As for the substantive claims David makes, while I don’t necessarily agree with all of them myself, I found them plausible, which is why I decided to publish them as is.

You may feel Nahiri is strong in Jeskai or not, but the reality is we simply don’t have enough data for a definitive conclusion. Even after Sheridan’s quantitative breakdown yesterday, we can’t say with certainty what the best version of Jeskai is. It’s eminently possible that Nahiri’s recent success is due to her current status as finisher du jour, rather than to any specific advantage she confers to the Jeskai pilot.

Mind you, I’m not making this claim myself (personally I think Nahiri into Emrakul is exactly what Jeskai needed). But it is plausible, and worth consideration. Quantitative analysis gets us only so far, especially when our n is small. At a certain point we need to discuss theory, and when new strategies come on the scene there is bound to be disagreement over the nature of results. Magic is, after all, a game characterized by variance.

What I regret about this article then is the tone. David should have been more cautious in his claims, precisely because we don’t have enough data yet. And as editor I should have caught it and asked him to temper his assertions or provide more explicit data to back them up.

And if you want someone to do tournament reports for ten different decks you may wanna throw a donation their way to help build a Jund deck.

Saying emrakul doesn’t win on the spot isnt really honest. Technically you’re right if for some reason your opponent hasn’t fetched or shocked and you haven’t drawn a bolt or a snapcaster and they have enough permanents on board to still kill you, you might still have to play after. But realistically if they don’t just die to the combo they are so far behind you’re probably going to win anyway. And unlike the twin or kiki combo most decks aren’t playing efficient ways to answer it main. And the narrow cards they bring in outside of cage don’t actually do anything against your plan A. Bribery is too cute and too slow, geist gets stone walled by anything bigger than kird ape, and keranos while excellent is super slow. Saying any of these are “more powerful” than a single swing from emrakul is dishonest. I get you want more value out of the ultimate but as it is it’s no where near as bad as you claim.

I can agree that maybe the deck needs a plan C that doesn’t rely on burn or an ultimate though.

Hello, first time commenting here, big fan of the site. In my opinion modern nexus is not only the best modern site but also most data-driven and i really like that u usually don’t jump on hype-trains and prefer more deliberated opinions.

Unfortunately i must agree with Luke and some others commentators who don’t like tone of this article. I don’t know if Nahiri is great or only ok but recent Peter Ingram finish and thise gp weekend proved that she is thing in modern. Of course that she is over-hyped on some popular sites but which new modern playable or even semi-playable cards isn’t? You are better than this guys, don’t jump on Hate-hype train-train 😉

I, too, would like to say I dislike the high-handedness of the post. I really like almost everything this site does, but articles like this leave a bad taste.

I couldn’t agree more with your comment about the article going against the data-driven nature of this website. I think that jumping to the conclusions that you want to arrive at, under the guise of qualitative analysis, underpins just how important it is to remain rational and come to conclusions based on data. It seems that the author set out with an axe to grind and a point to prove, which undermines the credibility of his analysis, regardless of whether what he’s saying is accurate or valid. I don’t think any of us come here to read an author gloating about how “right” they were. Disappointing

In general Modern Nexus has great content – however –

I think the style and provocative language of Trevor (especially during the Eldrazi period) and now with David’s article are incredibly unhelpful. To some extent I understand making ridiculous statements makes for potentially higher clicks but overall it damages the credibility of the website..

Let’s not get too hyperbolic here. Although some of our authors prefer certain decks over others, there are a number of pieces on this site (at least one per week) that deal with the metagame more holistically. Take last week’s article, for instance: http://quietspeculation.com/metagame-guide-mays-grand-prix-weekend/. Or another published the day after: http://quietspeculation.com/recapping-scg-indianapolis/. I’m sure Jason, our new site EIC, would be happy to hear constructive criticism about where Nexus can improve, but saying stuff like your last sentence is clearly off-base.

Too much promotion and arguing over pet decks really takes away from the potential of this site I think.

If you read the site it’s clear the real metagame is monkey grow, grixis, and merfolk with a bunch of fringe decks running around.

Unless they have a bolt or anything that kills a creature with 2 toughness – but other than that Kiki “wins on the spot”.

There were several Nahiri decks in the top 32 of both GPs. Only top 8’s are important to you? Seems to against the data driven nature of this website.

I think your dismissal of Nahiri (and especially the tone you used throughout your article) is pretty unhelpful for the modern community.

I also saw the backlash against Tom’s statements (nicely done Sheridan leading that charge) but the fact that she’s still at $50 on SCG and $45 on ChannelFireball tell me that the hype train I’m referring to was very real and was a force going into the GPs.

I think that Nahiri is a decent role player in Jeskai, as you say, but that she should not be used to find Emrakul as your intended win condition. There are easier to cast and protect options available that cannot be defeated by Pithing Needle.

