Jeskai Cavalier Fires is a great choice for current Standard. I played it in Twitch Rivals to a 6-0 swiss record before losing a mirror match in the first elimination round. I have some videos you can view on my stream (at twitch.tv/zvimowshowitz) of the tournament and a two hour session on the ladder the next morning. I am very happy with the deck.

It helped that I had extensive experience with the deck before the bans. I played Jeskai Cavalier Fires in Richmond to a 2-2-1 record, losing a mirror and going 2-1-1 against four Oko, Thief of Crowns decks. My logic was Fires was very strong against decks that did not involve Oko, Thief of Crowns, and had a strong Game 1 against the Oko decks as well, as they had few or zero ways to interact with my main game plan, which was exactly what was needed to keep Nissa, Who Shakes the World in check and go over the top of them before they could go over the top of me. Sideboard games were a struggle, but it's not like there were good options available in that tournament, and you usually got to be on the play in Game 3.

Deck Origins for This Particular Build

I felt I had a substantially better build than average. When you build Fires, you are worried about three things.

1. Find and cast Fires of Invention.
2. Win games where Fires of Invention hits play and lives.
3. Win games where Fires of Invention doesn't hit play or dies.

The second task is important, but the other two are even more important. You don't lose that many games where Fires of Invention sticks around, unless you are cheating massively with the way your deck is configured. You instead want to focus on finding Fires of Invention more often, and on having a deck that can survive without one.

Shimmer of Possibility is the card that made Fires of Invention decks possible in the first place, by enabling them to have enough shots at finding Fires of Invention. When I see people not playing the card, I am deeply confused. Without Shimmer of Possibility, what do you do if you don't draw Fires of Invention? How do you find Deafening Clarion often enough when you need it most? Your best cards are several times more impactful than the rest of your deck. Best to keep digging. Shimmer of Possibility also greatly decreases the number of games you don't find the right lands, which is essentially death when it happens. Your mana requirements are not light.

I am often asked how one can get away with what looks like so little early interaction. It certainly looks super scary when you view the deck on paper. My answer is that your best spells catch you up from that deficit, and in practice it is hard to get that far ahead without playing into Deafening Clarion. Your sideboard is built to allow you to add cheap interaction where that is important, and it is possible it should be doing a little more of it than it currently does.

So in Richmond I played the full four copies of Shimmer of Possibility, despite the risks of drawing multiples - often the best turn three is to cast your second Shimmer anyway, and make sure your Fires arrives on time.

When preparing for Twitch Rivals, Sam Black noted that Grzegorz Kowalski had one Sphinx of Foresight in their Fires deck at Richmond.

The moment I heard this, it seemed obvious. I had even previously played with Sphinx of Foresight in the Biomancer's Familiar deck. As Sam pointed out, Sphinx does two very important things for you. First, when you play Fires of Invention, this gives you a strong second spell for that turn to ensure you don't fall a bit too far behind. Often the old builds had to pass the turn or cast Drawn from Dreams in that spot, opening a window for the opponent. Second, Sphinx of Foresight gets you several cards deeper when it is in your opening hand, which makes you much more likely to find fires.

Sphinx of Foresight is clearly good at task number one, finding Fires of Invention. It was playing a key role in task two, providing a turn four bridge and ensuring the deck always had a bunch of large creatures worth deploying. It even helps with task number three as well, as you now have even more cards to play in a 'normal' game that play good solid Magic. The scry helps you whether or not you still care about finding Fires of Invention, it combines very well with Deafening Clarion, and generally gives you a much better traditional midrange game.

I trimmed out 2 Drawn from Dreams and 1 Shimmer of Possibility to make room. The other cut was to remove the 4 Aether Gusts, since the metagame no longer makes that a free action. Three of them became Bonecrusher Giant to provide early interaction, the fourth became the fourth copy of Sphinx of Foresight.

Decklist

After the tournament, I swapped the fourth Cavalier of Gales into the second Kenrith, the Returned King. I tried turning Solar Blaze into Disenchant, but after writing up the sideboard guide, it was clear that the Solar Blaze was doing too much work, and any room for Disenchant needs to be found elsewhere.

