Intro

Hello and welcome to my Jeskai Oculus Deck Guide. I just came back from Commentating Regional Championship Bologna and I am happy to share with you all what I learned about one of the best decks in Standard, and perhaps a great choice going forward into a sea of Izzet Prowess. 

If I had played Bologna myself, I would have played Jeskai Oculus, closely followed by Izzet Prowess and Jeskai Control in distant third. 

Jeskai Oculus is extremely powerful, proactive and has many strong matchups across the board, including Izzet Prowess. The deck is difficult to master, so hopefully this article can help you become a better Jeskai Oculus Pilot. 

Looking at the Bologna results, Jeskai Oculus didn’t break through to the Top8, but left many players finishing in the Top32 gaining an invite to Pro Tour Atlanta in September. Oculus’s performance on first glance might look weak in comparison to Izzet Prowess who took down the whole event, but if you take a look at the winrate data collected out by the fantastic Frank Karsten, the difference between Jeskai Oculus and Izzet Prowess in winrate is marginal. They both were the big winners of the event, Oculus having an overall winrate against the field of 54.6% and Prowess a strong 55.8% showcasing that in taking down the event with three copies of the deck in the Top4. In the heads-up between the two, Oculus comes out ahead with a 54% winrate against Prowess which reflects what I learned in my testing for the event. And this is great news for Oculus fans, not only did the deck fly under the radar by not posing any Top8 players, but it also has a positive matchup against the most popular deck in the format. A really good spot to be in if you ask me. 

The name Jeskai Oculus is a bit of a misguidance. I think what fits the deck as a name better would be Jeskai Proft. But both of them are true in their own ways. I think this misconception makes the deck even stronger, it’s barely a graveyard reliant deck, it can easily just play a game of Proft + creatures + card draw and overwhelm the opponent that way. And your opponent’s might be thinking that if they bring in a ton of graveyard hate for Abhorrent Oculus, they will be fine, which is far from the truth. Proft’s Eidetic Memory is an incredible engine, amounting to a ton of power over the course of a game and at worst replacing itself for just two mana. I jokingly call it the blue Up the Beanstalk. Proft staying in play is how you win most games. The threat of Abhorrent Oculus reanimated on Turn 3 is the Plan B. 

Compared to previous iterations, Jeskai Oculus is now able to kill the opponent on Turn 4 if uninterrupted, Marauding Mako being the main perpetrator. I’ve done  so multiples already. It usually includes Fear of Missing Out with Delirium enabled. The curve of Marauding Mako into Fomo/Proft into Tersa, Lightshatter/Steamcore Scholar is truly powerful and amasses to a ton of power and toughness on Turn 3 of the game going over the top of what other creature decks can put on the table by that time. 

Card Choices

The untouchable core of the deck are four copies of Steamcore Scholar, Profit’s Eidetic Memory, Abhorrent Oculus, Fear of Missing Out and Helping Hand. 

Both Steamcore Scholar and Fear of Missing Out are your best enablers for your Plan A (Proft) and your Plan B (Oculus). To support the Proft Plan further the deck wants a good amount of aggression and creatures to put counters on. Curving a one mana creature into Proft is of course where you want to be and therefore we see four copies of Marauding Mako and two copies of Spyglass Siren to play on Turn One. Some players split them differently, but I am a fan of the red creature as it poses a bigger threat and you can cycle it away in the late game to find something better or even to enable delirium. Additionally it can wear Sheltered by Ghosts a lot better than Siren can. 

Tersa Lightshatter is exceptionally good with Proft’s Eidetic Memory and can deal a ton of damage early on. The secondary ability is online fairly quickly in this deck for some extra value. The restriction of being legendary does come up and was relevant to me to go down to two copies. That fact that and being both worse into removal than Steamcore Scholar and and you having to discard first before drawing compared to Scholar makes her the secondary choice. I am really happy with two copies of Tersa though, it adds that extra consistency and helps curving out. 

I am a big fan of Winternight Stories and would love to make room for another copy in the 75, but space is tight. The format is also pretty fast right now, so there is less time for the amazing card advantage spell. The card functions well with both Plan A and Plan B. I am happy to have access to it as a 1-of for grindy games against black Midrange and Control decks. 

Of course we need some interaction as well. Four copies of Torch the Tower make up your primary removal spell. You can sacrifice Map tokens, redundant Profts and even Fear of Missing Out to enable the Bargain. The format is dominated by small creatures as we all know, both Pixie and red decks hate playing against Torch the Tower. 

