Pollice Verso by Jean-Leon Gerome (1872). Huatli, Radiant Champion by Chris Rahn.

We're moving into the Streets of New Capenna preview season and today's column comes just a little too early for me to be able to dig into new cards for that exciting new set. Last week I brought you a Boros partners Commander deck led by Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful and Dargo, the Shipwrecker. I built the deck for the EDH League I run and play in, and I actually got a chance to play it three times, twice in League games.

"Doggie Dargo" won one game, but managed to lose both of my League games. The second League game saw me poised to win but another player also playing Dargo landed the win using the same combo that I was going to use right before I was going to take my turn. I even had my Conqueror's Flail ready to be equipped, so I'm optimistic that I might be able to win a game in League. I am also still questioning the wisdom of playing Boros all month long. It feels like a recipe for a month of disappointment. The other Dargo player had paired his Commander up with Tymna the Weaver, giving him access to everything Black brings to a game.

I'm committed to playing at least one more Saturday of games with "Doggie Dargo" but my mind keeps going back to some of my other ideas for our league's April theme of Partner commanders with a combined mana value of 8 or more. The deck I'm most intrigued by is the Jund pairing of Jeska, Thrice Reborn and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper.

I often play online on Thursday nights with a group of friends that helped me keep playing Commander through the pandemic and I threw today's list together to play with them. Before I reveal how the deck did in its first game, let's look at how it was put together and what it's trying to do.

Triple Threat

The choice for my commanders was simple. I wanted to build around Jeska, I wanted to be in Jund and I wanted a commander pairing that totaled up to 8 mana or more. That pretty much left me with Ikra Shidiqi as my second general.

The central plan is to have Jeska out when I want to kill someone, and to triple the power of the creature I'll be swinging with. Ikra Shidiqi will give me some incidental lifegain and with Jeska's ability, Ikra Shidiqi's 3 power can do 9 damage, making her a three-turn clock. Ikra Shidiqi has Menace, making her a legitimate threat, but I'm looking to play much bigger threats than that.

One of the creature types I thought about when putting together this list was Hydras.

Managorger Hydra might not seem like much, but it has trample and can really grow over time in a multiplayer game. Play it early and it could easily be a problem if it survives long enough for Jeska to hit the table. Any overflow damage after blocks can be tripled if I use Jeska's 0 loyalty ability, so it could be a sleeper in this list. Hydra Omnivore is a creature I've always wanted to kill a table with, and have yet to really see live up to its promise. If it does combat damage to an opponent, it deals that much damage to each other opponent. It has no evasion, so I may have to use a Rogue's Passage to get through, but the idea of hitting a player with an 8 power Hydra and having each of my opponents take 24 damage seems pretty good.

The last Hydra in this list was thrown in for those pesky Blue players that love to counter your biggest threats before they even hit the table. It can't be countered. It has haste. It has protection from blue. With Jeska, the X you put into it can turn into tripled damage with Jeska. What's not to love about that?

Hydras are cool, but this isn't a Hydra deck; it's a Jund beatdown deck and I've got a few more threats that can get past blockers even easier than your average Hydra.

Hellkite Charger might only have 5 base power, but that can be tripled to 15 damage and I can pay seven to get another combat phase. If I'm able to attack with my Savage Ventmaw or with Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient I might be able to string together a bunch of combats to really put some pressure on my tablemates' life totals. Jeska can only use her 0-loyalty ability once per turn, so those extra combats won't see additional creatures get their damage tripled, but it's still a pretty good plan.

If I'm down to a single opponent and I have a decent life total, Moltensteel Dragon could be a nice finisher. It only has 4 power, but has a Phyrexian firebreathing ability that lets me pay a Red mana or 2 life to give it +1/+0 until end of turn. If I have one opponent left and they are at 40 life and I'm at 21 or more life I can theoretically kill them if I can get through their blockers. I just pay 20 life to give it +10/+0 so that it has 14 power. From there it's just math. Jeska can triple its damage and 14 times 3 equals 42.

