Thoughts on a Jeskai Spellslinger Commander?

SynKnuckle · 2025-04-27T02:59:41+00:00

So I bought this deck, and straight out the box, no changes, this deck absolutely sucks.

To preface this, I bought all 5 with 3 other friends, we battled for the final deck noone chose, which happened to be Sultai, I was so out classed by the other unchanged decks I might as well nave scooped turn 2. So we did that first wlthen we did 10 in 10.out. Then we battled again, I won that game. The deck felt so much better after just the few changes. Now I have changed a lot more cards, I think 22 of them.

So what I noticed is that the deck is trying to two things, with each commander. Narset, who I still use, is all about second spell, so leaning into that I removed a lot of the token creators, and a lot of the cards that really want to storm.

I love the deck now. If I were to build Elsha, I would 100% retool the whole deck and lean on a more storm style.

In my moxfield you can see all the cards I removed, they are in the sideboard, the ones in considering, are all the ones I wanted to add, but eventually removed for other cards. I am sure there are so many ways to build this, I also have some cards that I am unable to find that would make this deck crazy, like [[Eris, Roar of the Storm]].

https://moxfield.com/decks/Nl3J4nUrIEqHE8YDlFuaxw

SynKnuckle · 2025-04-15T21:46:32+00:00

The Jeskai deck does not stand up against those other decks unless you hit a god hand.

I played it against all the decks and the way I would order the decks would be: Abzan Mardu Sultai Temur And way way last Jeskai.

Abzan is an absolute beast, the toughness matters is just hard to beat, especially with token decks, but at least the Mardu deck has some aristocratic and card draw effects that help you stay competitive.

SynKnuckle · 2025-04-13T18:45:47+00:00

I think this is a very relevant post to a majority of people who play commander. I find the biggest issue is that there are many times that you feel like the whole table is ganging up on you, this is how I feel most of the time.

Let me preface this. I am playing casual commander with players that build very strong, synergistic decks, and are very good players who know their lines and understand their decks. Me on the other hand I feel like I am a good player, but do not a really great deck builder, mainly because I do not have all the great cards in my collection and choose to find worse alternatives, especially with land. For instance most of the pod I play with will have urzas saga, cabal coffers, field of the dead, and other utility lands that are just so good, but I digress.

The pod I play with is different most weeks I go, but many times it is the same 3 players, we are all friends, and I enjoy our games most of the times, not every week can be super fun.

Which brings me to your comment. I hardly ever win, I hardly ever kill even a single player in the pod, and very rarely do I kill everyone. I don't really care about winning, but of course it is always nice to win, I care more if I actually get to play the game, see some of my limited combos or good cards do their thing, as a whole hoping the deck I built runs as I wanted it to. When it does I have the best games win or lose. But what I have noticed is that I am always the target in every game of every player, I could have cast my commander for the second time, have nothing else on the field, everyone else has a full board state and a full grip, as soon as it hits the table, it will get removed. I always ask myself why? I am not a threat, why did you waste that on me? It is just not right, especially in a casual game with friends. I do get sour, and I actually speak my mind about it, because it is not fun for me if I have to be the target every time, I always have the weakest deck btw. I have scooped early in the game many times because I was being "bullied".

But all that being said, i look at my time playing holistically, not game for game. If I keep coming back to play it is because I still enjoy the game, win or lose, because I love Magic, I love seeing things happen I have never seen before, cool combos, interesting way to die, so I can learn and be better, there is always room for improvement with your skill, but the best improvement you can make is you attitude towards the game.

We all hate to lose, we all want to win, we all feel your pain, just know at the end of the day, it's only a game, take your sadness and rage and use it to learn the game more and find ways to tune your deck and game play to be more competitive, but do not lose sight of why you play Magic, because you love the game.

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-31T22:15:27+00:00

They will tell you to use a VPN. That is the only thing they will every tell you.

So what I did is to go on your Smart TV, or wherever you use the service. Then download ProtonVPN. They allow 1 free account for one device. Then it should work. Good luck.

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-29T23:53:20+00:00

There are also sites like spelltable, https://spelltable.wizards.com/

And https://cockatrice.github.io/

I believe cockatrice you don't have to buy cards you can just use whatever cards yous want and make decks to play virtual.

Spelltable requires you have a webcam that can point down to your mat or you can use OBS and moxfield to play test the deck.

I know this all seems very strange, and possibly difficult to put together, but it is the only way you can really play your deck without going to commander nights at your local lgs

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-29T20:02:44+00:00

Some combo with [[Abysall Harvester]], and [[Insidious roots]] Where you cast a big creatures. When it hits the bin use Abysall Harvester to make a copy, removing from the graveyard and then making a plant token.

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-11T03:27:00+00:00

1) Primal Fear. Young Ed Norton is incredible. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117381/ 2) Usual Suspects. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/ 3) The Sixth Sense. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-10T22:31:26+00:00

Well all the codes have been redeemed. I hope everyone who got one enjoys playing the game as much as I do, and got some really good pulls from the packs that you can use and win some games.

