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This is an update of the Jeskai Ring primer and sideboard guide that was first posted in August 2024. You’ll find more than just updated list for the deck after the Grief ban – I added a few sideboard options, three more matchups and updated matchup notes, so this article could be up-to-date. If you have any questions, I’m available on the Discord. 

Introduction

After Nadu and Grief got banned, the metagame went through slight shifts, but it remained largely the same, sans  the menacing Bird. However, this doesn’t mean that we haven’t seen any real change in the format. Every day, a lot of people are trying to furtherly optimise top tier decks, and those efforts have made Energy into the decisively best deck in my eyes. Similarly, other archetypes are streamlined in the same way, even if not to the same degree. Because of that, I’ve decided to work on the Jeskai deck, as it felt somewhat outdated, even though PT Amsterdam happened less than three months ago. While the adoption of The One Ring by Energy makes that matchup significantly more troublesome, and I’m not as high on Jeskai as I was some time ago, I still think that it’s a decent deck with a lot of raw power, even if its manabase gives me headaches every time I look at it.

This is my current decklist:

You can download the decklist in the text form here.

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What are Jeskai’s biggest strengths?

I’ve already outlined what I believe to be the deck’s greatest asset in the previous paragraph – it just plays the best cards in the format, or at least a significant subset of such. Because of how much raw power the deck offers, especially against fair strategies, it barely needs any help in those matchups, so it can dedicate a substantial part of the sideboard to fight against more linear strategies, which makes it very customisable and able to beat anything if built correctly. Some good examples of such power cards would be Wrath of the Skies, which basically single handedly makes Energy into a favourable matchup, even if the addition of The One Ring shifted it towards being close, or the core of stack interaction in Counterspell, Force of Negation and Subtlety, which makes the deck extremely versatile when it comes to answering various archetypes.

What are Jeskai’s biggest weaknesses?

While it can be tuned to beat anything, the deck certainly is not without its share of poor matchups. The best criteria for whether an archetype is a bad matchup for Jeskai is by trying to find out who has inevitability in the matchup. Because of how it’s constructed, Jeskai always tries to establish itself in the defensive role, and plays significantly better if it has the inevitability, so it’s only natural that decks that take it away can be somewhat problematic. By far the worst one is Mill, and I don’t think it’s fixable in any way that’s worth it. Aside from that, Jeskai can struggle against decks and cards that attack its manabase, as it banks on deploying its powerful spells and using the mana basically every turn of the game. This issue is further compounded by the addition of Leyline Binding, to the point where the manabase is just a weakness of this deck, even if it’s not under any attack from your opponent. I think it was Dave Shiels who said on his and GerryT’s podcast that Jeskai is akin to Creativity in this matter: a very powerful control shell with a very awkward manabase, and I think this statement makes a lot of sense. Going back to the ways of disrupting your mana, the most common example of such a card would be Blood Moon out of the RW Energy deck. While you can certainly play around it, it’s undoubtedly costly to do so, and there’s still a possibility for them to get you with it, which adds another troublesome layer to the matchup. More problematic ways of disrupting the mana would be the Eldrazi decks with Sowing Mycospawn and especially World Breaker, as well as the Fulminator Mage loops out of various Chthonian Nightmare decks, most notably different builds of Warren Soultrader combo. 

What has changed in the deck?

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student

The addition of Tamiyo is by far the most significant change for the deck, and one that I perceive to be of such importance that I devoted an entire article to it. If you want an in-depth explanation for why I like her in Jeskai, check it out here. If you’re fine with the TL;DR, Tamiyo both adds another card advantage engine and makes the deck less linear, among other advantages. Of course, she has her downsides, most importantly being poor against Energy, but overall I think her strengths outweigh her weaknesses in Jeskai in particular, and I’d recommend running her for now.

Leyline Binding

With the adoption of The One Ring by Energy, I feel like Jeskai needs an efficient tool that can deal with it once it resolves, as just overloading on removal doesn’t cut it anymore. Binding is great at handling Rings and other troublesome permanents like Necrodominance, Phlage or Murktide, but it comes at a steep price when it comes to the manabase. I’m currently running two triomes and two surveil lands for the total of four taplands, which is more than I’m comfortable with, but the alternatives, like running Indatha or Zagoth Triome or pairing a blue-red triome like Ketria with a corresponding white shockland (in this case Godless Shrine) both seem even worse to me. As a result, the deck got even less stable on mana, which already was questionable, but it’s hard for me to imagine playing Jeskai without Binding at the moment, with Ring Energy at the top of the format.

Pitch spells

I was a proponent of maxing out on both Subtlety and Force of Negation in the maindeck ever since the PT, but right now I think that Subtlety is pretty bad, so I’m shaving my numbers on both it and Force, mostly because something needed to be cut for Tamiyos. Conversely, I’m liking Solitude a fair bit more than I did with Nadu in the format, and would recommend running some copies in the current metagame.

Primer

The main gameplan

I’ve already highlighted the main gameplan of the deck – your goal is to find and resolve The One Ring, and then stay alive for long enough so it can run away with the game. The cards you’re looking for in your starting hand are mostly Ring, some lands and appropriate interaction. The last part is obviously quite tricky, especially when you don’t know what you’re playing against, but I would say the ideal spread against the unknown opponent would be something to affect the stack (countermagic) and something to affect the board (point removal, Phlage, Wrath of the Skies). It’s also important to pay attention to how your mana situation is, as between Phlage and Counterspell, the deck is fairly colour intense.

Major deckbuilding decisions

Because of how deep Modern’s card pool is, you can build basically every deck in a couple distinct ways, and Jeskai isn’t an exception. Even though the vast majority of builds can’t resist the power of The One Ring (although we’ve seen different approaches as recent as PT Amsterdam, such as this list played by a bunch of Japanese Pros, centred around Memory Deluge), there’s still some variety among Ring decks. I’m going to highlight the most important choices I’ve made and explain why I’ve made them.

