i feel if you're playing any number of remands or spell snares and geist... you're going to have consistency issues... most lists that run serum and have a difference of maybe 4 cards so it's not a deckbuilding problem like you're trying to pose...
in jeskai your removal and counters are all conditional and particularly in game 1s you're going to draw the bad part of your deck... it's just unavoidable... playing remands? hopefully you don't play zoo or infect... playing against tron? hope you don't top deck bolts... ad nauseam? a lot of good those paths you're drawing... serum visions filters for that a bit as well as filtering multiple geists at the cost of tempo but a snapcaster deck is going to be mostly lean already so the one mana isn't going to hurt too much... in sb games they help dig to your sb cards or whatever is relevant at the time...
this isn't a twin deck but serum was a staple in twin for this reason... you draw more of the relevant parts of your deck to make up for the fact that your answers are kind of crappy....
Idk, I like Remands against Zoo and Infect. Not my favorite card, but it's not THAT bad.
So far I'm running the more controlling Geist version with 3 V-Clique and 9 counters, no Serum Visions and I've been pretty happy about it. I don't own any Visions, so I can't really test to say which I like better. In either case, I'm not convinced the difference of 4 cards (and it's cantrips vs. no-cantrips of all things...) is really gonna push us from developing to tier 1.
It might. But that'd have to be in conjunction with something else entirely. I do still like the deck a lot; it has solid game against a lot of decks.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Went 6-2 at Ovinospring in Milan, Italy. Didn't make it to the top 16 because of rating. Ended 25th out of 225 players. It was an exciting day. I was really close to do something pretty big here: a top 8 at a relevant tournament with a Geist deck. I'm pretty pumped up: it looks like the new meta is good for Geist. I've been waiting this moment for quite some time, I love this deck, but in the last couple of years it was just unfit to the meta. I'll post a report soon, I'll just anticipate that the two losses were both at the hands of the same deck and I need to figure something out to improve that MU. All the 6 wins were to different archetypes so the deck felt pretty flexible also thanks to some good sideboard choices (in two of my six wins I lost game 1 but was able to reverse the situation after sideboarding).
Will you be posting a tournament report? Can you elaborate on which decks you played against and which decks you lost to?
Edit: Didn't see that you said you were making a report in your post. I'm looking forward to it.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
How does 22 lands with Cryptic Command and 2 5-drops work for you? I would never feel comfortable running less than 24 lands in the deck, even with cards like Serum Visions to smooth things out but you only run 3 and you don't even necessarily drop it T1 due to Celestial Colonnade. Clearly you have results, it just seems odd. Can you explain some of the deck building choices?
I think Ancestral Vision is much more suited to a control build than our tempo/aggro variants. I think we need to capitalize on tempo with cards like Remand and burn spells to close games out, as usual. I'm not sure I prefer Archangel Avacyn to a card like Thundermaw Hellkite who closes out the game much faster, but I'd have to test with her of course.
Same. I, too, would like to know how and why 22 lands have been working for you. I'd love to lower the land count as well, but usually 24 is very stable and almost necessary. For me, anyway.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Maybe Archangel Avacyn has potential. I got one in a booster the other day and I've been wondering if she could fit in this deck.
Cool. Am so jealous. She definitely has some potential, though she does have a lot of competitors vying for that slot as well. Occasionally she might troll your team (kill snapcaster --> Avacyn flips --> Geist dies in the crossfire), so that's something to keep in mind.
Or another example:
Your board is Snapcaster + Geist. Pretty normal.
Opp: End of turn, Bolt your Snapcaster.
You: Response flash Avacyn.
Opp: Response Bolt your Snapcaster again.
Snapcaster dies. Next turn Avacyn flips and kills Geist.
^In the above example, they basically got to use their second bolt on Geist. Of course, I'm not automatically writing Avacyn off. Just showing how she can backfire.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I like your list a lot, I'm going to test something like that but cutting a path and the sphinx's revelation for the fourth remand and mana leak (I never liked sphinx outside commander). I'll try the thing in the ice MB since my meta is mostly aggro and the geist of saint traft on the SB.
I felt like Ajani's been in an awkward spot; he and Elspeth, Knight-Errant haven't been putting in enough weight for me, so I ended up cutting them. They were just *okay*. Then again, I distinctly remember them during U/R Delver Treasure Cruise meta...so it might have colored my thoughts on them. I don't think Chandra, Pyromaster is where we want to be. But Jace, Architect of Thought did come across my mind -- if we go into a more control meta.
I used Gideon Jura and liked him a fair bit. I swapped him out for Elspeth, Sun's Champion. She seems slightly better than Gideon, for what I've been trying to use her for. But it's definitely a flex spot. I do like the curve toppers though. Might try Dragonlord Ojutai instead if I ever get around to acquiring him. Seems like I really would need Minamo, School at Water's Edge, Eiganjo Castle, and Slayers' Stronghold to really take full advantage of him.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I think one thing we don't want to be doing is overreacting to Vision. Like OMG he suspended a Vision, let's go all in and play all of our burn spells and creatures to try and win as fast as possible. Or let's try to keep all our ressources to win a counter war over Vision or to deal with threats afterwards.
Our gameplan should stay the same. Play at instant speed, stuff like Snap-Bolt, Clique and Resto, if they tap out punish them with Geist, Keranos and such, otherwise, beat them down. When a suspended Vision is about to resolve, if we have a couple counterspells, we should try and fight over it to either prevent them from casting it or forcing them to tap out on their own turn and play a threat in our following turn.
I still think our deck is not something a control player wants to face, regardless of Vision, 'cause we can quickly threaten their life total, Geist has hexproof, we play mostly at instant speed, we can run cheap counterspells, we are grindy.
And Clique is always great vs control, we can run up to 3 if needed.
I agree with this completely. I've had opponents resolve Sphinx's Revelation for 3 cards before in different matches, and the game plan was still more or less exactly the same for us. We have solid enough interaction that we can fight through the card advantage. It gets a little harder with AV, but I don't see it being insurmountable. I have a little more to say about this, but I'm tired and behind on work. And Aller more or less said everything I was gonna say.
What do you guys think of Thing in the Ice as a sideboard card? I am currently trying out 3 of them to swap out with Geist in the aggro match-ups. It seems like Geist and Thing are complementary sideboard partners. Geist is great in the control/midrange matchup where Thing is great in the aggro matchup.
My list is rather threat-light, running only 10 creatures mainboard, so it might not be a great option for people running a higher amount. I'm using a few sideboard slots that would have been taken up by sweepers for the Thing.
Interesting thought. I'm eager to try out my new toys (just got 1 prerelease foil TiTi ).
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I think what he is asking is if they can play the Fulminator, then immediately sac it for the effect, which they can. In this case Sudden Shock will not help, but a lot of the time, players will hold it and try to get value out of the 2/2 body before saccing, which means you have a window to shock it.
^Yeah, this is what I meant. That's the reason I asked is because I don't typically play against the card enough to know what the habits/tendencies people have when they cast it (Fulminator Mage).
