Hey all, after much experimentation with Esper I was unsuccessful to build it for Geist of Saint Traft, which I am actually happy about as he fits much better in Jeskai then he does in Esper, the value of our reach is undeniable. We have a Modern Open coming up in a couple weeks where I will either be playing with my Esper Tap-out deck or with Jeskai Delver. I have not tested any cards in place of probes since the ban but I also had removed them prior anyway. Here is the deck I am considering running if i play Jeskai in this tournament.
Card Choices: Restoration Angel - I like her for a top end as with playing Geist instead of playing 1-of protection spells for him i give him 1 additional angel who adds in beats, in 2 turns if she lives thats 4 from Geist angel (flashing in resto) and then another 7 from the angels alone if Geist dies which is 11 damage by turn 4 without any delver or burn beats.
Ancestral Vision - During my testing with other decks I have noticed a change in the format for speed and I believe this card is just so much Value. If i do not cast Delver T1 then i know by T5 i refill my hand if i cast this which means I can play my spells a bit more aggressively
Snapcaster Mage - We are all playing this one but I bumped mine up to 4 as his value has been great, I play more of a control game then the aggro game I have found and Snap-Remand is huge even if just to draw a card. I have enjoyed playing him as a 4-of and I do not think i would switch this.
Cryptic Command a little bit odd when I am only running 19 lands but I get so much blue mana as every land card with the exclusion of Sacred Foundry and Basic Plains all give me U i have no issues casting this.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - One of my favorite planeswalkers, she makes Geist an even bigger threat, she makes top decking Delvers worth it and all on her own can win games.
Exclusion: Bedlam Reveler - I chose to exclude this one only because he is on the ground instead of flying like my angel, and he makes me discard my hand which is not so good with my counter magic.
Let me know what you guys think about this list as well, any and all sideboard suggestion would be excellent.
Thinking about life after the Probe ban I was thinking we should consider gearing to face the control/midrange decks with more value plays, so I thought I'd start with 2 Bedlam Reveler and 3 Remand in place of probes and 1 Stormchaser Mage. As such, here's my post ban list:
I think both of these decks are on the right path and would consider building something that is in between. If Thought Scour is where we want to go I believe we need to add more to utilize our Graveyard (not as far as say Grixis or Esper) but further then where we currently sit. In this I believe that adding 1-2 Grim Lavamancer will be great in our decks, I think going up to 4 Snapcaster becomes more previlant as well so we can flashback the spells we scour OR keep Snapcaster at 2 and add in 2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Stormchaser Mage i have never found we utilize him to his best and the removal of Gitaxian Probe makes him even worse in my opinion. I still prefer Geist in the late game but if Mentor is your preference i believe him along side cards like Jeskai Charm are great. Personally I like Faithless Looting more then Thought Scour for the reasons I have said above but also, outside of instant speed it does the same thing as Thought Scour by putting a total of 3 cards into the GY however i get to choose what 2 cards those are, I have control over weather I can better utilize this spell in my GY for later or have it in hand. Faithless Also comes with a built in Flashback not requiring the Snapcaster Mage, If we want to add more GY interaction I believe this is the best one for our deck specifically. PS: I have played online against some Grixis Delver & Grixis Control lists running this in their deck in place of probes as well... Might be worth the test
I also agree with Curdbros that we do not want to many cards in our deck that focus on needing a creature on the board since we do not run all that many and we aren't pulling out a T2 kill like infect with just 1 creature. I am glad everyone is busy brewing :).
Edit- people are also suggesting thoughtscour to replace it. I wouldn't mind it either, as it synergistic with Reveler and Snapcaster mage if i wanna target myself.
While I will agree that Thought Scour synergizes well with Snapcaster and Reveler I personally feel our deck is not set up best to take full advantage from it. If we compare this to other decks potentially running this card: Grixis/Esper/Sultai all have access to Gurmag Angler and Tasigur, Grixis also has K-Command, Esper has Lingering Souls some lists also pack Think Twice, All of these decks also have access to Liliana, The last Hope. Having these card options are what makes this such a powerful card to run IMO. In our list we are only running most times 2 Snap and 2 Reveler and if we mill those with thought scour we gained no real value. I won't say not to test it I just believe we are not set up to take best advantage.. Could potentially add some Logic Knots if we want to get more GY action.
Try to keep the tears in :-/. Get one more 4-0 finish with the deck!
I am actually really excited to get to brew a little again. It's not the circumstances I wanted, but maybe this will be a blessing in disguise. I was getting to the point where the deck only had 1 flex spot left so now I get to play around with 4 flex spots. I haven't decided on an option yet, but will keep you all posted on how my testing goes with different cards.
Brewing and testing are one of the best parts of making our decks, finding better synergy and plays etc. I personally believe that Gitaxian Probe was lack luster, It could of been my list specifically but I never really wanted to draw it.. The knowledge i got from it mostly just allowed me to play around a counter spells to drop geist since he cannot be spot removed but We can also do that just by watching how our opponant taps their mana. I think this banning is good for us, it is forcing everyone to start exploring different options that never got explored because Gitaxian Probe kind of became a "I must have this card because I am tempo" which I do not think was necessarily correct
To be honest I think we were be better running Crumble to Dust yes it's a turn 4 but once we land it they are done as we exile all of that tron land and with path we can fend off a wurmvoil or something for a turn to cast that if we are on the draw.
Those bans though. If you want something that does exactly what Probe does then Peek is your go to, the lesser value though that you have to pay for it with mana will hurt. Personally I believe the best card for us will be Ancestral Vision. It does not exactly trigger prowess when we want it which is a downside but I think the meta will be slowing down now. As mentioned above Deaths Shadow Aggro is going to get hurt hard, All-in Kiln Fiend decks will be hit but still survivable, Infect needs a replacement (not all important but helpful), Dredge is going to slow down again. WOTC is pushing the format more and more towards later games, they do not want consistent T3 kills, Ancestral Visions gives us just another way to fill our hands back up making us viable late game giving us more burn, more prowess triggers etc. The other card i see worth while is Faithless Looting. my problem with Mutagenic Growth, Distortion Strike, Expedite, Slip Through Space is all of these require a creature on board meaning they have potential to be a dead draw for us 1-2 ofs of things like these are great "gotcha" cards but a full playset i think is under utilized in our deck without going full prowess/aggro. Faithless Looting still allows us to dig deeper into our decks, puts more in the Graveyard for Snapcaster Potentially or smooths our mana. With a playset of these in the deck it is possible we could drop 1 or 2 lands because we have both serum and faithless allowing us to dig for them.
