I've always found Mindcensor to hit a lot of decks but none of them hard enough
Our RUG Scapeshift matchup is pretty bad as they can protect the combo and we give them a lot of time, but the RG versions are very weak to countermagic and are more likely to play Valakut without instantly killing you, so Crumble to Dust is very good here.
To be very honest I wonder why this deck gets brought up so often; it's currently tier 3 and in my opinion just not a very good deck; it's slower than the fast combo decks and easier to disrupt than the slow combo deck. The deck feels like a desperate attempt to keep Valakut relevant now Scapeshift is too slow. Yes, the deck can sometimes just "have it" but so can mill.
It's a fine deck but I think a lot of players are misplaying the match-up. People are boarding out Nahiri and trying to win with colonnade? There have been multiple people this week asking about Mindcensor even though it dies to the Valukut trigger and can just brick off and isn't very good in many match-ups (IMHO).
I think a lot of the worrying is due to play-skill and bad sideboarding, not to bad match-ups. And I think we are all here willing to help those that are having trouble.
If it's game 3 on the play and we don't have a counter spell or any meaningful interaction against our opponent (Idk maybe we ran out of counters). Do we windmill slam Nahiri and tick up? Or do we hold up mana and bluff? I have a tendency to fall into this situation and I'm never quite sure what to do.
If we have turn 4 Nahiri, and we DO have Negate...do we just sit and chill to 6 mana? I feel like waiting to 6 is fine, because we have meaningful interaction. It's when I have nothing that bothers me.
RG breach, do not mistake them with the old scapeshift rug. They can kill turn 3, and relatively often turn 4 (undisrupted). The Problem with nahiri in this mu is her sorcery speed and that they will almost allways have breach mana up when you cast nahiri. If you cannot path or counter you're dead. I have played around 20 games preboard so far and I did never combo my opponent off. Versus scapeshift it's a different story. Nahiri is great there since they cannot combo off when you cast her turn 4.
@tappingstones. Have a look at mtgo results on goldfish or mtgtop8 and tell me where rg Titan has tier 3 status. In my opinion it's a very solid deck in the actual meta.
I think you guys are misunderstanding me. I'm not arguing that Keranos is better than Elspeth at all. I agree that Elspeth is much better at stabilizing the board and turning the corner quickly. I played Keranos that night because I was too lazy to pull Elspeth out of my EDH deck and knew that no one else was running Nahiri, so he was pretty much guaranteed to stick every game I resolved him. Considering how good my matchup already was against the grindy decks people were playing, I knew a resolved Keranos would be enough to seal up the game in those matchups, so I didn't bother to dig into my bag at the last minute to put her in my SB. Keranos was already in my meta-box that I had sitting on the table.
^I knew what you meant (lazy).
I was just saying what I thought was objectively correct -- assuming going for optimal choices. Again, ignoring things like price, card availability, etc. Was just putting it out there for those who are actively choosing Keranos over other options as a sideboard choice.
I'm with tappingstones on this, Keranos is awful right now. You want the big bomb finisher for the grindy matchups, and Keranos is unplayable in one of the most important ones (namely the mirror). Elspeth is actually even better than Keranos in the BGx matcnups. On top of that, Elspeth is a Wrath for the Bant Eldrazi Matchup, where Keranos is practically useless.
^Agreed with this and TappingStones. Elspeth hits way harder than Keranos. Objectively, if you only had 1 slot for either Keranos or Elspeth, I think Elspeth is the clear winner.
Even ignoring mirror match disadvantage of Keranos (Nahiri -2), I think Elspeth is still better in almost every instance that you'd want Keranos. Elspeth's impact is so much faster and decisive.
On an empty board, she's scary. On a full board of creatures, she can stall and turn the tide extremely quickly; she can gum up the board or just wipe big offenders away. Her plus ability is a Timely Reinforcements every turn she gets to live. Her minus ability hits pumped Scavenging Ooze, Delirium Grim Flayers, Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, and pretty much everything in an Eldrazi deck.