If I'm not keen on working that hard, I can also just kill someone by playing Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, tripling its damage output, giving it haste for 1 mana and hitting them for 12 infect. This is all assuming that I'm able to swing in over their army and that's not always a safe assumption. Just last night I got crushed in a casual game (playing a causal deck) by spiders and it didn't help me that my tablemate always had blockers with reach on the field.

Odds and Ends

This deck is centered around playing individual creatures that can present a major threat, but it isn't reliant upon both of my commanders to get work done. That should work to my advantage, as my opponents can't just keep my other commander off the field to keep me at bay. I expect to see my games play out with Jeska only showing up when I'm ready to whomp someone real hard. There's just no point in playing her out early, seeing her soak up damage and then having to re-cast her when I really want to try to hurt somebody.

I built this list using an 8 x 8 pattern, with 2 slots devoted to ramp, one to draw, one to removal, one to major threats, one to wraths and the last two for miscellaneous stuff. I wasn't strict when filling up each slot, but I try to use this type of build pattern to keep me honest and make sure I'm running enough cards in key categories that I used to go a little light on.

My "odds and ends" encompass both fun cards I love and cards that can protect and threaten my tablemates. Some cards just play well in this kind of deck and I tried to think about what made sense with my triple damage gameplan.

Hunter's Prowess not only gives me card draw but it will scale that card draw to the amount of damage I can do. It is a sorcery, so I'll be telegraphing what my plans are for the turn, but I'm already doing that with Jeska, Thrice Reborn. There will be times when I draw removal after playing Hunter's Prowess because card draw can be scarier than damage, but with any luck I'll have Heroic Intervention or Veil of Summer in hand at the time.

Tainted Strike is the kind of card you play when you have murder on your mind and you can reasonably expect to see one of your tablemates hit for 9 or more damage from a single creature. With any luck I'll be the one controlling that creature, but I'm always happy to help out a friend if it means the scariest player at the table (other than me) gets knocked out. I'm running Chandra's Ignition so that if I have a creature with power 9 or more I can just kill the table with infect. I'm also running Blightsteel Colossus as another late game finisher. Swinging an 11/11 Golem with trample, infect and indestructible means someone is going to die if I'm tripling its damage output with Jeska and the defending player can't block with at least 7 toughness worth of creatures. Overflow damage will be tripled, so I only need 4 to get through to kill someone.

If you've read much of my writing, you'll know that I love fogs, and I love to pretend that I've got a fog in hand. In the late game it's not uncommon for someone to swing out for lethal with no real consideration for what the crackback will be if their combat damage gets prevented. They might not bother sending attackers at Jeska if she's out. Killing me will remove me, Jeska and every other permanent on my board. If I can use instants like Darkness, Constant Mists and Moment's Peace to catch an overly confident player wide open after their alpha strike, I might steal a win in that game. If nothing else, I get to pretend I have a fog in hand and every once in a while, I actually will.

Early Results

This deck was designed for play in my EDH League, so it's not trying to play nice. I was able to play it in one game online using Tabletop Simulator and the deck did pretty well.

It was a 3 player game and I was up against two of the new Street Fighter legendary creatures - Ken, Burning Brawler and Zangief, the Red Cyclone. I was able to hit my land drops and get out some early creatures, but the key to the game was not committing my commanders early and playing both Damnation and on a later turn, Toxic Deluge. The Zangief player had been ramping really well and was still able to play his commander a third time. Me holding back and another player also wiping the board meant that going into the mid-game I had cards in hand and lots of mana to play with.

When I build a deck I always have an ideal scenario in mind. Decks rarely give me that perfect situation in their first game and sometimes never really do what I'm hoping they will do. The seed from which this deck grew was the dream of playing Jeska and then playing Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon with haste and murdering someone out of nowhere.

With only two opponents and neither of them having flying blockers, open mana or many cards in hand, I was delighted to draw into Skithiryx, realize that I had the mana I needed and that I had a very good shot at seeing the deck do its thing in its very first game. I played Jeska, played Skithiryx, gave it haste for a paltry 1 black mana and swung lethal at the Ken player. The Zangrief player had nothing on the field and one card in hand, so he drew, played out his commander and on my turn I got the win.

