Jetmir, Nexus of Revels Commander Deck

Last updated on December 27, 2023

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

I’m a simple man. You give me a card that likes lots of creatures and I’ll give you a deck that likes to make them. I love needing to pull out my blank playing cards to make tokens. I live for putting those Scute Swarmx2048 tokens on the table.

The first Commander deck I ever built was a glass cannon Siona, Captain of the Pyleas deck with a single combo wincon. It’s safe to say, I’m a man with a simple love, and that love is tokens. Quantity over quality, my friends!

When Jetmir, Nexus of Revels was spoiled, I recomposed myself, cleaned off my monitor, and then got to work. If Jetmir wants a party, I’ll give him a party. I’ll give him the biggest party I can think of. I’m talking two-headed werewolves in one corner, a prince walking through the front hall, and hydras staring at pearls upstairs. I’ll throw him a bash that has every creature token imaginable coming out of rooms he didn’t even know he had. And (knowing my play group) they’ll agree to play against it so I can playtest for this and then make me swear to never have it grace our table again.

Let's take a look!

The Deck

Helm of the Host | Illustration by Igor Kieryluk

The Commander

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, being the master of ceremonies that it is, loves a party. While it won’t be in the middle of the brawl, it’ll be supporting your line with additional power and keywords to make them much more viable.

This is a Naya Commander that wants to stay protected. I'd suggest treating it as a repeatable anthem that you can pull out on your turn to attack or to better protect what you already have with the keywords it provides.

Creatures

Your quarter of the battlefield is going to be mostly made up of tokens, so the creatures you bring will either add to them, benefit from them, or punish your opponents with them.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is a 3-drop whose power grows as your army does. Its ability to benefit from a large army while also creating its own makes it a beast to contend with. Adding Jetmir’s first effect doesn’t help Adeline too much, but you’re in business once you get to that second one.

Arasta of the Endless Web and Dragonlair Spider both punish your opponents for playing spells as they grow your ranks. Arasta’s ability is a bit more specific in what it doesn’t like to see, but its children also come out a bit bigger.

Avenger of Zendikar brings its own army, especially with the token doublers you’re running. This is a great target for Eternal Witness to bring back after a board wipe.

Ghired, Conclave Exile seems a tad expensive, but you get a 2-for-1 deal with the 4/4 Rhino it brings in and the populate trigger you get each time it attacks.

I'd be remiss if this deck left out Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second, which may change the type of token you’re pumping out, but that usually serves as an upgrade in this deck.

Krenko is a great addition in any token deck that allows red, but in this case you’re going with the cheaper Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin over its more expensive precursor. Mostly because you aren’t going to have a ton of goblins (not running any specific tribals), but also because this version of the Don grows on top of pumping out its brethren.

Purphoros, God of the Forge did little but stand in the background and ping my opponents several times a turn in my playtesting. In the cases of opponents without any quick lifegain effects, it alone dealt a fair amount of damage that only increased every turn. It’s honestly better kept as an enchantment in this deck.

The star of the show in terms of creatures is absolutely Rhys the Redeemed. You get to double your token count for six mana.

Scute Swarm. I have nothing else to say, really.

Other Permanents

Following the token theme, your enchantments and artifacts will either be generators, doublers, or enhancers. You also have a couple interactive pieces that give your tokens other uses.

Eldrazi Monument gives your creatures some nice evasion and protection as long as you can feed it.

Esika's Chariot brings cats to the battlefield and gives you a reliable token generator.

Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, and Parallel Lives double all the tokens you create.

Helm of the Host allows you to make tokens out of any creature regardless of the legendary rule. Picture several Jetmirs running around…

Oketra's Monument gives you an extra token every time you cast a creature spell. It also makes a few of your creatures a tad cheaper.

Thousand-Year Elixir allows you to activate your creatures' abilities the turn they come in. This doesn't mean that they can attack, but it does allow for some wonderful ability shenanigans.

Cathars' Crusade allows every creature you put on the battlefield to give a permanent +1/+1 counter to every other creature you control.

Mirari's Wake is a suitable anthem for your creatures. But, more importantly, it doubles the mana your lands give.

Impact Tremors pings all your opponents each time a creature enters the battlefield under your control (which happens a lot).

Assemble the Legion creates 1/1 Soldiers with haste each turn on your upkeep in an upwardly sliding scale.

Aura Shards turns your token generators into removal engines for enchantments and artifacts. The best inclusion of the word “may” in a card’s ability.

Instants and Sorceries

Your other spells are backups to the token generation, creature enhancers, and board state interaction. There won’t be any counterspells here since you aren’t running blue.

Akroma's Will provides some much-needed protection or evasion for your creatures depending on the circumstances. Heroic Intervention and Rootborn Defenses are included for the same reason.

Arachnogenesis, Artifact Mutation, Aura Mutation, Call the Coppercoats, March of the Multitudes, and Second Harvest all add to the token counts.

