Before we launch into what I did for this week's article, I want to invite you into the conversation. Here's how:

Randomly choose two Jumpstart packs. Take note of which two packs you choose. (You can do this in real life if you have packs, though I recommend only doing that if you're actually going to play with them, or you can use an online Jumpstart Pack generator). Then build a Commander deck using all the cards from the two Jumpstart packs you opened, following Commander singleton rules, but using all the lands in both packs. Try to keep it budget. Post your results in the comments of this article on Facebook or Instagram, and let's compare notes! I'd love to start a real conversation around this idea: what processes you used to build your deck, what challenges you encountered, and anything else you noticed about it. If we get enough people, maybe we can organize a game or tournament online and see how these things fare against each other!

Today, I got Legion (3) and Pirates (1) from the original Jumpstart. I have to say, this was... uninspiring. As a Jumpstart deck, it probably would have done decently. As a Commander deck, it's kind of lacking. We get some solid cards like Glorious Anthem and Coastal Piracy (shoutout to Jason Alt for the Enchantment love), but our Creatures are rather unexciting, and we get a kind of weird Token thing in our White pack and a clear Pirate tribal thing in our Blue pack. What to do?

My first thought was Pirate tribal, and if there'd been a way to do that with a decent General, I would have. We would have had a few weird {W} cards but we would have had excellent removal and we could have yelled "ARRRR" a lot at our opponents. Nothing great, though.

Next thought was a Commander/Background combination. I looked at all the various combinations, and none of them was exciting enough to push for it. However, there's that Commander which draws a card each time it enters or leaves the Battlefield, and that got me thinking.

I went back to look at my pool and realized I had a decent amount of ETB effects. Corsair Captain and a few other Pirates make Treasures when they enter. Valorous Steed makes a Knight token. We had a few other effects like this. What if we could lean into that?

Oji is a bit underpowered at four mana for a 2/3, but they do good work, letting us Scry 2 when they ETB plus gain us a little life. The big deal, though, is that second ability, which lets us flicker a different Creature if we cast two spells in a turn. Now we're talking.

As I normally do, I have 40 lands.

I did a search limited to a Blue-White Commander just for Creatures with the words "Enters the Battlefield" and "Draw," then sorted by mana value. Blue has been doing this forever, and White increasingly does it (starting with Wall of Omens a decade or so ago), so the options were plentiful and most of them were two or three mana. This means we have a whole bunch of Creatures we can play out, some of which have evasion, and each will draw us a card (some more than one) when they enter. Then we can play another one, draw another card, and flicker one of them to draw a third card, all in a single turn. We should be able to keep doing this turn after turn, hitting our mana drops and keeping our hand full the whole time.

Aether Channeler is one of the best we've got, since we get options. Need more Creatures? Make a Bird. Problematic Darksteel Forge? Bounce it. Want a card? Draw one. Cool. Ethereal Investigator gives us Clues rather than cards, but it also makes us Spirits, so it's worth it. Niambi, Esteemed Speaker doesn't draw us a card, but she can flash down to Flicker something else, saving it from point removal and gaining us some extra life. I don't think we can ever use her second ability, but that's okay.

Once I got to five mana, it started being silly to just draw one card, so only special effects got kept. This is where we get our Inspired Sphinx, who is a beefy flying beater, spits out Tokens with extra mana, and draws us more than one. Luminate Primordial and Diluvian Primordial both do work here, granting us solid ETB effects for their trouble. (I've won multiple games with Diluvian Primordial. That effect is very powerful. When you do it more than once, it's quite difficult to defeat.) But my favorite big cost Creature is probably Agent of Treachery, who can start stealing our opponents' stuff. Note we get to keep our booty even if Agent of Treachery leaves the 'field, which means we can flicker him as much as we want, keep everything we get, and keep stealing more and more.