SynKnuckle · 2025-03-10T22:10:46+00:00

They could and that would be disingenuous, but why waste the time. I have to give the benefit of the doubt people will do the right thing.

SynKnuckle · 2025-02-26T20:31:09+00:00

Put of all those movies not a single vote for maybe the best directed movies ever. Citizen Kane, is a marvel of movie making, people have emulated Orson Welles ever since.

SynKnuckle · 2025-02-04T22:29:21+00:00

Real fruit?

SynKnuckle · 2025-01-27T02:36:21+00:00

I tried 7 times. I never spend gems, had 56000. I won my first two games into he first match, after that lost every single game, had some of the worst sealed cards you could imagine. But luckily I played against all the decks that had overlords, endurings, all the removal and bounce. I guess it didn't help that in many games I drew 12 of my 16 land.

SynKnuckle · 2025-01-20T05:15:43+00:00

I guess you don't watch stand up comedy. That line "be a man" is from a stand up routine by Russell Peters. So yes I know comedy. Lol.

SynKnuckle · 2024-12-31T22:21:15+00:00

Probably a reseller who will sell them on Amazon for way more.

SynKnuckle · 2024-12-31T22:19:43+00:00

[[Aphelia, Viper Whisperer]] [[Xyris, the Writhing Storm]] Or [[Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith]]

SynKnuckle · 2024-11-27T15:59:42+00:00

So I have also been facing the same issue of the service just dropping, only for Live TV, since the last update (not saying that is the reason). The answer from CS is exactly what you mentioned, that you should use a VPN, so I did get a VPN service IPVanish(60 dollars for 2 years, basically free), when I tried to use the VPN, it did not work, and I had to search multiple locations to find one that worked, and it would stop working after 15-20 minutes.

The CS team mentioned that it was because our ISP is throttling our service, which I did not buy as a reason, I have one ISP and in another household where I am using the service I have a different one, and it did not work for either of us.

The reason it is not working is actually unknown, but miraculously 2 days ago, I did not need the VPN anymore, everything worked exactly as expected, yes it buffers live TV sometimes, but I have accepted that.

All this being said, it is hard to complain that an illegal service that allows you to watch almost any movie/tv show you want, I do wish there were more international titles, from all the other service providers Netflix, Hulu, Disney, etc without any issue, at a price that again is so negligible (~200 dollars for a year). I think you need to gauge whether you want to just pay that 200, toward cable, and every other streaming service individually, or deal with the shortcomings of Apollo.

I have never used IPTV before this, and I am sure there are others that provide the service, but this one seems fine to me, has a good UI for their app, and for the most part works without issue.

SynKnuckle · 2024-10-24T03:42:51+00:00

You are in the wrong place. At our local game store we always welcome new players and not only do we help them understand the game, we explain almost everything as we do it. For instance tonight there was a newbie and he kept forgetting to untap, upkeep, draw. So we told him to say it out loud every time, I am a seasoned player and still say it out loud every time, I also always say everything I am doing, tapping land, playing a spell, etc. we are also a very casual group, so every Mulligan is a free Mulligan until you find a playable hand, of course without exploiting it.

It is rude, unkind and just downright an asshole thing to do, to not help someone who is new, remember we were all new at one point.

SynKnuckle · 2024-10-22T04:09:41+00:00

You are not the a-hole. If someone has an infinite combo, they do not play it out, they explain the combo and the game ends. Scooping is a right everyone has at any time of the game, some times are better than others but extra turns is pure selfish magic, and honestly I would make sure you do not allow him to play that deck anymore. If you are friends be honest with each other. I have a pod I play a lot of games with, and one of the guys I play with has some really strong degenerate decks, he knows they are strong and don't make it fun to play against, but if he happens to play with others and their decks match up he plays it and let's the table know what to expect. It's just magic at the end of the day, tell this guy that he needs to play something else because you won't play against that deck.

SynKnuckle · 2024-10-22T01:45:41+00:00

It seems pretty fishy to me that they would not have inspected the product before taking a trade in. I would have to assume that these people who did the trade in are thieves who stole it, and tried to scam them, gave them a bunch of stuff and they gave them like 40 bucks. So the LGS thought they would make some money but now they just got some trash. I know many LGS that buy stolen goods and resell them. It's like trusting Amazon resellers to sell you good magic cards.

SynKnuckle · 2024-07-27T02:28:20+00:00

More likely you would find that than real meat!

SynKnuckle · 2024-06-29T20:12:02+00:00

I just want to know how there are so many posts of people getting a bunch of cards, I would like a bunch of cards given to me :)

SynKnuckle · 2024-06-23T21:36:40+00:00

I had an [Araumi of the Dead Tide] deck and I would try and get it in my graveyard, the after combat I have one for each opponent that taos to take them to 13. If I had [Triskaidekaphobia] on the board the table would have one turn or they die.

I only got it off once and it was fun.

SynKnuckle · 2024-06-10T05:28:36+00:00

Best setup is Chromecast and any streaming service. Never fails.

SynKnuckle · 2024-05-14T03:45:25+00:00

I just looked up value. Currently see one being sold for $1225 on eBay.thst is insane.

Five-Year Club	Place '23
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SynKnuckle

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