Jeskai Ascendency Combo

[Valtrix]

With Jeskai Ascendancy spoiled and tearing up modern, I was curious what I could do with it in Legacy. For those unfamiliar with this card, if you have a mana producing creature in play, you can go nearly infinite by chaining cantrips. It almost feels like a 1 card combo though, since you can afford to run a large number of pieces of the mana dork part of your combo so they really easy to find, and if ascendency hits play it helps you draw into one easily. What I really love about this combo is that neither of the pieces are bad, in fact mana dorks and ascendency both actively help your gameplan.

Below is the list I've currently built. I have yet to test in real games yet as I needed to fish a bunch to get the mechanics and coloration down right. (As well as being busy with other things.) The list is remarkably consistent--wishes provide a lot of redundancy and you should expect to "go off" by turn three in most games, often with protection. Lots of things to tweak of course, but I think it's a reasonable starting point.

1 Treasure Cruise
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Preordain
3 Manamorphose

4 Glittering Wish
3 Jeskai Ascendancy

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Sylvan Caryatid

4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
3 Mana Confluence
1 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
SB: 1 Jeskai Ascendancy
SB: 1 Kiora's Follower
SB: 1 Vexing Shusher
SB: 1 Reborn Hope
SB: 1 Guttural Response
SB: 1 Fiery Justice
SB: 1 Flesh // Blood
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 Free slots

A couple notes, in no particular order:

You can win on turn two if you're lucky with a gitaxian probe. Gitaxian probe and manamorphose both generate +1 mana when an ascendancy out. You can later use this mana to get a second ascendency into play, then every cantrip generates two mana and you can access your wishboard. (In some strange case where you can't attack or something for some reason...)

You almost never fizzle. The extra draw/discard on top of the power legacy's cantrips, as well as top getting you an extra draw/discard each spell lets you keep going easily.

Colors are important. Make sure you think about them. I think the mana base could use some work right now, but I'm not sure how.

There really are no other cmc 1 mana creatures which can get you blue unfortuantely. I think this is fine as GSZ is pretty great, letting you get protection or acceleration or postboard games helping fight through a counterbalance or some such.

You can win through Thalia with two ascendencies or two mana dorks; it's pretty fun.

Sensei's divining top gives you an extra draw/discard per spell and with both of them they can infinitely chain together (jeskai draw effect is a may).

If the SB forest looks odd, it really is. It's mostly there to bring against against blood moon, though I'm sure there are other times when an extra land might be nice.

Treasure cruise has actually been pretty awkward. Most of the time I want cards to develop my early plays to just sculpt a hand to combo off. It's a lot better to fight against a lot of counters, but if that's the case I feel like other pro-active protection might be nice. Often cruise is not doing anything before you want to actually combo. I think the 4th GSZ and 4th Xantid swarm in the main might be better.

Xantid is almost certainly the best protection for us. First, we can play it proactively. Next, it handles opponent's hands which have multiple counterspells. We can also zenith for it, which is not irrelevant. When sculpting hands I often don't need extra mana dorks, so I'll zenith for a swarm while I try to find an ascendancy. It dodges many of the effective counterspells vs. our deck: spellsnare (vs. wish), spell pierce, and swan song. You might be wondering, "But if you attack with swarm, then you can't swing in with a big guy from ascendancy that turn?" That's what the Flesh//Blood is for in the sideboard. Lastly, swarm really strains enemy creature removal since the opponent will usually need to use it on mana dorks.

Anyway, that's all I have for no. Sorry for no real results; I tend to just build a lot more than play. If anybody has thoughts, that would be awesome. Note that I don't have any idea of the power level of a deck of this style; I just really like some aspects of jeskai ascendency so I was interesting in finding what a Legacy version of this deck would look like.

[Barook]

I wonder if Dryad Arbor is worthy inclusion to the deck, considering you run fetches and GSZ. It gets untapped with Ascendency, but only generates green mana.

How would Lotus Petals work for the deck?

I would also run 4x Treasure Cruise.

A Modern list in action

[ivanpei]

We have enlightened tutor no? Seems much faster than Glittering Wish. Anyway this deck seems pretty fun.

