Sealing The Rifts of cEDH (Primer)

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Infinite Combo Primer RUG (Temur)

OmegaAura113

Lands (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Cragcrown Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Forest
• 1x Island
• 1x Karplusan Forest
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Riverglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Dorks and Ramp (8)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Priest of Titania

Rocks (6)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring

Card Advantage (20)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Road of Return
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Underworld Breach
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Removal and Protection (16)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Destiny Spinner
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Vexing Shusher

Commanders (2)

Counters (13)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Swan Song

Combos (6)

• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Food Chain
• 1x Squee, the Immortal
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Walking Ballista

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Sideboard

Other (4)

• 1x Elvish Spirit Guide
• 1x Eternal Scourge
• 1x Simian Spirit Guide
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

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Special thanks to Feiryn for helping create the decklist!!!

Awakening The Spark of Victory!

In Magic's history, there have been several prominent characters and figures that shone brighter than the rest. Almost two decades ago, one of those figures was the barbarian Jeska, who went through ordeal after ordeal to restore order with in Dominaria her brother Kamahl, or to destroy opposition as the cruel, Cabal-corrupted Phage. It wasn't until her accidental melding with two other individuals (Akroma and Zakora) to create the false god Karona, though, and the god's subsequent demise, that her true potential finally awakened - that of a planeswalker. Jeska spent years away from her home plane of Dominaria on Mirrodin and elsewhere, guided by Karn as a teacher, before finally returning back during the proliferation of temporal rifts throughout the plane. Throughout the catastrophe, Jeska was - for better or worse - the most instrumental force in sealing the rifts across Dominaria. These (sometimes questionably) heroic actions eventually cost her life, as she made the final sacrifice of her own life to seal the last and largest one, causing the subsequent Great Mending of the Multiverse.

You would expect that, after all of that history, Jeska would have a planeswalker card...and be equally surprised that it took until Commander Legends for her to get one. But, despite the wait time, her newest incarnation is all you'd expect from a legendary planeswalker like her! Jeska, Thrice-Reborn is a mono-red planeswalker that both can be your commander, AND has partner...nonspecific partner. The good one. Additionally, she comes at the low cost of just 3 CMC, which is pretty amazing. Now, for her abilities: she has a static ability similar to Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Gyrus, Waker of Corpses , but rather than the amount of mana spent to cast her is the relevant part, it reads "Jeska, Thrice-Reborn enters the battlefield with a number of loyalty counters equal to the number of times you've cast a Commander this game." Now if that can't be broken in some way, shape, or form, then who are we to be blessed with so many good cards? Because it definitely can, and definitely is.

Now for her actual abilities: her +1 triples the damage any given creature deals in one turn, which is amazing. In an aggro or voltron build, this has the potential to end games in a single strike, especially when partnered with a commander like Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder (shoutout to anyone who's making a combat-themed Jeska deck!). However, it's the last ability we're most concerned with - "-X: Jeska, Thrice Reborn deals X damage to any three targets." HMMMM...yep, there's the most broken part. How? Because, first of all, it's three targets; in a typical 4-player EDH game, that's all other players. In addition, you don't need to cast Jeska to get that X loyalty cost to a ridiculous number; you can just cast her partnered commander. Which, thanks to the nonspecific aspect of her Partner ability, can also be a creature. So, if we were to kill and recast said creature ad infinitum, we would generate an infinite number of loyalty counters on Jeska, letting us flamethrower the rest of the table. You can also accomplish that by casting, burning, and recasting with Jeska herself infiniteyly as well. Sound good? It most certainly does. With Jeska, your command zone is your wincon set - all we need to do is set up the win. And that's what we're going to do, in the most competitive way possible.

Partnering To Save The World (Or End Other People's)!

For this deck, or chosen partner is Thrasios, Triton Hero . While some other partners, like the aforementioned Bruse Tarl and Tymna the Weaver are also solid choices, I chose Thrasios because blue offers the most solid protection for our wincon commanders, and green gives a good amount of ramp. While black does have a fair number of removal and tutors, it fails to protect our commanders from offending counterspells; similarly, while white is also good with removal and has a degree of ramp/card draw to it, green is strictly better in the sense that we get counter protection built into cards like Destiny Spinner , as well as some of the best cEDH wincons in Dockside Sabertooth/Squee FC. While Tymna can be a valid competitive build, Thrasios' color access takes the victory here. Of course, we'll also have to see what people can brew with the latest set's commanders, so as a result, this is the preliminary best result.

