Table of Contents
With the banning of Time Warp, Jeskai Turns is more or less dead, and I was looking for a way to use the leftover cards from it. While experimenting, I came up with a fun one turn kill combo. The main combo is to cast a Triumphant Reckoning off of Mizzix’s Mastery or Unburial Rites and Scholar of the Lost Trove. You want to bring back enough creatures and Akroma’s Memorial to attack for the win.
[sd_deck deck=”3LcxIwGKg”]
Card Selection
Faithless Looting/Cathartic Reunion/Thrilling Discovery: These are the heart and soul of the deck. They let us run only 17 lands, load up our graveyard, and find our game winners.
Mizzix’s Mastery/Unburial Rites: Get one of these ready to go by turn four, then cast it on Triumphant Reckoning or Eerie Ultimatum. The Unburial Rites should go on Scholar of the Lost Trove to cheat out our big spells.
Gravebreaker Lamia: This card lets us set the table for a follow up just in case our combo isn’t enough by itself. Triumphant Reckoning it back with a Chromatic Orrery, then fetch an Unburial Rites and cast it right away with the Orrery.
Scholar of the Lost Trove: Use Unburial Rites on this to get access to another Mizzix’s Mastery effect, or pull back one of our huge artifacts. You can also bring back a Chromatic Orrery to reduce the cost of a Metalwork Colossus, then cast it off the mana from Orrery.
Triumphant Reckoning/Eerie Ultimatum: Raise the dead. Win the game.
Akroma’s Memorial: The keyword salad lets us win in one turn and avoid chump blockers and most instant-speed spot removal.
Chromatic Orrery: Use it not only to continue casting after the first Triumphant Reckoning, but also to reduce the cost of Metalwork Colossi that might be in hand. With an Akroma’s Memorial they will be free, meaning you don’t necessarily need to discard them to the graveyard first to play them. Sometimes you want to pitch an Orrery and a Memorial then Reckoning them both to cast free Colossi for the win.
Metalwork Colossus: Big metal man smashes puny humans.
Sideboard Guide
This deck doesn’t sideboard like a usual deck. I am going to give you instead a list of cards we pre-emptively want to sideboard against and a list of decks that could use those cards. I call these cards “The Main Offenders” since I am always trying to figure out which will be brought in to deal with me and stay ahead of them.
I nearly always side out 4 Cathartic Reunions for 4 Prismari Commands after game one. It sacrifices some speed to give us a versatile answer to several of the main offenders.
Rest in Peace: Popular in White decks for being cheap, effective, and annoyingly difficult to interact with. Bring in Light of Hope and/or Spell Pierce to deal with this.
Soul-Guide Lantern: Popular in decks that like to use their own graveyard for stuff, like Phoenix, Arcanist, and Jeskai Opus. Bring in Spell Pierce and Stifle to deal with it.
Relic of Progenitus: Popular in non-white decks that don’t use their own graveyard. Deal with it the same way you deal with Soul-Guide Lantern, Stifle and Spell Pierce.
Grafdigger's Cage: Fallen out of favor, but still sees some fringe play because it counters Coco and is a budget option from previous metas. Prismari Command crushes it.
Scavenging Ooze: I hate this evil butthead. He’s hard to interact with if he gets too big. You have to kill him before he runs away with the game AND he sees play in the main because he is just a good creature. Burn it with fire. Anger of the Gods and/or Prismari Command.
Narset, Parter of Veils: Shoot her with Prismari Command before she kills all your draws. Make sure it kills her though. Our really cunning opponents won’t down-tick her and this can be back breaking for us. Spell Pierce is probably the best way to deal with her.
Go Blank: Rarer, but Leyline of Sanctity handles it nicely. A lot of these decks also run Thoughtseize either main or side so it is a two birds with one stone scenario.
Cling to Dust: Soul-Guide Lantern deals with this guy, and it’s popular in lists that like the graveyard anyway. Another two birds with one stone scenario.
Tips and Tricks
When do I go all in and when do I hold something back in case they have an answer?
In game one, be greedy. If you can go all-in, do it. Very few decks use graveyard hate in the main at the moment.
Game two be cautious. You can’t know what your opponent has brought in to hit the graveyard, so just ASSUME they have something. Hold a few things back until they show their hand. Try to get them to use it too early if possible. If you won game one, you can be a little more risky with the baits. If you lost, you might consider playing conservatively. Just don’t be too conservative, you will have to try to win at some point.
In game three, if it comes to it, you should (hopefully) now have a strong understanding of how they plan to beat you. You want to board the correct counters and start digging for them. Make sure you have an answer to theirs before you go all-in and you should see a victory screen!
How do I know what my opponent will bring in to deal with my graveyard?
You can’t know what your opponents will bring in for certain, but if you play enough you’ll start to notice patterns within the meta. White decks love Rest In Peace for its efficiency. Phoenix decks love Soul-Guide Lantern because it doesn’t hit their own graveyard. Blue Control will use Narset and sometimes Grafdigger’s Cage. Winning game one goes a long way, because it gives you a buffer game to see what your opponent brings in.
Other Cards and Budget Options
Here are some other cards that I tried and evaluated for you. Some were playable and some, not so much. Adjust for your collection to craft the version that works best for you, without blowing all your wild cards.
Coldsteel Heart and Mind Stone: At first glance these seem perfect, but they just go against our game plan in ways you wouldn’t expect until you test them. If you play them on turn two, then you miss a turn where you are discarding and drawing. So despite having the mana to play Mizzix's Mastery, you do not want to because there isn’t enough in the graveyard yet. Still they do offer a viable back up plan in ramping into Metalwork Colossus.
Grisly Salvage: A fantastic card, but sadly we are not in green hard enough for this to be worth trying.
Genesis Ultimatum: A worse Eerie Ultimatum, but if you have these and don’t have Eerie, it is a viable substitute.
Stitcher's Supplier We are not deep enough into black to run these, but if we ever get the Rakdos Fastlands, I’d seriously consider him.
Velomachus Lorehold: Not enough targets for him to hit, and has to attack to get his effect. We want to attack after our big cast, so the timing with him just is not good.
Memory Lapse: If you can find the space or want to be deeper in blue this card is incredible. Use it as a timewalk early or use it to defend your combo.
Fire Prophecy: Removal is great, but putting cards on the bottom of our library is not what we want.
Emergent Ultimatum: Not really the right deck for it. We have too many colorless cards. Still it can be a budget sub for Eerie Ultimatum. Search for Triumphant Reckoning, Scholar of the Lost Trove, and Mizzix’s Mastery to guarantee they go off.
Inspired Ultimatum: No. We want to win off our big cast, not get value. Not the right deck for this.
Bolas's Citadel: We tend to run out of life VERY quickly. So if you want to consider this, maybe add 4 Platinum Angels too. Dropping your whole deck with them can be pretty funny. Less competitive though.
Omniscience: Win-more card. We would usually win with whatever cheats it out anyway.
Torrential Gearhulk: At first glance this seems perfect, but it only targets instants and all our spells we want to cast are sorceries.
Magma Opus No room. We don’t need the treasures, and we want to win immediately when casting big. This falls into the same realm as Inspired Ultimatum.
The Immortal Sun: We are not a grindy deck. And this actually helps our opponents’ best planeswalker against us by not letting it down-tick (Narset, Parter of the Veils).
