So you have Jhoira in play and a bunch of open lands and maybe rocks on the board and you’re scratching your head trying to figure out how to win by impressing the other players with your dominance of the stack and downright luck. Fear not, I have you covered with several scenarios to go through depending on the win con you have on hand or want to fetch with Gamble or draw into.
Important disclaimer: this deck becomes absurdly easy to pilot the more cost-reducers you have, trying to emulate the Cheerios archetype as much as possible. For the uninitiated, Cheerios is a deck full of 0 cost artifacts and then wins with a storm kill using Sram or Puresteel Paladin as draw engine. We are replacing those with Jhoira and using cost-reducers as our way of going Cheerios for some of the wins.
1. Words of Wind
This is the easiest to assemble and very interesting win. This combo needs 3U to go off and two mana positive rocks, taking into account cost-reducers. Cast Words of Wind. If you have a rock on the board, just cast the other and in response to the Jhoira draw trigger, float a mana and use Words of Wind activated ability to return the rock on the board and make everyone else return a permanent to their hand. Remember, while this is going on, the rock you cast is on the stack and cannot be used. Proceed to repeat with the rock you bounced and make everyone else bounce their board to their hands while you still have everything set up. While not a direct win-con, almost no deck can win with having only one land in play and nothing else every turn while you smack them with Jhoira and draw into whatever you need every turn.
Key note: This needs Jhoira on board to win. The others do not necessarily need her but certainly help.
2. Aetherflux Reservoir
So you want to go a more interesting route of winning. Reservoir is the “Solitaire” kill for this deck and it depends HEAVILY on cost-reducers or getting all the good mana-positive rocks like Mox Opal, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith and so on. What this all boils down to is, with Aetherflux in play, cast a lot of artifacts, draw a lot of cards, bounce them with Hurkyl’s Recall, Rebuild. Paradoxical Outcome or Chain of Vapor sacing lands to bounce more stuff and then shoot down the table with the Reservoir. It is interesting because depending on some board-states, it is very possible you fizzle since you need to keep the casting engine going and sometimes you don’t have enough artifacts or bounce effects.
3. Paradox Engine/Isochron Scepter+Dramatic Reversal
Paradox Engine abuse is the bane of Casual EDH and in this case, it is no different. As with Aetherflux, the purpose is to draw a lot of cards until you fish Scepter if you’re going Engine or Copy Artifact if you’re going with IsoRev and Galvanic Blast/Winds of Rebuke/Reality Shift. With one part in play, simply play the other and either Lightning Bolt the other players to death or mill them to death. BEWARE THAT SOME DECKS WANT TO BE MILLED LIKE GITROG. Go Winds of Rebuke when you’re sure you can win that way. The safest “I mill you” option is by far the Reality Shift one since it exiles their whole deck and you are not at risk of losing since it does not affect you but it depends that they have a creature for this to work.
4. Sensei’s Divining Top
Sensei as a win-con? What?
Yes. Top is a HUGE card in this deck and allows for many degeneracies that normally would not be possible. It is not a stretch to think that this card raises your win percentage by around 30% or more if you manage to play it and use it uncontested. Therefore, it is not crazy to Gamble, Fabricate or even Inventors’ Fair for Top ASAP.
You might be wondering “30%? That’s A LOT!”. And yes, it is. Let me explain why. As a 1 mana artifact, Top replaces itself pretty easily. The first ability lets you order the top of the library, and since we play quite a few shuffle effects, this becomes a pretty good card selection, but it is not what breaks the card. It is the second ability that we are interested in. Tap the top, draw a card and put it on top. Pretty simple, right? Now add Jhoira’s draw trigger. In response to the trigger, activate top and draw a card, putting top on top of your library. Let Jhoira trigger resolve and draw Top. Play top and draw another card.
See where I’m going with this? Now to fully break Sensei’s Divining Top, add a cost-reducer to the mix and you’re drawing two cards for each artifact you’re casting, lowering your chances of fizzling almost to zero when going off.