I would also prefer discard in this sort of deck but that would stretch the Mana too much. I don't think deck is competitive but looks super fun. The Mana dorks are really fragile to any sort of removal and Ascendency can be stopped by counters and abrupt decay.

[apple713]

This deck probably is better suited for modern for the above mentioned reasons. The deck is fragile like belcher and cannot effectively defend itself because in doing so you will disrupt the combo's efficiency.

[rufus]

...
There really are no other cmc 1 mana creatures which can get you blue unfortuantely. I think this is fine as GSZ is pretty great, letting you get protection or acceleration or postboard games helping fight through a counterbalance or some such.
...

There is Fatestitcher (which fits the deck well) and possibly Goblin Welder and producing artifacts. Though neither will make turn 2 wins easy. Similarly something like Postmorten Lunge might be an OK fit.

There probably isn't room for it, but Pyromancer Ascension likes similar cards.

[Valtrix]

I wonder if Dryad Arbor is worthy inclusion to the deck, considering you run fetches and GSZ. It gets untapped with Ascendency, but only generates green mana.

I thought about it too, but I don't think it's worth it. Generating green mana is not actually super great for you, and you can't combo off with it.

How would Lotus Petals work for the deck?

I don't think temporary mana is what this deck wants. It doesn't really help you combo sooner, since you always need a mana dork who isn't summoning sick.

I would also run 4x Treasure Cruise.

How come? It seems nice, but it really slows you down. You can almost never cast it before turn 5, but this deck wants to aim to go off on turn 3 every game. I think 2 is a good number to help you see when when you need that effect, but not gum up your hand otherwise. Draw 3s are very powerful, but it's hard to say. I don't think more than 3 would be a good idea though; multiples will crush you.

This deck probably is better suited for modern for the above mentioned reasons. The deck is fragile like belcher and cannot effectively defend itself because in doing so you will disrupt the combo's efficiency.

This deck is by no means as fragile as belcher. With belcher you have no hope of rebuilding and no cantrips to help sculpt your hand. Yes, you are very reliant on a single card, but normal storm is basically too--I win so often against normal storm because I'm able to stop their infernal tutor or glittering wish. But, when they try to go off and get their key spell countered they tend to lose cards due to all their temporary mana you set off.

Also, because this deck runs so many persistent mana sources (16 + 11 potenial mana dorks), this lets you cast a lot of cards per turn and can chain a lot of cantrips to sculpt your hand quickly. Compare to normal storm which has way very persistent mana sources. They have more mana on their combo turn, but they have way fewer permanent mana sources, so their setup turns are going to be slower than us because they have a lot less mana with which to cast their spells. When I first started testing I definitely overlooked how much dig I could do in one turn given to the high amount of mana sources in the deck.

We have enlightened tutor no? Seems much faster than Glittering Wish. Anyway this deck seems pretty fun.

I considered tutor. However, I think the card disadvantage is too much. You really want to keep all of your cards, especially in the face of disruption. Paying an extra G and sorcery speed is well worth that tradeoff. Wish is just way more flexible too; it lets you get both pieces of your combo (with Kiora's Follower) and lets you win outside of combat phase with Flesh // Blood, which is very relevant when using xantid swarm as protection. I agree that the deck is really fun!

I would also prefer discard in this sort of deck but that would stretch the Mana too much.

Do you think discard is actually better than xantid swarm? I named a lot of reasons in the opening post why xantid swarm is amazing protection. In short:

• Fights through multiple counterspells
• Proactive, meaning less mana is required on the combo turn
• Dies to removal, but since the opponent also has to deal with mana dorks their removal gets very strained.
• Gets around many of the main ways people might deal with our deck: spell snare, spell pierce, swan song, flusterstorm, red elemental blast, and abrupt decay on ascendancy.
• Protects you every single turn. This means you can chain cantrips unmolested, and it makes the game scary for your opponent because they have to do anything before the swarm trigger resolves or risk losing on the spot.
• Can be got with GSZ. Gives you combo or proteciton flexibility.

I don't think deck is competitive but looks super fun. The Mana dorks are really fragile to any sort of removal and Ascendency can be stopped by counters and abrupt decay.

