A deck that grew out of my abiding love of bounce and flicker combined with ETB effects. Almost every single creature in the deck has a powerful ETB ability, and the rest of the deck is built around abusing those effects as much as possible. Originally conceived as my kinder, gentler deck, it's taken on a horrifying life of its own and now is easily my most powerful multiplayer deck.
There are six chief sources of recurring bounce: Crystal Shard, Mimic Vat, Cloudstone Curio, Mistmeadow Witch, and Venser, the Sojourner. Once one of these is online, you can repeatedly draw cards, recur creatures from your graveyard, disrupt your opponent's hand, destroy artifacts and enchantments, bounce permanents, and steal or exile your opponents' creatures.
It all adds up to a surprisingly robust card advantage engine, with a huge amount of redundancy. The only things I've encountered thus far that can reliably disrupt it are extensive discard, countermagic, and Planar Cleansing-style effects. Even when it is back on its heels, the deck has trump cards like Tooth and Nail, Genesis Wave, and Rite of Replication that let it get immediately back in the game.
The deck usually finishes games one of two ways - either it wears opponents down with simple beats from it's 6/6 fatties, or (more often) it swings in for lethal general damage with an extensively pumped Jenara. With Seedborn Muse out, Jenara can often go from a 3/3 to a 21/21 in the time it takes for her summoning sickness to wear off. While Rafiq of the Many is an objectively more powerful general, I prefer Jenara because her lower profile allows her to act as a blocker or planeswalker sniper in the early game without being hated off the board while still having the capacity to outright win games by herself in the late game.
In response to the overwhelming success the deck has seen in my playgroup, I've intentionally built two weaknesses into the deck to help keep it from being oppressive. First, it doesn't have any ways of gaining life. It is definitely possible to hate it off the board before it establishes control. Second, it lacks counterspells to prevent it from establishing a hard lock with bounce and recursion.
*EDIT* Screw that, I put Teferi, Draining Whelk, Riptide Lab, and the Glen Elendra Archmage back in. Not having a way to end games decisively was leading to too many drawn-out grindfests that nobody was enjoying.
Also, Cauldron of Souls needs to be here, it is just crazy good. Not only does it give everything Persist, but it makes Jenara virtually unkillable and it triggers all ETB effects too! Run with Novijen, Heart of Progress and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood for an unkillable army.
Also, High Market. It saves your stuff from being stolen, tucked, or exiled, plus with Cauldron of Souls you can now trigger ETB effects whenever you want.
The one curiosity I'm having about this particular build is that Jenara generally dislikes getting herself blinked. Have you thought about the other Bant-colored commanders like Rafiq, Treva, or Angus?
The one curiosity I'm having about this particular build is that Jenara generally dislikes getting herself blinked. Have you thought about the other Bant-colored commanders like Rafiq, Treva, or Angus?
The only card that would actually blink Jenara is Ghostway, which isn't in this decklist.
The one curiosity I'm having about this particular build is that Jenara generally dislikes getting herself blinked. Have you thought about the other Bant-colored commanders like Rafiq, Treva, or Angus?
Rafiq really needs the deck to be more focused on him for the hate he will tend to dray. Treva is spendy and the effect is not great. Angus would be decent, but honestly for me I just toss Jenara out to draw out Removal from other people. Or late game with a seedborn/wake/reflection she gets out of hand really fast.
Also what Telekensis said, no Ghostway here. That said I think it still would be useful. Dodging sweepers and getting another round of ETB stuff going on is win. Best case you get Eternal witness out with some other ETB creatures and ghostway on everyones turn. The people I play with had never even seen it, now they fear it. You can almost see them thinking about casting a sweeper and counting your mana.
I will add that I really didn't care for Cloudstone Curio as telek said Equilibrium is pretty decent. Though even that I am not 100% sold on.
I've got a Ghostway, but I dunno...as on theme as it may be, I'm not that afraid of wrath effects. As for Body Double vs. Clone, Clone is just as good for my purposes since I'm not planning on comboing. It also can be used to kill generals, which is a nice bonus.