Jeskai Cavalier Fires | Eldraine Standard | Zvi Moshowitz

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Kenrith, the Returned King
• 3 Bonecrusher Giant
• 3 Cavalier of Gales
• 4 Cavalier of Flame
• 4 Sphinx of Foresight

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Teferi, Time Raveler

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Drawn from Dreams
• 1 Time Wipe
• 3 Shimmer of Possibility
• 4 Deafening Clarion

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Fires of Invention

• Lands (27)
• 1 Plains
• 2 Island
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Sacred Foundry
• 3 Castle Vantress
• 3 Fabled Passage
• 3 Temple of Epiphany
• 3 Temple of Triumph
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Steam Vents

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Devout Decree
• 2 Sorcerous Spyglass
• 2 Aether Gust
• 1 Solar Blaze
• 4 Legion Warboss
• 4 Mystical Dispute

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Possible changes to the main deck: You can consider cutting Drawn from Dreams from the deck entirely, either to get early interaction, the fourth Shimmer of Possibility or another sweeper, or possibly get back the fourth Cavalier of Gales. If you do want early interaction, we can consider the fourth Bonecrusher Giant, a Justice Strike or a Prison Realm.

Possible changes to the sideboard: We may want 1-2 copies of Disenchant, access to 1-2 additional sweepers, 1-2 copies of Dovin's Veto or additional copies of Aether Gust or Devout Decree depending on what is out there. Nothing else seems appealing.

That does not mean there aren't other cards out there I haven't thought about that would be good. It means those are the only cards I've considered that seem plausibly good enough.

On Other Major Variations: Fae of Wishes and/or Planeswalkers

I believe that both these approaches are fundamentally flawed and much worse. The deck can certainly do well with Fae of Wishes in it, but I see that as being in spite of the card rather than because of it.

The problem with Fae of Wishes is that it is very bad at task number three (win without Fires), without helping with task number one (find Fires), and usually isn't needed for task number two (win with Fires). If you play Fires then you get to start casting one great spell a turn instead of two good spells a turn. That is sometimes better, and usually enough to win, but the two good spells were also usually enough to win. The early interaction from a 1/4 flyer is in practice not a great use of mana and a card. I would much rather use that time to be playing or finding my best cards.

The other problem with Fae of Wishes is it swallows much of your sideboard, which you definitely miss, but I would not play it even if the sideboard slots were not at issue.

The planeswalker variation swaps out the Cavaliers for Sarkhan, The Masterless and friends. I do not get the appeal of this. It seems less powerful and also far more vulnerable to falling behind and not being able to catch up, especially when you don't have Fires of Invention. Where we can play a Cavalier and hope to stabilize, they play a planeswalker and it gets attacked. They also are much worse at pressuring planeswalkers, which matters less than before but still matters.

Central Play Pattern

The central plan is simple. Use the first three turns to stall for time and/or find Fires of Invention. Play Fires of Invention on turn four and follow it up with a Sphinx of Foresight or a 3-drop. On turn five, play two cards from among Kenrith, the Returned King, Cavalier of Gales, Cavalier of Flame, and Deafening Clarion, depending on current needs, and kill them around turn six.

To do that, you'll need five lands, a Fires of Invention and several big drops to finish things off. The good news is that you have excellent card flow, so you can assemble this even when your opening hand is missing multiple components. The more you can stall for time and/or actively dig deeper, the more likely things are to work out. If the game goes longer, you start to no longer need Fires of Invention, and the quality of your cards plus your ability to filter starts to take over against anyone not going over the top of your creatures.

You generally want to find the first four lands quickly, although a six-card hand ideally only has three. Once the game begins, it's hard to turn down lands that get you to four. If you already have four, the fifth can usually be turned down on turns one and two when given the choice if you have another need to fill, including finding a two or three mana interactive spell that is relevant against your opponent. You have a lot of lands and a bunch of extra card drawing, so you can count on that to usually work out.

Playing lands beyond the fifth is not automatic, as they can be discarded to Cavalier of Flame or put back with Cavalier of Gales. For similar reasons, a second Fires of Invention usually should be held in hand. If you have no access to Fires of Invention, you usually want to keep playing lands so you can double spell or activate Kenrith, the Returned King and Cavalier of Flame. If you do have access, then strongly consider stopping at five.

If you have both cavaliers, you want to play Cavalier of Gales first, put back the cards you wish to keep, then play Cavalier of Flame and discard the trash. Make sure you know when you'll have the opportunity to scry, and plan both for what happens if Cavalier of Gales lives and if it dies.

A key question to always ask is whether your hand is good enough to win without finding a key card, usually Fires of Invention but also often Deafening Clarion or a key 5-drop. If the answer is no, then focus on digging rather than on fighting a losing battle that won't let you dig for what you need, or that doesn't allow the good cards to be effective. It is a dangerous trap to play a mediocre game that doesn't get the job done and mostly only prolongs the inevitable.