By the time I was done adding card drawing (and a few other) ETB Creatures, I was at 90 cards, so that didn't leave a ton of space. I knew I had to have Flickerform, because on one of our big win condition Creatures that can spell absolute disaster for everyone else. I wanted some ramp, so we added in a few cheap mana rocks so we can cast them out easily and get to our second spell each turn. We rounded out with a couple of removal spells and a couple of board wipes, since those are always good to have.

Oji EDH | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Oji, the Exquisite Blade

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Aether Channeler
• 1 Agent of Treachery
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Cloudblazer
• 1 Cloudkin Seer
• 1 Corsair Captain
• 1 Daybreak Charger
• 1 Departed Deckhand
• 1 Diluvian Primordial
• 1 Elite Guardmage
• 1 Ethereal Investigator
• 1 Inspired Sphinx
• 1 Inspiring Overseer
• 1 Kitesail Corsair
• 1 Lord of Change
• 1 Luminate Primordial
• 1 Makeshift Battalion
• 1 Merchant of Secrets
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Niambi, Esteemed Speaker
• 1 Priest of Ancient Lore
• 1 Prosperous Pirates
• 1 Rishadan Airship
• 1 Riverwise Augur
• 1 Roving Harper
• 1 Rumor Gatherer
• 1 Sailor of Means
• 1 Sicarian Infiltrator
• 1 Siege Striker
• 1 Skyscanner
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spectral Sailor
• 1 Spirited Companion
• 1 Staunch Shieldmate
• 1 Tome Raider
• 1 Valorous Steed
• 1 Wall of Omens

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Coastal Piracy
• 1 Faith's Fetters
• 1 Flickerform
• 1 Glorious Anthem
• 1 Waterknot

• Instants (5)
• 1 Fortify
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Raise the Alarm
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Voyage's End

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Basri's Solidarity
• 1 Chart a Course
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Legion's Judgment
• 1 Release the Dogs
• 1 Rout

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Pirate's Cutlass
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (40)
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Seachrome Coast
• 1 Soaring Seacliff
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Thriving Heath
• 1 Thriving Isle
• 13 Plains
• 14 Island

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This is rough. There are a few things I really want.

The first thing is more removal and a few Counterspells. I'd love to have at least a few Oblivion Ring-style effects as catch-all solutions to problematic permanents, and a couple of Counterspells, used strategically, can convince the entire table you always have one. Karakas would be nice, but too pricy for this deck. Crystal Shard or Erratic Portal might be good because you can save a blocker before taking damage.

I'm not sure the deck has enough win conditions. Drawing cards is an excellent way to push for a win, and if you attack aggressively you can probably chip in some early damage without seeming too worrisome to the rest of the table, then suddenly you're stealing all their stuff and they're losing. But still, this deck kind of does the one thing, and it might need to branch out a little more to stay competitive.

That said, drawing cards is an excellent place to start when first building a deck. You can cut draw easily later, but it's a lot harder to cut really fun cards, so I'd rather start with too much draw than not enough. At least with lots of draw I know I'll be in the game, because I'm not relying on just my draw step to find answers or threats.

I hope this helps some of you get a glimpse into starting places to build decks. Most players I know build to a Commander which excites them. Two random Jumpstart packs force you to be more creative in finding themes which can make something viable. Searching may reveal cards you don't remember or know but work well with your packs. This can help when you want to build a specific Commander or upgrade a precon. You really can build to anything, and it doesn't have to cost a fortune: this deck, even with some of the staples like Sol Ring, is only around $115, and last week's was about $90. And that counts the cost of the Jumpstart cards, which you presumably already have. It also assumes you don't have at least some of the cards either laying around from drafts and such, or a friend who's willing to slide some of them your way because they're unlikely to use them. You may not dominate a room of Commander pods with something like this, but I'd happily play this exact deck with my playgroup, and I assume I'd at least have a shot at winning the game.

If you decide to try this process, please do let reach out and let us know how it goes. I'd love to see your results and even chat with you about your process. And who knows? If we get enough people, maybe we can get that game together!

Thanks for reading.