To the God's credit though, Keranos dodges the 1/2-of Maelstrom Pulse/Dreadbore/Hero's Downfall that BGx decks like to tech. Gotta give props where it's due...
Fragmentize seems stupid. The only upside to this card is that you don't need to spend 2cmc to destroy an artifact. Everything else is a downside. The destroy enchantment part is a strict downgrade, because it's sorcery speed and it has a restriction. It's true that there are not many enchantments that cost more than 4 in this format...but it's still worse.
Obviously, the crux of the argument is in the 1cmc (W) vs. 2cmc (R). Color-wise, White vs. Red isn't generally a problem for us. And cmc-wise, I don't think I've ever found the Wear side to be taxing to pay for. Sure, occasionally you get bottle-necked, but I feel the flexibility of Instant-speed to be worth its weight in gold. There's the Spell Snare argument (say, vs. Affinity? Idk), but I feel like that's not enough of a strike against Wear/Tear to not play it.
I think I'd rather have instant-speed flexibility, potential for 2-for-1, and unrestricted targets. The ONLY argument for this is that you can destroy artifacts for 1 mana instead of 2. Quite frankly, I personally don't think that's good enough.
Honestly, if this card was instant-speed, I'd consider replacing Wear/Tear with it. I really dislike the sorcery speed though.
Edit: To be fair, my analysis seems kinda harsh. I suppose if you'd rather have 1cmc anti-artifact, then this card is fine...so long as you're ok with sorcery speed. I don't personally like it much though.
Speaking of learning the ropes, the one mistake I seem to make is when I go to kill a creature. Is there a general rule of thumb for when to use Lightning Bolt in the early turns on an opposing creature? I.e, while they're tapped out vs when they go to declare attacks.
Regarding path, I try to wait until their turn so they can't utilize the mana that turn, is draw step better than declare attacks step?
Short answer: Depends.
Long answer: Depends on what you're playing around. Pathing a Birds of Paradise during their upkeep/drawstep is preferable if you're trying to slow down their ramp for that turn. Bolting? I think it's also safe to bolt during upkeep/drawstep so long as you're mindful of their potential responses; if they tapped out for Birds of Paradise and dudes, and you want to play around Collected Company...don't let them untap unless you want them to CoCo in response to bolting Birds.
Against infect, I agree with Jex. Try to keep things outside of combat whenever you can. If you can take the hit, do so then kill creatures end of turn. That's the ideal anyway...obviously it changes depending on what you're trying to do. Killing on Infect's upkeep/draw gives them the opportunity to pump to blank the bolt or give hexproof to blank all removal. Also, they have Spell Pierce. If you want to kill their stuff sure-as-dead, then doing it your turn isn't that bad either; if they're tapped low, they can't Pierce. And if they pump, then that's burnt pump spells.
Thoughts on buying the new fastlands now or waiting? Lots of heavy speculation that they will be cross-format all-stars.
They're rares in a large, print to demand set with a couple chase mythics. I'd put odds at 95:5 that they drop. Wait for a couple of weeks after release. If you don't need them for standard and can afford to be patient, they're going to tank hard when they rotate out. Outside of standard, demand is pretty much exclusively modern and there's going to be a glut of them.
Do you think they'll drop a good bit sometime in-between standard rotation? I kinda want to test with the card, but I don't think I want to wait all year (or however long rotation is these days...).
This literally made me laugh out loud largely because people get so mad bringing up this type of thing here. Geist of Saint Traft is alright, but you really don't want to see too many of them so trying to find the right number can be awkward. Clique is marginally useful as disruption but has a decent clock. The information you get from Clique is usually the most important thing though. Spell Queller is not good in this matchup in my opinion. At best, you snag a Farseek, Sakura-Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow. That is not where the party is because those aren't generally the spells that matter. I mean they are, but you'll never counter enough of them for it to matter because they're so dense on the number of ramp spells. Then there's the question of how many Aven Mindcensor would you really want to play? It's not bad at all, but let's not forget that RG Breach decks play more actual threats out of the sideboard in games 2 and 3. Not to mention all those threats make Aven Mindcensor look like a waste of time. Going flash is a nice idea, but I don't think it significantly improves your chances on its own. You really just need to identify your best cards against them and use them appropriately. Some number of Geist of Saint Traft (two for me), Spreading Seas and Cryptic Command (already in the main) have been pretty good for me.
Lol...glad I made your day I guess. It really does feel like taboo whenever someone brings it up. I'm just saying...if certain people are legitimately having trouble against these decks (which, admittedly, are tough match-ups), and are suggesting the sky is falling...they may as well shift their build dramatically. Sometimes you gotta stick it to them (mainboard those Crumbles if you truly hate those decks lol).
2-3 Geists is where it's at. It kinda blows to open with too many of him, but it's really hard to tweak the numbers any further; 4 is too many slots wasted and forces you to have too many in your openers (unless that's what you want), and 1 is too low to build a whole game plan around.
Edit: 1 is fine as like, a sideboard card/hedge card. But if the entire plan is leaning on him, I'm not sure if 1's enough.
Yeah, V-Clique isn't the most amazing as far as disruption goes; sometimes you peek at a hand that's unsolvable. But the 3-power body is the main thing I'm looking at. It's not uncommon for a Clique to just run away with a game on its own. In addition to the clock and the hand knowledge, I just like that you can hold open mana for counters such as Negate, Leak, Remand, etc. And if they don't play into counters, then just drop a Clique eot (same line of thinking with Queller). I really like attacking decks like this from this angle (very reminiscent of when I used to play Jeskai Geist -- this game plan is legitimately the only way you'd win against the likes of Tron, Breach, and Scapeshift when you're on Jeskai Geist). The reason why I suggest upping numbers of Clique is because if that's the plan one would try to play, it'd makes sense to have the appropriate number of copies to best maximize drawing into.
Mindcensor was more just so I can cover bases. Honestly am never sure about the card; looks amazing on paper. But in practice it doesn't quite do enough for me. Just from personal experience anyway.
I guess those are fair points about Queller; I figured that hitting things like Scapeshift, Anger of the Gods, Nahiri, Obstinate Baloth, etc. was reasonable enough. But I thought it'd hit more important cards too...but looking at some deck lists here and there, I guess that's about the extent of what you'd hit -- assuming you'd prioritized action spells and ignored ramp anyway. I don't think it'd be that bad to hit ramp spells either; we won't need to hit every ramp spell -- just enough early on and then resolve a clock to win the game. I might be misevaluating Spell Queller here though...haven't gotten around to playing the dude much.
Admittedly, I have a hard time differentiating between TitanShift, Scapeshift (RUG? With counterspells?), and RG Breach...the general theme is ramp hard and Primeval Titan...but they have their nuances that makes it hard for me to fully zero-in on their weaknesses. From personal experience, Spell Snaring their Tribe Elders and early ramp is amazing. And playing Draw-Go against them feels awful. No idea if I'm "doing it right," though...I don't see these decks enough in my metagame. It's usually just Blue Moon, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Merfolk.
So, depending on your local metagame...it might be worth going balls deep on an anti-RG Breach build of Jeskai Nahiri. If nothing else, it'll be decent for experimenting and "data-collection."
Add more V-Cliques, Geists, Spell Quellers, and Aven Mindcensors. IMO some kind of flash build would be best vs. combo decks. Quellers, Cliques, and Geists are the main ones I'd look to experiment with (in larger numbers) if I'm hellbent on beating those decks; they're disruptive and provides a clock.
So maybe this is just my old timer speaking... Baby Jace as he was known, was actually played ALOT in early modern. He was in twin even for the longest, back when twin wasnt as defined as it got, and ran 4 kikis main. He was in control and UWR and URW was mostly walkers back then.
Jace has always been fine, but he got out classed by other walkers as the lists got more refined, but be still had a role.
That's pretty cool. I did not play modern much in the very early days. Sometime around GP Charlotte (the big one that lead to the huge surge in legacy dual lands' prices), but that's about 1-1.5ish years after.
Old-school Modern was kinda interesting; I think a lot of players tested with the Mirrodin Swords a lot, didn't they? And Green Sun's Zenith wasn't quite banned yet.
The card is sleeper good and pretty underrated. Or, if nothing else, he's underplayed. Falling in line with his personality, he's pretty good at flying under the radar. I can't imagine him ever seeing format-wide play though.
I see him pop up from time to time in deck lists and brews (even GerryT brewed with 1 copy of him in Jeskai Harbinger some month(s) back). I've loved the card since I first got my hands on one way back in Standard, but I never had the balls to place him in my modern decks. Have always wanted to. Just never pulled the trigger.
He has some competition, doesn't affect the board very much when he lands (his effect isn't inconsequential, but it does take time), and he costs 3 mana (not BAD, but can be punishing). His competition being: Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Jace, Architect of Thought, Ancestral Vision, etc. etc. Architect of Thought offers more burst of cards in a shorter amount of time, meanwhile having a decent +1 utility and game-ending ultimate. The +1 was slightly more relevant vs. Deceiver Exarch back in Twin days. Vryn's Prodigy comes down a turn earlier and has a mechanic that lets him affect the board (pseudo-flashback). The upside to Beleren is that he offers a consistent stream of cards without drawing too much attention to himself. Having a +2 and a -1 ability is actually something that most (played) planeswalkers don't have anymore.
I know all of those cards aren't necessarily the same thing, and it's not like you can't run them side-by-side. I'm just saying that sometimes when it comes down to the final 60th mainboard card or 75th card in your build...it's pretty easy to end up leaving out a card like Jace Beleren.
First of all you could only play it if inkmoth is their only infect creature on the board; if they also have a glistener elf tapping out will kill you. Then, if inky is their only threat, they can activate it in response crumble to to protect it with vines of vastwood or apostle's blessing, or just simply spell pierce it. Again, you die on their untap. Four mana for a stone rain is way too inefficient against infect.
Oh. That's what you meant. Thought there was some technical interaction I'm missing (like Spellskite or whatever).
..random question on Vendilion Clique: why are we playing only 1 ?! Feels like a very strong card, even against the aggro match-ups, where it either trades or chumps+value ..
..is anyone considering playing 3 Nahiri ? I have seen the full playset in almost all versions of this deck, even though some lists feature only 3. with all the card-draw and -selection (SV/AV) it could be argued that 3 might be enough... how do you feel about this?
If you don't want to see her as much, then I don't see a problem with cutting a Nahiri. Should function fairly similar to having 4. Less likely to have her in the opener. Personally I like to see her very early, but that's just me.
Sideboard counterspells and unconditional wraths come in, wear//tear is great as well. Special shoutout to crumble t dust for being a complete trap that will kill you if you try to crumble an inkmoth nexus; spreading seas is great though.
I'm not sure what you mean by Crumble to Dusting an Inkmoth = trap/bad. Is there an interaction that I'm missing?
Hi, i'm going to try playing Jeskai Nahiri, I have read a lot of content about thise deck but need to see it in action bit more. Who knows any videos, twitch recaps/channels or something?
MTGcoverage.com and check modern. Last SCG contains alot of Jeskai so that's a start
So... I know I'm not currently playing Nahiri. But I could really use some help with my list.
I feel like I want to add the 24th land... but no idea what to cut for it. I feel like the deck wants to keep all the other cards 0_o.
I think you can afford to cut Restoration Angel, Spell Queller, Remand, Electrolyze, or Mana Leak. I'd go with cutting a Resto in favor of 24th land; it's not as easy to curve to 4 lands with less than 24, and having a full playset of Restos would make this even more apparent. I'd up the count of SV to 4, but 3 works too; Jeskai Flash (Geist variants) run 3 SV to good effect.
I've been trying recently some sort of variation with the deck but I seem to have a lot of trouble to make the manabase work, basically I want to play these cards MB
I was thinking replacing the sulfur falls for some filter lands, maybe rugged prairie, what are your opinions regarding cryptic command? is the effort not worth it?
BTW: I listed 23 lands because I always flood with 24, I know it's not optimal but that's just my luck I guess.
