The thing I love the most about the most recent returns to Dominaria is just how many old and classic characters are getting to make their returns. Some don't just make returns either, but rather finally get to see an actual card finally make it to print. This might mean Greensleeves, the hero of some of Magic's earliest novels finally getting a card or Astor, a notable character from the original Invasion block who never saw a card until now. One of my absolute favorites to finally get his due, though, was absolutely Jodah.

Like Greensleeves, Jodah was also one of the earliest protagonists of Magic's lore. A major character of the stories of The Dark, Ice Age, and Alliances and a direct descendant of Urza and Mishra's family, Jodah became immortal with the aid of a fountain of youth. He took down the dark mage Mairsil, battled against the necromancer Lim-Dul and his patron planeswalker Leshrac with the aid of Jaya Ballard, and with the aid of Freyalise ended Dominaria's ice age. He would work with Urza when the planeswalker returned to Dominaria and attempted to aid in mending the time rifts during the events of the Time Spiral block.

For such an important character, it was shocking that it took so long for him to truly show up in card form. Thankfully, in the last few years, Wizards has realized and embraced the fact that players love seeing old characters return. Jodah made his initial return in Dominaria with a very minor role in the story and a sweet card of Jodah, Archmage Eternal. For such an immortal character, this card was sweet - essentially a Fist of Suns as a creature - but it felt like it should've been more. Thanks to Dominaria United we finally got that in Jodah, the Unifier.

This card is incredibly powerful, being both a card that cascades and buffs your legendary creatures as well. I especially love the buffing aspect, as it's a bit of a throwback in its own right, alluding to the classic casual tribal staple Coat of Arms. Each legendary creature you get onto the battlefield gets powered up for every other legendary creature you have, meaning five legends equals an additional +5/+5 to each of your creatures. This combined with the cascading means that Jodah is a card that can get extremely out of hand very fast.

Let's check out a list!

Jodah's Legendary Coalition | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Jodah, the Unifier

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Animar, Soul of Elements
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Captain Sisay
• 1 Chulane, Teller of Tales
• 1 Delina, Wild Mage
• 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
• 1 Ertai, Wizard Adept
• 1 Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge
• 1 Faeburrow Elder
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Gaddock Teeg
• 1 Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero
• 1 Ignoble Hierarch
• 1 Jegantha, the Wellspring
• 1 Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile
• 1 Jhoira of the Ghitu
• 1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
• 1 Jodah, Archmage Eternal
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Jori En, Ruin Diver
• 1 Katilda, Dawnhart Prime
• 1 Kethis, the Hidden Hand
• 1 Kolvori, God of Kinship // The Ringhart Crest
• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1 Lonis, Cryptozoologist
• 1 Maelstrom Wanderer
• 1 Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
• 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1 Noble Hierarch
• 1 Queen Marchesa
• 1 Ravos, Soultender
• 1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
• 1 Rhys the Redeemed
• 1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
• 1 Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
• 1 Sylvan Caryatid
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
• 1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
• 1 Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury

• Instants (3)
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Sylvan Reclamation
• 1 Terminate

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Time of Need
• 1 Urza's Ruinous Blast

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Mox Amber
• 1 Prophetic Prism
• 1 Relic of Legends
• 1 Weatherlight

• Lands (38)
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Plains
• 4 Forest
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Canopy Vista
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Field of the Dead
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Indatha Triome
• 1 Jetmir's Garden
• 1 Ketria Triome
• 1 Krosan Verge
• 1 Murmuring Bosk
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Plaza of Heroes
• 1 Raffine's Tower
• 1 Raugrin Triome
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Savai Triome
• 1 Scattered Groves
• 1 Spara's Headquarters
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 The World Tree
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Xander's Lounge
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 1 Zagoth Triome
• 1 Ziatora's Proving Ground

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The main draw of this deck is absolutely the legends. There's no shortage of them and it took quite a bit to whittle down what I had into a more palatable and playable form. My initial base pool was something close to 100 legendary spells that I personally liked for the list. That includes not just creatures but also artifacts, planeswalkers, and sorceries (sorry enchantments, you missed out this time). I knew I'd need to shave this down to a much smaller number of cards, so I sought to determine how many lands I'd need and how many general spells I'd want to be playing.

What I came up with was 38 lands and 22 non-legendary spells. This left room for exactly 39 legendary spells. To figure out how to bring this down further, I looked to the mana values of each card. By separating all the legendary cards into individual piles based on those mana values, I could play with the numbers more easily. Here's the breakdown I ended up going with:

• One 0-cost
• Two 1-cost
• Five 2-cost
• Ten 3-cost
• Ten 4-cost
• Six 5-cost
• Two 6-cost
• One of each 7, 8, and 10-cost

This isn't a perfect curve and it's probably arguable that I should've added a little more four-mana spells and a bit less three-mana options. Having more cards in the three or lower slot, however, adds to the value of Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle. Even with even numbers in the three and four-MV slots, however, it should be very easy to regularly cascade into spells. You'll probably miss the most on the four-mana slot, but having a bunch of them enables more regular cascading at the lower values while being reasonable to cast on their own. Math wizzes like Frank Karsten could probably find better curves, but I'm not one of those and this is what we got. I encourage you to play around with it and see what works for you.

