In sharp contrast to Standard, Magic: The Gathering’s Modern format is actually riding high right now. Deck diversity is in a brilliant place, and that’s reflected in the high participation in daily events on MTG Online. No matter how diverse a format is, however, there’s always a best deck, and Modern may have a new one very soon. Over the last few weeks, Jeskai Blink has emerged as a very serious candidate for the best deck in the MTG Modern format.
This deck is essentially an amalgamation of Boros Energy and Esper Blink, two of the other big dogs in current Modern. By combining the excellent reach of the former with the grindy capabilities of the latter, players have stumbled upon something really special. The deck’s absurd hot streak in events these last few weeks is certainly testament to that. Whether the deck sticks around or not remains to be seen. In any case, it’s another exciting development for one of Magic’s healthiest formats right now.
Jeskai Blink In MTG Modern
As a deck, Jeskai Blink functions like a Midrange/Control hybrid. Like Boros Energy, it gets on board early with a full playset of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. While this may lead you to believe the deck is aggressive in nature, it’s actually a bit of a red herring. Ragavan does let you compete early, and opens the doors to some explosive turn two plays when it connects. It’s a bit of an outlier in the deck as a whole, mind you.
The rest of the list is all about blinking your creatures for value. The key pieces from Esper Blink, Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Ephemerate, show up here as well. These open up extremely powerful interactions with ‘temporary’ creatures, like Quantum Riddler and Solitude. The addition of red also lets Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury join the club as another great blink target. With four mana you can cast Phlage, then Ephemerate it with its sacrifice trigger on the stack. This will get you a nice burst of damage and lifegain.
The deck also runs Consign to Memory for a similar reason, letting you counter the negative triggers on your Phlage, Riddler, and Solitude to keep them in play for just one blue mana. Consign otherwise counters a lot of the scariest cards you can expect to see in Modern.
Jeskai Blink isn’t just a minor adjustment to Esper Blink from MTG Modern, mind you. It also employs a number of Control elements, which makes it capable of winning even the most drawn-out games. Teferi, Time Raveler is the big one here, cutting off your opponent’s interaction and giving you another way to bounce your value creatures. You can also use it to clear the way for a lethal swing in a pinch.
As you’d expect, the deck also plays a bunch of interaction, from Prismatic Ending to Lightning Bolt. These cards help the deck scrape by early, and close out late.
A Serious Hot Streak
Jeskai Blink, in its current form, has been around in MTG Modern since late last year. It wasn’t until recently, however, that it really came into its own as an archetype. At last weekend’s SCG Modern RC in Houston, Vinnie Fino put the deck on the map in a big way after claiming first place with it. Slax also made top eight in the event with a similar list. These results cemented its position as a top deck in the current metagame.
In the week since, the deck has been absolutely dominating in MTG Online events. It claimed the highest metagame share in three of the four Modern Leagues this week, and two of the five Modern Challenges. Perhaps the most impressive result here is its 28.12% meta share among the winners of yesterday’s Challenge. Even in the events where it wasn’t on top, however, Jeskai Blink still ranked in the top three or four decks.
Looking at the deck’s win rate data, the reason for this success becomes clear. Jeskai Blink simply has great matchups against the vast majority of decks in Modern right now. While some, like Boros Energy and Affinity, are fairly close, it wins 55% or more of the time against most of the other big decks. Izzet Prowess and Domain are both fantastic matchups, for example, with Jeskai Blink winning 71% and 82% of the time, respectively. Decks like Azorius Control, Esper Blink, and Eldrazi Tron have similar rates.
With the way things are going, Jeskai Blink could very easily be the new best deck in Modern before long. The combination of the high-value grindy plays that made Esper Blink so potent, and the extra reach red adds, make it very powerful indeed.
The New King Of The Metagame?
Of course, Jeskai Blink isn’t without its counters. While there are only a handful of sub-50% win rate matchups for the deck according to MTG Decks, it does have some clear problem areas in the format.
The biggest of these by far is Amulet Titan. Over 58 recorded matches, Jeskai Blink has just a 38% win rate against the deck. This is certainly down to Amulet Titan’s ability to just win over the top of everything Jeskai Blink is doing. A strong board position and card advantage aren’t particularly relevant when your opponent can combo off on turn three. Amulet Titan is also highly resilient thanks to all of its graveyard interaction, so even if Blink does grind out the game, victory isn’t guaranteed.
As one of the most consistently-played decks in Modern right now, Amulet Titan is a serious obstacle to Jeskai Blink claiming the throne. It’s not the only obstacle, mind you. Other decks, like Samwise Combo, have very strong matchups against it, too. While it’s not universally applicable, since the deck does well against Eldrazi Bloodchief Combo. For the most part, however, Jeskai Blink seems to really struggle against Combo lists.
For this reason, I think it’s unlikely that the deck will manage to maintain a dominant position for long, if at all. If Jeskai Blink picks up, Combo decks will swoop in to prey on it. Amulet Titan doesn’t even really need to swoop, since it’s a big presence already. That said, it’s undeniably exciting to see a deck shake things up so much in such a short space of time.
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