The banlist update today means a new elephant (scarecrow) in the room for Jaya decks: Painter's Servant. I'm of course going to try it out - it has the obvious use of turning Jaya's first ability into Vindicate, but cheaper and instant speed. It also plays nicely[?] with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Ugin, the Ineffable, both of which I like a lot in this deck. I'm also well aware that any self-respecting Jaya primer has to include something about Servant if it's legal. That's even more true if it doesn't stick, which is a possibility.
My concern is that it's too high profile. Jaya threatens a lot of decks already. Blue decks have a strong incentive to remove her without any support cards, any deck relying on a small general doesn't want her on the table, and really no one other than the pilot wants her to stick with enough mana to activate the third ability. Increasing that to every deck at the table at all stages of the game is a big part of why I don't run Distorting Lens, despite the power.
There's definitely something to be said for running cards that function as removal magnets. I'd much rather lose a Servant than a Gauntlet effect to artifact hate and Jaya can be repeatedly replayed. They also come with enormous upside most of the time. If Painter and Jaya both stick, the effect is unquestionably great. The downside is that not every removal spell in a multiplayer format is aimed at you and the deck does make extensive use of Jaya as is, so additional incentives to target you are an actual downside.
This also feels like a good time to try Imperial Recruiter again, and to find a spot for Goblin Engineer. Having a high impact, low CMC artifact creature makes that entire package much more cohesive. I'm not sure what the cuts for those are yet.
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For anyone who's interested in continuing the discussion at MTGNexus, I've started up the new thread here. It's missing all of the actual primer text until I have some time to play with the BBCode options over there, which will hopefully happen over the next couple weeks.
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My take on those two is flipped. Bag of Holding seems more broadly useful and I'd expect Glint-Horn Buccaneer to die well before having a meaningful impact. I'm a little worried about how attractive a removal target Bag of Holding is after you've exiled a few cards to it, especially because everyone will be able to see what's in it.
I'm also in no particular hurry to make edits right now. There have been a lot of changes to the deck recently and I still haven't even seen all of those in game yet.
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I'm most interested in Mox Amber in your list. How often has that not tapped for anything? Even with Jaya using useless and/or situational cards, I try and avoid those where I can. Does having three Welder effects keep that useful even when you're not tapping for mana (ignoring that one of those effects turns it on).
The other one I'd be curious about is Command Beacon. Jaya's activated abilities are pretty mana hungry, so going down a land to recast more cheaply doesn't seem quite as useful here as in other lists until you get up to the third cast or so. Nonbasic lands are also one of the places I've had the most trouble fitting everything that I'd like to run, so those slots are kind of precious to me.
On the whole I like it a lot. It looks like there's a lot of explosive potential with the spell copying and the burn spells, which is a really fun place to be late in the game.For my list post-MH1, I swapped Magma Phoenix→Tectonic Reformation. I've found that I usually have enough to do that I don't recur the Phoenix all that often. There's a pretty good chance it comes back in for either Jaya Ballard or Dire Fleet Daredevil at some point - I like having the option to recur, even if I don't use it all that often, and I'm feeling a little light on fliers. I might also look into some of the other phoenix and dragons that I've either passed on before or cut from the deck in the past. I've found them really useful for carrying equipment and chipping in some damage to help supplement the burn plan.
I don't have a cut in mind for Prismatic Vista yet. Mountain is an option, because it's not appreciably dropping the basic land count in terms of cards off the top and it's rare for me to actually get all of my basics out of the deck. I haven't wanted to go below 20 in the past, which has me a little hesitant. I also kind of want to fit the Wastes back in the deck once Vista is in, possibly Endbringer as well. That would give me thirteen colorless sources, which is enough to play Endbringer on curve 85% of the time and activate the card draw a turn later 60% of the time. The odds obviously get quite a bit better as the game goes on too. With the chip damage and combat manipulation options on top of that, it seems like it's probably a good fit. The downside being that I'd have to find even more cuts to make that fit.
I'm thinking of trying to do a large scale primer update when MTGNexus opens up. The existing formatting is already a little broken from the Curse acquisition (many years ago) and I never got around to fixing it. The new site is supposed to have very similar BBCode with expanded options, so it's likely some of it will break further and there will be opportunities to pretty it up a bit. It also needs some content reworking, to better reflect some of the new card options and changing thoughts on the old ones. It's tough to promise anything or give a timeline on it because of how much work needs to be done, but it's certainly time to attempt it.
I appreciate that people are still reading it. That's the reason to do it, so thanks to everyone who keeps coming back for the discussion.
