While some players may not enjoy playing against it, Landfall strategies are undeniably powerful in Commander. Lands are generally held sacred in the format, with mass land destruction being banned in bracket 3. On top of this, thanks to creating value with lands, flooding is hardly an issue in the lategame. Considering this, it’s extremely shocking that one of the best Landfall Commanders in the game is absurdly underplayed.
MTG Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios
Thanks to Journey of the Oracle’s mana ramp capabilities, Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios can essentially enable its own massive mana value. If that weren’t enough, both side of Jadzi offer recursion, returning to your hand in exchange for a card.
Since both sides of Jadzi naturally enable lots of land drops, Landfall creatures like Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait are a perfect fit here. These creatures can not only refill your hand alongside Journey of the Oracle, but they’ll give consistent fuel for Jadzi’s discard protection. Then, when you’re ready to close out the game, Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, and Scute Swarm can offer one-card armies.
That being said, while Journey of the Oracle can fuel land drops in the early and midgame, Jadzi’s Magecraft trigger will usually be your finisher. Regardless of whether you hit lands or cast spells for just one mana, this ability can easily take over the game eventually. You can even partner Jadzi with cards like Helm of Awakening to make all of its Magecraft spells free to cast. Other cost reducers like Sapphire Medallion and Primal Amulet can give this idea redundancy in Magecraft-focused strategies.
Should you set up free spells with Jadzi, this Commander can essentially become a Storm engine, casting all the cards in your deck. If Jadzi casts spells like Chatterstorm or Weather the Storm, for example, you’ll get a whole mess of Magecraft triggers, finding your lands and casting more spells.
Thanks to this, depending on your luck, this allows Chain of Acid to continually trigger Magecraft, copying itself using the lands that Jadzi finds as fuel for more casts. Throw in the fact that instants and sorceries that Jadzi finds from its Magecraft effect continue the chain, and you can generally empty your library and set up a Thassa’s Oracle win. Because of this absurd synergy, cards like Adaptive Training Post that can repeatedly copy spells are quite effective with Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios.
Going Infinite
While Jadzi encourages a strange mix of Landfall and Storm shenanigans, you can also choose to set up straightforward infinite combos with the Commander. If infinite Landfall triggers are your goal, Journey of the Oracle can achieve that alongside Uyo, Silent Prophet.
To do so, just cast Journey with four more mana available, and activate Uyo twice in response. This will bounce four lands, while copying Journey of the Oracle twice. Journey should resolve, putting your bounced lands back into play untapped, letting Uyo repeat the process. While infinite Landfall should be a game win in a focused Jadzi deck, lands that tap for two or more mana, like Gaea’s Cradle or Temple of the False God, allow this combo to generate infinite mana.
Thanks to Journey of the Oracle’s discard clause, you don’t necessarily need to copy it to go infinite. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and Tatyova, Benthic Druid can also do this alongside a land bounce outlet. Storm Cauldron and Trench Behemoth fulfill this requirement, allowing you to repeatedly bounce lands to your hand to put back in play. So long as you discard one of your drawn cards to Journey of the Oracle each cast, you can easily draw your deck doing this.
If Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios is in play, however, you can also set up infinite combos with Curator of Mysteries. Alongside a card that turns Scrys into card draw, like Eligeth, Crossroads Augur or Matoya, Archon Elder, Jadzi’s activated ability turns into infinite Rummaging. Just keep activating Jadzi’s discard ability in response to itself, causing a Scry and card draw. You can then keep discarding cards until your library is empty, casting Thassa’s Oracle for the win.
The Perfect Bracket 3 Commander
Whether you’re focusing on Landfall, Magecraft, or infinite combos, Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios is an absurdly powerful Commander in games where you have lots of time. Thanks to this, Jadzi seems like an incredible Commander for most pods, which makes its low play rate rather surprising. With only 1978 decks to its name, there’s plenty of opportunity for Jadzi to surprise your tables. If that weren’t shocking enough, Jadzi doesn’t even see a ton of 99 play, appearing in only 8,230 decks.
Considering that this card could easily be added to any Simic Landfall or Spellslinger list, Jadzi feels like a massively missed opportunity. Fortunately, this means the card is rather inexpensive to pick up, available for only $1.77 after shipping on TCGplayer. With how easy this card is to break, this may not last, as one new Commander could make the Oracle extremely popular. Considering that, picking up Jadzi as a Commander, or just for your collection, might be in your best interest.
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