Welcome Magic lovers!
With the Standard Regional Championship Qualifier season still weeks away, there a lot of competitive play happening. However, this past weekend, a Standard Showcase Challenge took place; a large tournament with nearly two hundred players all vying for beefed-up prizes on Magic Online. That meant some serious competition, which produced some interesting deck lists.
While the top sixteen decks were almost entirely composed of different and low-curve midrange decks, there was one outlier: an innovative Jeskai control list that made it all the way to the quarterfinals.
The Plan
This iteration of control plays out in a very similar fashion to the Boros deck that I wrote about only a couple of short weeks ago. This one also seeks to get a Caretaker's Talent onto the battlefield and start accruing a massive amount of card advantage, while utilizing cheap red burn spells, tokens, and sweepers to buy the time it needs to put all those freshly drawn cards to good use.
The major difference is that this Jeskai version is splashing blue for Ral, Crackling Wit and Three Steps Ahead in the main deck, with a few more blue cards in the sideboard.
“Wait, that's it?”, I hear you proclaim. Yes! That's all the deck needed to give it the edge in the Caretaker's Talent mirrors and the matchup against the late-game archetypes like Domain ramp, which were problematic for this shell.
Ral, Crackling Wit is a better fit in the deck than Archangel Elspeth, as Ral is much more difficult to kill due to its loyalty increasing with each non-creature spell cast. In addition, the minus three ability is a godsend in the late game when both players are low on resources. Ral's ultimate ability even threatens to end the game sufficiently quickly, to the point that the opponent will often have to waste time and effort attacking this high-loyalty tank.
Archangel Elspeth does still have value in the deck, which is why it's included here, as its abilities are also often relevant, and are distinct enough from Ral's that they intertwine nicely. Ral is certainly a more imposing presence on the battlefield, but Elspeth's ability to pressure planeswalkers by sending a creature to the air, or ticking up to threaten a minus six that brings back any combination of Caretaker's Talent, Urabrask's Forge, and Temporary Lockdown is often too much for the opponent to ignore.
Three Steps Ahead is only counterspell in the deck, and at first may seem like a strange choice here, as its double-blue cost is at odds with blue being the third color in the deck, behind white and red. However, its power and utility is irreplaceable, as many games simply end up revolving around whether or not one's opponent can remove the Caretaker's Talent or Urabrask's Forge that's dominating the game. Being able to protect these cards that threaten to snowball out of control is invaluable, and Three Steps Ahead being not only a counter to protect them, but also card draw and a copy of Urabrask's Forge or Beza, the Bounding Spring in a pinch, makes it the perfect option.
The Interaction
Aside from the hard counter, there are plenty of ways stop one's opponents in their tracks. Torch the Tower and Lightning Helix are excellent at holding off any early assaults, while Temporary Lockdown can be an absolute backbreaker against a lot of different aggressive strategies. Looking at the top 16 of the Standard Showcase Challenge should tell one all they need to know when considering how powerful this three-mana sweeper is right now in the metagame. My list is running three in the main deck and the fourth in the sideboard for this reason.
Sunfall is there to clean up any larger threats, and drawing a card off of Caretaker's Talent when that Incubate token pops into play is the perfect icing on the cake. Non-creature threats can be dealt with easily by the trio of Get Lost, backed up by a couple of Abrades and a single Destroy Evil.
It may appear strange, at first, to see such an odd mix of removal, but there are currently very powerful non-creature threats running around in Standard and there is no single removal spell that tags them all. Innkeeper's Talent and Caretaker's Talent require enchantment removal, while Urabrask's Forge and Simulacrum Synthesizer require artifact removal. Having the flexibility of pointing one's Disenchant at a creature to kill it is the reason you see such an odd mix of spells here, as opposed to simply playing the original white instant (despite it being currently legal in Standard).
The Threats
Alongside the previously mentioned planeswalkers, Archangel Elspeth and Ral, Crackling Wit, we also have a couple of Beza, the Bounding Spring, which is primarily an excellent way to stabilize aggro, but can end the game in a pinch. The major threats come from the pair of Urabrask's Forge and, believe it or not, Caretaker's Talent. The reason Forge is so threatening is self-evident, but the Talent might not be so obviously dangerous to most players at first. However, once one plays with the card, or multiple copies, it quickly becomes apparent how devastating the third level can be. Once it's levelled up fully, Caretaker's Talent turns every token into a threat that must be traded with, from the fish produced by Fountainport, to the initially innocuous rabbits created by Carrot Cake. Imagine this common, two-mana artifact suddenly producing six power worth of creatures across two bodies, while also gaining three life. That's the power of Caretaker's Talent, and it means the deck doesn't need to run any additional ways to close the game.
The Lands
Despite the deck being three colors, it still manages to squeeze in a full five utility lands, which are a big part of how the deck controls the game. Demolition Field is here to provide an answer to an opposing Fountainport, Mirrex, or creature land, while our own Fountainport is here to create a steady stream of blockers or attackers and draw cards. Using Fountainport to apply pressure or stave off an opposing assault allows the Jeskai pilot to conserve the resources in their hand for later in the game, and it's often correct to sit back on this powerful land and just activate it each turn while the opponent leaves up their counterspell or has to commit more of their hand to the board in order to deal with the value that's being produced.
The Sideboard
The sideboard is the other reason to play Jeskai over Boros when choosing which Caretaker's Talent deck to run. Negate is excellent right now for the same reason the other non-creature removal is: the most powerful cards currently seeing play in the Standard format aren't creatures. Tishana's Tidebinder is an incredible card for the same reason, as it shuts off a Urabrask's Forge, while also attacking and blocking in a pinch. The fact that Tidebinder can't permanently shut off enchantments is unfortunate, but not a dealbreaker by any means. Often, simply stifling the trigger once an opponent has sunk a bunch of mana into leveling up their enchantment is enough to swing a close game. The rest of the sideboard is pretty self-explanatory, and I covered it in the last article here.
Conclusion
Jeskai Control seems like the natural evolution of the Boros deck that did well a couple of weeks ago. It's got the same, powerful core, but splashing blue gives it the edge against the other red-white Caretaker's Talent/Urabrask's Forge decks, as well as a better game against Domain Ramp, one of Boros' worst matchups. Take this new build for a spin and see if it's all it's cracked up to be!