Glacial Dragonhunt is a very synergistic removal spell. Although sorcery speed, the power of the card is enormous in the deck and I would rather play more than less. Two feels like a good number in the format right now. In the case of your opponent not having a creature you can cycle it or even discard a land to grow Mako and get further to Delirium. Discard Oculus on Turn 2 is an option too, but beware that you do have to target something with the three damage, it’s not a may. I’ve seen ladder opponents kill their own Mako on Turn 2.

A copy of Sheltered by Ghosts, accompanied by more in the sideboard, is a meta call against the two most played decks in the format - MonoRed Aggro and Izzet Prowess. No card can get you back into a game better than this one and between a grown Mako, Proft buffing your creatures and Oculus you shouldn’t have trouble finding a sizable creature to suit up. 

Two copies of Spell Pierce give you some cover against sweepers, Abuelo’s Awakening and an early Cori-Steel Cutter. They are also great at protecting your reanimated Abhorrent Oculus. 

A wonderful thing about this deck and playing some of these 1-ofs is that you are able to loot/rummage so much which makes you find these cards and also throw them away when they are bad in the moment. The one copy of Sheltered by Ghosts has already swung a lot of Game 1s heavily into my favor. 

The manabase feels fairly clean as is to me. I have not been impressed with Restless Anchorage which some players are running. You usually have things to do with your mana that are better than activating a manland. Eight painlands seems fine, you do have a good amount of generic mana that you can use the colorless payment of the painlands for. As long as you have at least one painless land you should be fine. In comparison Esper Pixie has more trouble with painlands as it plays fewer cards with generic mana cost in them. The deck is essentially an Izzet deck with a light splash for five white cards in the main and more white in the sideboard, reflected by the manabase focussing on Izzet dual lands plus having one Mountain and one Island.

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun did not make my final list. While I had it as a 1-of for a while, it just felt really bad whenever it got shocked. I think you realistically don’t need it. Your curve is good, it just adds extra risk and is bad versus removal. Upside is the trample ability on your big creatures and synergy with Fear of Missing Out, but I haven’t really missed the card since cutting it. 

Recommission used to be a 2-of for a long time in this deck. While I do think the card is pretty solid in the deck, it does not work well with your Plan A and makes you more reliant on your graveyard and Plan B. I haven’t really missed the card either. Helping Hand costing one mana less is a big deal.

Into the Flood Maw and Bounce Off are strong in the metagame, but fall shortly behind their competitors Glacial Dragonhunt and Sheltered by Ghosts in my estimation. I wouldn’t scold anyone for playing those bounce spells instead, but I do think the two mana options are serving the deck better in the current metagame. 

Bitter Reunion is a bit too slow nowadays. Spending two mana with no board impact isn’t great. Glacial Dragonhunt is the superior two mana play in this creature heavy metagame.

Sideboard

Two copies of Ghost Vacuum don’t need much explaining. Your cheap graveyard exiling effect, that not like Rest in Peace, affects only your opponent. I haven’t gotten to try Kutzil’s Flanker yet, with Helping Hand in your deck there might be some appeal to the card. I could also see the Flanker replacing a counterspell in the sideboard. 

Two additional Sheltered by Ghosts. I have found this to be the best card against MonoRed and very good against Izzet Prowess. Against MonoRed it’s great on a red creature of yours as they can’t Lithomantic Barrage it effectively. Setting that up and exiling a Screaming Nemesis is usually how I win against MonoRed.

Izzet Prowess has Into the Flood Maw, so you do have to be careful with your Sheltered by Ghosts, but I still found it to be one of the best catch-up effects and ways to steal a game against them. You can protect from the bounce with Spell Pierce or exile an Otter or Monk Token with Sheltered, gain some life during the attack and let them bounce your guy in their turn if you are afraid of Into the Flood Maw. That can lead to enough of a Tempo Swing to pull you back into the game. 

I like the counterspell split in the sideboard especially in Open Decklists. Makes it harder for them to play against you. No More Lies and Disdainful Stroke are important against Overlords, Beza and the new powerful Dragons from Tarkir Dragonstorm. Keep an eye out for a turn six Marang River Regent out of Azorius Omniscience, that card can stabilize them really well against you. 

Loran of the Third Path, Exorcise and two copies of Destroy Evil are all excellent in their own way right now. Commonly used to blow Up Rest in Peace, Temporary Lockdown and of course Ghost Vacuum. They come in against many many matchups and are some of your best sideboard cards.

