[DECK] Jeskai Delver

[Mr. Safety]

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on this deck a lot lately after watching some videos of Caleb Durward piloting the deck. I think this is about as close to a pure tempo deck as modern can get. Grixis delver is still a very good deck, and doing fairly well lately. What I like about Jeskai is the ability to race, which it can do quite well. Tons of removal that can double as burn, powerful threats, and a decent control game are all part of this deck. I am also using some cards that I think are underplayed in the format which can break some matchups open. The re-printing of Opt also gives this deck a little more leverage as well, providing a decent cantrip allowing for 5+ alongside Serum Visions. Some of the cards I'm using that are not traditional are:

1) Grim Lavamancer
2) Forked Bolt
3) Deprive

Beyond those, which do see some fringe play in modern, the deck consists mostly of good, aggressive jeskai cards. Deprive's drawback is negligible, and might even open the door for Steppe Lynx, but I don't think that's as good as it looks. Most times it is actual counterspell. Forked Bolt has really great uses against affinity, elves, death and taxes, collected company decks that use mana creatures, and it can just go to the dome for 2. Lavaman provides reach, keeps the smaller dudes in check, and is easy to feed even with Snapcaster in the mix.

I played the following list to a 4-2 finish on 9/16/17 at a local PPTQ, 57 players, I came in 14th. My matchups were 2x burn, genesis wave, Titan-shift, Elves, and Merfolk. My losses were to merfolk and genesis wave.

4x Delver of Secrets
3x Monastery Swiftspear
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Snapcaster Mage
2x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Serum Visions
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
2x Spell Snare
1x Dispel
1x Peek
1x Forked Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
3x Remand
3x Deprive
2x Boros Charm
2x Spirebluff Canal
3x Arid Mesa
3x Flooded Strand
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Steam Vents
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Island
1x Plains
1x Mountain

Sideboard
2x Meddling Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Spreading Seas
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Wear/Tear
1x Detention Sphere


The deck is fundamentally really good, and tons of fun. I don't think Swiftspear is very good, not when trying to hold up countermagic. It is a much better card in burn where Lava Spike and Rift Bolt are constantly in the mix that make it a 2/3 without sacrificing any tempo or tapping lands needed for counterspells/removal. I think Grim Lavamancer is just way better at control and pressure. This list was also pre-Opt re-print, so that needs to get worked in at some number. I also think Geist is just a much better option as a threat that ends games faster. I am testing/proposing these changes:

-3 Swiftspear
-1 Peek

+1 Geist of Saint Traft
+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Opt

I look forward to discussion on this deck, because I think it has really great potential. It's nothing earth-shattering, or even new. I just think it is well placed in the metagame right now. A ton of other great sideboard/mainboard options also exist to shore up metagame specific issues, such as: Blood Moon, Negate, Eidelon of Rhetoric, Pyroclasm, Vryn Wingmare, Seeker of the Way, Soulfire Grandmaster, Monastery Mentor, and Pithing Needle.

The best part of the deck is that if a board position gets out of control, it can just race. It also has early, powerful answers to cards that it can lose to with Deprive and sideboarded Meddling Mages.

Let me know what you think, and bring on the discussion if you're interested in contributing! I'll post some video links soon that CDurward has done recently that got me into the deck.

Link to Caleb Durward's video, differs slightly with cryptic command, boros charm, etc.

https://youtu.be/J-sybLF_OTU

[Phoenix Ignition]

Maindeck is 59 cards, did you forget the Forked Bolt?

4 Paths always strikes me as too many in a deck like this. You have a lot of draw/filter to hit one if you need it, but you have a shitload of burn to clear out most things. It's a dead card too often. Against a lot of decks you really don't even want to be pathing things early, making it a bad removal spell most of the time. Some decks, like merfolk or jund, love having extra mana anyway, turning on more creaturelands and the like. Obviously they'd prefer to keep their creature, but the difference between path and burn is going to be huge. Another question to ask is "if I need to cast more than one Path in a game, and burn wouldn't have done the trick, will I end up winning that game anyway?" I know there are cases where the answer is yes, but do they outweigh the number of games you lose by a few points of damage holding Paths or the games where the extra tempo from the land puts the game out of reach? The game where your opponent is casting fatty after fatty and you aren't countering them or dealing the final blow for lethal are probably lost regardless of pathing it or not, a lot of the time. Add on top of this that if the game goes long you are likely to have access to Path + Snapcaster if truly necessary. Path is basically a "turn target creature into a rampant growth," which for eating up one of your cards isn't necessarily that devastating.

