Commander Spotlight: Pol Jamaar, Illusionist
(Pol Jamaar, Illusionist || art by Kuregure)
'Real' Is A More Flexible Concept Than You Might Think!
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another Commander Spotlight! This regular column will feature one legendary creature, usually from the most recent Commander precons or Jumpstart products, and provide you with a deep dive into ideas that should help get you started brewing your own Commander deck around it.
Today we're featuring Pol Jamaar, Illusionist, a cool new legendary creature from Foundations Jumpstart! A lot of the mythic rares from this set are very pricey, but Pol Jamaar is quite reasonable to pick up and provides a really fun and flexible leader for a mono-blue creature kindred strategy.
In the early days of Wizards of the Coast designing legendary creatures with Commander in mind, they often made generically powerful creatures that would pay off just by playing Magic. In more recent years they've ventured far in the opposite direction, making legendary creatures that are very powerful only in a very specific theme or niche strategy, which is better than generically powerful, but it also means if you're not interested in that particularly theme, you're not really interested in the card.
I think Pol Jamaar strikes the right balance: its power is still limited to certain strategies, but it's flexible enough to helm very different decks and is more likely to have broad appeal to different styles and preferences.
When Pol Jamaar, Illusionist enters, choose a creature type. Draw a card for each creature you control of that type.
To maximize this ability, you'll want to choose a creature type that includes Pol Jamaar, but luckily Pol Jamaar has a whopping three different creature types so you build your deck around Humans, Illusions, Wizards... or go wacky and build around all three!
Pol Jamaar is currently showing as one of the least popular commanders from Foundations Jumpstart on EDHREC, and I suspect that's because of its high mana cost. But the high mana cost is actually a smart part of its design: once you have six mana available, you should have a fair number of creatures on the battlefield where casting Pol Jamaar will be an excellent thing to do for the turn, refueling your hand. Sure, it may often be a shields-down moment, but your hand is stocked and ready to rebuild if disaster strikes before it comes back around to your turn.
Since Pol Jamaar has already given you its effect when it enters, it's much less likely to eat a removal spell from your opponents unless you're showing a way to blink it on the battlefield, but again, your hand is full, you've got the gas to rebuild.
EDHREC High Synergy Cards
First let's take a look at the high synergy cards for a Pol Jamaar deck as calculated by EDHREC. Naban, Dean of Iteration is good for a Wizard kindred deck, and it will double Pol Jamaar's enters trigger for even more card draw. Cynette, Jelly Drover is another card from Foundations Jumpstart, and, while it's a Wizard, it's more concerned with flying creatures. Minn, Wily Illusionist makes Illusions and cares about Illusions, so you could have it either in a Wizard kindred deck that draws extra cards, or in an Illusion kindred deck that draws extra cards.
Blinking Pol Jamaar is better than having it die and having to cast it with ever-growing commander tax, so the deck should have a fair number of those effects such as the suggested Conjurer's Closet, Essence Flux, Ghostly Flicker, and Blur.
If you're focused on just one creature type, support cards, like Distant Melody, Titan of Littjara, and Kindred Discovery, make a lot of sense.
Mono-Blue Humans
There are a bunch of good Human cards in mono-blue, and while a lot of them are also Wizards, you could dip into non-Wizard Humans if that's more appealing. Humans like Archaeomancer, Spellseeker, and Baral, Chief of Compliance could support a spellslinger strategy with instant or sorcery synergies.
Venser, Shaper Savant is a flexible way to interact with the stack in a novel way, or you could use it to bounce Pol Jamaar to play it again. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned shuts down counterspells that mono-blue decks will typically play, but maybe you don't want to roll that way.
Triskaidekaphile has an alternate win condition that's more easily enabled by the raw card draw spell sitting in your command zone, and speaking of alt-wincons, with enough raw card draw in your deck the Human Laboratory Maniac could give you a win, and then there's the flexible options from Aether Channeler's enters ability, which will play great with blink effects.
Mono-Blue Illusions
There are a surprisingly large number of Illusion creatures if you want to lean in to that creature type. Spark Double is a great place to start since it can copy your commander to draw even more cards. Murmuring Mystic and Lord of the Unreal aren't Illusions, but they can support Illusion strategies.
Oneirophage and Toothy, Imaginary Friend are awesome Illusions that support a heavy card-drawing strategy.
Phantasmal Image is an incredible copy spell for just two mana, copying the best creature on the battlefield but keeping its Illusion creature type, too. Phantasmal Shieldback is a cute little early drop Illusion that draws you a card when it dies.
