MTG Salvation

Easy ride to the 5-0 in PIONEER with this list. I've been away from this format for 7 months but spirits still feels like a tier 1 deck or so when you know how to squence and handle your resources.
During this winter i have really felt the need of a counter like mana leak, now we ve got denial and i couldn't be happier, I'll go as far as to say it is stronger in pioneer than in modern, cause here we play the 8x 1cmc so it's easy to have it fully online by turn two, but also to curve it t3 when you might have 1cmc drop+ denial.

Shacklegeist is the other new inclusion, I 've definitely unterestimated it when it's been spoilered. Shacklegeist has been key to beat BW Aura and their gigantic creatures when they had the torpor orb-faerie to shut down neblegast herald's triggers, and to tap down the snake with reach scales plays. I still like having the 1x borrower for the flexibility, but shackle is some serious addition, having 6 tapping effects means a lot.

The sideboard has been initially copy-pasted by recent lists since i have no idea of that the new decks are doing, then i decided to bring in my knowledge and made some adjustments. I like my choices, but they are far from definitive. Any suggestions are welcomed.

As for the next leagues: I wanna try again one hanged executioner to synergize with shacklegeist, diversify my removal package, having a 2x1 against grindy matchups.
I wanted to fit a Lurrus as i do in modern but the mana base is atrocius without seachromecoasts or adakar wasted, and I'm greedy and i like mutavaults (synergy with shacklegeist, animate it and tap to the activated ability) and I hate flooding out . UW has no sincking for when you start flooding beside spectral sailors.

I might be ok with running some extra copy of call in the side, but I guess I'll start testing with 2x in the main at least, because it can incidentally sinergize extremely well with vial, and grabbing chains to provide hexproof at the right time is so appealing. It has got huge versatility, you just don't want to get clogged up with heavy drops. (not sure if you're advicing to go for a MB micro green splash for a couple shocks and that's it. I'd pick that as a secondary plan in case my playtests with MB call end up failing miserably but it still shows some potential. I believe the question to answer is when do I want to cast call? the earliest you wanna do it, the more green sources are required to support it (13-14). this whole experiment is relying on Call being VERY good at supporting the tempo plan)

I like the idea of having some useful spirit in the main, but when i look up for interesting options, I end up a bit frustrated, because kataki, labyrinth, eidolon and some other are really specific and I'm not going as far as having them MB.
With this said, I'll give permeating mass and nebelgast heral a try in the main, cause they can be either super good or good/medium ( a friend of mine, a very skilled player, told me of an episode where the faced Mass in modern and that wasn't that easy to navigate through it. this is all i know about the card), so this makes the cut for a couple flex slots, in my opinion. Not sure about executioner, I'm more into the single kira maindeck.

As for GoST, I think eladamri's doens't solve the problem of the turn it starts attacking. you either hierarch into gost turn 2, or it's a slow walker. I see it as a side option at most against non creature decks, once again.

Let me share my first idea, it's just something written on paper and side is just brainstorming, so take it for what it is:



As a note, I never play givers, thalias nor mariners because of a personal choice. I normally go full fliers and flash, so you might want to jam in the current stuff that puts up results.

Collector Ouphe could also be reasonable, but it shuts off vials which are really synergic with calls.


Regarding curious obsessions, the more i play spirits (UW, esper, jeskai) the more I understand this tribe can only work under three lines of play: 1) card advantage and selection and tempo advantage ( 4 mana to put in play more than 4 mana total costs) through collected company 2) Tempoing out the opponent via thalias and deputies 3) having sources of card draw that provide extra resources at least once in two turns ( teferi time raveler draws once into 4 and it's absolutely insufficient as a draw engine). So whenever you are not going for the first two, you have to find an alternative way to draw repeatedly and Obsession has been the best for me so far ( better than any tool like visions, opt, light up the stage, teferi time raveler, hyerogliphic illumination)

I've attended my first FNM with Jeskai going 4-0 with the neoform deck dying by itself on the last round, still being able to grab some informations, like the importance of 1cmc pieces of hate in the side (that could be Cage or force, yet I'm not sold on force in a deck with few ways to make card advantage).