High Noon is your Izzet Prowess hate card. I found this one to be the best. Playing it on Turn 2 slows them down immensely. Shutting off the ability to Flurry is huge and if they have to use Into the Flood Maw on it to gain some traction in the game, you are happy, as that means less bounce for your Sheltered by Ghosts enchanted creatures down the line. Some people run Pyroclasm as Izzet hate, while I think the card is fine as a 1-of it is a lot more situational than High Noon. High Noon is always going to be fantastic on Turn 2 and there isn’t much playing around it from their side either. I also tried Magebane Lizard, but was less impressed with that one as they are able to still cast all their spells and go crazy. If you are on the draw the life points they lose are not that impactful and Lizard isn’t a good blocker in the face of Monstrous Rage. It is kinda cute with Sheltered by Ghosts though, as you do gain as much life as Magebane Lizard deals damage from its trigger.

Two copies of Chandra, Spark Hunter round out the sideboard to give you an alternative threat that plays around sweepers and can win a game by itself unanswered.

I would love to include a copy of Abrade in the sideboard to gain some flexibility against Ghost Vacuum decks that also play a lot of small creatures. 

An additional copy of Winternight Stories feels highly desirable as well, as that card is very strong into the Pixie Decks and Black Midrange. 

Unfortunately the slots are very tight. I think the least important sideboard cards are the 2nd copy of Chandra, Spark Hunter, one of the three counterspells and the 2nd copy of Sheltered by Ghosts. But they all have their merits and I do like all of them enough right now to prefer them over Abrade and Winternight Stories.

The good Matchups

Both MonoRed Aggro and Izzet Prowess I found to be positive matchups for Jeskai Oculus. Oculus producing an immense amount of power and toughness via both their plans and threatening a giant Oculus early in the game overpowers the red decks effectively. Combined with cheap interaction and Sheltered by Ghosts you have yourself a good matchup against the two most played decks in the format. 

Esper Pixie is kind enough to help you with growing your Marauding Makos and enabling your Helping Hand. Their removal spells lineup poorly against you as Nowhere to Run is quickly outsized by Proft and This Town Ain’t Big Enough is only good against your Abhorrent Oculus. Similarly to the red matchup, Jeskai Oculus gets on the board quickly here and overpowers the opposing side.

Azorius Omniscience has trouble with your ability to play around Temporary Lockdown, Torch the Tower on the 1/1 Spirit and Spell Pierce in Game 1. Postboard things get even worse for them as you bring in tools to disrupt their combo and ways to effectively deal with Marang River Regent and Temporary Lockdown.

Jeskai Control’s removal doesn’t line up well against your bigger creatures. Proft is able to literally outgrind and overpower Shiko, Paragon’s Way. Another matchup where Spell Pierce in the main deck shines. You have a ton of strong sideboard cards to bring in here to improve the matchup further and to get rid of all your bad removal spells in the main deck.

The bad Matchups

Domain Ramp was the nemesis of the deck Pre-Tarkir release and it still is, but less so. Jeskai is faster now via Marauding Mako and Tersa Lightshatter. You can go under them, apply pressure with your early plays holding up counterspells for their sweepers, Zur and Overlord. Game 1 isn’t easy, but postboard you do bring in a lot of cards to make the matchup somewhat competitive.

It shows that Dimir Midrange is a poor matchup in the winrate data from RC Bologna by Frank Karsten. That did surprise me a little, as I didn’t have much trouble in the matchup in my personal experience. I suppose black removal spells, perhaps a card like Dreams of Steel and Oil and annoying high toughness threats like Sheoldred and Preacher can stir problems especially in Game 1. Proft is excellent here as is Steamcore Scholar. Torch the Tower can deal with Enduring Curiosity and Deep-Cavern Bat. The matchup seems to be bad on paper, but similarly to how you overpower Esper Pixie, I think you can do the same against Dimir Midrange.

All in all Jeskai Oculus looks fantastic in the metagame as of right now. Poses a good matchup against the likely most popular deck going forward in Izzet Prowess and flew under the radar in Bologna due to not showing up in the Top8. Great position to be in if you ask me.

Tips & Tricks

Jeskai Oculus is one of the most difficult decks to play in Standard, so I’ll give you some tips and tricks to help you pilot the deck yourself.

I’ll start with the big one that deserves the most understanding - Fear of Missing Out. I think this is the best card in the deck for what it’s worth, it’s close between the red creature and some of the other core cards, but Fear of Missing Out can win you games out of nowhere like no other card can. Getting to Delirium early on in the game should be a priority if you have Fear in hand or play already. Try to work towards, even by discarding two cards to Steamcore Scholar to achieve so. Especially in the matchups where you have to race or kill your opponent rather quickly before they take over, like Omniscience or Domain Ramp. 