I think since you're looking to hit as many colors as possible, you can afford to shave down to just 2 Islands. Maybe shave Ghost Quarter as well. Might want to go up to a 9th fetch land and yeah, a filter land can work fine. IMO accommodating Cryptic Command is worth the investment; it's such a strong card.
To all the people who have issues with color requirements, have any of you considered Reflecting Pool? I've been using it for a while and it works fine. I like that it comes into play untapped and makes any mana you already have. We play enough fetch lands to not worry about getting cut off from a particular color.
I've seen it in Esper Control (Wafo-Tapa). I believe it can be run. Much like Bearscape said, probably best to consider it like a filter land.
If you want to run cryptic off a 23 land manabase you probably shouldn't run any colorless lands at all. A ninth fetchland can work. I also like chaos021's suggestion of reflecting pool, although you should treat it like a filterland; you probably don't want to run more than a singleton
True. I only run one in the deck. Playing more is riskier proposition. The question I have is this: Would you run it in place of one Celestial Colonnade or something like Sulfur Falls?
I personally wouldn't cut down on Colonnades any further; I think 3 is a good spot for it; I like having the option to close games with Man-lands and IMO 2 is too loose to feasibly rely on it as a subsidiary game plan. Therefore, I'd be more inclined to cutting Sulfur Falls and the like.
This thread is so counter-productive. Can the regulars do us all a favor and flag all of the posts that are suggesting moving away from the Nahiri build and/or Kiki/flash non Nahiri decks?
The mods made it VERY CLEAR that this is a thread to talk about the best builds of Nahiri Jeskai not spend page after page listing alternate decks and trying to call in to question Nahiri's strength. It's very close to driving me (and I'm sure others) completely away from this thread.
^^This. I'm wasting a lot of time sifting through post after post praying for a nugget of useful information. Instead I get almost nothing but Nahiri vs. non-Nahiri. It's like the equivalent of "NA vs. EU" bs in Twitch chat. At least with Twitch, you know it's mostly satirical...
This thread is so counter-productive. Can the regulars do us all a favor and flag all of the posts that are suggesting moving away from the Nahiri build and/or Kiki/flash non Nahiri decks?
The mods made it VERY CLEAR that this is a thread to talk about the best builds of Nahiri Jeskai not spend page after page listing alternate decks and trying to call in to question Nahiri's strength. It's very close to driving me (and I'm sure others) completely away from this thread.
The mods also said non-nahiri related posts and deck lists would be respected. I don't think anyone is saying that Nahiri lists are inferior or trying to call into question Nahiri's strengths.
Yeah...I don't know about that; some of these posts come off rather aggressive. I don't mind the posting of non-Nahiri decklists and discussing.
It's the "Is Nahiri even worth running," attitude that bothers me. Btw, the answer to that question is, "Yes, yes she is. Whether or not you want to is another story. Next question please?"
Of course, questioning the "norm" or "established builds" is one of the step towards innovating. But damn man, I've never seen this much resistance from its own pilots in any other deck archetype. I know they mean well, but IMHO, I think they're just asking the *wrong* questions.
If we want some on-topic discussion, I'd welcome some thoughts on this question from a page ago. I know it's not the most high-level question, but it's also not discussing a Jeskai Harbinger deck with no Harbinger.
I still don't have a great sense of sideboarding with this deck. Is it normal to be swapping 4-6 [or even more for Infect/etc.] cards? On paper, my plan is often to cut counters (Remand in particular, but others vs. Cavern of Souls) and [possibly] Ancestral Vision vs. aggro, and cut sweepers vs. midrange/control where Timely / Path do a sufficient job, and bring in basically everything more relevant from the sideboard than what I've cut -- basically, transforming the deck from 50% board control and 50% stack control to 75/25 in the appropriate direction. Is this a normal way of approaching it, or am I way off base?
Maybe the short way of saying it is: Does this deck want to sideboard a larger number of cards per matchup than other decks to try to draw into the 'right half' of the deck, or is it better to stick closer to the 'default' 60?
