Daily Digest: The Return Of Ascendancy

Jeskai Ascendancy Combo. What was once the breakout deck of the World Championships two years ago has now been largely forgotten due to the banning of Treasure Cruise and the Eldrazi invasion.

But 122 Pablo is still more than happy to battle with the degenerate combo deck of days past and his Modern League results speak for themselves.

For those that haven’t seen this deck in action, the general idea is to get a mana creature on the battlefield with a Jeskai Ascendancy and then tear right through your deck with the massive number of velocity spells. While Birds of Paradise is the fastest option available, sometimes enabling turn 2 kills with a Jeskai Ascendancy and a Gitaxian Probe to jump-start the combo, Sylvan Caryatid is one of the most reliable.

Fatestitcher also functions as a mana creature due to its ability to untap lands, and it can serve as a “hasted” mana creature when discarded with Jeskai Ascendancy’s loot ability, providing a reliable means to start actually netting mana on spells cast.

Once this critical mass of large creatures and mana is made, it is fairly trivial to kill an opponent through either attacking or casting a huge Flesh // Blood.

Without Treasure Cruise, there’s definitely been an inclusion of a variety of fun-ofs to replace the bannable sorcery. In particular I like the use of Silence as a means to ensure a safe combo turn while also being a cheap spell that is painless to draw in the middle of going off.

Notably, this is a combo deck that isn’t entirely reliant on one particular type of “zone,” especially now that Treasure Cruise is gone. While it is fairly vulnerable to honest old enchantment hate, that’s not a particularly large part of the format!

Glittering Wish is a notable part of this archetype, giving the deck more redundant copies of Jeskai Ascendancy while also serving as a means to provide answers for fringe situations and odd hate cards. The sideboard in addition to the “Wish Package” mostly contains standard defensive measures and a few key removal spells that are capable of leveraging the now largely neglected graveyard in Murderous Cut.

If you want to play a deck that basically intends to draw its deck every game, Jeskai Ascendancy Combo is a great choice now that it doesn’t have a massive target on its head!