Welcome to Jhoira of the Goodstuff!

 someone looks cute

Welcome to my third commander deck, staring my favorite non-planewalker character: Jhoira of the Ghitu . Despite what you might have thought during Time Spiral, Jhoira of the Ghitu is one of the most hateful people (probably) still alive in Magic the Gathering. Unlike your Kaalia of the Vast decks or your Purphoros, God of the Forge decks who will straight up kill you before you've done anything, Jhoira allows you to have the hope of having a fun, interactive game of Magic...then laughs maniacally as she explodes out of nowhere destroys all your lands, creatures, hopes, and dreams.

Please note: Jhoira's hatefulness is well known to a lot of EDH players since MLD (Mass Land Destruction) spells are the main constant across most builds of this deck, so be forewarned. Prepare to be occationally hated out!

The Main Strategy

If you're reading this, I have to assume you're either interested in Jhoira as a commander, or want to help some random internet douche with their deck. Either way, nice choice! You should play Jhoira if you're interested in playing a versitile commmander (in terms of what you can put in it) and you love to hate on lands. Jhoira is not a combo deck like most izzet commanders; if you want to do that, go Mizzex of the Izmagnus.

This deck is meant to be played in a strong, competative environment, where we have to assume that people will constantly try to slow our progression. This is why we have ways to win with or without Jhoira in play, and the reason we run a lot of draw and disruption spells here.

The most basic strategy for this deck is to put out Jhoira of the Ghitu as soon as we can, then use her to suspend a mass land destruction spell. Then, we put a big, stupid thing, like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, in suspend behind it. We then play defensively utill both cards resolve, and win. All the other cards in this deck either help us facilitate this in some way or is there for redundancy (since our commander is hate bait). So let's go head and break it down....

Yep, if you've been here before, then you'll notice there had been a lot of changes here, some of which you probably won't understand, so I've decided to take note of all the card drops here to try and give everyone some insight into my thought process when making card choices.

It should be noted that while I've never tested this deck in an actual tournament, (I still don't own all of the cards), I have tested a proxy version casually in 4 and higher player pods and 1v1. These changes are based on my experience there, and taking notes form various Jhoira decks around the interwebs. The main take away was that I was a little too slow and had trouble defending myself it the early turns. So let's look at all of the changes...

Arcane Lighthouse - Dropped for Desolate Lighthouse. This is a bit of a meta choice, but most of the time I'd rather have the card filter.

Exotic Orchard - Dropped for Crystal Vein. Unless someone in your meta is passing around Slaughter Pact there's is really no need for this card.

Halimar Depths - Dropped for Temple of Epiphany . Although looking three deep in your library is powerful, during the early turns I'd much rather have both of my colors available. Scry 1 is powerful enough.

Mana Confluence - Dropped for Riptide Laboratory. We have enough mana fixing that we can afford to drop this for some utility that doesn't ping us when we use it.

Oboro, Palace in the Clouds - Dropped for a basic land slot. We needed more basic land just in case someone wants to Blood Moon our face off. The self bounce was pretty useful with board wipes though...

Wasteland - Dropped for Thespian's Stage . I think I'd rather be able to copy someone's land over destroying it here. Especially since it can copy different lands as the game progresses.


Arbiter of the Ideal - Dropped for It That Betrays. Rarely got value out of the guy...girl...thing. Honestly, just rarely drew it. Since we've now dropped Ral Zerek, it's less valuable.

Keiga, the Tide Star - Dropped for a card slot. It's simultaneously too costly for us to play from hand and too cheap to waste a suspend on. Plus, it doesn't really effect the board much until it dies. Just all around clunky here.

Laboratory Maniac - Dropped for a card slot. We no longer run Enter the Infinite and we have two Eldrazi to help if someone is trying to deck us. Quite simply, we don't need it.

Mizzix of the Izmagnus - Dropped to force in Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This was my second-to-last swap out and probably the hardest. He has value in a deck like this but, being 2/2 he's easy to remove and quite frankly I'd rather have the raw variety the Jace brings.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - Dropped for Leyline of Anticipation. Flavor fail for days. Basically, he's too risky to bring into a game with any amount of blue roaming around. He absolutely stops Jhiora from working, and having leyline in his place just means there's that much less chance of having to deal with him.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - Dropped for Akroma, Angel of Fury. Purely a meta choice since there is a fair amount of blue roaming around my area. If you feel that Ulamog is the better choice for you, then by all means, stick with him, that cast trigger is beastly.

