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Adaptive Storm Jhoira (ASJ)

Commander / EDH* Competitive Control Storm UR (Izzet)

VelvetVendetta

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Artifact (31)

Creature (4)

Instant (24)

Sorcery (10)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

Land (28)

Enchantment (2)

Currently testing a version cutting the High Tide and using the best eggs to see if the double draw provided with Jhoira is powerful enough to compensate for their lack of power when I'm not able to protect Jhoira.

This Primer is a bit outdated but most of it should still apply.

  • Intro

This deck is a new concept for Jhoira cEDH, the idea here is to use Jhoira not only as a storm engine (as in cheerios lists) or a value engine for grinding long games (as in the Staxy NGL), but as a card advantage engine to fuel an adaptive storm/control gameplan, that means we cannot run dead artifacts just for the sake of storming, or our control gameplan will be jeopardized. Similarly, when are ready to storm, the deck must be able to behave like a cheerios list even if we are packing a heavy interaction kit.

Furthermore, control elements in cEDH are usually instants like counterspells and removals, which are not Historic, characteristics like those make playing Jhoira as an adaptive storm a counterintuitive idea, unlike in Baral, we cannot gain value for playing behind and reactively, or can we?

  • A Paradoxical Outcome

That seemed to be the case until I noticed that any bounce spell can be cantriped in the same way as a Historic spell, by bouncing an artifact, a net positive mana rock ideally, and recasting it, netting mana and drawing the next card in the process.

We would need to pack a high number of those said "cantrip interactions", luckily for us there're many very efficient bounce spells that can target our own permanents, in that way we can pack a dense interaction kit that will not clutter in our hand as we draw more and more cards on a storm turn, as a bonus, those bounce spells are also a great way to get rid of enemy stax when we are ready to storm.

And since we have now so many bounce interactions, we might as well try to abuse them running things like Winter Orb , Gilded Drake and Candelabra of Tawnos , which we can bounce over and over to get maximum value, bouncing Mystic Remora EOT to reset the cumulative upkeep cost can also be used to boost our control strategy.

Finally, we need ways to make those interactions more efficient, maximizing their value during the storm or the control phases of our gameplan, for that, we have Baral and Sapphire Medallion , both Historic, aside from Helm of Awakening , an universal reducer, but, alas, for storm turns only, since we don't want our opponents to benefit from it.

  • A Tide Variant

Those same reducers, I noticed, also synergize greatly with Tide spells. Tide spells are also a way that cEDH adaptive storm decks have been historically getting value from spells like Frantic Search , Snap and Candelabra of Tawnos to make massive amounts of mana and storm count, finishing on a huge Mind's Desire , naturally, we enlisted those cards as a plan B that allows us to storm off without Jhoira.

Having a solid plan B that doesn't rely on Jhoira, in my opinion, is what makes this list different, and if I may say so, superior to other Jhoira Storm lists, an independent plan B which pieces nevertheless synergize with plan A, granting us the resilience and adaptability that other Jhoira Storm lists lack.

  • The Compromises

As we run many non-historic spells (comparing to a cheerios list), we are also forced to decrease our artifact count accordingly, my idea was to cut the heavy artifacts, including those that are responsible for reducing the cost of the other heavy artifacts, prioritizing 0 cmc and 1cmc artifacts that are actually strong control elements, or otherwise good value, Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble grant us free card advantage with Jhoira in play drawing a card when they are cast and a card the next turn, for 0, all a control deck could wish for, a free +1CA

Those are the key concepts that drove me to this brew. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to ask here or contact me at Discord. https://discord.gg/MXDav8R

  • NGL

This deck is meant as an viable cEDH alternative to the Stax Not Garta's List (NGL), I've never been a Stax player and I've been perfecting my storm and control gameplans for years across competitive formats, that's why I chose to brew an adaptive storm and control list instead of the more established Stax variant.

If you are unsure, I would recommend you test both lists, that is, at least until you can properly determine what applies and what doesn't to your meta needs.

My list has lots of interaction that applies to anything cEDH will throw at you, making it a superior pick for a blind meta, after all, bounces are our sword and shield, and those are universal interactions.

On the other hand, if you know well what you will face in your meta, knows how to meta-brew properly, and prefers playing Stax, then I see no reason why you shouldn't go for NGL instead.

And if your meta is 90%+ composed of decks that rely on non-basics, then, by all means, prioritize NGL, the Moon effects are ridiculously powerful when your meta is vulnerable to them.

  • Cheerios

Cheerios is the common way of referring to "list that runs thousands of 0cmc artifacts that do nothing, just for storming purposes". It’s a very fragile deck concept, and it’s significantly slower than most dedicated fast combo decks or storm decks such as Flash Hulk Variants, Grixis or Sidisi storms, it also runs many, many dead slots.

