Everytime i see Geist in a list i have to think about Thassa.
Yes, she has no impact when she hits the board, i get that. But she fixes your swingy draws and diggs for either spells or creatures, whatever you need at the moment in addition to providing a permanently unblockable Geist. Atleast against attritionbased decks you have the time to side her in

Thanks in advance.

In all fairness seeing 0 Geists in competitive play in 2015 (a fact I think is incorrect), says nothing about how the Jeskai Geist vs URx Twin matchup actually plays out. What it says is that not many people played the deck. It’s impossible to use statistical data to gauge how a matchup will play out if you don’t have any data.

While it may be correct that playing Twin was just a better thing to do, or that Geist wasn’t well suited to other decks, I’m not arguing that point.

I am just pointing out that the perception that the Jeskai Geist deck had a poor twin matchup is false. The fact is that the Twin combo is not a safe/reliable win con against a Jeskai deck that can disrupt it while simultaneously applying pressure. Because of that Twin decks had to operate as a control deck and control decks are one of the matchups Geist really shines in.

I work closely with some other Geist experts, Scott McCallim, Larry Swasey, and Jason Clark. This is a consensus we all share by playing the matchup collectively hundreds of times.

I think the work you do is awesome and I’m a big fan of your site.

This is an interesting take on Geist! I will say that it’s not widely supported by the numbers, which saw basically 0 Geists in competitive play throughout almost all of 2015. I believe a part of this was not just Twin but also the decks rising to beat Twin. BGx, especially Abzan and its Souls, are nasty counters for Geist decks. Also, there was little reason to play Geist in a metagame when you could just play Twin instead, which moved potential Jeskai mages into Twin strategies.

I think my big issue with this characterization is the “if it resolves” assumption, and I believe many players felt similarly. Turn three Geist could meet a Remand. Turn four Geist could eat a Snapcastered Remand or a Cryptic. Any of those Geist could meet an Exarch/Twin combo (with potential Dispel backup on turn five when the Geist player is only holding up a lone Path or a counter). Although your experience may have beaten those scenarios, I believe they were very problematic for other potential Geist pilots, even if only in perception.

As David said, if you’re rolling with lots of Snaps and Titans, Knot becomes pretty bad. If you’re using 4 Snaps and no Titans (like most Ux(x) decks), then you could certainly use a singleton Knot for the mid and lategame when opponents expect two open mana to present Leak. That said, I would never go beyond two in a 4 Snapcaster deck.

It’s a weird balancing act you’re doing with Cryptic. On the one hand, you really want these past turn four (and maybe on turn four, depending on the board state). On the other hand, I don’t want a single one before turn four, and there are matchups where I don’t want any until at least turn six. I feel much safer on turn three when I have Leak and Bolt backup, or Leak and Helix backup a turn later, than if I’m only on a Cryptic. For me, 2 Commands is the right number to maximize that scenario, but 3 could work in the right metagame.

As long as aggro sticks around like it is now, I feel like Jeskai has a good amount of Tier 2 staying power. The deck is such a beating against aggressive strategies with a surprising amount of anti-ramp game if you tailor the sideboard. I don’t know if it’s going to hit Tier 1, but I do think we’ll see a lot of Jeskai in 2016.

1. I didn’t say playing Blood Moon was a good idea in the deck.

2. There are no WW spells, and “board out the mana intensive spells” means take out Cliques and Cryptics so you no longer need UU to cast any one spell, you illiterate cunt.

3. Kill yourself.

Nice article, I enjoyed the read. It doesn’t really matter much now, but your assertion that Geist was unplayable because of Twin is incorrect. Geist was actually amazing in that match-up, both pre & post board.

You’d have to actually play the matches a few times, because on the surface it’s easy to see where the opinion comes from. Play Geist and die right? Well the reality is that against Twin, you’d just jam Geist on turn three if you were on the play. If he resolved, it was really unlikely they could deal with him, and since there is so much removal in the Jeskai deck, dying to the combo wasn’t a huge concern.

I’m no MTG pro, but I have played a ton of Jeskai Geist. My final record over the last several months in MTGO events was 22-6 vs UR/Grixis Twin.

I discussed this on reddit a while back, so I’ll just re-post what I wrote there as a way to finish my explanation.

“Game one it’s like we’re pre-boarded for it. We have a ton of removal for the combo, and our Helixes will counter all of their bolts. Our match-up haymaker is already in the deck as a four of, and we can force him through by playing 9 different flash threats at the end of their turn. Jeskai has to attempt to be the aggressor and force the twin pilot to respond to us.
In side-boarded games most Twin pilots turn away from the combo against Jeskai, and the match-up becomes about landing a difficult to remove threat like Keranos, Teferi etc. The thing is a Geist deck is generally better positioned to win this fight because while twin needs to resolve a five mana sorcery speed threat, the Geist deck needs to resolve one that only costs three mana. Like twin we also have a lot of flash threats that allow us to play on their end step to make this possible, and plenty of removal for their threats. We also run Keranos and/or Elspeth Suns Champion for if the game goes long. One important thing to consider as well, is that Geist beats Keranos. Assuming our life totals are both reasonable, if they tap out for a Keranos and I play I Geist, I will still have mana up after, and Keranos has no hope of racing Geist.”

Moon shuts down about 8-12 cards in burns among their strongest (Atarka’s Command, Boros Charm and possibly Nacatl) gaining you a lot of time! It also shut down the revelry that is supposed to destroy moon. I always side in at least 1 moon against burn in affinity.
I don’t know if it’s correct in this shell though.

Not sure you’d want to play Blood Moons in Jeskai, where your primary source of removal is Path to Exile that nets your opponents some basic lands..

You are correct – how could I be so wrong and have overlooked this card in a UWR deck with all those UU and WW spells – you and Jordan (once again) have broken modern

In his defense, the deck most certainly does not auto-scoop to Moon if you board out the mana intensive spells like Cryptic and fetch properly.

Because snare is so much more narrow than Logic Knot? Really? Kkot is absolutely fine as a 1-of or 2-of as you have so much stuff hitting the gy. We all know how much mana leak sucks – I replace some number of Leaks with Knot (usually 2/2 split)

I think this line of thinking while popular is not actually correct. It depends on the build of UWR not just is it combo or not combo. UWR decks that are more heavily towards the control end of the spectrum do not want Visions but I believe the midrange versions absolutely do benefit from Serum Visions.

I dont think so – I dont even play Twin and I think it was wrong. In anycase this article has nothing to do with whining – it appears that you are whining about non-existent whining – how about you sack it up whiner

I love Geist but I think you are correct – Geistless Geist may indeed be a better deck – adding in Kiki combo pieces instead of Geist??

Ya – great idea Jordan – except that the deck folds to Blood Moon – hmm – another amazing insight from Modern’s foremost commentator.

Yeah, control really doesn’t care about the cards it draws, just that it draws cards. That’s why Think Twice is better than Visions in a noncombo shell.

What do you think about Tidings for the big card draw? Five mana, draw four vs seven mana draw four of Revelation. Yeah, it’s sorcery speed, and you don’t gain the life, but I don’t think the life gain is that big a deal in most cases. Maybe as a one of?