Falcon Punch!

Jeskai Aggro: It’s a deck name that everyone who plays Standard should know by now. It has been overwhelmingly popular since Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir, and
it doesn’t look to be slowing down. But lately I’ve been wondering if Mantis Rider can do all the heavy lifting. People are starting to play more removal
like Bile Blight and Lightning Strike. Brad Nelson has popularized Hordeling Outburst in a variety of R/W/x shells, which is a phenomenal card against the
archetype. After weeks of this deck overperforming on every stage, is it finally time to hang it up?

After a poor showing in the last week of tournaments, with just two copies in the Top 16 (one in Top 8) at SCG Oakland, and zero copies breaking through
into the Top 8 at GP Santiago, where do we go from here? Well, if you’re all in on Jeskai, regardless of the build, a spicy little number took down the
Standard Open in Oakland. Let’s take a look.

Jeskai Heroic Combo

Ivan Jen

1st Place at Star City Games Standard Open on 11-01-2014

Standard

Creatures (16)

Lands (18)

Spells (26)

Sideboard

“Have you seen this deck? Every game he drew Jeskai Ascendancy was a complete joke!”

These were the words relayed to me from my fabulous, basketball-loving editor, who just so happened to be watching those games in the Top 8. I have to say,
I was not impressed with how the deck looked on paper. I mean, I’ve done the Heroic song and dance before, and I just never felt like I could pull that far
ahead of my opponent.

But perhaps that was because of my own misgivings.

Much like Infect or Delver decks, Heroic strategies are occasionally all-in on one specific creature. You need to play your spells in a manner that will
give you the best opportunity to win the game. Sometimes that means jamming all of your spells to deal as much damage as possible, while other times it
means protecting your biggest creatures and playing battleship Magic. In both scenarios, it is important to be familiar enough with the strategy to know
which route to implement.

But this deck just looked so…cool.

While similar to the Greg Hatch concoction from the last Standard season, we don’t have Hidden Strings or Trait Doctoring, but we did get a bit of an
upgrade.

Games with and without Jeskai Ascendancy play out in wildly different ways. But there are also games where casting Jeskai Ascendancy is wrong because it
keeps you from holding up Gods Willing or a pump spell. First and foremost, Jeskai Ascendancy is awful if you don’t have any creatures in play, so make
sure you do your best to keep at least one around, and probably two just to be safe.

What people might not see at first is that the deck has the potential to combo you out. On the other hand, the people who know about the combo will think
you kill them with it much more often than you actually do. For the most part, Jeskai Ascendancy is like a double anthem effect that makes sure you don’t
draw any more lands. Every Dragon Mantle or Defiant Strike you cast while Ascendancy is in play gets more and more ridiculous. On top of that, Retraction
Helix is actually just hilarious when combined with the “untap” ability from Ascendancy. There will be plenty of situations where you will seem pretty far
behind, only to draw Retraction Helix, bounce their whole board, and swing for the win! It also doesn’t hurt that you can turn an excess of mana into an
excess of cards by bouncing and continually casting Dragon Mantle!

But if you haven’t figured it out by now, the only way to combo is actually pretty difficult. You need two creatures, a Springleaf Drum, a Jeskai
Ascendancy, and a Retraction Helix. You begin by casting Helix on one of your creatures, and tapping the other creature with Springleaf Drum to generate a
mana. You follow this up by bouncing said Springleaf Drum with the creature powered by Retraction Helix, and recast the Springleaf Drum. This untaps your
creatures, allowing you to rinse and repeat, all while looting for the perfect card and pumping your creatures as much as you want. Since the “loot” effect
is optional on Ascendancy, you can just make your creatures infinitely large and attack them for the win after digging for a Gods Willing or some such.

But that’s just one very minor (and tricky) way that the deck can win. Most of the time, this deck will play out like some kind of bastard combination of
U/W Heroic and Mono-Red. With so many cheap, aggressive creatures, the deck can flood the board early and keep the pressure on with various tricks and pump
effects. The incremental damage adds up quickly and also helps you dig for the all-important Jeskai Ascendancy.

During the turns where you’re not casting Jeskai Ascendancy or creatures, what is going on, exactly?

Well, for starters, you can often get the drop on your opponent if you’re on the play with something like Akroan Crusader. Crusader allows you to generate
a lot of small threats that are tough for a deck like Abzan to handle, as most of their removal is cumbersome. Jeskai will have Magma Jet and Lightning
Strike, making it much more appealing to move all of your resources into Favored Hoplite or even Lagonna-Band Trailblazer.

With only eighteen actual lands in the deck, you would think that flooding wouldn’t be an issue, but I can guarantee you that it is. Springleaf Drum ups
the count to something more akin to 22 lands, and a plethora of cycling cards means that you will often make up to your fourth of fifth land drop. That
isn’t all that bad once you consider that keeping Gods Willing mana open after casting Jeskai Ascendancy is awesome. And every land you draw after that
will most likely be cycled with Ascendancy. You can also put extra mana to good use with Dragon Mantle, which is why the entirety of the manabase can tap
for red.