Void Winnower - Dropped for a card slot. It's not as good as you think it is. Yes, it's funny to see everyone having to make sure they can do something, but there are plenty of odd numbered cards that can get rid of him; Path of Exile for example.


Negate - Dropped for Counterflux. I think an uncounterable Counterspell is overall more relevant.


Timecrafting - Dropped for Impulse. Timecrafting is the best time-counter based card, however that's all it is. If we suspend a card there are other ways to to get it out, the most obvious being just to wait 4 turns. Plus, we have creatures that interact with time counters. For now I think looking at the top four will be more consistantly relavent. This is a likely canidate to return in the future.



Apocalypse - Dropped for a card slot. Was my least favorite board wipe, you best be winning this turn or you're kinda done.

Blatant Thievery - Dropped for a card slot. Does not work as well as you think it would, plus this is the card that gets everyone to agree to attack you and only you when it's suspended, the threat of you taking whatever they have on board is too great to do otherwise.

Devastation - Dropped for a card slot. We have a fair amount of board wipes already, and this one's the most vanilla wipe ever.

Enter the Infinite - Dropped for a card slot. Oh boy, this card. Turns out, you kinda need to build around it if you want to any value out of it other than the ideal Omniscience combo. This is a very good explaination of why..

Personal Tutor - Dropped for a card slot. Even when there were 18 sorceries in the deck, I thought this was kinda "meh." Despite the obvious interaction with Temporal Mastery, it's just not worth the include to me, especially now since I dropped Enter the Infinite.

Temporal Trespass - Dropped for Time Stretch. This is just an experiment for me, I'm trying to see which one I like more, even though it was nice having another extra turn spell to cast from hand.


Ral Zarek - Dropped for Dack Fayden. Never got the usage out of him that I thought I would. He usually came out and bolted something, then died. While the occasional blocker was tapped and the occasional Mana Vault was untapped, mostly he's a Bolt on a stick. By the way, I never got to use his -7, not once.

Paradox Haze - Dropped for Lotus Bloom . Remember Paradox Haze also subjects us to negative upkeep effects as well. Also, I wanted to limit the amount of cards that are only useful when something is suspend. Rift Elemental at least gives us a block. This has a good chance of returning in the future though.

Coalition Relic - Dropped for Izzet Signet. I wanted a 2 drop mana rock that directly fixes mana.

Knowledge Pool - Dropped because without a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir on our side of the field it's legitimately just chaos and bad times.


And now back to your regularly scheduled program...


The Mana

The most important thing in Magic, if only because of Islands.

Cascade Bluffs - Directly fixes our mana.

Command Tower - There is no reason not to have this in a multi-colored deck.

Shivan Reef - Fixes our mana for a neglectable loss of life.

Steam Vents - The first land you're gonna fetch for.

Sulfur Falls - Give us both our colors. Good, even if it comes in tapped.

Temple of Epiphany - Scry 1 and gives us both our mana colors.

Chromatic Lantern - Fixes all lands and adds 1 of any color, so bring on the Blood Moon.

Izzet Signet - A really good two drop that fixes and colorless sources.

Omniscience - The ultimate mana-fixer....lol.

The Fetchlands - Arid Mesa, Bloodstained Mire, Flooded Strand, Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, Scalding Tarn , Wooded Foothills


Boseiju, Who Shelters All - Counters are bad.

Desolate Lighthouse - The extra filtering is a great mana dump, just in case we don't have what we need in hand.

Cavern of Souls - Counters are really bad, m'kay?

Homeward Path - Because I know what it's like to get pinged by your own Blightsteel Colossus....it feels like AIDS personified.

Riptide Laboratory - It protects Jhoria from being killed and can let us get extra value out of Venser, Shaper Savant and Snapcaster Mage.

Strip Mine - If they only have one color source of mana, why don't you blow it up?

Thespian's Stage - It can copy any land on the battlefield and can change over time. I acutally like it more than Vesuva.

Tolaria West - That transmute ability let's us search for any land, or a Mana Crypt powerful stuff.

Ancient Tomb - The ramp is worth it, every time.

Crystal Vein - It taps for one colorless mana, but can be sacked to give you that little extra ramp you might need to do something.

Chromatic Lantern - Fixes all our lands. Even fetchlands can tap for mana thanks to this.

Grim Monolith - There's not much of a way to abuse this like most decks that include it, but tapping to add three mana to your pool will always b worth it .

Lotus Bloom - A great ramp rock, and on flavor! Plus we can -0 Tezzeret the Seeker for an instant 3 mana boost!Mana Crypt - The best mana rock.

Mana Vault - Although it can ping you for 1 life, I still think it's a better Grim Monolith.

