There’s hardly a better feeling in Magic than finding a deck that just makes sense. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a result of countless hours of meticulously tuning a known archetype, a stroke of deckbuilding genius or just a sheer blind luck of stumbling upon an uncut gem in a decklists dump. Whenever I get this warm feeling in my heart, knowing that what I’m looking at is a well thought-out creation rather than just a haphazardly put together pile of cards, I know that I’m in for a treat. It’s not a feeling that I often get, which is why I learned to cherish it every time it happens, and it’s no different with the deck I’m here to talk about.

The original decklist for this iteration of Jeskai comes from possibly the most innovative deck builder of the last decade, cftsoc. I’ve stumbled across the decklist they piloted to a top 16 finish in a challenge a few weeks ago, and instantly I felt like it’s the answer to so many problems I’ve had with this archetype. As I was freshly after another letdown with a different take on Jeskai, I’ve decided to shelve this idea for later and instead explore the Grixis deck, similar to what Corey Burkhart piloted in Indianapolis at the end of May. Then, the Final Fantasy Sagas rules change was announced, and I knew that Urza’s Saga decks will become vastly more popular, at least for the next few weeks, and a good deal of them will venture in the previously unavailable Blood Moon/Harbinger of the Seas territory, which is what pushed me to revisit Jeskai as Wrath of the Skies remains one of the best possible answers to Saga, even more so with the rules in question being implemented. With my sights back on the red, white I swiftly get to work on the cftsoc’s brainchild and haven’t looked back.

Why does this deck make sense?

So what did I mean when I said that the deck “makes sense”? Shortly put, it’s when its parts work in tandem to bolster its inherent strengths and mitigate its weaknesses. It’s especially difficult to achieve when the process involves breaking preconceived notions and general wisdoms on how the archetype should look and which cards are sacred. This courage to work and think outside the box is what separates the true innovators from mere mortals, and is what the Magic community sorely lacks as a whole nowadays in my opinion. But, enough with the digressions, let’s get to what exactly makes this flavour of Jeskai stand above the rest of the control family.

 

• No Counterspell. This is not an entirely novel concept, as previously we’ve seen Jeskai decks omitting Counterspell in favour of Consign to Memory or a heavy reliance on Force of Negation and Subtlety, partially in order to take some pressure off of the manabase, but also because Counterspell can be at times awkward in blazingly fast-paced games of Modern. I’ve never been a fan of that, mostly because none of the alternatives above were on par with Counterspell in terms of its versatility and the catch-all potential that I always felt necessary for these kinds of decks to succeed. That’s where Flare of Denial steps in and takes over – it’s exactly the catch-all answer that I’ve been looking for to finally relegate Counterspell to a minor role in the sideboard rather than being the backbone of the interaction suite, which has multiple trickling down effects I’m going to touch upon next.
• Better mana. This is the most direct impact of cutting Counterspell. With Phlage demanding a significant commitment to both red and white, accommodating for double blue on turn two, as well as early double white for Wrath of the Skies becomes supremely difficult. While Phlage offsets a good deal of self-inflicted damage from the manabase, the true problem arises when our draw yields one or even zero fetchlands to make our mana perfect. Take additional difficulties, like fetching around Blood Moon or getting your lands blown up by Eldrazis into the account, and making everything work consistently is simply impossible. With Flare replacing Counterspell, the double blue requirement is pushed quite late in game, and it allows for keeping the mana mostly white and red with a tiny splash of blue in the early game, which makes drawing lands that only produce one colour of mana significantly less painful. On top of that, this extra breathing room makes the second Arena of Glory a plausible inclusion, which greatly increases the deck’s explosiveness in the midgame.
• Game altering play patterns and playing to the board. The most important of said patterns is hasting Phlage with Arena of Glory. Between Fable, surveil lands and potential additional looting or mill effects, this deck is significantly better than previous iterations of Jeskai at escaping Phlage on turn four with the exerted Arena of Glory, allowing for the game to end on turn five, all while holding up Flare of Denial. This makes even the worst matchups winnable, and having this proactive angle is extremely viable. Aside from hasty Titans, casting a Flame of Anor with two modes on turn three is significantly stronger than the alternatives of Stock Up or Narset, which brings me to the second part of this paragraph. Between Trainer, Fable, Phlage and potentially other creatures, this deck plays to the board much more than other control decks, which makes it less likely to fall back on tempo and lose the game with a full grip of cards after taking turn three off to cast a card advantage spell. Every single three mana spell in the deck can either affect the board or be cast for free, which makes it significantly less clunky than the competition.
• Building up inevitability with cheap gameplay pieces working together. Contemporary Modern is way too ruthless and efficient to allow for cards like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria or my beloved Jace, the Mind Sculptor to see play – a single Galvanic Discharge or Unholy Heat trading with your four or five mana investment will often have disastrous effects for you. While I believe that there’s a place for these planeswalkers in the format, namely as a grinding tools for tempo decks like Frog or UR Wizards, I don’t think that they belong in control decks like Jeskai or UW – they’re just too hard to keep on board against the majority of the format to rely on them game in and game out. Instead, the lategame of this Jeskai deck is built on incremental advantages provided by cheap cards that also let you reach said lategame. Copying Trainers and Snapcasters with Fable, chaining Flames or repeatedly escaping Phlage will eventually grind down most opponents without relying on big ticket cards that will often trade unfavourably or straight up rot in your hand while waiting for a right window that will never come.
• Flexibility in gameplay. By combining the Wizards shell with more traditional Jeskai tools and gluing everything together via Fable, this deck mitigates a swath of issues I’ve had with previous versions of Jeskai, especially the ever-present wrong half problem of control decks. By tying a good chunk of the removal to either finishers or card advantage, we’re left with less straight-up dead cards and can sift through them with Fable second chapter. Additionally, this deck easily adapts to being essentially a mono-blue deck in matchups where removal is largely irrelevant. This switching between the two halves of what I like to call “mono blue Boros” has often been an issue with Jeskai decks in Modern – in some matchups, it’s profitable to become basically a Boros Midrange deck, chock-full of board interaction, tapping out every turn, playing to the board and eventually winning the game with Phlage. Against other opponents, the opposite is true – removal is cut for countermagic, and interacting on the stack becomes the best axis to fight on. But even against these decks, you need to kill a creature every now and then – be it Thought-Knot Seer out of Eldrazi Tron, Writhing Chrysalis out of Eldrazi Ramp or Six while versing Amulet, having an option to board out all the removal and still have access to Flame of Anor and Phlage to deal with these threats is massive, and makes it doable to present an entirely different strategy postboard, depending on the opposition.

