I will begin with the differences between my (at least my independent brew) Jeskai Combo deck and other Jeskai Combo decks:
Now to get into some of the meat of this deck:
The Interesting Card Choices
Humble Defector - This card is amazing and the reason we are playing 4
Refocus
rather than 3. When we do not need cards he is one of the 20/20 attackers, but when we do need cards (who never needs cards?), he has huge synergies with the deck even when Ascendancy is not out (which is a huge plus). With no Ascendancy, Kiora's Follower and
Refocus
means getting at least 4 cards deeper into our deck (4 cards closer to Ascendancy) but with Ascendancy thing start to get insane. With our 8 instants and 4 Kiora's Followers, it becomes near impossible for us to fizzle with Humble Defector on the field during the combo (Just remember to hold 'Control' while playing the Defector online to Hold Priority with his effect on the stack).
Burning Anger
- As explained earlier, this is how we win with our 2 dorks being Sylvan Caryatids which happens more than you would think because it seems that nothing can easily kill her (nothing less than a board wipe).
Dig Through Time - Our 5th Cruise. Might sub this out later depending on how this card plays.
Rattleclaw Mystic - I am running this over
Voyaging Satyr
because of the 2 power of the Mystic for when we have to go with plan B (plan Beatdown with our mana dorks against the control deck.)
Thassa, God of the Sea - I used to be running
Stratus Walk
in this slot to give my 20/20 flying to get in but decided that Thassa just does more for the deck. Not only is Unblockable more reliable than flying (I am looking at you Hornet Queen ), Thassa's Scry 1 on upkeep really helps us smooth out our draws before going off. Note that I am not actually playing any Fetch Lands and instead playing 12 Scry Lands. This is not only because Fetch lands are expensive, but rather Scrying lands and redundant creatures to the bottom of my deck does more for me than taking a Basic land out of my deck. Playing 4 colors also becomes a lot less of a nightmare when you have lands that actually tap for different colors of mana and not just basics. The deck also plays at its own chillax pace because we can usually go off before the Midrange standard decks can kill us.
Yavimaya Coast
- These will at some point be replaced by Mana Confluence (maybe? this card is damn expensive for a Standard card). It is good for the deck to have 1 or 2 lands that come into play actually untapped for when you have another Jeskai Ascendancy in your hand but only have 2 mana to work with with any given spell (does not happen often with our 7 one cost cyclers, but it can happen).
Monastery Mentor - Not in the deck yet (because of the price atm) but I think I am interested in having a one of of him in the deck. In the deck, he might just be the alternate win condition I have been looking for (The Day the Monks Attacked!).
I Need Some Help
While I am pretty happy with what I am doing in my main board, I have no idea what to do with my side board. The deck is so focused on the Combo that I do not see the deck taking out a lot of cards without the deck losing focus and just becoming a worse deck. Unlike other formats, there are no Silver Bullets that I can sub in and get a much better win% against my opponent.
The only card I have come up with for the moment is
Kiora, the Crashing Wave
. Her Ult basically says you win the game while her Uptick protects herself. And her -1 lets me draw cards which is great mid/late combo with her replacing herself.
So do you have any other ideas for the Sideboard or maybe something I missed for my main board? Also does anyone have experience with transformational Side boards and think I might be able to do something in that direction for my sideboard? Thanks for any help you guys give.