Krovikan Mist is another early drop that gets bigger and bigger the more Illusions you deploy to the battlefield. Mistform Warchief can discount your Illusion creature spells, which makes your commander cheaper to cast. Illusory Ambusher is a neat creature with flash, either as a surprise attacker or more likely as a surprise blocker that trades and draws you some extra cards.
On the beatdown side of Illusion crew, there's Phantasmal Dreadmaw and Phantasmal Dragon. Jace's Mindseeker is a solid-sized flier that lets you roll the dice and potentially cast a game-breaking spell from among cards milled from your opponents' decks when it enters the battlefield. If you're also playing a lot of blink effects, this is a great target when you need a way to push through a game stall.
Phantom Steed doesn't exactly blink a card, but you can exile something like Jace's Mindseeker and make a copy of it each time Phantom Steed attacks. If you're feeling bold you could even exile Pol Jamaar, making a copy and drawing a bunch of cards each time Phantom Steed attacks.
Just keep in mind you'll need to keep Pol Jamaar exiled with Phantom Steed rather than returning it to the command zone, and there is a risk that someone could keep Phantom Steed locked down with something like Icy Manipulator or Imprisoned in the Moon. You are, however, a blue deck with lots of card draw and blink effects, so you can probably wiggle your way out of that!
Mono-Blue Wizards
When you think of creature types in blue, Wizards are high on the list, and there are plenty of really cool ones available to fill out your deck. Archmage of Runes is a perfect card from Foundations, discounting instant and sorcery spells you cast by one generic mana and drawing you a card each time you cast one. Cyclone Summoner is another Giant Wizard and has an awesome enters ability.
Then there's Stonybrook Banneret, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Archmage of Echoes, and Naru Meha, Master Wizard that no good Wizard deck should leave home without. If you want to punish greedy mana bases, Harbinger of the Seas can provide some good disruption until it eats a removal spell.
Speaking of alt-wincons, your Wizard deck could run Thassa's Oracle and the amusingly named Twenty-Toed Toad; c'mon, you know you want to loudly proclaim the card name when you cast it!
Other Mono-Blue Creature Types
If you have an underserved blue creature type you enjoy, Pol Jamaar could support it by letting you draw a bunch of cards when you need to refuel your hand. Maybe you want to build a Kraken deck with Ominous Seas? Or a Horror deck with Zellix, Sanity Flayer? Or how about a Vedalken deck with Vedalken Humiliator?
Creature Type Matters
There are some really good kindred support cards available in mono-blue. Roaming Throne is awesome, and doubling Pol Jamaar's card draw is sure to put a smile on your face! Urza's Incubator will be a great way to discount the high mana value of Pol Jamaar.
Banner of Kinship, Reflections of Littjara, and Raise the Palisade are also incredible kindred support cards. Maskwood Nexus could make the cut if you're playing a deck with multiple different creature types to ensure maximum draw from your Pol Jamaar.
Blinking
Being able to blink Pol Jamaar a few times should keep your hand stacked with cards, though you may want to ensure you have a fair number of cards like Reliquary Tower so you don't have to discard to hand size! Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is excellent for blinking during each of your turns, and its activated ability can keep a problematic attacker or blocker tapped down.
Displacer Kitten is great in a spellslinger deck, protecting Pol Jamaar from instant-speed removal spells and keeping your hand nice and full. It is a Cart Beast, so maybe you want to build a mono-blue Beast deck?
Teferi's Time Twist is a great instant-speed way to protect Pol Jamaar, and since it won't return until the beginning of the next end step, it can effectively dodge a non-targeted battlefield sweeper. Illusionist's Stratagem is a bit expensive for the effect, but Pol Jamaar has Illusionist in its name so it's a both a flavor and synergy home run!
Quantum Misalignment doesn't blink, but it can copy Pol Jamaar and since the copy isn't legendary you get to keep the copies around. With rebound you can do it again, or copy some other creature with an awesome enters ability.
Card Draw Matters
Drawing cards for the sake of drawing cards is certainly satisfying enough for many Magic players, but blue offers a lot of ways to pay off drawing of cards outside of having all the extra options from having a full hand. Getting up to level 3 in Wizard Class lets you turn card draw into +1/+1 counters for your creatures, potentially making your Pol Jamaar big enough to take someone down with commander damage. Proft's Eidetic Memory can do that trick too, and also takes away your hand size limit.
Psychosis Crawler and Empyrial Plate also let you turn those extra card draws into damage output, and Psychosis Crawler is even a Horror if you're building a mono-blue Horror deck!
What other sorts of cards are you going to play in your Pol Jamaar, Illusionist deck? What new legends from Foundations Jumpstart are you most excited to build decks around?
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