my spin on a Jhoira commander list with a few personal restrictions:
1. No counter spells
Yes, a blue deck without counter spells. Crazy, I know, but I get good-guy points for that
2. No extra turns
counter-productive with Jhoira as my commander but I dislike those to be played against me, thus I'm not playing them
3. No steal-yo'-stuff
Expropriate, Blatant Thievery or Agent of Treachery are good cards but again, I'm trying to fight the good fight here, not make enemies
4. No/as few as possible Eldrazis
Yes, I want to play big spells but not those
5. Cheap cards (money wise)
This forces me to skip on those auto-include cards like Cyclonic Rift or fetch lands to find others that still fill the slots I need
so with these general ground rules established, let's see some key cards:
card draw
Interpret the Signs, Rush of Knowledge and Grozoth let us draw basically a new hand since our deck is filled with so many high cmc cards
Windfall and Midnight Clock are cheap ways to refuel after we exiled/played our hand
Thought Reflection in combination with any draw is just awesome, especially since the time counters get removed in our upkeep, so the enchantment can hit the field, we go to our draw step and draw 2 instead of 1
Combustible Gearhulk is basically always draw 3 since our opponents know we play big spells and don't want to get dealt 10-20, maybe even more just to prevent us drawing a few cards
Sandstone Oracle let's us draw some more as long as others have more cards in hand. Since we want to get our hand empty by exiling big spells with Jhoira, we are most likely always in need of a new hand
Aeon Chronicler is an extra draw in our upkeep while it's exiled with time counters
removal/board clear
Reality Shift, Rapid Hybridization, Pongify: cheap, efficient removal. I'll probably add Chaos Warp in the future
AEtherspouts, AEtherize: get those attacking creatures back to our opponent
Star of Extinction, Blasphemous Act: big damage to reset that battlefield
good value
Paradox Haze gives us another upkeep after our first upkeep which lets us remove 2 time counters from our exiled cards
Mnemonic Deluge for full price is most likely pretty bad but for just 2 mana? Even just hitting a ramp spell is not to shabby and it only gets better from there
Kiora Bests the Sea God is a nice, little combination of when the spell gets cast and when lore counters get added to a saga. The enchantment hits the battlefield with the first lore counter during our upkeep and we get an 8/8. After our upkeep comes our draw step where we put the second lore counter on it, so we get both an 8/8 + tap all creatures of an opponent in the same turn
Sarkhan's Unsealing says "whenever you cast" and while we cast those big spells from exile through Jhoira, we do cast them. Deal 4 to everything on the other side repeatedly while your big boys come down is really nice. Also, it hits those pesky planeswalkers, which is always a bonus in my book
Arjun, the Shifting Flame is not in the card draw category since the effect doesn't net us more cards but it does work well with our plan. Exile one or two things with Jhoira, play something cheap like a mana rock or removal, put that now bad hand on the bottom of our library and draw new cards. Do the same thing again. In combination with those big refuel-spells, we can start to go through our deck to find what we need pretty fast. Goes great with Thought Reflection
Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep has a kicker cost. As we cast the spell from exile for free, we may pay the additional kicker cost. Nice little board clear
Shadowspear in combination with our big hitters is our only way to gain life. It also gives them trample and lets us remove hexproof and indestructible from our opponents permanents
Deep-Sea Kraken is an unblockable 6/6 which basically comes into play after only 4 spells from our opponents which is most likely in a single turn cycle
why is this in the deck?
Skittering Surveyor, Pilgrim's Eye & Solemn Simulacrum is here because I like hitting that land drop each turn. I hate when I have to use my card draw to search for lands
Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded gives our creatures haste. In the later part of the game, after maybe a few board clears and a removal on Jhoira, it is no longer viable to pay 7 or 9 mana for our commander, exile a card and then wait 4 turns for the pay off. We need to play those spells the old fashioned way by simply hard casting them. Purphoros is here to make sure we can attack right away
Patron of the Moon is my latest addition and I'm not sure about it yet. We are in , so our ramp options are limited to basically artifacts or Solemn Simulacrum while maintaining our high cmc card count. With our big draw spells we can have many cards in our hand but still are only able to play a single land per turn. Ramping over and over for just seems pretty good but we'll see how things turn out
Yes, Oblivion Sower, Artisan of Kozilek & Desolation Twin are Eldrazi but since we already have all those restrictions, our big spells in run a little dry. Oblivion Sower is most likely ramp (which is always nice), Artisan of Kozilek lets us get back one of our big creatures and who could say "no" to 2x 10/10s from Desolation Twin . Or would you rather play a Leviathan?
Sunbird's Invocation unfortunately for us reads "Whenever you cast a spell from your hand..." so our cards exiled with Jhoira won't cause this to trigger. But since we most likely play those big spells by just casting them from our hand in the later part of the game, we do get that sweet value from it anyway
