Play Jeskai Control to beat up on the red decks | Magic: The Gathering

Intro

Pro Tour Final Fantasy is in the books. MonoRed Aggro and Izzet Prowess each taking up four slots in the Top8 with Ken Yukuhiro ultimately taking down the tournament with MonoRed Aggro.
Jeskai Control was my weapon of choice for this event to beat up on MonoRed and Izzet Prowess. I played those matchups six times during the event and went 4-2. In both losses I made errors that could have changed the outcome, one of those losses was actually against Yukuhiro early in the tournament. More on that later. I was happy with the deck choice and I think it looks even better going forward.
Here is the list my testing mates Jesse Hampton, Zevin Faust, Charles Wong and I registered for Pro Tour Final Fantasy.

Lightning Helix, Temporary Lockdown, Beza, the Bounding Spring and Day of Judgment
serve as excellent tools against red aggression. Not much explanation needed there. Going
into testing the two main concerns with Jeskai Control were the UW Omniscience and the
Dimir Midrange matchup. I will get into detail on all these matchups and how to approach
them. Especially the Omniscience matchup is very intricate and I believe I found a good plan
to tangle it. Good enough to convince the four of us to play the deck.

One of the biggest downsides of this deck is how hard it is to play and that time can become
an issue if you are not playing at a good pace. An additional negative is closed decklists, I do
believe open Decklists favors Jeskai Control more than it does other decks. I just want you
to be aware of these flaws, no sugarcoating from me. Let’s dive into the important matchups
and our plans for them.

Matchups and Sideboarding

Izzet Prowess

Game 1 is heavily favored for you. They are the aggressor and you just need ways to handle
Cori-Steel Cutter. Luckily with four copies of Temporary Lockdown you have the best way to
come back from a fast start. Lightning Helix and Beza, the Bounding Spring help buy a lot of
time for Shiko, the Paragon’s Way to take over. Marang River Regent is also a nice hardcast
creature in this matchup as it bounces their tokens and isn’t great to bounce back to your
hand. You have to be aware of Into the Flood Maw on your Temporary Lockdown. Playing
conservatively holding up countermagic and/or Lightning Helix rather than deploying a
Dragon can be the right thing to do in some of the spots were they could realistically kill you
after casting an end step Into the Flood Maw on a Temporary Lockdown that was locking
down Cori-Steel Cutter and more. Holding up Get Lost for Vivi or a talent level 2 activation
can be key. If you get to the later stages of the game you’ll be able to overwhelm them in
card advantage and start beating down with Dragons. Your main deck graveyard actually
can come in handy against Stormchaser’s Talent Level 2 activation, which comes up a lot.

+1 Abrade +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Change the Equation +1 Negate
-2 Day of Judgment -1 Ghost Vacuum -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -1 Lightning Helix -1 Shiko, the
Paragon’s Way

You can side in Destroy Evil if they are on a heavy Vivi list. Trimming a Lockdown against a
slower version of the deck when on the play is fine, too. Trimming a Beza and a Helix is also
fine on the play.

Postboard you want to be aware of holding up your counterspells for their strong tapout
plays like Stock Up and Ral. Some lists play Sunspine Lynx, try to be aware of that one. You
can often read into their hand if they are holding up counterspells for Shiko. You can wait
until you have 7 mana to counter back and you can punish them effectively for holding up
Get out or Disdainful Stroke by casting Stock Up or Rediscover the Way instead of your
expensive creatures. They either play aggressively, which you can punish with your

interaction and tapout play like Beza and Shiko or they play more passively, almost
controlling, which you can punish by making land drops and casting Stock Up/Rediscover
the Way. The long game will favor you immensely, as they only have a few counterspells
and you have plenty of power plays.

Tishana’s Tidebinder is very effective against many cards in their deck and great when they
slow down postboard. It hits Cori-Steel Cutter, Stormchaser’s Talent, Vivi Ornitier, Ral,
Crackling Wit, Sunspine Lynx and Ghost Vacuum on their side.
This matchup is highly skill-intensive. A lot of preparation is needed to know the In’s and
Out’s to maneuver this matchup the best you can and to play at a fast pace. Postboard
games can go long and become really grindy.

UW Omniscience

At one point during testing David Inglis while tuning Orzhov Pixie for the Omni matchup
included a copy of Soul-Guide Lantern in the main deck. That gave me the inspiration to try
the same in Jeskai. And a couple days later, one graveyard hate card became two and with
that the Omniscience matchup felt a lot more reasonable preboard. If you draw one of them
in Game 1 your chances to win increase dramatically. You can keep up Get Lost for their
Temporary Lockdown, hold up counterspell for hardcast Omniscience and if they have Blast
Zone, you might even be able to recast your one mana artifact with Shiko. Mulligan
aggressively in Game 1 towards the graveyard hate or atleast a hand with a Stock
Up/Rediscover the Way to dig towards it. Counterspells will buy you a little time, but won’t
save you.