Yeah, the deck is definitely super fun. I think that I have too high of hopes for what this deck might be able to accomplish, but I also think the deck is far less fragile than it seems. There is so much dig with all the cantrips (you actually run more than normal storm combo), and every card you draw is always helping your game plan. Your mana guys can die, but when you run 11-12 of them + a ridiculous amount of cantrips, most opposing decks won't have enough removal for all of them. Additionally they have to deal with ascendancy, which if it sticks it's very likely your opponent will lose. An extra draw/discard for every non-creature you play will find you a mana dork very easily.

I'll be testing it out more when I get some time. I remain hopeful, even though I don't really know what to expect out of it.

[apple713]

There is Fatestitcher (which fits the deck well) and possibly Goblin Welder and producing artifacts. Though neither will make turn 2 wins easy. Similarly something like Postmorten Lunge might be an OK fit.

There probably isn't room for it, but Pyromancer Ascension likes similar cards.

Fatestitcher is the perfect card because its essentially free to cast and increases the overall mana production of each spell.

It is the perfect card to draw into because it provides benefit when you discard it so ot turns normal disadvantage into advantage.

Jeskai might be better in a madness shelll with vengevines for legacy. It would allow you to play protection spells as well.

[Darkenslight]

I would seriously consider removing BoP in favour of Sylvan Caryatid, although the flying on the Birds is definitely a bonus. One of the things to note is that you can go infinite with View From Above, because the Ascendancy is white.

[Valtrix]

I was running Sylvan Caryatid originally, but then changed them in favor of green sun's zenith to have more consistency in getting xantid swarm and then pridemage post board. Thinking about it now, the deck should definitely have access to at least one caryatid to get with zenith. Not sure if caryatid is just more useful than zenith in general though.

Flying is largely irrelevant. When you go off you can always just get Flesh // Blood to end the game without the combat step.

I think top is the best way to "go-infinite." A single top is incredibly useful setting up, it's great when going off as an extra draw/discard and pump per every spell, and if you get both then you do just go infinite.

Fatestitcher definteily doesn't strike me as a main card. It's potentially useful vs. opposing removal, but largely I'd rather just play a creature that helps cast my entire deck as opposed to something I need to pitch to ascendancy.

[rufus]

...

Fatestitcher definteily doesn't strike me as a main card. It's potentially useful vs. opposing removal, but largely I'd rather just play a creature that helps cast my entire deck as opposed to something I need to pitch to ascendancy.

I had been contemplating a similar sort of deck, but just with URW. To make that work well, I was looking at stuff like Faithless Looting and Careful Study.

If you can pop a couple of hasty bodies onto the field with Fatestitcher or Postmortem Lunge then you can also win by swinging with pumped up weenies.

[Barook]

How come? It seems nice, but it really slows you down. You can almost never cast it before turn 5, but this deck wants to aim to go off on turn 3 every game. I think 2 is a good number to help you see when when you need that effect, but not gum up your hand otherwise. Draw 3s are very powerful, but it's hard to say. I don't think more than 3 would be a good idea though; multiples will crush you.

You cast them when you go off. Watch the video I linked.

I still don't think that the deck is viable when you could play Elves instead. All that -1/-1 hate is going to hurt you, and free counters are a bitch.

[apple713]

sylvan cartyid makes the deck viable imo because its immune more or less to removal which is the decks major weakness. At least having 1 for GSZ is critical

really all you need is 2 tops, 1 mana producing creature / dryad arbor, and jeskai. you can insert that into any number of shells. If you want aggro secondary no problem, or you can even use it in a counterbalance type strategy

[MGB]

When assessing Combo decks in Legacy, you have to ask yourself the following questions:

1.) Does this play more or better disruption and/or countermagic than ANT/TES/Show'n'Tell?

and if not, then:

2.) Is this faster or more resilient than Belcher or Dredge?

I think the answer with regard to this deck in both cases is "No".

[thefreakaccident]

I like this deck quite a lot. A one-card combo is always fun. Killing with birds of paradise? Even better.

[why]

There are a bunch of things I don't like with this list.

