Topic: Modern Green Jeskai Storm
This deck was sort of inspired by the similar glittering wish variant that combos off with cantrips and a mana dork with a jeskai ascendancy in play to loop mana. I found the deck to be a little slow and started putting together a faster all-in combo variant. I've only playtested it with some friends in tabletop simulator but from what I've found it's fairly consistent and disgustingly fast, capable of winning turn two with a bit of luck and turn three consistently. Here is the list:
Creatures (8)
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Birds of Paradise
Enchantments (4)
4x Jeskai Ascendancy
Instants (11)
3x Expedite
3x Thought Scour
1x Visions of Beyond
2x Manamorphose
2x Sprout Swarm
Sorceries (16)
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Serum Visions
4x Slip Through Space
3x Sleight of Hand
1x Lingering Souls
Lands (21)
1x Breeding Pool
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
4x City of Brass
4x Mana Confluence
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Reflecting Pool
2x Wooded Foothills
Sideboard (15)
2x pact of negation
2x ajani's presence
1x spell pierce
2x surgical extraction
1x flesh/blood
1x memory's journey
1x empty the warrens
1x remand
4x leyline of sanctity
Overview
The deck works by playing a mana dork (hierarch or birds) into a jeskai ascendancy. Then, every time we play a noncreature spell we untap our creatures, give a static +1/+1 to all of our creatures and loot 1. This gives us the ability to play any 1 mana spell in our deck for effectively free so long as we have a mana dork in play. Using this, we dig through our entire deck, abusing the loot to discard any land cards or spells we can't play until ascendancy powers our creatures up to 20/20 and we attack for the win. The deck can do this on turn two.
Key Cards
Jeskai Ascendancy - The core card of the deck. Ascendancy is effectively the win condition; as soon as it hits the board we can threaten lethal the same turn. A couple things to note about it:
(1) multiple ascendancies in play trigger multiple times, allowing multiple taps on our mana dorks. If I have 2 ascendancies in play and tap a birds of paradise to play a cantrip i get two untap triggers on the stack, meaning I can tap and untap my birds twice for mana, netting me two mana per spell cast. Multiple ascendancies also trigger multiple loots HOWEVER you don't have to take all of the loots. If you have 2 ascendancies in play and play a spell you can choose to loot once, twice or not at all.
(2) You have to declare whether or not you're using the draw 1 discard 1 upon casting a spell NOT on resolution, so if you resolve a serum visions without declaring the loot you don't get to draw one discard one after the spell resolves. Similarly, if you resolve a spell after declaring a loot you can't change your mind and not loot.
(3) The +1/+1 bonus per noncreature spell is a STATIC effect, meaning that - unlike prowess - creatures played after spells have triggered ascendancy's +1/+1 recieve the full bonus from ascendancy retroactively from all noncreature spells played before it that turn. This is especially relevant if you draw into an additional birds or hierarch while comboing, as by using an expedite to give it haste you can halve your necessary lethal storm count.
(4) Ascendancy untaps all your creatures, so always tap out your mana creatures when casting a spell - even if you would not need to - as this can net you free mana
(5) If your hand consist of only cards that you can both play AND draw you a card then it is generally not a good idea to loot so long as a line of play exists for you if you draw a dead card
Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch: The other half of the jeskai combo. Birds is better 99% of the time as it gives you access to every spell in your deck. A Birds can combo off reliably on turn two by expediting another mana dork into play while hierarch does this a little less consistently as it needs a manamorphose to have access to red mana
Gitaxian Probe: The most important cantrip in the deck. Probe gives you valuable information on your opponents hand but more importantly it costs zero mana to play. Paying the life for probe can allow you to untap your creatures on turn two for free (and then combo off) or nets you 1 free mana mid combo to allow for a second ascendancy to come down or a manamorphose for 1 mana
Sprout Swarm: An infinitely recurring combo with ascendancy and mana creatures in play, by buying back the card and then convoking with the tokens it generates to recur it an infinite amount of times (as jeskai ascendancy will untap all your creatures each time it is played) With two ascendacnies and two mana dorks in play it can be recurred infinitely with no other creatures on the board. Since there are two in the deck if it becomes a dead card in hand it is advisable to loot it but generally one should be held onto and played with the buyback whenever enough extra mana is generated during a combo turn
Lingering Souls: An intentionally dead card. Lingering souls is meant to be discarded via ascendancy and then played via flashback to (A) loot dead cards out of your hand for free and (B) generate tokens for sprout swarms
Manamorphose: Nets effectively free mana as the mana used to play it is regained through ascendancy trigger. Great for curving into a sprout swarm or shifting hierarch mana to red in order to expedite another mana dork into play. Generally it is always a good play to add 2 red mana or (if lingering souls is in the graveyard) 1 red and 1 black
Cantrips: Everything else in the deck draws you cards for 1 mana .Expedites should be held onto to give mana dorks played during the combo turn haste, visions should be held onto until your graveyard is big enough to make it an ancestral visions, slip through space can be used on both your own and your opponents creatures (if that becomes relevant), you should always loot off of a serum visions and sleight of hand to pitch dead cards without losing your draw ALSO the order of the cards scryed to the bottom can become relevant due to the deck's tendancy to draw through the entire deck. Thought scour should always target the opponent's library unless you're very close to the visions threshold (and have it in hand)
Mana Base: The mana base is suicidally aggressive, as the longer the game goes the more difficult it becomes to combo off successfully. Despite almost all of the lands dealing damage to you it is rare to take more than 6 damage from lands before turn 3
Sideboard: The sideboard is designed to protect creatures and your hand. This deck is faster than anything else in the format so long as you're not forced to discard critical combo pieces or have your creatures bolted. The biggest danger to this deck are cards like ensnaring bridge that prevent you from attacking or cards like angels grace or fog that prevent damage, which is why there is an empty the warrens and flesh/blood in the sideboard
Anyways, that's the deck, It's been working pretty well so far, sideboard could probably use a bit of help. I wrote this like a ghetto primer, cause I always find those the most helpful for figuring out what the deck is supposed to be doing. All suggestions are welcome