I did! It's a great design, I only cut it because it wasn't an effect I sought. It's also great with Earthcraft, mana dorks or go-wide strategies in general. If you want a "white fireball" or "go wide X spell", I would give it a try.
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Everyone else has killed the part of themselves that cringes
but I also can be 100% cool for a few minutes if I play Rainbow Dash...
That 0% coolness is a risk I am willing to take.
Maybe it’s also the only way to go beyond 100 % cool is the play Rainbow Dash.
A friend just gifted me Discord, Lord of Disharmony for my birthday (that was six months ago, but details) and I built a commander deck in 20 minutes with it. It rocks! My Little Pony cards are very fun! Only UB I liked so far 
now I will try to hunt down a copy of Rainbow Dash for the Cube
now I will try to hunt down a copy of Rainbow Dash for the Cube
What's your opinion of this card?
On one hand, I hate it because it's a little confusing to read at first. On the other hand, I love a colorless discard outlet that activates for zero mana, which also doubles as a source of evasion/reach that can end a stalled game or push an aggro deck over the top.
The flavor is confusing at first, but it resonates after a bit of consideration.
For any of the people who try to avoid confusing cards, is this card confusing enough to be annoying?
On one hand, I hate it because it's a little confusing to read at first. On the other hand, I love a colorless discard outlet that activates for zero mana, which also doubles as a source of evasion/reach that can end a stalled game or push an aggro deck over the top.
The flavor is confusing at first, but it resonates after a bit of consideration.
For any of the people who try to avoid confusing cards, is this card confusing enough to be annoying?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This is the first time I heard this card described as confusing, if that helps.
I played with that card a lot (in commander) and I think it's neat and easy to understand!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
It might prompt a double take at first but once you parse the card fully it makes total sense and is a blast to play with - it's the kind of card I'd use as a bellwether for a slower Cube than mine are these days
I'm cubing it for years and I am very hesitant to add overly complicated/confusing cards. I think it is quite an elegant design, honestly.
I adore Key to the City btw. It reads innocent enough, but overperforms every – single – time. Madness enabler, graveyard filler, sweet with saboteur triggers ... it's like every second draft, it shines in conbination with a different card.
I adore Key to the City btw. It reads innocent enough, but overperforms every – single – time. Madness enabler, graveyard filler, sweet with saboteur triggers ... it's like every second draft, it shines in conbination with a different card.
Yep. I used it for years, and enjoyed it. It’s a good card for a cube where smuggler’s copter is too strong for the environment
Anyone get to try out this yet? I haven't made a slot for it yet in my cube, but I've got a draft this weekend and debating whether or not to include it. I've seen it be pretty gross in some Limited games, but haven't heard anything yet for cube. The ceiling is nutty as we've discussed before, but is the average case good enough? Ends up being a more restricted Sevinne's Reclamation if it's just a 3 drop coming, but I think that would still be fine for most W/x decks looking for this effect? I'm thinking Pod and Birthing Ritual builds, some W/x Aggro for maximum ROI with 1 drops.
I like the theoretical upside of flashback Reclamation before but I'm not sure if I've ever seen it actually happen in person.
I’m imaging my opponent recurring
Anyone get to try out this yet? I haven't made a slot for it yet in my cube, but I've got a draft this weekend and debating whether or not to include it. I've seen it be pretty gross in some Limited games, but haven't heard anything yet for cube. The ceiling is nutty as we've discussed before, but is the average case good enough? Ends up being a more restricted Sevinne's Reclamation if it's just a 3 drop coming, but I think that would still be fine for most W/x decks looking for this effect? I'm thinking Pod and Birthing Ritual builds, some W/x Aggro for maximum ROI with 1 drops.