Mulligans

This build of Cavalier Fires mulligans less than almost every other deck in the format. Much of your edge comes from your ability to keep most of your opening hands and then find the missing components during the game. For most decks, players do not mulligan enough. This is the sole place that they might mulligan too much.

Against an unknown opponent, you can keep essentially any hand that has a Sphinx of Foresight, Shimmer of Possibility or Fires of Invention and a reasonable mix of lands.

If you have all three colors and three lands total, and the ability to cast a Shimmer of Possibility on turn two, then you probably want to keep. Certainly if any of the other three cards cost less than five, the keep is easy. If you have only two lands and a Shimmer of Possibility, then you'll need to either also have Fires of Invention or have good ways to interact on turn three, which implies that the two lands allow a second turn Shimmer of Possibility.

If you have a Sphinx of Foresight, it takes a lot to force a mulligan. Ask what would be needed from the top of the deck, and if it seems reasonably plausible, you'll want to keep it. Two Sphinx lets you keep almost any other five cards. Almost.

If you have Fires of Invention and the tools to win if it hits, you can gamble a bit with the lands and early interaction. If you don't have the tools, you can't gamble with also not having the lands as too many different things can go wrong. A second Fires of Invention is usually bad, but two is much better than zero.

Cavaliers mulligans to six reasonably, but mulligans to five poorly because you need more components than a five card hand can hold. If you do go to six, keep any hand with anything reasonable to do and hope things come together. When you put a card back, it's usually fine to put back a 5-drop or the fourth land.

Matchups

It's not clear what the most important matchups will be in the new world. These lists were taken from Twitch Rivals Top 32 (collection of decks here) and should cover the basics. Once you know how these matchups work, others should follow logically along similar lines.

Cavalier Fires (the Mirror)

Win the die roll if you can. It's super important.

Think of the matchup, especially in Game 1, in terms of tempo and the number of plays each player makes. Anything that interacts with Fires of Invention or a 5-drop counts. If you fall behind on tempo, you lose.

That makes is almost impossible to beat a Fires of Invention if you're on the draw, and almost impossible to beat a Fires of Invention on the play if you don't have your own copy. If the first player opens Game 1 with Teferi, Time Raveler into Fires of Invention, and then plays land five with 5-drops, there is nothing you can do about this. You lose. Good day, sir. I said good day.

The problem is that each player is limited to two spells per turn, and they will always be two spells ahead on their turn, and those two spells are creatures and those creatures are smashing your face. The Teferi will bounce your Fires for a turn, and there's no way for you to catch up. Anything you do is irrelevant.

That pattern also works on the draw if they don't have a Fires of Invention on the play. Many cards are irrelevant to what matters, or even virtually blank because even where they do something at all there's no time to play them.

You can break out of that pattern in a sideboard game by stopping Fires of Invention. Teferi can be stopped with Mystical Dispute, allowing a counter or Aether Gust for the Fires of Invention, or you can answer it with Disenchant. Answering with Disenchant plus your own Fires of Invention will work. Disenchant without your own Fires of Invention will likely leave you too far behind on tempo, and if they have the second Fires then you are fully buried.

Sideboarding has both players take out Deafening Clarion and any other sweepers, and Drawn from Dreams is too slow to keep. All the sweepers leaving opens up space for Legion Warboss to be good. It provides a good answer to Teferi, Time Raveler, can kill remarkably quickly with Cavalier of Flame, and lets you play meaningful tempo faster. The question then becomes how many answers you can afford to pack to that.

It's also worth noting that stopping to Shimmer of Possibility in Game 2 is more dangerous than in Game 1, and finding your Fires of Invention no longer means it will hit or stick around as reliably, so trimming that is at least reasonable.

Mystical Dispute is odd because it is almost entirely dead if you have Fires of Invention, but it is key to forcing through yours and stopping theirs. On the draw you definitely want all four. On the play it is less clear, but it seems you can afford the space given you start ahead, so why risk falling behind on tempo?

With the current configuration I'm sideboarding something close to this:

Out:

• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -1 Time Wipe
• -4 Deafening Clarion
• -1 Shimmer of Possibility
• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -2 Bonecrusher Giant

In:

• +4 Mystical Dispute
• +4 Legion Warboss
• +2 Aether Gust

This leaves one Bonecrusher Giant to help mop up Legion Warboss. I'm uncertain how many are justified. If I had a third Aether Gust or a Justice Strike available I'd be using that in the slot instead.

