Welcome Magic lovers!
The Standard format has seen some incredible shifts recently, with the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm and the birth of a new archetype, Izzet Aggro, throwing the established tier 1 decks into flux.
However, with all the attention on new, breakout superstar Cori-Steel Cutter, it's easy to miss the other powerful additions to Standard that have elevated several of the other top decks to new heights. We spoke last time about the updates to the Omniscience Combo deck, which has since earned its spot in tier 1 by clinching a number of top finishes in recent Regional Championships, but today let's focus on what may be the strongest, and most difficult to pilot, deck in the format: Jeskai Oculus.
The Plan
While Jeskai Oculus was initially a deck built around trying to get Abhorrent Oculus into play early with a Helping Hand or Recommission, now the deck no longer needs to rely on that plan to win games. Indeed, having an excellent suite of early threats means the Oculus plan is just another angle of attack for the deck, making it very tricky to pin down for the opponent.
Starting at the bottom of the mana curve, we first encounter the potent new one-drop, Marauding Mako. This innocuous little shark pirate can grow very quickly. Curving Mako into Fear of Missing Out on turn two makes it a 2/2. Follow that up with a Tersa, Lightshatter or Steamcore Scholar and it quickly grows to a 5/5, attacking on turn three. In addition, many lists are now packing a few Guardian of New Benalia, which can potentially discard any number of cards at instant speed to grow the shark to massive proportions at a whim and crash in for huge amounts of damage. Add to this the buyout clause on Marauding Mako of cycling for two mana late in the game when it's a dead draw, and you have a very powerful, one-mana creature.
The aforementioned Fear of Missing Out is an incredible creature that can set up combo turns to take one's opponent from twenty life to zero in one fell swoop. Its ability to create a second combat phase means cards like Proft's Eidetic Memory and Tersa Lightshatter trigger twice in one turn, which can easily be enough to present lethal damage or swing the game heavily in the Jeskai player's favor.
Steamcore Scholar may not look like the most aggressive creature on its face, but it's the perfect creature on which to stack the +1/+1 counters from Proft's Eidetic Memory. The fact that it can fly makes it hard to block, while its vigilance ability allows it to play offense and defense. It's often the creature that gets a second attack via the Fear of Missing Out ability for this reason. It also happens to filter one's draws, put Oculus in the graveyard to set up a Helping Hand, and also turn on the delirium ability of Fear of Missing Out. It really is one of the lynchpin cards of the deck and something the Jeskai pilot wants to draw every, single game.
Tersa Lightshatter is the other new addition from Tarkir: Dragonstorm that's a perfect fit in a deck like this. Similar to Steamcore Scholar, its enter-the-battlefield ability allows one to set up an early Helping Hand on Oculus, power up delirium, or even just set itself up to start casting free spells on attack, once the graveyard is full enough. As if that wasn't enough, another huge advantage is that neither Tersa Lightshatter nor Steamcore Scholar can be taken out by the ubiquitous sweeper, Temporary Lockdown, that many decks are running. This allows the Jeskai pilot to confidently deploy their whole hand, knowing that the opponent can't deal with all of their threats with just one Lockdown.
Moving on to the non-creature spells, we see the full playset of Torch the Tower as the deck's main interaction, which happens to be the best spot removal spell against the cheap, aggressive red decks that currently make up the majority of Standard. It's cheap, it exiles, and it can be scaled up to do three damage for one mana, which makes it the most efficient answer the deck has. Abrade also makes an appearance in the flex slot of this list as a nod to the blue-red aggro decks running Cori-Steel Cutter.
A pair of Spell Pierce are here as the only other interaction, mainly to protect one's large threats like Oculus or a pumped-up Scholar, and to slow down the Omniscience Combo deck.
In addition, many lists have started playing a pair of Sheltered by Ghosts, which is a powerful removal spell that not only removes a blocker or attacker from the opponent's side of the board, but it can also give one of Jeskai's large creatures lifelink in order to crush the aggressive decks, be it an Oculus or just a pumped-up Steamcore Scholar. The reality is that most of the red decks won't be able to remove a four-toughness (or larger) threat, so if its controller additionally starts gaining life equal to that creature's power, it's game over.