I like the theoretical upside of flashback Reclamation before but I'm not sure if I've ever seen it actually happen in person.
and me scooping on the spot
Anyone get to try out this yet? I haven't made a slot for it yet in my cube, but I've got a draft this weekend and debating whether or not to include it. I've seen it be pretty gross in some Limited games, but haven't heard anything yet for cube. The ceiling is nutty as we've discussed before, but is the average case good enough? Ends up being a more restricted Sevinne's Reclamation if it's just a 3 drop coming, but I think that would still be fine for most W/x decks looking for this effect? I'm thinking Pod and Birthing Ritual builds, some W/x Aggro for maximum ROI with 1 drops.
I like the theoretical upside of flashback Reclamation before but I'm not sure if I've ever seen it actually happen in person.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I'm looking to probably swap it out for Dewdrop Cure, not because it's better but because it's easier to read. I'm also not mad about how well it plays with the trio of Hangarback Walker, Marketback Walker, and Walking Ballista, even if it's a non-bo with Mockingbird. I think in terms of ACS, Dewdrop Cure is still better simply because of how good 2-drops can be in Cube.
Even spending three mana to get back a 3-drop is perfectly serviceable considering how powerful/pivotal individual cards at that MV can be, and it's something Dewdrop Cure can't do. Pre-War Formalwear is stronger than most people give it credit for, and the power boost is not the biggest reason. I wouldn't compare it to Sevinne's Reclamation since it's fundamentally looking get a 2-for-1 on the first go. It may not get a second chance, but they end up being wanted by pretty different decks in my experience. Even though it's in a different color, Lively Dirge plays a bit more closely (for obvious reasons).
Rip OG Cube favorite Proclamation of Rebirth though!
someday I really will make a cube that's just a bunch of kamigawa-through-time-spiral era rares. gonna Bronze Bombshell people right out somehow or something. really gonna do it, don't try and stop me
I used to have a sweet 60-card multiplayer deck (back when this was a thing) centered around Confusion in the Ranks and then playing that Bombshell, Glitterfang, Viashino Sandscout, or Viashino Sandstalker to steal my opponent's creatures repeatedly, and occasionally throwing down my one-of Grip of Chaos, Pandemonium, Aether Flash, or Brand of Ill Omen for extra chaos.
Old Magic was pretty cool. This kind of deck can still exist in Commander, thankfully, but like with my old 60-card casual decks, you need the right playgroup. How else could you run both Tamanoa and Necropotence in your same no-banlist Ice Age Block constructed deck?? (edit: even a young me knew that these cards didn't interact but they did help one another draw a bunch of burn spells, offsetting the life loss of Necro).
Multiplayer decks are 99 cards and a commander, so I know you're lying.
don't be ridiculous, everyone remembers Emperor because New Frontiers was like 30 tix on modo
(emperor had range-of-effect 1, so the emperor would cast it and all three of their team would get X basics in return for only the opposing emperor getting X basics)
also that card is a $75 foil never reprinted wowza
Jeskai Ascendancy Deep Dive
This is a popular card on the forum as a sweet build around with constructed pedigree. It has the hallmarks of a cube all star by virtue of its different hooks and possible homes, but that also makes it a complicated and intimidating card!
There have been a ton of new tools for the deck in recent years and figured I could try and update the different styles of decks and tools available to them.
At its base, the enchantment asks two things of you, have creatures in play and cast noncreature spells. Noncreature is very broad and encompasses artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, battles!?, instants and sorceries meaning that the result of an active Ascendancy will vary wildly. They can range from giving your creatures pseudo vigilance by untapping them to outright killing the opponent by generating infinite Storm.
It's also important to note that as the cube designer, you can determine how broken or not you want the enchantment to be. The presence of free spells makes combo turns that much more likely.
The biggest pushback to including Ascendancy is probably the mana cost. A three-color, do-nothing enchantment is a big ask! However, if your deck is built right, you will be able to recoup the 3-mana investment down the line by going over the top of your opponent. It’s also unique as a one card archetype with a lot of possible builds. It is also a rare card that gives White the ability to fill the GY.
Speaking of White, the self-bounce effects are fantastic at triggering Ascendancy turn after turn in a fair context.
I. Fair Ascendancy
1. Pump
a. Go-Wide. Generating tokens and buffing them with Ascendancy is one of the more straightforward applications. Since you are casting noncreature spells, the usual payoffs work wonder here.
And a ton of others. The nature of the noncreature spells also matters. For example, if you are casting artifacts, Sai, Master Thopterist becomes an option.
You can also fill your deck with token makers that trigger Ascendancy.
Since you are going wide and Ascendancy untaps your creatures, noncreature convoke spells are a perfect fit
Team-wide buff redundancy
b. Go tall. On the opposite end, you can grow a single creature to reap various benefits.
This doesn't use Ascendancy to its full potential, but there are corner cases where it can fill this role. This is a good fit for the Heroic archetype since your various pump spells will trigger Ascendancy making them even bigger and finding more gas.
Go tall redundancy
2. Looting
a. Discard. With each noncreature spell cast having a looting attached to it, if you are able to chain some spells, you’ll be able to abuse your discard payoffs. White is pretty light on discard outlets making this archetype more centered in Izzet in my experience.
Alongside instants, you can trigger Ascendancy during your opponent's turn complicating things for them considerably (Reckless Wurm as a surprise blocker?).
Discarding redundancy
b. Draw. In one of Dom’s recent posts, he expands on the idea of looting to incorporate draw matters. Triggering draw 2 is trivial with the enchantment, so I’ll point out some cards that want you do draw as many as possible
Draw redundancy
c. GY. Adjacent to looting, Jeskai Ascendancy lets you fill your GY quickly. This is useful in all three colors but especially in White which sometimes struggles in this department, but has otherwise solid payoffs.
The Dredge mechanic can accelerate this process considerably, and Life from the Loam is one of the best cards to do so, giving you fodder to discard along the way.
GY filling redundancy
3. Untap
Untapping your creatures is a novel ability, adding another angle to the enchantment. If your fixing can support it, Green is fantastic with its mana producers.
Here, you can let your creative side soar and create all sorts of crazy board states based on the activated abilities of your creatures. Some examples
a. Mana production
You are somewhat limited to colorless creatures that tap for mana, specific untappers or my favorites, creature lands.
b. +1/+1 counters
White is quite good at generating counters, but can also remove them for profit. One of the best new cards to go alongside Ascendancy and counters is undoubtedly
This turbo charges what your deck can do and gets out of hand very quickly. I’m putting it here, but really, it’s self-contained and shines in almost every untap build. In the same space, you could try to make Marvin, Murderous Mimic work, but I haven’t tested it personally. The one-two punch of Ascendancy + Cauldron is a real treat for your drafters and if your power level/themes can support the heat, I highly recommend it.
c. Artifacts
You have an incredible variety of tap abilities that include artifacts and this is an easy way to get spicy. As usual you need a high density of artifacts for this archetype to shine, the nice thing being that these artifacts can usually trigger Ascendancy.
d. Tap
Surprisingly, you can build a whole deck around creatures being tapped for value. You can use cards like the aforementioned Paradise Mantle, Vehicles or old-school classics. The new set EOE has the perfect mechanic for this strategy with Station, a twist on the Crew mechanic.
From mill to blink to prison, you can tailor what you want your players to do with these various payoffs. You can even go janky merfolk style or use the Inspire ability in a cube for the first time ever.
Untap redundancy
II. Combo
The big difference between fair and unfair Ascendancy usually comes down to the rate of your noncreature spells. If you replace Ichor Wellsprings with Mishra’s Baubles, then it becomes that much easier to chain enough spells to “go off”.
The easiest loop to go infinite with Ascendancy is probably
Bauble could be any zero mana, noncreature artifact that sacrifices itself. This gives you infinite Storm, infinite leave the battlefield triggers for artifacts, see your whole deck and a huge Emry to swing in for lethal if the coast is clear. If you have a sacrifice outlet for artifacts, you can get infinite sacrifices.
In a similar vein, you have another artifact combo, but this one requires more set up and isn’t a guaranteed win.
