pie chart

Jodah and the Gang

Commander / EDH

themaskedhero

Upvote 0
0

Creature (33)

Land (37)

Enchantment (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Jodah, Archmage Eternal

Sorcery (11)

Artifact (9)

Instant (4)

As the Magic Gamepedia summarizes, Jodah was a powerful archmage during Dominaria’s Dark Age and Ice Age, who was present for many of the important historical events of the plane. Jodah was very influential during the Ice Age in developing and researching the aspects of color magic on Dominaria. He was also a major contributor to the returning of the Shard—long story, but basically a dozen or so planes were blocked off from the rest of the multiverse—to their place among the multiverse. There is a lot more to this character who has existed within the lore for over two decades, but I would point you to Vorthos Cast and especially Jay Annelli for the full depth of the character. For someone with a history dating back to Ice Age, its weird how little the character has made an impression on the card game itself. As a card, Jodah fulfills a niche I have loved seeing in legendary creature design over the years, taking a notable card—in this case, Fist of Suns—and functionally make it a general.

Maybe the most frustrating part of building a five color deck has been never being able to get Fist of Suns to really work. My previous venture into five color territory with The Ur-Dragon did include the Fifth Dawn artifact. But from experience, it rarely got cast and often just put more pressure on having all colors of mana instead of making spells easier to cast. The fault, as I see it, is that it’s not a facet of the deck you can rely on. For Fist of Suns to really make a difference in a deck, there needs to be a large amount of spells that vastly improve by having the WUBRG cost be a reduction in price, but the cost is that if you don’t have the cost reducer in play, you’re just left with a lot of expensive spells and no reasonable way to cast them.

A prime candidate for protection like Swiftfoot Boots or Darksteel Plate, Jodah is a central part of the deck as I see it, powerful in that it can be a generic five color general that’s only theme is interacting favorably with the general helming it. In a finalized version, I can imagine this deck would share a lot of cards with last week’s Jhoira of the Ghitu deck, but going much bigger, as he has access to three more colors. In the hunt for a theme, I may have found that the best theme is a balance between “win with big stuff” and evoking a sense of early Magic.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment