Commander Deck Tech: Jetmir, Nexus of Revels

The Cabaretti are one of the most popular families in Nova Capenna. Their lavish parties grew over time—from small druidic festivals that helped them connect with the land—to their frequency and size increasing to the point where they became the most popular parties on the plane.

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels is the head of the Cabaretti family and, through the use of ancient magic, has the ability to influence the masses. This trait of his fits very well with his card abilities:

The more creatures Jetmir, Nexus of Revels has access, the more he wields his power and the more powerful they get!

Jetmir's abilities are static, that is, as long as he is in the appropriate zone for the effects to occur (in this case, on the battlefield), his ability is always active. This can generate some interesting strategies, where we can control the number of creatures we have on the field to give all of them new abilities and take our opponents off-guard.

Suggested list

The list below was suggested based on the strategy presented in this Deck Tech. According to deck power level calculation tool, this list would have a power of 7.

The main idea is to fill the board with creatures, summoning the party host - Jetmir, Nexus of Revels - when we want to end the game. Here the size of the creatures doesn't matter, but the quantity. If we have an army of 0/1 creatures, when Jetmir enters they can become a 3/1 army with trample, vigilance and double strike.

To grow in numbers, we rely on creatures and enchantments that create new tokens on a recurring basis, allowing us to build a strong field presence that recovers relatively well from rage effects.

All cards with interactions with opponents are also thought to increase our numbers even more. Artifact Mutation, Aura Mutation and Generous Gift generate tokens when destroying the targets in question. At opportune moments, they can even be used on our own permanents if the extra tokens created can lead us to victory.

And to add the "explosion" factor to the deck, effects that give our creatures haste give us a decisive factor, giving us control of when we can end the game.

Now that you know the strategy, let's break down exactly which cards can help us put it into practice.

The honored guests

The guests of honor are those who are always bringing new companions and constantly introducing new beings to the Cabaretti parties. In other words, they are the creatures that create tokens whenever they attack.

The upside of tokens being generated when attacking is that you can catch an unsuspecting opponent by surprise. The number of creatures on the board will increase and possibly a new effect of Jetmir, Nexus of Revels will be applied to them, making everything more interesting.

A prominent card in this medium is the Nacatl War-Pride.

Through its ability, we can put several creatures in play at the same time, all depending on the number of creatures controlled by your opponents and who you decide to attack.

Nacatl War-Pride's ability to need to be blocked and by only one creature makes room for you to be able to safely attack with any other creature you control, adding immensely to the deck's aggression.

The fact that they need to be blocked is not a problem, as it synergizes great with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels abilities.

The interesting thing is that the deck moves away from the tribal archetype, avoiding the focus on felines and expanding the reach to all creatures that synergize with the strategy.

The Regulars

They know exactly when a Cabaretti party will be, and they don't miss a single one. The group of cards below will always be placing tokens on your battlefield without needing a special condition to do so: if the permanent is in play, tokens are being generated.

These are your main pieces to recover from wrath effects and removals. They are excellent for putting pressure on opponents because if they accumulate, you will be assembling a small army each turn that constantly replenishes itself.

The Promoters

A party is not a real party if no one is there. And no matter how many marked figures the Cabaretti have in their midst, it is expected that the invitations will be sent to the entire plan, making the party announcement reach as many beings as possible. According to Jetmir: the more, the merrier.

To help spread the word, we have a special group responsible for bringing these beings to the Cabaretti party:

Promoters put tokens into play under different conditions. Arasta of the Endless Web, Howling Moon and Dragonlair Spider help us to increase the board through the action of our opponents, while Landfall cards can be abused with the acceleration effects of mana from the deck, as well as generating a special combo with Kodama of the East Tree (explained in more detail in the next sections).

The party can't stop

It's not enough to have a crowded party if no one is having fun. How to keep all these people entertained?

Making dozens and more dozens of tokens is good, but in a Commander game, where you never know if you'll have a next turn, the ideal is to optimize the use of your resources as soon as possible. Thanks to red, that's not a big deal for this deck:

The cards speak for themselves, but here's an interesting point: when we think of permanents, we envision them on the battlefield. Playing with this deck, however, it's not recommended that you play multiple haste-granting permanents. Granted, having redundancy is nice to prevent an opponent from destroying one of your fonts, but in a format with so many sweepers, going down one at a time is recommended. Did an opponent destroy your enchantment? No problem, play the other one in your hand.

You can also follow another line, where you only play this type of card when you want to end the game - guaranteeing that unpredictability to your opponents and beating anyone who wasn't cautious. This line goes very well with the effects that put tokens in play during your turn.

