Warden of the Eye is a very cool Jeskai commander, and they are also the only Jeskai commander, so you know we had to do it! Jeskai is one of my favorite color combinations in the whole game, and I just love casting spells. Since I started my Magic career during Khans of Tarkir, I have a ton of love for prowess. This is a deck that focuses on buffing up our creatures through prowess and swinging for the fences, and Jeskai is the perfect color combination to do this! If you like buffing up creatures a ton and having some interesting combats I think this may be the deck for you. I am very excited to share this one with you all today. Without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Warden of the Eye has a very interesting position within the deck; they are a strong piece of recursion and are a little stronger than cards like Archaeomancer since Warden can recur Enchantments, artifacts, and any spells. The nice thing about Warden is that the deck functions perfectly without them and can be brought in for recursion as needed. Warden is a little expensive, but if you have a turn where you aren’t doing much or are looking to recur, something strong like Aqueous Form or Cosmotronic Wave as well as a ton of other awesome options.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
To start off, we should talk about our instant and sorcery payoffs like Kessig Flamebreather, Guttersnipe, and Firebrand Archer which are all great ways to consistently damage opponents. We do have some recursion from our creatures like Archaeomancer and Ardent Elementalist, which can be great for getting key spells back. We have a ton of prowess creatures, so let’s go over some of the best. Seeker of the Way is the perfect card against aggro since it gains lifelink, which can help us get back some of the life we would lose in the early game. Whirlwind Adept is another strong one since it is quite hard to kill with single-target removal, and since it has prowess, it can be quite hard to take out in combat as well. Jeskai Elder is a great early-game creature and gives us strong supplemental card draw in the game’s early stages. We have some very strong cards that don’t have prowess but they sure feel like they do in Nivix Cyclops, Pyroceratops, and Spellgorger Weird which keep their buffs and can be some of the best attackers/blockers for the deck.
Instants:
My favorite instant in the deck is Goblin Wizardry since it triggers prowess and gives us additional prowess creatures for even more damage and huge swings. Artful Maneuver is a very cool card that will trigger all of our prowess creatures on two separate turns. The same is true for Ojutai's Breath, which is a great way to slow down a big threat from our opponents. We have some buffs and cards that can assist us with ending the game, like Temur Battle Rage and Stolen Vitality. We do have some more controlling cards like Counterspell, Arcane Denial, and Essence Scatter, which can be a great way to stop or shut down opponents and even triggering prowess on our opponents turn can be good since we can be much better blockers. Rally the Peasants is a strong finisher in the deck, and in the late game, with prowess and flashback in the same turn, we can give all of our creatures +6+2 if they have prowess, which can be game-changing, especially if they can’t block.
Sorceries:
We have a ton of cards that stop our opponents from blocking, well mostly the best of the bunch are Coronation of Chaos and Cosmotronic Wave, which can be very strong against any strategy and can Cosmotronic Wave can especially hurt token strategies. Artful Dodge is a card that I have ended many opponents’ lives with as it is extremely strong and, for just one mana, can easily allow for huge chunk damage. Once we get a high prowess count on any given turn, Crash Through can help us fight through any number of creatures our opponents have. In my opinion, my biggest advantages to being in Jeskai are Silverflame Ritual and Inspiring Roar, which are just permanent buffs for all of our creatures. Our sorcery package is also where a lot of our card draw lie in Serum Visions, Ponder and Preordain.
Artifacts:
We are only packing mana rocks in our artifact package with the on-theme Jeskai Banner which is a little expensive but can draw a card and allows us to have all of our colors out. I love Bonder's Ornament, which is an additional supplemental card draw as well as all of our colors, and arguably the best of the bunch is Arcane Signet, which needs no introduction/explanation.
Enchantments:
We have Aqueous Form and Security Bypass, which make our creatures unblockable, and in the case of Security Bypass, we can connive, which is a great way to go through the deck. Two of the best white cards in our deck we have Oblivion Ring and Journey to Nowhere are two great cards that allow us to take our creatures/commanders and help clear the way for all of our prowess creatures. Witness Protection is one of my favorite removal enchantments, and I love putting it in nearly every single blue deck; it can invalidate decks that care about their commanders and just causes a ton of problems for opponents with commanders. They rely on.
Land Base:
Just like most of the Pauper EDH decks I build, there is a lot of supplemental card draw built in, and this is no different here. We have some strong cycling lands like Smoldering Crater and Remote Isle. We have some of my personal favorite lands in The Surgical Bay and The Autonomous Furnace; we are not running the white version of these land cycles because compared to red and blue, we are quite low on white cards throughout the deck. We, of course, have some strong duals to help us get our colors established, like Sacred Peaks and Molten Tributary. I love this landbase and have been having success with it.
Strengths of the Deck:
We have quite a few ways to stop our opponents from blocking, which allows us to deal some very good chunk damage to our opponents.
In addition to our prowess we have a decent amount of additional outlets for damage like Guttersnipe and Kessig Flamebreather.
We are decently weak to creature hate; we are light on counterspells since we are less focused on stopping opponents and more focused on controlling the board, getting prowess triggers, and attacking.
We can be a little slow to start since we don’t want to start cantripping and going all on in prowess until we have a decent board established.
Our commander is a strong piece of recursion but does not do a ton for the deck and doesn’t help that much with the overall gameplay/gameplan.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops within the deck. We win the game solely through combat and buffing up our prowess creatures. I did build this one a little differently than similar commanders like Khenra Spellspear // Gitaxian Spellstalker, which are focused more on one-shotting opponents. This deck is filled with some more controlling elements/card draw to get those prowess triggers and swing for the fences.
Conclusion:
Warden of the Eye is a cool commander, and since it’s the only option for Jeskai, it is truly the only game in town. Despite this, I still think this card is very strong, and even just recurring one spell can be enough to get some additional damage and kill an opponent. If you like spell-slinging with a little bit different of a gameplan, then I hope you enjoyed this one! Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!
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