Once they know you run it, they'll probably just immediately sac every time. Which I suppose might not be the worst thing, as that means they can't get "more" out of it, like attacking or blocking.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I'm curious. What would you folks think of a one-of Cavern of Souls in the maindeck to trump all the countermagic running around lately? My main problem against Grixis, at this point, is resolving Geist around countermagic, simply because they have a greater volume of it than we do and we're trying to resolve a 3-mana sorcery speed dude.
I've never really had a problem resolving Geist against Grixis; usually you can find tempo/time. If they tap out for example. I also find their density of counters to be the same as ours. Perhaps the only difference is whether or not they run Dispel main board. Then again, I'm running a more counter-spell heavy version.
One final thought, if they're being stubborn with holding up mana constantly, I try to feint with a flash creature. That's generally more or less how I get them to react. Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, and Restoration Angel are great at this. Electrolyze into Snapcaster --> Electrolyze is a good way to get them to react as well. Because no one actually wants to counter Electrolyze. Yet if they let Snap through, then they're eating an extra 2 damage, letting us get a draw, AND letting us keep a 2 power body. Just bait as much as you can until they crack.
The real problem with Grixis are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler. They can come down real early. They're very hard to kill; it's Path or bust -- especially so with Tasigur, as even 1 activation starts to swing card advantage in the other player's direction. They also run them in large numbers and it's very hard to deal with all of them, especially if they come down one right after the other. Your only real defense main board are counters and Path. And the counters aren't always guaranteed to hit either (1-turn-late syndrome). Postboard it gets a little better with Celestial Purge. But that's kind of it (in regards to Tasigur/Angler anyway). Honorable mention goes to Blood Moon for being an annoying card to deal with.
I'm actually frustrated: in my local meta tron is everywhere and i don't know what to do... =_=
This is what I do for the Tron match-up:
Sideboard in:
Stony Silence x2, Fulminator Mage x2, Negate, Wear//Tear (both copies if you run them; I ran only 1 at the time). I was also trying to tinker with Surgical Extraction, but I was not able to really test and know if it was worth a slot.
I was able to beat Tron today with that set-up above. It was still a rough match-up, and I wouldn't call us a favorite -- far from it.
Also main boarding Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge helps. Ghost Quarter is more efficient vs. Tron though. Other interesting things you can do is run Molten Rain and Sowing Salt. Or like, Aven Mindcensor as well, though that card feels too slow and inefficient. Shadow of Doubt is another card you can run to stop searches. A lot of these suggestions are a bit overkill; you probably can't run them all. And even if you could, it doesn't really guarantee victory, as what kills Tron is some form of fast clock. Monastery Mentor is kinda...nice against them too actually. Kinda. More of the fact that you don't have to commit much to the board meanwhile being able to have it grow and get out of hand. Thing is...it might beat blue variant trons. But probably still too slow vs. GR Tron.
What I really like about this version is the mana curve, 17 cantrips in the 75 including 5 cards that manipulate draws, and the card advantage given by Snapcaster and Souls.
I also like to lure my opponent into bringing in hate for Lingering Souls just to find out that I swapped it with Geist.
I think Shadow of Doubt is the best we can do maindeck against Tron and Amulet Bloom. The card is playable maindeck because it is useful in several MUs and it replaces itself.
Neat list. Looks like a lot of fun toys to play with; a full set of Visions, 2x Anticipates, and 2x Shadow of Doubts! Cantrip for days. Haha, that's not even including the 4x Remands.
I also have a question for you guys. I'm having a lot of trouble to deal with Fulminator Mage. So many players run fullsets in the 75 (Grixis Control, Jund, Abzan...). They also get it back with Kolaghan's Command.
Is there anything that can be done?
This card hurts me so much in the 4c version that I was even thinking about Squelch and Sudden Shock.
What do you guys think about those two cards and have you got other ideas?
I don't think it should be THAT big of a problem in the regular Jeskai lists, and you can always fetch basics. Though, the combination of Molten Rain and Fulminator makes the card hard to deal with; however, since you're running 4 colors, Squelch and Sudden Shock seem like fine choices. Sudden Shock especially. I'm iffy on Squelch, but it doesn't seem that bad. Does Trickbind fit the bill here?
I don't like squelch, but Sudden Shock is definitely a good option out of the sideboard. It also works wonders against infect creatures, scavenging ooze, and still takes out other small creatures like snapcaster, dark confidant, hierarch etc.
Can't they still insta-activate Fulminator Mage, which would make Sudden Shock miss its chance to shunt the play? Or do most people not immediately activate Fulminator Mage? I don't play against the card enough to really know.
The thing is, it isn't working wonders against Fulminator itself. It only works once, after that Mage will just get sacrificed instantly not giving us time to Sudden Shock it. Anyway I might end up running a singleton of both cards in my SB, they are also useful in other situations. Squelch combined with my Shadow of Doubt allows also a mana denial gameplan if we see our opponent has mana issues.
Yeah, that was one thing I was concerned with in regards to Sudden Shock vs. Fulminator Mage. Though I bet it's a very satisfying way to hit the card the first time around. The local players will probably never let that happen again though. lol
Hey guys! I wanted to post this four-color RWub Zur deck here. It has the same core strategy as UWR, which is to win on the back of Geist and Snapcaster, so I thought it might be appropriate.
Some of my thoughts are already in the description but to add a bit more:
1)It is primarily a Geist deck but with Zur added for a late game finisher that provides steel of the godhead synergy to our creatures and additional card advantage.
2) Explanation of Techs:
Deputy of Acquittals: added not only because it is UW for Steel but also because it allows you to reuse or save many of your high-value creatures. I don't have to emphasize what it means to reuse a snapcaster mage do I? Also, it allows you to bring back the dark confidants if they are about to kill you. It all sounds good on paper but I need someone to test it.
Dark Confidant: I figured if Jund can run 10 cards that have a 3 cmc or more (one of which is a Tasigur), we can run a dark confidant. Also, we run more life gain plans than Jund, by running a playset of Lightning Helixes and Steel of the Godhead. This in conjunction with snapcaster mage theoretically gives us enough stability.
Temporal isolation: I think this is a good enchantment that is relevant with or without Zur. If it gets abrupt decayed, well that can cause some unfortunate tempo loss but I am willing to take that risk. You can also cast it on your own Geist, essentially making it a 4/4 hexproof flier if worst comes to worst. It is also a way to save Geist if you get combat tricked. Hopefully, we can take out the abrupt decays with our discard suites.
Not gonna lie. Looks pretty cool/fun. I kinda have a soft spot for Zur. The problem though, is that I also have a sour spot for Zur as well; I've played Esper Zur for a good while, and I found that I only really liked it if/when I was playing Deathrite Shaman, which is now banned. The thing with any deck with Zur in it is that the cards for Zur and Zur himself end up being pretty damn mediocre. And they end up just wasting card slots. More Terminates seem just flat-out better than some of the stuff you're running. In general, Zur doesn't really win you the game; from my testing, usually if Zur sticks and swings, it's because we got a solid foothold of the game and board state. SOMETIMES, he literally does win the game -- I will admit that; it's happened a number of times in the past. But most of the time, the card is a dead card.
Deputy of Acquittals is a card that sounds like fun if you can get it to work; however, it's just a bear at the end of the day. Idk, I don't like it much.