• The manabase: first and foremost, I’m an outspoken proponent of casting your spells on curve, and might as well have Frank Karsten’s mana tables hung over my bed. That’s why you’ll often find me making decisions like ditching utility lands for more reliable sources of mana. In this case, I decided to swap Elegant Parlor and Monumental Henge for Sacred Foundry and Plains respectively, just to make casting one mana spells more reliable. Don’t get me wrong though, there’s still a good number of utility lands in my list. The most important one by far is Minamo, which I wouldn’t leave my home without. Aside from that, I’m running a pair of surveil lands and an Arena of Glory, both of which I find almost as important as Minamo. I’ve definitely grown on Arena of Glory since I started playing Jeskai, and would go as far as trying to squeeze the second copy. Last addition to the deck that’s not widely adopted is a pair of Triomes. Even though it’s a significant strain on the manabase, as I already mentioned, I think that Leyline Binding is necessary in Jeskai for as long as Energy is running rings, and this is the price you have to pay for it.
• Tamiyo: I already covered Tamiyo in-depth in the aforementioned article, so consult it should any questions arise.
• Blue pitch cards: With this free stack interaction, deploying Ring on turn four is much safer, and they’re the best way of converting extra cards from the Ring into tempo. I’m not as high as I was on them before, especially on Subtlety, but Force is still a crucial part of the deck in my opinion and I wouldn’t play less than three copies.
• Removal and Energy cards: because of how many cards The One Ring represents once it resolves, it’s important in my opinion to run enough early interaction to get to that point. That’s why I’ve been pleased with four Discharges and three Bindings. Conversely, I’ve been lower and lower on Tune the Narrative, and have cut it down to two copies – it’s just a pretty bad card to run in your Modern deck. Granted, it makes early Wrath of the Skies much better, so having some copies is valuable, but I rarely want to draw it in multiples. Last card that’s worth mentioning is Solitude – I’m running one copy mostly as a way to hedge against Suncleanser, in tandem with Leyline Binding and sideboarded Supreme Verdict. That’s possibly the most significant change from the pre-MH3 builds of UWx Ring, where Solitude was one of the most important cards in the deck. There are multiple factors that caused this shift, such as lower density of white cards to pitch, with the most important one being Phlage has now substituted Solitude as the main source of lifegain for the archetype. 
• Expressive Iteration: even though I’m not currently playing Iteration, it’s a card I’d seriously consider for this deck, just on the merit of how powerful it is and how it helps spending your mana every turn. I think with the addition of Phlage, the necessity of bouncing your own Ring with Teferi is lessened, even if it’s still handy at times, so I can see looking for cuts there. Even if I won’t try Iteration before Nadu gets banned, there’s a good chance I’ll do so after it happens, since it seems like a good card to fight through disruption of decks like Necro, and tapping out for a “minor” card advantage spell like Iteration will be less punishing without the Bird in the format.
• Sideboard: some less orthodox sideboard choices include Narset, Teferi, and second Solitude. I like having access to Narset in the board, as it plays well against Ring out of various decks and digs well for your own copies. Second Solitude is good in most creature matchups, but there’s not enough space for it in the maindeck and this was the only way I could find of running the second one. Lastly, Teferi just has a really high floor, and I like having a card like that in my sideboard if I’m playing control, as a lot of my cards are very polarising and having something that’s always at least decent helps a lot with sideboard mapping.

Tips and tricks

• NEW: With Ring in play, you can pick and choose your moments to flip Tamiyo. Usually, I just do it on my turn to plus her immediately, but sometimes I like to wait on my Ring activation to block with her and transform her before damage to save a couple of life points if I don’t have removal in hand. Remember that her transformation is mandatory, unlike Ral or Ajani, and she’s quite vulnerable if you can’t plus her, so avoid flipping her in your end step or during your opponent’s turn before they declare attackers.
• NEW: Remember that Teferi can reset Bindings, which is most relevant with Wrath of the Skies or if you have a Ring under it and your opponent plays another copy.
• As I already mentioned, the main goal of the game is to survive for long enough so that Ring can take over. Because of that, don’t be afraid to spew cards early on to stay afloat. If you think their one drop needs to be hit with Subtlety, go for it. Of course, it’s not always the right thing to do, and sometimes you want to extract as much value from your cards as possible, but in this deck I’d usually err on the side of preserving your life total at the expense of cards, as long as it doesn’t cost you too much and you have either Ring or Phlage (in the matchup where escaping it dominates the board, like Energy) in hand.
• If you have Tune (or any other cantrip) in hand and want to both cast it and fetch a surveil land, what I’d usually do is find a land and then cast the cantrip with the surveil trigger on the stack. This way you’re getting more information prior to surveilling without the risk of drawing the land you wanted to fetch. The most common instance of doing it the other way around is either if you’re looking for a particular card to cast as soon as possible, or if you’re digging for more lands (in which case I wouldn’t fetch before cantripping).
• Casting Prismatic Ending on your own Ring is not a terribly uncommon way of staying alive.
• If you resolve a Ring with Minamo in play and suspect that your opponent has an instant speed answer for it, wait with the Ring activation until you can untap it in response. This way you’re guaranteed to draw two cards even if they have a single removal spell for it.
• Always remember to stack your Phlage triggers correctly, i.e. letting the damage trigger resolve first and then the sacrifice trigger. This way you can escape it in the face of graveyard hate if you have enough mana. It’s a tactic that I often employ against aggressive decks with graveyard hate, as this way they can’t get both my cards in the graveyard and my Phlage.
• You can haste two creatures with Arena of Glory, which can come in handy from time to time. If your only play is to cast and escape Phlage on the same turn with Arena in play, you can add two mana with it and use one to haste the front half and one to haste the back half. It’s free to do so if you want to haste it on its way from the graveyard anyways, and sometimes people can try to stifle the sacrifice trigger with Consign if you have Arena in play and can escape it anyways to buy themselves one more turn. It’s incredibly rare, and I think it happened to me exactly once, but there’s no reason to not do it this way if casting and escaping Phlage is a forced play anyways.
• Be wary of all the weird things that Consign to Memory can target. Aside from the obvious uses of the card (countering Ring/Eldrazi/cast triggers/Ruby Medallion), the most common plays include targeting the sacrifice trigger of your own Phlage (if you’re doing that, remember that you can haste it with Arena of Glory), stifling the life loss from The One Ring, countering opposing Subtlety/Solitude triggers, protecting your Drannith Magistrate against Phlage/Static Prison versus Storm, countering a Storm trigger (mostly on Galvanic Relay) and countering the delayed trigger of Glimpse the Impossible if they exile Past in Flames with it.
• Learn which decks play Blood Moon and whether they’re maindecking it, and fetch accordingly. The most important land to get against them is usually the first Plains, as it allows you to cast Celestial Purge. The next one is either the second Plains if you have Wrath of the Skies in hand, or an Island if you’re holding Teferi or Prismatic Ending.
• Speaking of Blood Moon, it’s important to save the proper interaction so you can deal with it. It’s a broader lesson in general, especially in matchups that are favourable and have often resort to hate cards as a way of beating you. Saving the right interaction is usually worth the tempo loss if it means you can cover a truly problematic card with it. A good example would be not using Celestial Purge on Monastery Swiftspear, taking a couple points of damage and using Prismatic Ending on your turn, so you’re covered against Slickshot Show-Off, Underworld Breach and Blood Moon later on, or taking a couple hits from Energy to save Prismatic Ending for Suncleanser etc.
• If you have Mystic Gate and Wrath of the Skies in hand, you can try to conceal it by deploying only non-white sources prior to the turn on which you want to cast Wrath. This won’t fool wary opponents, but will at the very least keep them guessing, and might cause some players to overextend from time to time.
• It’s fairly common to use Galvanic Discharge as a sort of Dark Ritual for Wrath the Skies.
• Always be wary of Orcish Bowmasters while activating Ring against black decks, and think about how you can lessen their impact. Common ways of doing so involve deploying Teferi prior to the activation, casting Tune the Narrative to bait Bowmasters or waiting until you can use Minamo in response to their two drop.
• Oftentimes, Narset acts more as a hate piece rather than a card advantage engine. In these spots, it’s fairly common to not activate her, so she can survive Phlage or Soul Spike.
• A resolved Ring from the other side of the board is fairly difficult to beat, and sometimes the best way of doing so is getting them dead. It won’t often work against interactive Ring decks, like Jeskai or Necro, but it can be effective against more linear strategies, such as Nadu or Tron. Just last week, I played a game against kanister on Nadu where he deployed a Ring on fifteen life I couldn’t counter, and I just flashed in Subtlety in his end step, another one next turn and killed him with them the turn after.
• Remember that Narset can deny your opponent a card off of Vendilion Clique, as long as they have already drawn this turn.

