which clunkifies things when you're under the pump. I feel your pain on DTT
Righto, Wear//Tear it is. I'm currently playing 2 Negates in the side but I really, really hate losing to Blood Moon and Land Denial decks and Wear//Tear seems like an uber efficient way to deal with it all game only requiring 1 Plains as well as knocking off turn 1 Utopia Sprawls and random stuff like that which gets my jimmies rustled.
On Ajani Vengeant - I've had a couple games so far testing 1 copy in the main.
First match against a Jeskai Tempo brew featuring Favorable Winds, Mousoleam Wanderer, Spell Queller, Mantis Rider and some taxes cards like Judge's Familiar backed by burn and counters. Lost game 1. Game 2 I stabilised and Ajani Vengeant kept upticking until 8 loyalty and Armageddon'd him for the win. Cool thing to note was Ajani managed to keep the Moorland Haunt on lockdown so he couldn't get any value out of his grave yard. That little touch impressed me. Game 3, I finally stabilised with the help of Ajani's - ability which just was brutal gaining me 3 life and killing his creatures.
Second match against Mono U Tron. Game 1 a turn 4 Ajani Vengeant kept his Urza's Tower on lockdown until about turn 8 or something like that until he drew another Tower. Ajani got Repeald, so I couldn't Armageddon him, but it was a little too late as I had already got the Tron player's life total under 10 with my Snap/Bolt/Helix. Was able to replay Ajani, and minus him for the win. Game 2 was a tight one but a second Wurmcoil Engine and a perfectly timed Condescend saved the day for him when I had a Bolt on the stack with his life total at 3. Game 3, I found an opportunity to land Ajani on turn 6. Kept his Island on lockdown so he couldn't cast double blue spells like Snapcaster Mage/flashback counter. My opponent tried a last ditch Repeal but that was met with a Cryptic Command on my end. Ajani Vengeant Ultimate for the win. Felt good being able to give their Sundering Titan a taste of his own medicine. Interesting to note was the Tron player sided in for a turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. Not sure if this is new tech or just living life on the edge because #yolo, but I ended up siding in my 2 Wear//Tear which I never ended up drawing but could of been useful against the turn 0 Leyline with my Burn spells it turns off.
Whoever the person was that said Ajani always seems to be able to get to Ultimate, you're right as rain. I don't know what it is, I just seemed to be able to get to Ultimate in both matches I played and if I wasn't Ultimating, I was minusing which was brutal for the opponent to come back from.
So far, in my limited testing I'm a believer, especially the work he did against U Tron where I wouldn't think he'd be of any use.
I don't believe Eldrazi TRON plays Cavern of Souls, every time I've played them it's basically just the Tron lands, Temples and some Wastes, maybe a Sanctum or 2 as well. I think BANT Eldrazi is the only Eldrazi deck to run caverns and if we're counting D&T too which I don't think run cavern but Vial is similar anyway.
Sideboarding-wise, between Disenchant and Wear//Tear, which is better? Does the colour issue (Negate, Countersquall as an example) ever come up with Wear side of the card, to consider running Disenchant instead? Or is Wear//Tear just the better card to have in the side?
Hey guys was wondering what the best sweeper to bring in from the sideboard against Merfolk would be that also has applications against other high threat based decks like Elves and Tokens?
I'm playing a 4 colour control deck (WURB) with more UB mana sources than RW and I understand you play a fair amount of mana screwing techniqus:
I'v got room for 2 and my options are:
Damnation/Wrath of God
Pyroclasm
Engineered Explosives
Supreme Verdict
Anger of the Gods
Any other sweepers I've missed?
Pyroclasm and EE are the easiest on my mana base with Damnation being easier to cast than Wrath and Verdict.
Any particular sweeper you don't like particularly playing against?
The problem with replacing some burn spells like Bolt and Helix with more hard removal like Blessed Alliance and Wrath of God is that we now have much weaker game 1's against the non-creature decks of the format since we're trying to be even more durdly since we are packing less burn to close out the game.
The trade-off is that more main deck hard removal is better against bigger stuff, and to be honest, only really Bant Eldrazi comes to mind where this trade-off is preferable. Tarmogoyf who has always dodged Bolt, has been in the format since forever too and we've learnt to deal with it.
Barring Eldrazi's nut draws, we have ways to deal with them, we just have to work a little bit harder than some other control decks. We still have Path, gm_jack suggested Remand which seems excellent when they don't get their Cavern draws (which they don't always do even though we remember the tough times.) Snap/Bolt, Electrolyze/Bolt are non-Path ways that don't lead to card disadvantage on our end. Fatal Push can't even pair up with Snap to take down a bigger dude. Eldrazi still play a lot of stuff that dies to Burn - Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Displacer, Bird of Paradise, Noble Heirarch and some even play Eldrazi Skyspawner which Electrolyze, yes Electrolyze in this match up absolutely owns. Eldrazi is a great deck because it has all the cheap "must answer" threats that die to Bolt, but they also top out at bigger stuff too which gives them a strong game against control decks which would generally be harder for them since they aren't playing Red.