A card that wasn't mentioned above that we could potentially take advantage of is Noxious Revival, We can get back creatures, bolts, helix, counters, snapcaster etc.. I think this card would be worth testing, an exact number of how many I do not know. Late game delver draw with this after puts an instant/sorcery on top so we can flip delver guaranteed
Come to think of it, Deaths Shadow and Kiln Fiend might just start running the Revivals as well.
Hey all, so I have been teseting/building my Esper deck for my Geist and i got to face off against an interesting version of the Jeskai Mentor/Tokens build which ran some cards I have not seen here. Now disclaimer: I did win 2-1 against this deck, but i believe the information is valuable.
These card choices were definatley interesting and unexpected to say the least. Being that most every card required him to exile some sort of blue card from his hand in order to work properly once past the first few turns he ran out of gas.. However T1 disrupting Shoal exiling Sleight of Hand to counter a Thoughtseize or Inquisition was kind of spicy.
Fatal Push is the real deal against us, right now more deck i have seen are testing out just 2 of as they do not know how often the revolt trigger will happen consistently however most creatures to worry about are 2CMC or less anyway. Out of all the Jeskai Prowess, Jeskai Mentor etc decks i have faced they cannot seem to get past that extra removal that black will be packing, I know we can do it but it might mean a slight change in our deck layout. Adding Spell Pierce and Dispel MB may not be to terrible of an idea for us and potentially dropping Delver T2 instead so we have counter magic protection but this can open up the chance for him to be discarded, so we will need to be careful as to what we keep opening hands. Grixis, Esper, and Jund will become the bane of our existence and probably the hardest matches. with grixis a packing 12+ removal (in early testings) backed by 4-6 discard and 4+ counter spells they have been controlling the early game fairly easily. Jund is Jund but now they can control the early game more then before. As for Esper, I think all of these builds will be tough.. Draw-Go having Ancestral Visions, Esper Charm, Discards, board wipes, and the Midrange running Lingering Souls, Tasigur, 4-6 Removal, 4-6 Discard, and 4-6 Counters.
TL;DR (or was just all rambling) we need to plan for Midgame, Geist, Bedlam Reveler these will be game winners, as well as protection spells.
Red Geist (Kari Zev) is kind of neat, she is harder to block due to her menace and first strike but the lack of hexproof makes her easier to remove, on the flip side her token is easy to block and only 1 toughness.. So I think this is like everything Geist isnt. Geist is easy to block but hard to remove, his token is hard to block they are opposites.. I like it but i do not know how much it will make it into the format, chump blocking the monkey and taking 1 from Kari is not all that exciting... If she had prowess... this would be fantastic.
We did get a couple other potential spells in Alley EvasionThis card can save our creatures from spot removal like we can with Vapor snag without taking a point of damage, or it can pump our threats, on a Prowess creature this is 1CMC +2/+3 pushing any of our prowess out of bolt range, on Geist they block with a 2power creature and now geist becomes a 3/4. I can see this becoming a 1 or 2 in the MB or in the SB.. Obviously Mutagenic is easier to cast being free but it hurts our life total.
Another card we got is Invigorated Rampage I think this will be more for the all in prowess/Aggro versions of the deck or ones utalizing Mentor as with this 1 spell we can make 2 mentor tokens into 4/2 with trample. Again i believe this will be a 1 or 2 most likely.
This is a great post Rafiq. I think your spot on with your analysis. I agree that esper will probably be our hardest matchup with hand disruption, lingering souls, and possibly liliana of the veil. I do think esper delver will be a great deck.
I think you're right that We will have to make sure we play to our advantages. We are the fastest delver deck and have the most pressure. I LOVE playing against control decks and have typically done very well against them. I have only played against Tricia delver a handful of times but found the matchups to be fairly favored for us given that vapor snag is a house against them.
I am going to try to put together several lists from the forums if the different styles and test against them so I can have some real data.
As I am currently invested in trying to make a Esper deck for my Geist of Saint Traft I will do what I can to try and help devise some of these decks for testing for you. I do not hgave the card availability to build and test all of these myself personally but I like to brew. When i create something I can private message you the lists for your testing needs
I don't want to rain on your parade but just to bring a point, the issue with Jeskai Delver has never been its answers or its sideboard, but its threats... you can't ignore the advantage Grixis and Temur have with their threats, namely Tasigur and Tarmogoyf/Mandrills, all of them pass the bolt test and all except tarmo pass the decay test, but tarmo makes up for that with extreme efficiency. Sadly, color white doesn't offer creatures of that caliber, the deck has to make up with either Geist of Saint Traft, Monastery Mentor, Mantis Rider or Spell Queller (if I'm missing one please correct me), all but geist dying to both bolt and decay, but geist can be chump blocked easily... that's the reason I've been running Grixis rather than Jeskai for almost a year now, but I still keep up with the thread and hoping a new creature comes that makes Jeskai worth trying again, or that someone works a build that manages to win with the available creatures (I for one don't have the time to work that out, barely play modern once or twice a month these days). The only creature I've seen printed these days that can survive both bolt and decay, has cmc 2-3, and can be a real beater is Bedlam Reveler, but the issue with it is that it requires a more all-in and aggressive approach leaving us a bit vulnerable, and I haven't seen anyone pull results with him, but I still think that a Jeskai Delver deck with the reveler might be the best build for the current and coming metas, specially since Queller being the second best threat in my mind now will have to face also Fatal Push
Best of lucks to all Jeskai Delver players
You are correct but I would also say your are incorrect. We are very soft to removal as outside of Geist of Saint Traft or Brimaz everything we generally play dies to every removal in the format with Push just becoming another problem for us. The threats your referring to that Grixis or Temur or any version outside Jeskai has are threats that i classify as "Big Value" it is like tron, the creatures are stupid big and hard to deal with... outside of that they don't do much. Tarmagoyf... he is just hard to kill and can get bigger depending on card types but thats all.. big body, hard to remove... Hooting Mandril... Big ape that is hard to remove... Tasigur is the only real one with an ability in which depending what they Delve away you can give them spells that your not afraid of anymore so again just anoter big body. So you are correct we do not have that big body on the board, however our creatures are cheap to cast, efficient, and depending on build can threaten Lethal in a quicker time frame.