I like Opt a lot for this deck, it lets you do something if you're holding up mana and don't need to counter.

Swiftspear seems like a necessary evil in this deck. You're right you won't be casting many spells for Prowess if you're holding up counterspells, but I think it's inclusion is literally just "I need a fast creature to put pressure on the opponent and they only let me put 4 Delvers in." In that context you only have a few options, assuming you want to keep your 2 mana open to counter some decks, Goblin Guide helps the opponent too much in a tempo deck that hopes to hold them off longer than burn would, Grim Lavamancer can't put a lot of pressure on the opponent early on, and the only other option in your colors is Steppe Lynx. Steppe Lynx requires a lot more fetchlands than you're currently playing and since you really want access to all of your mana would probably make you take a lot more damage per game than is comfortable. Swiftspear still has the out-of-nowhere kill threat and probably most importantly can trade with a goyf if you use a lightning bolt (along with tasigur, g angler, and most other creatures for that matter). Taking it out doesn't just make you slower, it makes your deck reliant on finding Delver. You need a threat so your Remands actually slow the game down enough to win, and so people don't have time to cast baits into your Deprives. It's also deceptively powerful. How many times would an opponent be comfortable blocking with something even as big as Courser of Kruphix? If someone attacks into me with a Swiftspear and I have that for defense, I would almost never choose to block it for all of the shenanigans that might happen.

I could see vendillion clique being a great addition because you're holding up mana for counterspells anyway. Not sure what I'd take out for it though.

I'd probably do
-1 Peek (worse than Opt)
-1 or 2 Path


+2 Opt
+1 Lavamancer if you find room

[Mr. Safety]

Nice thoughts, thanks. I did forget the forked bolt!

I did drop Peek (mentioned above) and I do agree that 4 paths is too many. That's an easy spot for another Opt.

I had swiftspear, it was just so underwhelming. I get that it may be a necessary evil. In quite a few games already I found her outclassed quickly. I do like clearing a path and attacking for 2, but it happened so rarely.

How do you feel about cutting remand altogether in favor of swiftspear? I like the idea of my counters all being hard counters.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I think dropping Remand is fine, it's always a fine card but usually not a great one. It gets better the higher the average cost of spells is, so against Tron it's pretty good at stopping O stone or whatever, but if you're trying to stop someone from Fatal Pushing your Delver it's pretty bad.

I think this forum drops old threads so you can't find it without searching, but I once made a Jeskai delver list of my own. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...nastery-Mentor

I don't think it's worth using Monastery Mentor now that Gitaxian Probe is gone (unless maybe using Mishra's Bauble? Would need to test to make a real decision on that), but my burn + disruption suite I remember being very good at the time. I had done a lot of testing with these two, leading to:

I've been testing a lot and am at a crossroads in deck designs. I've updated the OP with the 2 different decks, and they both have strengths and weaknesses, which manifests in winrates vs specific decks.

Without Gitaxian Probe, some of the deck design would change now. Young Pyromancer is still good, so that might be a consideration. It was particularly good in the grindier matchups like Jund and I bet grixis DS now. I liked Dispels since it countered everything but Abrupt Decay, so if you could keep up 1 mana your creatures would be safe, but as you can see in the more aggressive list they didn't warrant inclusion for reasons I don't remember now. I'm guessing it was just too reactionary and you'd be better off with accepting the 1 for 1 and using your card to play another Swiftspear or something. As your creatures become cheaper the amount of effort you should go to to protect them also tends to go down.

[Mr. Safety]

Did some reading on that old thread, agree on mentor.

How do you feel about young pyro in the current meta? Soulfire grandmaster?

[Phoenix Ignition]

I'm not really sure on YP. It's a great card generally but it might not help you in the stuff you're already losing to. Since the deck isn't built around prowess it isn't an auto-include, but you do play a lot of cantrips which is the prerequisite for it being powerful. I think it warrants testing at least, but probably won't be a 4-of ever.

I've never been a fan of Soulfire GM. Against most matchups his ability is next to useless and in the ones you want him you'd probably be better off with more Snacpaster for Lightning Helix or Dispel. I only like him in hodgepodge decks while cubing since his copy ability is fun (not really modern relevant most of the time) and you can sometimes Pyroclasm with him out (which is also a bad move in modern).