Is haste good? Yes! But what's better than haste? How about giving +3/+3 to every creature that enters your battlefield? With Primal Forcemage the party won't stop.

With an engine generating tokens and a card that gives them haste, this card alone can serve as a finisher. If we combine it with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, things get even better.

The VIPs — Most Illustrious Cards in the Deck

This section was created especially to talk about the most distinguished guests on the deck:

Phabine, Boss's Confidant was recently revealed in the spoilers and has already shown that he came to seek his place with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels. Phabine, Boss's Confidant's abilities are a summation of the general idea of ​​this deck: generate tokens and grant them haste. This comes with a small downside, which is making your opponents draw cards. You will know exactly what each opponent has drawn, however, you can use this to your advantage in subsequent turns.

The role of Kodama of the East Tree is one of the most important in the deck. We can even consider him as Jetmir's right-hand man here. This deck's token generation effect abuses its ability.

Since all that matters is a permanent entering the battlefield under your control (regardless of whether it's a token or not), Kodama of the East Tree is a mana-accelerating machine. Each token that enters while it's in play has a converted mana cost of 0, which lets you play a land from your hand. And as if that in itself was not good enough, we have a combo precisely involving this interaction.

Kodama of the East Tree is an essential piece for all the combos that will be described, for the other pieces we have a certain flexibility.

Everything revolves around the famous “Bounce Lands”, the lands of Ravnica where you have to return a land to your hand when you play them. The combo works with any of the three:

The other tile is any permanent with a Landfall effect that puts a token into play:

Taking one of each to illustrate the combo:

1. With Kodama of the East Tree and Felidar Retreat in play, play any land.

2. Felidar Retreat will trigger, put a token in play.

3. The token will cause Kodama of the East Tree to trigger, allowing you to put a permanent with converted mana cost 0. Put Gruul Turf into play.

4. You will need to return a land to the hand. Return Gruul Turf itself.

5. Return to step 2.

Once you get to step 5, you're ready to take a shortcut (as long as all your opponents understand the combo process and none of them have anything that can stop you). You can indicate how many tokens you would like to make in total and proceed with the game.

While the deck's strategy seems pretty basic, crowding the table and hitting everything, the deck can be piloted in a variety of ways, based on the resources you have available at the time.

Many, many tokens

This game line is based on the use of the following enchantments:

With one (or more) of them on the field, the idea is to overcome opponents with the amount of tokens generated. Whether to give them haste doesn't really matter. The pressure in number they impose (with the imminent arrival of Jetmir to make them much more powerful) is more than enough.

Midrange

It is possible to play a bit more reactively, following the line of a Midrange. In this scenario, we use the tokens we have to hold the game until we have a way to turn the tables. This can be possible through the following cards:

All of these are instants, allowing you to use them on the pass to end the match on the way back. Given the deck's mana acceleration, a board with a few creatures can easily triple or quadruple in numbers.

Winning with Haste

Having a source that gives haste to your creatures in play is enough for us to follow this line. Here the focus is to be as aggressive as possible. Hit with the 1/1 tokens, optimize your mana usage on your turns, and bring Jetmir to play as soon as possible.

In the case of a locked table (opponents with strong blockers), don't waste your tokens: wait until Jetmir is on the board and at least try to trade with one of the opponent's creatures. Cards like Nacatl War-Pride, Triumph of the Hordes and Overwhelming Stampede can help restore pressure against your opponents.

Focus on combo

If your focus is entirely on the combo provided by Kodama of the East Tree, you can make an investment in tutors, which will certainly boost the deck, but also raise the price:

Or follow the deck's strategic line and get a card advantage with:

When playing combo-oriented, resource optimization is of the utmost importance as the match can be extended and ideally, you keep a strong hand. Running out of cards in your hand and relying on the top is the worst-case scenario here.

The suggested list has some high-priced cards. It is possible to replace all of them. In this case, the deck shifts to a more defensive model.

As these cards are mainly responsible for exponentially increasing our amount of tokens, we exchange them for cards that help us preserve our tokens, this way we don't get too far behind if an opponent uses some wrath effect.

The suggestions are:

- Unbreakable Formation instead of Doubling Season.

- Rootborn Defenses instead of Parallel Lives.

- Akroma's Will instead of Anointed Procession.

- Dauntless Escort instead of Primal Vigor.

- Falconer Adept instead of Brimaz, King of Oreskos.

- Overrun instead of Triumph of the Hordes.

For any questions, suggestions or if you need to replace any morecards from the suggested list, and you don't know what to put in its place, leave a comment!

Good games and see you in New Capenna!