I will say this though, I dislike automatically dismissing ideas without actually testing it, so who knows? Maybe there's something here to work with. Unfortunately Idk if I have much time to tinker with it.
I only lost a few games to Moon. I didn't face it so often and I usually have an answer/can play around it. I lost a lot of games to Fulminator Mage because I had to face it way more often, in multiple copies in the same games and with recursions with Kolaghan's without really having any answer.
If this is the case with Fulminator Mage being so bad for the black splash version of the deck, is there a case for NOT running any black and going more towards the "traditional" build? What's your thoughts on it?
I'm sticking to straight UWR for now; there's still some more play value and tinkering space that I haven't done yet. Nothing too crazy, I just wanna explore them before switching it up. Also might do Jeskai Geist Twin for a couple FNM's or so too.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
My thought is about Geist . Is it not to much, to play it 4 times? Actually, when do you play a Geist? Isn't it the worst thing to do to tap out with UWR? So do you wait usually for turn 5 to play it?
I do not have access to Scalding Tarn neither Sulfur Falls . But I guess this should not matter too much. Anyone had bad experience with that?
Is playing 3 Cryptic Command too much?
Greetz
Michael
Personally, I've been running Vjeran Horvat's 24th Place GP Copenhagen list and I really like it so far. I made very little changes if any.
Some people run a full 4. Some run 3. I'm...ok with running either number really. I kinda like 3 because getting too many is cloggy, and it tends to be wrong to jam turn 3 Geist, I feel. That said, the turns that you WANT turn 3 Geist, you'll wish you were running a full 4. When to tap out for Geist? It depends on your hand, the match-up, and board position. Sometimes it also depends on the read you pick up from your opponent. This is where having extra Geist is handy because you can jam one, if it dies, then you can jam a second one immediately. Tapping out for Geist is fine generally; it's what the deck wants to do. But it does depend on what's in your hand, and what they can do when tapped out.
I don't own Scalding Tarns nor do I own Arid Mesa. I just use 4x Polluted Delta. I've had next to no problems. Only very fringe scenarios do I wish it was a Tarn instead. I think Sulfur Falls is a little more important, if only simply because it's a U/R dual. I don't know exactly how you'd replace it. But it's not that big of a deal either. You can run Shivan Reef or something.
I like 3 Cryptic Commands. The card's awesome. You can get away with just 2 though. I tend to sideboard out 1-2 copies, due to space or it being too slow in some match-ups.
Can either you or your friend give us insight to some of the card choices? What's your reasoning for only 2 Serum Visions and not 4? Why 4x Helix/2x Electrolyze over 3/3 split? Why Eiganjo Castle instead of Shinka (to be able to cheese Rhinos/Tasigurs/etc.)?
I mainly have questions about sideboard choices and I'm curious why your friend decided to run them. I'm looking at Anger of the Gods, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, 2nd Engineered Explosives, Keranos, and Valorous Stance.
I feel like intuitively, I get a general idea as to why those are run, but I kinda wanna hear it from people who've played the cards/chose them; like why Elspeth over Gideon, or Keranos over Batterskull. I think Keranos over Batterskull makes sense if you're predicting lots of Kolaghan's Command. That seems to be most sensible, though again, maybe I'm missing something else? Does Stance just act as another removal spell in grindy GBx decks? Elspeth seems good in grindy match-ups as well, though did you side it in vs. anything else?
I've never been a big fan of Explosives at all. Just always felt too slow or clunky. But perhaps I'm wrong.
And why no Spellskite or Stony Silence?
Does this build have a better game vs. Tron?
What match-up is important enough that you dedicate a slot to Anger of the Gods? A new meta read?
Anyway, I'd appreciate any input, as I'm open to new ideas/different perspectives.
Lately, the big deck in my meta has been Jund. I want to go over my thoughts on this matchup because I have heard a lot of people talk about how difficult of a matchup this is for us, but I disagree. I think that people are too focused on the fact that geist doesn't fare well in creature combat vs jund, but there is a lot more to the matchup that tilts it in our favor in my opinion based on experience.
I have had a fairly easy time beating jund. I have found that if you can get in a hit or two with a creature, you can usually burn them out pretty easily because of how much self damage they do. I often will just launch geist into his demise so that the angel can get in for 4, or if I have the tools, you can just chain removal and win off of geist. I think something key to realize is that, we don't need to protect geist if it will put us in a position that we can get them in burn range. In this matchup, Elsepth has been a major powerhouse because it gets creatures over big blockers, and can help finish off a game through a big board state.
The only games I lose are when liliana gets out of control, making me get rid of too many resources. Between flash creatures, countermagic and burn spells though, most of the time, I can answer lili. I think the key for me in this matchup has been being able to answer their early plays, then apply a lot of pressure with fliers and geist and burn them out before they can create an overwhelming board state. It requires tight play, but I find that the matchup is good once you figure out how to play through it. It's almost like you are playing control until turn 4, then you just try to burst them down.
From the sideboard, I bring in the 2x Keranos, 2x Flashfreeze and 1x Celestial Purge, and take out 4x Remand and 1x Geist.
Keranos is a great card for the late game, it can help us make sure we are getting action in the late game by giving us another card when we draw land, and also helping close out the game by sending bolts at the opponent. Flashfreeze is another answer to most of the creatures in the deck, as well as a bunch of their removal. Purge is pretty self explanatory, it's another answer to the delve guys that bolts cant kill as well as liliana.
I remove the remands because I don't think that it is as impactful againt jund as they are in many other matchups. They are good vs the delve guys, but otherwise, bouncing a spell isn't really going to be that good most of the time when they have a lot of cheap powerful threats. I drop 1 geist, because I generally don't want to drop it turn 3 anyways.
Depending on the build, I will also want to side out my spell pierces and bring in the second negate and engineered explosives for better answers to liliana, and countering important spells in the late game.
Here is my current list for reference. I have recently been considering to try running a couple crackling doom in my board and a Blood Crypt or Watery Grave in the land base. I used to run them, and I think they might be good again.
I agree with pretty much everything you said about the Jund match-up. After having played it a bunch of times, I felt like I was winning a lot of my games fairly handedly. Just play tight; I don't feel like the deck does enough to UWR. Their discard is probably the deadliest thing against us, but they're not Esper Mentor, where they're running a full 6+ discard. At least I don't think so; didn't seem to happen to me too often in my games. And they kinda just lose to Geist. Sure, their creatures make our Geist "bad," but I feel like due to our massive amount of removal and counters, we can keep them off the board easily. Only Liliana really scares me to be honest. Huntmaster can be kinda annoying. I don't really like Elspeth in UWR Geist decks much. I like her in Esper more.
My favorite deck in modern. Went 7-3 in GP Richmond with it in pod era and would love to see it rise agan to the top. However, the last time i played it I went 0-4, infect is too fast, small zoo is too fast, boggles, well now, hell on wheels unless i draw my EE. Even burn blows me away.