And with the format apparently "slower" these days, there's more decks like Living End and Tron running about where you're going to wish you had as much burn spells as possible instead of more Blessed Alliance.
I've played all different kinds of control decks and the one thing I envied the most about Jeskai control, was that it had the very best aggro match up out of all the control decks out there which is always going to be important. My favourite removal set up was from Shaun's 2013 UWR deck that had 4 Bolt, 4 Helix, 3 Path. That is the real strength of Jeskai IMO, it has the very best early game removal spells in the format that also can double up as win conditions.
If we were to replace "some" of our Bolts and Helixs with harder removal like BA, I feel this may lead to a sub-optimal set up. Why not play 3 Snaps/1 Gearhulk too? Or 3 Nahiri, 1 Elspeth? In theory, it sounds nice to maybe chop 1 or 2 "Bolts" but it does add up in that you've now lost 6 points of damage to close the game out against Restore Balance or you top-decked a Blessed Alliance instead of that Helix against a hellbent Liliana, or you're curve might be slightly higher and you won't be able to match that turn 1 Guide, Bird like you used to.
It's probably better to just play straight UW or Esper if we want to focus on killing bigger stuff. Those decks are made to excel against bigger creatures due to playing more hard removal spells as they don't have access to bolt. This also makes their game 1's against a divers field much weaker since they have a lot more dead cards than us. Every deck has their strengths and weaknesses, we can't have everything.
I'm personally trying to develop a "Jeskai Black" draw-go deck, including cards such as Esper Charm that can double up as a "removal" spell against the big creature decks like Eldrazi by making them discard 2 creatures on the turn 3/4 mark, while also being great against the combo decks. Charm/Snap/Charm turn 4/5 is sometimes even more brutal than Bolt/Snap/Bolt. That's 4 cards right there, "removed" from the game. I'm basically trying to keep the Mclaren removal package of Bolt, Helix, Path, but am using Esper Charm as a "hard removal" spell by dumping thier hand before they even get a chance to play out their stuff, leaving them to only topdecks to "nut me out." What's cool about Charm is that it's never a dead card in any match up. It just makes in game decisions more difficult, but I think the versatility is worth it.
Against Grixis it hits Tasigur which is usually their lone creature plus the life gain is nice so it's harder for them to chip shot with bolts. Otherwise it may not be that needed on the match up. I was just saying that it's got more uses overall than timely, that's all.
I'm personally more of a Negate boy than a Dispel boy. In testing, Negate has been house against the big mana decks where Dispel can range from unplayable to being ok. I think 2/1 Negate/Dispel would be safer against most things but if you like Dispel a lot than it doesn't really matter too much how you split them since they serve similar roles.
On RIP, fair enough. It's a love/hate type of card in Snapcaster decks.
Do you think Blessed Alliance could be better than Timely Reinforcements in the side. It does similar work in the burn match up but seems better against Eldrazi, Bgx and Grixis.
You could also flip the Negate/Dispel numbers around if you think more big mana decks like Tron or Valakut will be there.
Rest in Peace could be an option in place of 1 or 2 Surgicals if Grixis is popular but then again, Surgical is better against the big mana stuff.
I dig the mainboard Elspeth and I really like your sideboard, it looks like it has generic answers for anything you may face out there.
Anyone have any experience with the card, particularly against bigger stuff like Goyf, Knight, Eldrazi? Does his + ability do some work to stall and is his - ability worth pairing with a bolt to take out a Thought-Knot Seer?
Thanks for the reply, was thinking of putting 2 Blessed Alliance in the sideboard in place of Timely Reinforcements/Leyline of Sanctity for the Burn match up and I like how it sounds against Eldrazi and Hexproof too.
Question to anyone: What's the best answer to a resolved Blood Moon if you didn't happen to get enough fetches or basics out by the time it comes down, or if you didn't have a counter or Esper Charm in time either?
The reason I'm asking is that I've been playing against a lot more Blood Moon recently and even though I have 4 mainboard Esper Charm and a lot of basics, I'm finding it's pretty much GGS if I didn't draw the "right" part of my deck before Blood Moon hits, usually on turn 3, sometimes on turn 2.
Are colourless cards that can be cast with a Blood Moon in play worth a look in the side if I'm finding it to be a big problem? Stuff like Perilous VaultOblivion Stone, Culling Scales?