Teferi Time Raveler is a key card to complement PtE in dealing with -out of bolt range- creatures, it adds solidity to the deck that otherwise lacks a value permanent. Dovin might be just as good, as far as the tempo plan is concerned, if it wasn't that TTR has a static ability that shuts control down and ruins the day to midrange deck ( quelled a spell, attacked and bounced it back to my hand ready to 2x1 them during their next turn. gg). My idea is that you need 4x MB answers to creatures like kalitas, goyf, thing in the ice and such. TTR is a tempo anwer, but I can swear the tempo swing is absolutely.

Horizon Lands are simply critical to dig for fuel in a deck that aims to play the game with 4 lands at most. Having a relatively low curve with no 4cmc spells, and just 10 3cmc drops, eight of which are vialable creatures, make the horizon lands way less painful, cause you re most likely cycling them soon. I've been testing Jeskai back in March with no TTR nor Horizon Lands, and the difference is perceivable to say the least.

Burn spells are excellent at playing the tempo game both aggressively, cutting your opponent off a turn, and defensively, spending one mana to deal with their 2/3 mana creature, or spending two to deal with it and gaining those 3 points of life which will most likely give you an extra turn, meaning an extra attack phase.
Also, as opposed to black, red removals go to the face so they are excellent against all of those big mana decks where Fatal Push and PtE would be dead cards. Worst case scenario, your opponent has got ways to gain life repeatedly, but hey, every strategy has got their weak spot.
Most importantly, because of the flexibility they provide, I ve been able to slam 5x burn along with 2PtE and 2 TTR, which makes an excellent removal/containment package against aggro decks. It's counterintuitive at a first glance, because the manabase is more painful so you'd be inclined to think it's getting your aggro matchup worse. Instead, you' re going up on the removal count, and those removals are not even ramping the opponent, so once you sit at the table and play you feel how good splashing B/R is at letting you take the control role against any creature deck.
Infect on the rise and humans tier1 are good news for this version.


Light up the Stage has been an intuition I ve had some months ago and it's been a solid 2of to be used in the mid/late game to pull ahead, it works nicely with a low curve, but the boost it provides is still limited to two cards and the new spectral sailor is now coming with the benefit of being a creature which adds damages to the race, synergizing, and overlapping Stage in the same situations where extra cards are required: if you have cards in your hand , then you re not out of gas and it's just an extra piece of pressure which goes along with your beatdown plan. If you're out of gas it draws without revealing ( where Stage lets you hold up more mana but can't let you recur to Vial, Spectral Sailor allows you to abuse your Aether Vials instead, giving no informations about what you've drawn). I'm pretty confident Sailor is going to be a good addition replacing any other card advantage engine in non-company decks.

With this said, this is where I'm at with Jeskai Spirits


Alpine moon won me the game against tron t1. That 1cmc is huge really, it lets you curve out. How many times i've found myslef in the position of having an empty turn one, with a turn two I had to spend in casting stony or Damping, delaying my race. Alpine moon made me curve out in my two drop and begin to attack earlier. Not sure about the split with Damping sphere, I may want more dampings if Amulet was more present in my meta.

I've not been playing Grafdigger's cage since february '18 where it lost me the finals against storm. They remove it and get full access to the GY, however: The new mulligan rule demands an early answer, so does bridgevine, and the bonus of stopping the new eladamri's call decks, company and such makes it worth testing again. I like Relic better, but relic has no static ability, and static is the keyword you need to approach this metagame.


I think I'm quite weak to cages(Urza thopters), this is the reason why I'm on 2x red Eidolons and Chandra. I'm not willing to give up on that matchup just to have my 3rd counterspell but I may be wrong. I'll wait to attend the new PTQs events before making changes.

Happy brewing folks!

I personally do not like the way Discord is done, nor messenger chats nor facebook or whatsapp/telegram groups. I'll stick to any forum where we get access to hyper links and stuff like this.I need to have the discussion organized in pages with dates. I have tried almost everything else but I ended up finding them too messy, the content gets diluted too much, people spam a lot or they just write too many unnecessary messages because it's easy to type and send, you get eventually ovewhelmed with crap so the quality of the discussion is lower overall.

I like any format where some reasoning behind a deckbuilding choice gets presented and people take the time to think about it and answer if they feel like so, instead of throwing the first thing crossing their mind in the chat. This is why I ve always sticked to these forums.
I'll wait for the staff to present the new formula, then I'll consider all of the non-chat options available.

