Oath of the Gatewatch Brews, pt. 1 – Jori En

Jori En is this guy:

jorienruindiver

It seems to have a fairly high presale price, so I guess people think its pretty good. So, I’ll brew a bit.

First thing: This card should be seen as a four drop. You don’t want to cast it on your third turn only to find that you can’t get any benefit from it and it gets easily killed. The body doesn’t do much on most boards (except against very aggressive red decks). Even playing this on turn four is not going to be that good. If your opponent plays [scryfall]Siege Rhino[/scryfall] and Jori En followed by a [scryfall]Duress[/scryfall] that doesn’t hit, isn’t going to be a very good turn.

Of course, this is highly dependent on meta and so forth. This guy might be great if the format is full of big mana decks, that ramp into Ulamogs and Kozileks, or if Dark Jeskai (or Jeskai Black) continues to be played.

But since I don’t like Jeskai (I know its good, its just not for me), I’ll go with UR and with the fixing being what it is, splashing for black is pretty much a given. So, what playable one drops can we find from these colors:

(I would like to say [scryfall]Bloodsoaked Champion[/scryfall], but I don’t think it would quite fit this deck.)

Admittedly, not that great… Of course, there’s also [scryfall]Dispel[/scryfall], but I’m not sure I can count it in this context. Then there’s delve spells, which might work out as well. I’m just not sure how many we can actually play, but we do need something to win with, anyhow.

[deck]
[creatures]
4 Jori En, Ruin Diver
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
2 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Fiery Impulse
2 Duress
2 Despise
3 Magmatic Insight
3 Kolaghan’s Command
2 Murderous Cut
1 Dispel
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Flooded Strand
1 Swamp
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Sunken Hollow
2 Smoldering Marsh
[/lands]
[/deck]

The game plan is pretty similar to Grixis decks in Modern, where you want to get out of the gates fast by getting stuff in your graveyard, while working towards something big, preferrably on the fourth turn. I didn’t actually make the necessary calculations or tests to see if this could really happen, so I’m not at all sure this will work at all.

The land count is pretty high, but the [scryfall]Magmatic Insight[/scryfall] is there to balance that out somewhat.

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