STANDARD Bo1 JESKAI CONTROL

UPDATES - 10/23/21

Current version doing just okay in Standard Events at 8-6, but is 8-2 on the Ladder (diamond).  Keep in mind I am a fairly average player, so I'd imagine that with less misplays this deck could do better.  Misplays or no, it does seem that we do not have game against mono green.  You need so much more removal than we're running and sunset revelry does't do much for you.  Mono green can just keep tapping their 3/3 two drop or 4/4 three drop until you have to deal with them, then take advantage of the opening with Esika's Chariot or Wrenn and Seven.  I have another list with Devistating Mastery, but I'm not sure that'll even help.  The egg just gets chumped out or gives them a reason to use blizzard brawl.  I'm sure how to beat this deck without Epiphany.  I do think this deck could be viable in Bo3 with a sideboard plan, and you just hope Mono G floods out or gets mana screwed in Game 1.  Maybe sideboard is like 3-4 Burning Hands, 2 Mind Flayer or 2 Burn Down the House, another Test of Talents or two, and maybe some sort of exile spell like Borrowed Time?  Maybe we board a few Elite Spellbinder ourselves, and try to slow down green with the 3/1.  That could also benefit our aggro strategy against control mirror matches.  We are solid against the other aggro decks as-is, we'd just want to swap some of our counterspells out for Burning Hands.  We might want to get some Spikefield Hazard into the manabase for those pesky hermits also.  So basically in the Mono W, Mono G, U/R/x Control rock paper scissors, we are good against mirrors and Mono W, but struggle with mono Green.  

SYNOPSIS

If you are a control player, Izzet Dragons/Epiphany is the correct deck to play in standard right now.  The issue I have is that it really shines in Bo3 with the sideboard.  My issue isn't with Bo3 (I actually generally like that much better), but the mirror matches and the Azorius, Grixis, and Esper matches take forever!! 

Also, and probably more importantly, I've found that I can play the standard events and consistenly go 4-3 or 5-3 and end up net-positive on gold.  I stopped playing for awhile right before Zendikar was released (after playing for a year with Uro in every single deck I saw the writing on the wall with the new 4color Omnath...), and started up again to play AFR before rotation.  Loving the format now, but I need to scoop up those Kaldheim, Zendikar, and Strixhaven cards and the card rewards in the events seem like the fastest way to do it.  Props to CBG and Arjuna of ArenaCraft podcast for looping me in on this strategy.

The izzet deck can be tuned to try to deal with everything, but the red sweepers are either expensive Burn Down the House, or only hit things with 2 toughnecc Cinderclasm.  I played around with Meathook Massacre, but I find that Doomskar really lines up best against most of what we're playing.  You can decide whether you need it on 3, or if you need to exile it to dodge Elite Spellbinder, or if you just want to hold it to loot away with The Celestus later.  This is the #1 reason to get into white - it is the best splash for surviving the slough of white weenies and mono green value trains that you're going to run into in the Bo1 Ladder or standard events.

The goal here is to guarantee survival early, and then speed up our endgame with quick threats.  Instead of Goldspan Dragon plus Alrund's Epiphany, we are going back to Goldspan Dragon and counterspells.  You can fire off a Saw It Coming or Test of Talents with a treasure token while the dragon's on-board, and hopefully you'll be able to set up some blockers on the ground with Sunset Revelry or slow down the opponent with Divide by Zero.

MAINDECK

That's right, we're plaing control... but with wincons.  The Smoldering Egg // Ashmouth Dragon doesn't work nicecly with our 4 copies of Doomskar, but if you set up one or the other early you should be able to avoid destorying your own egg.  If not, then hopefully he prevented enough damage to let you swing the tempo with Goldspan Dragon later in the game.

I have played a few long control mirrors against the izzet decks, and what always seems to get me is a late topdecked Goldspan Dragon.  There is no Essence Scatter in the format right now, so you need to either bounce it (which feels really bad on a hasty creature that can just come down next turn), have unconditional counters (how many Saw It Coming are you all seeing out there?), or hit it with a sweeper or Soul Shatter type sacrifice effect.  If you can slam the dragon and attack with a counterspell, you should be good to go.  At the very least, you'll be eating up a ton of removal so it's impossible to deal with the next one you draw.  4-of is a must here.  There are games where we want to do the old Prismari Command Treasure on your opponent's endstep to just get this guy on-board for T4.  Other games you will want to sit on it until you can protect, but overall I think this card's ability to take over games is unmatched right now.  Sometimes he 'get's got', but more often than not you are trading up in cards, or at least a couple treasure tokens, which can still really swing the game in your favor.  I've been on the 'right side' of the mirror matches with this deck, and if you're playing Galvanic Iteration builds, you just need to get the game over with quick - this is how you do it.

