Convoke Ascendancy [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Out of all my decks in 2022, the Jeskai Ascendancy deck helmed by Gnostro, Voice of the Crags turned out to be my most dismal failure. In 2023, one of the new precons has helpfully provided a new spin on what already failed for me last year. Apparently I'm a glutton for punishment. We'll see how this goes.

Commander:
1 Kasla, the Broken Halo

1 Alloy Myr
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Anger
1 Aphetto Alchemist
1 Apprentice Wizard
1 Arcane Denial
1 Arid Mesa
1 Artistic Refusal
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Brainstorm
1 Bronze Walrus
1 Change of Fortune
1 Chant of Vitu-Ghazi
1 Command Tower
1 Complete the Circuit
1 Conclave Tribunal
1 Containment Construct
1 Crashing Drawbridge
1 Cryptic Trilobite
1 Crystalline Crawler
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Echo of Eons
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fatestitcher
1 Fervor
1 Flockchaser Phantom
1 Flooded Strand
1 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Gold Myr
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Heartwarming Redemption
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Invasion of Segovia
1 Iron Myr
4 Island
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Joyful Stormsculptor
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Manakin
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Meeting of Minds
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Mountain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ornithopter of Paradise
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Palladium Myr
3 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Polluted Delta
1 Raugrin Triome
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Saint Traft and Rem Karolus
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scaretiller
1 Scuttlemutt
1 Sea Scryer
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Silver Myr
1 Sisters of the Flame
1 Sol Ring
1 Steam Vents
1 Stoke the Flames
1 Strip Mine
1 Suture Priest
1 Swan Song
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Temporal Cleansing
1 Thrilling Discovery
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Wipe
1 Timetwister
1 Tradewind Rider
1 Tundra
1 Urza's Saga
1 Village Bell-Ringer
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wand of the Worldsoul
1 Wasteland
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Whirlwind of Thought
1 Wildfire Awakener
1 Windfall
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

 

[Oversoul]

Played two games with this deck. Um, things got pretty weird.

First game, I had an opening hand that I thought looked pretty promising. I had Jeskai Ascendancy, but needed to get a few lands and creatures down first before trying to use the Ascendancy engine. Worked on sculpting my hand and convoked for Kasla on turn five. Then the player across from me flipped five coins with Yusri, Fortune's Flame and went off with a combo. Now, winning five flips in a row has about a 3% chance of happening naturally, and drawing so many extra cards makes having a game-winning combo in hand more likely anyway. I don't think that the guys was actually cheating at a casual EDH table at the local game store, and I guess it was just luck. But it looked super sketchy! He had his own special coin that was from some kind of fantasy game, not real currency. He didn't call "heads" or "tails" and didn't ask for any of us to do so. He just flipped the coin onto his wrist and immediately snatched it up without showing it to anyone while calling out either "success" or "failure." So I was kind of annoyed with that.

Second game the coin flip guy left and was swapped out for another player. I kept an opening hand with Otawara and Wasteland as my only mana sources, but could start getting other colors of mana if I hit a third land and cast some of my creatures (Scuttlemutt and Bronze Walrus). Well, because I am bad and deserve to be punished, I topdecked Maze of Ith and no other lands. I saved the table from a Rhystic Study by casting Swan Song, and got stuck doing nothing for a few turns after that. My opponents mostly just ramped, which meant I wasn't just dead, but it also meant I fell even further behind. Eventually, I had to use main phase Mystical Tutor to put Brainstorm on top of my library so that I could find a fetchland and start actually deploying some creatures. Just as I was falling farther behind than ever, I got Intruder Alarm alongside Whirlwind of Thought, so I was able to churn out some creatures and draw some extra cards, catching up to the rest of the table. I forgot that my Intruder Alarm would have an even bigger role for the opponent to my left, who was running a deck helmed by Shorikai, Genesis Engine. If you're not familiar with Shorikai, it's by far the most popular and powerful white/blue commander. I knew that, but I forgot another detail: Shorikai goes crazy with Intruder Alarm. So he drew most of his deck and made a bunch of tokens, I floated mana between each activation and cast Secure the Wastes for X=75. The next player cast Eternal Dominion and used it to steal Contagion Engine from our last opponent, using its trigger to nuke my board. From there, we saw multiple board wipes reset the game. Multiple times, someone would build up to a lethal-looking board, only for it to get hit with mass removal. Eventually, painstakingly, my Whirlwind of Thought gave me enough card advantage that I was able to recast my commander for the third time. The game lasted well over three hours, with my deck eventually setting up an engine with Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia + Kasla, the Broken Halo + Whirlwind of Thought + Jeskai Ascendancy. The Ramos player finished off the Atraxa player and the Atraxa player killed the Ramos player. Then I used spells and abilities to hobble the Shorikai player's attempts at attacking me, bounced all of his lands with Tradewind Rider, and came in for the kill with Kasla.

