Jon Irenicus, Shattered One - Budget Deck Tech
Jon Irenicus, Shattered One | Illustrated by Igor Grechanyi
Hello, everyone! For this week's deck tech I wanted to revisit the deck that first got over 1,000 views on my YouTube channel, Jon Irenicus, Shattered One aka Dimir Pokemon Day Care. In this deck tech, I'll explain what Jon Irenicus does, the core strategies for the deck, key cards, how to win, and the upgrades. Without further ado, let's get into it!
Generally, Jon is built to give your opponents creatures that have some form of downside, like Abyssal Persecutor, Rotting Regisaur, or Demonic Taskmaster, but I decided to go a different route with the deck. Instead, I want to give my opponents evasive creatures, play powerful ETB creatures, use edict effects to control the board, and finally steal the creatures back from my opponents after they've been buffed.
Key Cards
Evasive Creatures
Let's kick things off with the evasive creatures. Because Jon wants our gifted creatures to attack, we want to make sure they stay alive through combat, and the easiest way to do that is to have them be unblockable, so creatures like Changeling Outcast, Mist-Cloaked Herald, and Slither Blade make the cut. My favorite unblockable creature is Blighted Agent thanks to infect.
The other types of evasive creatures are fliers. Ornithopter, Faerie Seer, and Baleful Strix are cheap flying creatures, and Strix has the added benefit of cantripping when it enters. The best thing about giving away cheap creatures is that people are less likely to waste removal on a 2/3 flier that's getting in for chip damage.
Decay is Good?
The other type of creature I like to give away is decayed Zombie tokens. Now, you might be thinking: why would you want to give away a token that sacrifices themselves? It's simple: because of Jon's ability, they can't be sacrificed, and this is true for any effect that requires you to sacrifice creatures. Some other examples are encore, echo, and fading, so creatures like Falcon Abomination, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, and Diregraf Horde provide us with cheap tokens we can give away.
Can't Sac This
Edicts are especially powerful because opponents can't sacrifice the creatures we so kindly gift to them, so we can keep the board clear of their creatures while leaving ours free to draw us a ton of cards. I included Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, and Plaguecrafter. I even included some less-played edict creatures, such as Slum Reaper, which is a four-mana Fleshbag, and Bellowing Mauler, which is a repeatable edict. The best edict creature in the deck is Braids, Arisen Nightmare thanks to the card advantage it can provide. The noncreature edicts (Killing Wave, Vona's Hunger, and Inevitable End) are especially mean. Quick rules note for Killing Wave: because the donated creatures can't be sacrificed, the creature's controller can choose not to pay the life and nothing happens.
Value Creatures
Next, let's talk about the ETB creatures. There are three categories of ETB creatures in the deck: value, removal, and clones. The value creatures are cards like Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Solemn Simulacrum, and Baleful Strix. If you want to make some changes to the deck, I'd suggest cutting these first as they're just in here because they give us some card advantage and we don't mind giving them away. The removal creatures would be Ravenous Chupacabra, Noxious Gearhulk, Amphin Mutineer, and Ertai Resurrected. We can give away these creatures after they've provided us with value.
Clones
In total, we have four clone creatures in the deck. Two can only clone opponents' creatures: Malleable Impostor and Mocking Doppelganger. These are a great way to give away multiple of the same creature or get additional ETBs from creatures we've given away. The other two are Phyrexian Metamorph and Spark Double, which can copy any creature. Most of the time we want to use Spark Double to copy our commander to get additional end step triggers. I also included Irenicus's Vile Duplication to clone our commander.
Hey, That's Mine!
And finally, let's get our creatures back! There are two ways to get creatures we control back. The first is if the opponent loses the game. You might think the creatures would be exiled, but actually, they would return under your control. The other option is using cards that let us gain control of the cards we own. We could use blink spells, such as Teferi's Time Twist, but we want the creatures to have counters on them, so that's out of the question. Instead, we'll be using Homeward Path and Coveted Falcon. Homeward Path is simple: tap it and get your stuff back. You can then give it away again putting more counters on it. Coveted Falcon is the newest card in the deck. Whenever it attacks, you get to gain control of target permanent you own but don't control.
Winning, Cuts, and Upgrades
#Winning
Winning with this deck can be a bit tricky since you're giving away creatures. I would describe this deck as a political control deck. You want to try to sneakily have opponents finish each other off while you lay in wait to strike the final blow. Don't over-extend, and try to make deals with who you give creatures to.
Not Quite Good Enough
There are two cycles of cards I want to showcase that didn't quite make the cut. That would be the Vow and Impetus Cycle. The Vow cycle is Vow of Flight, Vow of Malice, and Vow of Torment. These are all three-mana enchantments that buff a creature and prevent it from attacking you. These are great when the game becomes a 1v1 to prevent any creatures you can't get back from attacking you. The Impetus cycle is Ghoulish Impetus, Parasitic Impetus, and Psychic Impetus. These are like Vows, but instead, they goad the creature and give you some benefit when they attack. The value both cycles provide can be strong, but I don't think they are worth including here.
The Upgrades
Unlike other decks, there aren't any key upgrades I could think of for this deck. As always, I'd suggest upgrading the mana base first, but if you want to spend a few extra bucks you could always add Roaming Throne, to double up on your commander's ability, Helm of the Host, to get more copies of Jon, Phyrexian Obliterator, because that seems like a fun creature to give away, and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and Sakashima the Impostor, to clone your commander.
