[EDH] Kelzam's Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain (EDH / Commander)

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain was the most obvious to build among the handful of other Dominaria Commanders that jumped at me. Not only did my partner and I have most of the cards I wanted to include, but even the few upgrades I had in mind weren't too expensive. What resulted was an Izzet Artifacts deck with a bonkers amount of synergy and speed. We're pretty happy where it's at here at the moment.

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A Note On Deck Construction: Before I dive into how the deck wins, I'd like to note that some exclusions have been made on purpose. We actually just last week culled a massive bulk of our collection that had built up, deconstructing decks we weren't thrilled with anymore and recycling those cards. As part of that we're avoiding doing any massive new spending on cards. For that reason, some select powerful cards aren't here. The other half of that is that with as explosive as the deck already is, I didn't want to do a bunch of inclusions that would upset my local meta. After a long while of individuals toxic to the health and enjoyment of EDH/Commander at the LGS I play Magic at, they finally started to become excluded and found their way out of the meta and a very good balance has been struck. Windmill slamming Mana Crypts, Metalworkers, Grim Monoliths and older Moxen are not what I had in mind when I built this deck. It can hold it's own and lights up like a Christmas tree without those.

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Recursion & Board Protection:

There's only so much recursion available to Izzet, which may be the primary down side of the color limitation, though there is still a handful of includes, here. Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Welder, Trash for Treasure, Scrap Mastery, Buried Ruin, Myr Retriever and Scrap Trawler are the recursion effects in the deck.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation can help protect artifacts from single target removal.

A board wipe can be devastating as there isn't much mass recursion available. Scrap Mastery mentioned above is one way to recover after a board wipe. The other way to get around them is to either counter them with Arcane Denial, Cryptic Command, Mana Drain and Pact of Negation; or, bounce what you wish to your hand with Paradoxical Outcome or Rebuild.

In the worst case scenario, Elixir of Immortality can just throw your graveyard back into your library and you can start revving that engine, again.

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How the Deck Wins:

I'd go over how the deck plays, but it's actually very simple: Play Artifacts to draw cards to play more Artifacts. Each Artifact does something to help that goal and to keep the gears turning. Casting Jhoira on Turn 2 isn't unheard of, but also isn't the status quo. There should always be something to do. With that said, below are some of the ways to operate the deck and win.

Paradox Engine - Need I say more? Windmill slam this card and find a way to win.

Aetherflux Reservoir Storm - So far out of a handful of games, storming up to Aetherflux Reservoir happened. This is mostly enabled by Paradox Engine, which automatically makes it very hard to stop the deck when it hits the table. With all the cost reduction and mana rocks, you can also find yourself storming out by using Paradoxical Outcome or Rebuild to bounce a ton of Artifacts to your hand and re-casting them.

Comet Storm - There are a few ways to generate a crap ton of mana in the deck. Once again, Paradox Engine, tapping your mana rocks and chain casting spells to keep untapping and re-casting to generate a crap ton of mana. There is also Storm the Vault, which transforms into Vault of Catlacan, a neo Tolarian Academy. This can produce a huge number of mana. One game was decided when sacrificing Myr Incubator to exile 30 Artifacts from the library to create 30 1/1 colorless Myr Artifact Creature tokens. This let my friend piloting Jhoira then tap Vault of Catlacan for over 30 mana due to his number of Artifacts on the battlefield and kill the board.

Myr Incubator - This is primarily used to win the game. You can use it to create enough triggers from Purphoros, God of the Forge and Reckless Fireweaver to kill the table (or come very close). As above, you can use it for vast amounts of mana from Vault of Catlacan. You can also use the tokens to attack if necessary, and pump them with Purphoros. Whatever you do, be careful to use this when you know it won't be disrupted. You're exiling all those Artifacts, so there's no getting them back.

Death By A Thousand Cuts - Triggers from Reckless Fireweaver, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Psychosis Crawler and The Locust God will constantly add up over the game. Any combination of these three in addition to just playing the deck will produce massive gains. There are also triggers passively generating Thopters such as that of Thopter Assembly and Efficient Construction.

Massive Artifact Army - Getting to Chapter 3 of The Antiquities War will ideally lead to a massive army of 5/5 Artifacts that will hopefully be enough to deal lethal to the board. We've not gotten to play the card yet in all of our games, so we have yet to see how this will pan out in the end.

Hellkite Tyrant - Due to being a massive target, it's best to flash this guy in via Vedalken Orrery at the end of the turn before yours. It's super easy to get the requisite 20 Artifacts. Otherwise, if it's not removed, it can work in concert with Memnarch to start stealing stuff he can't ordinarily steal. Even then, the threat of stealing opponent's Artifacts is insanely powerful.

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Future Includes & Considerations:

As of now, there are a small handful of cards that I would like to 100% pick up for the deck:

Darksteel Forge & Retrace for board protection. Retrace costs two less than Rebuild, and Darksteel Forge will prevent blowouts from Vandalblast and Austere Command. Soul of New Phyrexia had been a consideration, but rather than having to keep 5 mana up at any given time, I like Darksteel Forge better.

Krark-Clan Ironworks is pretty self-explanatory. It can sacrifice Artifacts in response to spot removal for value, or save them from being exiled by various effects. It can also use all the creature tokens the deck makes to fuel a large chain of spells or Comet Storm, and can turn smaller mana rocks in the late game into further value to close the game. It will also make Myr Incubator that much better and another way of finishing the game using all that mana to power whatever spell or ability.

Tormod's Crypt is a probable include as graveyard hate should be included in any deck in EDH/Commander. With the rise of Muldrotha especially, it is especially pertinent now to be able to surgically remove someone's graveyard before it gets out of hand.

Fabricate, Merchant Scroll, Reshape for redundancy are certainly considerations. With how much card draw power the deck has, I find that it doesn't take long or much effort to just dig for something. As we play Jhoira more we will see exactly how much these are needed, if at all.