Also, Cauldron of Souls needs to be here, it is just crazy good. Not only does it give everything Persist, but it makes Jenara virtually unkillable and it triggers all ETB effects too! Run with Novijen, Heart of Progress and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood for an unkillable army.
Also, High Market. It saves your stuff from being stolen, tucked, or exiled, plus with Cauldron of Souls you can now trigger ETB effects whenever you want.
Also, I don't like that you're running Cultivate and Kodama's Reach with five basics. Finally, I'd run Austere Command over Day of Judgment.
Yeah...I tend to go a little overboard on the nonbasics sometimes. I'm trying to stay away from artifact mana (a crutch of mine), so I threw a couple ramp spells in there. Maybe replace Kodama's Reach with a Gilded Lotus? One of my all-time favorites, there.
Oracle is nice, but not spectacular. She kind of pales in comparison to Primeval Titan, which is usually the first thing I go looking for with my tutors. Speaking of tutors, I don't know what you're talking about - Fierce Empath is amazing. A recurrable tutor that finds your best creatures and puts them in your hand? For 3 mana? Yes, please!
Similarly, I'm really reluctant to leave out Thada Adel...being able to steal tops and sol rings and combo pieces from your opponents' decks is absolutely amazing. She's not on-theme, but she is so good at what she does, I don't think I can bear to part with her.
Austere Command is nice, but I've got so many other ways to blow up enchantments and artifacts that I'm not sure it's really necessary. All other things being equal, I'd rather run Rout, but I just got a nice foil DoJ in the mail the other day, so that kind of settles things.
Admonition Angel should go, though - you're right. I'm quite partial to it's synergy with Realm Razer in my Naya deck, but the best I can do here is Primeval Titan and fetchlands. Cauldron of Souls sounds like a solid replacement, and I'll see about tracking down a High Market to go with it.
Glen Elendra Archmage and Mystic Snake are out - no counters for this deck.
- Admonition Angel
- Pithing Needle
- Oblivion Ring
- Glacial Fortress
- Sunpetal Grove
- Kodama's Reach
- Privileged Position
- Muddle the Mixture
Rafiq really needs the deck to be more focused on him for the hate he will tend to dray. Treva is spendy and the effect is not great. Angus would be decent, but honestly for me I just toss Jenara out to draw out Removal from other people. Or late game with a seedborn/wake/reflection she gets out of hand really fast.
Yeah, now that I think it over a bit, I guess Jenara seems like a logical choice from the options you have. Since none of the bant generals actually "benefit" from blinking, at least with Jenara, she's an early and ongoing threat by herself that will be very distracting.
Yeah...I tend to go a little overboard on the nonbasics sometimes. I'm trying to stay away from artifact mana (a crutch of mine), so I threw a couple ramp spells in there. Maybe replace Kodama's Reach with a Gilded Lotus? One of my all-time favorites, there.
Ramp spells are good, you just need to be able to support them with enough basics.
Oracle is nice, but not spectacular. She kind of pales in comparison to Primeval Titan, which is usually the first thing I go looking for with my tutors. Speaking of tutors, I don't know what you're talking about - Fierce Empath is amazing. A recurrable tutor that finds your best creatures and puts them in your hand? For 3 mana? Yes, please!
I'd run both Oracle and Primeval if I could. More land ramp is almost never a bad thing in EDH. As for Fierce Empath, it gets all of what, five creatures in your deck? Not much flexibility here. Chord of Calling is way better, and I'd run Eladamri's Call over it too.
Taking out Privileged Position = bad idea. It is just so good at allowing you to do stuff uninterupted by disruption. It and Spike Weaver are two of the most annoying cards in my deck for other players to deal with.
Looks like you need an Intuition, searching up Body Double+Reveillark+Karmic Guide with some good creatures already in grave can win you the game.
Also, Mirror Entity likes your general and combos well with the above cards.
