Hey all, I took jeskai (the list posted on the previous page) to a PPTQ this past weekend and made top 8 with a record of 5-0-1 before losing in the top 8. I know a lot of people like UW better right now but man did jeskai feel strong.
Quick write up:
R1: 2-0 Green-red stompy
This was more or less a brew. G1 he never played a 2nd land and conceded to my 4th land drop + azcanta.
G2: I keep a kinda slow 6 and get rewarded. After supreme verdict on 4 he was out of gas and the game was easy.
R2: 1-1-1 Bant Knightfall
G1 I keep a 7 with 5 burn spells and no red mana. t3 i field of ruin to turn on my hand. Opponents draw felt clunky and once i could cast my spells he couldnt keep up.
G2 was going similarly to g1 (except no mana-woes) and then I lost a judge call when i drew my card and then went to flip azcanta. Left me with 3 blue up instead of 4 and let his GideonAOZ slip through, cost me the game.
G3 I just couldnt win in time
R3: 2-0 storm
G1 my opponent cast about 9 cantrips and then couldnt beat cryptic+logic knot when they finally tried to go off. bolt+snap was very good.
G2 opponent empties for 8 goblins on t4. I ripped EE and was beating down with clique. they emptied for 10 more but bolt+snap and clique had them DoB.
R4: 2-0 bant counters company
G1 i just killed everything and they conceded to azcanta+teferi.
G2 Went more or less the same way except secure into cryptic tap their team was GG.
R5: 2-0 bant spirits
G1 they have no play until t2 and i just pick their board apart. i never fell below 13.
G2 was almost a carbon copy of g1. Saw 0 hierarchs the whole match.
R6: 2-1 Jund
G1 after a LotV, discard spells, and my burn all trade off it was a topdeck war. Unanswered teferi won me the game
G2 we reached a topdeck war again and I drew 5 straight lands to die to ravine+bob.
G3 Was, again, a topdeck war ans I slammed a verdict on the last possible turn to not die and then ripped teferi to take over the game. secure the wastes let me win in t3 of extra turns.
Top8: 1-2 Burn
G1 i drew all 3 helix and 2 snaps, he just couldnt kill me in time for azcanta to take over.
G2 I mull to 6 and keep on the back of helix. He never drew a 4th land and i died.
G3 see g2.
Overall the deck really felt like it just couldnt lose to creature decks. And the opts felt amazing all day
Personally, i havent missed the 1 rev since i cut it. Additionally, this was my first time on 25 lands (up from 24) and it felt great. I think rev is a little slow in my meta so maybe im biased. And as far as no lyra, i just personally really like jamming a sideboafd runed halo, and thats the slot it would have to take.
Personally, i havent missed the 1 rev since i cut it. Additionally, this was my first time on 25 lands (up from 24) and it felt great. I think rev is a little slow in my meta so maybe im biased. And as far as no lyra, i just personally really like jamming a sideboafd runed halo, and thats the slot it would have to take.
So I just wrote up a whole tournament report and the site glitched and lost 25 minutes of writing, so here's the long story short.
I played in a PPTQ and went 4-2 losing to bridgevine and mardu pyro. Missed top 8 on breakers. The store was also having a "mega modern" event right after the PPTQ which is 20 dollar buy in for 5 round swiss with cut to top 8, which I ended up IDing in the finals of. Here's the list:
between events I made some SB adjustments:
-1 surgical
-1 settle
-1 ceremonious
+1 lyra dawnbringer
+2 timely reinforcements
PPTQ:
Round 1: mirror match
I take it in two games fairly easily. 1-0
Round 2: bridgevine
I get smashed, no contest. 1-1
round 3:BW midrange
It was a brew so I took it in 2 pretty easily. 2-1
Round 4: mardu pyro
went to 3 games, lost to blood moon + hard to deal with threats in games 2 and 3. 2-2
Round 5: All in red
He takes game 1 off a turn 1 rabblemaster into blood moon, I win 2 and 3 after dealing with a couple threats each game. 3-2
Round 6: affinity
I have all the right answers at all the right times. 4-2
I miss top 8 due to horrendous breakers.
