I wanted to start a discussion regarding a recent challenge Jeskai Xerox deck.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1709380#online
There are quite a few strange card choices in my opinion and I was interested to hear people's thoughts on them.
Here is a list of some of the strange cards in the maindeck:
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
3 Mystic Remora
As you can see these are not typical Vintage played cards and I am curious to learn more about them.
Remora is skewing the deck to more controlling, reactive. The Negate and Mana Leak are a trump for the MM wars.
@PugSuperStar Why not run something like Mana Drain then? I would be surprised if they did not have access to UU when paying 1U when all of their duels are blue. I could be wrong but it seems off. Additionally Mystic Remora gets Missteped which means that they are okay with choosing more efficient but Misstep-able cards. Again I could be wrong but that was my analysis of it and that was one of the reasons I was curious.
I believe the thought behind Remora is that they are fine with is being missetepped, one less MM for their Ancestral. If it hits the table, great also. The only things they could be casting off Drain is Cruise or Dig which would not be in hand frequent enough to justify running the "easier" counter (leak, negate). What is weird is not running all 5 Moxen in a 3 Remora build and a fourth in the board.
@rat3de said in Jeskai Xerox:
@PugSuperStar Why not run something like Mana Drain then? I would be surprised if they did not have access to UU when paying 1U when all of their duels are blue. I could be wrong but it seems off.
They do have a couple of colorless lands in the deck, along with a ton of cards that cost a single U, so any time they have two duals and one Strip Mine/Wasteland they'd be able to play a cantrip and still hold up a 1U counterspell. It probably doesn't come up that often, but in this deck the opportunity to make really great use of Mana Drain mana probably comes up even less often. I wouldn't balk if it did have Mana Drain instead, but playing these cards makes sense to me.
I can try to ask directly to the guy if you want, ravidel85 is actually Daniele Cupparoni, a regular of the other monthly Vintage League here in Italy that was also part of our Italian expedition at EW EU in 2018.
I wouldn't call Mystic Remora 'not your typical vintage card.' Its seen more play in the past and has certainly had periods where it saw no play. But the past 4-5 tournaments I've been to has seen anywhere from 1-4 decks playing at least 1 copy if not more.
@Khahan I did not mean that it is not a Vintage card, I meant that it is unusual to have that many and that card in this type of deck.
I have tried so hard, but I don't see a single reason why Mystic Remora would be good in this deck. Your mana sources make keeping it around very hard, you're not a combo deck, so outside an early Mentor or Pyromancer, you don't have ways to make your opponent play into it, and furthermore, without a full manabase, you don't have ways to keep it around long.
If I was on Outcome, I'd just wait out the Remora - and if I was on any other deck, I'd just shrug, thank you for wasting resources turn after turn, and fade you with creatures. Either the brown variety, the green variety, or Mentor/Pyromancer of my own.