Jhoira often gets removed, so you must have ways to reliably control the game until you can reignite your plan A or deploy a plan B, while a Cheerios response to that is usually to just fail and die.

While this list can often pull off T3 wins with fast hands, If you'd like to go all in artifact storm trying to win T2 or T3 every game, nor a Cheerios or this list can reliably offer you that, and thus I recommend you Buried Alive Sidisi or Sidisi's Reign Of Filth, those are both great lists I've seen in action and unlike a Cheerios list, their speed and consistency are enough to force people to pass with open mana at T2 afraid of you winning right there if they just tap for a signet.

  • Shimmer Zur

Being a former Zur player myself, the main difference is that Zur allows you to dump everything you have to cast him, while Jhoira doesn't, the more rocks you use to cast Jhoira, the less value Jhoira will provide once it enters.

Having black identity makes a huge difference for Storm lists because of YagWin and Ad Nauseam . I can't tell you for sure that Jhoira's power is worth losing that to be honest.

What I can tell you, is that this list has better inevitability (because we don't rely on life totals to deploy any of our plays) and more interactive power than a Shimmer Zur list, so if you are leaning towards the control aspect, you will feel Jhoira is more able to sustain you until late game and onwards.

The best Shimmer Zurs lists right now are also running a Tainted package, a very slot efficient win condition that unfortunately makes you lose the game whenever it fails, so there's that too, either taking 30 life for Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, or just purposefully exiling your deck, Shimmer's Zurs aren't exactly forgiving and offer no second chances of winning a game.

Shimmer Zur is still one of the strongest decks in cEDH, so if those suicidal (nevertheless very powerful) plays are your thing, I'd recommend this list: Tainted Shimmer Zur

The first and obvious wincon is Aetherflux Reservoir , the second is Mind's Desire , which is not really a wincon, but it will find us the aetherflux or assemble any of our wincon combos for us:

Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal with some rocks will make infinite mana and then we can easily storm until we find Codex Shredder to mill our opponents, by tapping and untapping infinitely.

We can replace Reversal and/or Codex on IsoRev combo by adding Paradox Engine , then any spell imprinted on the Scepter will produce infinite casts and mana, if that spell is by any chance Winds of Rebuke we can also mill our opponents, while Swan Song will produce us infinite birds, but with infinite mana is very easy to keep drawing cards until we find some way assemble any of those combos.

Considering single cards, as requirements to win, we need either Aetherflux Reservoir or Isochron Scepter + something... if those 2 cards are in the graveyard we can get them back with Codex or Buried Ruin , which can be untapped using Snap, Frantic or Candelabra if it is already in play.

I only runned out of wincons once, in a 4 hour game, with multiple wheel effects, but I still won that game, by imprinting Mana Drain on Scepter with Voltaic Key and locking my last opponent from playing anything and hitting him with Jhoira until he dies... not something you expect to be necessary anyways, if you somehow find yourself run out of wincons more often than me you could just replace Buried Ruin with Academy Ruins which is slower but can recur our wincons multiple times if needed.

...Soon

Suggestions

Updates Add

Less Risky, Less Storm Flood. — Jan. 17, 2019
Edit

Out City of Traitors
In Island

City of Traitors was too all in, even though we like casting Jhoira on T2, we cannot afford to lose the game entirely to a Pyroblast or Pongify, also our deck is not quick enough to justify that level of risk. (no Jhoira list is fast enough to race a Hulk variant or a fully committed, all in storm deck, like Sidisi or Jeleva)

Out Faithless Looting and/or Shimmer Myr or Winds of Change
In Displacement Wave

Lots of cards compete for our last slot, Shimmer Myr proved itself too heavy, its hefty cost disables (or inviabilize) most instant speed shenanigans that would make him desirable.

Faithless Looting isn't efficient enough, lotting 2 cards in itself can't save us from a bad luck streak flooding our hand with lands on the storm turn, paying R+2R for the 4 card looting would also ruin our storm.

Winds of Change This was better than Faithless Looting, but it was still a dead draw on most situations, it couldn't give us more gas, just replace stuck lands.

Displacement Wave This, on the other hand, was the last mass bounce that our deck lacked, one more mass bounce is the best way to guarantee our storm won't ever frizzle, and what better card to do it than a control card that will give us tempo by bouncing all our opponents dorks and even stax on late game? NOTE: Very strong tempo play against creature based decks.

More Hybrid — Jan. 16, 2019
Edit
Fine Tunning — Jan. 15, 2019
Edit

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Casual

97% Competitive