When Toms article got released everyone was saying he was nuts for suggesting it, the hype that you claim got derailed never really existed, the hype that did exist did not get disproven at all by the most recent results.
Not only did one List only narrowly not make it into top 8 on breakers in LA, there were a few more sprinkled in the top 32 of either GP.
Not to forget Pete Ingrams win the week leading up to the GP.
All of this seems to support the fact that Nahiri (with Emrakul) fills some key gaps in Jeskai Control and might be just what the deck needed to become relevant once more after a long absence.
While it´s entierly possible that Nahiri (+ Emrakul) with either be busted or flop in Modern i think it´s more likely that it will establish Jeskai Harbinger as a solid T1.5 or even T1 deck in modern once the lists get more polished and the players more expirienced.

I choose to link to the free Fact or Fiction article so that everyone could see. Shaheen and CVM were the most reasonable SCG writers talking about the card leading up to the GP weekend while the Premium writers really were acting like it was the second coming, with Tom Ross in particular claiming that it would be banned. Gerry Thompson was also really talking up the combo and Sean McLaren previously declared that Nahiri was being broken in Modern. The price was talked up from >$10 to $50 in about a week despite a relative lack of results. That’s the hype I was referring to and what Sheridan brought up last week.

There is a reason that I say ‘classic’ in regards to Geist because you are correct, there is a reason he sees no play anymore. Nahiri may also answer Keranos, but I was referring to the Jund matchup where that’s not a relevant consideration and where Nahiri is far more vulnerable than the god.

The thing with Twin vs. Emrakul is that you could cast Twin on any creature for value even if it didn’t win the game immediately. Emrakul cannot reliably be cast by any Jeskai deck. It is a dead card without Nahiri, who is quite vulnerable. Twin needed any creature to do something (I’ve seen it put on Wall of Omens as a draw engine), and so it was much less dead than Emrakul is.

It’s not that Nahiri is garbage, I acknowledge that she is a decent card, it’s that she did not live up to the hype she received going into this weekend. Starcity’s writers were going nuts over the card, with Tom Ross predicting that it would be the next card banned in Modern. I’m not saying that Francis Cellona’s result was luck, but that was also the only Jeskai list in the Top 32 of LA which indicates that the hype surrounding the deck was misplaced at best or simply wrong. In Charlotte I expect that this will turn out to be like Gerry Thompson’s Thopter Gifts deck because, as Shaheen Soorani pointed out, it’s mostly equivalent to Thopter combo and I predict it will see the same amount of success. Nahiri, the Harbinger is a fine card, but the combo with Emrakul is not reliable enough to warrant being your win condition. It’s just not resilient or reliable enough to warrant playing a card that you will never cast in a control deck.

I think the Jeskai shell is fine but it’s still looking for its win condition. The shell sans Nahiri was doing reasonably well and I believe that all Nahiri has actually done is convince more people to pick the deck up. Even if the combo doesn’t pan out, there should be an uptick in Jeskai players who bought in based on it. This is shown by Jody Keith making Top 32 in Charlotte with a Jeskai list that used Ajani Vengeant and Gideon Jura instead of Nahiri. I didn’t see a single Jeskai game in the coverage where the combo won a game where a more traditional win condition would have lost (not saying it didn’t happen, just that I didn’t see it).

On your weaknesses argument, what tapped artifacts are you dealing with now that you couldn’t before? I doubt that exiling a mill rock or two against Lantern is very good and they have Pithing Needle, to which the only answer game one is Cryptic Command. She’s good against enchantments but how many of those see play regularly? As a 1-2 of value card I think she’s fine but as an integral part of your win condition? No. Find something more reliable.

Geist is often a glorified burn spell in the ‘gentleman’s burn deck’ that midrange Jeskai is. It’s just not consistent enough of a finisher, and suffers from being only good when you’re ahead. Bribery also doesn’t help very much when you’re behind. Keranos is also basically unplayable now that Nahiri exists to exile it, and it wasn’t even that good to begin with (horrendously slow). You say that Nahiri isn’t fast enough, but 3 turns is a heck of a lot faster than Keranos or Geist, AND she functions as a value engine with a built in Assassinate attached to boot!

And as far as having to dedicate a single ‘combo’ card (Emrakul) that does actual nothing by itself… need I remind you that Splinter Twin played a full 4 copies of the namesake card that did nothing by itself?

That doesn’t address how the 13th place list, which just barely lost a win-and-in, had the full 4. If anything, I was even more impressed at Simon’s ability to pilot the list against Affinity without having it in the 75, given that I tend to win when I draw it (I’ve even pulled out some Game 1s thanks to Harbinger, which used to be unheard of) and lose when I don’t.

why so ‘final’? it’s not like Nahiri proved garbage or something, she even finished 9th in GP LA, missing the Top8 just due to tiebreakers which is pretty much just luck

nothing is derailed, Nahiri is great and covers 2 weaknessess of the Jeskai archetype: dealing with annoying artifacts/enchancements G1 and finishing the game in a timely fashion

yes she slightly underperformed but how well was Jeskai faring before Nahiri?

she is clearly an improvement and might as well form a T1 deck, so imo she is very real along with the Jeskai shell