Ive seen serum visions in lists, why? Overall, why the loss of counter spells? Of any variety? I see 6-8 in most builds. Also, never liked planeswalkers, not the era i grew up in. Are they now essential? Should i now consider throwing in planeswalker X in over dragon? Seriously love this deck and would like to hear some reasoning from the people that manage to perform well at it, because I no longer can.
Huh, Idk...I think you might be playing the deck wrong if you're losing to Infect. It can be a little rough, due to how fast they can be and how they demand answers...though it's not like turn 2 Tasigur, where it's Path or bust; your whole deck has removal spells to deal with ALL of their creatures. Just watch for Wild Defiance. And use your removal spells either end of their turn (not on their attack) or wait till your turn. Play smart and play tight. I've lost exactly one game to the deck out of 4+ games. And that's just recent results. The only thing hard is if you end up bricking or if it's game 1, and you keep a hand that's light on removal. Yeah, Bogles you need EE. I haven't played that match very much with Jeskai Geist; I've played a bunch with Esper Geist, and it's kinda 50/50 (who is on the play? lol).
Zoo and Affinity is interesting. Doesn't seem that bad if you draw the right half of your deck, else, it can be kinda rough. I think it should be even enough. Burn shouldn't be too bad as you can either race them or use a lot of your removal to stem the tide. Helix helps a lot. Same goes for Snapcaster --> Helix. If it's that bad, there's Spellskite in the sideboard, alongside Batterskull, Kor Firewalker, Dispel, etc. I mean, you can go full-hate by doing something like Circle of Protection, Leyline of Sanctity, Sanctimony, Timely Reinforcements, etc. You have A LOT of options.
People are experimenting with Serum Visions to boost consistency. I'm not too big on the card in this deck, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea. Some really do champion the card though. If I had any, I'd give it a try. Loss of counters? Depends on the build. Some go hard on burn. I think for the most part people are going back to having more counters. I really like them. I run 9. 2x Mana Leak, 3x Remand, 3x Cryptic Command, 1x Spell Snare. Then in the side: 2x Dispel. You can do more counters or less counters. Up to player preference.
Lol...Planeswalkers are not essential at all. If anything, they kinda suck here. Ajani isn't that good anymore, at least IMO. Elspeth is alright, but I'm not amazed. IMO Gideon is an all-star, but again, not ESSENTIAL. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is an interesting one...I haven't tested her to really know. The only ones to consider to me, are Gideon Jura, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. The rest are kinda meh. Jace, Architect of Thought might be ok. And Ajani Vengeant is an old friend...IMO unreliable friend, but he's family here. lol
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
In general, do you think Ghost Quarter works better in this list then Tec Edge?
To me, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Personally, I usually am trying to hit all my land drops anyway, so hitting problem lands early is not a priority (of course, if you're gunning for Tron, Quarter would probably be better as it's easier to use). Also, maybe it's just been me and my testing, but so far most problem lands don't really get going till like, around when you'd actually be able to activate Tec Edge; Ravine, Colonnade, Tar Pit, Gavony, etc. all get going about 4-5 mana. It gets a little dicier against Inkmoth Nexus, as they're sometimes a land or two shy from me being able to Tec Edge their Nexus. With that said, I usually can deal with them anyway, and eventually that 4th land hits (Path helps sometimes lol).
Also, I like that Tec Edge can hinder the number of lands they have available. Same goes for color; you can get pretty savvy with Tec Edge. Ghost Quarter on the other hand still will let them keep their land count and they aren't cut off from any particular color -- in some rare cases, it can improve their color quality. The flip side is that if your mana is really ****ed up this particular game, Ghost Quartering your own lands to fix your colors is a bonus -- fringe and a little more cavalier than I'd recommend (though admittedly, I did this A LOT when Quarter was in standard lol).
In short, I like Tec Edge much better, as I prefer the added benefit of controlling the number of lands they have out along with being able to control their colors. Ghost Quarter though, requires less mana to use, and it's better at straight-up destroying problem lands, no strings attached (other than the replacement land).
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I've been thinking about Thundermaw Hellkite spot in my UWR Midrange deck. Card is OK... but that's it. No more Lingering Souls, just 5/5 beater that will eat a Terminate. How can I replace a dragon? Keranos? Sphinx's Rev? Jace AoT? Any thoughts?
So far, I've liked Gideon Jura. He can grind out matches and is versatile overall.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
I played FNM last night with Vjeran Horvat's 24th place GP Copenhagen list with only a few changes, mostly due to card availability. I'm not new to the deck, but it's been a while since I last played Jeskai Geist, and I've been on lists with less counter magic. My friend let me borrow 3x Cryptics and 3x Tarns so I was pretty excited.
So I subbed Gideon Jura into the main instead of Thundermaw (don't own).
Ran Shinka, the Blood-Soaked Keep and Glacial Fortress in place of 2x Colonnades.
And I ran 3x Tarn, 1x Polluted Delta instead of his 2x Tarn 2x Mesa.
Pretty minor changes in the main overall. I kept the side mostly the same save for 3-4 cards. I'd play Skites, but I don't own any and couldn't borrow anyone's. So I played 2x Fulminator Mages for *****s and giggles, and because Gideon was subbed into the main, I put Stormbreath Dragon in its place. My friends convinced me to cut the Batterskull for Outpost Siege. They were also the ones who suggested I run Gideon main over the Stormbreath. More on both of this later.
I went 3-0-1 that night, earning a Path to Exile. The draw I felt like I could've avoided if I didn't punt. lol
The match-ups:
Round 1 was against UB Faeries. Was a fun match, but mostly just a control tempo/grind-fest. V-Clique is amazing at forcing things through and helping me resolve Geist. Ride Geist to victory. Gideon actually came to be rather useful in game 2. Sniped a creature while also being a huge body that can avoid removal (until he uses his 0 anyway) proved to be nice. In this particular case, he was a nuisance and proved to be better than both Thundermaw and Stormbreath; I dropped him, +2. Then next turn when I animated him, I had the mana to counter his removal spells. Game 2 I had double Geist of Saint Traft; he Inquisitioned the first one. I remanded his second discard spell, then resolved Geist. Proceeded to beat face till he lost. Shinka's First Strike utility came up once here. Haha.
Round 2 was against Grixis Delver. I found that match-up to be pretty good/fun and reasonable. Didn't feel like I was really out of the game. Game 1 was just playing draw-go and trying to win the mana advantage and just keeping his board clear. V-Clique again was amazing in this match-up for forcing plays and seeing his hand. Gideon showed up again here, after Vclique would strip him of counter-magic and making sure the coast was clear. Gideon cut down a Gurmag Angler, then proceeded to swing once or twice for game alongside Clique and burn spells. Game 2 he was on the land destruction plan with Molten Rain and Fulminator Mages. Got rekt and lost. Game 3 came down to the wire, but in the end I was able to stave off the beats and kill him with Restoration Angel and Celestial Colonnade.