Interesting notes amaleko - Especially the 8 seas Merfolk. I too find can be an issue if they get double seas in the first couple turns turning off white sources, it's ridiculous, we're a blue deck and seas still bones us haha
A couple thoughts on that -
1. Would some Engineered Explosives in the side be a good choice? I used to think EE was close to an auto-win against Merfolk, until they bring in Sea's Claim, which causes just as much trouble as Spreading Seas and also dodges the coveted X=2 against Merfolk. Same as Vial which dodges EE too.
2. Propaganda effects aka Ghostly Prison. I've been looking hard recently at the prison decks, in particular, their sideboard. I'll get to this in a bit below. But on the topic of Ghostly Prison. I can see this card being a solid side board choice because it doesn't really care for Vial or Seas effects since it's only W. I was playing against a BW tokens recently and the dude kept rebuilding after board wipes either through Bitterblossom or EOT Secure the Wastes. I was talking to him and he actually rate Ghostly Prison higher than sweepers and even higher than Engineered Explosives in the BW tokens match up. I can also see Ghostly Prison being useful against decks packing Selfless Spirit like UW/Esper/Bant Spirits where they have ways to punish Sweepers on turn 4. I can also see Ghostly Prison being fairly decent against Bant Eldrazi, especially if you pack 2-3 in the side, you can stack it. This will buy so much time where the opponent won't be able to take advantage of a turn 4 Verdict or Bust situation.
In regards to the sideboarding, what I've noticed is that the Prison decks tend to pack a 3/3/3 split of RIP/Stony/Leyline. These tend to be some of the hardest hitting hate cards in the format.
Was looking at adopting my sideboard to something like this:
4/3 Rest in Peace
2/3 Stony Silence
2/3 Leyline of Sanctitiy
2/3 Ghostly Prison
3 Thoughtseize
1-2 Flex Slots
I figure the strongest hate cards in the format, taking a leaf out of WR lockdowns book minus the B moon.
RIP - As they say, when people start removing grave hate from their sideboard, that's when Dredge takes off again. Good thing that RIP is very strongly positioned with Abzan CoCo, Grixis.dec, Thopter/Sword, Storm/Gifts. I've tested against Storm Gifts and I think that version is much more potent and consistent than the old UR version. But RIP completely shuts the deck down, it's not even funny. RIP is the strongest GY hate in the format imo.
Stony Silence - All artifacts, past, present and future. There will always be artifacts doing broken things in every format. Stony Silence is the real deal here.
Leyline of Sanctitiy - Shuts down Burn/Valakut/8 Rack or any discard heavy decks that are fighting on a very linear axis. Was tossing up between Timely Reinforcements and Blessed Alliance in this spot for an anti-Burn card but I think Leyline of Sanctity hoses other T1 decks like Valakut which is a more flexible card all around. Heavy handed hate card against a lot of "hard to interact with" strategies.
Ghostly Prison - This card isn't exactly as popular as the above hate cards, but I think it deserves a look. As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of creature decks that are built to get around Sweepers and come back with a huge counter punch if we tap out. These decks also play quite a low - average land count which means they want to either "cheat" things in with either Vial or Temples or play an excess amount of creature threats on a low land count. I think Ghostly Prison can change the dynamics of these match ups where it comes to a "Verdict or Bust" scenario where they could be Chording in a Selfless Spirit or EOT CoCo. Propaganda effects in theory could change the pace of the match and give us time to hit more draw steps and build more lands. Even against Eldrazi, I think it can slow them down considerably and just stacking 2 of these could be very hard for them to deal with. This is the sideboard hate card I'm currently most interested in as I haven't tested it too much but I've tested the others (RIP, Stony, Leyline) and they've all proven to be established choices.
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK/Clique/Hand disruption - I think there still needs to be room for targeted discard in the side as a combo/mirror breaker no kikijiki. Card like Thoughtseize always come in handy and is a good reason to play Black in addition to Esper Charm which Jeskai doesn't have access to.
This leaves about 2 Flex slots left for whatever like Disenchants, Planeswalkers, Engineered Explosives, Removals, Counters, BBoV/BA, Crucible of Worlds lol
Against Lantern, Extracting a Bridge sounds awesome so you can smash face with Colonnade, but there's a fair chance the Lantern player is going to get a Needle down with the consistency of the deck shutting off our man lands. They play something like 3-4 Needles, and 4 Ancient Stirrings to find them so I say the odds are in their favour to get anything problematic on lock-down with a needle soon enough. I think Stony Silence is overall more versatile/powerful and better against Tron and Lantern to buy us the time to get set up in the contained games.
