Oh Captain, My Captain!!!

Walk into the Random...with Jhoira!


Welcome one and all!  This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with the last part of my Dual Color deck series for your viewing delight. This week we go into Red and Blue. With These two colors our options are down two a total of …FOUR Legends. That’s right this combination is pretty dry when it comes down to it. We have to pick from this group so we can start to work on the deck. So let’s go!

Let’s start the eliminations with… Tibor and Lumia. This card is one of the worst Legends I’ve seen in a long while. Now that’s saying something when the best theme this thing can give is make things fly and/or burn something for one when you play a blue and/or red spell. I’ve done the pinger thing once already and I’m not ready to go there again just yet.  Strangely enough, this is also one of the reasons I’m not going to use Nin, the Pain Artist. So that leaves Jhoira and Niv-Mizzet.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind! This dragon is 10,000 years young and has this little thing he does when you draw a card that would make your dog jump up and beg for a treat.

Jhoira of the Ghitu! This young lady was among the most feared Commanders in the game with her ability to put King Spaghetti into play.

So while I would like to spend time with Niv-Mizzet and have him teach me something interesting, I think this week I’m going to try to help Jhoira break out of the bad rap she has gotten from hanging out with that colorless jellyfish. Yeah that’s right and if that flying blob of space jelly has a problem with me I’m not too hard to find!

Chance Doesn't Mean Meaningless Randomness!


So in order to make this deck interesting I’m going to add something Red is good at… Randomness! You see when what makes Jhoira decks scary is the way they are usually filled to the brim with creatures that can finish a game when they hit the field. Now yes we will have some of these huge spells and creatures (why else would you be playing Commander?) but we’ll have a far smaller target on us if every card we get shows up randomly. So let’s get to it.


Apathy, Planeswalker's Fury, Planeswalker's Mischief, Wild Evocation, and Infectious Rage: Apathy is an interesting take on Pacifism where your opponent can shut it off for the price of a cad. The  Planeswalker enchantments adds a little fun with their random cause. Wild Evocation lets us all drop bombs and Infectious Rage is her to take on token decks.


Burning Inquiry, Control of the Court, Desperate Ravings, Devastating Dreams, Gamble, Goblin Lore, Wild Swing, Surreal Memoir, Skullscorch, Scrambleverse, and Kindle the Carnage:
Here are a few random spells. Burning Inquiry, Control of the Court, Goblin Lore, and Desperate Ravings can draw cards without sending up any red flags. Devastating Dreams is great for keeping the lands in check while it and Kindle the Carnage both can finish off creatures. Gamble is a great way to save your Commander after tuck effects. Wild Swing adds a little risk to its removal but can be fun. Skullscorch will usually be a burn spell but if you’re playing a person with a graveyard based deck and you may get them to discard…while someone else removes their yard. Surreal Memoir can bring back any of these spells for you but at random and it does it twice.  Scrambleverse is interesting in that if you use it early it can be fun but late game with a developed board it could be a win condition.  


Capricious Efreet, Charmbreaker Devils, Magus of the Scroll, and Noggle Ransacker: These creatures can be really fun to try out. Because of their random effects, you never know how things are going to end up but it can be fun to watch. With Capricious Efreet, I say use it as the card you pick for its effect, so in case it lands on you it doesn’t cause you too much trouble. Charmbreaker Devils is a new card to try from Innistrad and while it give you a random spell it is still card advantage. Magus of the Scroll can give you free Shocks. Noggle Ransacker is a draw spell on a small body but at least you can pay with Red or Blue to get it.


Circular Logic, Obsessive Search, Fiery Temper, Reckless Wurm, and Violent Eruption: With all these random discards we might as well use some of it to our advantage, right? When it comes to Madness, Red and Blue are a little light but hey. Circular Logic is a good counterspell if you have a pretty full grave while Obsessive Search will draw you a card in almost any situation. Fiery Temper, Reckless Wurm, and Violent Eruption are the Red Madness cards that give you a burn spell, a 4/4 for three mana, and a way to deal with tokens respectfully.