Mega modern:
Round 1: esper goryo's
I grind him out with mild difficulty in 2. 1-0
Round 2: faeries
His dory creatures vs my electrolyzes. 2-0
Round 3: hardened scales affinity
He has bad hands both games and I have a lot of removal. 3-0
I double ID in to top 8 at 2nd seed.
Quarters: Humans
new humans player sequenced poorly and kept sketchy hands, I take it in 2
Semifinals: burn
I win game 1 with no helices cast somehow and cast 2 timely reinforcements and 2 helix in game 2 so I win
Finals: Green tron
We ID because it is 1am and we're ready to go home, $70 in store credit
27 lands and no cantrips has worked out great for me and I'm in love with think twice, I appreciate any feedback.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Catch me playing control in every format I can!
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
So I just wrote up a whole tournament report and the site glitched and lost 25 minutes of writing, so here's the long story short.
I played in a PPTQ and went 4-2 losing to bridgevine and mardu pyro. Missed top 8 on breakers. The store was also having a "mega modern" event right after the PPTQ which is 20 dollar buy in for 5 round swiss with cut to top 8, which I ended up IDing in the finals of. Here's the list:
between events I made some SB adjustments:
-1 surgical
-1 settle
-1 ceremonious
+1 lyra dawnbringer
+2 timely reinforcements
PPTQ:
Round 1: mirror match
I take it in two games fairly easily. 1-0
Round 2: bridgevine
I get smashed, no contest. 1-1
round 3:BW midrange
It was a brew so I took it in 2 pretty easily. 2-1
Round 4: mardu pyro
went to 3 games, lost to blood moon + hard to deal with threats in games 2 and 3. 2-2
Round 5: All in red
He takes game 1 off a turn 1 rabblemaster into blood moon, I win 2 and 3 after dealing with a couple threats each game. 3-2
Round 6: affinity
I have all the right answers at all the right times. 4-2
I miss top 8 due to horrendous breakers.
Mega modern:
Round 1: esper goryo's
I grind him out with mild difficulty in 2. 1-0
Round 2: faeries
His dory creatures vs my electrolyzes. 2-0
Round 3: hardened scales affinity
He has bad hands both games and I have a lot of removal. 3-0
I double ID in to top 8 at 2nd seed.
Quarters: Humans
new humans player sequenced poorly and kept sketchy hands, I take it in 2
Semifinals: burn
I win game 1 with no helices cast somehow and cast 2 timely reinforcements and 2 helix in game 2 so I win
Finals: Green tron
We ID because it is 1am and we're ready to go home, $70 in store credit
27 lands and no cantrips has worked out great for me and I'm in love with think twice, I appreciate any feedback.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Catch me playing control in every format I can!
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
Apologies for the double post, I thought the site had glitched again, it gave me a screen with just code for a second time and showed no post when I refreshed.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Catch me playing control in every format I can!
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
G2 was going similarly to g1 (except no mana-woes) and then I lost a judge call when i drew my card and then went to flip azcanta. Left me with 3 blue up
Grats on the good finish, but I do want to criticize you on this. You did not "lose a judge call", a judge call is not a contest, you made a misplay and your opponent called a judge to verify the correct gamestate. It's just semantics and maybe you dont mean it in that way but I really dislike the mentality of seeing judge calls at comp REL as some kind of cheap tactic or "angle shooting", you are playing a game with rules in a competitive setting and should be held to those rules.
G2 was going similarly to g1 (except no mana-woes) and then I lost a judge call when i drew my card and then went to flip azcanta. Left me with 3 blue up
Grats on the good finish, but I do want to criticize you on this. You did not "lose a judge call", a judge call is not a contest, you made a misplay and your opponent called a judge to verify the correct gamestate. It's just semantics and maybe you dont mean it in that way but I really dislike the mentality of seeing judge calls at comp REL as some kind of cheap tactic or "angle shooting", you are playing a game with rules in a competitive setting and should be held to those rules.
Yeah no I phrased that badly. It was really hard not to get salty in the moment, but I can respect the ruling, as I ddi proceed to my draw step. I certainly wont miss that again any time soon, so i see it as a way to grow.
Anyone see nikolich and purcells list from SCGBalt? 3 maindeck settle, as well as adopting rosum's 3 field/2 colonnade split.
