Welcome Magic lovers!
With the recent Standard rotation, which coincides with the release of the latest set, Edge of Eternities, and coming hot off the heels of the biggest Standard ban in twenty years, it's safe to say that the format is currently a deck-brewer's paradise.
While the Regional Championship Qualifier season has officially started, we haven't started seeing results from the highly-competitive RCQ tournaments that will be happening very soon. This means that the format is mostly directionless, with the only real competitive data coming in the form of Magic Online Standard Challenge results. That, in turn, means that the Magic Arena ranked ladder, as well as the leagues on Magic Online, are full of players trying out new ideas, going back to tried-and-true strategies to see if they have any life left, and determining if there are any hidden gems to unearth in Standard with which to gain an advantage come tournament time.
In that same vein, today we’ll be going over a truly spicy brew that I’ve been working on recently, Jeskai Teachings. I was originally turned on to this deck by my Twitch community member, okiscoop, and I believe it was also briefly explored by Saffronolive of MTGgoldfish.
The Plan
As its name implies, the deck's key card is one of the most historically popular control cards ever printed, Mystical Teachings. It's an instant-speed spell with the most powerful four words a Magic: the Gathering card can have on it, 'Search your library for…', which allows the pilot to fetch any instant or card with flash out of their deck and put it into their hand. This is obviously very inherently powerful, but to truly shine, it needs to be surrounded by a cadre of the highest caliber instants and flash creatures in the format.
At its core, it's very much a control deck, surviving into the late game and grinding the opponent into dust with the card advantage that Mystical Teachings provides, which requires playing plenty of early interaction to ensure one isn't steamrolled by a deck like mono-red aggro.
Thus, starting at the bottom of the curve, we see plenty of cheap interaction. A playset of Get Lost is backed by a trio of Lightning Helix. Fire Magic is also here to sweep up any go-wide strategies or even just pick off a couple of pesky one-toughness creatures.
Following that up are a couple of ways to take out larger threats in the form of Broadside Barrage as well as the new Emergency Eject, which has the flexibility of hitting any non-land permanent. The downside of giving the opponent a Lander token is rarely relevant. Playing just one copy of cards like these may seem odd, but remember, the whole deck is a toolbox when one is playing Mystical Teachings, turning these removal spells into silver bullets to be called upon when the time is right.
As any control mage will attest to, sometimes spot removal simply isn't enough, and that's when one needs to bust out the big guns: the sweepers. Day of Judgment and Ultima do an admirable job of cleaning up the board, but sadly they are only sorcery-speed, and therefore can't be fetched up by Mystical Teachings. This is why the deck runs one final sweeper: Final Showdown. While expensive to cast, it's the perfect card to fetch up with Teachings late in the game in order to sweep the opponent on their turn, even hitting the hard-to-interact-with creature lands, out of nowhere. It can often be kicked to protect one's own threat, such as Horned Loch-Whale, or even a monk token produced by Jeskai Revelation.
Speaking of which, this deck is packing some serious top-end firepower with the full four copies of Jeskai Revelation to go far over the top of what most opponents are doing in any given game, and end things in short order. It can, of course, be fetched by Teachings, which means the pilot will almost always have access to it in the late-game. One of the trickier things to learn with the deck is when to simply fetch up a Revelation and go for the kill, as the monk tokens can easily swing for twelve or more damage out of nowhere. Learning when to switch gears once the board is stable, and knowing how to sequence your spells to create lethal damage in one turn, is the key to winning with this list.
Still, having only four win conditions isn't often enough, especially against decks that may be able to strip specific cards out of one's library, like many black-based lists with Deadly Cover-Up or Ancient Vendetta. This is where the Horned Loch-Whale shines, as it's a second way to end the game quickly that can also be fetched with Teachings, while also being relevant early as a two-mana tempo play.
Additional silver bullets include Tishana's Tidebinder, which has utility against almost every opposing deck in the format, and a couple of Three Steps Ahead as a hard counter plus card-draw spell that sometimes gets to copy the Loch-Whale and present lethal damage.
However, with all these moving pieces, it's crucial to be able to dig through the deck, not just with Mystical Teachings, but also to find land drops in order to keep casting bigger and bigger spells. This is where new Edge of Eternities banger, Consult the Star Charts comes in. It's really the perfect control card, as it lets one dig early for land for just two mana, then comes down later as a bigger, better Dig Through Time in order to find anything the pilot needs in any given situation. Being able to find one with a Mystical Teachings is also fantastic. Consult is also backed up by a pair of Stock Up in order to give the deck even more ways to fill the tank with gas.
The Lands
I'm currently playing twenty-six lands in this version, but the deck feels so mana-hungry that I've even experimented with twenty-seven. One must strive to make land drops consistently throughout the entire game, even up to nine and ten mana or more, in order to be able to not only cast seven-mana bombs like Jeskai Revelation, but to also be able to fetch something expensive with Mystical Teachings and cast it in the same turn. This means that oftentimes one must take a land as one of their cards from Stock Up or Consult the Star Charts. Don't be too greedy and take only spells, even if you already have six or seven lands in play!
With eighteen white, seventeen blue, and sixteen red sources, the mana has felt smooth. Splashing black for the flashback on Mystical Teachings comes in the form of a playset of Starting Town, a Godless Shrine, and a Raucous Theater, giving us six sources total. This may seem low, but flashing back a Teachings is really only something one does deep into the late-game, around turn ten or so. By then, one has typically found their black source.
The Sideboard
The sideboard is a smorgasbord of instant-speed answers to very specific things an opponent may be playing.
Against aggressive decks, a pair of Elspeth's Smite and Fire Magic can come in as cheap ways to blow away creatures.
Abrade and Scorching Dragonfire, while also good against low-to-the-ground creature decks, also have utility against pesky artifacts like Agatha's Soul Cauldron or sticky creatures like Enduring Curiosity or Enduring Innocence.
Kutzil's Flanker and Cease // Desist are excellent against graveyard-based decks, while the latter can also do great work against enchantment or artifact-heavy decks, such as Simulacrum Synthesizer or Overlords. Disenchant has some overlap here also.
Negate, Disdainful Stroke, and Stoic Sphinx are all excellent against other control decks, though this Jeskai Teachings deck tends to have an excellent matchup there already.
As a final sideboard note, remember that every one of these cards can be instantly fetched with Mystical Teachings, which means despite only playing a couple of copies, one will see these cards every single time they're brought in.
Conclusion
I must say, this deck is one of the most fun lists I’ve played in recent memory, as it’s simply a joy to have this much agency over which cards one gets to play in any given game. Being able to fetch up almost any card in the deck at any time makes it feel like it’s impossible to lose, as long as one correctly finds the right tool for the job in each situation that presents itself.
However, therein lies the only issue: this is a very tricky deck to pilot. One has to constantly keep a tally of which spells are left in the deck to go find and which one is the best to get in any given situation. Running out of win conditions is also something that one must keep in mind, and knowing when to turn the corner and kill the opponent in one or two turns with a Revelation on the opponent's end step, into two or three spells on one's own turn, including a Lightning Helix to burn them and pump the monk tokens for lethal, is crucial.
Practice, learn the myriad lines of play that the deck can present you with, and you will not only find success with this list, but have a blast killing your opponents with it!