Since this is a control deck, with generally a reactive game plan, I think it's more than reasonable to sideboard a lot of cards in -- so long as the cards sided in is better than the ones coming out. Because we're a deck of answers more than anything, it's fine to change a lot of the moving gears and parts of the deck.
If we were playing something like aggro or Suicide Zoo, then we wouldn't want to side in too many answers and counter-answer cards, because we have a very set and specific way we want to play (and need to play). You don't want to dilute your game plan. In the case of Jeskai Control, our game plan is more or less, tower defense. So anything that disrupts them from winning is always gonna set us ahead.
When playing against burn with Jeskai Control, there's nothing I love more than seeing my opponent not be able to cast spells, because they're stuck on a hand full of Destructive Revelries...all because they saw one Spellskite game 2.
Eh, ok. I guess it's just that the times that I've done that, they always "just have it." Immediate Scapeshift for game. I guess just unlucky.
If it's game 3 on the play and we don't have a counter spell or any meaningful interaction against our opponent (Idk maybe we ran out of counters). Do we windmill slam Nahiri and tick up? Or do we hold up mana and bluff? I have a tendency to fall into this situation and I'm never quite sure what to do.
If we have turn 4 Nahiri, and we DO have Negate...do we just sit and chill to 6 mana? I feel like waiting to 6 is fine, because we have meaningful interaction. It's when I have nothing that bothers me.
Why?
^I knew what you meant (lazy).
I was just saying what I thought was objectively correct -- assuming going for optimal choices. Again, ignoring things like price, card availability, etc. Was just putting it out there for those who are actively choosing Keranos over other options as a sideboard choice.
^Agreed with this and TappingStones. Elspeth hits way harder than Keranos. Objectively, if you only had 1 slot for either Keranos or Elspeth, I think Elspeth is the clear winner.
Even ignoring mirror match disadvantage of Keranos (Nahiri -2), I think Elspeth is still better in almost every instance that you'd want Keranos. Elspeth's impact is so much faster and decisive.
On an empty board, she's scary. On a full board of creatures, she can stall and turn the tide extremely quickly; she can gum up the board or just wipe big offenders away. Her plus ability is a Timely Reinforcements every turn she gets to live. Her minus ability hits pumped Scavenging Ooze, Delirium Grim Flayers, Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, and pretty much everything in an Eldrazi deck.
To the God's credit though, Keranos dodges the 1/2-of Maelstrom Pulse/Dreadbore/Hero's Downfall that BGx decks like to tech. Gotta give props where it's due...
Obviously, the crux of the argument is in the 1cmc (W) vs. 2cmc (R). Color-wise, White vs. Red isn't generally a problem for us. And cmc-wise, I don't think I've ever found the Wear side to be taxing to pay for. Sure, occasionally you get bottle-necked, but I feel the flexibility of Instant-speed to be worth its weight in gold. There's the Spell Snare argument (say, vs. Affinity? Idk), but I feel like that's not enough of a strike against Wear/Tear to not play it.
I think I'd rather have instant-speed flexibility, potential for 2-for-1, and unrestricted targets. The ONLY argument for this is that you can destroy artifacts for 1 mana instead of 2. Quite frankly, I personally don't think that's good enough.
Honestly, if this card was instant-speed, I'd consider replacing Wear/Tear with it. I really dislike the sorcery speed though.
Edit: To be fair, my analysis seems kinda harsh. I suppose if you'd rather have 1cmc anti-artifact, then this card is fine...so long as you're ok with sorcery speed. I don't personally like it much though.
Short answer: Depends.
Long answer: Depends on what you're playing around. Pathing a Birds of Paradise during their upkeep/drawstep is preferable if you're trying to slow down their ramp for that turn. Bolting? I think it's also safe to bolt during upkeep/drawstep so long as you're mindful of their potential responses; if they tapped out for Birds of Paradise and dudes, and you want to play around Collected Company...don't let them untap unless you want them to CoCo in response to bolting Birds.