I just think RIP and Stony Silence are better positioned because these decks like Tron, Dredge, Lantern are very consistent and resilient. By shutting off their core game plan, it either buys us so much time to get to the late game and take over from there, or just flat out wins sometimes. As awesome as Surgical Extraction is, I just don't trust the card if we're looking at it from a consistency perspective compared to how these decks operate.
Top 8 GP Brisbane featured:
Dredge - RIP
Lantern - Stony Silence/RIP
Dredge - RIP
Junk - NA/RIP
Tron - Stony Silence
Living End - RIP
WR Prison - NA
Affinity - Stony Silence
Looking at those decks, 6-7/8 lists range from getting crippled/severley crippled to not being able to even function in the presence of either RIP or Stony Silence. I'm just not sure if Surgical Extraction is going to have that "KIND" of effect and I feel that we need that "KIND" of effect to match their level of consistency/resiliency and fight them on their own axis.
Looking at Junk, It's a very powerful deck, but I think we have a solid chance in the match up just by playing fair without needing anything to hateful but RIP is also an option that can do some work in the match up too. WR Prison is an interesting one on the rise, where I think having access to some Celestial Purge or Disenchant effects wouldn't be a bad idea in the side. Maybe cards like Negate/Thoughtseize could be good here too for some extra planeswalker defence, but I expect Chalice set to 1 could be a common theme here so Negate seems like a better option. I do like having a way like Celestial Purge or Disenchant to remove something once it's already in play since the deck does power these things out early with a SSG so I can imagine them being able to get under our counters sometimes.
Feels like we've met before...
This is my current 4c list:
4 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Snapcaster Mage
Instants: 27
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Helix
4 Remand
4 Esper Charm
4 Electrolyze
4 Cryptic Command
Sorceries: 2
2 Cruel Ultimatum
Planeswalkers: 1
1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Rest in Peace
4 Stony Silence
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Wear//Tear
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Rest in Peace
3 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Wear//Tear
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Crumble to Dust
It basically aims to play as a Jeskai Control deck in the early game against aggro, use Esper Charm to pull ahead or remove the opponents hand depending on the match up in the mid game, then set up for a Cruel Ultimatum in the late game against the fair decks like Jund, Junk, Eldrazi which wipes out their hand and leaves my Creeping Tar Pits unopposed by removal which turns the corner in an instant. Against the unfair decks, I try to play counter/burn with 4 Bolt/Helix/Electrolyze while Esper Charm serves mainly as a Discard tool where you can easily dump 4 cards out of their hand in an instant with the help of Snapcaster Mage. Electrolyze, Remand, Cryptic pick up the slack for drawing cards when Esper Charm is used to discard while I've hopefully got a Snapcaster Mage swinging for 2 a turn. Creeping Tar Pit over Celestial Colonnade as it's activation cost is much more efficient and helps with the "burn em out" game plan. I basically wanted to give the deck a "Counter-Punch" feel to it. That's why I've chosen cards like Cruel Ultimatum, Electrolyze, Remand over Sphinx's Revelation, Kolaghan's Command, Logic Knot. When I'm drawing cards, killing things or countering spells, I want to also be effecting the board or stack at the same time so I can keep up with my opponent and start to inch towards an inevitable Cruel Ultimatum, or just running my opponent out of resources and start swinging with the man lands and threatening top deck burn.
Mana base is very tight and my aggro match ups are much better than expected for a 4 colour deck probably because of the Lightning Helix. I'm pretty set on the mainboard but with the sideboard, which is IMO friggin hard to optimise for 4c deck, I'm torn between 2 different set ups.
Setup (A) - Involves what I was trying to talk about in the Esper thread. It basically is a 7 card sideboard, with Rest in Peace and Stony Silence being a mandatory 8 for the reasons that both graveyard and artifact decks operate on a completely different axis to anything else in the format and both RIP & SS are the biggest "NO" cards we have access to that can turn the post board match ups somewhat in our favour since game 1's are pretty much expected to lose since we have no real way to interact with them. Both Dredge and Lantern epitomise the respective strategies IMO because they are both highly resilient, and highly consistent that to stand a chance and not completely fold to them, I've opted to go for the full 4 of each as in most cases, we need to have our hate piece pretty much on turn 2. I also wanted 2-4 slots for actual enchantment/artifact removal for stuff like Ghirapur Aether Grid and Blood Moon to name a couple since again, they are both game winning cards that are very difficult to interact with efficiently. So I'm currently at 2 Wear//Tear for that specific role but I'm also including 2 Engineered Explosives here too and it also fills the role of a sweepers against decks like Merfolk, Elves and Tokens which can get out of hand. Still not sure, if EE and Stony Silence will cause any "nonbos" but I guess I'll see in testing. Otherwise, Engineered Explosives could just be more Wear//Tears or even a couple Pyroclasm. With my sideboarding theory, that now leaves 3 slots left and am currently running 2 Blessed Alliance and 1 Vendilion Clique. No matter how much I want to remove Blessed Alliance, it always is so darn good, against so many things and I do feel it's important to have some hard removal sacrifice effects for Hexproof and Eldrazi. Last slot is currently a Vendilion Clique since it's a clock against combo decks once I've hopefully slowed them down with my disruption.