4 Colonnade is why I cannot get behind the pre UW list right now. I cannot play 4 lands that come in tapped, the first game loss over my mana would tilt me for days.
2 is what I've been on seemingly forever.
3 settle is going all in but I like that it forces people to hold back.
I love watching Ben play though, he's a master on the deck.
Honestly, if lands coming into play tapped is killing with only three Colonnades in your list, you're keeping bad hands. I understand cutting the third Colonnade for the third Field of Ruin, but I don't think it's as helpful as everyone thinks it is. It's great if you expect to deal with big mana all day, but if that's the case, I'm not sure this is where you want to be anyway. There are other considerations you could make in your sideboard as well. Otherwise, I don't really get the upside of going to three Field of Ruin. Creature-lands and opposing Azcanatas are a thing I suppose. I'm just not sure that would be enough for me to add a third colorless source.
I can't remember if I was up to 3 FoR but it's not colourless for long. It does mess with that near perfect mana base, but it's needed unless you are just giving up Tron.
My own "change of pace" project has been a jeskai tempo build based on Jeff Hoogland's UR tempo list. It's clearly not control in the classical sense, but I could post it if people are interested
I've been playing with the UR Wizards deck for the last couple weeks and I've had a ton of fun. So I'm obviously super curious as to how your version with a white splash looks like.
Basically, the pluses are getting to play path, helix and more sideboard options whilst losing the awesome 4 mutavault the UR list has. I still see the Delvers as a necessary evil though with their low flip chance; they do still function very well as a lightning rod to make Queller better later.
Deprive just runs counter to what control is trying to accomplish. It may be good with a bunch of extra lands and jace, but you only got to that point by developing your mana every turn. having a bunch of cheap spells doesnt change that we want to get to 5/6 mana and beyond as quickly as possible.
though maybe your assessment is skewed by your particular list. more stock lists have cryptics and colonnades, which eat a lot of mana.
glad to hear you are enjoying jeskai though.
-----------------------------
as for nikolich's build from the SCG event. yeah i dunno. its a pretty big departure, so its hard to gauge. suddenly 2 jaces is supportable, peek for who knows what, and 3 settle? its clear hes building to beat certain things, im just not sure how these changes accomplish any of that.
i trust he and purcell know what they are doing, but i dunno if im ready to leap THAT far from what has been working.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Yeah I put it together on MTGO, havent had a chance to play it yet (tonight) but I'll make a few changes as I dont have Surgicals online for some reason.
No Serum is going to feel super weird, but the 2 Jace makes sense as thats his only way to start finding what he felt was better card quality, over selection, while Peek lets him know what he's looking for and if the cost is clear to Brainstorm of jam Teferi or something?
Its a neat enough configuration though, no Serum, and..25 lands. I cant go up to 25, certainly not without Serum lol.
Honestly I think Nikolich is at a point in his magic career where he's realized that the Wizard of the Coast Gods are on his side and he could show up with a Jeskai list without lands and still place well.... lol
But honestly, peek does seem relevant... I know he was running Opt over Path for a while and it makes sense that Peek could potentially be better given the reasons idSurge mentioned. As for the Settle, I think Jeskai should be stealing the page from UW's playbook and be running Terminus mainboard with 1x Supreme Verdict... Im coming from playing Taking Turns for a while and I used to sideboard them in before everyone else... it's so much better to tuck things in a person's deck then put them in the graveyard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Game 1 with his (mostly) list in the books, and I was completely punked by...UR Control. I called most of his plays before they happened, just destroyed me as I had a ton of removal in hand for..next to no creatures, couldnt side out enough to make the next game meaningful.
Yuck :/ I had a similar situation this past weekend. I went to a local tournament and went up against: Amulet Titan, UR Thing in the Ice, and Hardened Scales... Like who prepares for something like that?? lol was so thrown off...
So when I come back to Jeskai, Im thinking something along the lines of:
@aSKING, What I don't get is how you can say Cryptic Command and Celestial Colonnade are bad but you're fine trying to beat aggro and control decks with Jace? The amount of maneuvering you have to do just to get to a point where you can safely cast Jace is mind-numbing to think about when a game isn't going to plan. In other words, trying to rely on just having the right answers seems like not the best plan. Even in the case that I'm able to get to that point, I feel that any of main Jeskai planeswalker would be good enough to close the door.