Against infect, I agree with Jex. Try to keep things outside of combat whenever you can. If you can take the hit, do so then kill creatures end of turn. That's the ideal anyway...obviously it changes depending on what you're trying to do. Killing on Infect's upkeep/draw gives them the opportunity to pump to blank the bolt or give hexproof to blank all removal. Also, they have Spell Pierce. If you want to kill their stuff sure-as-dead, then doing it your turn isn't that bad either; if they're tapped low, they can't Pierce. And if they pump, then that's burnt pump spells.
Do you think they'll drop a good bit sometime in-between standard rotation? I kinda want to test with the card, but I don't think I want to wait all year (or however long rotation is these days...).
Lol...glad I made your day I guess. It really does feel like taboo whenever someone brings it up.
2-3 Geists is where it's at. It kinda blows to open with too many of him, but it's really hard to tweak the numbers any further; 4 is too many slots wasted and forces you to have too many in your openers (unless that's what you want), and 1 is too low to build a whole game plan around.
Edit: 1 is fine as like, a sideboard card/hedge card. But if the entire plan is leaning on him, I'm not sure if 1's enough.
Yeah, V-Clique isn't the most amazing as far as disruption goes; sometimes you peek at a hand that's unsolvable. But the 3-power body is the main thing I'm looking at. It's not uncommon for a Clique to just run away with a game on its own. In addition to the clock and the hand knowledge, I just like that you can hold open mana for counters such as Negate, Leak, Remand, etc. And if they don't play into counters, then just drop a Clique eot (same line of thinking with Queller). I really like attacking decks like this from this angle (very reminiscent of when I used to play Jeskai Geist -- this game plan is legitimately the only way you'd win against the likes of Tron, Breach, and Scapeshift when you're on Jeskai Geist). The reason why I suggest upping numbers of Clique is because if that's the plan one would try to play, it'd makes sense to have the appropriate number of copies to best maximize drawing into.
Mindcensor was more just so I can cover bases. Honestly am never sure about the card; looks amazing on paper. But in practice it doesn't quite do enough for me. Just from personal experience anyway.
I guess those are fair points about Queller; I figured that hitting things like Scapeshift, Anger of the Gods, Nahiri, Obstinate Baloth, etc. was reasonable enough. But I thought it'd hit more important cards too...but looking at some deck lists here and there, I guess that's about the extent of what you'd hit -- assuming you'd prioritized action spells and ignored ramp anyway. I don't think it'd be that bad to hit ramp spells either; we won't need to hit every ramp spell -- just enough early on and then resolve a clock to win the game. I might be misevaluating Spell Queller here though...haven't gotten around to playing the dude much.
Admittedly, I have a hard time differentiating between TitanShift, Scapeshift (RUG? With counterspells?), and RG Breach...the general theme is ramp hard and Primeval Titan...but they have their nuances that makes it hard for me to fully zero-in on their weaknesses. From personal experience, Spell Snaring their Tribe Elders and early ramp is amazing. And playing Draw-Go against them feels awful. No idea if I'm "doing it right," though...I don't see these decks enough in my metagame. It's usually just Blue Moon, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Merfolk.
Add more V-Cliques, Geists, Spell Quellers, and Aven Mindcensors. IMO some kind of flash build would be best vs. combo decks. Quellers, Cliques, and Geists are the main ones I'd look to experiment with (in larger numbers) if I'm hellbent on beating those decks; they're disruptive and provides a clock.
That's pretty cool. I did not play modern much in the very early days. Sometime around GP Charlotte (the big one that lead to the huge surge in legacy dual lands' prices), but that's about 1-1.5ish years after.
Old-school Modern was kinda interesting; I think a lot of players tested with the Mirrodin Swords a lot, didn't they? And Green Sun's Zenith wasn't quite banned yet.
But in all seriousness, there's some merit to just linking Magnus Lantto's guide (part 1 and 2) and Sam Black's guide. They're pretty comprehensive.
I see him pop up from time to time in deck lists and brews (even GerryT brewed with 1 copy of him in Jeskai Harbinger some month(s) back). I've loved the card since I first got my hands on one way back in Standard, but I never had the balls to place him in my modern decks. Have always wanted to. Just never pulled the trigger.