After 5 months i decided to sleeve up my UW spirits again, wanted to play some full-tempo strategy, so I made this list


I agree on the 24 creature shell, I actually prefer Nebelgast as 25th in replacement of a pte which is awful really early game, I missed Push so badly. Herald is also a blue card for Force.
My intent was to try a draw-go shell with the more blue cards as possible, with Teferi to play the tempo role, acting as a tempo answer to anything, complementing paths and herald in the management of the board, with remand to provide some extra tempo, drawing me cards, and Hieroglyphic as a flexible card advantage engine.

Hiero is worth spending a couple words about: it cycles in the early game at need, it's an instant which makes it excellent with vial, and helps you get some gas during the mid game against grindy matchups. Casted it against Rock, it's been more than decent, although it's not lingering souls...
I think Hiero may play a role along with Force of Negation, because that card clearly slows down the game so it's more likely that you end up hitting 4 mana to cast Illumination and recover tha card disadvantage. I value the cycling sooo much that i think it's a strictly better option than fact or fiction. Being able to spend it in the first 3 turns is the reason why you can consider it in your deck.

So I'm pretty pleased with my 3-1 and the further testing against tron and UW control. Tron is a bit more favorable now cause karn Creator is a good Queller target. UW control is almost a bye because they moved away from terminus and we can run Teferi TR mainboard. That was really embarassing to see narset, jace and their teferi getting outvalued by my vial-teferi plan.

As for lands, I got convinced UW needs utility and advantage, so 2 Moorlands are stock, now way around it, we need to recycle our stuff at instant speed, ad 2x mutavault seem just fine to spend the extra mana and add extra pressure. I also like the Farmland instead of the second Fountain because I'm greedy, I want to draw at instant speed with vial up and I like the mini combo with deprive.

I believe 2x Forces will give a very nice boost to UW spirits, they'll help playing the tempo game. Not sold on the Rchmage's Charm, I need cheap spells to curve out and tempo out my opponent.
I have got positive feelings about UW Spirits, Teferi and the relatively good position of remand in the meta with control and tron tier 1 make it possible to shape the type of tribal deck I like, Spirits and tempo spells, no shenanigans, no fugazi, no compromises with copters, thalias and deputies ( very relevant downfall of whirl decks being shut down by the static ability of Karn make them less impactful). Force is really pushing us into a beatdown early sequence, curious to see how the successful lists will look like.

By the way, my dream of a one drop entering the battlefield scrying 1 or 2 has almost came true. Too bad they decided to make it a faerie instad of a spirit. That would have been all we needd to curve out smoothly and go off consistently.

Kaya's Guile and a couple of playable 1drops ( not necessarily spirits, but something to help generating active disruption) could make Esper Spirits a real deck.

I've jumped on UW control recently, getting to see what Spirits lacks: a solid way to push the aggro plan from the beginnning to the mid game. The 1cmc drop is simply necessary to sit and talk about the deck, bant has got hierarch and vials, uw, esper and jeskai need their own. Then there's an issue with the versatility that cards like Cryptic and Jace provide to UW control, because they either do a number of thing or draw you a number of cards where you can find stuff to do the number of things you want. This is also true for Teferi Hero and will be true for Archmage's charm.

Now Kaya's guile is huge at providing versatility, it gains life, touches graveyards, builds board, check opponent's board,but most importantly its an istant! I've always valued Nebelghast herald so much for its instant speed nature, which allowed me to hold up queller and then flash it in to keep developing my board without wasting a queller for no value. This is just as good as you can ask for from a spell. Not sure if the second copy of Guile is replacing one of our copies of lingering souls, lingering is a key card, but i'd say 2 in the 75s are the point I want to start from, one of which MB.


Recently, the 3cmc slot has been injected with so many cards that it's hard to find space now, Teferi TR is one of these and its mainboard presence is quite relevant for its insane interaction with queller and hexproof providers, as much as the possibility it gives us not to instant scoop to ensnaring bridges and such.
Let's see the rest of the spoilers and let's hope.

Edit: we ve also got silent clearing which I'll be trying in two copies to make the deck a little bit more consistent.