Fear combos well with Vigilance creatures as they can freely attack a second time. That means you want to buff up your Steamcore Scholar with Proft more than other creatures. Loran also has Vigilance for your information. Fear of Missing Out retriggers “Beginning of Combat” Triggers like the one from Proft, so you can redistribute more power. Same is true for Chandra, Spark Hunter. If you have multiple Vehicles, you can crew another time during the bonus combat from Fear of Missing Out. If you have one big creature without Vigilance and two copies of Fear with Delirium in play you might want to attack with one Fear at a time to untap your big creature twice and have it ready for both additional combats, that can happen with Oculus, threatening fifteen damage in the air. The Fear plus Proft synergy makes the deck capable of enormous damage outputs.

The other tricky part of the deck to learn and understand is which cards to discard when and where. You are working towards three different things with your graveyard. Delirium, Tersa Threshold and reanimation of creatures, preferably Abhorrent Oculus. In addition to that you might want to discard more cards at times to grow your Marauding Mako or to buff your creatures further with Proft. So you have to make your early discard decisions with all these things in mind. Often it is correct to throw your first copy of Oculus in the bin on Turn 2 or 3, that’s the easy decision. Down the line it might be wise to keep the second copy and work towards hardcasting it, relevant against Ghost Vacuum in postboard games for example. Gaining Delirium is huge and powers up your Fear of Missing Out immensely, so try to find ways to work towards that or set it up over the course of two turns by thinking what you are able to discard this turn and the following turn to get to your goal of Delirium.

It’s often correct to play Proft on an empty board on Turn 2 rather than playing a Fear of Missing Out. Reason could be that your opponent is holding up Nowhere to Run, Lightning Strike or Go for the Throat. Another major one would be that you want to cast Tersa or Steamcore Scholar on Turn 3. If you don’t have any of these it likely is correct to play Fear of Missing Out on Turn 2. Consider, though, that you would like to delay your decision to discard to Fear of Missing Out further if possible, extra draws prior to help you find the missing Oculus that you needed to combine with your Helping Hand as an example. 

The cherry on top as always is my sideboarding strategy. I hope you enjoyed reading the guide and I wish you best of luck in your upcoming Standard tournaments!

Jeskai Oculus Sideboarding

Izzet Prowess

+2 High Noon +2 Sheltered by Ghosts +1 Loran of the Third Path

-2 Spyglass Siren -1 Winternight Stories -1 Abhorrent Oculus -1 Helping Hand

Jeskai Oculus

+2 Destroy Evil +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path +2 Ghost Vacuum

-2 Spell Pierce -1 Abhorrent Oculus -1 Helping Hand -1 Spyglass Siren -1 Sheltered by Ghosts

Jeskai Control

+1 Disdainful Stroke +1 No More Lies +1 Negate +2 Chandra, Spark Hunter +2 Destroy Evil +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path

-4 Torch the Tower -1 Sheltered by Ghosts -2 Glacial Dragonhunt -1 Marauding Mako -1 Abhorrent Oculus

Domain

+1 Disdainful Stroke +1 No More Lies +1 Negate +2 Chandra, Spark Hunter +2 Destroy Evil +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path 

-4 Torch the Tower -1 Sheltered by Ghosts -2 Glacial Dragonhunt -2 Spyglass Siren

Dimir Midrange

+2 Destroy Evil +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path +2 Chandra, Spark Hunter 

-2 Spell Pierce -1 Helping Hand -1 Abhorrent Oculus -1 Sheltered by Ghosts -1 Marauding Mako

Esper Pixie

+1 Loran of the Third Path +1 Exorcise +2 Chandra, Spark Hunter 

-1 Sheltered by Ghosts -2 Spell Pierce -1 Tersa Lightshatter

MonoRed Aggro

+2 Sheltered by Ghosts +1 Loran of the Third Path

-1 Winternight Stories -2 Spell Pierce

Azorius Omniscience

+2 Ghost Vacuum +1 No More Lies +1 Disdainful Stroke +1 Negate +2 Destroy Evil +1 Exorcise +1 High Noon

-1 Sheltered by Ghosts -4 Torch the Tower -2 Glacial Dragonhunt -1 Winternight Stories -1 Proft’s Eidetic Memory

Orzhov Pixie

+2 Chandra, Spark Hunter +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path +2 Destroy Evil 

-2 Spell Pierce -2 Torch the Tower -1 Sheltered by Ghosts -1 Marauding Mako

Golgari Midrange

+2 Chandra, Spark Hunter +1 Exorcise +1 Loran of the Third Path +2 Destroy Evil 

-1 Sheltered by Ghosts -2 Spell Pierce -2 Torch the Tower -1 Abhorrent Oculus

Hope you enjoyed reading and best of luck in your upcoming Standard tournaments