Preparing The Land For Our Arrival

The manabase is straightforward for this deck, as it is with most cEDH decks - fetches, shocks, tangolands and painlands are the centerpieces. There are other sorts that are useful as well, such as the drawlands Fiery Islet and Waterlogged Grove , as well as Cavern of Souls to protect a prominent creature (namely Squee/Dockside, Sabertooth or Thrasios). Now, there is the notable omission of the OG Dual Lands, but this is for pricing concerns. If you so happen to have a Volcanic Island or any of the other two, by all means substitute one of the painlands or basics for them. For this same reason, we aren't running a full list of off-color fetches, since the only things we'd really be grabbing are our three shocks and four basics. No use making the deck that much more expensive for a few extra opportunities, especially considering how pricey the three in the deck are already. Nevertheless, the mana base is still efficient enough as it is, especially with our ramp support.

Increasing Power...

Along with lands, the other aspect of any high-level EDH deck that needs to be considered is the availability of ramp. This is one major reason we dip into the green portion of the color pie via Thrasios, as we have access to the best - and most classic - mana dorks in the game. Elvish Mystic , Llanowar Elves , Priest of Titania , Bloom Tender - they're all here, plus a handfull of others. Similarly, we have also included a small number of mana rocks for early game acceleration, such as the ever-useful Sol Ring , Mana Crypt , Mana Vault , and Lotus Petal . A dubious addition with consideration to cost is Mox Diamond , which is well over 400$; I personally don't know if I'll purchase this myself, but it's definitely one of the best mana rocks out there for its simplicity and versatility. One thing to address is the notable absence of ramp spells, like Three Visits or Rampant Growth , or other similar cheap ones. As the deck itself has the above mentioned mana sources and a considerable number of lands (for the competitive archetype), we don't need those sorts of spells as much as using the space they take up for useful removal or protection. In this deck, since our two partners are our primary wincons, they will be very obvious targets when we attempt to go for the win; all the shielding we can amass is necessary, as such.

To Protect The Future!

Since our two primary infinite mana combos are somewhat obvious - especially given the current cEDH meta - and the wincons we go for are literally in front of everyone in the command zone, we want to do our best to safeguard what we have. This is secondary reason why we run Thrasios as a partner, besides the access to green ramp: blue’s ability to pull out numerous counterspells. Here, we run eleven of the best blue counters we can muster, in order to wall off our opponents from eliminating or stopping out own primary win cards. To supplement these, we also have Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast , which are cheap, 1-drop red counters that can eliminate any opposing counterspells. These can be pretty handy on the player phase, and surprising on the enemy phase to any belligerent Cyclonic Rifts.

In a similar route as this, we have significant removal presence in the deck, all in cheap, mainly single-target removal spells such as Beast Within , Chaos Warp and Force of Vigor . Access to green and red allows the deck to remove annoying artifacts and enchantments with relative easy, and with blue added to the mix through both counterspells and point removal like Pongify , we're able to have coverage against offensive opposing creatures as well. Now, we most definitely won't be the only deck running extensive coverage and removal, so ways to mitigate opponent's spells through static effects like Destiny Spinner 's uncounterability, or Veil of Summer 's single-turn black-and-blue protection, are huge assets to protecting our game plan. Notably is the inclusion of Collector Ouphe and Null Rod - both having a negative impact on our own mana rocks, completely disabling them. HOWEVER, in a case of later-game triage of most effectiveness compared to worst harm, these can shut down opposing artifact-based decks such as Urza or Breya almost absolutely, forcing spells to be expended on them. They could be taken out and substituted with other cards, but for the outer shell of the deck, it's recommended that they remain in.

Weakness? Who Do You Take Us For?