I like decks with a focus. But I was thinking, why Jenara? It's working against your theme.
Unfortunately these decks usually dont really have a reason for picking Jenara other than wanting to pick up green and a decent finisher commander. Generally speaking you are better off going with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV if you want to go bounce based ETB triggers as he cheapens your recasting of your guys and thus works better into the strategy overall.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
My selection of Jenara as my general comes down to two things. First, I wanted to play Bant colors, since UW has all the bounce tech and green has a lot of ridiculously powerful stuff to bounce. Second, there aren't any generals that really combo with bounce effects in those colors, so the choice comes down to Rafiq or Jenara. Since Rafiq tends to draw a huge amount of hate and usually tends to push the decks he's in into a more aggro-combo direction than a grindy control one, I went with Jenara.
That said, while Jenara doesn't directly synergize with bounce, there's a fair amount of indirect synergy in that she provides a very convenient win condition once you've used all of your bouncing creatures to create a dominant board position. Just dump a ton of mana into her and she's a one-hit-kill. That said, she's not threatening enough on her own to draw a lot of hate if you drop her on turn three. That makes her fairly good on defense and a pro at sniping planeswalkers in the early-to-mid game.
As for Mirror Entity and Intuition, the shapeshifter is really only useful in comboing out, something I'm not at all interested in. Intuition, well, it's good, sure, but I haven't been able to trade for one. If I had one, I'd probably sub it in for Dismantling Blow, which is a great card, but I have so many other ways to deal with artifacts and enchantments in the deck that sometimes it just sits in my hand with nothing to do.
There are six chief sources of recurring bounce: Crystal Shard, Mimic Vat, Cloudstone Curio, Mistmeadow Witch, and Venser, the Sojourner. Once one of these is online, you can repeatedly draw cards, recur creatures from your graveyard, disrupt your opponent's hand, destroy artifacts and enchantments, bounce permanents, and steal or exile your opponents' creatures.
While it is at its best when bouncing creatures, it can play equally well out of its own graveyard with cards like Eternal Witness, Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Body Double, Mnemonic Wall, and Praetor's Counsel.
It all adds up to a surprisingly robust card advantage engine, with a huge amount of redundancy. The only things I've encountered thus far that can reliably disrupt it are extensive discard, countermagic, and Planar Cleansing-style effects. Even when it is back on its heels, the deck has trump cards like Tooth and Nail, Genesis Wave, and Rite of Replication that let it get immediately back in the game.
The deck usually finishes games one of two ways - either it wears opponents down with simple beats from it's 6/6 fatties, or (more often) it swings in for lethal general damage with an extensively pumped Jenara. With Seedborn Muse out, Jenara can often go from a 3/3 to a 21/21 in the time it takes for her summoning sickness to wear off. While Rafiq of the Many is an objectively more powerful general, I prefer Jenara because her lower profile allows her to act as a blocker or planeswalker sniper in the early game without being hated off the board while still having the capacity to outright win games by herself in the late game.
In response to the overwhelming success the deck has seen in my playgroup, I've intentionally built two weaknesses into the deck to help keep it from being oppressive. First, it doesn't have any ways of gaining life. It is definitely possible to hate it off the board before it establishes control. Second, it lacks counterspells to prevent it from establishing a hard lock with bounce and recursion.
*EDIT* Screw that, I put Teferi, Draining Whelk, Riptide Lab, and the Glen Elendra Archmage back in. Not having a way to end games decisively was leading to too many drawn-out grindfests that nobody was enjoying.