Passing the bolt test should never be the only reason to play a deck, you just need to build your deck so that even if you die to bolt the remainder of your deck can prevail. Grixis is a good example, Tasigur and Fish pass the bolt test so what is a solid option for us to do SB?? remove cards like Bolt or Helix and bring in more Counterspells, Bring in Vapor Snags.. If i can counter your Tasigur or Fish then you delved and got nothing to show but an empty GY and no value for any Snaps you run, If i vapor snag your fish or tasigur you again Delved and ended with nothing. If Jeskai ran all creatures that passed the bolt test then people could do the same to us, side out removal spells and bring in more control or board wipes.. because our creatures are still threatening and can threaten lethal they NEED to keep their removal spells in deck which means they have less slots that do enough against us. Grixis and probably the other variants that will arrive would like their opponent to be as non interactive as possible and by making their creatures hard to interact with they attain this to some degree.
I agree that Temur delver has lost alot of it's merits being as it is a worse version of Jund and Burn in 1 package. As for the other versions (not going to discuss their deck creation) I believe we can classify each version into their own catagories and in doing so we can work at ways that we can sideboard or even main board against these new threats as they appear.
Jeskai Delver: Tempo/Aggro
- This is the most aggressive deck, running more 1 drop creatures that pump and has reach in the form of burn, we can become a burn deck if needed and can hold back in other situations to turn the corner at optimal time
- Probably the most intricate of any versions as it does require us to be more careful in what we do choose to counter, more calculations involved on weather a burn spell is best spent on a creature or to the face for damage all while keeping our threats alive to push through.
Sultai Delver: Midrange/Value
- This version falls into the Midrange/Value catagory as it will probably focus less on counterspells and more on resolving larger threats like Tarmagoyf, Tasigur etc and gaining most of it's tempo from hand manipulation.
- Will have a large array of removal spells from single target to board wipes and permanent removal. May potentially be packing Collected Company. Also a new instant spell 2CMC that makes their creatures hexproof and indestructible will make removing threats difficult.
Esper Delver: Tempo/Control
- This shell will be the most controlling packing multiple counterspells, hand disruption and exile effect. threats to watch would be Tasigur, Geist of Saint Traft and Monastery Mentor.
- This will also have access to more hand disruption in the form of Tidehallow Sculler, and creature based counters like Spell Queller or Reflector Mage bouncing. Compared to Jeskai who has these options as well this deck will play more to the late game and utalize these more.. Might even see more ETB style of Delver with flickers.
Grixis Delver: Control/Midrange
- We all know these lists, they pack reach as we do, creature removal, hand disruption and plan for a Tasigur threat resolving. This deck will not win in the early game but plans to just remove your threats instead of countering them.
- Has a minor combo with Snapcaster / K-command.
So, now that we have each one broken down into where they should fit (please feel free to correct me if my assesment is incorrect) we need to have a way to win against these decks. I personally believe we have a strong advantage with Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix, however our biggest issue will be dealing with Tasigur and Tarmagoyf. We have ways of dealing with them now but if their pressence is going to increase we may need more then just a Path to Exile and Vapor Snag. This could mean we sideboard in more counterspells, deflecting palms etc, Geist of Saint Traft will also remain a strong threat as only a Board wipe can get rid of him outside of blocking.
Esper Delver if created correctly I think will be the most challenging for us due to the mass amounts of counterspells, hand control and hard to remove creatures they will be packing. I think this match up is going to be best by resolving our creature earlyer (delver/Swiftspear) and hoping to get in the first couple of turns around 5-10 damage to finish the rest off with burn or a late game bedlam reveler.
Sultai Delver will be a game of not over extending ourselves to have a Maelstrom pulse blow out our swiftspears on board, and we can probably get rid of some counterspells as we cannot touch Abrupt Decay. and remanding a fatal push or path to exile will not do us alot. Bringing in indestructible cards like Boros Charm will be strong against this.
I believe we are still the strongest Delver variant out there just as Curdbros as mentioned above, we have the best answers to these threats and probably the strongest ability to sideboard. Now is the time we start getting ready for these cards to be brought in and having answers already created MB or SB to deal with these.
I foresee grixis being tampered with definitly but I also feel that the New removal spell will spawn decent Esper variants that are more control/tempo as the one major thing Esper Delver lacked was a solid removal outside path. With Fatal Push Esper Delver will have T1 Delver/Inquisition/Thoughtseize, T2 Counter/Thought Scour/Fatal Push/ Tasigur, T3 Geist of saint Traft/Counter/snapcaster. I can see this comin out of he woodwork now and I myself am even thinking of this for my Geist of Saint Traft shell... again it's another deck another forum so not for here but I honk we might start seeing these control variants
Rafiq- I have thought of running two decks in the past as well. I just never thought I have enough time for two decks. I can barely keep up with one :). I would like to have a second deck that is based more around prowess with Abbot of Keral Keep and Monastery Mentor. I think my new years resolution will to be make a second jeskai prowess list. I have put a lot of time into my first list and am very happy with where it is at so why not try another style.
I hear ya on this, I however already have a 2nd Modern deck (which rarley ever looses) and I have 2 brews that I am working on as well. Since i play with the same group of players i like having something different to play with from time to time. My biggest reason for this deck from me (i never planned to make it till now) is because when i was building for the Jeskai Prowess/Aggro and using Geist I just found that the deck wasn't where I wanted to be with Geist of Saint Traft... Sure it puts up numbers, and does what it was designed to do however it just wasn't what I was looking for my Geist shell. I do however like the shell as a whole and still want to play with it as it is, I like Delver and Swiftspear and I think that Mentor is a great top end. This second deck is designed solely on the Prowess ability and just being fast out of the gate which is why I have added no planeswalkers, and no Snapcaster mages.