You need 5 artifact creatures on the battlefield to go off. You tap all 5 to get the mana to activate Urza’s ability and cast whatever you reveal. Lands will brick you, breaking up the combo. While 5 artifact creatures seem like a lot, Urza provides one on the house and cards like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Third Path Iconoclast can help you get there. You could also use Sprout Swarm with the same 5 creature set up, except one creature has to be Green.
Another classic combo for this deck is using bounce effects to replay a 0 mana noncreature permanent over and over for infinite Storm and a huge board. All you need is a creature without summoning sickness.
In these examples, having a mox that you can tap for mana makes the combo that much more likely to win.
A host of other creatures can act as a redundancy for Jeskai Ascendancy in this scenario.
Here are a few decklists from my own higher-powered environment.
This deck uses all parts of the enchantment. You have some tokens to go-wide, some discard and draw payoffs and even a few creatures that have tap abilities. The deck would function without Ascendancy, but it really turbo-charges it and ties all the themes together.
This is a great example of a combo version from Erik Twice. You have Emry + Urza, a ton of free spells, Welder to untap and a healthy chunk of tokens to buff.
This one showcases just how strong Cauldron + Ascendancy can be. You have a ton of good abilities and Steel Overseer putting counters on all your artifact creatures mean they can now all use the Cauldron’s ability. It gets out of hand fast and is a ton of fun.
Did I miss anything? Do you have any sweet Jeskai Ascendancy stories or decklists?
This is a popular card on the forum as a sweet build around with constructed pedigree. It has the hallmarks of a cube all star by virtue of its different hooks and possible homes, but that also makes it a complicated and intimidating card!
There have been a ton of new tools for the deck in recent years and figured I could try and update the different styles of decks and tools available to them.
At its base, the enchantment asks two things of you, have creatures in play and cast noncreature spells. Noncreature is very broad and encompasses artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, battles!?, instants and sorceries meaning that the result of an active Ascendancy will vary wildly. They can range from giving your creatures pseudo vigilance by untapping them to outright killing the opponent by generating infinite Storm.
It's also important to note that as the cube designer, you can determine how broken or not you want the enchantment to be. The presence of free spells makes combo turns that much more likely.
The biggest pushback to including Ascendancy is probably the mana cost. A three-color, do-nothing enchantment is a big ask! However, if your deck is built right, you will be able to recoup the 3-mana investment down the line by going over the top of your opponent. It’s also unique as a one card archetype with a lot of possible builds. It is also a rare card that gives White the ability to fill the GY.
Speaking of White, the self-bounce effects are fantastic at triggering Ascendancy turn after turn in a fair context.
I. Fair Ascendancy
1. Pump
a. Go-Wide. Generating tokens and buffing them with Ascendancy is one of the more straightforward applications. Since you are casting noncreature spells, the usual payoffs work wonder here.
And a ton of others. The nature of the noncreature spells also matters. For example, if you are casting artifacts, Sai, Master Thopterist becomes an option.
You can also fill your deck with token makers that trigger Ascendancy.
Since you are going wide and Ascendancy untaps your creatures, noncreature convoke spells are a perfect fit
Team-wide buff redundancy
b. Go tall. On the opposite end, you can grow a single creature to reap various benefits.
This doesn't use Ascendancy to its full potential, but there are corner cases where it can fill this role. This is a good fit for the Heroic archetype since your various pump spells will trigger Ascendancy making them even bigger and finding more gas.
Go tall redundancy
2. Looting
a. Discard. With each noncreature spell cast having a looting attached to it, if you are able to chain some spells, you’ll be able to abuse your discard payoffs. White is pretty light on discard outlets making this archetype more centered in Izzet in my experience.
Alongside instants, you can trigger Ascendancy during your opponent's turn complicating things for them considerably (Reckless Wurm as a surprise blocker?).
Discarding redundancy
b. Draw. In one of Dom’s recent posts, he expands on the idea of looting to incorporate draw matters. Triggering draw 2 is trivial with the enchantment, so I’ll point out some cards that want you do draw as many as possible
Draw redundancy
c. GY. Adjacent to looting, Jeskai Ascendancy lets you fill your GY quickly. This is useful in all three colors but especially in White which sometimes struggles in this department, but has otherwise solid payoffs.