Round 3 was against Collected Company.dec. I misplayed a lot this match. Idk how I was missing so many things. But chaining Cryptic Commands over and over proved to be real strong. In the end, I made some more misplays and lost game 1. God...I punted real hard. Several times I had victory but managed to fudge it. Game 2 was real close as he has a better start. Gideon and Monastery Mentor came into play this game. Mentor built up 3 tokens, and Gideon forced him to either tap for mana or swing with his field of Hierarchs and 2/1's and 3/2's. He kinda just took all of it and lived. I cracked back with all the tokens, Geist (and angel), Gideon, Snapcaster, while pumping the tokens twice with Electrolyze and Cryptic Command. Barely beat him with only a minute or two left on the clock, earning me the draw. lol Doesn't really do any favors here. Got to test out Mentor here so that was pretty cool.
Round 4 was against Infect. Game 1 I died to Dryad Arbor + Wild Defiance + millions of pumps. Game 2 was real close but I stave off the poison then finally win. Game 3 was like game 2. Idk, just typical Infect match-up stuff. Wear//Tear was awesome. Tectonic Edge was great. Though, Spellskites would have been pretty nice in this match-up; however, it was also a chance for me to test out Fulminator Mage. All night, I never brought it in...kinda wish I had tried it here, because it's an out to Inkmoth Nexus (and Arbor kek), while also serving as a body to block creatures for x amount of time. Somewhat better than VClique here...I think? Maybe not optimal, but would've been cool to try. Wish I had tried it at least.
Overall, seems Gideon is nice because he's versatile in what he can offer and he does dodge a lot of removal right up until the swing. Hopefully by then you exhaust them of resources. I'll probably keep him main. Though I really do want to test those other bombs more (Thundermaw, Stormbreath, Baneslayer, Batterskull). The reason why I cut the Batterskull ultimately was because I was afraid that the meta was gonna be more Grixis-heavy with all the Kolaghan's Commands running around. Maybe this is the wrong line of thinking. Cuz maybe it's still good enough against stuff like Junk and Burn that it warrants a slot? Idk. Well, in any case, all I know was that the Stormbreath Dragon and Outpost Siege from the side were a little anemic. I feel like in the case of the Dragon, it's a lot better just to have main or none at all. I wonder if it's better vs. stuff like Jund and Junk...where maybe all you really want to do is land bombs left and right? Perhaps that's where I bring it in? lol
My friends suggested Outpost Siege for decks like Jund where the attrition battle and out-valuing people is really important. I was skeptical but I went along with it. I never sided it in, so I can't say for sure how good it would've been; however, in the match-ups that I played tonight, I felt like I had other stuff I'd rather side in first. Then there wasn't anything I really wanted to cut. And finally, I wasn't really convinced by this card's power enough to really justify playing it. Idk, seems nice to play for value, but I feel like a number of the cards in this deck are pretty time-sensitive (READ: 9 counter spells). The stuff like burn can be mindlessly casted if need be, but for me, it seems a lot better to time those spells better. Same goes for other cards like Wear//Tear; I think I'd rather have that card hidden in my hand instead of having it get exiled then being forced to play it right then or losing it. In any case, I feel like I should've replaced this card with Izzet Staticaster instead or like...Chandra, Pyromaster at the very least. That might be just better, because her ping 1 damage isn't irrelevant (although, she still suffers from the same problems that Siege suffers from, I think). Maybe I should experiment that slot with Venser, Shaper Savant or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir? Or maybe just re-add Batterskull back in. A third Clique would be nice too...
Fulminator Mages were aight...I guess. They were fill-ins mostly and also to prep for the Tron match-up. I don't have much experience vs. that deck, so I'm not sure if this helps at all. Haha.
I feel like Engineered Explosives is a necessary evil; didn't seem to be very impressive and I hardly ever wanted to side it in all night. Though, probable good enough against Bogles that it warrants it. I can't really think of any deck outside of it that I'd care to see it in. This is because token strategies usually just get hosed by Staticaster and Electrolyzes. On the flip side is that it's versatile and is in there, "just in case."
I'm working on getting more Colonnades, though at the moment 2 seems fine. I've had enough luck with hitting the card; usually will draw into it sometime leading up to 5-6 mana. And the untapped mana potential of Shinka and Glacial have proven to be a boon. 4 is probably right, though it'd be nice of someone tried to sell me on this. I've done 1 and 2 in the past, with stuff like Loothouse and never really had a problem, probably making me biased. Even though I'm trying not to be. Kek
Monastery Mentor was pretty awesome. I've been trying this card in Legacy sideboards and stuff. And it kinda has the same appeal in this Modern sideboard as well. There's definitely something to be said about the surprise factor of it coming out in the post-board games. Makes those redundant burn spells and counters generate a lot of value and the tokens can end games real fast (much like in the game vs. Collected Company; 9 damage from those damn things). He can be awkward if you're sitting on a couple counters instead of action spells, but that's not even a bad position to be in.
I definitely like the numbers in this list. 3 Helix, 3 Electrolyze, 3 Geist, 2 Clique, and only 2 Resto felt perfect. This backed with the 9 counter spells proved to generate a lot of play and interactions with opponents. I especially like that I felt like I had card draw with this deck. In the past, it'd feel like the deck would run out of gas, but I feel the inclusion of 3x Cryptics is right.
Tl;dr: Vjeran Horvat's list is pretty spot-on; I really wouldn't have changed anything if I didn't have to. I think Gideon main over Thundermaw is slightly better, and 2x Colonnades isn't THAT bad (sell me pls! lol), but yeah...I like the list.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
So I've seen a lot of UWRb being talked about. Is this because of my ideas a few weeks ago about black splash for UWR Geist, or did some UWRb deck win a tourney?
There's also a list in the top 100 or so at Grand Prix Copenhagen.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Yeah, I find the red from Shinka to be more useful than the white from Eiganjo Castle.
The utility for both abilities are rather situational; you can make a case for either one depending on multiple situations. The First Strike is best paired with burn, and it gives a higher return when it works. But the damage prevention is useful in other situations much like the one your described. And this includes things like preventing Pyroclasm from killing Geist -- not that anyone would play a Clasm knowing full well that Castle is there.
I really do think Shinka is the better of the two, given what we need (IMO I like the red mana more). And I think the return of being able to turn a Bolt into a Rhino/Tasigur/Goyf killer is better than what Castle offers. Even though they are very close to each other in terms of utility.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Idk, I like Remands against Zoo and Infect. Not my favorite card, but it's not THAT bad.
So far I'm running the more controlling Geist version with 3 V-Clique and 9 counters, no Serum Visions and I've been pretty happy about it. I don't own any Visions, so I can't really test to say which I like better. In either case, I'm not convinced the difference of 4 cards (and it's cantrips vs. no-cantrips of all things...) is really gonna push us from developing to tier 1.
It might. But that'd have to be in conjunction with something else entirely. I do still like the deck a lot; it has solid game against a lot of decks.
Will you be posting a tournament report? Can you elaborate on which decks you played against and which decks you lost to?Edit: Didn't see that you said you were making a report in your post. I'm looking forward to it.
Same. I, too, would like to know how and why 22 lands have been working for you. I'd love to lower the land count as well, but usually 24 is very stable and almost necessary. For me, anyway.
Cool. Am so jealous. She definitely has some potential, though she does have a lot of competitors vying for that slot as well. Occasionally she might troll your team (kill snapcaster --> Avacyn flips --> Geist dies in the crossfire), so that's something to keep in mind.
