@chubbyrain1

The recursive spell aspect might certainly have some non-traditional spells that are much better than usual.

I’m not sure about Fogs, but they could slow the Bazaar decks by about a turn (maybe 2 in Tangle’s case). If an extra turn is enough to get to a loop then sure. It could be like Veil of Summer in a sense against those decks, which makes me think you may also want a copy of Veil of Summer.

Tabernacle is not a good card, in my opinion. It requires a GY hate card, or Wasteland support to win. If you were playing it as hate for those decks, I’d certainly look elsewhere given your main deck doesn’t play Strip/Waste.

Are there other strong sideboard spells that maybe we are missing?

Thanks @Rat3dE. I'm actually unsure about Arcanist in this brave new world. On the one hand, it's a powerful card and its targets are more likely the resolve without Misstep being around. On the other hand, we no longer have Misstep to protect it, so there's a greater chance of Arcanist just dying without generating any value (unlike all the other creatures in this deck, which can do something no matter what).

Edit: that said, you're the 3rd person to tell me to play Arcanist, so maybe I should just do it.

Cheers y'all. I'm gonna be playing Snapcaster/Pyromancer Xerox at our event next weekend, but after that I'll dick around with some Arcanist builds. My hesitation about it Arcanist is that it doesn't feel like a control card, but the results speak for themselves.

I want to revisit Delver as an alternative to the Arcanist decks that have arisen.

Dan Sollazzo T4'd the SCG event last month with a UW Delver deck, featuring Lavinia: https://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=30807&iddeck=262019

Given the emergence of Narset and Karn, I'd like to explore replacing Preordains with Tutors and lowering the curve to fight the planeswalkers from the ground.

URb Delver

4 Delver of Secrets
1 Dreadhorde Arcanist
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Young Pyromancer
-11
1 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Pyroblast
1 Spell Pierce
1 Thoughtseize
-12
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Shattering Spree
-5
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dig Through Time
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Gush
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Vampiric Tutor
-12
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
-20

Sideboard
3 Pithing Needle
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Yixlid Jailer
2 Pyroblast
1 Fatal Push
3 Shattering Spree

Notable exceptions:

Dack Fayden
-Removal of off-color moxen makes it more difficult to cast
-Gets Pyroblasted and Narseted
-Has always gotten Revoked
-Dredge should not be leaving/bringing in Hollow Ones to steal
Off-color Moxen
-Idea of deck is to get under, not overpower, planeswalkers
Merchant Scroll
-Not feasible without off-color moxen
Preordain
-Replacing with tutors minimizes impact of Narset and finds specific threats/answers

Notable inclusions:

Demonic Consultation
-I've always been a big fan of this card in fair decks. Getting 3&4ofs at instant speed for 1 mana is strong.

This deck is soft to Oath. Other than that, I feel comfortable against the rest of the field.

I'd appreciate any thoughts and if anyone has been testing Delver as a pivot away from the Planeswalker mirrors.

Best,
Dave

@stuart said in RUG Pyromancer:

Snapcasters (because of Cage)?

Snap is still an ambush viper who can at least get in and chump block to 'gain' you 3-4 life and kill Bridges. But with only 2 Cages (in this particular list) you are probably still going to cast a spell with him sometimes.

@aelien said in The Definition of Xerox:

However, even though i do keep up to date and play quite a lot online (not mtgo sadly), iam not a accomplished tournament player, recognisable name on mtgo or in anyway a person that has any authority on the matter.
Would people still be interested in an overview and breakdown of the Deck and Deck variants by me or should i just rather let someone else do the job?

I am not a recognizable name, and have never won a tournament in my life. Do I care? No, I love this game, the people and the community, so I am going to help it in any way I can. If that mean writing a primer I am not
qualified to write, so be it. Cunningham's law states:

"the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."
If I get something wrong, then others will correct it. Anyone should feel free to write any primers they want, they are contributing, so they are doing something right.

@chubbyrain said in How do I beat Jeskai:

Based on my experience with the deck, Jeskai and other Xerox decks can be built to beat any deck in the format consistently. What they cannot be built to beat is every in the format (including the mirror).

If the goal is to beat exclusively Jeskai, your strategy should be to align your threats to match up effectively against their answers. For instance, the Jeskai variant with Lightning Bolts, Fiery Confluence, and Snapcaster Mage was built for a Combo, Oath, Control, and Shops heavy metagame. The maindeck burn is never dead as you can use it to close out games, but it matches up poorly against Dredge's SB strategy of Fish Zombies and decks that run 4 toughness, non-artifact creatures (i.e. Eldrazi) or creatures immune to removal (i.e. TNN outta Merfolk). That changes if the deck skews towards White removal and Pyromancers as those are much more effective at combating creatures, but you end up with sub-optimal cards against Oath and Combo, along with a much weaker SB plan against Shops.

