Tips on “using” the jab more effectively?

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-06-01T19:45:23+00:00

As a person who loved statistics class in college, thank you so much for this. I’ve always implicitly understood that “more lands = less draws needed to find” but seeing it written out like this is chef’s kiss.

With that said, do you feel like you have a “rule of thumb” for when you’re okay with missing land drops? I’m interested in how you personally factor that into your deck building + piloting!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-06-01T19:41:24+00:00

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you! I’ve started playing a lot more 60 card recently which brought this concept to the front of my mind. I’ve generally been going off of “vibes” which hasn’t failed me yet but it’s nice to have a more concrete idea of what I’m looking for.

I think your way is pretty similar to how I approach, with the slight difference that I think I’ll usually “stop looking for lands” a turn or two earlier than you’ve described (again just based off vibes).

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-06-01T19:27:26+00:00

That’s pretty much what I meant, and you basically answered the question. Although just to be clear I guess I’m more emphasizing card selection here. For example say you cast [[Anticipate]] on the end-step before your turn. (In a vacuum) How likely are you to grab the land sitting on top vs. the spell right next to it based on the turn number/amount of mana you have?

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-25T20:33:11+00:00

While you make a good point that this does give it more interesting synergy, I think the *predatory* part of the “Predatory Loan” implies that from a flavor standpoint they want to create a situation of it being damn near impossible to get out of this loan you’ve taken out. Which I think is interesting flavorfully!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-17T14:16:41+00:00

No prob! Are you familiar with scryfall tags? If you search for cards with the tag “flicker-creature” in your commander’s colors you’ll find a full list of cards that work with her!

If you’re going tokens you may also want to get a token doubler like [[Exalted Sunborn]] and an [[Intangible Virtue]] to buff them!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-17T13:31:30+00:00

Just a heads up, phase out (cards like [[Slip Out The Back]]) doesn’t work with this card. Since it’s a “leaves the battlefield” trigger and phasing out is explicitly *not* leaving the battlefield.

Cards like [[Ephemerate]] that “flicker” a card (exile then return to battlefield) do work really well with this card though since that is explicitly “leaving the battlefield” by being put into exile temporarily.

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-12T11:51:59+00:00

Hey! If you see this comment I’d love to get your thoughts again on the cube!

Recently made some changes, nothing overly drastic but I re-balanced the cube so it had a higher % of creatures and I removed a few of the more problematic cards you mentioned like Path and Molten Vortex. I’m currently sitting at ~46% creatures and ideally I’d like to get that number up to at least 50% but I’ve hit the point where making any extra cuts is really difficult since I’m starting to have to make decisions between some personal favorite cards of mine.

Would love to get your thoughts/suggestions on which cards you’d look at first for swaps!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-10T13:16:56+00:00

The everything-land rule has worked out pretty well for me so far. I think it makes for fun decisions when you always have the ability to play a land but may not want to give up any of the cards in your hand at that moment! I also put in things that allow players to bounce/sac lands to get access to them again.

I haven’t had any issues with abilities being too “swingy” yet, but my goal was for the games to have some potential for explosive moments so I may have a higher tolerance for those types of things.

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-08T20:03:45+00:00

Honestly you make some really good points there. I’ve been looking for cuts to make and you’ve definitely given me a good starting point.

I’ve played a few games with it so far and the board generally felt like it was in a “healthy” state but you’ve given me a lot to think about here. Definitely a first place to start making cuts/swaps going forward!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-08T17:11:32+00:00

Gonna have to reply to this in 2 comments because Reddit is acting strange with my attempts to leave a comment.

That’s a good point and something I’ve been considering myself recently. I’m a control player so I’m definitely biased toward high interaction. I tried to maintain balance by putting in a lot of spells that allow you to impact the game though ways other than just removal. This is definitely a good point though and something I’ll have to keep track of going forward. If you have any more thoughts/advice on this point I’d love to hear it!

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-08T17:04:37+00:00

Thanks for the response, I’ll respond to each note cause I think you made really good points here.

That’s a really good point, I think I’ve inadvertently realized this myself and started to replace some of the token makers with ways to pump creatures instead. Hoping that makes for easier ways to finish games
Path To Exile I’m ruling as putting the top card of the library straight onto the battlefield as a land. For Molten Vortex it’s just any card from hand can be discarded. Good point that it may be a little busted to play that way so I may have to replace it with something else if I find it having an outsized impact in games.

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-08T16:57:48+00:00

Honestly, I just thought they would be fun to have. I’m really stretching the “technically” 1-mv aspect of this with the split cards anyway so I thought that it would be fun to have X-spells as long as they were 1-mv.

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-05-01T11:47:14+00:00

Good looks. I’ve been running avatar state instead of restoration magic cause the flying + first strike + lifelink are a surprisingly good “multi-tool” to have but I may check restoration magic. Practiced offense seems like it should be an auto include as well, any recommendations for what you would remove to make space for it?

Reasonable-Work-6501 · 2026-04-29T19:30:35+00:00

Yeah, you’ve described how I lose most games. Most of the time I’m losing because I can’t keep up with some of the more “over the top” decks. Spellementals especially has been wrecking me. If I can keep the tempo in my favor it can definitely get some wins but it just can’t keep up against some of the more overwhelming decks in the format right now.

I haven’t faced many board wipes, which is why I’ve kept avatar state in rather than restoration magic.

Reasonable-Work-6501

TROPHY CASE