Alongside the removal suite are the powerful enablers, namely Proft's Eidetic Memory and Helping Hand. Despite being legendary, the list plays no less than the full four copies, as Proft's can quickly grow the deck's creatures into massive powerhouses almost instantly, as there are several ways to discard multiple cards, from Steamcore Scholar and Tersa Lightshatter, to Guardian of New Benalia and Winternight Stories. This means Proft's can often put three-to-five power into play in the form of +1/+1 counters in one turn, and if the recipient of those counters is evasive or if one can set up an additional combat step, that's often enough to end the game on the spot. Additional copies can always be played in a pinch in order to cycle into a new card and get an extra +1/+1 counter on something.
Helping Hand has been a mainstay in the archetype since the deck was only two colors, and that's not changing anytime soon. Setting up a turn three Abhorrent Oculus is very easy to do, via a turn two Fear of Missing Out or Guardian of New Benalia, plus a Helping Hand the next turn. The massive, evasive body coming down that early is already a huge problem for the low-to-the-ground decks in the format, while the late-game decks struggle to beat the stream of free creatures that the Oculus produces if it sticks around. While cheating in an Oculus is obviously the most powerful thing Helping Hand does, it can also bring back any other creature in the deck, and there are many spots where returning a Tersa or Scholar to draw cards and trigger Proft's, or Guardian or Fear of Missing Out to deal a ton of damage out of nowhere is actually the correct play. This makes Helping Hand extremely versatile, and at one mana, a very difficult card to counter effectively.
A single copy of Winternight Stories rounds out the non-creature spells as an additional form of card advantage that can also trigger Proft's and Marauding Mako, while setting up the graveyard for Tersa and FOMO. It's the perfect flex card as it synergizes nicely with everything else the deck is doing.
The Mana
Most three-color Standard decks tend to struggle with their mana base, and this Jeskai deck is no exception. With such a low curve (nothing costs more than three mana), the deck only runs twenty-two lands. That means with only fifteen red sources, fourteen blue, and thirteen white, there are going to be some awkward draws. Most lists can only run one or two basic lands, and none of them have any room for utility or come-into-play-tapped lands of any kind. This makes mulligan decisions tricky, and rewards experienced pilots who know what to keep and what to send back based on their odds of drawing the colors they need to cast their spells.
Blue and red are the most important colors in the deck, while white is less of a necessity, especially early in the game. This is one of the factors that makes Jeskai Oculus one of the more difficult Standard decks to pilot well.
The Sideboard
The sideboard is kitted out with answers to the most threatening decks out there, such as the Izzet Aggro and Omni-combo. It mostly ignores the aggro decks, as Jeskai Oculus already has a great matchup against them.
Graveyard hate in the form of Ghost Vacuum, and countermagic in the form of No More Lies come in against combo and control decks. Get Lost and Destroy Evil also come in here to deal with Omniscience and Domain.
Loran of the Third Path and The Filigree Sylex do good work against Cori-Steel cutter lists, while Sheltered by Ghosts can also pull its weight in those matchups.
Winternight Stories and Faerie Mastermind come in against control decks and slower decks like Domain in order to try and keep up on the card advantage front.
Conclusion
Jeskai Oculus is proactive and powerful, as it attacks on many different axes, and thus can't easily be pinned down or overcome by a single card or plan. Its cheap creatures are capable of growing rapidly in order to easily overwhelm an opponent lacking in early interaction. When opponents do have the Temporary Lockdown, Jeskai's three-mana threats take over the game.
It can play things slowly and build up to a huge combo turn in order to deal lethal to an opponent out of nowhere, even with a high life total, or it can threaten to cheat in an army-in-a-can like Abhorrent Oculus to take over the game against an unprepared adversary.
Does one side in spells to attack their graveyard, or more cheap removal? Are clunky four-mana sweepers like Day of Judgment even great against them when they have four Helping Hand to rebuild? Temporary Lockdown only hits half of their threats.
That said, the reason it's not dominating the format may actually be due to the deck’s inherent complexity. With countless lines of play, a complex mana base, graveyard interaction, tons of card filtering, and many potential avenues to victory, it’s a very tricky deck to play at a high level. However, master this archetype, and it may just be the best Standard deck you could choose for any given tournament right now.