Ramp, removal, counters - all important aspects of keeping a cohesive, powerful deck, but that isn't all that's needed - we need a source of consistency. Enter the section of card advantage. Here, a combination of cantrips, graveyard recursion, tutors, and draw spells fuel the deck to find the combos we need, and pump them out ASAP (as it should, in any cEDH deck). This becomes a little trickier without access to Black, home of the best tutors in Magic, but luckily we do have some replacement through effects in green and blue.

Within the deck, blue offers the best deck manipulation: Mystic Remora , Rhystic Study , Brainstorm , Preordain and Ponder all come together to be an efficient kit of draw spells and enchantments, staples to almost every deck with blue in them. This is fortified by the tutors of Mystical Tutor and Intuition , the latter which is amazing when combined with our key green recursion spells; because while blue manipulated our active library, green digs into the graveyard. Noxious Revival , Eternal Witness , and a handful of other cards like them can grab back cards that were milled, countered or outright destroyed - although an equally fun tactic is using Intuition for a combo piece and two parts of green recursion, to always get what you need regardless of the choice. In another part of green, we have some tutor variation in Survival of the Fittest , Eldritch Evolution and Neoform for eliminate useless mana dorks later in the game for actual combo pieces. Although I personally haven't yet tested them, they appear to be good options for progressing the game at a faster rate when you're close to comboing off with other pieces on the field. Finally, we have the red aspect of this...which, truthfully, isn't as prevalent or important as the other two colors. Imperial Recruiter , Gamble and Underworld Breach are the extent of red's influence on our card advantage section. However, it's good to note that Gamble is one of the cheapest outright tutors for the deck, and Imperial Recruiter is able to grab most any of our combo creatures. Combined with the recycling nature of Green, we even the losses taken by Gamble can be mitigated relatively easily.

The End Approaches!

With all the support set up, we have our final deck pillar - the most important one, at that: the combos. Here we include Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth as our biggest infinite mana combo, which will produce an infinite amount of treasure tokens so long as opponents have at least 5 artifacts and/or enchantment TOTAL. In a four-player game, this can be reached very easily. From there, we can cast Thrasios and run through the deck until we find a sacrificial outlet like FC, which will enable us to kill + recast Thrasios infinitely, and cast a game-winning Jeska. Alternatively, we can dump all the mana into a huge Finale of Devastation , which will absolutely demolish all opponents, or funnel it into a giant Walking Ballista to achieve the same effect as Jeska, in the event an odd play like The Immortal Sun or another lockdown piece is present.

Our alternate win pathway is Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal , which will accomplish the same thing as the Dockside combo, but more limited. This could be also used with Eternal Scourge , but this isn't optimal only because a single target with a simple spell will cause the eldrazi to self-exile, ruining FC's target. It's still an option if anyone would like a backup, however. As for the combo itself, this mana will be used to cast and exile Thrasios infinitely, making a huge Jeska, and burning the table. Unlike Dockside's mana, this cannot be used to create a huge Finale, activate Thrasios' ability, or cast Jeska herself, which could potentially be a limiting factor, and thus played safely. It can, though, also be thrown into Walking Ballista in order to machine gun the opponents (assuming you have it in hand), making Ballista one of the linkers between the two combos besides our Commanders themselves.

The Rifts Are Sealed...But The Cost, Great.

After touching on all the major parts of the deck, this concludes the primer on Jeska x Thrasios! I'm personally very excited to play with this historic planeswalker, and even though I hadn't thought much of her in the past, the recent spoilers have made me all the more eager to build and play around her! The decklist is subject to change as more cards are revealed, and it will be updated accordingly; as it stands, though this should be the general theme anybody would want to follow for a Temur-colored Jeska cEDH deck. Remember, this is specifically for hyper competitive play, so certainly don't use this if your playgroup isn't okay with it first! Any and all advice for the deck is also welcome! I'd love to hear input from anybody who's played a cEDH deck with Thrasios before, or looking to throw some ideas out for Jeska to take in!

Thank you for taking the time to read this! +1 if you, too, are a fellow EDH Rift Sealer!

Top Ranked	Achieved #7 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #5 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 2 Rares 17 - 1 Uncommons 16 - 1 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.75
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Treasure