Sideboarding

General sideboarding remarks

Truth be told, I’m not the biggest fan of card-for-card sideboard guides – you could even say that I actively dislike them. That’s mostly because I believe in teaching people how to fish rather than giving them one, as people like to say. That’s why I’m first giving you some more general advices on each card, and then a more detailed guide that should also be viewed more as a guideline than hard and fast set of rules – treat those in and out numbers more like advices which cards are good and which are bad and adjust accordingly, as well as read all the attached commentary carefully, since it’s often more important than the numbers itself. 

Cutting cards

• Lands (including Lórien Revealed), The One Ring: I basically never cut any of these cards, as they’re crucial to how the deck operates. I used to trim rings in some matchups prior to MH3, but haven’t really come across any matchup with the current iteration of the deck in which I’d like to do so. The only exception from the land cutting rule is Xander’s Lounge – if you’re playing a matchup in which Ending for X=4 doesn’t have any targets aside from your own Rings, and drawing taplands can be punishing, you can consider boarding it out if you need space. A good example would be the Energy matchup.
• Tamiyo: I tend to cut all of my Tamiyos against Energy and other aggressive Phlage decks like Zoo.
• Phlage: I trim a single copy of Phlage fairly often when I don’t really want to cast it early, so against decks like Nadu, Storm, Goryo or Tron. Initially, I was cutting more than one copy in some of those matchups, but I quickly found out that you want to find it eventually, so keeping two copies against those decks seems like a good compromise to me.
• Removal: boarding out removal is usually quite straightforward, but there are still some things to pay attention to. The most important one is that merely having targets for removal isn’t enough to justify keeping it in. For example, you can kill Karn, the Great Creator with Galvanic Discharge, but that alone doesn’t make Discharge worthwhile against Tron decks. With Phlage in the mix, I would err on the side of cutting point removal more aggressively in matchups where it’s not needed, unless there’s something very particular that demands an answer, such as Psychic Frog out of Goryo, or Phlage in the mirror. Binding usually comes out against decks heavy on Boseiju, unless it has important targets and you have worse cards to cut. A good example of such matchup would be Through the Breach
• Countermagic: similarly to removal, just having targets is not enough to justify keeping them in. What matters is the quality of the target, which is oftentimes more important than the sheer volume of potential spells it can answer. A good example would be the Energy deck, or any aggressive Blood Moon deck for that matter: those archetypes don’t usually present multiple good targets for Force of Negation, but dealing with Blood Moon is important enough that keeping the Force in is warranted.
• Tune the Narrative: it’s not a very good card on its own, so I tend to trim it if Wrath of the Skies isn’t important in the matchup and I need more slots.

Adding cards

In the interest of this guide remaining viable for as long as possible, I’m going to include cards that aren’t my current configuration but might very well find their way into it should the metagame shift.

