This is my first custom (non-precon) commander deck I built. I quickly fell in love with the way Jhoira plays, her engine she creates, and the synergy and flavor of the cards in this deck. With quite a few revisions, researching cost-effective cards online, and adding in some more powerful/ valuable cards from my own collection, this is the first time I've considered this deck mostly "complete".
This deck is meant for a more casual playgroup, and mainly centers around commander synergy while not always having to rely on it.
Getting Jhoira out early and utilizing her card-draw engine can really get the snowball rolling fast if my opponents don't have any answers for her. As my playgroup has seen this deck pop off quite a few times, they understand Jhoira is worth targeting immediately. To help with that, I have the Swiftfoot Boots included in this deck which is great for protecting her but also enables me to grant haste to a bigger creature such as Metalwork Colossus , Psychosis Crawler , or even Shambling Suit if my opponent lacks blockers. To add to my Jhoira protection, I've included a decent amount of counterspells and some bounceback if I need it.
Next, there are the cheap artifact cards, tokens, and big hand sizes. There are multiple cards in this deck that make Artifact spells or colorless spells cost 1 less to cast. These are Jhoira's Familiar , Foundry Inspector , Etherium Sculptor , and Herald of Kozilek . These can quickly snowball and having just 2 of these on the field can make the majority of artifacts in this deck free to cast. Free artifact cast, free card draw if Jhoira is online. There are also 4 token-generators in this deck. Golem Foundry , Mirrodin Besieged , Efficient Construction , and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer . These cards can make my board wide very quickly.
To add to this, cards like Reckless Fireweaver , Niv-Mizzet, Parun , and Psychosis Crawler all trigger to deal damage to either opponents directly or a target of my choice thanks to Niv-Mizzet. It isn't uncommon late-game to cast upwards of 20 free artifacts a turn or draw the same if not more cards, dealing huge damage to my opponents without them realizing the threat was there in the first place. Two recent additions, Spellbook and Library of Leng , have helped immensely on the turns where I can keep a hand of 20-30 cards.
As with Jhoira herself, the artifacts need protection as well. Other than the counterspells I've included to deal with artifact or board wipes, I've included some nice bounceback cards to help out as well. Cards like Hurkyl's Recall , Rebuild , and also Paradoxical Outcome can not only bounce artifacts back to my hand but some bounce my opponents artifacts as well. My opponents don't get the added value I have of having the artifacts in their hand again, and I can easily replay them for a reduced cost and redo my Jhoira combo. Temporal Fissure and Displacement Wave also add some nice bounce as well.
The biggest difficulty I have with this deck are the triggers and keeping up with all of them. It can be overwhelming for myself and definitely on other players at the table so I try to go through the combos as quickly and effectively as I can. It isn't uncommon to be in a situation where every time I play an artifact it's cost is reduced, when it comes into play I create a Thopter or Myr or Servo token, it draws me a card with Jhoira (or two if Teferi's Ageless Insight is in play), both opponents take damage from the artifact being played, both opponents take damage from the card I drew, I choose a target that Niv-Mizzet deals damage to, Golem Foundry gets a counter... etc etc... Mid/ Late-game this can happen so many times with most of these artifacts being played for free. A few times I've almost drawn through the entire deck and have saved myself with Elixir of Immortality .
The second difficulty I have is with the win condition. Most of the games come down to winning via Reckless Fireweaver , Niv-Mizzet, Parun , and Psychosis Crawler going off on a crazy turn or two with their damage being dealt every time I draw a card or play an artifact. Other than that, there are some heavy-hitter scary creatures but I wouldn't say enough to make that my win-con.
Any advice is open and welcome! I'd love to hear from fellow Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain players or any other artifact freaks! I'd love some advice on alternate win conditions, perhaps in the form of other powerful artifact creatures. Also if anyone has any cool card suggestions with a decent budget I'm all ears! I know some of these cards in here are pricey, namely the few I pulled in from TSR recently, but as I mentioned those weren't specifically bought for this deck. I like to keep the cards I buy to be around or under 1-2 bucks each.