Farewell, Martial Coup, Phyrexian Rebirth, and Vanquish the Horde clear the board, with a few of them allowing you to create some tokens to keep you going.

The Mana Base

This deck is evenly spread between green and white with some red placed in exactly the right places. For this reason you're running Jetmir's Garden and Jungle Shrine, which allow you to tap for any of the colors you need.

You have Cabaretti Courtyard and Naya Panorama to pull out some of the few basic lands you have. You also have the suite of bond lands, slow lands, shock lands, filter lands, the Eldraine Castle lands, and the channel lands in your colors.

Field of the Dead gives you more tokens each turn. This is the main reason for the low number of basic lands.

Gavony Township is here to give all your creatures a little +1/+1 boost.

Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth helps a ton with mana fixing.

The Strategy

The strategy here is simple: get a mass of tokens out, throw Jetmir in the middle, and let them swing! If you manage to get least nine of those 1/1s out, they’re suddenly all going in for 72. There are still a couple tricks up your sleeves to take the win out of combat as well if you can’t amass enough of a board state to take out opponents out of nowhere.

You have a few different win conditions available to you depending on your draws:

• You can easily overrun your opponents with the sheer number of tokens you’ll have, either one at a time or all at once. Triumph of the Horde facilitates this a ton.
• Helm of the Host gives you extra Jetmirs and can even let you win via commander damage if you generate enough copies of your commander.
• I took out all three opponents at once in testing with the Rhys the Redeemed combo above, tripling my token count with Purphoros, God of the Forge and Impact Tremors out.
• I was only able to manage my favorite wincon of the deck once in testing. I attempted it a couple times but was countered once and made math mistakes the other. I swung in with a large board state of tokens with eight mana open. In my second main phase, I used that mana to play and activate Halo Fountain. I'd like to say I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but it was out of nowhere and none of my opponents were even close to a win at the time.

Combos and Interactions

There are a few little nasty things you can do to your opponents in here. Assume that the token doublers can be a part of the combos as well.

With Thousand-Year Elixir already on the battlefield, it allows you to spend seven mana to play Rhys the Redeemed and then double your token count in one go. This paired with the token doublers means that you can be quadrupling your token count instead.

Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second plus Assemble the Legion turns your 1/1 Soldiers with haste into 3/1 cats with haste. Nothing to hate here.

Finally you have Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Helm of the Host. Although granting multiple instances of vigilance, trample, or double strike doesn’t do much, giving multiple instances of +3/+0 for every instance of Jetmir is really nice. This can get out of control once you factor in token doublers.

Budget Options

This deck costs almost $700. That isn’t exactly what I'd call cheap, but at the same time you’re looking at using the best cards for the chosen theme in the colors you can. If you want to take the price tag down a notch, you can make some sacrifices.

Let’s break down the cost distribution:

• Commander: $5. Changing this defeats the point of even building the deck.
• Creatures: $90-100. Possible choices to make here, the most expensive being Purphoros, God of the Forge at about $25. There are other ways to get the effect you need without it.
• Sorceries: $35-40. Triumph of the Hordes is the big one here at $20. Since that’s one of your win conditions, try to replace it with another heavy-hitting card.
• Artifacts: $75-80. Helm of the Host is the most expensive at $15-20. While this is a tough card to replace, it’s still just a fancy piece of cardboard.
• Instants: $100-105. Now we’re getting into easier budget replacements. Arachnogenesis is $40 and Heroic Intervention is $15. Both aren’t absolutely necessary.
• Enchantments: $200-220! This is mainly from your three token doublers, Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, and Parallel Lives.
• Lands: $200-250! Those bond lands, shock lands, Boseiju, Who Endures, Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, and Field of the Dead eat up a good chunk of all of that.

So, you can make some adjustments. The land base is the easiest by pulling those out and replacing them with either basics or slower, cheaper dual lands. Next you can remove a token doubler or two. I'd lose Doubling Season and Anointed Procession on cost alone.

Keep Parallel Lives (if the budget allows) and Helm of the Host. I'd replace them with Rabble Rousing and Growing Ranks. You can replace Arachnogenesis and Heroic Intervention with Unbreakable Formation and Druid's Deliverance. Finally, you can replace Purphoros with Witty Roastmaster.

With those cuts you can reduce the price tag to about $400. That still isn’t cheap, but that’s a lot of progress for only a few replacements.

Commanding Conclusion

Cathars' Crusade | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels excited me because I saw a commander that could lead so many strategies. In fact, I went through three different iterations of this deck before I settled on this one because it looked like the most fun. I showed the other deck lists to some friends and they all agreed that this was the logical direction to take it.

I usually playtest new decks online for financial reasons, but I think I’ll be adding this one to my rotation. If my playgroup lets me bring it anywhere close to the table. What I know for sure is that some type of Jetmir deck will be in my repertoire at some point.

What changes would you make with the deck? Which of the more recent cards do you think should have made the cut, or what new cards in the last batch of spoilers should be added? Let us know in over on our official Discord server or in the comments below.

See you next time!