Setup (B) - Is a more overall versatile approach. I've got Thoughtseizes instead of Stony Silence here which provide a similar role in the combo match ups and works better against Tron/Valakut with a game plan involving trying to out-tempo them with Snaps and Bolts. With Lantern recently winning GP Brisbane, I'm reconsidering Thoughtseize and in Sideboard (A) above, I've replaced them with Stony Silence. The rest of the sideboard is set up similar to Sideboard (A) with 1 flex slot remaining which is currently at Crumble to Dust for Valakut decks but I'm not even sure Crumble is needed with Charm/Snap/Charm doing the rounds.
Truth be told, I'm currently leaning towards Sideboard (A), I just think a base of 4 RIP/ 4 SS, with some additional artifact/enchantment removal is where I want to be these days with very hard to interact with Prison decks getting more popular. I feel the mainboard does enough in majority of creature/combo match ups, with the exception of being a bit light against decks with Hexproof (UWR Midrange Geist, Bogles) and big guys with Cavern of Souls ala Bant Eldrazi, which I've tried to hedge against with a couple Blessed Alliance in the side. Cruel Ultimatum is actually pretty strong against both these decks too.
Other than those sideboarding issues, I'm actually very happy with the mana base and I can't really complain too much, the deck does what it does and struggles against what it struggles against, but I usually feel I've got a chance either main board and/or post board.
I am a fan of sweepers, I do think 2 main deck sounds about right if you can find the room, but still, finding the room is hard enough when lists are tight. The issue I've found with sweepers (4 mana wraths,) is that if you're not interacting in the early game and taking your licks until turn 4 when you wrath, a lot of damage has been done and you can get blown out by either a burn spell, a CoCo, a selfless spirit or some haste creatures like bushwackers or Mutavaults on the crack back. And if you're going to play a high amount of cheap removal spells in addition to sweepers, it kind of defeats the purpose of sweeping in the first place since you've already picked off their stuff with you spot removal, now paying 4 mana sorcery speed to kill 1, maybe 2 creatures isn't the best use of resources IMO.
The role I now view sweepers as, is more of a sideboard card to deal with predominately wide decks like Elves and Merfolk, which can be beaten by spot removal spells, but sometimes they can get ahead just a bit too quickly so having a couple sweepers handy in the side for those particular match ups is nice. From what I've heard from Merfolk, Engineered Explosives seems to be the sweeper of choice which holds value in nearly any match up.
Sweepers are good against Eldrazi too, but first we have to hope Thought-Knot Seer doesn't take it since we can't respond to his ability on the stack with a sorcery and also against Reality Smasher we are taking 5. I'm thinking Blessed Alliance might be a better choice than 4 mana wraths as a hard removal spell that gets annoying stuff like Geist, Bogles, Reality Smasher in addition to being great vs burn and zoo while being very efficient at 2 mana instant speed.
In regards to Combo decks. I can't say I agree about how it shouldn't be a consideration. Yes, we, and every control deck in the format is a dog to combo game 1. But. Just by virtue of playing Snap/Bolt, we can most definitely take game 1's. Add in 3-4 Helix's and topdecking that burn spell for the win becomes a real scenario. Combo decks aren't always super consistent. Sometimes they have slow draws and Jeskai can punish them better than any other control deck out there. The removal spells 'are' win conditions for Jeskai. I've tested a straight UB Control deck and can tell you how miserable it is playing against Tron game 1 where I have no way to race them. Hitting for 2 a turn off of Snapcaster Mage is pretty dismal. Adding some Bolts into the deck makes a world of difference in these match ups, it really does.
Christmas is over already!? Was wishing Santa would of brought me some of those foil DTTs
Epic question, just because I've been thinking that same question. Anyone with more experience have a good answer for it?
I'll have a go anyway with my theory of Thoughtseize:
I first used Thoughtseize before I even had any extraction effects. I saw it as a strong card against all the unfair combo decks out there. This was without me adding a single extraction to my sideboard. I then added extraction effects and realised the potential of Thoughtseize/Surgical Extraction.
But after some pondering due to realising how similar Lantern Control is to pre-ban Dredge in it's consistency and resiliency factor, I've noticed a trend in the match ups where I wanted Thoughtseize. I found that most combo decks have a fair weakness against either "permanent" grave yard hate (Rest in Peace) or "permanent" activated artifact ability hate (Stony Silence.)