Another huge advantage of having Lantern or Vacuum in play is that you can freely deploy
your cards without having to hold up counterspells or Kutzil’s Flanker. Kutzil’s Flanker was of
course the card I tried at first as every Jeskai list was running them. But soon learned that
Omni had already adapted well against the flash creature. Holding up mana and not
developing your own cards is exactly where the Omni player wants you to be. They can cast
Overlords with Cavern or pass the turn with Scrollshift or Coil and Catch up to play around
countermagic or Flanker. Postboard they often take out parts of their combo as well. And the
3/1 body lines up very poorly into Overlord of the Mistmoors Tokens.

+2 Faerie Mastermind +3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Negate +1
Destroy Evil +1 Ghost Vacuum +1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines +1 Abrade

-4 Temporary Lockdown -2 Day of Judgment -4 Lightning Helix -2 Beza, the Bounding
Spring -1 Shiko, the Paragon’s Way

Many of the postboard games play out like a Midrange Grindfest in which the Combo is less
relevant. You do need a Lantern/Vacuum in play to prevent the Combo from happening and
to be able to freely slam your own haymakers into theirs. Luckily Vacuum can be a nice
endgame power move by getting a ton of strong creatures back, just be careful about
Marang River Regent bouncing their returned creatures back to hand. Having graveyard
hate in play lets you freely tap out for your own haymakers. A whooping 13 sideboard cards
enter the main deck for this matchup.

You can adapt your sideboarding in Open Decklists. Leave in a couple of Lightning Helix if
they have Clarion Conqueror and Voice of Victory. Don’t bring in Abrade if they do not have
Ghost Vacuum. Leaving a Day of Judgment on the draw is reasonable as they sometimes
try to tempo you with Marang River Regent.

Postboard Faerie Mastermind and Tishana’s Tidebinder punish your opponents' way of
gaining card advantage. The Overlords are especially poor into Tidebinder. Additionally your
Overlords are much stronger than theirs, as you have plenty of Disenchant effects while they
are low on enchantment removal. This will mean your Overlords are much more threatening
than theirs and you can end the game reliably with them. Be aware of them trying to
hardcast Omniscience for ten mana, try to hold up a counterspell for that one. The matches
take long, so try to play fast and get a lot of practice in beforehand.

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines is your powerplay that shuts off their Marang River Regent
Combo entirely and makes it impossible to win for them that way. If you can lure out their
Get Lost with early Overlords or Shiko, your Elesh Norn might reign freely, especially when
protected by a Negate of yours. Ultimately I would say the matchup is close. Playskill on
both sides make up a big factor on who will win, especially in the postboard games.

MonoRed Aggro

At the tournament I got paired into Ken Yukuhiro and kept two loose hands on 7 on the draw.
In testing I had two great sets against MonoRed going a total of 16-4 in Games in the matchup for Jeskai Control. That overconfidence got to me and I kept hands I shouldn’t have. On the play you have more leeway on what hands to keep, but on the draw you really need a two mana interaction preferably into a Temporary Lockdown, Day of Judgment or Beza down the line. Your opening hand is everything in this matchup.
Your deck is well set-up against theirs. The only problematic card Game 1 can be Screaming Nemesis, if you can hold up counters or Get Lost for it. Day of Judgment is another nice way of dealing with it. Most certainly do not let them untap with Nemesis, kill it right away, so that they can’t get the Nemesis Emblem. Lightning Helix is your MVP here of course. In a pinch you can also Lightning Helix Nemesis, you do get to gain 3 life from the Helix in that exchange. I’ve won games doing that, Jeskai can turn the corner quickly. Another benefit going forward for Jeskai in this matchup will be that players will likely copy Ken’s Decklist,
which didn’t run any Witchstalker Frenzy and instead had Twinmaw Stormbrood. A cool innovation, but pretty bad in the face of Shiko, Paragon’s Way as it can only target non-flying creatures.