A major piece to the whole puzzle you also gloss over is that we don't always have the right answers to the opponent's threats largely because of how wide open things are. That's why I tend to value versatility more so. I can't tell you the number of times I've used Cryptic Command to basically buy time to pull out the win.
I do understand how some folks end up viewing Celestial Colonnade less favorably in a world with Field of Ruin. I just don't know itty makes sense to completely cut it. We don't exactly have better options. Do you think we should drop creature lands altogether?
@TheAller: Thank you for the elaborate reply! I think Jeskai Tempo has a lot of potential with an angle to the format no other deck is currently taking, so having someone else working on it is nice. I'd very much be willing to playtest more and talk with you about the deck, and I am planning on to at some point throw some money at Jeff to play it on stream and give us his feedback.
1. Nimble Obstructionist. I like the card, but do not think it is better than Queller and Clique solely because those creatures give their disruptive effect whilst applying a clock, instead of making you choose between the two. There is also a very hard limit on how many 1 toughness creatures I am willing to play, especially at cmc3, which is one of my main gripes with Jeff's list. Queller is a big advantage of Jeskai over UR with this archetype, and I would max out on Quellers before adding either Clique or Obstructionist; eight 3-drop creatures seems like too much to me, also because Snapcaster is more often a 4-drop in Jeskai than it is in UR due to Helix over Wizard's Lightning.
2. Remand. I definitely love Remand in this archetype, due to the high burn count. I also like Jeff's argument for it, in that against a lot of modern decks, you don't want either Remand NOR Mana Leak, plan on siding them out, and there Remand at least cycles to mediate the wrong half problem. Being worse at protecting isn't that big of an issue either I would say, as many decks currently run either very little or a boatton of removal, where in the first case trading is often fine and in the latter trading is inevitable. If Remand can be used to back up a threat by stopping their proactive plan however, it is incredible in this deck, but due to how poor this deck's Delvers are, I agree it is sometimes a little lacking. However I think the payoff of it is much bigger than that of Mana Leak, especially in the increasingly common control matchups to buyback your own spell.
3. Manlands. Having mana to activate is not so much the problem for this deck as is taplands being awkward in general. Taking a turn behind on mana is pretty rough when trying to maintain tempo. Without access to Mutavault, I'd rather get the most out of as few manlands as possible than playing more weaker ones.
4. Grim Lavamancer. I think this card does everything you want for this deck and two is a good amount. It lightningrods removal and serves as removal itself which I do think is very important; this deck needs burn to close out games and can't throw its bolts as freely as control can. I have also often stumped my opponent from curving out just because they have to kill Lavamancer before it gets active, often effectively paying 2 or 3 mana to kill it (or even pathing it). I'm considering trying out Thought Scour over Opt to validate playing 3 Grim Lavamancer; Jeff mentioned something similar
5. Spell Snare. This card is very strong tempo-wise but with how small the counterpackage is in this build it might be too narrow (although Queller really solves that issue a bit compared to the UR version). These are definitely the flex slots and I am still trying them out; I'm pretty sure at least one should be countermagic though.
6. Geist in the board. This was mostly a way to have some extra cards for KCI, Tron and control at the same time, but I'm not certain yet as I am not a fan of Geist in the first place.
We could maybe discuss this a bit over private chat or email; I am planning on playtesting the deck a lot on cockatrice at least.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Quick write up:
R1: 2-0 Green-red stompy
This was more or less a brew. G1 he never played a 2nd land and conceded to my 4th land drop + azcanta.
G2: I keep a kinda slow 6 and get rewarded. After supreme verdict on 4 he was out of gas and the game was easy.
R2: 1-1-1 Bant Knightfall
G1 I keep a 7 with 5 burn spells and no red mana. t3 i field of ruin to turn on my hand. Opponents draw felt clunky and once i could cast my spells he couldnt keep up.
G2 was going similarly to g1 (except no mana-woes) and then I lost a judge call when i drew my card and then went to flip azcanta. Left me with 3 blue up instead of 4 and let his GideonAOZ slip through, cost me the game.
G3 I just couldnt win in time
R3: 2-0 storm
G1 my opponent cast about 9 cantrips and then couldnt beat cryptic+logic knot when they finally tried to go off. bolt+snap was very good.