Balance of Power, Betrayal, Borrowing 100,000 Arrows, Brainstorm, Browbeat, Catalog, and Cerebral Vortex: These draw spells can help you balance out all of that randomness. Catalog, Brainstorm, and Cerebral Vortex can help with some hand and deck fixing. Betrayal, Balance of Power and Borrowing 100,000 Arrows can all draw you a ton of cards while Browbeat is just great way to deal some damage but can also get you some cards when people are low in life late game.


Elkin Lair, Warp World, Hive Mind, Eye of the Storm, Knowledge Pool, and Knowledge Vault: These all have a block of text and that means they can be fun when you want to change up the game. I suggest that you click each one here and take your time reading them in Gatherer before you go out and use them. They bring a lot of randomness to any game but you really want to know what they do before you cast a Warp World while Hive Mind and Eye of the Storm are on the field. Trust me your going to need some paper and a judge to smooth that one out.


Karn Liberated, Sway of the Stars, Chandra Ablaze, Time Stretch, Blasphemous Act, Mana Matrix, Take Possession, Insurrection, and Destructive Force: Big spells are big. I for one would love to have one of these in hand with Jhoira out and some free mana up. The best part is that we should be able to hard cast these without any tricks. But let’s be honest these bring some interesting game states. Like if the guy in your group playing Ramp sees you suspend a Destructive Force, is he going to “go for it” and try to finish you or the game before it comes in… or does he hold back and wait for it because he knows he can come back? The four turns of waiting can be hard on anyone when they know they can’t stop it in time.


Myojin of Seeing Winds, Inkwell Leviathan, Phyrexian Ingester, Excruciator, Avatar of Slaughter, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Sphinx Ambassador, Magmatic Force, Akroma, Angel of Fury, Balefire Dragon, Consecrated Sphinx, Frost Titan, and Sphinx of Jwar Isle: … What… Look the Eldrazi are the reasons this little lady is in so much hot water with the Commander community now. We can still use her to bring in the big nasties we just need to make sure Annihilate is not in their text box. So here we have some of the best creatures these colors have to offer that will still be feared but won’t cause your friends to hurt you in the parking lot.


Paradox Haze, Copy Enchantment, and Copy Artifact: if you’re playing Jhoira you better have Paradox Haze to help bring those upkeeps quicker and a Copy Enchantment copying it will put a game into a real two turn clock. Copy Artifact is also great to use with all the artifacts running around in every deck. You can even copy Mana Matrix to bring the cost of your spell down even more!


Well That Was Random!


With 18 Mountain and 18 Island we can step away from the randomness and away from this series. This was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done and I would like to try it again soon. As always, my mana base here is just a starting point. At the bottom, you can check out the deck list. Next week we …. Hmmm…. I’m not too sure where to go from here…. Well I’ll go figure something out. If you have any theme ideas or Commander deck you would like to see let me know in the comments or you can find me on Facebook chatting it up in the Three to the Face!!! Facebook Group!


As always thanks for the read and I will see you next week for another article!


Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions.  Until next time,


This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!!!



1 Apathy
1 Burning Inquiry
1 Capricious Efreet
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Control of the Court
1 Desperate Ravings
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Elkin Lair
1 Gamble
1 Goblin Lore
1 Infectious Rage
1 Kindle the Carnage
1 Magus of the Scroll
1 Circular Logic
1 Noggle Ransacker
1 Planeswalker's Fury
1 Planeswalker's Mischief
1 Scrambleverse
1 Skullscorch
1 Surreal Memoir
1 Wild Evocation
1 Wild Swing
1 Balance of Power
1 Betrayal
1 Borrowing 100,000 Arrows
1 Brainstorm
1 Browbeat
1 Catalog
1 Cerebral Vortex
1 Chandra Ablaze
18 Island
18 Mountain
1 Warp World
1 Hive Mind
1 Eye of the Storm
1 Knowledge Pool
1 Knowledge Vault
1 Karn Liberated
1 Sway of the Stars
1 Time Stretch
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Mana Matrix
1 Take Possession
1 Insurrection
1 Destructive Force
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Excruciator
1 Avatar of Slaughter
1 Lorthos, the Tidemaker
1 Sphinx Ambassador
1 Magmatic Force
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Reckless Wurm
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Frost Titan
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Jhoira of the Ghitu
1 Paradox Haze
1 Copy Enchantment
1 Copy Artifact
1 Obsessive Search
1 Fiery Temper
1 Violent Eruption