Let’s brew Elsha!

[DirkGently]

Let it go! Let it go! Turn away and slam the door!

Ahem, sorry.

It's effing 5:30 am here and I should reeeaaaally sleep, but first I had some thoughts on Elsa I mean Elsha and I didn't want to forget.

The main sticking point for top deck-casting effects is getting stuck on something you can't play - in this case lands (who even plays creatures? Lame). Buuut because she gives things flash AND has prowess, we can do some dirty dirty things LIKE cast a 1-mana cantrip then hold priority and keep chaining spells until we hit a land or undesirable cast. Then we let the cantrip resolve, and then keep digging!

I'm thinking - run a bunch of ponder/brainstorm/preordain type stuff, along with some cheap double strike, buffs, evasion, and just go all miracle-rogue on some faces. Trigger prowess 5 or 6 times...and blam, 21 commander damage out of nowhere. Sounds freaking cool, right?

Ok I gotta sleep now. Like real bad.

[Sinis]

The greatest failing of these kinds of decks in my experience -- and I have built many of them -- is inexpensive control over the top of your deck while trying to leverage whatever we're trying to do with the top of our deck. Traditionally, they live in the Temur colours, starting with Intet, the Dreamer, following up with Melek, Izzet Paragon and Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. The unavailability of Oracle of Mul Daya, Sylvan Library and Mirri's Guile is a pretty huge blow for this deck. I think there are a bunch of well-explored good cards™ that will fit nicely into this deck (Sensei's Divining Top, etc.). Scroll Rack, for example, will only go nice places, and we all knew that.

My quick picks for generic unusual suspects for top-of-deck manipulation would be Codex Shredder, cards with cheap cycling abilities (RIP, no Street Wraith in these colours), and Millikin/Deranged Assistant.

Mesmeric Orb could also be a good choice; if you tap out on your opponent's end step, you could get a set of triggers to mill one card at a time. Since Elsha gives noncreature/nonland cards flash, you can mill one-by-one and cast the desirable spells in between the mill triggers. It could be a fun game of bank-or-pass.

For power/toughness attack-for-one-shot choices, I think we can easily use Psychotic Fury, Onward // Victory, Assault Strobe, and Seize the Day.

[pokken]

My instinct is creatureless control using Elsha as essentially future sight in the command zone. Then you try to play control effects that don't kill her, like Winds of Abandon which is kind of ridiculous with flash, and comeuppance / aetherspouts effects.

But overall I just don't find myself having a natural way to ramp - if you don't, you'll have a hard time taking advantage of the card advantage, and mana rocks are quite synergistic with the ability (flash makes them great, and they often allow multispell turns).

I also kinda like the idea of a mostly islands deck with high tide / turnabout / reset type stuff for going off.

But again I dunno. It's just very awkward in Jeskai for me.

Probably a lot of good ways to get lands off the top, just shuffle effects seem sufficient. And Scroll rack.

[DirkGently]

I envision the deck as running a bunch of cantrips/scry sorceries/instants to get around lands (as described in OP), and to try to have one huge turn, not to grind out value as the effect is traditionally used. Basically nearly everything in the deck should be 1-2 mana so you can just churn like crazy even if no particular spell does much.

Something like oracle seems great for intet or melek who generally trigger once per turn and play a slower, value-oriented game, but we want to be using the top card many, many times in a single explosive turn. Getting around a couple extra land is nice but it's not a total game-changer. Same for the other cards you mentioned.

Self-mill might be great or outclassed depending how the deck actually operates - under the "one explosive turn" model it's not any better than a cantrip (plus you don't actually get the card in your hand), but if you need a couple turns in a row it could give some more staying power. I'm hoping the explosive turn plan pays off, though. The creatures are probably out, though, since they're a stumbling block for her off the top.

