Laboratory Maniacs

Building around Jeskai Ascendancy in EDH comes with a set of difficult decisions. Not only do we need to find the right balance between mana dorks and non-creature spells – while Ascendancy provides us with a good amount of card selection with the loot effect, we risk running out of cards in the middle of going off if we don’t have some card-positive spells. On top of these two considerations, we also need to figure out how we’re going to close out the game.

The shell I chose for this build is one that has stood the test of time: Ad Nauseam-based Storm. While the mana base typically uses mana rocks since they can be cast and activated more easily after resolving an Ad Nauseam, I chose to focus on mana dorks since they enable Jeskai Ascendancy as a mana engine on our Storm turns. This means that our early Ad Nauseams won’t be as good, but we trade that for faster early game mana development and the additional engine. Another noteworthy difference from standard Storm decks is that Ramos Ascendancy is not weak to Null Rod effects. This is especially relevant with the recent printing of Collector Ouphe, which has made it a lot easier for decks with creature tutors to have consistent access to a strong hate piece.

Now that we have an idea of the shell we want to go for, let’s move on to closing out the game. Since this is a classic Storm shell, I chose the classic Storm outlet: Aetherflux Reservoir. One upside it has in this deck is that we can turn Ramos into Reservoir via Transmute Artifact after he’s given us . If we can’t go for Aetherflux Reservoir, we have a backup infinite combo with Jeskai Ascendancy + Retraction Helix/Banishing Knack that gives us infinite mana and infinite loots, which gives us infinite casts of a spell via Timetwister + Noxious Revival. At this point, we can use Swan Song or Assassin’s Trophy as our spell loop outlets.

Retraction Helix and Banishing Knack are cards that I feel might be underplayed in cEDH as a whole – a 1-mana non-land bounce spell feels quite strong, even if it has to be put on a creature. While this does become a bit weaker than a conventional bounce spell when we’re trying to use it to bounce a hate piece that stops us from going off, it becomes invaluable when one of our opponents tries to go for a win. When that happens, we can create a situation that’s reminiscent of the Chain of Vapor Hot Potato game by putting our Helix/Knack on someone else’s creature. By doing so, we don’t have to put one of our own creatures at risk of getting removed while still creating the desired outcome of interacting with our opponent’s win attempt.

To address the mana dork – non-creature spell balance, I chose to go a bit deeper on cheap cantrip effects than most other cEDH decks would. We’re running Opt and Sleight of Hand, which are often only seen in 1- to 2-colour or Consultation decks. I’m also trying Obsessive Search, which is a neat bit of tech from JVP High Tide – since we’re going to loot a lot on our Storm turns, it’s a small bit of card advantage where we really need it. On the mana production side of things, I’m dedicating two slots to the Jeskai Ascendancy plan: Fatestitcher and Birchlore Rangers. Fatestitcher can be looted away and Unearthed, which is a common move in the Modern Jeskai Ascendancy deck. Birchlore Rangers (special thanks to PlayEDH Comp Admin and Into the North co-host Spleenface for showing this to me!) is a way to use the mana dorks I draw into on my Storm turn. It can also make them useful after a big Ad Nauseam.

Finally, I chose to include the Notion Thief + Wheel of Fortune effects package to have cards that re-fill my hand while also having another “soft” backup combo.