Mind Over Matter (The Jori Story)

Commander / EDH* Combo Infinite Combo UR (Izzet)

thebirkinator

Instant (25)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Archmage's Charm
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Final Fortune
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Izzet Charm
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Opt
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Prismari Command
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Swan Song

Creature (8)

• 1x Archmage Emeritus
• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Chasm Skulker
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Harmonic Prodigy
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Storm-Kiln Artist

Sorcery (17)

• 1x Ancestral Vision
• 1x Deep Analysis
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Flood of Recollection
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Jeska's Will
• 1x Mizzix's Mastery
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Temporal Manipulation
• 1x Temporal Mastery
• 1x Time Warp
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Warrior's Oath

Artifact (10)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Liquimetal Torque
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sundial of the Infinite
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Temple Bell
• 1x Thought Vessel

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Dack Fayden

Commander (1)

Land (35)

• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desolate Lighthouse
• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Frostboil Snarl
• 16x Island
• 6x Mountain
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Temple of Epiphany

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Curiosity
• 1x Mind Over Matter
• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Guttersnipe

Artifact (2)

• 1x Mirari
• 1x Venser's Journal

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Jace's Sanctum
• 1x Thought Reflection
• 1x Trail of Evidence

Instant (2)

• 1x Capsize
• 1x Psychic Trance

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Distortion Strike
• 1x Rise from the Tides
• 1x Volcanic Vision

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"Some relic hunters have given up exploring and gone to fight the Eldrazi. But I know our work is more important than ever. The secrets we uncover could lead to the world's salvation."

• Jori En, Ruin Diver

---

The watcher waits. Calm. The tides ebb and flow, and there is anticipation, restrained rage from the ruins of the deep. It will come. It will come to those who wait for the right moment, to those who are adequately prepared. When the time is right, the floodgates will open and the genius of the mind will overcome all. Focus. Focus and it will come. Channel your thoughts, dig deep. Dive through the ruins and uncover the answers.

When the mind has truly overcome the matter, you will prevail.

---

True to the some of the Izzet League's tendencies, this deck focuses thematically on cards representing the mastery of mind over matter. I think of the card draw here as digging through one's own memory and research in search of answers, and taking extra turns as mad, rash, time-warping experiments designed to help you get ahead at any cost. Then, when said mastery has been achieved (whether by literally using Mind Over Matter or not), some sort of living death machine or infinite chain reaction is unleashed to devastating effect. Flavor is extremely important.

Jori En has proven herself to be exactly what I had hoped she would be when I first saw her spoiled during Oath of the Gatewatch. That is, she is an ideal balance between useful and threatening.

I love Jori because she rarely, if ever, looks like the best removal target on the board. Unlike some of the other Izzet commanders such as Mizzix of the Izmagnus or Jhoira of the Ghitu , both of which I have seen people go to extreme lengths to exterminate, she doesn't scream "kill me now!" In fact, this deck very often sees games where Jori hits the board on turn 3 and doesn't leave until it's all over.

So Jori is a little more subtle as a commander. In spite of this, though, she provides way more advantage than anybody seems to realize. With this deck you are practically guaranteed to be drawing at least two cards on each of your turns, often taken one after another, just from your commander, which does a great job of helping to accelerate you into even more potent draw engines like Thought Reflection and Arcanis the Omnipotent . Combine this with an extra turn or two to double your advantage, at which point, especially if unanswered, you can quickly start to run away with the game.

A Brief History

A little bit of history is helpful to understand this deck's balance and style. Jori En is not a typical commander, and finding her sweet spot without letting the deck become typical or boring has been a journey. It started out, in my attempt to build an EDH deck flavored around manipulating time, by utilizing almost every existing extra-turn effect in the history of magic (except Time Walk , of course, because i'm not made of money). I found that, while this was pretty good in terms of winning games (at a certain point the deck would basically stop letting anybody else have any turns at all, and the game would be on hold for a horribly long time until I finally won) it was painfully PAINFULLY unfun to play against, as I avoided infinite combos or the use of creatures (which would have helped to end it quickly), and attracted an incredible amount of disdain. On top of that, taking endless (but not infinite) turns got tedious, and, with an increasingly ridiculous number of things to keep track of, not particularly fun to do.

So the balance was off, but I was not willing to relinquish the original idea. in the end I chose to sacrifice a little bit time manipulation in favor of a more... reasonable deck. While taking extra turns still remains a theme, it now takes a back seat to actually... doing things. Priority number one is now drawing as many cards as humanly possible.

These days Jori En likes to grab an entertaining and interesting win by overloading her hand with low-cost spells, playing them all at once to pump up cards like Charmbreaker Devils and Nivix Cyclops , and then swinging in for massive amounts of unblockable damage. My favorite part of this strategy is how difficult it can be to predict. People will often either: (A) go out of their way to kill creatures that aren't actually going to be a threat for awhile or (B) ignore creatures that are about to swing in for 40+ unblockable damage.

Of course, in tribute to its days as a malicious extra-turn deck, this deck includes some infinite turn combos, this is the other main wincon. If you're having trouble keeping creatures on the field, you can just start a turn that never ends. If people don't immediately scoop (usually they will), you'll find a way to kill them soon enough. It forgoes any Splinter Twin/Kiki-Jiki combos because they are simply not interesting and don't fit thematically with card draw or time manipulation.

(Mind over Matter would be a fantastic phrase for this deck, as it, flavorwise, focuses on these two traits because they represent delving deeper and deeper into one's own mind and thoughts to find)

Thus, this deck has turned out to be a fascinating kind of control deck. Strategically, it does a lot of watching and a lot of waiting, generally just trying to fly under the radar. Then, when the time is right, Jori En seizes the entire game by the throat. At this point you can take enough extra turns to kill everybody with damage or assemble a combo, and should have so much card advantage that nobody will be able to stop you (the looks on faces when you, having tapped out to play your winning card, counter their response with a Force of Will , is just priceless).

Notable Combos and Synergies

Isochron Scepter + Mystical Tutor + Beacon of Tomorrows = Infinite turns

Beacon of Tomorrows + Planar Portal = Infinite turns

Isochron Scepter + Final Fortune + Sundial of the Infinite = Infinite turns

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind + Curiosity = Infinite card draw plus 1 damage per card drawn. Once your library is empty, use Mind Over Matter and Elixir of Immortality to recycle and continue the damage chain forever.

Mind Over Matter + Arcanis the Omnipotent = Infinite draw. You can tap Arcanis to draw three cards, then discard a single card to untap him and do it again. This will win you the game quickly.

Though it has taken a lot of fiddling to get right, this has turned out to be one of my favorite decks to play. It somehow, magically, never seems to draw too much attention to itself, despite the fact that my playgroups have seen it win time and time again. I really believe that, though the deck could arguably be "better" with Splinter Twin and some other things like that, the current list is very good at avoiding looking like a threatening presence until it's ready to win. This is, in my opinion, a widely undervalued attribute.

I am also gradually working on foiling out this deck as much as possible! I do own the exact versions of everything listed.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.95
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Dack Fayden, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Squid 1/1 U, Treasure
Folders	stuff