Restore Balance - Stony Silence
Ad Nauseam - Stony Silence
Cheerios - Stony Silence
Tron - Stony Silence
Lantern - Stony Silence
Living End - Rest in Peace
Reanimator - Rest in Peace
Storm - Rest in Peace
Abzan CoCo - Rest in Peace
I'm sure there's a few more combo decks that I'm missing but the gist of it is that Rest in Peace and Stony Silence are both a 1 card combo that ranges from severely slowing them down to outright winning the match up.
Now, I've adopted my current sideboard to test 4 Stony Silence and 4 Rest in Peace as the mandatory slots against the most random, unfair stuff out there, which technically leaves me with a 7 card sideboard slots. This lead me to cut my Thoughtseize since I've only got so much space left and I feel that both Stony Silence and Rest in Peace deal with nearly all the things Thoughtseize did, but in a much more powerful and efficient way. I'm also considering having a Vendilion Clique in the side to capitalise on slowing them down to a crawl while giving me that extra bit of hand disruption that Thoughtseize provided.
At the moment I'm testing a 4/4 split of RIP/SS because I was reading some Lantern Control articles today and a common thing the Lantern Players were saying was that it's hard to actually win a match against Lantern if you're only packing 1-2 Stony Silence post-board because you really need to see them before turn 3-4 when the Lantern lock gets established, so if you're not playing enough hate in your sideboard, than odds are you won't see them in the first 9-10 cards and by then it's usually too late as a Lantern and Mill Rocks are in play, preventing you from going to ever draw one. Sounds similar to Dredge doesn't it in the sense that you need to be packing a fair amount of hate.
Righto, Wear//Tear it is. I'm currently playing 2 Negates in the side but I really, really hate losing to Blood Moon and Land Denial decks and Wear//Tear seems like an uber efficient way to deal with it all game only requiring 1 Plains as well as knocking off turn 1 Utopia Sprawls and random stuff like that which gets my jimmies rustled.
On Ajani Vengeant - I've had a couple games so far testing 1 copy in the main.
First match against a Jeskai Tempo brew featuring Favorable Winds, Mousoleam Wanderer, Spell Queller, Mantis Rider and some taxes cards like Judge's Familiar backed by burn and counters. Lost game 1. Game 2 I stabilised and Ajani Vengeant kept upticking until 8 loyalty and Armageddon'd him for the win. Cool thing to note was Ajani managed to keep the Moorland Haunt on lockdown so he couldn't get any value out of his grave yard. That little touch impressed me. Game 3, I finally stabilised with the help of Ajani's - ability which just was brutal gaining me 3 life and killing his creatures.
Second match against Mono U Tron. Game 1 a turn 4 Ajani Vengeant kept his Urza's Tower on lockdown until about turn 8 or something like that until he drew another Tower. Ajani got Repeald, so I couldn't Armageddon him, but it was a little too late as I had already got the Tron player's life total under 10 with my Snap/Bolt/Helix. Was able to replay Ajani, and minus him for the win. Game 2 was a tight one but a second Wurmcoil Engine and a perfectly timed Condescend saved the day for him when I had a Bolt on the stack with his life total at 3. Game 3, I found an opportunity to land Ajani on turn 6. Kept his Island on lockdown so he couldn't cast double blue spells like Snapcaster Mage/flashback counter. My opponent tried a last ditch Repeal but that was met with a Cryptic Command on my end. Ajani Vengeant Ultimate for the win. Felt good being able to give their Sundering Titan a taste of his own medicine. Interesting to note was the Tron player sided in for a turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. Not sure if this is new tech or just living life on the edge because #yolo, but I ended up siding in my 2 Wear//Tear which I never ended up drawing but could of been useful against the turn 0 Leyline with my Burn spells it turns off.
Whoever the person was that said Ajani always seems to be able to get to Ultimate, you're right as rain. I don't know what it is, I just seemed to be able to get to Ultimate in both matches I played and if I wasn't Ultimating, I was minusing which was brutal for the opponent to come back from.
So far, in my limited testing I'm a believer, especially the work he did against U Tron where I wouldn't think he'd be of any use.
Sideboarding-wise, between Disenchant and Wear//Tear, which is better? Does the colour issue (Negate, Countersquall as an example) ever come up with Wear side of the card, to consider running Disenchant instead? Or is Wear//Tear just the better card to have in the side?
I'm playing a 4 colour control deck (WURB) with more UB mana sources than RW and I understand you play a fair amount of mana screwing techniqus:
I'v got room for 2 and my options are:
Damnation/Wrath of God
Pyroclasm
Engineered Explosives
Supreme Verdict
Anger of the Gods
Any other sweepers I've missed?