</thread>

Basically, Shops and Survival (to a lesser extent) are strategically favored against the Jeskai Strategy. Fast Clock+Spehre Effects+Minimal vulnerability to Mental Misstep/Pyroblast are the keys to beating Jeskai, and they make a high percentage of Jeskai cards irrelevant ("Treasure Cruise!" leads to "you're dead" fairly often in those matchups!). Everything else, it's hoping they have to cast a few cantrips to get to where they need, and that you can kill them in that window.

@glick
I like fatal push!

In the actual meta (see the last vintage challenge) it could make sense to maindeck Containment Priests. Dredge and Oath are stronger than ever and the Ambush Viper mode of the Priests make them even usefull in almost any matchup but Storm and Paradoxical.

Regarding balance, there are definitely times it is dead. It is admittedly terrible once you start drawing cards and generating tokens, but at that point things are usually going well.

As for what it is good for, it is good at dealing with token generators, as you say. Secondly, because the deck has moxen where most decks have more land, you can often destroy your opponent's lands. Also, the fact that you can drop 3-4 artifacts on the first turn, including baubles and Sensei's top, lets you use it as a discard spell. So basically by quickly playing lots of artifacts that balance doesn't count, you can take advantage of all the aspects of the card, but only situationaly.

I updated the OP with the current list I'm running. I was trying out Balance for a bit, and it seemed great in several spots; but it never quite got there for me. I may try it out again, but I'd shaved a land for it which I regret. Back up to 15 which seems to be the sweet spot.

I went down on a Gush since it felt kinda weird at times having 2, but 4 may be the correct amount.

Also squeezed a Dack into the list which has felt great so far. I've been happy even just using the +1.

Been doing some playing with this list and I really like it. Guttersnipe kill is definitely a very fun way to kill your oppponent and Jori En is quite effective when you get him going. Did you ever consider making this a Mentor list rather than Pyromancer? I kind of feel Pyromancer is so much less powerful than Mentor, but it is nonetheless refreshing to play something else than Mentor every now and then : ). But many thanks again @brianpk80 for this list, hopefully we'll bump into each other online again.

@Arianeira Plague Spitter might be better than Massacre, but idk. It would keep you from filling the board with Monks down the line

Watching LSV biencarnate himself as Reid Duke tonight and bury Randy Buehler's white Eldrazi under a seemingly unending rain of Swords to Plowshares... that was fun. It also forced me to notice some interesting things about Gush decks beating Aggro Midrange decks (Kikashi Aggro I like to call it), specifically Eldrazi in this case... trading 1 for 1 against decks that have no draw engine at all is really really good.

Humans, and Hatebear and Eldrazi have no drawing cards at all... what a bunch of psychopaths. Just trading down resources, and then resolving any drawing spell at all, seems to give the Gush deck a huge advantage. Its when drawing spells get locked out that the blue decks find themselves in big trouble, while the biggest weakness of the Aggro type of decks may yet prove to be that they can just be attacked by blue decks, or any deck that refills it's hand for that matter, simply by trading 1 for 1 in cards and slowly pulling ahead with drawing cards... would one actually board in more drawing cards against these types of decks? Is there a cheap drawing spell that remains playable through thorn effects used by these decks? Mulldrifter seems not powerful enough, yet almost close. Certainly a deck with 4 Gush, 4 Mulldrifter, 6+ Swords/Paths, and any sort of Snapcaster or Flippy Jace effects, would be a nightmare for Eldrazi right now....

I wonder what other people think about the possibility of beefing up draw as well as removal, as a possible way to attack these Aggro decks... as well as what this says about the potential importance of Spirit of the Labyrinth in the matchup.

@Topical_Island Thanks for your reply. I don't know about the percentage maybe it's not as much as it felt like 🙂 I should stress, perhaps, that this is not my main deck. I just wanted to test it out but then got so mad when I lost all the time and just wanted to learn the deck better and kept trying, and trying and trying. Clearly, creatures are a problem but as you write they can be battled. I also think, from watching Brian play this list, that one should mentally see the Tendrils line as maybe even a more plausible win condition than the Mentor line (something which maybe hasn't yet sunken into my own mind) , which still would mean that you need to hold the line long enough for that to work. Anyway, I might still give it some tweaks and keep playing and learning since I feel that you learn just as much from losing as from winning.

What is everyone opinion on murderous cut as a potential sideboard option for shops/eldrazi, oath, and humans? Delving through spheres always helps, so for one black you can kill anything.

@letseeker looks like you got enough tutors/draw, u can snapcaster one back, and to me those 2 are the least effective cause they are selective tutors. If you absolutely want those then i'm thinkin it has to be a sylvan, that's what i would try first anyways.

@Islandswamp I agree. I don't think I'd ever play with more than one... I'm kinda just mulling it. The game is such a resource grind right now...

I've had success with Sabboth vs. Mentor but I've found True-Name Nemesis to be a necessary tool to push through damage. Like at least 3 TNNs. I also played Ethersworn Canonist to back up my removal, it produces a situation where if you can pressure them into casting Mentor you can use any counter or Swords it with impunity. Meddling Mage also is gas especially if you are running Path to Exile.