Once you take a good look at the deck, you’ll realize that blue is pretty light, and all of your threats are white and red. This means that access to white
and red mana early is incredibly important, and your manabase should emphasize that. From looking at the list, you should also recognize that you have
virtually zero ways to use the colorless mana from Shivan Reef and Battlefield Forge, so there is almost no reason not to play four copies of Mana
Confluence.

I also don’t think Seeker of the Way is good in the deck, if only because it costs too much mana. We want to be spending our mana every single turn, but
mostly after we have already played a threat. Seeker is great against a few different decks, but comes up lacking against Siege Rhino and other midrange
strategies. Gaining a few points of life here and there might matter on occasion, as your lands deal you a significant amount of damage, but the difference
between a one mana threat and a two mana threat is too great to rely on him in the maindeck, as far as I’m concerned.

And about those two Jeskai Charms…

What are they doing here? Are they simply there to use as a tempo tool? Do we really need to gain a million life from it? Does the four damage matter very
often? I think it costs way too much mana for this deck and simply doesn’t do enough. But do you know what other card usually does four damage in this
deck?

After adding Titan’s Strength into the mix, we get a few more draws that function like the Mono-Red deck, but we will have creatures that are stronger
against opposing removal and the very powerful Jeskai Charm. Titan’s Strength can kill opponents out of nowhere, and most of them won’t be expecting it
just yet, so you may catch them by surprise. Cutting Jeskai Charm for Titan’s Strength was the first change I made to the deck, and I haven’t looked back.
Since then, I’ve found a way to fill them out to play the full four.

Combo or No?

This deck is technically a combo deck but in the same way that Delver is technically an aggro deck. Sure, the deck has draws that will go infinite, but
those are few and far between. There are far too many removal spells and sweeper effects in the format to rely on something so gimmicky, but knowing it is
there is good thing to have. And if your opponent knows that, they will be afraid of it. And when your opponent is afraid of something, you don’t
necessarily have to fill your deck with the combo to gain an advantage. Sometimes, the fear of losing is what ultimately costs you the game.

With that said, drawing multiple copies of Retraction Helix is pretty terrible. It pairs very well with Jeskai Ascendancy, but it is just awkward outside
of that. There are games where it can protect your creature from a removal spell, or rebuy a Dragon Mantle, but too often you’ll be stuck with a Retraction
Helix in hand that would be better suited as another Titan’s Strength or even another creature. I wouldn’t go below three copies, simply because comboing
out is occasionally your only option, and you do get some “upheaval” style turns where you bounce the entire opposing side of the board while attacking for
thirty.

Springleaf Drum could potentially be trimmed for similar reasons, but it is often better than a land. It doesn’t deal you damage, allows for some amount of
acceleration, lets you pump and loot with Jeskai Ascendancy, and pumps your creatures with prowess.

For the most part, this deck is not a combo deck. You should rarely sculpt your draws to find the missing piece, and instead look at ways to maximize the
good cards you’ve drawn, and minimize the effects of the bad ones. Many of your spells and creatures are good in some situations, and having a reasonable
number of scry and cantrip effects alleviates some of the awkwardness that comes with playing a deck that relies far more on synergy than raw power.

After playing with the list a bit, here’s the best build I’ve come to thus far.

Jeskai Heroic Combo

Todd Anderson

Test deck on 11-06-2014

Standard

Creatures (15)

Lands (18)

Spells (27)

Sideboard

I’ve dubbed the deck “Falcon Punch” for anyone who wants to use that awesome phrase because this deck has some crazy turns that often end in a gigantic
middle finger. You can catch your opponent off guard quite easily, as most players will probably be in the dark on exactly what this deck does. Once they
see Jeskai Ascendancy, the jig might be up, but they will rarely know every card in your list or which cards to play around.

One thing I want to try is sideboarding some number of Treasure Cruise to fight any deck trying to kill all of your creatures. You put a lot of spells in
the graveyard yourself, and it makes it pretty easy to delve when your opponent’s removal spells send your creatures to the graveyard. I’m not sure if it’s
actually good yet, but I like the theory behind it. Tom Ross has already been crushing people with Treasure Cruise from his U/W Heroic deck, and I feel
like these two decks play out in similar ways. I would like to try to alter the manabase to play some number of Plains and Islands, and some Flooded
Strand, but I’m not sure if that’s actually necessary to turn on delve in the matchups where Treasure Cruise is good.

If I’ve learned anything in the last few months, it’s that Treasure Cruise and Jeskai Ascendancy go pretttttty well together.

As for the maindeck, I’ve made the changes discussed above. Since most of the deck is red and white, we’ve trimmed down on the blue sources just a tad,
giving us an easier time with casting our threats. Since Retraction Helix and Jeskai Ascendancy rarely need to be cast early, we have a reasonable amount
of time to find the blue mana. And since we also trimmed three blue cards from the deck, shoring up the colored sources just makes sense.