Or another example:
Your board is Snapcaster + Geist. Pretty normal.
Opp: End of turn, Bolt your Snapcaster.
You: Response flash Avacyn.
Opp: Response Bolt your Snapcaster again.
Snapcaster dies. Next turn Avacyn flips and kills Geist.
^In the above example, they basically got to use their second bolt on Geist. Of course, I'm not automatically writing Avacyn off. Just showing how she can backfire.
I felt like Ajani's been in an awkward spot; he and Elspeth, Knight-Errant haven't been putting in enough weight for me, so I ended up cutting them. They were just *okay*. Then again, I distinctly remember them during U/R Delver Treasure Cruise meta...so it might have colored my thoughts on them. I don't think Chandra, Pyromaster is where we want to be. But Jace, Architect of Thought did come across my mind -- if we go into a more control meta.
I used Gideon Jura and liked him a fair bit. I swapped him out for Elspeth, Sun's Champion. She seems slightly better than Gideon, for what I've been trying to use her for. But it's definitely a flex spot. I do like the curve toppers though. Might try Dragonlord Ojutai instead if I ever get around to acquiring him. Seems like I really would need Minamo, School at Water's Edge, Eiganjo Castle, and Slayers' Stronghold to really take full advantage of him.
I agree with this completely. I've had opponents resolve Sphinx's Revelation for 3 cards before in different matches, and the game plan was still more or less exactly the same for us. We have solid enough interaction that we can fight through the card advantage. It gets a little harder with AV, but I don't see it being insurmountable. I have a little more to say about this, but I'm tired and behind on work. And Aller more or less said everything I was gonna say.
Interesting thought. I'm eager to try out my new toys (just got 1 prerelease foil TiTi ).
^Yeah, this is what I meant. That's the reason I asked is because I don't typically play against the card enough to know what the habits/tendencies people have when they cast it (Fulminator Mage).
Once they know you run it, they'll probably just immediately sac every time. Which I suppose might not be the worst thing, as that means they can't get "more" out of it, like attacking or blocking.
I've never really had a problem resolving Geist against Grixis; usually you can find tempo/time. If they tap out for example. I also find their density of counters to be the same as ours. Perhaps the only difference is whether or not they run Dispel main board. Then again, I'm running a more counter-spell heavy version.
One final thought, if they're being stubborn with holding up mana constantly, I try to feint with a flash creature. That's generally more or less how I get them to react. Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, and Restoration Angel are great at this. Electrolyze into Snapcaster --> Electrolyze is a good way to get them to react as well. Because no one actually wants to counter Electrolyze. Yet if they let Snap through, then they're eating an extra 2 damage, letting us get a draw, AND letting us keep a 2 power body. Just bait as much as you can until they crack.
The real problem with Grixis are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler. They can come down real early. They're very hard to kill; it's Path or bust -- especially so with Tasigur, as even 1 activation starts to swing card advantage in the other player's direction. They also run them in large numbers and it's very hard to deal with all of them, especially if they come down one right after the other. Your only real defense main board are counters and Path. And the counters aren't always guaranteed to hit either (1-turn-late syndrome). Postboard it gets a little better with Celestial Purge. But that's kind of it (in regards to Tasigur/Angler anyway). Honorable mention goes to Blood Moon for being an annoying card to deal with.
This is what I do for the Tron match-up:
Sideboard in:
Stony Silence x2, Fulminator Mage x2, Negate, Wear//Tear (both copies if you run them; I ran only 1 at the time). I was also trying to tinker with Surgical Extraction, but I was not able to really test and know if it was worth a slot.
I was able to beat Tron today with that set-up above. It was still a rough match-up, and I wouldn't call us a favorite -- far from it.
Also main boarding Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge helps. Ghost Quarter is more efficient vs. Tron though. Other interesting things you can do is run Molten Rain and Sowing Salt. Or like, Aven Mindcensor as well, though that card feels too slow and inefficient. Shadow of Doubt is another card you can run to stop searches. A lot of these suggestions are a bit overkill; you probably can't run them all. And even if you could, it doesn't really guarantee victory, as what kills Tron is some form of fast clock. Monastery Mentor is kinda...nice against them too actually. Kinda. More of the fact that you don't have to commit much to the board meanwhile being able to have it grow and get out of hand. Thing is...it might beat blue variant trons. But probably still too slow vs. GR Tron.
Neat list. Looks like a lot of fun toys to play with; a full set of Visions, 2x Anticipates, and 2x Shadow of Doubts! Cantrip for days. Haha, that's not even including the 4x Remands.
I don't think it should be THAT big of a problem in the regular Jeskai lists, and you can always fetch basics. Though, the combination of Molten Rain and Fulminator makes the card hard to deal with; however, since you're running 4 colors, Squelch and Sudden Shock seem like fine choices. Sudden Shock especially. I'm iffy on Squelch, but it doesn't seem that bad. Does Trickbind fit the bill here?
Can't they still insta-activate Fulminator Mage, which would make Sudden Shock miss its chance to shunt the play? Or do most people not immediately activate Fulminator Mage? I don't play against the card enough to really know.
Yeah, that was one thing I was concerned with in regards to Sudden Shock vs. Fulminator Mage. Though I bet it's a very satisfying way to hit the card the first time around. The local players will probably never let that happen again though. lol
Not gonna lie. Looks pretty cool/fun. I kinda have a soft spot for Zur. The problem though, is that I also have a sour spot for Zur as well; I've played Esper Zur for a good while, and I found that I only really liked it if/when I was playing Deathrite Shaman, which is now banned. The thing with any deck with Zur in it is that the cards for Zur and Zur himself end up being pretty damn mediocre. And they end up just wasting card slots. More Terminates seem just flat-out better than some of the stuff you're running. In general, Zur doesn't really win you the game; from my testing, usually if Zur sticks and swings, it's because we got a solid foothold of the game and board state. SOMETIMES, he literally does win the game -- I will admit that; it's happened a number of times in the past. But most of the time, the card is a dead card.
Deputy of Acquittals is a card that sounds like fun if you can get it to work; however, it's just a bear at the end of the day. Idk, I don't like it much.
I will say this though, I dislike automatically dismissing ideas without actually testing it, so who knows? Maybe there's something here to work with. Unfortunately Idk if I have much time to tinker with it.
If this is the case with Fulminator Mage being so bad for the black splash version of the deck, is there a case for NOT running any black and going more towards the "traditional" build? What's your thoughts on it?
I'm sticking to straight UWR for now; there's still some more play value and tinkering space that I haven't done yet. Nothing too crazy, I just wanna explore them before switching it up. Also might do Jeskai Geist Twin for a couple FNM's or so too.
Personally, I've been running Vjeran Horvat's 24th Place GP Copenhagen list and I really like it so far. I made very little changes if any.
Some people run a full 4. Some run 3. I'm...ok with running either number really. I kinda like 3 because getting too many is cloggy, and it tends to be wrong to jam turn 3 Geist, I feel. That said, the turns that you WANT turn 3 Geist, you'll wish you were running a full 4. When to tap out for Geist? It depends on your hand, the match-up, and board position. Sometimes it also depends on the read you pick up from your opponent. This is where having extra Geist is handy because you can jam one, if it dies, then you can jam a second one immediately. Tapping out for Geist is fine generally; it's what the deck wants to do. But it does depend on what's in your hand, and what they can do when tapped out.