Sol Ring - Rockman.exe

The Big, Dumb, Things

These are the creatures the will win you the game. Once they're in suspend, the game immediately changes as people will scramble to find answers before one drops. While they aren't the reason people hate on this deck so much, each of these creatures is a win condition.

Akroma, Angel of Fury - An uncounterable beast of an angel. While she's easily the weakest of the creatures here, she can just tear into blue and white decks. Plus she can be used as a morph for three.

Artisan of Kozilek - Big annihilator Eldrazi that gets back creatures from the graveyard on cast. Has extra value now thanks to Sneak Attack.

Blightsteel Colossus - No explanation needed.

It That Betrays - An annihilator Eldrazi that syncs with other annihilator Eldrazi since what ever they sacrifce comes to us. Closes out games real quick.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - Not a game-ender per se, but without something like Relevant To-I mean Reliquary Tower on their side of the field, it's pretty good as a 1-turn clock.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - Kozi draws us 4 cards on cast, plus annihilator, busted.

Mind's Dilation - It's very speculative, but I feel like this has the potential to completely lockdown multiplayer games.

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - Acts like a better Kozilek.

The Wipes

A.K.A. "The Mean Part" These are what draw in the hate from other players. Not only do they keep people from being able to stop you if you drop a creature in behind them, but if you're not able to capitalize on the wipe, they stall the game out. Use them wisely, but don't be afraid to drop one without a creature to suspend. Sometimes it's better to suspend them and hope to hit a creature in 4 four turns, than to let yourself be overrun trying to force the ideal situtation.

Blasphemous Act - Great creature wipe. Because of it's unique cast reduction effect, late game, we might perfer to hard cast it.

Decree of Annihilation - Simultaneously the second best complete board wipe and the best MLD spell, Stifle is more or less the only card you'll run into that can stop the cycle effect and you can cycle at instant speed.

Devastation Tide - Great tempo board wipe. It is a bit clunky if you can't cast it for the miracle cost.

Jokulhaups - Good full wipe.

Obliterate - The best complete board wipe, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is the only one who can object to this from suspension.

Evacuation - An instant speed mass bounce spell, seems good.

Cyclonic Rift - It can be used as a better Devastation Tide. That overload ability is ridiculous.

Thing in the Ice   - It's an early blocker that wipes the board when it flips.

The Utility Closet

These cards, while not part of the main strategy on their own, all help us facilitate a win con in some way.

Brainstorm - Replaces itself in hand, and allows us to know what our next two draws will be.

Bribery - Tutors for a creature...from your opponent's deck.

Consecrated Sphinx - Big butt creature, but it's in this section cause all it does is generate card advantage. That's all it needs to do.

Fact or Fiction - What's best will always depend on what you have in your hand, just think about your best long term play.

Impulse - One of the few spells that digs 4 cards deep.

Intuition - I think the trick with using this is to give yourself two options and a bluff. The bluff is more or less an obvious win con, the other two will depend on what the board state is.

Mystical Tutor - Let's you draw any instant or sorcery in the deck, at instant speed!

Fabricate - Because they had to ban Tinker.

Ponder - It's a better Brainstorm...at sorcery speed. Okay, maybe not better per se, but still good!

Treasure Cruise - Delve to draw three cards.

Wheel of Fortune - Gets gas when we need gas. Better with Omniscience in play.
Counterflux - An uncounterable counterspell.

Counterspell - IT COUNTERS SPELLS!

Deprive - It's literally that next best thing from a Counterspell.

Force of Will - It's a counter spell you don't have to leave mana up for!

Fury Charm - Can blow up an artifact, interact with suspend, or buff a creature.

Muddle the Mixture - Counters instants or sorceries and can transmute into any other two drop in the deck.

Pongify - Spot removal, may replace with Rapid Hybridization.

Reality Shift - More spot removal, hopefully we catch their Omniscience on the manifest!

Crystal Shard - Can be used to bounce opponent creatures, and bounce our own to protect them.

Quicksilver Amulet - It's an alternate for Jhoira's ability if she's being hated on too hard.

Scroll Rack - We can filter our hand for better cards, without discarding, seems good.

Sensei's Divining Top - More like "Sensei's Broken Top" amirite?
Archaeomancer - Allows us to take infinte extra turns, thanks to Crystal Shard/Riptide Laboratory and Time Warp.

Gilded Drake - I want your commander.

Jhoira's Timebug - This card is too on flavor for me not to keep, especially because of the flavor fail I'm commiting by not have either version of Karn in the deck. However, you should replace this with Spellskite to protect your big beater, fresh out of suspend, from getting 1 dropped by Path to Exile. It doesn't feel good.