Card choices

As I’m still in the exploration phase with the deck, I’m not going to give you one decklist that’s set in stone. Instead, I’ll show you which cards I consider “core”, and which cards I’m eyeing for the remaining slots. Similarly, I’ll present every sideboard card I’ve tried and liked, as well as some of those that didn’t quite make the cut. If you want to get my latest list and just roll with it, you can find it right here.

 

On the screenshot above, you can find all the cards I’m considering for the deck at the moment. In the maindeck, the 55 cards in the four left columns are the “core” for the time being, while the rightmost column is the pool of cards I’m choosing from to fill out the remaining five slots. For the clarity of presentation, I only put up a single copy of each of those cards, but that doesn’t mean I’m not considering multiple copies of them, quite the opposite – for example, I’m quite sure that I want to play at least three more two mana creature, I’m just undecided on the right mix. Similarly, the sideboard contains all the cards I thought about including in the deck and/or haven’t dismissed after trying them out. Let’s get to the details and go over my particular choices.

Maindeck

 

Manabase

This one is fairly straightforward: two Arenas, one of each surveil lands, a smattering of shocklands and basics and as many fetchlands as I could fit. Two copies of Lórien round it out as both a split card between tapland and late game card advantage tool and a land that can be grabbed with Trainer, slightly bolstering its hit rate. I’ve played Raugrin Triome for a while, and I think it’s defensible in a deck with so many colour requirements, but ultimately decided to include a second copy of Lorien over it.

One mana interaction

Essential to not fall behind against aggressive decks. Six removal spells and one Spell Snare are what cftsoc had in their original deck and I felt like it’s a good number. I can see running additional copies of either Snare or Ending if the metagame converges even more heavily on Energy and Prowess, but for the time being, I’m liking this particular split.