G2 opponent empties for 8 goblins on t4. I ripped EE and was beating down with clique. they emptied for 10 more but bolt+snap and clique had them DoB.
R4: 2-0 bant counters company
G1 i just killed everything and they conceded to azcanta+teferi.
G2 Went more or less the same way except secure into cryptic tap their team was GG.
R5: 2-0 bant spirits
G1 they have no play until t2 and i just pick their board apart. i never fell below 13.
G2 was almost a carbon copy of g1. Saw 0 hierarchs the whole match.
R6: 2-1 Jund
G1 after a LotV, discard spells, and my burn all trade off it was a topdeck war. Unanswered teferi won me the game
G2 we reached a topdeck war again and I drew 5 straight lands to die to ravine+bob.
G3 Was, again, a topdeck war ans I slammed a verdict on the last possible turn to not die and then ripped teferi to take over the game. secure the wastes let me win in t3 of extra turns.
Top8: 1-2 Burn
G1 i drew all 3 helix and 2 snaps, he just couldnt kill me in time for azcanta to take over.
G2 I mull to 6 and keep on the back of helix. He never drew a 4th land and i died.
G3 see g2.
Overall the deck really felt like it just couldnt lose to creature decks. And the opts felt amazing all day
I played in a PPTQ and went 4-2 losing to bridgevine and mardu pyro. Missed top 8 on breakers. The store was also having a "mega modern" event right after the PPTQ which is 20 dollar buy in for 5 round swiss with cut to top 8, which I ended up IDing in the finals of. Here's the list:
MB:
4 snapcster mage
2 teferi
1 Jace, the mind sculptor
2 search for azcanta
2 think twice
3 lightning bolt
3 lightning helix
4 path to exile
2 electrolze
2 supreme verdict
4 cryptic command
2 logic knot
1 spell snare
1 negate
2 celestial colonnade
3 field of ruin
4 flooded strand
4 scalding tarn
2 hallowed fountain
2 steam vents
1 sacred foundry
2 sulfur falls
2 glacial forteress
3 island
1 mountain
1 plains
SB:
2 dispel
2 celestail purge
2 ceremonious rejection
1 surgical extraciton
1 baneslayer angel
1 wear // tear
1 elspeth, sn's champion
1 negate
1 venidion clique
1 settle the wreckage
1 rest in peace
1 stony silence
between events I made some SB adjustments:
-1 surgical
-1 settle
-1 ceremonious
+1 lyra dawnbringer
+2 timely reinforcements
PPTQ:
Round 1: mirror match
I take it in two games fairly easily. 1-0
Round 2: bridgevine
I get smashed, no contest. 1-1
round 3:BW midrange
It was a brew so I took it in 2 pretty easily. 2-1
Round 4: mardu pyro
went to 3 games, lost to blood moon + hard to deal with threats in games 2 and 3. 2-2
Round 5: All in red
He takes game 1 off a turn 1 rabblemaster into blood moon, I win 2 and 3 after dealing with a couple threats each game. 3-2
Round 6: affinity
I have all the right answers at all the right times. 4-2
I miss top 8 due to horrendous breakers.
Mega modern:
Round 1: esper goryo's
I grind him out with mild difficulty in 2. 1-0
Round 2: faeries
His dory creatures vs my electrolyzes. 2-0
Round 3: hardened scales affinity
He has bad hands both games and I have a lot of removal. 3-0
I double ID in to top 8 at 2nd seed.
Quarters: Humans
new humans player sequenced poorly and kept sketchy hands, I take it in 2
Semifinals: burn
I win game 1 with no helices cast somehow and cast 2 timely reinforcements and 2 helix in game 2 so I win
Finals: Green tron
We ID because it is 1am and we're ready to go home, $70 in store credit
27 lands and no cantrips has worked out great for me and I'm in love with think twice, I appreciate any feedback.
