Jhoira's Breakfast of Champions

Commander / EDH Xindlepete

SCORE: 13 | 17 COMMENTS | 2106 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS


Single Swap Update —July 24, 2019

A friend of mine is selling his collection and I was able to get my hands on a copy of Engineered Explosives. I swapped out Phyrexian Marauder, since the deck mostly wants to be playing non-creature artifacts for synergies with Firebrand Archer and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Of all the creatures in the decklist, the Phyrexian Marauder seemed the weakest choice since it is incapable of blocking. On turns where the Jhoira engine whiffs and isn't able to storm out our opponents, having some of the artifact creatures act as chump blockers can become necessary for surviving until our next turn.

Engineered Explosives is also great at hosing token-based decks, or use as a political threat for wiping out certain 1- or 2-cmc permanents on the board. It doesn't hurt my deck's strategy too much either, so long as I have a Feldon's Cane or Elixir of Immortality available to shuffle all my destroyed artifacts back into the deck for more draw recursion.

While this is a minor change, I feel that it is an important one towards pushing the deck ever closer to top tier.

jaymc1130 says... #1

For about 10 bucks you could add Coveted Jewel , Words of Wind , Foundry Inspector , Jhoira's Familiar , Herald of Kozilek and Springleaf Drum . The Drum helps turn your creatures into rituals off of Recall and Retract effects, empowering your storm turn. The Herald, Familiar, and Inspector are other cheap cost reducers for a buck or less. Words of Wind and the Jewel work as a combo in tandem with the cost reducers. As long as you have cost reduction of 4 with Words out you can play the Jewel, draw the first card from Jhoira, tap the Jewel for mana, then skip one of the Jewel draws to return the Jewel to hand to play it again and draw the whole deck. At 5 or more cost reduction this combo also generates net positive mana per loop turning the Jewel into a ritual that draws cards.

Cloud Key is also worth considering, but it's about 15 bucks by itself.

July 13, 2019 3:56 a.m.

Xindlepete says... #2

jaymc1130: I opted against Jhoira's Familiar and Herald of Kozilek as mana reducers. Herald isn't super great because of its specific UR cost, not benefiting from the majority of the other cost reducers in the deck, and not counting as "Historic" makes it a bit too unreliable in the list. Jhoira's Familiar I desperately wanted to include for flavor, but it was too hard to keep in a 4CMC cost reducer when all of the other reducers are cheaper (at 2 or 3CMC instead).

I honestly dropped Foundry Inspector at first, thinking Scrap Trawler was a better include for some recursion and combo with the KCI, but the more I've tested this here the more I find I skip over the Trawler in favor of a different play. It probably is better to replace the Trawler with a Foundry Inspector, as getting at least two cost reducers is incredibly important for preventing whiffs. Good recommendation.

That is a really interesting loop you've presented with Coveted Jewell and Words of Wind, though honestly this deck's interactions are already complex enough for me to lose track of things easily if I'm not careful. A complex internal loop like that will probably mess up my personal cadence, and it will definitely infuriate my playgroup due to the incidental bouncing all of their stuff. I personally will opt not to run it in my list here, but by all means that is a great idea to include in a similar decklist!

Springleaf Drum is a fantastic recommendation that I didn't even think of! A great cheap artifact that also acts like a mana rock to help prevent whiffs or pay for activation costs once I have certain pieces on the board. Jhoira and all the other creatures in the deck do their thing whether they are tapped or not, so tapping them to the Drum for mana when necessary doesn't hinder the chain in the slightest. What a great budget option over the other 0cmc mana artifacts I noted in the description.

Thanks so much for your insights here, I really appreciate the feedback!

July 13, 2019 5:21 a.m.

jaymc1130 says... #3

@ Xindlepete Happy to help mate, and yeah, the Coveted Words loop should come with a disclaimer about the price of friendship. If everyone else is running 150$ budget decks you'd probably be allowed to play this exactly one time. After that you'd either have to find a new play group or a replacement card post playgroup banning. I run it in my cEDH Jhoira list and figured I'd mention it.

July 13, 2019 5:29 a.m.

Xindlepete says... #4

@jaymc1130: Yeah, a big part of the reason I built this deck is because my playgroup seems to be stepping up its power-level a bit. One guy built an absolutely disgusting Yawgmoth, Thran Physician deck, and another built a sliver deck helmed by The First Sliver . As far as I'm concerned, if you bring Cascade into the playgroup you deserve to go up against a storm deck.

I love the Cheerios archetype, and realized I could make a reasonable facsimile of it in Commander for roughly the same budget as all my other decks, so it seemed like the best choice for me. If everyone else keeps playing their more casual decks, then I will stick with my old ones, but at least this deck has a good chance of storming out before the 5-color sliver cascade can get fully online.

July 13, 2019 5:39 a.m.

jaymc1130 says... #5

@ Xindlepete Cheerios are good for your heart health. Fact. And this is in addition to being part of a complete and balanced breakfast!

July 13, 2019 5:46 a.m.