Standard-Legal Commander with Jodah, the Unifier

Posted on May 28, 2024

Hello awesome folks! I have a fun challenge for you! I wanted to build a Standard-legal Commander, that you could only build with recent stuff. Let's try all five colors with:

Jodah! He costs all five colors, gives you an on curve 5/5 body which boosts legendary dorks' size equal to your count. Then when you cast one from your hand, you exile cards from library until a legendary card is exiled cheaper and then you cast it for free! That's great card flow for legendaries and there are more than 350 legal options to build around. Let's do it to it!

Mana, Ramp, Lands

Let's start with being able to cast my legendary stuff!

Let's start with mana rocks that are on theme, like the uncommon from the same set that taps of any color like a Manalith, and will tap your untapped legendary stuff to make that mana. The Simic colored rare just printed will give you a nice 6/5 reach body for six mana, with an ETB ability to bring another legendary token named Beau with size equal to your land count, two for one! Then when you swing, you can draw and ramp a land untapped from either your hand or graveyard,

Now let's turn to mono-Green Big Score stuff! Ancient Cornucopia costs three, taps for any mana just like a Manalith, and you gain life for each color in your spells when you cast them, but just once per turn. Omenpath Journey costs another mana, on arrival to the battlefield you fetch out up to five lands, and EOT you ramp one randomly untapped. Nice pair!

The Celestus costs three to tap, make that mana, and is legendary as well. Then you can mana sink it three on your turn to make day/night and draw, discard, and then gain a life. Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea has a 2/3 size and taps for two mana of any combo of colors, but just for dorks and their abilities, which sems pretty useful here. That on the third turn will drop Jodah turn four. Then when you cast a spell with power 5 or more you toss a +1/+1 counter here and untap this.

Now let's turn to lands! Sandstorm Verge taps for colorless, and can be tapped with three mana at sorcery speed to make your dork unblockable, it's a great version of Rogue's Passage for this brew. Then Commercial District is next with ETB tapped and has both types and surveils on arrival to dig or toss into your graveyard. I am also running all 10 of the Restless cycle of creature dorks.

The rare from Jodah's set ETBs untapped, taps for colorless, one mana of any color for legendaries, and one mana for your legendary stuff you control great in Five Color deck like this one. I only have the five legal cycling Triome five-set here like the one above.

Synergies and Backup Winning Conditions

Now let's turn to synergies and winning conditions, we'll start with the latter. The mono-Black one costs four for a 4/5 with deathtouch that when you draw that card you'll gain two life and when your foe does they lose two life. The non-Red seven-drop 7/7 has a ton of keywords like flying for evasion, vigilance to not be stopped for defense, and lifelink to double your swings in life. When this ETBs you reveal ten and draw each permanent type. Love this pair loads!

From win-cons to synergies. Ratadrabik of Urborg costs four, gives your Zombies vigilance and has that and ward 2 to protect. Whenever another legendary dork dies, it'll come back as a token that counts as a 2/2 Zombie. Nasty! Tinybones Joines Up drops turn one, forces everyone else to discard a card, and then when a legendary critter ETBs, you'll have folks mill and lose life, you too if you wanna.

Let's stick to Black, this time with a three-drop mono-Black 3/3 dork. It has a combat damage trigger to draw and lose a life when a dork deals damage to a foe. That's you and foes too. Forcing folks to swing at each other for cards is great! The Esper dork also costs three for a ward one flying 1/4 body that loves to swing. When you do, you can connive X equal to your attacker count and draw, discard, and then grow into a big fat dork.

Now let's turn to Selesnya synergies and win cons. Jetmir, Nexus of Revels is a win-con in the Red zone in Naya colors four-drop 5/4 with a power pump for each dork you have and a keyword too. Three gives you vigilance, six gives you trample evasion, and nine gives you a nasty double strike. Kellan, Daring Traveler is next; the Adventure costs one Green, you make free Map tokens equal to each foe with an artifact, for ramping or growing your dorks. Then it costs two with a 2/3 body and an attack trigger to drop the top two dorks of the top of your library if they are cheap. Love it.

Now let's turn to reanimation. Since I have a lot of dorks that'll die naturally and then the surveil lands, we could have a fat graveyard, enter this section. The five-drop Black 5/5 menace and flying Dragon Spirit above has a death trigger to return a non-Dragon back to play. Or you can have each opponent discard two and lose life if you prefer. The sorcery costs five too, recurs one dork to the battlefield and another permanent to your hand. Two for one, and that permanent is great here!

Now let's turn to other ways to fill that graveyard in legendary form! The three-drop has a 3/4 blocky body. You can tap it with nothing to sac another dork and then draw that sweet card and ramp a land tapped. Awesome possum! I liked a sac body so I tossed in flying Kairi for a six-drop with a strong ward 3, and then a bounce or mill and return two cards, love the milling here.

Answers

Now let's turn to Standard-legal answers! We'll start with backup counters to answer anything, like Three Steps Ahead from OTJ. It counters anything for three and Catalogs for two more, and then you can copy too. Love. Another counter legendary matters this time is flashable Ertai Resurrected that'll counter an opposing spell or ability, and they will draw a card, or and you can kill something too and do the same with them drawing.

Stroke of Midnight costs three, destroys anything not named land and gives them a 1/1 dork. Requisition Raid will destroy an artifact or enchantment and both if you spend three or toss a +1/+1 counter on your dorks for one more mana.

Now let's finish with two sweepers! The instant speed one costs six to destroy all dorks, and then you can force abilities lost to kill indestructible stuff, or save one for one mana each. Farewell exiles, so it answers all artifacts, dorks and enchantments you need to answer, but you cannot get it back. It's flexible to keep what's needed.

Card Draw

Now let's finish with card draw! The Azorius three-drop has a 2/4 blocky body with vigilance and makes a Clue on arrival to the battlefield. Then you can tap it with Azorius mana to sac and draw X cards and make that life too. The Simic X has a 2/2 flying body to start, and ETBs with a size boost equal to X spent, then you make X Food counters in half, and when she swings, you can sac a Food to draw that card!

Now let's turn to more card flow with an Azban duo! The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride is a 5 cost for a sizeable 6/5 with haste and trample to smash out of people's face! It has saddle one and when attacking while saddled, you can sac, draw equal to its power and ramp lands tapped too! The Kenriths' Royal Funeral will exile two legendaries on arrival, and you draw the mana cost of the most pricey in cards and gain that life too. You can also ramp your spells too for each one exiled.

The enchantment costs a base two, it has an ETB ability to toss a deathtouch counter on your dorks to trade up, and then when a legendary dork deals that damage you'll draw that card too! Note that works for each one, like Bident of Thassa, not once per combat. The other two-drop is mono-Blue and taps to draw a card and discard for graveyard digging. When you cast a legendary spell, you untap and can do it again! And this is transformable into a 5/5 trample that has a trigger when something damages her to really smash faces with casting their stuff.

And there we are! Ready for my decklist?