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Dargo on Your Jeska Until You Deal 21+ Damage

Commander / EDH Budget Competitive Mono-Red Partner Primer Sacrifice Storm Tokens Voltron

artcwolf22

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Ramp (16)

Dargo/ jeska combo (10)

Good stuff - protection + evasion permanents (6)

Pet cards- may change with cores (4)

30 - 33 lands (33)

Draw / tutor (always need more) (13)

Good stuff - stax (6)

Commanders (2)

Commander: Dargo, the Shipwrecker
Commander: Jeska, Thrice Reborn

Interaction (10)

Sideboard

Voltron evasion and boosts (11)

Dargo synergy, no extra turn, anti rule of law (3)

Silver bullets (2)

Maybeboard

Magda clock combo core - 15 cards (16)

Underwhelming boardwipes (3)

Rionya, fire dancer 1 card inf combo core (15)

Underwhelming stax (3)

Dargo fodder ideas (9)

Budget cards to replace expensive stuff (4)

Underwhelming removal (4)

Dargo on Your Jeska Until You Deal 21+ Damage

A COMPETITIVE DARGO/JESKA BUDGET cEDH PRIMER

This is a turbo partner combo deck released in the same set. You win by doing one of two things:

  • Use Jeska’s 1st ability to make Dargo deal 21+ commander damage, either by rushing out quickly or through attrition.

  • Use Jeska’s 2nd ability after casting Dargo an arbitrarily high number of times using Phyrexian Altar//Thermopod & 2 + creatures/artifacts for to deal an arbitrarily high number to 3 targets. Or on the unlikely chance you use a storm card.

You usually win by going fast and remain viable in the mid-late game.

I've won small local EDH tournaments with this starting January 2023, and I've loved this budget deck since then. It's a 100-200 deck, and the only card over $10 the deck needs is phyrexian altar. Here's a breakdown of my deck and its strategy.

Note this can be difficult to pilot because there are two routes of play, and you should know your line by t3. What makes us more difficult is knowing what lines are best for your opponents and what lines are best based on your opening hand. I picked this deck up for the first time after a few months and struggled.

Dargo / Jeska deck has two routes of play. Here are some tips for which to choose:

1- Infinite Damage: Abuse Dargo’s cost reduction: Phyrexian Altar//Thermopod + 2 or more creatures/creatures + Dargo allows you to cast Dargo an infinite number of times. Then, cast any storm card or cast Jeska, who will enter with an infinitely high number of counters. Use her minus x ability to go for game.

2- Commander Damage: The secondary route uses Jeska’s first ability to have Dargo deal triple combat damage to win with 21 commander damage by Turn 4. Cheat out Dargo, cast Jeska, and attack. You can also Dargo unblockable, double strike, etc. and burn your opponents’ creatures.

You should always aim to do the 1st infinite damage combo. I've optimized the deck to have as many starters as feasible. Opponents notwithstanding, your ideal hand is one that can achieve the 1st infinite cast Dargo combo. The rationale is that with the 2nd route and Voltron, it’s hard to use multiple turns to deal the 21 commander damage to each opponent. Plus protecting Jeska is quite difficult.

Statistically, you are more likely to have a hand/game that wins with the 2nd 21 commander damage line. It’s also the late game strategy and something you can cheat out with double strike. If you are using a budget Dargo/Jeska build, unless you have thermopod in hand, just go straight for 21 commander damage and try to get blockers to protect Jeska.

The trick is to know which line to for with your opening hands and with which opponents. Generally, so long as you have Phyrexian Altar or a tutor in your opening hand (gamble, goblin engineer, moonsilver key), go for the infinite damage combo first. Otherwise, shotgun out Dargo as often as possible and punch through Jeska.

Additionally, mind your opponents. This deck cannot play under rule of law, so if you see stax based decks like Winota, mono white commanders like Heliod, and maybe Sisay or Kenrith, abandon hope for the altar infinite damage combo and go straight for damage.

Counterspells/interaction are a problem for the combos and Jeska but not Dargo. Dargo’s cost reduction can easily cheat him out again. However, having Altar interacted with during the combo is tough, as does getting Jeska countered for one mana, as the commander tax really hinders Jeska.

If you know you can go slower or your stax pieces have a high impact, play them when it’s strategic. Blood moon destroys plenty of multicolor and blue/black thoracle combo decks, cursed totem stops a small cache of decks, and uba mask gives asymmetrical advantage.

AKA my love and gripes for budget EDH/cEDH

This originally started as a budget deck, quickly grew too powerful for any casual pod, and then found its limits in cEDH. I began this variant in a budget commander pod with a 50usd limit and focused my original decklist on . I won a tournament with a version of this in January 2023 and kept improving it since to try to get lucky again. So eventually, the deck grew out of its roots as a budget shell into a reasonably priced competitive deck that is viable at around $200.

