[Modern] What jeskai list is the best right now? (There are many)

I've tested three different versions.

First, I played Nahiri for about two months. I liked ut, but I got th email feeling that most of the time Nahiri could be, like, Storm Crown (if only that was legal!) and you'd still win. As a win condition, she's quick, but mostly your opponent winds up around 7 or 8 life from random snapcaster attacks or colonnade damage. I guess I'm saying that anything could be in the 5 Nahiri & Emrakul slots and the deck would be fine.

Then I tried Flash. I saw the Open and was impressed with Spell Queller in general. It looked great, like it should be a blast to play, but my experience was that it was too slow and without enough ability to punch through damage. It felt like a control deck that wouldn't turn the swith when it was time to win. On top of that, my Spell Queller ended up dying at really inopportune ti.es, or I would have to start using permission to keep them alive, which is really not where you want to be.

Right now, I'm on Alex Mitas's Wafo-Tapa Draw-Go variant with Torrential Gearhulk. I like it a lot right now. It's better at recovering because of Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict than other builds I've tried, and I've liked Think Twice a lot. It feels like, in Modern, control works best when you can play at instant speed, and nearly everything in here does that really well.

I'm not sure about the Alanis Vengeant slot, but I don't think I want a second Gearhulk. Logic Knot is great.

It does share some of the bad match ups that the other decks (or really any blue control decks) have. It's bad against Dredge and Tron, kind of rolls BGx decks, grinds really well against the control mirror if you can use Gearhulk and Rev right.

Anything creature-light has a really uphill fight against you if you play your removal right. Infect isn't an auto-win, but feels really favored. Having access to Supreme Verdict and Blessed Alliance out of the board helps Bogles go from probably an auto-scoop to at least playable because a single one of those can like 4-for-1 if you can keep Umbras off the board.

Burn is a little worse than the Nahiri variant because you have two fewer bolts and one fewer MD Helix. But, you don't have to worry about setting up Revelation at the end of your opponents turn. Any time you think you can get around a Skull Cracker or Boros Charm, even if it's at the end of your turn, go for it.

I would still put Burn, Zoo, and Death's Shadow in the favorable category for both the grindier versions of Jeskai because you have so much removal and life gain. You do want to use your removal during your turn a lot, because if they have to mutagenic growth to save a guy, you don't want to also take damage on an attack. Also, try to start by bolting, get them to invest a couple pump spells to save their guy, then hit them with a a Path to Exile. Bleeding pumps spells buys you turns to get closer to hitting a silly Rev later on.

TL;DR: I like the Jeskai Control one that Alex Mitas's played at GPS Dallas because reasons.

/r/ModernMagic Thread