+1 Devout Decree +1 Change the Equation +1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines +1
Tishana’s Tidebinder

-1 Negate -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -1 Ghost Vacuum -1 Marang River Regent

Postboard they gain Sunspine Lynx as another tool to attack you. That one is certainly good, but between all the lifegain effects you can often take a big hit from the Lynx and not worry about it. Elesh Norn is excellent here as a gigantic blocker that shuts off that angle completely. Also turns off Offspring from Manifold Mouse.
I would say this is one of the best matchups for Jeskai Control, but you do have to be disciplined in your mulligans. Even going down to 5 is acceptable here - Stock Up and Shiko can get you back on cards later on. You just have to prevent dying on Turn 4 (which happened twice to me against Ken).

Dimir Midrange

This matchup is intricate and difficult to maneuver, but late changes during Testing made the
matchup feel less scary for Jeskai. Your biggest problems in this matchup are Kaito, Bane of
Nightmares and Enduring Curiosity. Luckily adding Ghost Vacuum to the main deck helps
dealing with the latter. Against Kaito you want to make sure to have a Get Lost for the
planeswalker at the ready or prevent them from dropping Kaito Turn 3 by removing their
early play with Lighting Helix. Game 1 they have a ton of dead removal in their deck, so you
might even be able to win a game in which Kaito or Curiosity stick in play for a turn or two.
Your card advantage engines can easily keep up with that.

On the play:
+3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Devout Decree +1 Ghost Vacuum
+1 Destroy Evil +1 Abrade
-1 Negate -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -4 Temporary Lockdown -2 Beza, the Bounding Spring -2
Day of Judgment

On the draw:
+3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Devout Decree +1 Ghost Vacuum
+1 Destroy Evil +1 Abrade +2 Faerie Mastermind
-1 Negate -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -4 Temporary Lockdown -2 Beza, the Bounding Spring -2
Day of Judgment -1 Marang River Regent -1 Dispelling Exhale

Tishana’s Tidebinder and Overlord of the Mistmoors are both incredible in this matchup.
Tidebinder deals with Kaito nicely while interacting with many of their cards favorably. For
example you can combine Tidebinder with a Lightning Helix to remove Enduring Curiosity.
Overlord is great at stabilizing you and the 6/6 is either winning the game or getting a Go for
the Throat out of their hand down the line. If you can keep them from snowballing early in
addition to playing carefully around Disdainful Stroke and their Tidebinders you can come
out victorious in this matchup. In our last testing session on wednesday morning we went 7-3
in games against a Dimir list with 3 Kaito 4 Curiosity in the main. I think the matchup is
closer to 50/50, but certainly a lot better with this sideboard plan than it used to be for Jeskai
Control.

I won’t go into Details about the other matchups in Standard, but of course provide you with
the sideboarding notes for them.

Domain Ramp

+3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Destroy Evil +1 Change the
Equation +2 Faerie Mastermind +1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines +1 Negate
-1 Ghost Vacuum -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -4 Temporary Lockdown -2 Beza, the Bounding
Spring -4 Lightning Helix

Orzhov Pixie

+3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Destroy Evil +3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +1 Elesh Norn,
Mother of Machines +1 Abrade +1 Negate
-4 Temporary Lockdown -1 Day of Judgment -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -1 Ghost Vacuum -2
Lightning Helix -1 Beza, the Bounding Spring

BG Roots

+3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +1 Abrade +1 Change the Equation
+1 Destroy Evil
-3 Temporary Lockdown -1 Lightning Helix -1 Ghost Vacuum -2 Beza, the Bounding Spring -
1 Marang River Regent -1 Negate

UW Control

+3 Overlord of the Mistmoors +3 Tishana’s Tidebinder +1 Destroy Evil +1 Change the
Equation +2 Faerie Mastermind +1 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines +1 Negate
-1 Ghost Vacuum -1 Soul-Guide Lantern -4 Temporary Lockdown -1 Beza, the Bounding
Spring -4 Lightning Helix -1 Day of Judgment

Outro

I am happy with the list and don’t see the need for changes. You could convince me to cut a
Faerie Mastermind for a second copy of Change the Equation to help a little in the red
matchup that surely will be popular in the coming days, but besides that I was pretty with the
list and sideboard plans. I think with tighter play the Top8 would have been reachable for
me, but I couldn’t convert this time. Magic is hard and playing a Control deck for 10 rounds is
draining and not an easy task. I might have felt overly confident in Control as I had such a
strong result with UW Control at PT Aetherdrift making me lean harder into it. The time
concern is real. I think if this would have been an online event like the Arena Championship
where playing Control is much easier as the games go way faster and time is less of an
issue, I might have had a stronger result. In any case, I hope you were able to understand
my logic behind running the deck and how to play it in the important matchups. It’s certainly
a blast to play and looks great into a sea of red decks.