• Consign to Memory: while its main use is to fight against Eldrazis with cast triggers, Consign handles other things, like The One Ring, quite well. It’s also pretty effective against Ruby Storm (mostly because it can counter Ruby Medallion), and Cascade decks like Living End (counters the Cascade trigger). If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try it out in small quantities against other decks, like Goryo or Necrodominance, but it’s very situational against those decks and you’re likely better off with it on the bench.
• Obsidian Charmaw: similarly to Consign, its main function is to fight against the Eldrazi menace. Unlike Consign, I wouldn’t really bring it in against many other decks. I think a good threshold for it is regularly costing three or less mana. So, for example, I wouldn’t recommend boarding it against Jund Saga, just to answer their land for four mana. The one exception would be a deck like Coffers, where both destroying their hallmark land and increasing the threat density are welcome qualities.
• Supreme Verdict, Wrath of the Skies: sweepers are fairly straightforward – if they will regularly trade for at least two or three cards, or hit something particularly important, like Urza’s Saga or Amulet of Vigor, they’re likely good enough. However, you shouldn’t overload on them – there’s a chance that the fourth Wrath is worse than some other marginally useful card against decks like Amulet.
• Surgical Extraction, and gravehate in general: graveyard hate at large is somewhat self-explanatory – if your opponent is actively using the graveyard, chances are that disrupting it will be beneficial. A good rule of thumb is that the more reliant on this zone the opponent is, the harder graveyard hate can be brought against them. For example, I wouldn’t bring in Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace against RW Energy, but having a couple copies of Soul-Guide Lantern to stop Phlage wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, even if sometimes it won’t make the cut. Surgical is a bit more complicated in that matter than more traditional graveyard hate, as it can completely strip your opponent from accessing a certain card. This type of Extraction effects have a long history of being overboarded, especially by newer players, and are usually looked down upon by more seasoned competitors. While I generally agree with this stance, there’s time and place for those cards, and the current Modern landscape is one of those in my opinion. Surgical’s main job is to fight against Goryo’s Vengeance, but it can also disrupt powerful finishers with the graveyard recursion component, like Phlage or World Breaker. I wouldn’t bring it in against every Phlage deck, but against decks like Jeskai Control, that largely depend on the fiery Titan to finish the game, having a couple of copies is worthwhile in my opinion.
• Invert Polarity: three mana for a counterspell is a pretty steep cost even for Pioneer, let alone Modern. Because of that, reach for Invert only if a) your opponent plays powerful spells that will likely win the game if stolen, or b) just having more counterspells is all you want, and there are enough bad cards to take out that even a three mana one is still good enough. It’s worth noting that there are some spells that you actively don’t want to win the flip against, such as Living End, so think twice before deciding whether to run Invert against those decks.
• Situational countermagic: this category includes cards like Spell Snare, Mystical Dispute, Stern Scolding and Dovin’s Veto, as well as Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm to a lesser degree. I think the “just having targets isn’t enough” rule is quite important here, as I often would leave those cards on the sidelines if they don’t have enough targets. A good example would be Spell Snare against Jeskai at the moment – it counters some spells, most notably Counterspell, and there’s enough removal to cut that the maindeck copy clears the bar, but I’d rather have Solitude over the second one. Oftentimes, it’s more important to maintain the balance of counterspells to other cards than to bring in every marginal piece of countermagic that tags something in the matchup. An exception would be a pure spell-based combo like Twiddle Storm, where removal literally doesn’t do anything and you’re just happy jamming every counterspell that can deal with at least a single spell they can play.
• Teferi: I like having cards with a very high floor in the sideboard, as you can board it in against basically any matchup for your worst card. It’s especially useful in control decks, as they tend to have very polarising card groups, like removal or countermagic.
• Narset, Parter of Veils: Narset comes in against any Ring deck, as well as Goryo or any other archetype/engine that’s looking to draw a bunch of cards to pull ahead in the game. It gets worse the faster the opponent is, so for example I’m not thrilled to have Narset against the UB Murktide deck, even though they’re usually drawing a bunch of cards. It’s still not terrible against that deck, but I only wouldn’t try to bring her in if I had enough good cards already.
• Vendilion Clique: often mocked by people who stumble across my decklists, this card is a powerhouse against any control, combo or big mana deck, and you shouldn’t underestimate it. It’s great if you’re looking to be the aggressor, get some information about your opponent’s hand or need to force through Ring against other counterspell decks.
• Storm hate: most common hate for Storm is Drannith Magistrate and to some extent Damping Sphere. I’m not the biggest fan of Sphere myself, unless both Storm and Tron are heavily represented, so you can get some crossover value. I’d also avoid boarding in anti-combo cards against decks that aren’t shut down by those cards. For example, Damping Sphere makes Living End cost one more mana, and slightly slows down Prowess, but it’s definitely not worth the slot in those matchups. On the other hand, Magistrate completely stops Living End from being cast, so it’s definitely a tool you want against them.
• Dress Down: it’s obviously good against Urza’s Saga, even if Wrath of the Skies already covers it well, so any deck sporting those is a good opportunity for Dress Down to shine. Other matchups where the card is desirable are those when there’s a certain creature, or creatures, that Dress Down interacts very profitably with. Good examples of those are Zoo, where it instantly kills Territorial Kavu while drawing a card, and Yawgmoth, where you can pair it with a removal spell to cleanly deal with their namesake creature that otherwise poses a good deal of trouble even in the face of removal.
• Sideboarded lands: even though it’s extremely unpopular, I could see playing utility lands, like Monumental Henge, in the right metagames. If you choose to do that, remember that you can board it in against any deck, and I would often do that if I have some unexciting spells in my postboard configuration, just to lessen the chances of getting mana screwed.

Sideboarding Cheat Sheet

As we’re trying to further evolve our content to be more convenient and useful for you, we’re going to implement some changes to how our sideboard guides are presented. You can still find the Cheat Sheet with the exact numbers I settled on for today above, and below you can find more evergreen guidelines as to which cards work and which don’t in each matchup. This way, you can take more from these plans even if your list isn’t exactly the same as mine.

Sideboard Guide

Amulet

Cards that are bad: Galvanic Discharge
Cards that aren’t great: Leyline Binding
S-Tier sideboard cards: Ashiok, Dream Render, Harbinger of the Seas, Dress Down
Good sideboard cards: Consign to Memory
Marginal sideboard cards: Narset, Teferi, Solitude, graveyard hate
Trap cards: Damping Sphere, Alpine Moon

Amulet underwent numerous reinventions throughout the years, with the current version taking inspiration from the recent Standard combo deck based around Aftermath Analyst. Thanks to the innocuous 1/3 and a powerful MH3 addition in Shifting Woodlands, Amulet’s repertoire of plays got extended with another explosive combo that’s quite hard to interact with. Basically, your opponent’s goal is to assemble either Mirrorpool with Aftermath Analyst in play or Shifting Woodlands with delirium and Analyst in either graveyard or on the battlefield, and couple it with Lotus Field and Amulet or Spelunking. This combination allows them to keep copying Analyst and bringing back more and more lands thanks to it milling them and Lotus Field allowing them to get crucial lands into the yard. They’ll also generate mana on every iteration, and eventually kill their opponent with either Kessig Wolf Run and a hasty creature or the more traditional Dryad and Valakut setup that still sees some play, although not every list opts to include this particular engine. Due to the nature of the combo, mostly thanks to Shifting Woodlands, it’s basically resistant to traditional means of interaction, which makes playing against it somewhat tough. The best way I found to compete with it is running a sprinkle of graveyard hate (not too much though, as they still can just Titan you), and contesting their untappers even more than before, as the Analyst loop doesn’t work without either Amulet or Spelunking in play. Other than that, it’s still the same old Amulet – disrupt their cheap permanents and Saga with Wrath of the Skies, deal with their payoffs via stack interaction and establish The One Ring to amass a critical mass of cards to wear them down eventually.

Eldrazi Breach

Cards that are bad: Wrath of the Skies, Prismatic Ending, Spell Snare
Cards that aren’t great: Galvanic Discharge, Phlage
S-Tier sideboard cards: Obsidian Charmaw, Consign to Memory
Good sideboard cards: Invert Polarity, Dovin’s Veto, Vendilion Clique, any counterspell that can tag both Through the Breach and The One Ring
Marginal sideboard cards: Narset, Dress Down, Surgical Extraction
Trap cards: Damping Sphere, Alpine Moon, any similar mana disruption that doesn’t actually destroy a land