This is what I'll be testing next weekend



Something about my sideboard choices: my meta is filled with controls and midrange. I still like being set up against the mtgo goldfish metagame, so I'm not ignoring graveyard strategies just because there're a couple of dredge and phoenix players out of the whole group of players I see at LGSs, for example, but cards like Blossom are specifically to deal with shadow, GB and UW control which we have abundance of, while Fav Winds is necessary for bolt decks and the mirror matchup.
Things might change depending on the impact TTR will have against the field, but I can see how these colours should aim at playing a tempo game in G1 switching to a slower and grindier plan post side when people brings in creature hate so the tempo plan is likely to be less effective. In order to do so you want Planeswalkers and tokens to overwhelm the opponent with their value, while disrupting them with the abilities of the creatures that make up the core of our deck.

I'm telling you Teferi, Time Raveler is absurd in our deck, tested it in my Esper side today and I'm moving to 2x copies main board because it's insane at breaking the simmetry and setting you ahead on tempo. It also (finally!) gives me the type of tool I wanted to deal with pre side ensnaring bridge and prisons. The interaction with spell queller turn it into a 2 for 1, it's going to steal so many games in the next month or two just because people ain't used to that static ability. Jesus, it also has solved me the terminus problem, have fun casting it on turn 6, also goodbye settle the wreckage... the control matchup is hugely in our favor once teferi hits the floor, but it has proven really impactful against BG Rock aswell. How about gurmag Angler? And Temur Battlerage after blocks? I think UW and Esper Spirits are taking a huge boost because of this PW, every word on that card is relevant for us, like flashing souls is the new spice... but that bounce ability!
2x mainboard, must have.

TMS has been the first PW I tested last summer and it's been so good at doing the stuff I needed him to do that I consider it an auto include in every UW or Esper version. Loved Chandra Torch in Jeskai btw, but Jace is still superior.
I think the posts where I had explained the card have gone lost with that mess this site has been through like two months ago, but in short: there are slow enough matchups where you are at the mercy of the top deck and you not just want something to draw, but to draw selectively, so unless you are on bant for Company, you want a tool to pick up cards and decide what to keep. Jace does that, and being a PW it will be harder for the opponent to deal with it, especially when they don't see that coming. I want him against control and prisons. Whatever ensnaring bridge deck plays with no cards in hand so you just have to tick up for 5 turns before the opponent gets doomed. Control is forced to find D Sphere or move with colonnade to attacking, it puts them in a very awkward spot. Resolving Jace is the best play you can have and your plan should be focusse on that once you have it in your hand. Some told me you can't resolve TMS against a counterspell deck, I say by experience there's plenty of spots to do that if you re smart enough to sequence your cards. Drawing the best two cards off the top 4 on your deck pulls you so much ahead. It also deals with the 5/5 angels which is very important when you have a few PtE post side.

It feels great to have such a great card for the control MU but also for a variety of decks like mono red prison, enchantments, mill, 8 rack,Rock (you get full grind mode after sideboard), martyrs, controls, teachings, whirl... you get the brainstorm for longer games(liked it against vizier combo too where I'm the controller and I need to draw answers to fight his topdecks later in the game, plus it beats worship) and an alternative wincon that bypasses the attack step.

Test it yourself, have fun

Nassif has given the diversified-wraths version a shot in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6cwnV8UzY8&t=1232s

mariner is a disruptive piece and has the kind of ability we'd consider in a spirit, i like him for that. i like the way you can stack multiple of them, i like the way it incidentally stops burn and some combos (ad nauseam, storm, scapeshift) from doing their thing. i like him in addition to kira as a protection package. i like the fact that unlike thalia he grows up with our lords, so that he's useful in noncreature matchups.

but

he doesn't fly, which is a huge drawback in many games.
he has a fairly steep cost, meaning you can't run a greedy manabase with mutavaults (which by the way i recently switched with horizon lands and i'm happy with that)
he doesn't contribute to our plan significantly: while spirits excel at protecting each other, the layer of protection mariner gives is either irrelevant or too weak to matter.
The major thing about him, though, is that the meta is currently not about removals. of the 4 top tier decks, three don't really care about removals, and humans - the only one that does - is thriving off of the lack of removal in the meta (so does infect, by the way).

TLDR While mariner has an ability that's relevant, it is too weak and too irrelevant meta-wise to warrant a spot in our tight decklist.

Quote from Humstuck »

I agree that maybe fetching a snow basic instead of a shock first turn to deal with a creature might be a problem. I just think its the most interesting in the new possible options. Very possible oust or condemn are still just better.