I don't own Scalding Tarns nor do I own Arid Mesa. I just use 4x Polluted Delta. I've had next to no problems. Only very fringe scenarios do I wish it was a Tarn instead. I think Sulfur Falls is a little more important, if only simply because it's a U/R dual. I don't know exactly how you'd replace it. But it's not that big of a deal either. You can run Shivan Reef or something.
I like 3 Cryptic Commands. The card's awesome. You can get away with just 2 though. I tend to sideboard out 1-2 copies, due to space or it being too slow in some match-ups.
Can either you or your friend give us insight to some of the card choices? What's your reasoning for only 2 Serum Visions and not 4? Why 4x Helix/2x Electrolyze over 3/3 split? Why Eiganjo Castle instead of Shinka (to be able to cheese Rhinos/Tasigurs/etc.)?
I mainly have questions about sideboard choices and I'm curious why your friend decided to run them. I'm looking at Anger of the Gods, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, 2nd Engineered Explosives, Keranos, and Valorous Stance.
I feel like intuitively, I get a general idea as to why those are run, but I kinda wanna hear it from people who've played the cards/chose them; like why Elspeth over Gideon, or Keranos over Batterskull. I think Keranos over Batterskull makes sense if you're predicting lots of Kolaghan's Command. That seems to be most sensible, though again, maybe I'm missing something else? Does Stance just act as another removal spell in grindy GBx decks? Elspeth seems good in grindy match-ups as well, though did you side it in vs. anything else?
I've never been a big fan of Explosives at all. Just always felt too slow or clunky. But perhaps I'm wrong.
And why no Spellskite or Stony Silence?
Does this build have a better game vs. Tron?
What match-up is important enough that you dedicate a slot to Anger of the Gods? A new meta read?
Anyway, I'd appreciate any input, as I'm open to new ideas/different perspectives.
I agree with pretty much everything you said about the Jund match-up. After having played it a bunch of times, I felt like I was winning a lot of my games fairly handedly. Just play tight; I don't feel like the deck does enough to UWR. Their discard is probably the deadliest thing against us, but they're not Esper Mentor, where they're running a full 6+ discard. At least I don't think so; didn't seem to happen to me too often in my games. And they kinda just lose to Geist. Sure, their creatures make our Geist "bad," but I feel like due to our massive amount of removal and counters, we can keep them off the board easily. Only Liliana really scares me to be honest. Huntmaster can be kinda annoying. I don't really like Elspeth in UWR Geist decks much. I like her in Esper more.
Huh, Idk...I think you might be playing the deck wrong if you're losing to Infect. It can be a little rough, due to how fast they can be and how they demand answers...though it's not like turn 2 Tasigur, where it's Path or bust; your whole deck has removal spells to deal with ALL of their creatures. Just watch for Wild Defiance. And use your removal spells either end of their turn (not on their attack) or wait till your turn. Play smart and play tight. I've lost exactly one game to the deck out of 4+ games. And that's just recent results. The only thing hard is if you end up bricking or if it's game 1, and you keep a hand that's light on removal. Yeah, Bogles you need EE. I haven't played that match very much with Jeskai Geist; I've played a bunch with Esper Geist, and it's kinda 50/50 (who is on the play? lol).
Zoo and Affinity is interesting. Doesn't seem that bad if you draw the right half of your deck, else, it can be kinda rough. I think it should be even enough. Burn shouldn't be too bad as you can either race them or use a lot of your removal to stem the tide. Helix helps a lot. Same goes for Snapcaster --> Helix. If it's that bad, there's Spellskite in the sideboard, alongside Batterskull, Kor Firewalker, Dispel, etc. I mean, you can go full-hate by doing something like Circle of Protection, Leyline of Sanctity, Sanctimony, Timely Reinforcements, etc. You have A LOT of options.
People are experimenting with Serum Visions to boost consistency. I'm not too big on the card in this deck, but it doesn't seem like a bad idea. Some really do champion the card though. If I had any, I'd give it a try. Loss of counters? Depends on the build. Some go hard on burn. I think for the most part people are going back to having more counters. I really like them. I run 9. 2x Mana Leak, 3x Remand, 3x Cryptic Command, 1x Spell Snare. Then in the side: 2x Dispel. You can do more counters or less counters. Up to player preference.
Lol...Planeswalkers are not essential at all. If anything, they kinda suck here. Ajani isn't that good anymore, at least IMO. Elspeth is alright, but I'm not amazed. IMO Gideon is an all-star, but again, not ESSENTIAL. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is an interesting one...I haven't tested her to really know. The only ones to consider to me, are Gideon Jura, Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. The rest are kinda meh. Jace, Architect of Thought might be ok. And Ajani Vengeant is an old friend...IMO unreliable friend, but he's family here. lol
To me, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Personally, I usually am trying to hit all my land drops anyway, so hitting problem lands early is not a priority (of course, if you're gunning for Tron, Quarter would probably be better as it's easier to use). Also, maybe it's just been me and my testing, but so far most problem lands don't really get going till like, around when you'd actually be able to activate Tec Edge; Ravine, Colonnade, Tar Pit, Gavony, etc. all get going about 4-5 mana. It gets a little dicier against Inkmoth Nexus, as they're sometimes a land or two shy from me being able to Tec Edge their Nexus. With that said, I usually can deal with them anyway, and eventually that 4th land hits (Path helps sometimes lol).
Also, I like that Tec Edge can hinder the number of lands they have available. Same goes for color; you can get pretty savvy with Tec Edge. Ghost Quarter on the other hand still will let them keep their land count and they aren't cut off from any particular color -- in some rare cases, it can improve their color quality. The flip side is that if your mana is really ****ed up this particular game, Ghost Quartering your own lands to fix your colors is a bonus -- fringe and a little more cavalier than I'd recommend (though admittedly, I did this A LOT when Quarter was in standard lol).
In short, I like Tec Edge much better, as I prefer the added benefit of controlling the number of lands they have out along with being able to control their colors. Ghost Quarter though, requires less mana to use, and it's better at straight-up destroying problem lands, no strings attached (other than the replacement land).
So far, I've liked Gideon Jura. He can grind out matches and is versatile overall.
Pretty sure most of you have seen the list.
I didn't have:
Main:
Thundermaw Hellkite
Celestial Colonnade x2
Arid Mesa x2
Board:
Spellskite x2
So I subbed Gideon Jura into the main instead of Thundermaw (don't own).
Ran Shinka, the Blood-Soaked Keep and Glacial Fortress in place of 2x Colonnades.
And I ran 3x Tarn, 1x Polluted Delta instead of his 2x Tarn 2x Mesa.
Pretty minor changes in the main overall. I kept the side mostly the same save for 3-4 cards. I'd play Skites, but I don't own any and couldn't borrow anyone's. So I played 2x Fulminator Mages for *****s and giggles, and because Gideon was subbed into the main, I put Stormbreath Dragon in its place. My friends convinced me to cut the Batterskull for Outpost Siege. They were also the ones who suggested I run Gideon main over the Stormbreath. More on both of this later.