Dargo/Jeska was my first l budget deck until I grew out of my two budget EDH pods in less than 6 months during 2023. Budget commanders are a great way to experiment with deck cores, sell decks, and buy new decks cheaply. But seriously competing or playing with them is an isolated way to play magic. I only found a small meta of powerful decks (this one, Lightpaws, Kinnan, Winota) while most players just use chaff decks which doesn’t make it more special than chaff EDH. And while it solves the issue of expensive staples, it doesn’t solve EDH’s core issue of power scaling. Most importantly, no one outside budget EDH cares about budget EDH; if I were playing a tournament, I don't think anyone would care if someone were playing a budget deck unless it made their opponent feel bad. While the inverse of having expensive decks has a problem of being gatekept, Having a low price as a ceiling brings the floor of deckbuilding very tight.

Banlists do make a format not casual, and I can still respect budget EDH for that. One group agreed that $200 is a good price range to make fast mana like Chrome Mox unappealing, but I’d rather not dwell on the subject.

Duel Commander and Conquest banlist are on the right track, with many egregious cards like the 1cmc tutors and fast mana being banned (be real- it’s pure luck to get those in opening hand). I do think lotus petal and lion’s eye diamond can be off the banlist for their synergy with certain combos, notably the Underworld Breach & Brain Freeze combo and Teferi Time Raveler & Displacer Kitten combo, but I’m not complaining. The people who are complaining have a lot more issues they have a gripe about.

As far as this deck goes, a budget version can cost under $100 to build. The only pricy cards the deck needs are Phyrexian Altar and Goblin Engineer. The rest is around $0.50- $2 for each card. At $200, the deck is truly viable.

Regardless of your budget and arsenal for a competitive Dargo/Jeska build, you want a deck that can abuse Dargo’s cost reduction mechanism by spamming out many cheap creatures/artifacts. Oddly enough, Dargo decks should avoid too many 0 cmc cards. You don’t want to spam out 0 cmc artifacts like a storm or Jhiora deck would as it is less consistent with the deck’s strategy with no recovery or inherent advantage for deck.

The best cards to cast for this deck get a net gain for Dargo for 2 mana or less. For this reason, cards such as Voldaren Epicure and Flayer Husk are incredible because they give a net benefit of 4 cost reduction for Dargo for 1 cmc. For this reason, Chromatic Star / Chromatic Sphere are NOT good solutions because they only net 1 mana off 1 and only draws one card.

You also want ways to go through your library for the combo or to find more fodder. Wheels, starters, etc. Fire Giant's Fury and similiar cards are excellent budget options and for pods that are less frantic.

If you’re not on a budget or proxying, the usual red cards and artifacts should make their way on the list (from best to worst):

INCLUSIONS

Moon silver Key At its worst, it gets a cursed mirror which can be used to copy an opponent's dockside or ETB creature spell. Most of the time, it's used as sacrifice fodder for one and to find the altar.

Torpor Orb got mainboarded due to its pertinence in casual and competitive pods alike. Despite stopping 4-7 cards in this deck, timing a torpor orb well can effectively stop lots of opponents. In casual, it stops things like Solemn Simulacrum and King Brago. In competitive, it stops the most egregious Thassa's Oracle, Godo, Recruiter tutors, etc. This was previously sided out due to having more ETB effects and the cost being over $20 before that weird OTJ reprint.

Powerbalance things the library, which is invaluable. Like Talion, which draws often from 2s, competetive decks have enough similiar mana curves that it easily goes in the deck.

EXCLUSIONS

GRAVEYARD BUILDUP Requires a deck to have more discard fodder. Consider if you’re running Underworld Breach combos, faithless looting, thrill of possibility, etc. Anger Daretti, Scrap Savant Scrap Mastery

Goblin Welder Doesn’t do enough by itself. Great payoff if you are going more for the 21 commander damage. Otherwise, not enough things end up in the grave for the Goblin Welder to manipulate. You can also weld your opponents artifacts (but that's not really a winning strategy for most decks)

Seize the Spotlight and other Act of Treason chaff More meme than good use. The idea is that you can take an opponent’s monster and tribute summon it for Dargo or get treasures, but the timing for this card hasto be so precise, it’s notgoodoutside of the opening hand.

Interaction and stax slots to fill these better.

Mox Amber and Mox Opal

It's not that they're bad, but by the time you get to tap them for mana, the deck doesn't really have a place to spend the extra mana? Too risky.

[[]] (amazing non-essential adds)

anti blue 1x Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter 1x Red Elemental Blast

birgi dargo combo

For sake of exhaustion, Goblin Bombardment and Defiler of Instinct does go infinite with Dargo and Birgi or a sacrifice outlet respectively.... but it's an extreme niche use.

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Casual

95% Competitive

Revision 36 See all

(1 month ago)

-1 Anger of the Gods maybe
-1 Go for Blood side
+1 Smoke Bomb maybe