Keiga, the Tide Star - To grab that Avacyn, Angel of Hope after a board wipe.

Keranos, God of Storms - Free draw if you top deck a land, free Lightning Bolt if you don't, seems good.

Phyrexian Metamorph - Copies both creatures and artifacts, so if they have Avacyn, Angel of Hope, you know have one too. If you need somemore ramp, copy that Mana Vault, so much value!

Rift Elemental - Lets us remove time counters, multiple times.

Snapcaster Mage - A.K.A. That card you have to play if you're in blue. Seriously, he does nothing but add extral value to your spells, and his low cost and flash ability begs to be abused with bounces.Trinket Mage - He's here to grab Mana Vault, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt that's it.

Venser, Shaper Savant - Probably one of the the best bounce spells ever, since he can bounce both spells on the field and on the stack.
Omniscience - Do I really have to explain why this is good here... really?

Propaganda - Who ever wants to get swung on?

Leyline of Anticipation - This is a game changer if it's in your opening hand, but is still very relavent late game.
Show and Tell - I guarantee you this card will get banned in commander one day, its literally too good. If you think otherwise, then think about how this is the only way to consistantly drop turn 1 Omniscience. Magic is fair game.

Temporal Mastery - Miracle an extra turn.

Time Warp - Cast an extra turn.

Time Stretch - Suspend for two extra turns. Did I just blow your mind?
Dack Fayden - He steals artifacts, and has a great hand filter. While we're never gonna use his -6, his -2 will always be relavant. Time will tell wether or not he's better here than Ral Zarek was.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor - His +2 let's us look at the top of any library and scry, his 0 is Brainstorm on a stick, and his -1 let's us bounce creatures. His -12 also will pretty much end the game, but if you've managed to get him that far, you're probably already winning. Dude is nuts.

Tezzeret the Seeker - His +1 untaps any artifact, making him both efficient and political, and he can potentially grab any artifact and put it directly on the battlefield. very powerful, and very relevant.

"What if I have a higher/lower budget than you?"

Don't worry I got you covered on some options.

Command Tower ---> Volcanic Island - Obviously better because it's a fetchable land in both of our colors. Literally a better Steam Vents because it doesn't ping us to bring it in untapped.

Deprive ---> Mana Drain - This is a broken version of Counterspell that can ramp you into godhood. By the way the the spell is uncounterable, you still get the mana from it on your next end phase, take that Gaea's Revenge!

Time Warp ---> Temporal Manipulation. It doesn't target so, it can't be Redirect ed. Replace with Capture of Jingzhou if you got that "f*ck you" money.

Wheel of Fortune ---> Timetwister. It shuffles your graveyard back in for extra value, but be wary that you are doing the same for your opponents.

Treasure Cruise ---> Ancestral Vision. Arguably more consistant, and it doesn't make you exile your own cards. The only reason it's not in my main deck is due to that "arguably" part, combined with some latent saltiness over that price spike when it was unbanned in Modern.

These are all upgrades for the various cards I put in this particular deck. If you decide to change things up and make your own variation, of course, these cards might not apply to you.

Now here I need you to know that all of the things I do have are fairly expensive for a reason: they are the only cards that do what they do so well. Naturally, a budget version of this deck will be far weaker than the full, wallet-busting version. That being said, I'll try to give you the best options I know of to avoid losing as much power as possible. I'll try to keep cards at $3.00 or lower.

Leave in (cause they're cheap):
Strip Mine, Seat of the Synod, Halimar Depths, Great Furnace , Crystal Vein, and Command Tower, Reliquary Tower.

Add (Cause you need some fixing):
Izzet Boilerworks, Izzet Guildgate, Swiftwater Cliffs, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and Darksteel Citadel (because why not).

Just go basic with the rest.
Chromantic Lantern ---> Darksteel Ingot - Not nearly as good for us, but it costs the same and is indestructible.

Coalition Relic ---> Commander's Sphere - Again, not as good but at least we can draw a card when we don't need it anymore.

Grim Monolith ---> Basalt Monolith although it's a higher mana cost, it does the same job. Lotus Bloom ---> Lotus Blossom - It's literally a bad version of Bloom.Mana Crypt ---> Everflowing Chalice - I'm not even gonna pretend that it's anywhere near the same power level, but there you go.

Mana Vault ---> Either Thran Dynamo. Tezzeret is going byebye, so it's up to your tastes which of these is better for you.

Scroll Rack ---> Nothing. Put Swiftfoot Boots here to add some extra protection, since nothing else does what the Rack does for hand filtering.

