Jhoira of the Ghitu is the sort of commander that can stomp Casual games, but has a really hard time in competitive.
Her trademark combo is to suspend something like Obliterate, which destroys artifacts, lands and creatures - and something like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, which has Annihilator - then to have the creature come out of suspend after the board wipe, either that turn or the next. This deck is primarily aiming to win through that combo.
However in Competitive games a number of problems present themselves:
- Many people can combo faster then you can.
- Blue is common, and people will be disrupting everything from you casting Jhoira in the first place to your spells coming off suspend.
- Even the people not playing blue are probably running cheap spot removal to kill Jhoira, or they will have answers for your Eldrazis by casting a removal spell off one land.
Here is some of the design philosophy of this particular variant of Jhoira of the Ghitu:
- We are running as many good counterspells as possible so we don't just die to fast combos.
- We are running most of the counterspells that can be played without paying mana (though there aren't many), to defend things that come off suspend once the lands and creatures have been wiped, or sometimes just to be able to tap out and play Jhoira earlier. (Some consideration will reveal that Pact of Negation will not work in this deck. (Sadly, we can't win in one turn.))
- Since there are a limited number of useful counterspells - and sometimes things will not be able to be countered - we are running as much good spot removal as we can.
- Any card draw that costs more than one mana is instant speed only. If were gonna take on the big shots, then its rare that we can take the risk of tapping out.
- Some Jhoira builds run creature sweepers, like Blasphemous Act, Whelming Wave / Evacuation, Chain Reaction etc to survive beatdown until the combo spells are off suspend. These might seem fine since once you have suspended the combo spells, Jhoira is no longer needed. However, in competitive games not many people are going to be running any kind of beatdown that is fast enough to take you from 40 to zero before you can combo your creature/land board wipe and Eldrazi. If they were then they would probably not do well in a competitive meta, as decks packed with that much fast creature threats are probably not heavy on interaction, and will just lose to combo/disruption.
- We do have an out if things are looking bad: both from the combo player setting up his pieces or the beatdown player who has a lot of power on the board. We are running things that take off suspend counters, and two extra turn spells that can hopefully be played for cheap, to get more turns, and so more upkeeps, and so more counters off suspend - and that way we can do a true board wipe which will hit lands as well. Sometimes this will be a last ditch effort to stop someone from comboing off - just resetting the game (only do this if your playing with people you know).
- Unlike other Jhoira of the Ghitu lists, we are not running a critical mass of extra turn spells. Its the risk of tapping out, getting countered and losing the next turn that stops us.
- It's risky, but were not running much in the way of mana rocks. This might change in future as I play the deck more, but basically its the need for card quality in hand that is stopping me from running them. Every rock played is another card-in-hand we are going down, and if we don't refill with a big draw spell (of which few are instants), then were left with a bunch of mana but no answers. The deck can operate suprisingly well on few lands, but we are hoping to hit the land drops naturally, or with some help from Ponder and friends.
- Having to fit in so much interaction, the consistency to set up the combo is low, so we are often going for the long game, hoping not to have to police players on our own but also have other players burn resources on preventing someone from winning, until eventually it's time to go for it.
- Two stick out cards would probably be Show and Tell, and Mindslaver. Show and Tell isn't hard to explain. It's one of the few ways we can pressure for an earlier win than normal - and the risk of other players dropping something as nasty as us isn't that high (but it can happen). Mindslaver is expensive to play, but it can absolutely wreck someone (especially the combo player). The downside of its 6cmc I feel is made up for by just how far it can put one player out of the game. Perhaps I'll put in Academy Ruins if it I feel it is working for me.
Note: In the place of Devastation, if I get the okay from my playgroup I run Worldfire. It's banned in commander, but a check of the official site of the rules committee will show that if your group is okay with allowing a card to be played - you can play it.
It isn't really that busted compared to some of things that are legal (cough Flash cough), so we are running it for the ultimate vibe check.
If your interested, this is what Jhoira has to deal with when I have time to play commander with my personal playgroup:
Korvold Melira Pod - The user, Bascilica made this. Its a mean persist combo deck, with the audacity to run nearly every effective counterspell available in Jund colours.
Alela Flying Tempo The most aggro deck at the table. Like me, the player piloting this deck learned the hard way to run all the counterspells, as well as quality spot removal.