I’m still not in love with eight lands that come into play tapped, but they can be pretty useful in sticky situations. There are draws that feature a ton
of lands that deal you damage, and having one come into play tapped isn’t so bad when it gives your future turns a bit of reprieve. However, having too
many lands coming into play tapped will occasionally end the game before it even begins. You need to be explosive against a lot of strategies or else
you’ll fall too far behind.

Lagonna-Band Trailblazer has been pretty solid, but I don’t think I want four copies of it. Drawing multiples of any heroic creature will have diminishing
returns, as your deck doesn’t have a way to pump multiple creatures at once (though I do want to try Coordinated Assault). Since Lagonna-Band Trailblazer
has four toughness, it will survive a number of removal targeted at this type of deck. Bile Blight and the swath of burn spells out of Jeskai can barely
touch the Trailblazer.

With that said, the deck now only has fifteen creatures, which can feel a bit light, but you have to remember that Akroan Crusader can make a ton of extras
if you need him to. Outside of that, you mostly just want to draw one or two creatures and use all of your time and resources making it into a bigger and
bigger threat.

In a lot of matchups, you need to figure out exactly what type of game you want to play. Some decks can’t handle a creature rush, and especially so when
backed up by a Jeskai Ascendancy. In a similar vein, other decks can’t handle a gigantic threat backed up with Gods Willing. Depending on the matchup, you
should try to figure out exactly what kind of plan you want to implement, and pull the trigger.

It is often correct to wait until turn 4 or so to start casting all of your spells, just so you get maximum value out of Jeskai Ascendancy, but that isn’t
always an option. Since you don’t have that many mana sources, you’ll often be forced to “burn” your Dragon Mantles and Defiant Strikes to find more mana
sources, though you are generally gaining incremental advantages from doing so.

While heroic is generally better than prowess, it is important to remember that sequencing your spells to maximize your damage output is key. Make sure you
lead with a heroic creature most of the time, so that you get to follow it up with Monastery Swiftspear and a combat trick. Otherwise, you’re just
attacking for one point of damage for two turns in a row while you set up your turn 3. In a deck like Jeskai Heroic, or any Heroic deck for that matter,
sequencing your spells correctly is the second most important aspect to learn (behind mulliganing correctly).

While a few cards in the sideboard are experimental, I’ve had great success with the rest (so far). Even Scouring Sands has been the bane of opposing
Akroan Crusader decks everywhere! And you even get to scry as a bonus! It is narrow, but that matchup does not feel great for this deck, and it only gets
worse after sideboard when they get access to Eidolon of the Great Revel. It is possible that the sideboard needs some sort of hard removal spell, but we
can’t afford to play any other type of sweeper, and you absolutely need a sweeper effect to beat them.

Scouring Sands it is!

The Erases are particularly strong against the rising popularity of Doomwake Giant and Whip of Erebos. Those two cards are particularly hard to beat when
they’re left on the table, so having a few answers outside of Disdainful Stroke is necessary. It is also incidentally good in the mirror, as well as other
enchantment-based decks.

Seeker of the Way comes in against decks with a lot of removal, or particularly a lot of red removal. Having a few extra threats can go a long way when you
really only need one to stick, but having one that can gain life when you’re trying to race is phenomenal. Opposing red or Jeskai decks will often put you
in tough spots with your manabase, but a single Titan’s Strength on Seeker can swing the game dramatically.

Ajani’s Presence is a nod to the rising popularity of End Hostilities, which is quite a problem for this deck. We’ll need Disdainful Stroke or Ajani’s
Presence to close the door on them, but if you draw one of those two cards you should be fine. The tough matches will come against Jeskai decks that play
both Anger of the Gods and End Hostilities on top of their already plentiful removal suite.

And if it wasn’t clear, Disdainful Stroke comes in against decks trying to go way over the top of you, or trying to put you in a sleeper hold with a big,
flashy, removal spell.

If I could give you one piece of advice about this deck, and only one, it would be to play it a lot. The first few games I played with the deck, I made
some mistakes that seemed pretty obvious after I made them but were much more difficult to see on the fly. There are so many oddball interactions with
Jeskai Ascendancy that it will take seeing them for yourself before you can figure everything out.

You will lose with this deck a reasonable amount before you start to win. Few of the games are easy victories; you’ll have to scratch and claw your way to
the finish line, but that’s just how it goes with decks based on synergy. There is little room for error, whether that means a missed trigger or even just
playing your lands out of order! Be careful, but also don’t be afraid to make mistakes in playtesting. After all, that’s where you learn the most about a
deck!

I’m not sure if I’ll be playing this deck at the Open Series this weekend in Columbus, but it is currently my frontrunner. I still have a few more days to
decide, including my “bud-day” with Brad on Thursday. Until then, give this deck a spin. You won’t regret it.