Jeleva: bad guy

Commander / EDH Exile Spellslinger UBR (Grixis)

FoulWeatherJack

Manabase (32)

• 3x Island
• 3x Mountain
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Bad River
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Castle Vantress
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Rocky Tar Pit
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls *f-pre*
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Watery Grave

Ramp (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Primal Amulet  ^Flip
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Oblivion Sower

Spellslinging (14)

• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Guttersnipe
• 1x Metallurgic Summonings *f-pre*
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Grixis Charm
• 1x Kess, Dissident Mage
• 1x Aminatou's Augury
• 1x Cruel Ultimatum
• 1x Deny Reality
• 1x In Garruk's Wake
• 1x Rise from the Tides
• 1x See the Truth

Topdecking and Tutors (12)

• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Augury Owl
• 1x Ancestral Knowledge
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Insidious Dreams
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Vampiric TutorGC
• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Scheming Symmetry

Wincons (8)

• 1x Crackling Drake
• 1x Fury Storm
• 1x Reiterate
• 1x Uvilda, Dean of Perfection  ^Flip
• 1x Ral, Storm Conduit
• 1x Conflagrate
• 1x Enter the Infinite
• 1x Inner Fire

Commander (1)

Utility (14)

• 1x Gem of Becoming
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Unsubstantiate
• 1x Access Tunnel
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1x Dreadbore

Theft (9)

• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Acquire
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Breaking / Entering
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Grave Upheaval
• 1x Mnemonic Betrayal
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1x Worst Fears

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Maybeboard

Other (9)

• 1x Sedgemoor Witch
• 1x Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1x Sorcerer Class
• 1x Magma Opus
• 1x Prismari Command
• 1x Prosper, Tome-Bound
• 1x Arcane Endeavor
• 1x Crackle with Power
• 1x Fevered Suspicion

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I'm that bad type
Make your mama sad type
Make your girlfriend mad tight
Might seduce your dad type
I'm the bad guy, duh

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? or, why Jeleva when Kess is better

I came back to Magic after a 15 year hiatus and discovered there were suddenly more formats than just 'constructed' and 'limited.' While the store I went to was pretty spikey, they took one FNM out of the month for a Commander night. Since I had no idea what Commander was, let alone had a deck for it, I bought the Mind Seize pre-con off the shelf (because my heart lies in Grixis colors), sleeved it up, and jumped into a pod to play. It was fun, it reminded me of the massive, full table brawls we'd have in high school, and when I saw someone almost go off with Bruna Light of Alabaster, only to get smashed by Zurgo wielding Worldslayer, I thought it was great. When I managed to steal someone else's Time Spiral and then use Mirari to get a doubled Cruel Ultimatum, only to lose that game to the Jhoira of the Ghitu player's incoming hasty Kozilek and It That Betrays annihilator triggers, I had to shuffle up to play again immediately.

Over the years I've built and taken apart a number of Commander decks, but Jeleva's my first love, and one that I'll always keep around, update, and bling out. She's mainly a big bad spellslinger, but there's also a strong theft subtheme here, because I'm not going to just play with my stuff when I can play with everyone else's stuff, too. This isn't storm (I'm not smart enough for that) or cEDH (I'm not rich enough for that), and there are a few choices here and there that might look somewhat odd or even suboptimal. Call it a 75% build, or a 7/10 on the power scale, but I call it the Stormchaser Corollary. People often ask me why I run Stormchaser Mage over Sprite Dragon in my cube, when Sprite Dragon is most certainly correct, to which I say: have you seen Stormchaser Mage's art? It's the same reason I'd never swap out Jeleva for Kess; perish the thought!

The problem about Jeleva's power level, of course, is communicating it with others. They either know Jeleva by reputation and fear or revile her, or they know me and that I can't stand your average Commander precon durdle deck with minimal interaction that relies on Craw Wurm for a wincon. Either way, I tend to gravitate towards playing the archenemy, but that's fine by me. I like being the bad guy.

all the good girls go to hell, or, Card Discussion

Manabase: I have this thing where I hate running off-color fetches, so I never do it. Call it part of the Stormchaser corollary, or me just waiting for the RC to finally get salty enough to ban them at some point, either way. Conversely, I have a (possibly unhealthy) fixation with the Mirage slow fetches Bad River and Rocky Tar Pit and put them in every deck I can, and the fact that this cycle is unfinished is a travesty for budget players everywhere. Castle Vantress and the Temples are in for free scry effects, which are always handy. The rest of it is pretty standard fare, though I'm not running the UR battlebond land because the Commander Legend card quality is so bad I'm afraid it'll infect the rest of the deck.