He has some competition, doesn't affect the board very much when he lands (his effect isn't inconsequential, but it does take time), and he costs 3 mana (not BAD, but can be punishing). His competition being: Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Jace, Architect of Thought, Ancestral Vision, etc. etc. Architect of Thought offers more burst of cards in a shorter amount of time, meanwhile having a decent +1 utility and game-ending ultimate. The +1 was slightly more relevant vs. Deceiver Exarch back in Twin days. Vryn's Prodigy comes down a turn earlier and has a mechanic that lets him affect the board (pseudo-flashback). The upside to Beleren is that he offers a consistent stream of cards without drawing too much attention to himself. Having a +2 and a -1 ability is actually something that most (played) planeswalkers don't have anymore.
I know all of those cards aren't necessarily the same thing, and it's not like you can't run them side-by-side. I'm just saying that sometimes when it comes down to the final 60th mainboard card or 75th card in your build...it's pretty easy to end up leaving out a card like Jace Beleren.
Oh. That's what you meant. Thought there was some technical interaction I'm missing (like Spellskite or whatever).
I tried main board dispel at GP Charlotte as a 1-of. I didn't really like it.
If you don't want to see her as much, then I don't see a problem with cutting a Nahiri. Should function fairly similar to having 4. Less likely to have her in the opener. Personally I like to see her very early, but that's just me.
I'm not sure what you mean by Crumble to Dusting an Inkmoth = trap/bad. Is there an interaction that I'm missing?
Are you referring to SCG Dallas (Modern Open)?
I think you can afford to cut Restoration Angel, Spell Queller, Remand, Electrolyze, or Mana Leak. I'd go with cutting a Resto in favor of 24th land; it's not as easy to curve to 4 lands with less than 24, and having a full playset of Restos would make this even more apparent. I'd up the count of SV to 4, but 3 works too; Jeskai Flash (Geist variants) run 3 SV to good effect.
I think since you're looking to hit as many colors as possible, you can afford to shave down to just 2 Islands. Maybe shave Ghost Quarter as well. Might want to go up to a 9th fetch land and yeah, a filter land can work fine. IMO accommodating Cryptic Command is worth the investment; it's such a strong card.
I've seen it in Esper Control (Wafo-Tapa). I believe it can be run. Much like Bearscape said, probably best to consider it like a filter land.
I personally wouldn't cut down on Colonnades any further; I think 3 is a good spot for it; I like having the option to close games with Man-lands and IMO 2 is too loose to feasibly rely on it as a subsidiary game plan. Therefore, I'd be more inclined to cutting Sulfur Falls and the like.
^^This. I'm wasting a lot of time sifting through post after post praying for a nugget of useful information. Instead I get almost nothing but Nahiri vs. non-Nahiri. It's like the equivalent of "NA vs. EU" bs in Twitch chat. At least with Twitch, you know it's mostly satirical...
Yeah...I don't know about that; some of these posts come off rather aggressive. I don't mind the posting of non-Nahiri decklists and discussing.
It's the "Is Nahiri even worth running," attitude that bothers me. Btw, the answer to that question is, "Yes, yes she is. Whether or not you want to is another story. Next question please?"
Of course, questioning the "norm" or "established builds" is one of the step towards innovating. But damn man, I've never seen this much resistance from its own pilots in any other deck archetype. I know they mean well, but IMHO, I think they're just asking the *wrong* questions.
Since this is a control deck, with generally a reactive game plan, I think it's more than reasonable to sideboard a lot of cards in -- so long as the cards sided in is better than the ones coming out. Because we're a deck of answers more than anything, it's fine to change a lot of the moving gears and parts of the deck.
If we were playing something like aggro or Suicide Zoo, then we wouldn't want to side in too many answers and counter-answer cards, because we have a very set and specific way we want to play (and need to play). You don't want to dilute your game plan. In the case of Jeskai Control, our game plan is more or less, tower defense. So anything that disrupts them from winning is always gonna set us ahead.
When playing against burn with Jeskai Control, there's nothing I love more than seeing my opponent not be able to cast spells, because they're stuck on a hand full of Destructive Revelries...all because they saw one Spellskite game 2.