Pyroclasm and EE are the easiest on my mana base with Damnation being easier to cast than Wrath and Verdict.
Any particular sweeper you don't like particularly playing against?
The problem with replacing some burn spells like Bolt and Helix with more hard removal like Blessed Alliance and Wrath of God is that we now have much weaker game 1's against the non-creature decks of the format since we're trying to be even more durdly since we are packing less burn to close out the game.
The trade-off is that more main deck hard removal is better against bigger stuff, and to be honest, only really Bant Eldrazi comes to mind where this trade-off is preferable. Tarmogoyf who has always dodged Bolt, has been in the format since forever too and we've learnt to deal with it.
Barring Eldrazi's nut draws, we have ways to deal with them, we just have to work a little bit harder than some other control decks. We still have Path, gm_jack suggested Remand which seems excellent when they don't get their Cavern draws (which they don't always do even though we remember the tough times.) Snap/Bolt, Electrolyze/Bolt are non-Path ways that don't lead to card disadvantage on our end. Fatal Push can't even pair up with Snap to take down a bigger dude. Eldrazi still play a lot of stuff that dies to Burn - Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Displacer, Bird of Paradise, Noble Heirarch and some even play Eldrazi Skyspawner which Electrolyze, yes Electrolyze in this match up absolutely owns. Eldrazi is a great deck because it has all the cheap "must answer" threats that die to Bolt, but they also top out at bigger stuff too which gives them a strong game against control decks which would generally be harder for them since they aren't playing Red.
And with the format apparently "slower" these days, there's more decks like Living End and Tron running about where you're going to wish you had as much burn spells as possible instead of more Blessed Alliance.
I've played all different kinds of control decks and the one thing I envied the most about Jeskai control, was that it had the very best aggro match up out of all the control decks out there which is always going to be important. My favourite removal set up was from Shaun's 2013 UWR deck that had 4 Bolt, 4 Helix, 3 Path. That is the real strength of Jeskai IMO, it has the very best early game removal spells in the format that also can double up as win conditions.
If we were to replace "some" of our Bolts and Helixs with harder removal like BA, I feel this may lead to a sub-optimal set up. Why not play 3 Snaps/1 Gearhulk too? Or 3 Nahiri, 1 Elspeth? In theory, it sounds nice to maybe chop 1 or 2 "Bolts" but it does add up in that you've now lost 6 points of damage to close the game out against Restore Balance or you top-decked a Blessed Alliance instead of that Helix against a hellbent Liliana, or you're curve might be slightly higher and you won't be able to match that turn 1 Guide, Bird like you used to.
It's probably better to just play straight UW or Esper if we want to focus on killing bigger stuff. Those decks are made to excel against bigger creatures due to playing more hard removal spells as they don't have access to bolt. This also makes their game 1's against a divers field much weaker since they have a lot more dead cards than us. Every deck has their strengths and weaknesses, we can't have everything.
I'm personally trying to develop a "Jeskai Black" draw-go deck, including cards such as Esper Charm that can double up as a "removal" spell against the big creature decks like Eldrazi by making them discard 2 creatures on the turn 3/4 mark, while also being great against the combo decks. Charm/Snap/Charm turn 4/5 is sometimes even more brutal than Bolt/Snap/Bolt. That's 4 cards right there, "removed" from the game. I'm basically trying to keep the Mclaren removal package of Bolt, Helix, Path, but am using Esper Charm as a "hard removal" spell by dumping thier hand before they even get a chance to play out their stuff, leaving them to only topdecks to "nut me out." What's cool about Charm is that it's never a dead card in any match up. It just makes in game decisions more difficult, but I think the versatility is worth it.
I'm personally more of a Negate boy than a Dispel boy. In testing, Negate has been house against the big mana decks where Dispel can range from unplayable to being ok. I think 2/1 Negate/Dispel would be safer against most things but if you like Dispel a lot than it doesn't really matter too much how you split them since they serve similar roles.
On RIP, fair enough. It's a love/hate type of card in Snapcaster decks.
Good luck anyway dude
You could also flip the Negate/Dispel numbers around if you think more big mana decks like Tron or Valakut will be there.
Rest in Peace could be an option in place of 1 or 2 Surgicals if Grixis is popular but then again, Surgical is better against the big mana stuff.
I dig the mainboard Elspeth and I really like your sideboard, it looks like it has generic answers for anything you may face out there.
Anyone have any experience with the card, particularly against bigger stuff like Goyf, Knight, Eldrazi? Does his + ability do some work to stall and is his - ability worth pairing with a bolt to take out a Thought-Knot Seer?