Even though Eldrazi Breach bears some resemblance to a Tron deck, it functions significantly differently, and shouldn’t be approached as such. Its goal is either Through the Breach an enormous Eldrazi, or establish The One Ring that’ll eventually result in said Eldrazi appearing on the board. Because of that, these are the two main cards you need to stop from resolving. While they do have a relatively reasonable midrange plan with Sowing Mycospawn that gets furtherly improved postboard with World Breaker and Thought-Knot Seer, the lack of Tron lands and the sheer volume of mana they can produce makes World Breaker much less problematic compared to when it’s paired with Urza lands. Still, some respect ought to be given to that angle, but it’s a second order of importance compared to their main gameplan, even in games two and three. Because of that, I can see myself bringing in a single Surgical against them, but it’s not crucial, and most other cards you might want against them have higher priority in my opinion. I don’t think that attacking their mana is particularly effective, and even detrimental to your winrate if done with cards like Damping Sphere or Alpine Moon, with the exception of Obsidian Charmaw – getting both the mana denial and the clock from the same card is huge, and it’s a pretty good way of either slowing they World Breaker plan enough to take over just stopping theme from executing it altogether. Remember that Consign to Memory can counter the Annihilator trigger, so if you’re on high enough life total or have the Ring protection, you can let Through the Breach resolve and just use Consign. Dress Down can work in these spots as well, just don’t play it before their beginning of combat so that World Breaker or Devourer can’t exile it, and keep in mind that Boseiju can steal deals with it at instant speed. Vendilion Clique is another card that can work well against Through the Breach, effectively countering it by taking the payoff from their hand in response to their spell. This strategy is somewhat risky, as they can have multiple Eldrazis in hand, but you can always check first and then use countermagic if needed, so the only downside is when you don’t have enough mana to cast both Clique and hold up countermagic. In these spots, you have to judge whether it’s worth risking dying and keeping counterspell in hand, and your decision will vary from game to game.

Eldrazi Ramp

Cards that are bad: Spell Snare, Wrath of the Skies, Subtlety
Cards that aren’t great: Galvanic Discharge, Leyline Binding
S-Tier sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, Obsidian Charmaw
Good sideboard cards: Invert Polarity, Vendilion Clique
Marginal sideboard cards: Narset, graveyard hate
Trap cards: Damping Sphere, Alpine Moon, any similar mana disruption that doesn’t actually destroy a land

I haven’t faced Eldrazi Ramp almost at all, as both Breach and Tron flavours of Eldrazi are more popular online. Because of that, I don’t have experience to tell you what subtle differences in play pattern occur between versing this build and Tron, other than that Charmaw is usually worse against their manabase and that they usually don’t run Karn, which makes Subtlety actively bad. Your goal, as always against big mana decks, should be escaping the early game relatively unscathed and then taking over with Ring and Counterspells. Because they have a higher count of cast triggers Eldrazis than Tron, with basically all lists sporting at least three copies of Emrakul, the Promised End, it’s important to save your Consign to Memory for these threats. I’d consider bringing Soul-Guide Lantern against them, as they’re not great at refuelling their graveyard after casting their Malevolent Rumble until they find another copy.

Energy

Cards that are bad: Tamiyo
Cards that aren’t great: Subtlety, Force of Negation
S-Tier sideboard cards: Celestial Purge, Spell Snare, Pyroclasm
Good sideboard cards: Supreme Verdict, Brotherhood’s End (against Mardu)
Marginal sideboard cards: point removal that deals with Suncleanser, Wear/Tear, Narset
Trap cards: —

A lot has changed since I recommended Jeskai as a way to beat up on Energy in my last instalment of this guide. With the adoption of The One Ring by mostly RW, but also some Mardu builds, the matchup became much more challenging, and while I still feel that Jeskai is slightly ahead, it’s by no means the dream pairing it was in my opinion a month or so ago. Just loading up on sweepers and creature removal in general won’t cut it anymore, and you need some way of dealing with a resolved Ring on the other side of the board. I think Leyline Binding is sadly your best bet, but it puts additional strain on an already taxed manabase. You still need to dodge Moon out of Boros, and there are some additional troublesome permanents that both variants started to run more often, like Goblin Bombardment. Other than that, most tips I gave in my initial guide remain true – have a plan for an escaped Phlage, try and fetch basics to combat Moon and you should be at least somewhat okay.

Goryo

Cards that are bad: Wrath of the Skies
Cards that aren’t great: Phlage
S-Tier sideboard cards: Spell Snare
Good sideboard cards: Celestial Purge (against Frog builds), Vendilion Clique, cheap countermagic, graveyard hate
Marginal sideboard cards: Narset, Consign to Memory
Trap cards: Vexing Bauble, Void Mirror, other cards that only stop Elementals/Ephemerate

Goryo is an immensely powerful deck and potentially a troublesome matchup. It often seems that they’re getting exceedingly lucky with their surveil lands binning Atraxas and Griselbrands, it’s not that unlikely, and their deck is constructed to maximise these lucky outcomes. Most builds play Psychic Frog somewhere in the seventy five, which adds another angle of attack that you need to prepare for. If you’re positive that they’re not running Frogs, you can comfortably cut Prismatic Endings and consider leaving Purges on the sidelines. I would usually aggressively counter Fallaji Archaeologist, as it’s both an enabler and a way to turn on their Ephemerates, even if I only have one piece of countermagic in my hand. I’m not as strict when it comes to Tainted Indulgence, but I would still counter it if I have a spare piece of interaction. You don’t want to let the game go on for too long without a Ring in play, unless you have Surgical in hand and are ready to snipe their monster or, even better, Goryo’s Vengeance. Once they don’t have Goryo’s in their deck, they can barely function, especially if they opted for no backup threats. However, if you don’t have Extraction, or other graveyard piece ready to disrupt them, they’ll eventually assemble enough discard, countermagic, Orim’s Chants and Vengeances to force through their combo. It’ll take some time to set up, so you don’t have to rush, just know that you can’t wait forever with deploying your Ring. Most lists only have a single Force of Negation in the maindeck, so you can often jam game one without fear of countermagic. Postboard, they usually have more copies of Force and some Consigns, so it’s more likely that your Ring won’t resolve, but between Clique and just jamming enough threatening cards, you can weaken their defences enough to force through a game-winning Ring. Consign can counter some triggers, most notably Atraxa’s, but it’s very narrow, and I would consider having a copy in my deck against Frogless builds, where removal is worse, and even then, the other options are likely better. If your plan is to Surgical their monster, it’s usually good to wait, as just extracting one of their two payoffs without even getting one of their Vengeances in the process isn’t the strongest play. You can just fire it off on Atraxa in a couple of situations. First would be if you’re positive they boarded out all of their Griselbrands, and Atraxa is their sole reanimation target. Second is when you can’t protect your Surgical from discard, countermagic, or second Goryo’s in response, and you want to just get their only threat currently in the graveyard, and take a peek at their hand to see if you can resolve a Ring. I would generally refrain from casting Surgical in such a nonchalant way, but it’s important to consider it, even if ultimately this option will be often discarded. Without Grief in the mix, Subtlety loses a good amount of its value, but it’s still decent enough to earn its spot in the deck postboard. On the other hand, Galvanic Discharge got a fair bit better with most lists adopting some number of Emperor of Bones.