- Xantid Swarm as the disruption of choice seems odd. We can just run Force of Will / Daze, which are much more versatile. I like multiple Sylvan Caryatids- I don't want to Green Sun's Zenith and find a dork when I can just play a Caryatid.
- Two of top seems very wrong. The card is only great when you have both here, so I think it's better to be all or nothing with it. I'd much rather be on none.
- You cut Cerulean Wisps from modern, which puts you down on free spells by a lot. I'm not sure there's enough now. Lotus Petal seems perfect for this deck.
- Your manabase seems far too dual heavy. This is a deck with stringent mana requirements. Drawing duals instead of fetches gives you no options and might just not let you cast your Ascendancy

I'm also just uncertain overall that this is an actual plan in Legacy, since it's just a port from modern and the only real upgrades are the cantrips.

Here's something I might try:

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Treasure Cruise
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Manamorphose
2 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Glittering Wish
3 Jeskai Ascendancy

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Sylvan Caryatid

15 lands
4 Lotus Petal

[Quizzlemanizzle]

I am not sure that the legacy version of this deck needs Glittering Wish considering that you can play burning wish and fetchlands and 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Gitaxian Probe and 4 Preordain

Also Sensei's Diving Top+Dryard Arbor and GSZ

Enlightened Tutor if you want and if you want to get your kill spell from the sideboard you can use Burning Wish.

I would also play a couple of Arbor Elfs since they can untap Tropical Island and function like Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch because of that.

Lotus Petal I think is wrong. What does it do for you? You need a turn 1 dork into turn 2 Ascendancy and Gitaxian Probe really. If you can't consistently do that you are likely too slow. Lotus Petal does not help you speed it up since you would need triple Petal to go turn 1 dork and ascendacy but even then you still have to wait for turn 2 to tap your dork for mana..

[rufus]

- Xantid Swarm as the disruption of choice seems odd. We can just run Force of Will / Daze, which are much more versatile. I like multiple Sylvan Caryatids- I don't want to Green Sun's Zenith and find a dork when I can just play a Caryatid.

I think a big issue with swarm that you don't mention is that using the disruption gives up the ability to attack, and swinging for the win would otherwise be a plausible line of play.

- Two of top seems very wrong. The card is only great when you have both here, so I think it's better to be all or nothing with it. I'd much rather be on none.

Sensei's Divining Top is pretty good if you have Jeskai Ascendancy+mana creature on-line: You can activate it before casting some other spell, cycle it back into your hand, and then recast it to double on on ascendancy triggers, and it's a solid card with fetchlands (or other shuffle effects).

In a deck like this, it seems that something like Bloom tender could be better than Caryatid.

[Quizzlemanizzle]

And yes Bloom Tender seems decent.

This deck needs some silver bullets for GSZ.

Bloom Tender against other combos, Sylvan Caryatid against removal heavy decks and so on. Then you probably need some silver bullets to hate other decks like Scavenging Ooze.

[Valtrix]

You cast them when you go off. Watch the video I linked.

Yes I understand, but I don't think the legacy version needs them really, at least they're not needed at all for comboing off in my experience. In modern they only get two "good" 1 cmc cantrips: serum visions and slight of hand. Not only do we get better filter cantrips, we get more of them. As a result when I combo off I don't ever really need the draw 3. It tends to clutter up my hand when all I'm trying to do is dig for my combo. That said, cruise is definitely a powerful card, so I'd be hesitant to cut it completely. 3-4 just seems too high for me.

I still don't think that the deck is viable when you could play Elves instead. All that -1/-1 hate is going to hurt you, and free counters are a bitch.

This is a fair statement, since elves does the "play and draw a lot of things in one turn" thing. It has more other options, but is not really a "1-card combo." I think in practice these two decks play out very differently.

sylvan cartyid makes the deck viable imo because its immune more or less to removal which is the decks major weakness. At least having 1 for GSZ is critical

I agree, I added 1 to my original list. Thinking about it more, they do seem more and more powerful to me. I just really like Zenith's flexibility and to give more options vs. counterbalance post-board. I think it's probably more relevant than the hexproof in general, but maybe that's just me.

really all you need is 2 tops, 1 mana producing creature / dryad arbor, and jeskai. you can insert that into any number of shells. If you want aggro secondary no problem, or you can even use it in a counterbalance type strategy

This is a good point with arbor; I hadn't considered using it with just two tops to go infinite. If I increased the number of tops, then arbor would be significantly better. I'm not sure exactly how I would support this in the current list though, but I will think about it.