The other guys in white.  Sunset revelry is ridiculous when you're behind.  It's a 2 mana cantrip that heals you for 4 and places two 1/1 weenie blockers on the board.  Sunset on turn 3 into a block, followed by a Doomskar tends to put away 3 opponent's creatures and leave you on 20ish life for their second wave.  Basically feels like they just mulliganed to 5 when you can set this up.  Late game in control matchups it just becomes a 'cycle' card, but the fact that it replaces itself when you're down cards is great.  And if you need the life, 4 is a lot for a little 2 mana cantrip.  Fateful Absence handles our planeswalkers and pesky reach or flying blockers that are in the way of our dragons.  Unconditional removal feels like we need at least 2, even with the downside of giving our opponents a card for 2.  This is our emergency button, or our 'get out of my way' button for when we are in a position to just close out the game.

Ridiculous 2-mana Card Advantage engine.  Control needs to hit land drops, this let's us do it.  Almost makes up for how terrible the mana is in this deck (can we get a boros slow-land?)

This should probably be in the Manabase section, but I find that if I can hit something with an early disruption, I'm probably winning that game.  Don't cast it if it's the only land you can play.  Late game it's not a great draw.

I'm still not sure what the correct way to use this in a mirror is.  I feel like I hear the streamers and pros talk about this lining up with Epiphany, but it is difficult to know when the counter battle's going to end so you can actually hit the epiphany with this.  I'm finding that when my opponents take all my Memory Deluge I don't have enough card selection to get back into a control-off.  I'm thinking more and more that's the right move with this card.  If you can hit their card advantage spells, then you should be able to get ahead enough to close out with Goldspan  Dragon.  Just a one-of because it's so narrow

I don't see these around too much anymore.  Everyone is playing the windfall's to ramp up for epiphanies, but this is so versatile as a turn 3 instant, and the Treasure token can get us Goldspan on Turn 4.  This deck has some trouble with mana - we have a lot of double pips (probably too many), so our base condition here is 'loot two' 'make a treasure'.  If you can snag a creature instead of looting, then great.  Sometimes you can get your opponents to waste a Snakeskin Veil on a Sculptor of Winter or a wolf token (just make sure you can actually clear the board after).  This can handle the important part of an Esika's Chariot as well.

I have been playing with 4 copies in other decks, and determined that it's just decent.  There are a lot of tokens and creature-lands out there that get around this, but it's nice to be able to grab an Environmental Sciences or alt wincon (more likely just a board-staller) in Mascot Exhibition.  We also carry a few of the more situational lessons as well, because why not?

Once again this should probably be in the manabase section, but we will sometimes use this as removal.  Works great late game to remove a couple troublesome blockers to let your goldspan through.  Generally this is too expensive to do much in the earlygame.

There is so much random stuff going on in the queues.  At 3 this is just your run-of-the mill counter any spell for 1BB.  But if you have extra mana to foretell, you have a 1B counterspell that you can tuck away from Duress, No Way Out, and Elite Spellbinder.  Also, this can protect your Goldspan Dragon from anything once you've fortold, and you can cast it with just a treasure.  This is definitely the most versatile counterspell, which is what we want in Bo1.

Ramp, Lifegain, Looting.  Being able to loot and gain a life once or twice each turn when the game is at parity is so powerful.  Ramping also feels good against the aggro decks and control mirrors alike.  Also we need that mana fixing.

The card is so good and scales with the game-state.  Casting from the yard just lets you look so deep into your deck - you can generally find whatever you're looking for.  The big problem here is double blue.  We have an important double red card in Goldspan Dragon, and an important double white card in Doomskar.  The mana for Jeskai does not have many dual lands (double sided requires a choice), so it can be really difficult to get all your pips when you need them.  I think it may be correct to go down to 2 of these and cut something for 2 Behold the Multiverse, or just go with 3-4 behold's and give up on double blue pips.  Then we might want to swap our Hall of the Storm Giants for the red or white creature land...

It's why we play white.  Unconditional board clear on T3 or 4 really helps.

I think you want 1 of these whenever you play white.  A nice spell to draw when at parity late.