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
I played in a PPTQ and went 4-2 losing to bridgevine and mardu pyro. Missed top 8 on breakers. The store was also having a "mega modern" event right after the PPTQ which is 20 dollar buy in for 5 round swiss with cut to top 8, which I ended up IDing in the finals of. Here's the list:
MB:
4 snapcster mage
2 teferi
1 Jace, the mind sculptor
2 search for azcanta
2 think twice
3 lightning bolt
3 lightning helix
4 path to exile
2 electrolze
2 supreme verdict
4 cryptic command
2 logic knot
1 spell snare
1 negate
2 celestial colonnade
3 field of ruin
4 flooded strand
4 scalding tarn
2 hallowed fountain
2 steam vents
1 sacred foundry
2 sulfur falls
2 glacial forteress
3 island
1 mountain
1 plains
SB:
2 dispel
2 celestail purge
2 ceremonious rejection
1 surgical extraciton
1 baneslayer angel
1 wear // tear
1 elspeth, sn's champion
1 negate
1 venidion clique
1 settle the wreckage
1 rest in peace
1 stony silence
between events I made some SB adjustments:
-1 surgical
-1 settle
-1 ceremonious
+1 lyra dawnbringer
+2 timely reinforcements
PPTQ:
Round 1: mirror match
I take it in two games fairly easily. 1-0
Round 2: bridgevine
I get smashed, no contest. 1-1
round 3:BW midrange
It was a brew so I took it in 2 pretty easily. 2-1
Round 4: mardu pyro
went to 3 games, lost to blood moon + hard to deal with threats in games 2 and 3. 2-2
Round 5: All in red
He takes game 1 off a turn 1 rabblemaster into blood moon, I win 2 and 3 after dealing with a couple threats each game. 3-2
Round 6: affinity
I have all the right answers at all the right times. 4-2
I miss top 8 due to horrendous breakers.
Mega modern:
Round 1: esper goryo's
I grind him out with mild difficulty in 2. 1-0
Round 2: faeries
His dory creatures vs my electrolyzes. 2-0
Round 3: hardened scales affinity
He has bad hands both games and I have a lot of removal. 3-0
I double ID in to top 8 at 2nd seed.
Quarters: Humans
new humans player sequenced poorly and kept sketchy hands, I take it in 2
Semifinals: burn
I win game 1 with no helices cast somehow and cast 2 timely reinforcements and 2 helix in game 2 so I win
Finals: Green tron
We ID because it is 1am and we're ready to go home, $70 in store credit
27 lands and no cantrips has worked out great for me and I'm in love with think twice, I appreciate any feedback.
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
Modern: UW, Jeskai, Grixis, Blue moon, Esper, Sultai, UB, UWish
Legacy: Miracles
Grats on the good finish, but I do want to criticize you on this. You did not "lose a judge call", a judge call is not a contest, you made a misplay and your opponent called a judge to verify the correct gamestate. It's just semantics and maybe you dont mean it in that way but I really dislike the mentality of seeing judge calls at comp REL as some kind of cheap tactic or "angle shooting", you are playing a game with rules in a competitive setting and should be held to those rules.
Yeah no I phrased that badly. It was really hard not to get salty in the moment, but I can respect the ruling, as I ddi proceed to my draw step. I certainly wont miss that again any time soon, so i see it as a way to grow.
Anyone see nikolich and purcells list from SCGBalt? 3 maindeck settle, as well as adopting rosum's 3 field/2 colonnade split.
2 is what I've been on seemingly forever.
3 settle is going all in but I like that it forces people to hold back.
I love watching Ben play though, he's a master on the deck.
Spirits
Spirits
It's a very 1 to 1 translation:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Spell Queller
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Delver of Secrets
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Opt
4 Remand
2 Spell Snare
3 Celestial Colonnade
3 Spirebluff Canal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Alpine Moon
2 Negate
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Abrade
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disdainful Stroke
Basically, the pluses are getting to play path, helix and more sideboard options whilst losing the awesome 4 mutavault the UR list has. I still see the Delvers as a necessary evil though with their low flip chance; they do still function very well as a lightning rod to make Queller better later.
though maybe your assessment is skewed by your particular list. more stock lists have cryptics and colonnades, which eat a lot of mana.
glad to hear you are enjoying jeskai though.