Creatures
1 Acidic Slime
1 Admonition Angel
1 Body Double
1 Chancellor of the Spires
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Draining Whelk
1 Duplicant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fierce Empath
1 Gilded Drake
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Karmic Guide
1 Mistmeadow Witch
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Mulldrifter
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Primeval Titan
1 Reveillark
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Stonecloaker
1 Sun Titan
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Terastodon
1 Trinket Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Enchantments
1 Aura Shards
1 Equilibrium
1 Mana Reflection
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Crystal Shard
1 Mimic Vat
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt
Planeswalkers
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Venser, the Sojourner
Instants
1 Bant Charm
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Return to Dust
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Visions of Beyond
Sorceries
1 Austere Command
1 Cultivate
1 Day of Judgment
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Genesis Wave
1 Hunting Wilds
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Praetor's Counsel
1 Recurring Insight
1 Rite of Replication
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Spitting Image
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Wargate
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Breeding Pool
1 Buried Ruin
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Command Tower
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Krosan Verge
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Mystic Gate
3 Plains
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Savannah
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Temple of the False God
1 Tolaria West
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Vesuva
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Bastion
Also Body Double > Clone when you got Relveillark already in the deck.
Also needs Genesis, Oracle of Mul Daya, Azorius Guildmage, Oblivion Stone, and Chord of Calling, which may not be "on theme" but they should be in every deck that can support it.
Also, Cauldron of Souls needs to be here, it is just crazy good. Not only does it give everything Persist, but it makes Jenara virtually unkillable and it triggers all ETB effects too! Run with Novijen, Heart of Progress and Oran-Rief, the Vastwood for an unkillable army.
Also, High Market. It saves your stuff from being stolen, tucked, or exiled, plus with Cauldron of Souls you can now trigger ETB effects whenever you want.
Cards I'd remove are Admonition Angel, Fierce Empath, Stoneforge Mystic (Not enough equipment to support it, plus you don't really need equpment), Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Worldly Tutor (Chord of Calling is better), Behemoth Sledge, Oblivion Ring, and Pithing Needle (O-Ring and Needle are great cards but they just don't do enough)
Also, I don't like that you're running Cultivate and Kodama's Reach with five basics. Finally, I'd run Austere Command over Day of Judgment.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
The one curiosity I'm having about this particular build is that Jenara generally dislikes getting herself blinked. Have you thought about the other Bant-colored commanders like Rafiq, Treva, or Angus?
Banner by Nakamura, Thanks!
EDH Math
EDH Decks:
Ghost Council: The Magic Mafia of Orzhova
BB Drana: Down with the Sickness
Rasputin: Reality is Broken
Vish Kal Bleeder: Bloody Kisses
Teysa, Orzhov Dominatrix
Stonebrow: Breaking Things
BWR Kaalia Punisher: Heaven's on Fire
Grimgrin: Dead Reckoning
The only card that would actually blink Jenara is Ghostway, which isn't in this decklist.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
Rafiq really needs the deck to be more focused on him for the hate he will tend to dray. Treva is spendy and the effect is not great. Angus would be decent, but honestly for me I just toss Jenara out to draw out Removal from other people. Or late game with a seedborn/wake/reflection she gets out of hand really fast.
Also what Telekensis said, no Ghostway here. That said I think it still would be useful. Dodging sweepers and getting another round of ETB stuff going on is win. Best case you get Eternal witness out with some other ETB creatures and ghostway on everyones turn. The people I play with had never even seen it, now they fear it. You can almost see them thinking about casting a sweeper and counting your mana.
I will add that I really didn't care for Cloudstone Curio as telek said Equilibrium is pretty decent. Though even that I am not 100% sold on.
I've got a Ghostway, but I dunno...as on theme as it may be, I'm not that afraid of wrath effects. As for Body Double vs. Clone, Clone is just as good for my purposes since I'm not planning on comboing. It also can be used to kill generals, which is a nice bonus.
Yeah...I tend to go a little overboard on the nonbasics sometimes. I'm trying to stay away from artifact mana (a crutch of mine), so I threw a couple ramp spells in there. Maybe replace Kodama's Reach with a Gilded Lotus? One of my all-time favorites, there.
Oracle is nice, but not spectacular. She kind of pales in comparison to Primeval Titan, which is usually the first thing I go looking for with my tutors. Speaking of tutors, I don't know what you're talking about - Fierce Empath is amazing. A recurrable tutor that finds your best creatures and puts them in your hand? For 3 mana? Yes, please!