Mesmeric orb is a really interesting idea. You would need to untap with both of them already on the field, but it's definitely a cool idea and could be really powerful.

agree on all of those, except maybe onward // victory. 3 mana is maybe more than we want to use, especially since it's 6 to use both sides. Although using both sides almost certainly kills someone if she gets through. For my money, temur battle rage seems like the premier version of the effect - evasion and double strike for 2 mana means just a couple more spells should easily OHKO someone.

[pokken]

Looting effects are probably quite good in addition to cantrips. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy is probably exceptional in the deck.

[Sinis]

Self-mill might be great or outclassed depending how the deck actually operates

It's more that we won't really know if we can go off unless we stack with something like Scroll Rack. Millkin/Deranged basically let you either float mana and mill, or announce a cast (move it to the stack), see the top card, and choose if it's something you want to keep by choosing how you pay (because they're still mana abilities).

It's so that you can potentially remove unwanted cards while trying to go off. I'm not so sure about Codex Shredder.

Mesmeric orb is a really interesting idea. You would need to untap with both of them already on the field, but it's definitely a cool idea and could be really powerful.

Tbh, you might be able to flash it in off the top of your library during someone's end step by stacking it with something like Brainstorm. It is a noncreature, nonland card, after all.

[darrenhabib]

I've posted a deck list => viewtopic.php?f=35&t=988

Hopefully it'll give people a few ideas around Elsha.

[DirkGently]

Damn, that is a lot of good work in a short amount of time, well done! I'll take a look when it's not 3AM

[Dunharrow]

Isn't the way to play her to aggressively tutor for Sensei's Divining top and a cost reducer? Then just cast top infinite times, drawing your deck... and then casting Grapeshot or Aetherflux Reservoir for the win?
Or I guess you can use Kykar instead of a cost reducer.

It hardly seems fun but is definitely the most powerful play. Maybe don't play a cost reducer and just play top so that you can draw a lot of extra cards and get lands out of the way?

[Sinis]

Isn't the way to play her to aggressively tutor for Sensei's Divining top and a cost reducer?

Top on its own is really good; it's like {1}: Draw a card.

Having played Future Sight and Top together, I can confidently say that Elsha and Top will be every bit as busted.

[DirkGently]

Yeah...top might be too good to play unfortunately. Definitely wouldn't play it with a cost reducer at least.

Still probably not insane since we're talking 3-card combo with several angles of disruption, but sdt is obviously strong on its own anyway so the only potentially weak card you're running is the cost reducer.

I hope the combo angle doesn't overshadow her other builds. Already I can feel my interest level dropping...

[Airi]

I was looking at building this as Spellslinger/storm, as her ability lets you continuously filter through the top of your deck for ammo, without being stuck with someone like Melek, Izzet Paragon (as you get access to W/x goodies). Definitely not the best way to build her, but I've been waiting for a Jeskai general to do this kind of thing for a while.

[OCPunisher]

My instinct is creatureless control using Elsha as essentially future sight in the command zone. Then you try to play control effects that don't kill her, like Winds of Abandon which is kind of ridiculous with flash, and comeuppance / aetherspouts effects.

Probably a lot of good ways to get lands off the top, just shuffle effects seem sufficient. And Scroll rack.

This sums it up for me as well. Depending on how mean you want to be, you could play Divine Reckoning, Tragic Arrogance, Time Wipe, or even Cataclysm, all at instant speed! Need to add Winds to my own list.

I plan on playing both Top and Scroll Rack by themselves, and skipping the cost reducers to make Top infinite.

[Dunharrow]

Yeah...top might be too good to play unfortunately. Definitely wouldn't play it with a cost reducer at least.

Still probably not insane since we're talking 3-card combo with several angles of disruption, but sdt is obviously strong on its own anyway so the only potentially weak card you're running is the cost reducer.

I hope the combo angle doesn't overshadow her other builds. Already I can feel my interest level dropping...

Don't play the cost reducer and see how you like it. It is just one card. Don't tutor for it either.