As for my Geist of Saint Traft, he is going to be the "godhead" (Pun intended) of another the first deck... which in a nut shell is the same as what i was running previously but i am dropping the Delvers and making my list more of a control list with more counter spells and Celestial Colonnades... This deck may become an Esper variant however due to the new black removal spell being spoiled but that is not deffinative.. nor is it for this forum.
I do still agree with the style of list you run yourself Curdbros with Geist in it (it's why I came here in the first place) I just never could quite find the right niche for it as the deck didn't have enough protection for Geist and so he wasn't doing what i wanted, when i started shifting gears to add the protection via Angels, Cryptic etc, i lost some value i gained from the remainder of this shell. But i also do not want to leave this forum as I said above i love this tempo/aggro style and I need to add one to my arsenal of decks and Jeskai colors are amazing so I am here to stay but will just be using a different tune of deck
So baral's Expertise isnt really a tempo card or a card we want in general, I think.
But Baral, Chief of Compliance is very interesting, I could se him in a shell with mana leaks and remands for 1 mana and filtering is always a nice thing to have, guaranteeing us to not flood or if we need a specific card to dig for the answer, what are your thoughts on those two?
@curdbros: that's a pretty bonkers play, this definitely felt very satisfying. I don't think that the abzan match up is bad after the board its a little in our favour, I think.
I have the exact same thought, the blue expertise is really useless to us.. makes me kind of sad but im not entierly surprised being this set is focused on artifacts and the only artifact related expertise is the white one with servo tokens.. Hopefully the red gives us something better.
As for Baral, Chief of Compliance seeing this card is deffinatley more of a counter deck but my immediate thought for him is that it may mean we get more counter spells in this set, there isn't very many in standard at the moment (I could be wrong) so adding a card that is focused on counter magic leads me to believe we may see a few more aside from the Disallow that was spoiled earlier. Hopefully there will be some 1U counters and not just 1Ux.
On the topic of decks, I have decided to need to make 2 different decks. 1 Deck focused on my Geist of Saint Traft and 1 Aggro deck using the Prowess. Latley I have found that Delver is not flipping very well for me since adding the UW enchantment back into my deck which lowered my instant/Sorcery count down to 25 which statistically 25 - 27 instant/sorcery should never make a large discrepancy. It is nice having the early game threat for the deck almost like Grixis Delver was running, the problem being was their creatures are usually 4x Delver, 4x Snap, 3x Tasigur, 1x Fish, thanks to Delve they can play their threats more efficiently then I can with my Geist and Angels... So I think Delver comes out... but it means I get to build a new list for him, from scratch. Here is what I think I will be building (barring any other spoilers from the new set) let me know your thoughts.
This deck looks really fun. Would young pyromancer be better in the aggro version or the tempo version?
Welcome to the topic Crssherman1990! I personally believe that Young.P fits more into the tempo/control version rather then the Aggro/Tempo. I was running her for a bit there in my list before I did a complete overhaul of my deck list, she is nothing to laugh at, her sticking can save your life or end our opponents.
The reason I do not find her to be in the more aggro version of he deck is that she is a T2, she doesn't impact the game state immediately and very rarely the following turn as you probably got to cast maybe 1 phyrexian spell with her if you cast her T2. As a tempo play she is great because she allows for you to go wide with having blockers or generate enough tokens that you can swing with creatures weather they get blocked or not. In the aggro builds you really want to bring life totals down close enough that bolt or bolt-snap-bolt can win it in the mid game when hey have stabilized (unless your running mentor or Geist).
Played a bunch of games yesterday testing with my 2x Steel of the Godhead back in the deck. Now i want to preface this with the fact this card will NOT fit into alot of the decks i have seen posted, I chose to run this from personal preference, my priority focus on Geist of Saint Traft and that I cannot find another replacment for the Vapor Snags.
I faced a handful of different decks and I cannot remember all the details so i do not have alot of write up about each match specifically but i will post the few things i do remember (it was a long night playing from 5:30 to Midnight). Decks i faced were: Abzan, Esper Processors, UB Faeries, Bant Eldrazi, Infect, Dredge.
Abzan 2-1: Game 1 was fairly straight forward for Abzan, he would use some sort of THoughtsieze on T1 making me discard but that just wasnt enough, he curved great with T1 Discard into Bob/Goyf/Ooze etc however i kept his board clear. Once I landed Geist i got a shot in and he dropped Seige Rhino, I slapped Steel of the Godhead on Geist the following turn and he couldn't keep up.
Game 2: I just drew everything to late, i had land, i had removal but i didn't draw my first Delver until T5, by this point it was long over due, i put up a fight and got him down to 5or6 still but he eventually just out paced me
Game 3: I just controlled this game from the start, I bolted his creatures and Remand / Snap remanded his spells. I again won this match with an enchanted Geist.
Esper Processors 0-3: Again i just cannot win this match up.. I did make 1 mistake which was that i dropped Elspeth with Geist on board trying to bait out a counter or spell queller so i could use my enchantment the next turn but he didn't have a countersepll had I dropped the enchantment instead i would of won. one game was just terrible though, i kept a very poor hand (bad mistake) to which i had 1 land and kept drawing spells i couldnt cast, ended up with 2 Geist in hand and had to discard so i discarded a geist... He hit me with Surgical extraction for that blunder. Another game he had ashiok out and kept exiling my stuff, eventually exiled both my snaps, 1 delver, 1 geist and 1 angel. Snaps allowed him to re-path my non geist creatures and I just couldn't get through.
UB Faeries 3-0: We played a 3rd game while waiting for matches to finish.
Game 1: I got my spells out quickly knowing i needed to get under his counter faeries and was able to out pace him with Delver and Geist.
Game 2: he got the point where he had to just block with bitterblossom faeries, I had Delver, Angel and Geist all on board, kept swinging in with my Angel and Delver forcing him to block.. every other creature he played either was on blocking duty or got bolted/helixed
Game 3: He got land screwed, ended up with only 2 Bitterblossoms on board ( I was going to cryptic his the turn before but i allowed the second to land) I essentially just kept swinging with Angel again and let Bitter Blossom kill him.
Infect 2-1: Game 1: His dropped elf T1 to which i bolted immediately, Hirearch got Helixed and i landed Delver and Geist. I unfortunatley just got beat down by a Nexus in the end as i forgot it had flying and left Geist back on blocking duty..