Jeskai Control

Cards that are bad: Creature removal
Cards that aren’t great: Versatile removal that can deal with Ring, exile-based removal
S-Tier sideboard cards: Vendilion Clique, Narset, flash threats in general
Good sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, Surgical Extraction, broad-ish counterspells (Invert, Veto, Dispute, etc.)
Marginal sideboard cards: Celestial Purge, Spell Snare, non-Extraction graveyard hate
Trap cards: —

Jeskai matchup is a pretty classic control mirror: there’s a big spell (Ring) that, if resolved, drastically improves one’s chances of winning the game, but pushing it through is easier said than done. In this particular mirror, there’s an additional curveball in the form of Phlage being recurred over and over again, which has to be addressed at some point, but it’s not terribly urgent, at least without Arena of Glory involved. Your main focus should be hitting your land drops, and being as patient as possible. I used to jam fairly aggressively in the last iteration of mirrors with UW Narset, especially game one, but contemporary control lists run more maindeck permission, and have significantly more answers for resolved planeswalkers. Because of that, I tend to go as long as possible in game one, even discarding to hand size if I have mostly useless cards like Wrath of the Skies, but you should always assess your position each turn, and look for the places to jam. For example, if your opponent taps low for something like a front half of Phlage, and has only two mana, I would definitely try to jam Ring with Spell Snare backup, especially if I have Force in hand. A general rule of thumb I follow is that I’m trying to play around Ring in the midgame, but not Ring backed up by countermagic. Given that, and the fact that the first person to untap with Ring is usually advantaged (unless there’s Minamo on one side), I will usually play my Ring in the midgame with one Counterspell backup if I need to discard a decent card to hand size otherwise. Similarly, I’m pretty liberal when it comes to flashing in Subtleties in my opponent’s end step if there’s a high chance of me having to discard on the subsequent turn. Keep in mind that fairly often they can respond with their own Subtlety for some bit of value, and look for those lines yourself, as they’re surprisingly hard to punish with four Forces in most lists, especially at the six-seven mana mark. As far as sideboard cards go, Clique and Narset are both phenomenal, especially the fairy, and another copy of Clique is probably the best card you can add for the mirror. It’s just so easy to get a profitable trade with it in your opponent’s end step, and getting the information about their hand is extremely viable, as you can sculpt your plan exactly around their hand. Another card that’s worth mentioning is Surgical Extraction, which is surprisingly good in the mirror. Back in Uro days, extracting each other’s Titans was pretty effective, and it’s no different with Phlage. While the fiery giant is your primary target, sniping opposing Rings is a pretty big deal as well, as it allows you to tap out with impunity for the most part, and strips them of their best card advantage engine. Last card worth mentioning is Consign to Memory, which has a bunch of applications aside from countering The One Ring. You can stifle opposing Elementals triggers, as well as your own Phlages, and sometimes you can even get two birds with one stone if they Solitude the front side of your Phlage (which can often be a pretty decent play). Remember that Phlage can be hasted on the front half if you use Consign to keep it in play.

Living End

Cards that are bad: Spell Snare, Prismatic Ending, Galvanic Discharge
Cards that aren’t great: Wrath of the Skies
S-Tier sideboard cards: Chalice of the Void, Dovin’s Veto, Rest in Peace, Flusterstorm
Good sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, cheap countermagic that can get Living End, Vendilion Clique, Drannith Magistrate, Supreme Verdict, Soul-Guide Lantern and other similar graveyard hate
Marginal sideboard cards: Mystical Dispute, Invert Polarity
Trap cards: Damping Sphere, Grafdigger’s Cage

Living End remains as powerful and straightforward as it’s always been, or maybe even more so with the departure of Violent Outburst. Your goal is to weather their early onslaught of Griefs and cascade spells, and then pull ahead with Ring. Now that they can only cascade on their own turn, Force of Negation gets significantly worse for them and much better for you, especially in game one, and I’d be much more inclined to jam my payoffs now if I have a Force as a backup. Similarly, having Phlage, or even better a couple copies, in the bin makes it significantly harder for them to combo, especially if they’re low on life from all the shocking and whatnot. This angle is definitely less reliable with their current configuration, as most lists sport a playset of maindeck Endurances. Speaking of Endurance, without Grief in the mix their best bet is to win with a tempo-ish flash plan, just casting Endurances and Subtleties in your end step and threatening to combo on their turn if you tap too low. This plan can prove to be a bit troublesome, but with a good draw and smart decisions, like not attacking with your Magistrate into their open mana, you have a fair chance of beating them. Remember that Consign to Memory can counter their cascade trigger, and that you can, and should, replicate it if you have some spare mana to play around their interaction. Invert Polarity is pretty awkward against the card Living End, as stealing it accomplishes nothing, but countering it half the time is better than not countering it all and having something like Prismatic Ending rotting in hand, and you can use it more effectively if they have countermagic of their own. It’s also a blue card to pitch to Force and Subtlety, and you can never have too many of those. Last, but not least, Commandeer is seeing a bit more play again as a free way to protect your combo, so don’t run out Ring or Teferi without protection if you can afford to do so.

Necrodominance

Cards that are bad: —
Cards that aren’t great: Wrath of the Skies, Spell Snare, Solitude
S-Tier sideboard cards: Celestial Purge, Narset
Good sideboard cards: Dovin’s Veto, Spell Pierce
Marginal sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, Invert Polarity
Trap cards: —

There are some obvious similarities between Necro and Scam, but both decks play out markedly differently. Scam is a much more aggressive deck, often winning with a good curve of proactive threats, while Necro has a hard time winning without one of its card-advantage engines in Necro and The One Ring. As their deck relies heavily on said engines, your goal is to strip them from the access to them, or to render them useless with Narset. If you don’t have countermagic at the ready, and don’t need to find something off of Narset immediately, it’s usually a good idea to keep her on five counters to play around Soul Spike. Leyline Binding is another important card, as it deals with all of their threats, and can exile Necro before they get to draw with it (just remember to cast it in their second main phase, especially on MTGO). While it’s a deck full of undoubtedly powerful, even broken cards, it’s also kinda shitty, just because of how feast-or-famine its draws are. With careful navigation, you should be able to win most games where they don’t have the very top of their draws, and even those can be beaten from time to time. If you manage to resolve a Ring on more than ten life, you should be good to go even in the face of Bowmasters, and sometimes Sheoldred. Always try to plan ahead for those cards, especially if you’re somewhat low on life, as they can throw a wrench into your plans. Sheoldred, while more deadly, is also easier to play around, as it’s a four mana, sorcery speed card. Bowmasters are a bit more tricky, but definitely manageable, and you should check out my thoughts on how to beat them in the Tips and tricks section, if you haven’t done that already. Phlage is another extremely problematic card for them to beat, just remember to not expose it to Boggart Trawler for no good reason. 