Sensei's Divining Top ---> Crystal Ball - It's the fixed version.
Akroma, Angel of Fury ---> As much as it pains me to do so, I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to pony up the extra dollar to keep her in here. She's cheaper now that she's ever been, and nothing else has her various layers of protection.

Blightsteel Colossus ---> Phyrexian Juggernaut if you want infect, otherwise, Avatar of Fury for a big big dude that gets over people. There's no real budget alternative to Blightsteel.

Consecrated Sphinx ---> Aeon Chronicler - He can potentially be bigger than the Sphinx, but I guarantee that he won't draw you as many cards.

Gilded Drake ---> Illusory Gains - I like this over Mind Control for the simple fact that it forces your opponents to play around it.

It That Betrays ---> Pathrazer of Ulamog - Nothing really has Betrays' ability, but at least Pathrazer makes them either block unfavorably or eat 9.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur ---> Sphinx of Lost Truths - At least we can draw three cards by paying 2 outta suspend, but there's no other creature that will make our opponent discard seven.

Keranos, God of Storms ---> Melek, Izzet Paragon - Yeah, there's no real replacement for this one either, at least not in our colors. So now we get to copy spells...sometimes.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth ---> Void Winnower - Kozi's power comes from that draw-on-cast trigger, which we can't really replicate. Instead, we are going to stop people from casting half their decks.

Phyrexian Metamorph ---> Clever Impersonator - There's acutally a debate about which these is the better copy creature, so I'd get it while it's still cheap.

Snapcaster Mage ---> Ugh..Dualcaster Mage - It's much worse cousin, but at least it fit with our wizard sub-theme.

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre ---> Arbitor of the Ideal - Once you tap then untap Arbitor, you can top deck directly to the field.

Venser, Shaper Savant ---> AEthersnipe - Does similar things, but isn't as inherently repeatable.
Counterspell ---> Overwhelming Denial - Its surge cost can make it counterspell.

Cyclonic Rift ---> Wake of Destruction - Cause why not.

Force of Will ---> Foil - This one's acutally not too bad for a replacement.

Intuition ---> Talent of the Telepath - No, it's not nearly the same but at this point most opponents are going to have more value in there decks than you anyways, so...

Mystical Tutor ---> Long-Term Plans - It's a much worse version of the card.
Layline of Anticipation ---> Hypersonic Dragon. The only thing in our colors that do remotely the same thing.

Omniscience ---> Lolnope. There's is no cheap replacement for this card. So you can have Wipe Away . Make someone deck themself when they use Enter the Infinite + Laboratory Maniac .

Propaganda ---> Silent Arbitor - It's mana cost is higher, and it can be removed much easier but, otherwise it's acutally better. I'm not sure which one I like more at this point.
Bribery ---> Mind Stone - There's nothing that does what Bribery does so here, have a rock.

Show and Tell ---> Polymorph - This is closest thing to doing what Show and Tell does at least when it comes to creatures, plus you have a 60% chance of getting something big form your library.

Temporal Mastery ---> Temporal Trespass - This is acutally a decent replacement since you can sometimes cast Trespass for cheaper.

Time Stretch ---> Part the Waterveil - Still a good suspend target, and has some hardcast upside.

Time Warp ---> Ugin's Nexus - This might acutally be better than Time Warp in some cases. Think about it, you can prevent opponent extra trun shananigans, get one of your own after a boardwipe, maybe even copy it with Phyrexian Metamorph! Yeah, I'ma need to test that out.

Wheel of Fortune ---> Reforge the Soul - At worst, it's a little clunky at 5 mana ,but still worth. At best it's a better card. Overall a decent replacement.

Thank you for taking the time to see this deck! As always, I'm constantly look for any ways to improve the strength of the deck. What do you think of my card choices? Do I have too much/little of something? Let me know what you think! Any suggestions are much appreciated!

If you like where I'm going so far go ahead and hit that up vote button! Jhoira would appreciate it!

Clicking here makes Jhoira happy!



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Updates Add

I've made various changes to the deck list, as well as a through rewrite of my deck description. Changes are listed in the description as well. Let me know what you guys think!

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Revision 19 See all

(2 years ago)

Date added 8 years
Last updated 2 years
Splash colors R
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

20 - 0 Mythic Rares

44 - 0 Rares

13 - 0 Uncommons

14 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.38
Tokens Ape 3/3 G, Emblem Dack Fayden, Manifest 2/2 C, Morph 2/2 C
Folders cool stuff, Favs, I like it, Testing for EDH, EDH
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