I really don't like 3-player games because it is just too easy for one deck to pull ahead and for the other two decks to not happen to have what they need to recover. With four decks there's much more of a chance that the balance of power will shift and you'll end up with a longer, more interesting experience.

We only had three, and I'll take the win, but I don't want you to come away from this story thinking this deck is some marvel of Commander deckbuilding. It's a solid, simple, combat focused deck with a focus on making the most out of what Jeska, Thrice Reborn brings to the game. Ikra Shidiqi is an afterthought, and might help with lifegain, but isn't likely to win you many games on her own.

Jeska's Jund Beats

This list isn't a budget build, but you could easily drop out Mana Crypt and some of the more expensive cards and still have a serviceable deck you could play at mid power and even high-power tables. I don't see a path to making this fringe cEDH or cEDH, as that high end of our format generally revolves around combo and heavy interaction in the early game. This isn't that deck and if you wanted to move it in that direction, you might do well to just look at actual cEDH builds. There is a cEDH (or fringe cEDH) Jeska, Thrice Reborn partner pairing with Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker, but that moves the deck into an entirely different set of colors.

Jeska Jund | Stephen Johnson | Commander

• Commanders (2)
• 1 Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper
• 1 Jeska, Thrice Reborn

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Archetype of Endurance
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Druid of Purification
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Goblin Anarchomancer
• 1 Hellkite Charger
• 1 Hydra Omnivore
• 1 Ignoble Hierarch
• 1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1 Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Managorger Hydra
• 1 Massacre Girl
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Mistcutter Hydra
• 1 Moltensteel Dragon
• 1 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
• 1 Nyxbloom Ancient
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Savage Ventmaw
• 1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Terastodon

• Instants (13)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Darkness
• 1 Deflecting Swat
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Naturalize
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Return to Nature
• 1 Tainted Strike
• 1 Veil of Summer
• 1 You Are Already Dead

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Jeska's Will
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Gratuitous Violence
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Phyrexian Arena

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Golgari Signet
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Liquimetal Torque
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (37)
• 13 Forest
• 7 Mountain
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Rockfall Vale
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium

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This deck should give you a puncher's chance in most games, but you're going to have the usual issues with blue. If they counter the big threat you were hoping to swing with tripled damage, you may find yourself on the back foot and struggling to be relevant in the game. You'll have enough removal and boardwipes to deal with threats, but any deck that isn't in blue is going to have an uphill battle against a well-built, well piloted deck that has the added advantage of easy stack interaction. In Jund I might suggest playing Conqueror's Flail to lock your opponents out of your turn or adding in ways to make your creatures uncounterable, but you're not going to be able to play cards like Silence, Dragonlord Dromoka and Grand Abolisher to really protect your turn.

Final Thoughts

I'm still hoping to ride last week's Boros "Doggie Dargo" combo deck to April's top point total in my EDH League, but after one week, I'm tied for fourth place, a full 19 points behind the leader - who is ALSO playing Dargo combo. The guys I'm playing against are smart, capable, competitive players and winning even a single game isn't easy against them. I'm still hopeful, and I expect to end up in the top 5 for the month, but I won't be at all surprised if someone else ends up in that top spot.

I joke about the idea of playing Boros for a full month being a little depressing, and like most jokes - there is a kernel of truth to it. Other color combinations are more appealing to me, and I may well pivot to a version of this Jund list if my Yosimaru - Dargo, the Shipwrecker deck continues to come up short in League games. I have added in some stax pieces that are creature-based so I can sacrifice them when I combo off with Dargo, but there's no guarantee that change will put me over the top.

For the next few weeks I expect to be writing about legendary creatures from the new set. I'm not quite as excited about it as I was for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and I'm already concerned about how many new keywords are being thrown at us, but I will do my best to find interesting ways to build around some of those new commanders. If there's one that you would like to see me tackle, please let me know in the comments!

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!