Two mana creatures

In this category, there’s one clear favourite. If I could lift the 4-of rule for one card in the deck, it would be Thundertrap Trainer. It’s the card you want to see the most in your opening hand, as it enables both Flame and Flare, digs towards Fable or meaningful interaction, poke at opposing life total to pave the way for a hasty escaped Phlage to win the game in one fell swoop, engages in creature combat and so on. Sadly, we can’t play unlimited copies of it, and four creatures isn’t enough to enable neither Flame nor Flare, so we need to look for backup options to round up the roster. Sadly, all of the candidates have some shortcomings, some of the less severe, some of them glaring enough to remove it from the consideration whatsoever. The best of the bunch is Snapcaster Mage, as it works great with Flame and Flare alike, as well as other sideboard cards. Its biggest weakness by far is not being a great turn two play, which makes it hard to justify a full playset in a deck that already has a fairly high curve. Because of that, I went looking for other potential options, all of which are a visible step down from the level of Snapcaster. Fallaji Archaeologist isn’t a Wizard, which makes Flame of Anor worse, and looking at only three cards makes the fail rate on it a bit too high. Milling instead of putting the rest of cards on the bottom of the library is largely an upside, as it works well with both Phlage and Snapcaster Mage, but there’s a small downside of milling an important fetchable. Finally, a creature with zero power is significantly worse than one that can get in for damage, even if it’s only a couple every turn. All of that makes Archaeologist a bit too weak for the deck at the moment, although I can see revisiting it if I ever want to scale back on Flame of Anor and double down on the self milling. Next up, we have a pair of creatures that aren’t good enough to even make it onto the screenshot: Watcher for Tomorrow and Augur of Bolas. On the surface, Watcher looks pretty close to playable, but when you factor in that it enters the battlefield tapped, and that you don’t get the card if it’s killed in response to the trigger, it becomes quite clear that it’s not playable. Augur, on the other hand, can miss relatively easily and doesn’t find Fable, which also disqualifies it in my book. Finally, we get to the card I haven’t actually played with yet, but have the highest hopes for: Oracle of Tragedy. It comes with a fairly unique set of pros and cons compared to its competition. Unlike the rest of creatures in consideration, it doesn’t provide card advantage, but at the same it it’s the only one that makes it easier to hit an untapped land for turn three, and the only one that profits in some way from being sacrificed to Flare. Getting to loot twice is a bit less than getting an actual card, but not by much, especially in the deck that cares about having a full graveyard. Its second ability is scarcely relevant, but it can protect Phlage from Surgical Extraction, or prevent decking yourself when facing infinite life if you have a flipped Fable – both of those corner cases will matter maybe once every hundred matches, but when they will you’ll be really thankful for them.

Countermagic

Flare is clearly the best counterspell in the deck, and the only decision to me is whether I want to run three copies or a whole playset. The original list opted for three, and my priority now is to figure out whether running a full four is feasible. This is the main reason for why I’m trying out the supplemental two drops – getting to enable Flare consistently is great, and the aspect of the deck I want to maximise if possible. Aside from Flare, the only other counterspell I’d consider in the maindeck is Force of Negation, as it allows for the similar freedom of operations without needing to hold up mana. If Oracle of Tragedy falls short, I’ll likely run three Flares and one Force.

Tune the Narrative

It’s a pretty bad card, but I feel like some copies of it are necessary to support Discharge, Wrath and Snapcaster Mage. I tend to board them out if I cut down on Wraths, so keep this in mind. If I end up going heavier on Snapcasters and Wraths, I might add the third copy.

Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury

Arguably the strongest card in Modern and the reason to branch into a third colour. I wouldn’t run less than four copies, and would think long and hard before cutting more than one during sideboarding.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

I’ve already sung so many praises of the card that you probably can’t listen to me anymore by it at this point, so let me just sum them all up for your convenience. It mitigates the wrong half problem, provides coloured mana under Blood Moon, provides card selection, bins Phlage and creates a strong late game engine. I’m happy with three copies, as it can be fairly clunky in multiples when you can’t tap out on turn three, but I can see playing the fourth one in the sideboard.

Flame of Anor

Similarly to Fable, I think I’ve already covered all the great things about Flame. It’s hard to put into words exactly how valuable it is to have your draw spell also impact the board, and I consider Flame to be in the class of its own in terms of available draw spells in Modern, above cards like Stock Up or Narset.

Sweepers

Wrath of the Skies is by far the most important sweeper to play at the moment, as dealing with Urza’s Saga is now as important as ever, if not more. With that being said, there’s a good deal of value in playing the first copy of Supreme Verdict, as it shines against decks like Zoo or Murktide, and it provides an answer to Emrakul, the Promised End, which the deck is otherwise cold to.

