Jodah, the Cheater Troll

Standard Combo Control Five Color Ramp

usurphling

Land (23)

• 3x Breeding Pool
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Forest
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mountain
• 2x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 2x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Sorcery (14)

• 2x Cleansing Nova
• 2x Deafening Clarion
• 3x Mastermind's Acquisition
• 3x Overflowing Insight
• 2x Recollect
• 2x Star of Extinction

Artifact (4)

• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x The Immortal Sun
• 2x Treasure Map  ^Flip

Enchantment (5)

• 3x Gift of Paradise
• 2x Omniscience

Creature (5)

• 1x Jodah, Archmage Eternal
• 2x Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  ^Flip
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 1x Zacama, Primal Calamity

Instant (9)

• 2x Assassin's Trophy
• 4x Growth Spiral
• 1x Sanguine Sacrament
• 2x Settle the Wreckage

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Sideboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Carnage Tyrant
• 1x Chromium, the Mutable
• 2x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 2x Thief of Sanity

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Banefire
• 2x Thought Erasure
• 1x Unmoored Ego

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Thousand-Year Storm

Instant (3)

• 2x Negate
• 1x Nexus of Fate *list*

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Sphinx of Foresight

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This deck revolves around Jodah, the Archmage eternal or I should say, ramping big stuffs in general. As you can see in his abilities, he can cheat big stuffs like Omniscience , Apex of Power , Zacama, Primal Calamity , etc. When Chromatic Lantern was spoiled in Guilds of Ravnica, these five color decks popped like mushrooms thus crashing the servers of MTG Arena. (Good lord, Nexus of Fate is banned in standard best of 1 in Arena lol). Unlike the usual 5 color decks right now, I went to control-combo path wherein I address most early game threats then place my combo/s to win the game. Most decks like this are either go ramp or go card draw. Without further ado, lets check it out:

The Trolls

• The Cheater Troll - he is the reason why these 5 colored decks are popping like mushrooms. He can troll his opponents by spending your opponents's removals. If unchecked, he can easily cheat Omniscience and other big spells listed below. Before, I have three in my deck but in all of my matchups, he is useless if you dont have a spell to cheat. Also, he is always killed as soon as this guy shows up in the battlefield...thus he is a big troll in this deck. Only one copy in this deck.

• The Big Bad Troll   - he is also another troll that disrupts your opponent's hand and when unchecked again, he will become a big bad planeswalker that can finish the game for you. Like his partner above, he is a very hot target of removals specially Lava Coil s, thus also qualifies to be a big troll lol :p Two copies in this deck.

The Big Spells

• Omniscience - our primary big spell that creates a lot of shenanigans and tells you - YOU MUST WIN THE GAME lol

• Zacama, Primal Calamity - the big bad utility dinosaur that can immediately flips the game for you. It can heal, destroy creatures, artifacts or enchantments, allow you to cast another big spell, you name it.

• Niv-Mizzet, Parun - he is the primary catalyst to win us games. With our draw spells and a massive storm in this deck, it can immediately finish the game for you. More to be discussed below. Also, you can simply cheat him thanks to Jodah instead of casting .

• Overflowing Insight - it immediately reloads your hand and also one of the combo pieces to win the game thanks to that Dragon Wizard above.

The Cantrips and Search Engines

• Growth Spiral - thanks to this card, the ramp gets smoother and faster. It gives you card advantage and extra land drop to cast your big spells earlier.

• Treasure Map   - it gives you early game digging and eventually gives you more mana to cast bigger spells. Trust me, this card helped me escape mana screws a lot and manage to steal games for me.

• Mastermind's Acquisition - your search engine inside and outside of your deck and also one of the combo pieces once Omniscience is in the battlefield.

• Recollect - it helps you pick up some cards from the graveyard and also a combo piece with Omniscience.

The Hatebears

• Deafening Clarion , Cleansing Nova , Star of Extinction and Settle the Wreckage - are your boardwipe package for aggressive decks in various situations. It is given for a control-combo player to protect its combo pieces to survive the aggressive nature of standard today.

• Assassin's Trophy - our cheap removal against pesky permanents like planeswalkers, enchantments ( Wilderness Reclamation , Experimental Frenzy , The Immortal Sun , etc.). Sure, they will get a basic land but youre ramping anyway so not that of a big deal.

• The Immortal Sun - like that spell above, this is another surprise card to be in the main deck. With Teferi's, Vraska's, Vivien Reids and Karns popping in this current metagame, we can disable them disrupting their wincons. Also, an extra card draw and a discount is always helpful for us. (Take note that you cannot use Nicol Bolas' planeswalker abilities once this card is in the battlefield so use this wisely.)

• Sanguine Sacrament - it give you massive lifegain to survive early game burning spectacles.

• Gift of Paradise - while this card isn't a hatebear per se, it helps you survive even further in early game due to mana filtering. Before, I play a set of Chromatic Lantern s to help jodah cheat his big spells. Now that I have only 1 copy of his, I can put 3 of those and a copy of chromatic lantern just for an assurance.

The Not So Sideboards

• Thousand-Year Storm - this is the card that creates a lot of shenanigans once Omniscience is in the battlefield. It can be picked up with Mastermind Acquisition then Recollect, rinse and repeat causing a lot of storm counts and eventually make this game absurd. You can remove a lot of permanents, you can draw a lot of cards and force your opponent to draw more cards, you can bring back more cards from the graveyard, you can search for more combo pieces, you can even take extra turns, you name it.

• Nexus of Fate - if in case you cannot do the combo pieces above, you can always pick this card provided that you have the big guys to finish the game for you.

• Thought Erasure - against control and attrition decks

• Negate - against control, attrition and midrange decks if youre playing first.

• Unmoored Ego - against decks that rely on one wincon and removing their biggest wincon.

• Knight of Autumn - against any fast red based decks and some enchantment heavy decks.

• Thief of Sanity - against control and attrition decks

• Banefire - against control decks

• Carnage Tyrant , Nezahal, Primal Tide and Chromium, the Mutable - against control decks. Sometimes I replace omniscience with any of them to become threats and wincons themselves.

Again a +1, comments, suggestions and constructive criticisms are welcome. Please leave a comment here to improve this deck more and I really need your help too!

Top Ranked	Achieved #54 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 3 Mythic Rares 36 - 8 Rares 2 - 2 Uncommons 7 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	4.32
Tokens	Treasure
Folders	Decks to look into