On the draw, Legion Warboss is worse, but you still need more meaningful ways to score a tempo point on turn three, especially if they went for Teferi, Time Raveler. I'd still put in the first two no matter what, but I'd be more inclined to leave some out to fit in Disenchant or avoid other trims. It's weird that play vs. draw is so radical a shift in win percentage but does not make me want to change my configuration more than this, but it feels like your decisions are already forced.

After board it's still all about tempo. The difference is now there are more ways to steal it, but once you get onto the back foot, there is little to be done to come back. If you're behind, ask what hands you can beat, and defend only against those. Don't feel bad if they kill you where you could have lived, if you couldn't have won the game later on.

If you know that you are in a mirror, then you want to mulligan much, much more aggressively than normal. Either you have The Hand That Wins, or you don't, nothing else matters, so go find it. On the draw, you find The Hand That Wins and hope they don't have it first.

Golgari Adventures

Game 1 they cannot meaningfully interact with you. Their pressure comes on relatively slowly and they play straight into Deafening Clarion. Eventually they have a card advantage engine that could prove to be a problem if Fires of Invention takes actual forever to show up, but they are not hard to kill before that happens if you find a Fires of Invention. With Sphinx of Foresight, neither Rankle, Master of Pranks or Questing Beast is a serious threat. Game 1 is very easy.

Sideboarding is very good for them. Many of their cards are bad while none of yours are, and they get to bring in a lot of ways to interact with Fires of Invention. Expect a full four copies of Duress and about four removal spells for a Fires of Invention that hits play, usually Assassin's Trophy and Thrashing Brontodon. They also might have Shifting Ceratops, which can be remarkably annoying to deal with - if that card gets more popular we'll want access to Justice Strike.

We bring in two copies of Aether Gust. It's not an amazing card, but it's better than not having it. Our maindeck is where we want to be in any case. I'd probably play all four if I had them, but it's not that big an upgrade. The Solar Blaze is more exciting.

Out:

• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -1 Teferi, Time Raveler

In:

• +2 Aether Gust
• +1 Solar Blaze

After sideboarding we want to mulligan even less than usual here, because of Duress. If we do find a Fires of Invention with Sphinx of Foresight, we'll want it to be the third card down if possible. In general, we plan to not have Fires of Invention and instead to cast our spells the hard way. Bonecrusher Giant and Deafening Clarion keep the Inkeeper plan in check. Fires of Invention is still a great card to draw even if they kill it, since it effectively costs zero mana, and your cards are generally pretty good, so I've been comfortable here even against full sideboards.

Jund Sacrifice

You are set up well to not care about much of what they are doing. Deafening Clarion is an excellent sweeper, they have at most a small number of ways to kill Fires of Invention Game 1, and you should kill them easily in the air if the Fires of Invention hits. Assassin's Trophy is flexible but is the worst way to deal with Fires of Invention. If you get a free spell off, then they spend mana to kill it and give you a land as a parting gift, now you're far enough ahead on tempo that you likely don't need the Fires to win. That's true in other matchups as well. Meanwhile, they are stuck with cards like Massacre Girl and Vraska, Golgari Queen that do very little against us.

Out:

• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -3 Teferi, Time Raveler

In:

• +2 Sorcerous Spyglass
• +2 Devout Decree
• +1 Solar Blaze

Note that if they are playing Kovold then Teferi becomes better, but I believe the better version skips Kovold entirely. In any case one must cut something. We aren't putting in Aether Gust because that's not what is important to them, although again it is better if they have Kovold.

Once again, your goal is to survive the sideboard. Again we likely face a full set of Duress (or close to it) backed by removal spells, this time probably something like Cindervines. They get to bring these in while taking out bad cards, while once again we already had a strong configuration. I've seen artifact removal come in blind against me in at least one case, which seems very wrong to me. I am not assured to have any targets at all. Sorcerous Spyglass is potentially on the chopping block if we decide that we don't actually need it anywhere so we want to focus on other things instead.

Playing after board means (again) not counting on Fires of Invention, and instead planning on a value game that you're happy to pivot into turbo mode if the Fires of Invention manages to stick.

Golgari Sacrifice

Streamer Crokeyz has been tearing it up with his take on Golgari Sacrifice, and many top players are taking notice and adapting similar builds. I would be surprised if this deck did not have a fine showing at the Mythic Championship. The reasons I love the build, especially in the important sacrifice mirrors, are largely the subject of another article, but look at what he's managed to do for the Jeskai matchup.