Solitude

Formerly the backbone piece of interaction and one of the best cards in UWx decks, Solitude has largely fallen off in my eyes after the Ring got banned. Everything about it just got worse: it’s harder to recuperate lost cards after evoking it, both Energy and to some extent Prowess rarely care about getting any one creature killed, and there aren’t enough white cards in the deck to consistently pitch it early in the game. I still think that Solitude has some value, mostly in answering otherwise difficult to handle creatures, like Emrakul, Ketramose or hasty Phlage. If I’m not running Supreme Verdict, then I’ll most likely have one Solitude in the maindeck, and I could entertain the idea of having one or two copies in the sideboard.

Sideboard

 

Cards that didn’t make the cut

Starting with the cards I ultimately dismissed might sound a bit backwards, but I think it’s important to highlight why I don’t think they’re good enough, especially given that one of them is a fan favourite. Because of that, putting this paragraph right at the top of the sideboard section makes sense to me, as it’s less likely to be skipped or glossed over here compared to the end for the article. With that sorted, let’s talk about our culprits: Obsidian Charmaw and Cleansing Wildfire. Both of them serve a similar role of fighting opposing lands, and both fall short for different reasons. Charmaw is simply too narrow of a card, and even in the matchups where it’s supposed to be good (Eldrazi decks), it tends to be lacklustre against the most popular version of the deck, Eldrazi Ramp. Last, but not least, it’s a creature, which means that it can’t be found by Trainer, and while that might not sound like a terrible downside, it’s a downside for sure and I’m trying to build my sideboard to be entirely comprised of noncreature spells, so I can find my impactful cards more easily postboard. With that being said, it truly shines against Eldrazi Tron, and if that deck ever gets enough traction to warrant more sideboard slots than the full playset of Consigns, then I’ll welcome back Charmaw with my hands reluctantly opened. As far as Wildfire goes, it’s the more broad of the two, but also less effective. Its main target is supposed to be Belcher, but most lists have a basic in the sideboard ready for it, and if you spend your turn two on destroying their land only for them to have a Mountain at the ready, the result can often be disastrous. I’m not completely dismissing it, and land destruction as a whole, as there are some lands I’d like to get rid of, such as Shifting Woodlands against Titan and Cavern against both Titan and Eldrazi, but at the moment I think that these sideboard slots can be put to a better use.

Countermagic

Likely the biggest chunk of most Jeskai sideboards, as the deck is well-equipped to content the board in the maindeck. It’s not out of the question for me to run ten counterspells in the board, and it all starts with four copies of Consign the Memory. It’s by far the best card against Eldrazi that Jeskai can run, especially when backed by Snapcaster Mage to rebuy it for another go. For as long as Eldrazi are a part of Modern, I’ll stick to my playset of Consigns, especially since it has other uses in various matchups, although no other deck warrants the presence of full four copies. The second tier of sideboard countermagic are Mystical Dispute and the actual Counterspell. Yeah, I know that just a few minutes ago I praised the courage of cutting Counterspell and all the possibilities it opened up, but there’s still a place for the ol’ reliable in this deck. Basically, one of the biggest weaknesses of Jeskai are combo decks that you’re not prepared for – think running into Storm without any High Noons, or facing Dredge with no graveyard hate (at least when Dredge was still a playable deck). Counterspell alleviates this issue a bit by being the most universal tool you can ask for, even if it’s not the most effective one in any particular matchup. One or two copies of it will do wonders especially in paper tournaments, where the metagame tends to be more diverse, and will result in better postboard configurations across the board without needing to contort the whole deck to support it. As far as Mystical Dispute goes, it’s the best tool available when your opponent relies mostly on blue spells, and I can see running even more than two copies – being only one mana is particularly valuable with all the three drops present in the deck, making double spelling easier on turn four. Finally, we have the duo of pitch spells in Subtlety and Force of Negation. Much like Solitude, its blue sibling lost a good deal of appeal as of late, partially because the deck it punished the most, Amulet, has moved towards quadruple Scapeshift and can reasonably often ignore it. On top of that, it can’t be found with Trainer, just like other creatures, which is another strike in my book. With that being said, it’s still strong enough of an effect that I can see it being played in small numbers, as it nicely compliments your arsenal against a number of decks, and makes life significantly more difficult for the opponent, especially in open decklists tournaments. On the other hand, Force fits the deck quite well, and I foresee myself running a copy or two in most of my decklists moving forward.