When assessing Combo decks in Legacy, you have to ask yourself the following questions:

1.) Does this play more or better disruption and/or countermagic than ANT/TES/Show'n'Tell?

I think xantid swarm is completely viable and powerful protection. I'm not sure that you can compare to these decks just based on disruption/countermagic alone, but these decks are for sure very strong and set a high bar for anything to compete against. What I will say that Jeskai has as a big advantage over these two decks is that everything you draw is helpful for you right away. That is, everything you get helps you with your game plan, which is a pretty big deal in my opinion. No dead griselbrands in hand. Over storm decks I think that you lose a lot less if your attempts to combo get stopped; all your mana sources are permanent. There are other issues the deck has, of course, but I don't think the comparison here is strictly about protection.

and if not, then:

2.) Is this faster or more resilient than Belcher or Dredge?

It's not as fast as either of these decks, but it is far, far more resilient even if on paper you see that you have a creature + blue enchantment combo. The huge amount of cantrips and wish gives you a lot of power and flexibility. Plus, I don't consider the deck to truly be "slow."

There are a bunch of things I don't like with this list.

- Xantid Swarm as the disruption of choice seems odd. We can just run Force of Will / Daze, which are much more versatile. I like multiple Sylvan Caryatids- I don't want to Green Sun's Zenith and find a dork when I can just play a Caryatid.
- Two of top seems very wrong. The card is only great when you have both here, so I think it's better to be all or nothing with it. I'd much rather be on none.
- You cut Cerulean Wisps from modern, which puts you down on free spells by a lot. I'm not sure there's enough now. Lotus Petal seems perfect for this deck.
- Your manabase seems far too dual heavy. This is a deck with stringent mana requirements. Drawing duals instead of fetches gives you no options and might just not let you cast your Ascendancy

I put in the opening post several reasons why I think xantid swarm is the best protection we can run, and I stand by that. TES often runs (or did run) swarm in the sideboard, and they barely play green. We actively need green, so it makes a lot of sense to play swarm. I know that "dying to removal," seems bad, but given that the other half of our combo is creatures I think people would often rather want to use their precious removal on those creatures.

Daze is just not good here since the odds of turn 2 combos are not very good. Reanimator doesn't really even play daze either, so I'm not sure why you think it would be good here. Stable disruption is far better, since you have plenty of mana before you go for jeskai to just win. Force of will's card is always a card to consider. I just think that the card disadvantage is too much for the deck to support. I think more redundancy or, again, stable disruption is better.

Ceruelan wisps is played in modern because they don't have enough good 1 cmc cantrips to run otherwise. It's not actually that great for them, but they are kind of forced into it. In practice you'll have plenty of mana to cast normal (and better) cantrips, and you just don't need the mana it provides when you combo off.

I am not sure that the legacy version of this deck needs Glittering Wish considering that you can play fetchlands and 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 4 Gitaxian Probe and 4 Preordain

I think Glittering Wish is necessary. It gives you the resiliency and consistency you need. 7 ways to get your "1-card" combo is far better than 4, especially when your first gets countered. Also it lets you get flesh//blood which lets you combo out with sylvan caraytids or post-combat after attacking with xantid swarm.

Also Sensei's Diving Top and Enlightened Tutor if you want.

I like top a lot. I had 4 originally but felt it was a bit clunky since I wanted to find things right away. Enlightened tutor is just worse than wish I think. With the mana dorks you have plenty of mana and you just don't want the card disadvantage, especially if the ascension gets countered.

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I'd love to keep discussion about the deck going. Sorry if I sound "heavy-handed" in any of my responses.

[rufus]

...

Thanks for all the feedback guys, I'd love to keep discussion about the deck going. Sorry if I sound "heavy-handed" in any of my responses.

There are many ways something could work. For example, Enlightened Tutor and Glittering Wish can fill similar roles.

It feels like there are many cards that could work well in a deck like this that we're not discussing. Stuff like Abeyance,Silence,Obsessive Search,Tithe, Land Grant, Noxious Revival, Postmortem Lunge, Animate Land, Verdant Touch, Burning Wish,Laboratory Maniac and Past In Flames comes to mind.

I had originally thought in terms of a looting oriented approach with Careful Study,Faithless Looting,Goblin Welder, and Fatestitcher.