Jeskai is used to Game 1 being easy against sacrifice decks. Their early drops all die to Deafening Clarion, then you play Fires of Invention and they can't remove it, then they die to your Cavalier plan. The things they are doing do not matter to you.

Now that has changed. Their 3-drop will likely be Thrashing Brontodon. I typically hate that card, but in this build it makes perfect sense, as it has a purpose against every realistic opponent while setting up your Massacre Girl triggers for later in the game. If your opponent doesn't have a Trail of Crumbs or Fires of Invention or Embercleave to kill, the 3/4 body should be sufficient to bridge you to your engine. If they do, even at a bad price, you're happy to have the answer available. Then you go over the top with four Casualties of War. Again, Casualties of War answers all the permanents you actually worry about while giving you card advantage, after which the deck can lean on its engine until the enemy eventually breaks. It's weird that you can't dig for your most expensive card, but the engine is happy to keep playing one and 2-drops, so it's fine.

It is worth noting that given these developments, I no longer think the deck can consider running Solar Blaze over Time Wipe in Game 1, as is sometimes done.

We are under essentially no life total threat, as their attackers are still quite bad at killing us, but now we have an unreliable Fires of Invention even in Game 1. They also have a bunch of ways to take out our creatures, so we need to work quickly to maximize our chances of winning before the engine buries us. Keep track of their mana for when they can play Casualties of War. A duplicate Fires of Invention is a good card worth hanging onto.

Sideboarding makes it worse. You can't do much. Aether Gust is good, but not that impactful. In exchange we face Duress. Definitely don't bring in Sorcerous Spyglass because it's an invitation to disaster in the long games that it helps create. One must mostly power through and hope for the best.

Out:

• -2 Teferi, Time Raveler

In:

• +2 Aether Gust

This matchup being bad when they have this configuration, especially against players adept at playing the Golgari side, is by far the best argument right now against Jeskai Cavaliers. The way to win the mirror war they're in happens to handle us, which risks turning Standard potentially into a one deck format with a truly miserable mirror that can actually time players out on Arena.

Rakdos Sacrifice

This is more of an aggro deck trying to kill you than anything else. One note is that they have Claim the Firstborn, so playing Bonecrusher Giant in Game 1 is often not a good idea. If you don't do that, the card becomes terrible and your plans are mostly great, especially the sweepers. Having another sweeper would again make things that much safer, but again things have usually been fine. Devout Decree is excellent at making sure nothing too terrible happens early.

We board the same way as in Jund Sacrifice.

Out:

• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -3 Teferi, Time Raveler

In:

• +2 Sorcerous Spyglass
• +2 Devout Decree
• +1 Solar Blaze

Note that Sorcerous Spyglass is much more important when facing Chandra, Acolyte of Flame than when you don't. If that card was out of the picture I don't think you need it that much, as Witch's Oven does not feel that dangerous. This is double if they are actually bringing in Embereth Shieldbreaker, which I've actually seen happen in the wild.

The good news is that they cannot remove Fires of Invention once it hits, so they're counting fully on discard from Duress and perhaps Drill Bit, and they don't have much to go relevantly over the top of you. Your cards are bigger and hit harder.

Temur Reclamation

Your primary plan is faster than anything they have to answer it, and they can neither answer it nor play their game plan if Teferi, Time Raveler is in play. They're counting on you not sticking either Fires of Invention or Teferi, Time Raveler. Playing around their counters can sometimes be a thing, but usually it isn't given how their deck works, so you jam the things they least want to see and then find out if they have it. Sometimes they have it, more often they do not have enough of it.

Here we finally get to sideboard out bad cards for good cards, as opposed to sideboarding out other good cards, because our removal is useless.

Out:

• -4 Deafening Clarion
• -3 Bonecrusher Giant
• -1 Time Wipe
• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -1 Cavalier of Gales

In:

• +4 Mystical Dispute
• +4 Legion Warboss
• +2 Aether Gust

As in the mirror they are forced to defend against Legion Warboss with cards that don't otherwise do anything, so that subgame is a pure win. Mostly they will bring in some more counters, stick to their game plan and hope it works. They are a time bomb, so when in doubt keep being aggressive.

Azorious Control

Game 1 you have a bunch of dead cards and they are sitting on an effective high end, so you can't wait around much. Teferi is as always the ultimate test spell, so you force them to have the counter for that and for Fires of Invention. If they do, it's rough, and your B-plan is unlikely to get there.