Game 2: Sideboarded (IN: 2x Negate, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Dispel, 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Blessed Alliance) This was his nightmare, my opening hand consisted of 2x Path, 2x Bolt, 1 Spell Pierce, 2x Land. Every creature he played died, he even probed me to see the spells and try and play around it by forcign me to play certain spells... it didn't matter as i drew into a Cryptic and countered a Hirearch and bounced his Nexus after he played a land for turn.
Game 3: Similart to Game 2, just removed everything he had except i had 2 flipped delvers by T3
Bant Eldrazi 2-0: I do not remember this one sorry guys.. what i do recall is he got no Thougt-Knot Seer, i pathed every threat and Geist with Steel won the game. I did make 1 mistake though in forgetting that Drowner of hope can tap my creatures so i tapped out for Elspeth to make Gesit big to deal the last 12 points of damage (geist and delver on board) but he tapped down my delver.. I should of pathed Drowner instead of Elspeth.
Dredge 1-2: Game 1: I maintained control, bolting, pathing, helixing everything i could outside of Nacromebas, this kept me with enough life (thank you helix) and by time i dropped Godhead on Geist it was over, i gained ot much life per 2
Game 2/3: these were almost Identical, he exploded early and i drew little removal. I did deal with a couple of his Prized Amalgams and got my enchanted Geist again but it was to late.
I did face the Esper Processors deck again but vs someone who doesn't know hwo to use it properly so i ended up stomping him so i don't count this match same goes with the matches we had intermitent of other games finishing. All in All 4-2 for the night
I am happy with the Enchantment and never found that only 25 spells hurt my Delver.. the times when he didnt flip early i drew creature land or elspeth so even if those had been Snags he still wouldn't have flipped. It is a very underplayed card in modern but i found it a very good way of getting in extra damage unblocked instead of a 1 time use with the others... Also 4 life per turn is nothing to laugh at. The rest of the deck remained as smooth as it was before, Delver is still the best T1 play (outside of bolting infect creatures) and Resto Angel makes for a big threat. I am happy with where my deck is now until WoTC decides to release some better counter magic, or 1cmc spells etc that fit my deck.
1 Card that has come up in speculation thought is my Gitaxian Probes. I used them in the games but the information is less valuable i think with Geist in play.. If i face something with Flash or an Aether vial its worth knowing their hand in case they flash in to block but once the enchantments lands you cannot block anymore. I currently do not have plans of removing this card as it is still very strong and makes for sideboard fodder but out of the entire deck this would be the card I say is the least effective and would consider replacing for something better or more control if i need to (i actually sided all of these out against Infect)
Echoing Truth would be an interesting sideboard inclusion for my meta, however the only deck I see it working on is UB faeries' tokens from bitternlossom as Jund doesn't have much to bounce.. maybe goyf but I can deal with goyf easy, and bouncing liliana Seems bad. As well I feel the same issue would arrive for me that here is to much "on cast" or ETB from my opponents right Now that bouncing to let them have it again seems bad.
I also plan on testing the Slip Through space agon in my deck in place of the snags as it's still strong, I hope to test cloud form to just for shenanigans as with my deck it can save resto angel from a terminate which then in turn saves Geist again during combat of need be, it's a 3 and 4th snapcaster since I only have 2. I think if it works then it will be great but it will depend on how much use you receive from it as o obviously wouldn't want to bounce a Delver and un flip him or decks running swiftspear it would just be a way to save it from targeted removal but make it loose the prowess. Haha should be fun to test it, if it's horrible I won't loose sleep over it.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Restoration Angel
Instant 19
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
1 Spell Pierce
2 Cryptic Command
4 Serum Visions
3 Ancestral Vision
Planeswalker 1
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Land 19
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Spirebluff Canal
1 Seachrome Coast
3 Island
2 Plains
Card Choices:
Restoration Angel - I like her for a top end as with playing Geist instead of playing 1-of protection spells for him i give him 1 additional angel who adds in beats, in 2 turns if she lives thats 4 from Geist angel (flashing in resto) and then another 7 from the angels alone if Geist dies which is 11 damage by turn 4 without any delver or burn beats.
Ancestral Vision - During my testing with other decks I have noticed a change in the format for speed and I believe this card is just so much Value. If i do not cast Delver T1 then i know by T5 i refill my hand if i cast this which means I can play my spells a bit more aggressively
Snapcaster Mage - We are all playing this one but I bumped mine up to 4 as his value has been great, I play more of a control game then the aggro game I have found and Snap-Remand is huge even if just to draw a card. I have enjoyed playing him as a 4-of and I do not think i would switch this.
Cryptic Command a little bit odd when I am only running 19 lands but I get so much blue mana as every land card with the exclusion of Sacred Foundry and Basic Plains all give me U i have no issues casting this.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - One of my favorite planeswalkers, she makes Geist an even bigger threat, she makes top decking Delvers worth it and all on her own can win games.
Exclusion:
Bedlam Reveler - I chose to exclude this one only because he is on the ground instead of flying like my angel, and he makes me discard my hand which is not so good with my counter magic.
Let me know what you guys think about this list as well, any and all sideboard suggestion would be excellent.
I think both of these decks are on the right path and would consider building something that is in between. If Thought Scour is where we want to go I believe we need to add more to utilize our Graveyard (not as far as say Grixis or Esper) but further then where we currently sit. In this I believe that adding 1-2 Grim Lavamancer will be great in our decks, I think going up to 4 Snapcaster becomes more previlant as well so we can flashback the spells we scour OR keep Snapcaster at 2 and add in 2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Stormchaser Mage i have never found we utilize him to his best and the removal of Gitaxian Probe makes him even worse in my opinion. I still prefer Geist in the late game but if Mentor is your preference i believe him along side cards like Jeskai Charm are great. Personally I like Faithless Looting more then Thought Scour for the reasons I have said above but also, outside of instant speed it does the same thing as Thought Scour by putting a total of 3 cards into the GY however i get to choose what 2 cards those are, I have control over weather I can better utilize this spell in my GY for later or have it in hand. Faithless Also comes with a built in Flashback not requiring the Snapcaster Mage, If we want to add more GY interaction I believe this is the best one for our deck specifically. PS: I have played online against some Grixis Delver & Grixis Control lists running this in their deck in place of probes as well... Might be worth the test
I also agree with Curdbros that we do not want to many cards in our deck that focus on needing a creature on the board since we do not run all that many and we aren't pulling out a T2 kill like infect with just 1 creature. I am glad everyone is busy brewing :).
