Servo Guarantees Citizenship [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Stuff going on in my life delayed the creation of my deck helmed by a commander from Modern Horizons 3, but we have arrived. I just can't stay away from Jeskai Ascendancy. Also, I was going to need a deck for the Fourth of July anyway, so this can serve both purposes.

While setting up Jeskai Asendancy as an engine is my primary gameplan here, this deck has some other lines it can explore. The commander strikes me as potent, perhaps the best Jeskai commander I've built around to date. Seriously. I'm going to make so many servos...

Commander:
1 Cayth, Famed Mechanist

1 Aggravated Assault
1 Alloy Myr
1 Anger
1 Aphetto Alchemist
1 Apprentice Wizard
1 Arcane Denial
1 Arid Mesa
1 Aura of Silence
1 Bloodshot Cyclops
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Brainstorm
1 Bronze Walrus
1 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Change of Fortune
1 Chaos Warp
1 Command Tower
1 Crashing Drawbridge
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Echo of Eons
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Esper Sentinel
1 Etched Oracle
1 Evacuation
1 Fatestitcher
1 Flooded Strand
1 Force of Will
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Gold Myr
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Heartwarming Redemption
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Iron Myr
4 Island
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Drain
1 Manakin
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mother of Runes
4 Mountain
1 Mutavault
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ornithopter of Paradise
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Palladium Myr
4 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Polluted Delta
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rhystic Study
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sage of Lat-Nam
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scuttlemutt
1 Sea Scryer
1 Silver Myr
1 Sisters of the Flame
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Steam Vents
1 Strip Mine
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Swan Song
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master
1 Thought Vessel
1 Thrilling Discovery
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Warp
1 Time Wipe
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Treasure Vault
1 Tundra
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Urza, Lord High Artificer
1 Urza's Saga
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Whirlwind of Thought
1 Windfall
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck on Wednesday night. It ended up being the only game of the night that I actually won. The deck got to ramping fairly quickly, then stalled out for a few turns. Fortunately, my board state was enough of a deterrent that I was able to work toward six lands and cast Time Spiral. While my hand ended up being lackluster, I was able to get Jeskai Ascendancy. No one removed Jeskai Ascendancy or killed very many of my mana dorks, so when the turned passed back around to me I was able to get Anger into my graveyard and cast enough spells that my board state could overwhelm all three of my opponents. It's too early to tell for sure, but this is probably my favorite Jeskai Ascendancy EDH deck so far.

 

[Oversoul]

In honor of Independence Day, I played this deck twice on Wednesday night. OK, it's more like it went poorly the first time so I tried again.

First game I dropped Sisters of the Flame into Scuttlemutt and was set up to us them both for building a solid board state on my fifth turn. Before I could, one of my opponents cheated in a Massacre Wurm. I never recovered from the tempo loss and that opponent went on to dominate the game. If you want to stop this deck, killing its creatures is the way to go.

Brought the deck out again against different opponents. Didn't get my trusty mana dorks, but I was able to make enough servos to block attacks. Jeskai Ascendancy functioned well enough with Cayth, Kiki-Jiki, and Goblin Sharpshooter that I began to dominate even without mana dorks. I ate a big attack at one point, but survived and hit back with a bunch of token copies of Goblin Sharpshooter for the win.

 

[Oversoul]

It occurs to me only now that if Cayth proliferates tokens made by Kiki-Jiki, then the ones I made off proliferation won't expire at the end of the turn. Missed opportunity there and I could probably have won at least a turn earlier if I'd noticed that interaction. Oops! I mean, the deck worked even without that, but still...

 

[Oversoul]

This deck keeps racking up wins.

And Goblin Sharpshooter continues to fascinate me with its quirks! I missed an opportunity to save myself a bunch of damage because I kinda got shouted down by the rest of the table due to a bit of rules confusion. One of my opponents was plyaing Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. His intention was to immediately sacrifice all of the kobolds to the commander, then attack (I forget what was granting haste, but there was something and it doesn't matter). Now, making the kobolds is a cast trigger, not an EtB trigger, so I could have killed the kobolds with Goblin Sharpshooter before the commander resolved, but I didn't remember this at the time and it kind of got skipped over. Not any deception by the Prossh player, just an honest misunderstanding. That was my first missed opportunity. The Prossh player announced the sacrifice of all six kobolds, but did so in a way that I didn't interpret it as holding priority. So I tried to interrupt by activating Goblin Sharpshooter, but this got the other two players arguing with me right away because they (correctly) were pointing out that the Prossh player still had priority. After realizing the source of the confusion there, I was flustered enough that I only activated Goblin Sharpshooter once, after priority was passed to me. Of course, thinking about this with hindsight, I could have activated the Goblin Sharpshooter in response to each trigger generated by a kobold dying. Priority pri-shmority. This meant that I could have killed Prossh before Prossh ever had an opportunity to attack.

The way the game played out, I took something like 18 damage that turn. Then I cast Temporal Manipulation and Skullclamped the Goblin Sharpshooter because I desperately needed another creature to enter the battlefield. I drew Esper Sentinel. This let me make a servo, and once I had a token to start populating, I was able to use Intruder Alarm with Gold Myr and Palladium Myr for infinite servos. Goblin Bombardment could then deal lethal damage to my opponents. One of my opponents had a Grim Feast, which would counteract this. But I already had Aura of Silence in my hand to deal with that and also had Skullclamp to draw into answers anyway.

Another infinite combo finish. I know, I know! But it was a close call and we were all one turn away from the Prossh player ending us anyway, so I don't feel bad.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck in a five-person pod on Wednesday. Had a good start, but got stuck with mostly just mana dorks. I had to use Tradewind Rider to keep myself alive against Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos. My board full of mana dorks and servos was starting to get outscaled, though. Just when I thought that all hope was lost, I topdecked Urza and activated Urza, hitting Idyllic Tutor. This let me grab Intruder Alarm for an infinite combo with Cayth and my mana dorks.