It's not just fetching a snow-basic turn 1, it's fetching a snow-plains - we want to cast logic knot on turn 2 and we have triple blue spells we'd like to cast on curve as well. By the time you factor in 4-5 colorless sources in the deck, you ideally don't want to be fetching plains in there first 4 turns unless you think your opponent is on blood moon.

I think it's better than Oust after turn 1 though, since you can fetch snow-island after having fetched your first shockland.

I won't touch Generous Gift personally. It sounds like a terrible idea to spend a card on a permanent and give them a creature to kill me with then have to kill that creature before it actually kills me. I am not sure how many cards all that requires, but it seems like a lot that I don't want to waste. Instant part isn't worth all that. I would rather find a sideboard card for the actual problem instead of a generic one that creates another.

We have path, on thin ice, oust, condemn and more for creatures.
We have field of ruin for problematic lands.
We have detention sphere and counterspells, teferi bounce for nonland permanents.

If something goes through, well tough *****, it happens.

We should be favored vs Tron and your list doesn't reflect that you are worried about Tron at all; only 3 field of Ruin? Detention Sphere, 2x Tef3, timely reinforcements,0 Surgical. You can shore up your Tron matchup without too much work just by changing around those numbers alone. We should also be more favoired, heavily favored, vs Tron come MH1 - I can't imagine them ever beating Force of Negation granted you don't cut down on the number of non-Tef3 planeswalkers. They are just never going to beat Narset, JTMS, or Tef5 with Force backup. I think the matchup will be so good that it might be correct to adopt a manabase similar to the one you already have; less than 4 Field and possibly more than 1 Blast Zone.

You are just trading a threat for a threat.

Sure, it downgrades a threat sometimes...

But you will inevitably have to 2 for 1 yourself - every time.

We die from a Snapcaster beating for too long. Now can Generous Gift solve our problems, when he creates others?

Generous gift is like 4th pick draft chaff. It's completely unplayable in modern. The vast majority of threats in modern provide value on ETB meaning you're going to be down 3 cards when using a Jace or Tef5 minus and down 4 cards when you path it. I don't think this card is playable in UW control even if it has split second and cost a single white Mana.

My biggest takeaway of the evening was that I didn't even really need the third wrath in the board vs spirits. Wall makes you able to ignore a small creature instead of being poked at by some random 2/2 you don't want to spend a card on which alleviates the pressure of getting your wrath a bit. Looking at mtgtop8, most UW lists now shift to playing the full 4 snapcasters, which makes spot removal better. I think I'd add a second Oust before mainboarding the third wrath

UW is always popular and is becoming a real force now, so having less dead cards in the main for the mirror is also a big plus.

Unless the blue marble does something other than be a blue marble, like say draw a card or scry, or that not all the blue marbles are the same and exist outside of a hypergeometric vacuum.

If you read back a little further you'll see that I suggested that in order to play a 26 land version I would cut all Serum/Opt in favor of Heiroglyphs. Losing out on the scry absolutely does hinder your ability to cast colored spells.

You're also not considering how many hands with a fetch (or any dual) plus a colourless land are keepable, of which there are many. Every time you add a colorless source, those combinations go up. So while adding a single colorless source in place of a spell doesn't change the odds in a hypergeometric vacuum, the game of magic isn't played in such a vacuum.

Quote from jayjayhooks »

Quote from Bearscape »

As long as you still run 14 white sources, running 26 lands with 6 colorless sources does not make Dovin's Veto any harder to cast than if you had 25 lands with 5 colorless sources

This math only accounts for paying a specific Mana cost on a specific turn;it doesn't account for wanting to play multiple spells in a turn cycle. Whenever you open on 2x colorless lands and a veto/absorb/logic knot you're going to have a hard time casting on curve or trying to double-spell.

You also didn't account for celestial colonnade and glacial fortress; those numbers assume X untapped sources, which is not the case in a 4x colonnade deck - most lists run around 7-9 untapped white sources, not 14.

The math of doublecasting also stays the same, your untapped sources ALSO stay the same. Keeping a hand with too many colorless sources would be a bad hand with a spell in that 26th land slot just as well.

You have a jar with 20 red marbles, 5 green ones and 35 blue ones. If you replace a blue marble with a green marble your odds of taking out a red marble stay the same.