The Dredge mechanic can accelerate this process considerably, and Life from the Loam is one of the best cards to do so, giving you fodder to discard along the way.
GY filling redundancy
3. Untap
Untapping your creatures is a novel ability, adding another angle to the enchantment. If your fixing can support it, Green is fantastic with its mana producers.
Here, you can let your creative side soar and create all sorts of crazy board states based on the activated abilities of your creatures. Some examples
a. Mana production
You are somewhat limited to colorless creatures that tap for mana, specific untappers or my favorites, creature lands.
b. +1/+1 counters
White is quite good at generating counters, but can also remove them for profit. One of the best new cards to go alongside Ascendancy and counters is undoubtedly
This turbo charges what your deck can do and gets out of hand very quickly. I’m putting it here, but really, it’s self-contained and shines in almost every untap build. In the same space, you could try to make Marvin, Murderous Mimic work, but I haven’t tested it personally. The one-two punch of Ascendancy + Cauldron is a real treat for your drafters and if your power level/themes can support the heat, I highly recommend it.
c. Artifacts
You have an incredible variety of tap abilities that include artifacts and this is an easy way to get spicy. As usual you need a high density of artifacts for this archetype to shine, the nice thing being that these artifacts can usually trigger Ascendancy.
d. Tap
Surprisingly, you can build a whole deck around creatures being tapped for value. You can use cards like the aforementioned Paradise Mantle, Vehicles or old-school classics. The new set EOE has the perfect mechanic for this strategy with Station, a twist on the Crew mechanic.
From mill to blink to prison, you can tailor what you want your players to do with these various payoffs. You can even go janky merfolk style or use the Inspire ability in a cube for the first time ever.
Untap redundancy
II. Combo
The big difference between fair and unfair Ascendancy usually comes down to the rate of your noncreature spells. If you replace Ichor Wellsprings with Mishra’s Baubles, then it becomes that much easier to chain enough spells to “go off”.
The easiest loop to go infinite with Ascendancy is probably
Bauble could be any zero mana, noncreature artifact that sacrifices itself. This gives you infinite Storm, infinite leave the battlefield triggers for artifacts, see your whole deck and a huge Emry to swing in for lethal if the coast is clear. If you have a sacrifice outlet for artifacts, you can get infinite sacrifices.
In a similar vein, you have another artifact combo, but this one requires more set up and isn’t a guaranteed win.
You need 5 artifact creatures on the battlefield to go off. You tap all 5 to get the mana to activate Urza’s ability and cast whatever you reveal. Lands will brick you, breaking up the combo. While 5 artifact creatures seem like a lot, Urza provides one on the house and cards like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer and Third Path Iconoclast can help you get there. You could also use Sprout Swarm with the same 5 creature set up, except one creature has to be Green.
Another classic combo for this deck is using bounce effects to replay a 0 mana noncreature permanent over and over for infinite Storm and a huge board. All you need is a creature without summoning sickness.
In these examples, having a mox that you can tap for mana makes the combo that much more likely to win.
A host of other creatures can act as a redundancy for Jeskai Ascendancy in this scenario.
Here are a few decklists from my own higher-powered environment.
| | | | | |
| |||||
This deck uses all parts of the enchantment. You have some tokens to go-wide, some discard and draw payoffs and even a few creatures that have tap abilities. The deck would function without Ascendancy, but it really turbo-charges it and ties all the themes together.
| | | | | |
| |||||
This is a great example of a combo version from Erik Twice. You have Emry + Urza, a ton of free spells, Welder to untap and a healthy chunk of tokens to buff.
| | | | | |
| |||||
This one showcases just how strong Cauldron + Ascendancy can be. You have a ton of good abilities and Steel Overseer putting counters on all your artifact creatures mean they can now all use the Cauldron’s ability. It gets out of hand fast and is a ton of fun.
Did I miss anything? Do you have any sweet Jeskai Ascendancy stories or decklists?