Sideboard threats

I haven’t tested this idea yet, and I don’t have it on the docket at the moment, but I might entertain it at some point. The two threats I’m considering for this role are Tamiyo and Ragavan, and both come with their own set of strengths. Tamiyo plays better with the rest of the deck: it’s a blue creature for Flare, a Wizard for Flame, and allows us to advance our position with Clues while holding up interaction. On the other hand, Ragavan creates Treasures, which are vastly superior to Clues in most matchups where we’re looking for extra threats – accelerating the curve by a whole turn can snowball really quickly, and this deck makes a ton of use out of extra mana. I think that the choice between them is fairly close, but my instinct would point me towards Ragavan if I had to choose one to test first. If I was to include it in the sideboard, it’d likely come at the expense of Counterspell, as they’re both broad tools to increase the chances against a wide swath of decks, even if they target slightly different archetypes and in a different way.

Graveyard hate

Seeing that Jeskai is a Phlage deck, Rest in Peace is off the table unfortunately. My weapon of choice is usually Soul-Guide Lantern, and even though Surgical Extraction has some merit with Snapcasters in the deck, I’d still opt for the Lantern in most circumstances.

Ashiok, Dream Render

In theory, I could just put Ashiok in the “graveyard hate” basket, but I think it’d be a disservice to both Ashiok and graveyard hate. There are numerous strategies that rely on their graveyard against which Ashiok is either middling at best or just straight up bad. Three mana for a sorcery speed graveyard hate just doesn’t cut it these days, even if it’s repeatable and you can mill yourself to dig towards Phlage. The real reason to run Ashiok is if you’re concerned about Amulet, and I think it’s reasonable to include up to one dedicated sideboard card for this matchup. I don’t have room for it in my current configuration, and Amulet isn’t popular enough online to make me want to play it, but if I was expecting the metagame heavier on Primeval Titans, I’d sleeve up a single Ashiok and feel pretty good about it.

Hate cards

Premium hate cards have been white’s identity for as long as Modern exists, and Jeskai is another deck that’s looking to get some mileage out of them. My current favourite is High Noon, as it targets two popular decks in Prowess and Storm, and has added utility against more fringe decks like Living End or Neoform. Another card worth noting is Stony Silence, which is aimed mostly at Belcher, as well as various Affinity and Affinity-adjacent strategies, but I like it a fair bit less because we already have decent tools against Belcher, and Wrath being such a crucial weapon against Saga decks makes Stony Silence into a bit of a liability.

Removal

I know that “removal” is a very wide term, but I’ve had trouble separating the cards in question given their modality, so I just decided to talk about all of them together. For example, Wrath of the Skies falls both into “cards against Urza’s Saga” and “general removal” category, just like March of Otherworldly Light. Seeing as I started off with cards to combat the pesky enchantment land, I’ll round out this section with Wear/Tear. Personally, I don’t feel that additional answers to Saga past Wrath are needed at the moment, but I’d keep both March and Wear in mind if the metagame develops more towards Saga, and choose one of them according to which Saga decks in particular see play and how the rest of the format lines up against them. Next up, we have Solitude, which I already covered in the maindeck section – to reiterate really quickly, I view it more as a targeted tool for specific problems rather than more broad piece of interaction, and I think having few of them can be valuable under right circumstances (seeing that Prowess has been on a slight decline as of late, there’s a chance that said circumstances will be present sooner rather than later). Finally, we have Celestial Purge – a card that looks fairly narrow on surface, but actually has a lot of uses in a broad range of matchups. It’s so impressive that cftsoc even opted for a single copy in their maindeck! I wouldn’t go as far as doing that, and seeing that Jeskai is already fairly well-equipped to handle most decks that Purge shines against I can see going down to one copy to make room for other cards, but if I have space for it, I’m always glad to run multiple copies of it.

 

That’s it for today. While I know that this article hardly exhausts the topic, fear not – I’m working on more Jeskai articles. In fact, the sideboard guide, which is always the most anticipated piece of content for any archetype, will be ready in a week’s time or so. I also got back to streaming recently, and while it’s only a couple of days a week for now, I’m mostly playing Jeskai and will gladly answer any questions you have about the deck. Until the next time, and happy Phlaging!