The deck is probably fine, but these games were way off the rails.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck twice last night. First game seemed to show some promise: I had Whirlwind of Thought and Jeskai Ascendancy on the battlefield. But I just couldn't draw into creatures! If I'd had a couple of creatures to get things going, the deck could have popped off. Instead, I watched in horror as the player with the Themberchaud deck kept finding more ways to fetch extra mountains onto the battlefield. Alongside two other players, I died in a fiery blaze from multiple copies of big Themberchaud EtB triggers.

Second game was more of a slog, but I got Whirlwind of Thought again, and actually managed to make some creatures stick. If I'd just gotten some convoke spells, I might have been able to build a dominant board state. Instead, I merely managed to display a sort of deterrent. And it worked, I suppose: I didn't get many attacks coming my way. There was some back-and forth, some combat tricks, some spells countered, and eventually I was able to use Intruder Alarm as a sort of engine. Despite my big plays and my engine, it was looking pretty close. The card that sealed the deal was Wildfire Awakener. I was able to convoke the Awakener for X=27, give the tokens all haste, then I attacked with them, using the damage triggers from tapping the tokens to kill one opponent and bring my last opponent's life down enough that I could finish him off on my next turn.

After the failure of my Gnostro deck, I'm feeling vindicated on this one. It's not completely consistent, but it's a nicely balanced casual deck that can pack a punch without being too overbearing.

 

[Oversoul]

Getting some echoes of the Gnostro deck again. My opponents left me alive for a long time, and I really just couldn't pull together a powerful board state. I had Crystalline Crawler out with tons of counters, and I was able to get Jeskai Ascendancy to dig for more tools. Eventually, I got both Jeskai Ascendancy and Whirlwind of Thought, which should have been gamebreaking. But I just kept drawing lands. So many lands. The deck only has 34 of them, but I seemed destined to draw them all. Oh well. The way I look at it, when this deck craps out, it really craps out. But almost any deck can experience some bad luck. And while games with this deck have had mixed results, at least there have been some great performances.

 

[Oversoul]

Another discouraging performance! Over the course of this game, I cast Wheel of Fortune, Time Spiral, and Timetwister, all looking for ways to come out ahead. And while I managed to play lots of creatures, my efforts were easily outpaced, outclassed, and outright thwarted by an unmodified precon: "Forces of the Imperium" from the Warhammer 40,000 set. In the end, it was "Deny the Witch" on my Chant of Vitu-Ghazi that killed me. But the stupid, broken crap in that deck was utterly trouncing me before that killing blow. Like, this guy board wiped both of us, but I was able to swing in for 10, which I thought seemed pretty good. Then he used Callidus Assassin on my commander, but I was able to channel Otawara, Soaring City to save it, which I thought was still decent for me. But then he used Ultramarine Honor Guard to make four creatures with one card, and they all pumped each other, which seemed a bit much. I thought that I might still recover, but then he made a dozen more tokens, then blew up all non-token creatures (Hour of Reckoning), so I had nothing and he had everything. Oh, and then he immediately made more tokens somehow. I forget. But he had like 50 of them out of nowhere.

So yeah, I was kinda tilted with that. Partially, it was that I just wanted to see this deck do well. Partially, it was the overkill I was up against. And partially it was the fact that I knew my beating was applied by an unmodified precon.

 

[Oversoul]

Well, a lot of this stuff is from the precon, so I may or may not revisit this deck later. My new Rosie deck is already poaching cards from this one, and I have plans to scrap more of the parts from this one for other decks. Anyway, despite some frustrating experiences, the final game was great. I faced multiple board wipes, countered some spells that threatened to end the game, and cast lots of convoke spells. In the end, it was Wildfire Awakener that finished off all three of my opponents. The deck performed pretty much exactly as intended. Well done, Kasla.