Win with your opponents' cards - Jeleva EDH

Commander / EDH* Exile UBR (Grixis)

BlueTorche

Steal Stuffs (35)

• 1x Bloodsoaked Insight  ^Flip
• 1x Brainstealer Dragon
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Curse of Hospitality
• 1x Elminster's Simulacrum
• 1x Evil Twin
• 1x Extract from Darkness
• 1x Fallen Shinobi
• 1x Fevered Suspicion
• 1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1x Grima, Saruman's Footman
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Inevitable Betrayal
• 1x Laughing Jasper Flint
• 1x Mind's Dilation
• 1x Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Nightveil Specter
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Outrageous Robbery
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Plargg and Nassari
• 1x Predators' Hour
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Share the Spoils
• 1x Siphon Insight
• 1x Spelltwine
• 1x Stolen Identity
• 1x Stolen Strategy
• 1x Tasha, the Witch Queen
• 1x Telemin Performance
• 1x Thief of Sanity
• 1x Wand of Wonder
• 1x Xander's Pact

Manabase (33)

• 1x Bloodsoaked Insight  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 5x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Maestros Theater
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Seething Landscape
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Ramp (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Commander (1)

Control-Hates (14)

• 1x Aether Gale
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Blood Money
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Expel from Orazca
• 1x Grixis Charm
• 1x In Garruk's Wake
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Negate
• 1x Silumgar's Command
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Volcanic Vision

Other Value - Utility (5)

• 1x Clout of the Dominus
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Prosper, Tome-Bound
• 1x Strionic Resonator

Value Instant & Sorcery (5)

• 1x Aminatou's Augury
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Volcanic Vision

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Maybeboard

Steal Stuffs (17)

• 1x Acquire
• 1x Ashiok, Nightmare Muse
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Dazzling Sphinx
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Elder Brain
• 1x Etali, Primal Storm
• 1x Evelyn, the Covetous
• 1x Flawless Forgery
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Ian Malcolm, Chaotician
• 1x Memory Plunder
• 1x Robber of the Rich
• 1x Staff of Eden, Vault's Key
• 1x Thieving Skydiver
• 1x Undercover Operative
• 1x Valki, God of Lies  ^Flip

Value Instant & Sorcery (7)

• 1x Brass's Bounty
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x The Cruelty of Gix
• 1x Whispering Madness

Other Value (3)

• 1x Goblin Electromancer
• 1x Harmonic Prodigy
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Ramp (1)

• 1x Mind Stone

Control - Hates (5)

• 1x AEtherize
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Infernal Grasp
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Propaganda

Mill (3)

• 1x Fractured Sanity
• 1x Mind Grind
• 1x Tasha's Hideous Laughter *list*

Manabase (1)

• 1x Choked Estuary

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I once wonder if it was possible to create a deck that doesn't win by itself, but instead use your opponents' win conditions to win. It's how I built this deck. The idea is to steal the most possible cards from your opponents and play their spells. I didn't want the deck to be no-fun, so I limited the deck to cards that steal spells from opponents' libraries or graveyards, not from opponents' hands no battlefield.

Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge is a good support commander for this kind of deck. It can steal your opponents' instant/sorcery and also helps you cast your stealing instant/sorcery. Some other commander may be effective for this kind of deck, like Evelyn, the Covetous or Xanathar, Guild Kingpin. Dimir ({B}{U}) is the best color for this theme, but Grixis ({R}{B}{U}) has some good and fun addition (Share the Spoils, Wand of Wonder or Prosper, Tome-Bound).

! Waring : This deck is totally not competitive, and will likely lose against a deck that plays a lot of tutor to get stronger. However, it can perform really well against casual EDH deck !

Game Plan of the Deck

As I said, the idea is simple : play cards from your opponents' libraries/graveyards.

This will game plan generate you a lot of value. You may spend some turns to not even play one spells from your hand, but still spend all your manas.

To survive in case you have not generate enough value yet, the deck includes a lot of wrath (Blasphemous Act, Blood Money...) and some other control cards (Counterspell, Grixis Charm...).

Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge is a support card. You will cast it almost every game (like all commanders should be), but you don't really need to keep it. Most of the time, you will cast it, attacks one or two times, then Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge will be "useless" as most of the spells she exiles can't be cast or are situational. Don't be mad if she dies, it's sometimes a good thing as you can play it again and pay more (which means, exile more card !).

Ramp

As most of the cards you have says "... you may cast that card by paying its manacost ...", you need a lot of mana to cast all the spells you stole. It's why the deck have and need 11 cards of ramp (which are all "good" ramp in casual EDH for grixis). Some stealing spells require you to spend mana of the specific color of the card, and doesn't say "spend mana as it was mana of any color" (ex : Nightveil Specter). You may struggle to cast these spells if they white or green. It's why the deck needs the support of Chromatic Lantern, Exotic Orchard and Fellwar Stone, which aren't bad cards anyway. Don't forget, some cards permit you to "play card" and not "cast card", which permit you to play your opponents' land.

Exile, a downside to the fun...

The deck was meant to be fun. But most of the players doesn't like the fact that you exile their spells and goes crying because you exile a win condition (even if that is an irrational cry, your exile is random; their win condition could have been at the bottom of their library). This is the same effect as when you play a mill deck. However, most of good deck have some revival of cards from graveyard, but no one have some revival from exile.

Obviously, that's not your problem, you can take a bath in your opponent tears while enjoying your win. You can even take that downside to your advantage : When you exile a card, you often have the choice to play it (and put it in your opponent's graveyard after playing it, or after it dies). You may just not play it to keep it in exile and block it from your opponent. Furthermore, you can do politic with your opponent, and say "I can play it so you may get it back later, but you [don't attack me next turn], [don't kill my creature]" or any things like that.

I wanted the deck to be fun, you may not

I said : "I didn't want the deck to be no-fun, so I limited the deck to cards that steal spells from opponents' libraries or graveyards, not from opponents' hands no battlefield.". You may not restrict yourself to this condition.

There is a lot of card in Grixis that steals permanent from the battlefield, or that steals card from opponents' hands. I won't cite it all here, but here are some example : Coercive Recruiter, Hostage Taker, Domestication, Control Magic, Psychic Intrusion, Covetous Urge...

Some Rules Precision

Some cards say "you may play these cards" (Brainstealer Dragon) or "you may cast these cards" (Laughing Jasper Flint). In the first case, you may play land (if it's your turn, and you haven't played a land yet). In the second cast, you can not play a land. You have to respect the MTG rules.

When you cast Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge for the second time (or third, ...) and attacks with it, note that you can not cast spells exile the first time you cast Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, as the new Jeleva is not the same Jeleva. When Jeleva dies, all cards exile by it will just stay in exile for the rest of the game (except for some cards that permit to play any card from exile, like Oblivion Sower). It's however not the case with Evelyn, the Covetous (not in the deck, but not a bad addition to it) or Tasha, the Witch Queen, which can play cards with their specific counter.

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.99
Tokens	City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Demon 3-3 B, Treasure