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Elsha, Jeskai Descendant - [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Primer RUW (Jeskai, America) Spellslinger

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Land (30)

Utility (13)

Tutor (4)

Removal/Control (15)

Draw (10)

Theft (4)

Recursion (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Elsha of the Infinite

Ramp (13)

Reduction (5)

Storm (2)

Maybeboard

Package 1 - Infinite Draw/Storm (16)

Package 4 - Spell Slinging Synergy (9)

Ramp (2)

Recursion (1)

Reduction (1)

Tutor (1)

Package 3 - Control & Stax (14)

Package 2 - Extra turns (9)

More Card Advantage (6)

Package 5 - Battle Cruiser Slinging (12)

Utility / Good Stuff (12)

Extra Removal (5)



This is a reactive and low to the ground cmc based spell slingers deck using the new flash based commander Elsha of the Infinite from C19.

Question: Are All Spell Slinging decks the same?

Answer: No! - Some like to be very combo centric, other prefer a battle cruiser late game style, Others like to stick low to the ground and paper cut the table.


Question: So what's sort of slinger is ours?

Answer:

  • Our focus is low cmc, Holding as much mana open as possible and reacting to our opponents plays.

  • We have built around non creatures and flash as that's what is stapled to our commander.

  • To compliment our spell slinger we have included a few of the low cmc cost reducers, although we have purposely cut a few of the higher cmc ones as they aren't as synergistic as they are in other brews.


Final point

I believe an EDH deck is at its best when its customised to the pilot, this is why I've kept the maybe board so large and sorted them into use. At the end of the Primer I have an alternative options section where I give a brief outline of some of the different packages that you could substitute in to have the deck suit your style. So if you're just looking for Ideas then have a quick look through this section.


Below I've tried to explain the majority of what the deck is trying to do. And some of the possible alternative card options. if the Primers aren't for you then I've laid out the maybe board with different options depending on what someone who is putting together a spell slinging deck would like. I've added 5 packages and have alternative options for the basics, Draw, Removal etc.

If you have any questions or card suggestions leave a comment. I'm always looking for new ideas and improvements.

You should try this deck if you;

  • 1 - Like to cast a lot of spells...one of the best parts of this deck is that you will never have a 'do nothing game' - win or lose you will get to interact with the board and your opponents every time!

  • 2 - If you like to be actively effect the board, this is not a super solitaire control build, we have control options but we are planning on using the board to win.

  • 3 - You like to play the wait and see game, Our Commander has Flash on a stick and we have both built in redundancy and built around instants so a lot of what we do is wait to react.

  • 4 - You prefer to play 3 smaller trickier spells than 1 big spell (we have a big spell or 2) most of the deck is low to the ground. our average cmc is around 2.9 so we cant be packing to many splashy spells

  • 5 - You enjoy not playing the same linear lines, Yes we have our high value plays but as we're running a copy cat package what we copy will change game to game.

  • 6 - You don't mind a deck that isn't relying on combo to win. we have 1 or 2 possible combos in the deck but the deck hasnt been built to move towards them.


You should think about a different build if;

  • Big beat down spells is your thing, have a look at the alternative options section...there's a good amount of battle cruiser packages available

  • You like to know exactly how your going to win...hey who doesn't?

  • Your friends call you 'Combo Cody' even though your name is Spike.

  • 35 lands, 10 Ramp (8 Permanent), 5 Cost reducers

  • 6 on Board Removal with 10 Counter spells

  • 11 Draw pieces (Including Our Commander) with 5 doubling as top of deck manipulation.

  • 20 ways to change the top card (Direct + Shuffling)


  • 41 combined sorcery and Instants

  • Flash stapled to our commander and added redundancy with Leyline of Anticipation

  • 57 non creature & Lands cards (Commander synergy)

  • Average CMC 2.9

Like most modern games of commander our opening turns are very straight forward, we want to ramp and set up future draws.


Show


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For as straight forward the opening phase of the deck is the middle grind of the game is equally open ended. During this part of the game we will be starting to sling our spells, either copying our opponents spells or copying our own.


We have included 8 ways to copy spells, 6 off the stack and 2 additional as we cast them most of these have just a 2 cmc cost, but those all need two colors.. So no cost reducers here.

Using these at the right time is key to getting the most out of the deck.


One of the original ideas I wanted to build around was a theft based Elsha deck unfortunately as I refined and tuned the spell slinging side these became a little too janky for this build, we do currently have a few remaining.

All of these are excellent candidates to be copied by our copy cat package. And will all benefit greatly from our cost Reducers.


Given that we're playing in Jeskai we have included some of the more common counter spells like Mana Drain & Counterspell options and are currently sitting on 10 counter spells,

some of the lesser common but play really nicely in this deck are;

  • Unwind - we want to hold our mana open so this will always be free, but add in the cost reduction that should be common enough and this will double as ramp.