Ramp: Also pretty standard fare. I generally stick to a rule of no mana rocks over CMC 2 and it rarely steers me wrong, especially with a 4 mana commander. Not to mention, multiple casts of Jeleva is never a bad thing, as the commander tax for her is a blessing in disguise; that's two extra cards to peel off the top each time, so killing her rapidly becomes a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition. Primal Amulet   flips into a land that can let us get up to some shenanigans. If you're not aware of Oblivion Sower's trick, it will take every land of the opponent that's been exiled, from multiple casts off Jeleva, a Bojuka Bog or what have you.

Utility: The top of cards you're never going to be happy to topdeck but you'll always want access to. Most of these fall into the realm of protecting Jeleva

you should see me in a crown, or, the game winning combos

As with every Commander deck I build, there are some combo outs in here, for when the game has dragged on too long with no winner in sight and it's time to end things, but we're not talking about some run of the mill Iso-Rev, Sushi/LabMan combos. No, we're leaning into Jeleva's natural strengths to hit em where they won't see it coming.

Fury Storm + Ral, Storm Conduit
With Ral in play, you cast Fury Storm (this is assuming you have cast Jeleva at least once, but if for some strange reason you haven't, before casting Fury Storm, downtick Ral). You'll then make a copy of Fury Storm that can target the original copy, which can make infinite copies, for infinite damage triggers from Ral. If you don't have Fury Storm or you just want to make this more complicated (which I'm all for!), you can use any pair of Fork effects of your choice, downticking Ral when you cast the first of them, and then going off that way. Despite this being only a two card combo, however, it's not the easiest to go off with. It requires having a specific spell which is otherwise dead if flipped by Jeleva, and then a planeswalker in play, and my deck is very light on ways to keep walkers protected for a full turn, and anyone who knows Ral's combo potential will probably try bring him down if you can't win immediately. If I don't have Fury Storm in hand and/or don't have some creatures or tokens to hold the fort for Ral, I won't actively try for this.

Enter the Infinite + Inner Fire
Inner Fire + Reiterate
Conflagrate + Reiterate
Oh yeah, this is my level of jank. Cast Enter the Infinite off Jeleva (unless the game has gone on really, really long and you're hardcasting 12 mana spells). Now that you have your deck in hand, cast Inner Fire and get a buttload of mana, casting Reiterate on it with buyback to get infinite mana, then cast Conflagrate, casting Reiterate on it with buyback to deal infinite damage to the board. You can swap Conflagrate with another X damage spell of your choice, but you can also theoretically drop Inner Fire and/or Reiterate from the combo, using just the flashback mode on Conflagrate to pitch all the cards in your deck for X damage and using a Fork there. However, where's the style in that? The best part of this is that you only really need to have a way to flip Enter the Infinite with Jeleva and then enough open mana to cast Inner Fire, as Reiterate to get infinite mana is recommended but likely not required.

Mizzix's Mastery + Tunnel Vision The basic idea behind this is that you'll toss most of your stuff into the yard, then overload Mastery and get it all at once. This is pretty mana intensive, however, as you can't overload Mizzix's Mastery with Jeleva so you'll need 5RRR open when you try to go off with it and your opponents will see it coming. This works best if you're running more haste and token generators like Army of the Damned along with extra turn spells to start swinging in with a giant army. I don't currently run it, but it's hilarious when you get a Rise from the Dark Realms and Rise from the Tides at the same time.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Enter the Infinite + Inner Fire Inner Fire + Reiterate Fury Storm + Ral, Storm Conduit Conflagrate + Reiterate Mizzix's Mastery + Tunnel Vision
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.77
Tokens	Construct */* C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	EDH