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.

The Remora are incredibly greedy with 3 moxes and 16 lands.

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.

So what are we thinking Jeskai looks like in a Misstepless world? Here's my rough draft, though I'm expecting to see some very different takes in the coming weeks:

Dudes: 8
3 Snapcaster
2 Pyromancer
1 Mentor
2 Lavinia

Planeswalkers: 4
2 Narset
2 Dack

Blue Spells: 21
1 Ancestral
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Probe
1 Misstep
1 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
4 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Cruise
1 Dig

Non-Blue Spells: 7
3 Pyroblast
3 Bolt
1 Wear/Tear

Artifacts: 4
1 Lotus
1 Pearl
1 Ruby
1 Sapphire

Lands: 16
4 Volc
3 Tundra
1 Island
8 Fetches

Sideboard: 15
1 Pyroblast
2 Shattering Spree
1 By Force
2 Plow
2 Stony
3 Priest
2 Rav Trap (might switch to Surgical)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mountain

I should maybe just play Eldrazi/something more proactive until the meta shakes out and we see what this deck needs to be tuned for . . .

@Stuart You definitly want to fit some Arcanist in there. The card is insanely strong and can create massive CA over just one or two turns while being super flexible due to the fact that it can vastly increase your clock with Bolts. I think you may also want some of the Plows MD and probably some more MD artifact hate but I am no expert.

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.