  • Wild Ricochet - All round great utilty card, Doubles as theft, control and a copy cat.

  • Desertion - not just threat removal, but also small card advatage.

  • Spell Swindle - Remove the threat and ramp!


We have currently included only 6 traditional removal pieces as will be using our counter spells to remove the threat on the stack. Bringing our count to remove threats to 16 pieces.. This is also benefited by Timetwister & timespiral


So although most of the deck is based around reacting we have a few little things to do that can really create an advatnage over our opponents;

This is the trickiest section to explain a clear path too, this is because a decent portion of the deck relies on copying opponents spells or stealing opponents things. The way the deck Wins is by a combination of copying big spells either ours or our opponents or trying to storm off.


So let's start with the simple ways we can try and win

  • Expropriate - blue powerhouse for a reason. add in a copy spell and the game is probably yours

  • Finale of Promise - Works well as early game recursion but late game sink our mana in and get 3 copies of an 1 instant and 1 sorcery.

  • Blatant Thievery + Copy spell... We get the best 6 permanents on the field.

  • Bribery + copy spell.. We get the 2 best creatures in 2 different decks on the field.


We haven't built in a ton of infinite spell combos to create an infinite storm count, we can get a version of the Sensei's Divining Top combo although it's a little slower in this deck as we aren't focused around it. The combo in this deck works as such;

These 3 allow us to draw our deck, we play Top, get a spirit, then Sac for 1 Mana which allows us to put top back saccing the spirit to create 1 Mana and then using Elsha we can play top and start over.

As we aren't building around this specific combo it's not our main wincon but we still have enough ways to keep the storm alive when we go for it. This line could look something like;

  • Mana Geyser into copy spell, into shuffle, then have a full hand 20 floating mana with Aetherflux Reservoir active we will be able to hit a higher spell count.

  • Have counter spells ready as this is when our opponents will try and disrupt our plans (also adds to the cast count)

One of the best (and toughest) parts of Jeskai are the options it opens up..it really can be tricky to picky the type of packages you want to include in your deck. below are 5 packages that could be added to make the deck your own.


This seems like it will become a very common build for Elsha, so you probably know it by now if you don't it works by reducing the cost of artifacts by 1 we can play the top off the top of our deck at instant speed with Elsha for 0..then tap and draw a card to put the top back on.

So we need 1 cost reducer,


Then the key piece is;


And the combo enabler can be either;


We draw our entire deck, draw up a huge storm count and win with;


To ensure we have enough mana to cast Aetherflux we need to include some of the 0 and 1 cost rocks.


Lastly if you wanted to go this route then a few tutors for Sensei's Divining Top will make a big difference;

This one is pretty simple, we make space for some of the many extra turn spells, they will fit nicely into a slingers mantra and work doubly well with some copy spells.


Other than casting and just copying using our copy cat spells, we can create infinite turns using 2 cards already in the deck;

So this is the less friendly package, it's very much about stopping others and grinding a victory out. The options in this package are;

With this package we have extra counter spells, with some of the more one sided resource denial options.


Because we're running non basic land hate we need to switch up our land base. The easy answer is 10 dual fetches then add some basic land fetches. With 20 basics. With 13 different fetches added we should have no color issues.

This package would involve less copy cat spells but more direct synergy when we cast our own spells;

Extra storm options

  • Comet Storm - try and get a KO,

  • Brain Freeze - Mill Someone, only need two copies to mill the table with a high enough count.

  • Grapeshot - Storm on a pinger, classic finisher in a more traditional storm build.

There are board makers,

Even though I've called this Battle cruiser it doesn't have to be, By removing some of our double color copy spells and replacing them with some higher cmc options we'd slow our deck down but we wouldn't be losing power (if built correctly). The options i'd put in here are;

We've upped our cmc so we add more reducers, these have a bigger upside on more expensive spells.


We've got some extra reducers some more cmc expensive control/theft


Upping our CMC allows for some high value options


We need some redundancy to Elsha


Laslty our game winners become very reasonable with the high cost reduction.

As the deck ages I'll keep the main changes with reasons here.

- I really want to find space for-

The reason being, I want to lower how. Important Elsha is to the brew. More flash will help this. It's not the full answer but it will help.

If we have more flash, then Day's Undoing becomes very viable. A shuffle is nice, a new refilled hand is great and putting our bin back in to our deck is nice.

  • We need a little more consistency, Personal Tutor has been added to find the pieces when needed


- Needed spce for personal tutor so cut Frantic Search the discarding two can hamstring us a little

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #1 position overall 4 years ago
Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

52 - 0 Rares

11 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.00
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Dack Fayden, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders Kykar, favorites, 2019 - Non Combo Can Hang with the Big Boys - My current Favourite Decks, Good Ideas, EDH Inspiration, elsha, edh, EDH Primer, checkitout, Elsha Ideas
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