I went 3-0-1 that night, earning a Path to Exile. The draw I felt like I could've avoided if I didn't punt. lol
The match-ups:
Round 2 was against Grixis Delver. I found that match-up to be pretty good/fun and reasonable. Didn't feel like I was really out of the game. Game 1 was just playing draw-go and trying to win the mana advantage and just keeping his board clear. V-Clique again was amazing in this match-up for forcing plays and seeing his hand. Gideon showed up again here, after Vclique would strip him of counter-magic and making sure the coast was clear. Gideon cut down a Gurmag Angler, then proceeded to swing once or twice for game alongside Clique and burn spells. Game 2 he was on the land destruction plan with Molten Rain and Fulminator Mages. Got rekt and lost. Game 3 came down to the wire, but in the end I was able to stave off the beats and kill him with Restoration Angel and Celestial Colonnade.
Round 3 was against Collected Company.dec. I misplayed a lot this match. Idk how I was missing so many things. But chaining Cryptic Commands over and over proved to be real strong. In the end, I made some more misplays and lost game 1. God...I punted real hard. Several times I had victory but managed to fudge it. Game 2 was real close as he has a better start. Gideon and Monastery Mentor came into play this game. Mentor built up 3 tokens, and Gideon forced him to either tap for mana or swing with his field of Hierarchs and 2/1's and 3/2's. He kinda just took all of it and lived. I cracked back with all the tokens, Geist (and angel), Gideon, Snapcaster, while pumping the tokens twice with Electrolyze and Cryptic Command. Barely beat him with only a minute or two left on the clock, earning me the draw. lol Doesn't really do any favors here. Got to test out Mentor here so that was pretty cool.
Round 4 was against Infect. Game 1 I died to Dryad Arbor + Wild Defiance + millions of pumps. Game 2 was real close but I stave off the poison then finally win. Game 3 was like game 2. Idk, just typical Infect match-up stuff. Wear//Tear was awesome. Tectonic Edge was great. Though, Spellskites would have been pretty nice in this match-up; however, it was also a chance for me to test out Fulminator Mage. All night, I never brought it in...kinda wish I had tried it here, because it's an out to Inkmoth Nexus (and Arbor kek), while also serving as a body to block creatures for x amount of time. Somewhat better than VClique here...I think? Maybe not optimal, but would've been cool to try. Wish I had tried it at least.
Overall, seems Gideon is nice because he's versatile in what he can offer and he does dodge a lot of removal right up until the swing. Hopefully by then you exhaust them of resources. I'll probably keep him main. Though I really do want to test those other bombs more (Thundermaw, Stormbreath, Baneslayer, Batterskull). The reason why I cut the Batterskull ultimately was because I was afraid that the meta was gonna be more Grixis-heavy with all the Kolaghan's Commands running around. Maybe this is the wrong line of thinking. Cuz maybe it's still good enough against stuff like Junk and Burn that it warrants a slot? Idk. Well, in any case, all I know was that the Stormbreath Dragon and Outpost Siege from the side were a little anemic. I feel like in the case of the Dragon, it's a lot better just to have main or none at all. I wonder if it's better vs. stuff like Jund and Junk...where maybe all you really want to do is land bombs left and right? Perhaps that's where I bring it in? lol
My friends suggested Outpost Siege for decks like Jund where the attrition battle and out-valuing people is really important. I was skeptical but I went along with it. I never sided it in, so I can't say for sure how good it would've been; however, in the match-ups that I played tonight, I felt like I had other stuff I'd rather side in first. Then there wasn't anything I really wanted to cut. And finally, I wasn't really convinced by this card's power enough to really justify playing it. Idk, seems nice to play for value, but I feel like a number of the cards in this deck are pretty time-sensitive (READ: 9 counter spells). The stuff like burn can be mindlessly casted if need be, but for me, it seems a lot better to time those spells better. Same goes for other cards like Wear//Tear; I think I'd rather have that card hidden in my hand instead of having it get exiled then being forced to play it right then or losing it. In any case, I feel like I should've replaced this card with Izzet Staticaster instead or like...Chandra, Pyromaster at the very least. That might be just better, because her ping 1 damage isn't irrelevant (although, she still suffers from the same problems that Siege suffers from, I think). Maybe I should experiment that slot with Venser, Shaper Savant or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir? Or maybe just re-add Batterskull back in. A third Clique would be nice too...
Fulminator Mages were aight...I guess. They were fill-ins mostly and also to prep for the Tron match-up. I don't have much experience vs. that deck, so I'm not sure if this helps at all. Haha.
I feel like Engineered Explosives is a necessary evil; didn't seem to be very impressive and I hardly ever wanted to side it in all night. Though, probable good enough against Bogles that it warrants it. I can't really think of any deck outside of it that I'd care to see it in. This is because token strategies usually just get hosed by Staticaster and Electrolyzes. On the flip side is that it's versatile and is in there, "just in case."
I'm working on getting more Colonnades, though at the moment 2 seems fine. I've had enough luck with hitting the card; usually will draw into it sometime leading up to 5-6 mana. And the untapped mana potential of Shinka and Glacial have proven to be a boon. 4 is probably right, though it'd be nice of someone tried to sell me on this. I've done 1 and 2 in the past, with stuff like Loothouse and never really had a problem, probably making me biased. Even though I'm trying not to be. Kek
Monastery Mentor was pretty awesome. I've been trying this card in Legacy sideboards and stuff. And it kinda has the same appeal in this Modern sideboard as well. There's definitely something to be said about the surprise factor of it coming out in the post-board games. Makes those redundant burn spells and counters generate a lot of value and the tokens can end games real fast (much like in the game vs. Collected Company; 9 damage from those damn things). He can be awkward if you're sitting on a couple counters instead of action spells, but that's not even a bad position to be in.
I definitely like the numbers in this list. 3 Helix, 3 Electrolyze, 3 Geist, 2 Clique, and only 2 Resto felt perfect. This backed with the 9 counter spells proved to generate a lot of play and interactions with opponents. I especially like that I felt like I had card draw with this deck. In the past, it'd feel like the deck would run out of gas, but I feel the inclusion of 3x Cryptics is right.
Tl;dr: Vjeran Horvat's list is pretty spot-on; I really wouldn't have changed anything if I didn't have to. I think Gideon main over Thundermaw is slightly better, and 2x Colonnades isn't THAT bad (sell me pls! lol), but yeah...I like the list.
There's also a list in the top 100 or so at Grand Prix Copenhagen.
The utility for both abilities are rather situational; you can make a case for either one depending on multiple situations. The First Strike is best paired with burn, and it gives a higher return when it works. But the damage prevention is useful in other situations much like the one your described. And this includes things like preventing Pyroclasm from killing Geist -- not that anyone would play a Clasm knowing full well that Castle is there.
I really do think Shinka is the better of the two, given what we need (IMO I like the red mana more). And I think the return of being able to turn a Bolt into a Rhino/Tasigur/Goyf killer is better than what Castle offers. Even though they are very close to each other in terms of utility.