Similarly, I'm really reluctant to leave out Thada Adel...being able to steal tops and sol rings and combo pieces from your opponents' decks is absolutely amazing. She's not on-theme, but she is so good at what she does, I don't think I can bear to part with her.
Austere Command is nice, but I've got so many other ways to blow up enchantments and artifacts that I'm not sure it's really necessary. All other things being equal, I'd rather run Rout, but I just got a nice foil DoJ in the mail the other day, so that kind of settles things.
Admonition Angel should go, though - you're right. I'm quite partial to it's synergy with Realm Razer in my Naya deck, but the best I can do here is Primeval Titan and fetchlands. Cauldron of Souls sounds like a solid replacement, and I'll see about tracking down a High Market to go with it.
Glen Elendra Archmage and Mystic Snake are out - no counters for this deck.
- Admonition Angel
- Pithing Needle
- Oblivion Ring
- Glacial Fortress
- Sunpetal Grove
- Kodama's Reach
- Privileged Position
- Muddle the Mixture
+ Gilded Drake
+ Equilibrium
+ Cauldron of Souls
+ High Market
+ Plains
+ Darksteel Ingot
+ Fauna Shaman
+ Genesis
Yeah, now that I think it over a bit, I guess Jenara seems like a logical choice from the options you have. Since none of the bant generals actually "benefit" from blinking, at least with Jenara, she's an early and ongoing threat by herself that will be very distracting.
Banner by Nakamura, Thanks!
EDH Math
EDH Decks:
Ghost Council: The Magic Mafia of Orzhova
BB Drana: Down with the Sickness
Rasputin: Reality is Broken
Vish Kal Bleeder: Bloody Kisses
Teysa, Orzhov Dominatrix
Stonebrow: Breaking Things
BWR Kaalia Punisher: Heaven's on Fire
Grimgrin: Dead Reckoning
I'd run both Oracle and Primeval if I could. More land ramp is almost never a bad thing in EDH. As for Fierce Empath, it gets all of what, five creatures in your deck? Not much flexibility here. Chord of Calling is way better, and I'd run Eladamri's Call over it too.
Taking out Privileged Position = bad idea. It is just so good at allowing you to do stuff uninterupted by disruption. It and Spike Weaver are two of the most annoying cards in my deck for other players to deal with.
Commander/EDH:
WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator WU
GW Saffi Eriksdotter GW
BW Selenia, Dark Angel BW
W Heliod, God of Sun W
Retired:
Jenara, Asura of War Thada Adel, Acquisitor Jaya Ballard, Task Mage Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero Lyzolda, the Blood Witch Akroma, Angel of Wrath Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Tajic, Blade of the Legion Selvala, Explorer Returned Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Tiny Leaders:
W Mangara of Corondor W
Also, Mirror Entity likes your general and combos well with the above cards.
Unfortunately these decks usually dont really have a reason for picking Jenara other than wanting to pick up green and a decent finisher commander. Generally speaking you are better off going with Grand Arbiter Augustin IV if you want to go bounce based ETB triggers as he cheapens your recasting of your guys and thus works better into the strategy overall.
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[Modern] Allies
That said, while Jenara doesn't directly synergize with bounce, there's a fair amount of indirect synergy in that she provides a very convenient win condition once you've used all of your bouncing creatures to create a dominant board position. Just dump a ton of mana into her and she's a one-hit-kill. That said, she's not threatening enough on her own to draw a lot of hate if you drop her on turn three. That makes her fairly good on defense and a pro at sniping planeswalkers in the early-to-mid game.
As for Mirror Entity and Intuition, the shapeshifter is really only useful in comboing out, something I'm not at all interested in. Intuition, well, it's good, sure, but I haven't been able to trade for one. If I had one, I'd probably sub it in for Dismantling Blow, which is a great card, but I have so many other ways to deal with artifacts and enchantments in the deck that sometimes it just sits in my hand with nothing to do.