While I will agree that Thought Scour synergizes well with Snapcaster and Reveler I personally feel our deck is not set up best to take full advantage from it. If we compare this to other decks potentially running this card: Grixis/Esper/Sultai all have access to Gurmag Angler and Tasigur, Grixis also has K-Command, Esper has Lingering Souls some lists also pack Think Twice, All of these decks also have access to Liliana, The last Hope. Having these card options are what makes this such a powerful card to run IMO. In our list we are only running most times 2 Snap and 2 Reveler and if we mill those with thought scour we gained no real value. I won't say not to test it I just believe we are not set up to take best advantage.. Could potentially add some Logic Knots if we want to get more GY action.
Brewing and testing are one of the best parts of making our decks, finding better synergy and plays etc. I personally believe that Gitaxian Probe was lack luster, It could of been my list specifically but I never really wanted to draw it.. The knowledge i got from it mostly just allowed me to play around a counter spells to drop geist since he cannot be spot removed but We can also do that just by watching how our opponant taps their mana. I think this banning is good for us, it is forcing everyone to start exploring different options that never got explored because Gitaxian Probe kind of became a "I must have this card because I am tempo" which I do not think was necessarily correct
A card that wasn't mentioned above that we could potentially take advantage of is Noxious Revival, We can get back creatures, bolts, helix, counters, snapcaster etc.. I think this card would be worth testing, an exact number of how many I do not know. Late game delver draw with this after puts an instant/sorcery on top so we can flip delver guaranteed
Come to think of it, Deaths Shadow and Kiln Fiend might just start running the Revivals as well.
The deck i faced i do not have an exact list for but below are the cards i saw in the package:
- Serum Visions
- Sleight of Hand
- Ancestral Vision
- Young Pyromancer
- Monastery Mentor
- Misdirection
- Disrupting Shoal
- Deprive
- Snapback
These card choices were definatley interesting and unexpected to say the least. Being that most every card required him to exile some sort of blue card from his hand in order to work properly once past the first few turns he ran out of gas.. However T1 disrupting Shoal exiling Sleight of Hand to counter a Thoughtseize or Inquisition was kind of spicy.
Fatal Push is the real deal against us, right now more deck i have seen are testing out just 2 of as they do not know how often the revolt trigger will happen consistently however most creatures to worry about are 2CMC or less anyway. Out of all the Jeskai Prowess, Jeskai Mentor etc decks i have faced they cannot seem to get past that extra removal that black will be packing, I know we can do it but it might mean a slight change in our deck layout. Adding Spell Pierce and Dispel MB may not be to terrible of an idea for us and potentially dropping Delver T2 instead so we have counter magic protection but this can open up the chance for him to be discarded, so we will need to be careful as to what we keep opening hands. Grixis, Esper, and Jund will become the bane of our existence and probably the hardest matches. with grixis a packing 12+ removal (in early testings) backed by 4-6 discard and 4+ counter spells they have been controlling the early game fairly easily. Jund is Jund but now they can control the early game more then before. As for Esper, I think all of these builds will be tough.. Draw-Go having Ancestral Visions, Esper Charm, Discards, board wipes, and the Midrange running Lingering Souls, Tasigur, 4-6 Removal, 4-6 Discard, and 4-6 Counters.
TL;DR (or was just all rambling) we need to plan for Midgame, Geist, Bedlam Reveler these will be game winners, as well as protection spells.
We did get a couple other potential spells in Alley EvasionThis card can save our creatures from spot removal like we can with Vapor snag without taking a point of damage, or it can pump our threats, on a Prowess creature this is 1CMC +2/+3 pushing any of our prowess out of bolt range, on Geist they block with a 2power creature and now geist becomes a 3/4. I can see this becoming a 1 or 2 in the MB or in the SB.. Obviously Mutagenic is easier to cast being free but it hurts our life total.
Another card we got is Invigorated Rampage I think this will be more for the all in prowess/Aggro versions of the deck or ones utalizing Mentor as with this 1 spell we can make 2 mentor tokens into 4/2 with trample. Again i believe this will be a 1 or 2 most likely.
As I am currently invested in trying to make a Esper deck for my Geist of Saint Traft I will do what I can to try and help devise some of these decks for testing for you. I do not hgave the card availability to build and test all of these myself personally but I like to brew. When i create something I can private message you the lists for your testing needs
You are correct but I would also say your are incorrect. We are very soft to removal as outside of Geist of Saint Traft or Brimaz everything we generally play dies to every removal in the format with Push just becoming another problem for us. The threats your referring to that Grixis or Temur or any version outside Jeskai has are threats that i classify as "Big Value" it is like tron, the creatures are stupid big and hard to deal with... outside of that they don't do much. Tarmagoyf... he is just hard to kill and can get bigger depending on card types but thats all.. big body, hard to remove... Hooting Mandril... Big ape that is hard to remove... Tasigur is the only real one with an ability in which depending what they Delve away you can give them spells that your not afraid of anymore so again just anoter big body. So you are correct we do not have that big body on the board, however our creatures are cheap to cast, efficient, and depending on build can threaten Lethal in a quicker time frame.
Passing the bolt test should never be the only reason to play a deck, you just need to build your deck so that even if you die to bolt the remainder of your deck can prevail. Grixis is a good example, Tasigur and Fish pass the bolt test so what is a solid option for us to do SB?? remove cards like Bolt or Helix and bring in more Counterspells, Bring in Vapor Snags.. If i can counter your Tasigur or Fish then you delved and got nothing to show but an empty GY and no value for any Snaps you run, If i vapor snag your fish or tasigur you again Delved and ended with nothing. If Jeskai ran all creatures that passed the bolt test then people could do the same to us, side out removal spells and bring in more control or board wipes.. because our creatures are still threatening and can threaten lethal they NEED to keep their removal spells in deck which means they have less slots that do enough against us. Grixis and probably the other variants that will arrive would like their opponent to be as non interactive as possible and by making their creatures hard to interact with they attain this to some degree.