The sideboard has a full set of Mystical Dispute and Legion Warboss for a reason.

Out:

• -4 Deafening Clarion
• -3 Bonecrusher Giant
• -1 Time Wipe

In:

• +4 Mystical Disupte
• +4 Legion Warboss

Now things are much better. You don't have dead or bad cards, and you have a lot of must-answer threats that keep them in response mode. Play the beatdown role as you would expect and do your best to close them out before they get to start stealing in earnest.

Gruul Adventures

I do not think this deck is a good idea without Once Upon a Time. You were very much counting on finding Edgewall Inkeeper to make the deck do impressive things and that no longer happens all that often. There is also a problem with Deafening Clarion. Suddenly where you used to face Gruul Spellbreaker you're now up against Bonecrusher Giant. The build linked to here from Twitch Rivals has some spice and shifts away from Bonecrusher Giant (even in the sideboard, which confuses me how you could not want access to more copies where it is great), but also does not seem to be doing any particular thing all that well beyond 'have creatures that I can put Embercleave on.' Which is a fine first thing to do.

Embercleave often quickly becomes the only thing to be worried about. Every turn you look at their board and ensure that they can't win if they have it. If they don't have it, there's usually nothing to worry about. My willingness to cut down on Aether Gust is based on this deck not fully being a thing anymore, as even with a good matchup you'd very much like to shore things up if it remains popular.

Their sideboard plan will be to remove Fires of Invention. They can't stop it from coming down, so make sure to get your value before they kill it, and be happy to deploy a second copy. We lower our mana curve since we overpower our opponent regardless.

Out:

• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -1 Cavalier of Flame

In:

• +2 Aether Gust
• +1 Solar Blaze

Izzet Flash

Worry more than you expect about your life total or falling behind even a little on tempo. It matters a lot that you ambush their flash creatures with Bonecrusher Giant or sweep them up with Deafening Clarion. Bonecrusher Giant is actually good here. You are not generally well positioned however, especially in Game 1. The good news is that their deck is much less powerful than yours and they are forced to have answers to most of your things provided you have time to cast them.

Out:

• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -2 Cavalier of Gales
• -2 Deafening Clarion
• -1 Shimmer of Possibility

In:

• +2 Aether Gust
• +4 Mystical Dispute

Their creatures are actually vulnerable to Clarion, and the lifegain half is often relevant, so taking all of them out seems wrong. Leaving them all in seems too dangerous as well. They never take out Bonecrusher Giant, so we don't want to try for Legion Warboss.

Simic Flash seems to me like a deck that gets to play better cards and a better game, and is definitely not a good matchup for us. There you would want to try for Legion Warboss.

Simic Quasiduplicate

This deck has been around for a while, and poses a lot of awkward problems for us. Cavalier of Thorns seems almost designed to cause us trouble, and their high end of stealing things is super effective if they get there. I like versions that are less about Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Hydroid Krasis than this build, and more about Quasiduplicate and stealing stuff, but that comes from being on the other side.

You can't let Risen Reef live. That card is a flat out beating against us in every way, as is Cavalier of Thorns. If they have the right tool at the right time, or you can't finish them off so they can keep grinding away at their engine, things will get steadily worse over time. Our hope is that we can do our thing and then overpower them before they reach critical mass, as critical mass usually takes them a while.

Their sideboard plan is going to be some combination of counters and enchantment removal.

As is often the case, you don't have easy cuts. We clearly want Aether Gust and Mystical Disupte to fight what they are up to, but what to take out? I'm currently thinking maybe take out Kenrith, the Returned King because it lines up badly against being stolen or blocked by Cavalier of Thorns, and they can overpower you even if you start spending mana on it. Teferi, Time Raveler isn't great in Game 1 (by the time you're trying to reclaim your stuff, it's typically a little late) but in Game 2 they're going to have counters (although likely not all that many) and it can be important to bounce Cavalier of Thorns since you often hate killing it. Currently I have us taking out Shimmer of Possibility because we want to be holding up other things in the early turns, but it's the coward's way out rather than the right answer. I don't love any of my cut options.

Out:

• -1 Drawn from Dreams
• -1 Kenrith, the Returned King
• -1 Cavalier of Gales
• -2 Shimmer of Possibility
• -1 Teferi, Time Raveler

In:

• +2 Aether Gust
• +4 Mystical Dispute

That's Cavalier Fires. Very strong deck and quite fun to play. Enjoy it responsibly.