-----------------------------
as for nikolich's build from the SCG event. yeah i dunno. its a pretty big departure, so its hard to gauge. suddenly 2 jaces is supportable, peek for who knows what, and 3 settle? its clear hes building to beat certain things, im just not sure how these changes accomplish any of that.
i trust he and purcell know what they are doing, but i dunno if im ready to leap THAT far from what has been working.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)No Serum is going to feel super weird, but the 2 Jace makes sense as thats his only way to start finding what he felt was better card quality, over selection, while Peek lets him know what he's looking for and if the cost is clear to Brainstorm of jam Teferi or something?
Its a neat enough configuration though, no Serum, and..25 lands. I cant go up to 25, certainly not without Serum lol.
Spirits
But honestly, peek does seem relevant... I know he was running Opt over Path for a while and it makes sense that Peek could potentially be better given the reasons idSurge mentioned. As for the Settle, I think Jeskai should be stealing the page from UW's playbook and be running Terminus mainboard with 1x Supreme Verdict... Im coming from playing Taking Turns for a while and I used to sideboard them in before everyone else... it's so much better to tuck things in a person's deck then put them in the graveyard.
Spirits
So when I come back to Jeskai, Im thinking something along the lines of:
2 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (34)
2 Cryptic Command
4 Opt
4 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Electrolyze
4 Path to Exile
2 Logic Knot
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Celestial Collonade
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Field of Ruin
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Sulfur Falls
Spirits
A major piece to the whole puzzle you also gloss over is that we don't always have the right answers to the opponent's threats largely because of how wide open things are. That's why I tend to value versatility more so. I can't tell you the number of times I've used Cryptic Command to basically buy time to pull out the win.
I do understand how some folks end up viewing Celestial Colonnade less favorably in a world with Field of Ruin. I just don't know itty makes sense to completely cut it. We don't exactly have better options. Do you think we should drop creature lands altogether?
1. Nimble Obstructionist. I like the card, but do not think it is better than Queller and Clique solely because those creatures give their disruptive effect whilst applying a clock, instead of making you choose between the two. There is also a very hard limit on how many 1 toughness creatures I am willing to play, especially at cmc3, which is one of my main gripes with Jeff's list. Queller is a big advantage of Jeskai over UR with this archetype, and I would max out on Quellers before adding either Clique or Obstructionist; eight 3-drop creatures seems like too much to me, also because Snapcaster is more often a 4-drop in Jeskai than it is in UR due to Helix over Wizard's Lightning.
2. Remand. I definitely love Remand in this archetype, due to the high burn count. I also like Jeff's argument for it, in that against a lot of modern decks, you don't want either Remand NOR Mana Leak, plan on siding them out, and there Remand at least cycles to mediate the wrong half problem. Being worse at protecting isn't that big of an issue either I would say, as many decks currently run either very little or a boatton of removal, where in the first case trading is often fine and in the latter trading is inevitable. If Remand can be used to back up a threat by stopping their proactive plan however, it is incredible in this deck, but due to how poor this deck's Delvers are, I agree it is sometimes a little lacking. However I think the payoff of it is much bigger than that of Mana Leak, especially in the increasingly common control matchups to buyback your own spell.
3. Manlands. Having mana to activate is not so much the problem for this deck as is taplands being awkward in general. Taking a turn behind on mana is pretty rough when trying to maintain tempo. Without access to Mutavault, I'd rather get the most out of as few manlands as possible than playing more weaker ones.
4. Grim Lavamancer. I think this card does everything you want for this deck and two is a good amount. It lightningrods removal and serves as removal itself which I do think is very important; this deck needs burn to close out games and can't throw its bolts as freely as control can. I have also often stumped my opponent from curving out just because they have to kill Lavamancer before it gets active, often effectively paying 2 or 3 mana to kill it (or even pathing it). I'm considering trying out Thought Scour over Opt to validate playing 3 Grim Lavamancer; Jeff mentioned something similar
5. Spell Snare. This card is very strong tempo-wise but with how small the counterpackage is in this build it might be too narrow (although Queller really solves that issue a bit compared to the UR version). These are definitely the flex slots and I am still trying them out; I'm pretty sure at least one should be countermagic though.
6. Geist in the board. This was mostly a way to have some extra cards for KCI, Tron and control at the same time, but I'm not certain yet as I am not a fan of Geist in the first place.
We could maybe discuss this a bit over private chat or email; I am planning on playtesting the deck a lot on cockatrice at least.