When Khans of Tarkir was first previewed, there were fears that the deck would break Modern. Sure, Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were too good, but those were absolutely not the cards players were concerned about. The card players were worried about breaking the format was Jeskai Ascendancy; a card which threatened to create a turn two combo deck. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Jeskai Ascendancy do anything meaningful in Modern, but the deck still exists, albeit slightly less powerful without the busted Blue delve spells:

Jeskai Ascendancy - Modern | 122Pablo, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (11)
• 3 Fatestitcher
• 4 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid

• Instants (14)
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swan Song
• 2 Noxious Revival
• 2 Silence
• 3 Cerulean Wisps
• 4 Manamorphose

• Sorceries (16)
• 1 Mystic Speculation
• 1 Nagging Thoughts
• 2 Faithless Looting
• 4 Glittering Wish
• 4 Serum Visions
• 4 Sleight of Hand

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Jeskai Ascendancy

• Lands (16)
• 1 Island
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Horizon Canopy
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 4 Gemstone Mine
• 4 Misty Rainforest

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Bound // Determined
• 1 Flesh // Blood
• 1 Jeskai Ascendancy
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 1 Scarscale Ritual
• 1 Silence
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 4 Leyline of Sanctity

Buy This Deck

The idea is that you use your mana creatures to accelerate out a Jeskai Ascendancy. From there, you just want to start casting cantrips. Depending on the context of the matchup, you may need to run out your Ascendancy as early as possible and hope you get to untap, or it may be better to try to set up a turn where you can cast Jeskai Ascendancy, unearth Fatestitcher, and start comboing all at once.

The way the combo works is this: Jeskai Ascendancy allows your mana creatures to untap each time you cast a cantrip. That means that one-mana cantrips are either mana-neutral or better. In particular, effects like Manamorphose and Cerulean Wisps can help net mana to help you cast Glittering Wish or another more expensive spell if you’re short on mana. The idea is, eventually, you’ll loot away and unearth enough Fatestitchers that you can generate as much mana as you need. Eventually you can tap down opposing mana sources and blockers and smash in for huge chunks of damage. You can even Glittering Wish for Flesh // Blood if combat isn’t an option.

Glittering Wish plays a huge role in this deck. It’s not a huge liability to play a slow tutor because you’ve got so many mana creatures and a fast combo. The utility that it provides, giving you extra copies of Jeskai Ascendancy as well as powerful singleton options out of the sideboard like Abrupt Decay, Fiery Justice, and much more.

There’s a lot of speed inherent in this deck, since your mana creatures give you the means to ramp out your combo pieces. Sylvan Caryatid is a relatively resilient combo piece, and your deck is primarily composed of cantrips to help find additional copies of Jeskai Ascendancy if your opponent can answer those. The cost is that you’re vulnerable to an awful lot of the hate cards coming out of sideboards, ranging from Rule of Law to Rest in Peace to generic counterspells, surgical extraction, and much more. However, if you think your metagame is lacking in this kind of hate, this seems like a fantastic choice for your next Modern event.