Prowess

Cards that are bad: Teferi, Xander’s Lounge
Cards that aren’t great: Subtlety
S-Tier sideboard cards: Spell Snare
Good sideboard cards: Celestial Purge, Path to Exile, Stern Scolding
Marginal sideboard cards: Expensive (4+ mana) sweepers, Sunset Revelry
Trap cards: —

The most important thing to understand about Prowess is that it’s a creature deck in its essence. This statement might seem obvious, and I guess it is, but I’d rather “waste” a line or two this way and save some innocent soul from approaching it like a Burn deck in the process. Sure, Prowess offers some reach in form of Lightning Bolt and Lava Dart, and a combo-esque finish with Underworld Breach, but the vast majority of time, it’ll win with a creature or two enhanced by a flurry of spells. Because they present recurring sources of damage that come in large chunks, lifegain is significantly less effective against them than it is against Burn. Of course, it’s nice to have incidental lifegain stapled to some interaction, like Phlage or Solitude, but I wouldn’t bank on classic anti-Burn cards like Sunset Revelry to get the job done. Even though it’s a creature deck, I value Force of Negation high against it, simply because our wall of removal deals well with their main plan, and they often have to resort to winning with a potent noncreature permanent, like Underworld Breach or Blood Moon. It’s often worth taking some extra damage if it means saving an answer for those pesky enchantments. If you’re using a damage-based removal, try to use it on your turn, unless you’re positive that they can grow their creature outside of its range. The most popular build runs Unstable Amulet, Amped Raptor and Galvanic Discharge for a small Energy subtheme and some longevity. Against those builds, Wrath of the Skies gets even better, and I think it’s an easier matchup overall. The other branch of Prowess is much more akin to Infect, sporting cards like Assault Strobe, Scale Up and Blossoming Defense or Snakeskin Veil to protect their creatures. This build is much faster, and can punish you much more severely for tapping out, but at the same time it’s significantly more all-in, so if you manage to weather their initial onslaught, you should be good to go. While facing this version, I would usually cast any type of removal on my own turn, just to not get blown out by a well-timed protection spell, which isn’t really the case in the Energy version.

Storm

Cards that are bad: Wrath of the Skies, Solitude, Prismatic Ending
Cards that aren’t great: Galvanic Iteration
S-Tier sideboard cards: Drannith Magistrate, Deafening Silence, Magebane Lizard
Good sideboard cards: Orim’s Chant, Rest in Peace, Damping Sphere, Consign to Memory, Spell Snare, Vendilion Clique, Surgical Extraction
Marginal sideboard cards: One shot graveyard hate, more expensive countermagic
Trap cards: Leyline of Sanctity

Storm is back once again with the release of Ruby Medallion into Modern, and it’s the same it’s always been and markedly different at the same time. Same in the sense of its overall strategy, different in how it plays against interaction and hate. Because all the red draw spells are at least Divinations, it’s hard to wear them down with countermagic at one crucial spell, like it used to be with the Gifts version. You can still do so to some degree, especially if you manage to tag Past in Flames with Force of Negation, but it’s not as safe of a bet as it used to be. Similarly, one shot graveyard hate isn’t as effective against them, as they can accumulate enough resources to go again with Past in Flames, and they can ultimate Ral to circumvent graveyard hate altogether. The best way of combating them is to go after their ability to cast multiple spells per turn. Because of how they draw spells work, Drannith Magistrate stops the vast majority of their card advantage, leaving basically only Manamorphose as a way to churn through their library. It even stops Wish from fetching an answer to it! The only downside of Magistrate is dying to the front side of Phlage, which is a somewhat common sideboard card in Storm, but you only need to protect your Magistrate from it once, as Phlage can’t escape with Drannith on the board. Static Prison can answer it, as well as any other onboard hate, but it can be dealt with via countermagic. Keep in mind that Consign to Memory can counter Prison’s trigger, rendering it useless. It can also keep the Magistrate alive versus Phlage, so it’s generally a good way for protecting your hate pieces. Consign in general has a multitude of applications against Storm, least important of which is countering Storm triggers. Its primary utility is countering Ruby Medallion, and the secondary is the aforementioned protection of your hate cards. Tertiary and lesser functions include countering Glimpse the Impossible delayed trigger, so they don’t get Spawns or put the exiled cards into the graveyard (which might be relevant if they exile Past in Flames) and stifling Storm triggers, especially on Galvanic Relay and Empty the Warrens. As a rule of thumb, I’m either looking to untap with Ring in play, as at that point you should have enough interaction to deal with anything they cast, or to establish some sort of clock to kill them before I run out of countermagic. Arena of Glory is a pretty big deal in this matchup, as it represents twelve damage without any real counterplay on their part. Some lists run Reprieve, and even though it’s not very popular, it’s important to keep it in mind and potentially play around it if you can afford to do so. Because the vast majority of their spells cost two mana, I would often counter their Rituals aggressively, as they fairly often are bottlenecked on mana. That is especially true if you have already established some sort of clock, and you know that countering the first two spells when they’re on four or five mana (or three when they’re on six, etc.) will result in you killing them next turn. 

Tron

Cards that are bad: Galvanic Discharge, Prismatic Ending, Spell Snare
Cards that aren’t great: Phlage, Wrath of the Skies (better vs Saga builds)
S-Tier sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, Obsidian Charmaw
Good sideboard cards: Vendilion Clique, Invert Polarity, Damping Sphere, Narset, countermagic
Marginal sideboard cards: Surgical Extraction (against World Breaker builds)
Trap cards: Permanent-based land hate than doesn’t destroy lands