Jeskai Delver: Tempo/Aggro
- This is the most aggressive deck, running more 1 drop creatures that pump and has reach in the form of burn, we can become a burn deck if needed and can hold back in other situations to turn the corner at optimal time
- Probably the most intricate of any versions as it does require us to be more careful in what we do choose to counter, more calculations involved on weather a burn spell is best spent on a creature or to the face for damage all while keeping our threats alive to push through.
Sultai Delver: Midrange/Value
- This version falls into the Midrange/Value catagory as it will probably focus less on counterspells and more on resolving larger threats like Tarmagoyf, Tasigur etc and gaining most of it's tempo from hand manipulation.
- Will have a large array of removal spells from single target to board wipes and permanent removal. May potentially be packing Collected Company. Also a new instant spell 2CMC that makes their creatures hexproof and indestructible will make removing threats difficult.
Esper Delver: Tempo/Control
- This shell will be the most controlling packing multiple counterspells, hand disruption and exile effect. threats to watch would be Tasigur, Geist of Saint Traft and Monastery Mentor.
- This will also have access to more hand disruption in the form of Tidehallow Sculler, and creature based counters like Spell Queller or Reflector Mage bouncing. Compared to Jeskai who has these options as well this deck will play more to the late game and utalize these more.. Might even see more ETB style of Delver with flickers.
Grixis Delver: Control/Midrange
- We all know these lists, they pack reach as we do, creature removal, hand disruption and plan for a Tasigur threat resolving. This deck will not win in the early game but plans to just remove your threats instead of countering them.
- Has a minor combo with Snapcaster / K-command.
So, now that we have each one broken down into where they should fit (please feel free to correct me if my assesment is incorrect) we need to have a way to win against these decks. I personally believe we have a strong advantage with Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix, however our biggest issue will be dealing with Tasigur and Tarmagoyf. We have ways of dealing with them now but if their pressence is going to increase we may need more then just a Path to Exile and Vapor Snag. This could mean we sideboard in more counterspells, deflecting palms etc, Geist of Saint Traft will also remain a strong threat as only a Board wipe can get rid of him outside of blocking.
Esper Delver if created correctly I think will be the most challenging for us due to the mass amounts of counterspells, hand control and hard to remove creatures they will be packing. I think this match up is going to be best by resolving our creature earlyer (delver/Swiftspear) and hoping to get in the first couple of turns around 5-10 damage to finish the rest off with burn or a late game bedlam reveler.
Sultai Delver will be a game of not over extending ourselves to have a Maelstrom pulse blow out our swiftspears on board, and we can probably get rid of some counterspells as we cannot touch Abrupt Decay. and remanding a fatal push or path to exile will not do us alot. Bringing in indestructible cards like Boros Charm will be strong against this.
I believe we are still the strongest Delver variant out there just as Curdbros as mentioned above, we have the best answers to these threats and probably the strongest ability to sideboard. Now is the time we start getting ready for these cards to be brought in and having answers already created MB or SB to deal with these.
I hear ya on this, I however already have a 2nd Modern deck (which rarley ever looses) and I have 2 brews that I am working on as well. Since i play with the same group of players i like having something different to play with from time to time. My biggest reason for this deck from me (i never planned to make it till now) is because when i was building for the Jeskai Prowess/Aggro and using Geist I just found that the deck wasn't where I wanted to be with Geist of Saint Traft... Sure it puts up numbers, and does what it was designed to do however it just wasn't what I was looking for my Geist shell. I do however like the shell as a whole and still want to play with it as it is, I like Delver and Swiftspear and I think that Mentor is a great top end. This second deck is designed solely on the Prowess ability and just being fast out of the gate which is why I have added no planeswalkers, and no Snapcaster mages.
As for my Geist of Saint Traft, he is going to be the "godhead" (Pun intended) of another the first deck... which in a nut shell is the same as what i was running previously but i am dropping the Delvers and making my list more of a control list with more counter spells and Celestial Colonnades... This deck may become an Esper variant however due to the new black removal spell being spoiled but that is not deffinative.. nor is it for this forum.
I do still agree with the style of list you run yourself Curdbros with Geist in it (it's why I came here in the first place) I just never could quite find the right niche for it as the deck didn't have enough protection for Geist and so he wasn't doing what i wanted, when i started shifting gears to add the protection via Angels, Cryptic etc, i lost some value i gained from the remainder of this shell. But i also do not want to leave this forum as I said above i love this tempo/aggro style and I need to add one to my arsenal of decks and Jeskai colors are amazing so I am here to stay but will just be using a different tune of deck
I have the exact same thought, the blue expertise is really useless to us.. makes me kind of sad but im not entierly surprised being this set is focused on artifacts and the only artifact related expertise is the white one with servo tokens.. Hopefully the red gives us something better.
As for Baral, Chief of Compliance seeing this card is deffinatley more of a counter deck but my immediate thought for him is that it may mean we get more counter spells in this set, there isn't very many in standard at the moment (I could be wrong) so adding a card that is focused on counter magic leads me to believe we may see a few more aside from the Disallow that was spoiled earlier. Hopefully there will be some 1U counters and not just 1Ux.
On the topic of decks, I have decided to need to make 2 different decks. 1 Deck focused on my Geist of Saint Traft and 1 Aggro deck using the Prowess. Latley I have found that Delver is not flipping very well for me since adding the UW enchantment back into my deck which lowered my instant/Sorcery count down to 25 which statistically 25 - 27 instant/sorcery should never make a large discrepancy. It is nice having the early game threat for the deck almost like Grixis Delver was running, the problem being was their creatures are usually 4x Delver, 4x Snap, 3x Tasigur, 1x Fish, thanks to Delve they can play their threats more efficiently then I can with my Geist and Angels... So I think Delver comes out... but it means I get to build a new list for him, from scratch. Here is what I think I will be building (barring any other spoilers from the new set) let me know your thoughts.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Bedlam Reveler
Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Slip Through Space
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Helix
3 Remand
1 Spell Pierce
4 Mutagenic Growth
Land
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Plains
Welcome to the topic Crssherman1990! I personally believe that Young.P fits more into the tempo/control version rather then the Aggro/Tempo. I was running her for a bit there in my list before I did a complete overhaul of my deck list, she is nothing to laugh at, her sticking can save your life or end our opponents.
