Whenever Modern begins to polarize, someone inevitably tries to make Mystical Teachings happen. The combination of efficient removal spells and countermagic, backed up by all the awesome instants in Modern, and a flexible tutor is certainly nothing to scoff at. The issue that Mystical Teachings decks have traditionally had is that the namesake card is a little slow for the format, particularly when you have to be prepared to fight against powerful instants like Collected Company and Chord of Calling. Despite these weaknesses, this may be a perfect time for Mystical Teachings in Modern, and MrCafouillete may have found a great shell:

Esper Teachings ? Modern | MrCafouillete, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (3)
• 3 Snapcaster Mage

• Spells (31)
• 1 Mystical Teachings
• 1 Secure the Wastes
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation
• 2 Condemn
• 2 Negate
• 2 Spell Burst
• 3 Logic Knot
• 3 Supreme Verdict
• 4 Cryptic Command
• 4 Esper Charm
• 4 Path to Exile
• 4 Think Twice

• Lands (26)
• 3 Island
• 1 Plains
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 2 Hallowed Fountain
• 2 Watery Grave
• 3 Celestial Colonnade
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Gideon Jura
• 1 Negate
• 1 Rest for the Weary
• 2 Dispel
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Hallowed Burial
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 2 Thoughtseize

Buy This Deck

The rise of Nahiri, the Harbinger as a format-defining card in Modern means nothing but good things for Mystical Teachings decks. You get to play many of the same efficient answers as the Nahiri decks, such as Mana Leak and Path to Exile, but the difference is your end game. You don’t have to risk resolving a four mana sorcery-speed threat to win the game. Instead, you can just sit back, draw cards, and hit land drops. This gives you an enormous edge in control mirrors and against fair midrange decks, while the core of efficient answers lets you fight against the likes of Infect and Affinity.

The interesting thing about this particular build is the distinct lack of Mystical Teachings. Instead, MrCafouilette has maxed out on Think Twice, Esper Charm, and Cryptic Command. If Mystical Teachings is your namesake card, how can you trim it down to just a single copy? The issue is mana efficiency and velocity. When other decks have two-, three-, and four-drops that can all but win the game on their own, you can’t really afford to spend your fourth turn casting Mystical Teachings. It’s even likely you can’t spend your fifth, sixth, or seventh turn casting it. If that’s the case, you’d much rather have more efficient card drawing spells like Think Twice and Esper Charm, which you have a better chance of fitting in somewhere along your curve. Cryptic Command, on the other hand, is just more powerful and flexible than Mystical Teachings. If you’re going to Mystical Teachings for Cryptic Command a large portion of the time, why not just play more Cryptic Commands instead?

That isn’t to say that there isn’t a huge amount of value in having just one or two copies of Mystical Teachings. The ability to use a singleton Secure the Wastes or White Sun's Zenith as your win condition is absolutely huge. An instant-speed win condition that doubles as a way to stall out the ground is a huge edge. Similarly, the ability to find Sphinx's Revelation in long games, Spell Burst to lock opponent’s out of the game, or even powerful sideboard cards like Rest for the Weary is a big deal. That’s not even touching on the fact that you can use Mystical Teachings to find Esper Charms and Snapcaster Mages to lock your opponent out of their draw step.

If the format is slanted too far towards aggressive decks, Esper suffers due to the lack of Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix. However, once you’re looking to gain an edge in control and midrange matchups, that’s when Esper really begins to shine. If you want to prey on the various Nahiri decks in the format, this seems like an awesome place to start.