Or is he completely outshone by Nahiri, the Harbinger?
Question to anyone: What's the best answer to a resolved Blood Moon if you didn't happen to get enough fetches or basics out by the time it comes down, or if you didn't have a counter or Esper Charm in time either?
The reason I'm asking is that I've been playing against a lot more Blood Moon recently and even though I have 4 mainboard Esper Charm and a lot of basics, I'm finding it's pretty much GGS if I didn't draw the "right" part of my deck before Blood Moon hits, usually on turn 3, sometimes on turn 2.
Are colourless cards that can be cast with a Blood Moon in play worth a look in the side if I'm finding it to be a big problem? Stuff like Perilous Vault Oblivion Stone, Culling Scales?
A couple thoughts on that -
1. Would some Engineered Explosives in the side be a good choice? I used to think EE was close to an auto-win against Merfolk, until they bring in Sea's Claim, which causes just as much trouble as Spreading Seas and also dodges the coveted X=2 against Merfolk. Same as Vial which dodges EE too.
2. Propaganda effects aka Ghostly Prison. I've been looking hard recently at the prison decks, in particular, their sideboard. I'll get to this in a bit below. But on the topic of Ghostly Prison. I can see this card being a solid side board choice because it doesn't really care for Vial or Seas effects since it's only W. I was playing against a BW tokens recently and the dude kept rebuilding after board wipes either through Bitterblossom or EOT Secure the Wastes. I was talking to him and he actually rate Ghostly Prison higher than sweepers and even higher than Engineered Explosives in the BW tokens match up. I can also see Ghostly Prison being useful against decks packing Selfless Spirit like UW/Esper/Bant Spirits where they have ways to punish Sweepers on turn 4. I can also see Ghostly Prison being fairly decent against Bant Eldrazi, especially if you pack 2-3 in the side, you can stack it. This will buy so much time where the opponent won't be able to take advantage of a turn 4 Verdict or Bust situation.
In regards to the sideboarding, what I've noticed is that the Prison decks tend to pack a 3/3/3 split of RIP/Stony/Leyline. These tend to be some of the hardest hitting hate cards in the format.
Was looking at adopting my sideboard to something like this:
4/3 Rest in Peace
2/3 Stony Silence
2/3 Leyline of Sanctitiy
2/3 Ghostly Prison
3 Thoughtseize
1-2 Flex Slots
I figure the strongest hate cards in the format, taking a leaf out of WR lockdowns book minus the B moon.
RIP - As they say, when people start removing grave hate from their sideboard, that's when Dredge takes off again. Good thing that RIP is very strongly positioned with Abzan CoCo, Grixis.dec, Thopter/Sword, Storm/Gifts. I've tested against Storm Gifts and I think that version is much more potent and consistent than the old UR version. But RIP completely shuts the deck down, it's not even funny. RIP is the strongest GY hate in the format imo.
Stony Silence - All artifacts, past, present and future. There will always be artifacts doing broken things in every format. Stony Silence is the real deal here.
Leyline of Sanctitiy - Shuts down Burn/Valakut/8 Rack or any discard heavy decks that are fighting on a very linear axis. Was tossing up between Timely Reinforcements and Blessed Alliance in this spot for an anti-Burn card but I think Leyline of Sanctity hoses other T1 decks like Valakut which is a more flexible card all around. Heavy handed hate card against a lot of "hard to interact with" strategies.
Ghostly Prison - This card isn't exactly as popular as the above hate cards, but I think it deserves a look. As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of creature decks that are built to get around Sweepers and come back with a huge counter punch if we tap out. These decks also play quite a low - average land count which means they want to either "cheat" things in with either Vial or Temples or play an excess amount of creature threats on a low land count. I think Ghostly Prison can change the dynamics of these match ups where it comes to a "Verdict or Bust" scenario where they could be Chording in a Selfless Spirit or EOT CoCo. Propaganda effects in theory could change the pace of the match and give us time to hit more draw steps and build more lands. Even against Eldrazi, I think it can slow them down considerably and just stacking 2 of these could be very hard for them to deal with. This is the sideboard hate card I'm currently most interested in as I haven't tested it too much but I've tested the others (RIP, Stony, Leyline) and they've all proven to be established choices.
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK/Clique/Hand disruption - I think there still needs to be room for targeted discard in the side as a combo/mirror breaker no kikijiki. Card like Thoughtseize always come in handy and is a good reason to play Black in addition to Esper Charm which Jeskai doesn't have access to.
This leaves about 2 Flex slots left for whatever like Disenchants, Planeswalkers, Engineered Explosives, Removals, Counters, BBoV/BA, Crucible of Worlds lol
Thoughts?