The reason I do not find her to be in the more aggro version of he deck is that she is a T2, she doesn't impact the game state immediately and very rarely the following turn as you probably got to cast maybe 1 phyrexian spell with her if you cast her T2. As a tempo play she is great because she allows for you to go wide with having blockers or generate enough tokens that you can swing with creatures weather they get blocked or not. In the aggro builds you really want to bring life totals down close enough that bolt or bolt-snap-bolt can win it in the mid game when hey have stabilized (unless your running mentor or Geist).
I faced a handful of different decks and I cannot remember all the details so i do not have alot of write up about each match specifically but i will post the few things i do remember (it was a long night playing from 5:30 to Midnight). Decks i faced were: Abzan, Esper Processors, UB Faeries, Bant Eldrazi, Infect, Dredge.
Abzan 2-1: Game 1 was fairly straight forward for Abzan, he would use some sort of THoughtsieze on T1 making me discard but that just wasnt enough, he curved great with T1 Discard into Bob/Goyf/Ooze etc however i kept his board clear. Once I landed Geist i got a shot in and he dropped Seige Rhino, I slapped Steel of the Godhead on Geist the following turn and he couldn't keep up.
Game 2: I just drew everything to late, i had land, i had removal but i didn't draw my first Delver until T5, by this point it was long over due, i put up a fight and got him down to 5or6 still but he eventually just out paced me
Game 3: I just controlled this game from the start, I bolted his creatures and Remand / Snap remanded his spells. I again won this match with an enchanted Geist.
Esper Processors 0-3: Again i just cannot win this match up.. I did make 1 mistake which was that i dropped Elspeth with Geist on board trying to bait out a counter or spell queller so i could use my enchantment the next turn but he didn't have a countersepll had I dropped the enchantment instead i would of won. one game was just terrible though, i kept a very poor hand (bad mistake) to which i had 1 land and kept drawing spells i couldnt cast, ended up with 2 Geist in hand and had to discard so i discarded a geist... He hit me with Surgical extraction for that blunder. Another game he had ashiok out and kept exiling my stuff, eventually exiled both my snaps, 1 delver, 1 geist and 1 angel. Snaps allowed him to re-path my non geist creatures and I just couldn't get through.
UB Faeries 3-0: We played a 3rd game while waiting for matches to finish.
Game 1: I got my spells out quickly knowing i needed to get under his counter faeries and was able to out pace him with Delver and Geist.
Game 2: he got the point where he had to just block with bitterblossom faeries, I had Delver, Angel and Geist all on board, kept swinging in with my Angel and Delver forcing him to block.. every other creature he played either was on blocking duty or got bolted/helixed
Game 3: He got land screwed, ended up with only 2 Bitterblossoms on board ( I was going to cryptic his the turn before but i allowed the second to land) I essentially just kept swinging with Angel again and let Bitter Blossom kill him.
Infect 2-1: Game 1: His dropped elf T1 to which i bolted immediately, Hirearch got Helixed and i landed Delver and Geist. I unfortunatley just got beat down by a Nexus in the end as i forgot it had flying and left Geist back on blocking duty..
Game 2: Sideboarded (IN: 2x Negate, 1 Spell Pierce, 1 Dispel, 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Blessed Alliance) This was his nightmare, my opening hand consisted of 2x Path, 2x Bolt, 1 Spell Pierce, 2x Land. Every creature he played died, he even probed me to see the spells and try and play around it by forcign me to play certain spells... it didn't matter as i drew into a Cryptic and countered a Hirearch and bounced his Nexus after he played a land for turn.
Game 3: Similart to Game 2, just removed everything he had except i had 2 flipped delvers by T3
Bant Eldrazi 2-0: I do not remember this one sorry guys.. what i do recall is he got no Thougt-Knot Seer, i pathed every threat and Geist with Steel won the game. I did make 1 mistake though in forgetting that Drowner of hope can tap my creatures so i tapped out for Elspeth to make Gesit big to deal the last 12 points of damage (geist and delver on board) but he tapped down my delver.. I should of pathed Drowner instead of Elspeth.
Dredge 1-2: Game 1: I maintained control, bolting, pathing, helixing everything i could outside of Nacromebas, this kept me with enough life (thank you helix) and by time i dropped Godhead on Geist it was over, i gained ot much life per 2
Game 2/3: these were almost Identical, he exploded early and i drew little removal. I did deal with a couple of his Prized Amalgams and got my enchanted Geist again but it was to late.
I did face the Esper Processors deck again but vs someone who doesn't know hwo to use it properly so i ended up stomping him so i don't count this match same goes with the matches we had intermitent of other games finishing. All in All 4-2 for the night
I am happy with the Enchantment and never found that only 25 spells hurt my Delver.. the times when he didnt flip early i drew creature land or elspeth so even if those had been Snags he still wouldn't have flipped. It is a very underplayed card in modern but i found it a very good way of getting in extra damage unblocked instead of a 1 time use with the others... Also 4 life per turn is nothing to laugh at. The rest of the deck remained as smooth as it was before, Delver is still the best T1 play (outside of bolting infect creatures) and Resto Angel makes for a big threat. I am happy with where my deck is now until WoTC decides to release some better counter magic, or 1cmc spells etc that fit my deck.
1 Card that has come up in speculation thought is my Gitaxian Probes. I used them in the games but the information is less valuable i think with Geist in play.. If i face something with Flash or an Aether vial its worth knowing their hand in case they flash in to block but once the enchantments lands you cannot block anymore. I currently do not have plans of removing this card as it is still very strong and makes for sideboard fodder but out of the entire deck this would be the card I say is the least effective and would consider replacing for something better or more control if i need to (i actually sided all of these out against Infect)
I also plan on testing the Slip Through space agon in my deck in place of the snags as it's still strong, I hope to test cloud form to just for shenanigans as with my deck it can save resto angel from a terminate which then in turn saves Geist again during combat of need be, it's a 3 and 4th snapcaster since I only have 2. I think if it works then it will be great but it will depend on how much use you receive from it as o obviously wouldn't want to bounce a Delver and un flip him or decks running swiftspear it would just be a way to save it from targeted removal but make it loose the prowess. Haha should be fun to test it, if it's horrible I won't loose sleep over it.