For some reason unbeknownst to me, control players at large still fear Tron like it’s 2015 and every Expedition Map represents Eye of Ugin for Emrakul. For almost a decade at this point, Tron has been at least close, and often favourable, matchup for control in my opinion. Currently, there are two popular builds of Tron: Colourless/Eldrazi/Prison, however you want to call it, which is a pretty good matchup in my opinion (still close nonetheless), and the Green Tron variant centred around Sowing Mycospawn and World Breaker. This latter version poses a significantly harder task for us, as attacking Jeskai’s manabase is one of the best ways to succeed against it, and Green Tron can do so both ahead of schedule and repeatedly. Right now, Tron is held back a bit by Nadu still being legal, but once the Bird’s gone, I expect Urza lands to return in full force, and with it even more dedication to these strategies in Jeskai’s sideboard. The Colourless Tron matchup doesn’t need much help, and it’s pretty straightforward: counter payoffs that matter (mostly Karn and Ring), establish your own source of card advantage and snowball from that. There are of course some nuances in the matchup, like not exposing Phlage to Kozilek’s Command if you don’t have to, or remembering that Narset isn’t super safe in the face of Devourer of Destiny and figuring out how to protect her if you rely on her as your solution against opposing Rings, but for the most part, those games will be somewhat straightforward. As far as the Green Tron go, those games also won’t be terribly complicated, but definitely harder. Your goal is to stop their World Breaker recursion, and the best way to do so is by blowing up their lands with Obsidian Charmaws. Remember that you can reset them with Teferi! The other way of getting rid of the pesky Eldrazi is with Surgical Extraction. This plan has some flaws, mostly Surgical being kinda sucky aside from dealing with World Breakers, but the more Charmaws you add (and I can see going up to full four in the post Nadu world), the more reliable Extracting their Tron lands will be. In general, I’d refrain from using Surgical on anything other than World Breaker, Ring and Tron lands, unless the situation really calls for it. SImilarly, I’d try and save my Consigns for World Breakers and to some extent kicked Mycospawns, especially if you have Ring in play. This dynamic of World Breaker exiling The One Ring might be the biggest reason why this matchup can be so challenging, as it flips the script on the usual outcome of Jeskai resolving Ring against Tron: Tron can’t do anything about it once it’s in play, other than cast Karn or Disruptor Flute/Pithing Needle, which are all relatively easy to deal with, Jeskai draws a ton of cards and win a few turn turns later. There isn’t really much else to it – if there’s one takeaway from this matchup I want you to have, is that you can go long against Colourless Tron and succeed, but it’s significantly harder against World Breakers.

UB Murktide

Cards that are bad: —
Cards that aren’t great: Force of Negation, Subtlety
S-Tier sideboard cards: Mystical Dispute, Spell Snare
Good sideboard cards: Supreme Verdict, Vendilion Clique
Marginal sideboard cards: Narset, other countermagic
Trap cards: —

I’d say that this matchup plays fairly similarly to the UW Narset – UR Murktide matchup prior to MH3. I repeatedly stated that in the said matchup, you can run your opponent out of threats fairly often, and while I haven’t done it against UB, I think the reason it won’t happen as often isn’t that Jeskai isn’t capable of this, but rather that Phlage will kill your opponent before it comes to that. The biggest difference between current builds of Murktide and ones that were seeing play before MH3 is that UB Murktide has no one drops, but their two drops hit harder, especially Psychic Frog. Because of that, it’s not as important to have a piece of removal in your opening hand, but rather any card that deals with Frog, including countermagic. It’s worth mentioning that while it’s still not a very exciting trade, casting Subtlety on their two drop is markedly better than targeting Ragavan or Channeler with it, so I’d often do so if I lack answers to it otherwise. Another important thing you should pay attention to is that they’re usually much heavier on Force of Negation than UR used to be, with two maindeck copies on average and at least one more in the sideboard. That plus multiple copies of both Spell Pierce and Consign to Memory in most lists means that you rarely can safely resolve the Ring, so I think your best bet is to play around the most punishing outcomes (which are getting hit with Pierce or hardcast Force), and hope something you throw at them sticks. Luckily for you, Phlage is incredibly hard for them to beat, so as long as they don’t hit it with Surgical Extraction (that you can play around to some extent, which I covered in the Tips and tricks section), you should be able to wear down their defences by repeatedly escaping your Titan until they finally yield. Phlage doesn’t really care about being answer, with the exception of Subtlety in some spots, which brings me to the most important point about this matchup: you are quite favoured, as you can easily answer any threat they play on multiple levels, but they can beat you on tempo, so your main job is to make sure they can’t get good tempo trades (like hardcasting Subtlety, Piercing the Ring with some sort of clock on the board, etc.). The other way to lose this matchup is getting steamrolled by Psychic Frog, but you have a bunch of tools to prevent that from happening. Overall, it’s a pretty skill intensive matchup, and if you play tight and use your cards well, you should come out victorious more often than not. Tamiyo is an excellent pickup against them, as their plan is often to act in your end step or react to your more expensive cards to trade up on mana. Tamiyo flips this script against them, as a turn one Moonfolk will just keep on generating advantage without the need to cast anything else until she’s dealt with.

Yawgmoth

Cards that are bad: —
Cards that aren’t great: Force, Tamiyo
S-Tier sideboard cards: Cursed Totem
Good sideboard cards: Spell Snare, Supreme Verdict
Marginal sideboard cards: graveyard hate
Trap cards: —

I don’t think I’ve played a single match against Yawgmoth with Jeskai, so I’ll allow myself to cite my thoughts on the matchup from my UW Narset guide, as they instinctively hold true for Jeskai: 

“Seeing as Yawgmoth is one of the most popular and, more importantly, highest win rate decks in the format right now, I’ve decided to respect Yawgmoth a bit more with the second copy of Stern Scolding, and spent some time with Yawgmaster Xerk talking about how to sideboard in the matchup. His advice was obviously great – most importantly he pointed out that Binding is actually a fine card if you don’t have better cards to bring in, as long as you exile lower value targets, like mana dorks, Undying creatures or Cauldron that will come back empty even if the Binding is dealt with. Watch out for Fulminator Mages, as even a single copy can make short work of your manabase when coupled with Cauldron. Because of that, I’d prioritise fetching basics, unless you need to cast Binding on a cheap early on. (…) Speaking of planeswalkers, Teferi’s stock plummeted against Yawg with addition of Bowmasters – it’s still not a terrible card, but more often than not you’ll end up plusing and hoping that they won’t kill it with Grist rather than getting a profitable bounce. Other than that, the matchup remains largely the same it’s always been with an interactive deck – stopping their Yawgmoth is of an utmost importance, then their secondary haymaker card mentioned above (if they run it), then Grist, and then finally their aggro plan (which gets quite a bit better with Bowmaster). Be wary of Chords when you’re about to Verdict while being low on life, as a Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat (or more likely Marionette Apprentice after MH3)  in response might prove lethal.”

With the addition of MH3 and Birthing Ritual/Chthonian Nightmare, I think that Spell Snare’s stock goes way up in this matchup. Both of those enchantments, but especially Ritual, are quite powerful, and you should have a plan for them when deciding whether your starting hand is good enough.

Zoo

Cards that are bad: Tamiyo, Force
Cards that aren’t great: —
S-Tier sideboard cards: Supreme Verdict
Good sideboard cards: Consign to Memory, Spell Snare, efficient removal
Marginal sideboard cards: Teferi
Trap cards: —

Similarly to Yawg, I have close to zero experience with Zoo post MH3, but I suspect that the matchup got markedly worse with Wrath of the Skies over Verdict and Jeskai’s manabase being significantly more painful than UW’s. Nevertheless, your plan remains the same – deal with their early pressure and stabilise with Ring backed up by Phlage. It’s important to note that Consign to Memory counters both Scion and Binding (or rather its trigger), so I would recommend having some copies, especially on the draw.