As far as the actual legendary spells go, I tried to look for quite a bit of variety in options. Ramp was obviously a big one (Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Chulane, Teller of Tales are great here) but so was card draw. I've found it's easy to play five-color decks and just be so deep in the good stuff, you can forget to add in decent draw effects. Thankfully, slipping in copies of Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain; the Weatherlight itself, and Reki, the History of Kamigawa it's super easy to keep the ball rolling. Arguably one of the best solutions, however, is Jori En, Ruin Diver. When combined with Jodah himself, this can effectively turn each legendary spell you cast into a three-for-one, getting you an extra card from Jodah's cascade and from Jori En's draw effect.

I also added in a decent amount of reanimation effects on the back of these legends. Feldon of the Third Path is one of the ones you can use repeatedly and as you see fit, thereby giving you a decent amount of flexibility in what card you choose. It can be especially great with the likes of Uro as a way to get some cheap draw and ramp every turn. There's also Ravos, Soultender and Muldrotha, the Gravetide to let you get some spells back each turn to bring back outright. Best of them all may be Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle who will continually keep your ball rolling and give you a steady pace of creatures to play with. In a pinch, you also can utilize Kethis, the Hidden Hand, though I'd recommend against doing so as you need to exile cards to make him work.

The real challenge beyond this was actually finding the right value plays to make the deck function a bit more. Because it wanted to take advantage of playing with legendaries while also trying to make a five-color mana base function, it's easy to not play essential effects like removal. I stuck a handful of spells like Swords to Plowshares and Vindicate in, but there's sometimes only so much you can really do. I was able to fill this a little with a couple legendaries, however. Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury is a great way to blow up artifacts and enchantments while also providing tokens. Shalai, Voice of Plenty will give your board hexproof and Gaddock Teeg will shut down a lot of opponents' spells. With no counterspells, adding in a single Ertai, Wizard Adept can help there. If you need a cheaper option, there's always Ertai, the Corrupted. Finally, there's two cool legendary spells in Urza's Ruinous Blast and Primevals' Glorious Rebirth to get very potent effects while triggering Jodah's cascade as well!

When it comes to mana, you might notice that a lot of the core mana base and ramp effects look pretty familiar. If you read my Painbow precon upgrade article on Wednesday, then that's probably why. By and large, I ended up just copying and pasting one to the other with some minor tweaks. I think that for five-color decks utilizing a core of the ten shock lands and the ten triomes is always going to be your best bet going forward. Yes, there are other ways you can do this, but it gives you the best options to draw into, ways to ditch your excess lands for more gas, and provide the best way to fetch lands with ramp spells. You don't always need super pricey fetch lands or ABUR duals to make a five-color deck function and this is the best way even if it will still cost a bit for full sets of each.

From there you add in a couple five-color lands, the extra Murmuring Bosk tri-land, and some other options. The Painbow precon utilized Krosan Verge which I like here as the most prominent colors are in fact Green and White. Speaking of, I also slipped in extra typed duals of Canopy Vista and Scattered Groves to help just because they were that much more prevalent of colors. My numbers for basic lands were also reflective of this, sporting a larger number of Forests with a smaller number in Plains, and only singleton copies of the other colors. Surprisingly, Black is the least represented in the deck, so while I opted to include Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth I didn't think it was worth running a copy of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

A lot of the ramp spells remain the same too. You have mostly the same mana rocks, the same land search spells, and the same mana dorks. You even get some of the same large-scale fixers like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Joiner Adept. Thanks to the legendaries in the deck, though, this list is a little bit less reliant on them. There're even some new legendary dorks in the mix like Katilda, Dawnhart Prime and Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge. What's more, there's also a lot of ways to cheat some of your cards into play with the likes of Jhoira of the Ghitu and Animar, Soul of Elements. Even Jodah's Dominaria iteration lets you cast for one of each mana in place of needing specific mana types, which can help if you're in a weird bind with your mana or help get your biggest spells down early. A Kozilek, Butcher of Truth for just 5 mana? Don't mind if I do!

All in all, what you end up with is a ton of great legends all under one unique banner. The great thing about a deck like this is that you don't need to build it exactly as I have. With all five colors easily at your disposal and some outstanding fixing, it's not hard to slip in your favorite legend. Make no mistake, there were plenty I wanted to put in but ended up cutting. This includes the likes of Captain Lannery Storm, both Thalias, Fblthp, the Lost; Prime Speaker Vannifar, Linvala, Keeper of Secrets, and so on. Remember, I had to cut out some fifty legends easily, and that's just from my personal preferences. With plenty of customization options and ways to make it yours, you're almost certain to have an outstanding time playing with Jodah. Give it a try at your next Commander night and get ready to show your opponents the true force of the New Coalition!

Paige Smith

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