I've only seen Frenzy a couple times, but I've liked it a lot. It's usually drawn a removal spell pretty quickly so I haven't really felt stuck with cards in hand. Accumulating cards in hand while still progressing a board state has been nice. I'm still waiting for the Frenzy play where I hit a long string of lands or something, because it's bound to happen sooner or later. Reformation also plays really nicely with it, because every time you hit a land you basically get to just pay R to move past it, and I'd like to see that interaction happen at least once. Frenzy's slot in the deck is obviously not set in stone, but I've really liked how it plays so far.
Engineer is the one I'm least sure about. The Welder-lite ability is OK but won't grab the things I most want to weld, and I'm not sure how well I can take advantage of the entomb. I like the card a lot, but I haven't gone deep to see if this deck supports it as built.
We also just got the first few M20 spoilers, and they're all Chandra. Chandra, Novice Pyromancer is clearly for a different deck and that's OK. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame is getting closer to good here. I'm not heavy enough on red walkers or cheap instants and sorceries (even if another way to flashback Comet Storm is usually welcome), so that's unlikely to make the cut either. Chandra, Awakened Inferno is in the spoiler below. I love the +2 so much. I don't think it's even that good in a 40 life format, but I love it. I'll happily drop this and spend a bunch of resources trying to protect it so I can stack those emblems. It reminds me a lot of Obsidian Fireheart, which is a card I try and run more often than I probably should. I'll probably try and run both of them simultaneously at some point after Chandra drops.
As an attempt at slightly less biased evaluation, the cons are that 6 CMC is a lot and the damage is glacially slow if you can't stack emblems. The pro is that uncounterable means that you're almost always getting some return on investment, barring a handful of counters that don't actually counter or a stifle effect on the activation. There are very few things more inevitable than an emblem under opponent control as well, which is appealing for a control deck. It also starts at 6, immediately ticks to 8, and the emblem ability is a plus, meaning anyone trying to stop it via creature combat probably has to commit at least a couple creatures. It's reasonable to think that you'll be able to get a second emblem some amount of the time, which makes the effect considerably better.
I'd want to get minimum 5-6 damage per opponent out of this on average to merit spending 6 mana and a card on it. That's still not great, but it's probably the best inevitability we have access to and that earns some additional points. This feels like it's worth a spot if you expect (A) to get a second activation a majority of the time and (B) that games will typically go several turns beyond 6 mana. The first condition there is killer, so this is probably borderline for the average list. Great inevitability but too slow for most games.
I'm definitely still running the card.
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I'm starting this now because of a slow meeting, but it's also so I have less to go through when the full set drops tomorrow: intial thoughts on MH1. Red has gotten plenty of goodies here, including a few cards that look like solid Jaya options.
Red
Aria of Flame - Fun card. The lifegain and targeted damage hopefully helps it fly under the radar a little (i.e. only one person wants to remove it, and they have a few spells before it undoes the life you gave them to begin with) and it comes down early enough to trigger on filtering effects. I'm guessing I don't have enough instants and sorceries to really take advantage.
Force of Rage - Small effect and the alternate cost is rough. Without some kind of synergy to take advantage of the tokens, I can't see this finding a place here. I'd be surprised to see it in the format as a whole very often.
Geomancer's Gambit - I normally would skip over targeted land destruction as a sorcery - Stone Rain has never been a serious consideration - but I like that it replaces itself. Cards are more often the bottleneck than mana unless you're wheeling, so taking out a strong nonbasic without spending a card is worth a look. While I'm not planning on making any cuts for this, it's a decent EDH spell.
Goblin Engineer - Now we're into the good stuff. I run 14 artifacts this could recur and most of them are high impact. I'm usually happy to trade out one of my more situational artifacts for something more relevant, like getting rid of a late game Wayfarer's Bauble for a destroyed Rings, or swapping Scroll Rack out when I have no cards in hand. The tutor is the real appeal here. It can kick off one of the various card advantage/selection engines, or grab a higher cost artifact for one of the other recursion cards to bring back. I'm definitely interested in testing this out.
Magmatic Sinkhole - Probably worse than Skred or Lightning Bolt most of the time (and snow mountains are getting easier to find with this set). Not the worst choice if you're looking for a third copy of those two, as much as I doubt most Jaya lists are.
Pashalik Mons - Mentioned here because I love how deep this set is going on references. Decent if you're running a goblin package, hard pass otherwise. No surprise for a tribal card.
Planebound Accomplice - Prevailing format wisdom is that you should only be running a walker if you're ok with getting a single activation out of them. I've generally found that they live longer than that, but you could do worse than this if you're running walker heavy and want to sneak Karn or Ugin in to remove something. This has better homes in more combo oriented lists in other colors. That said, it's actually fine with just its "fair" use here.
Seasoned Pyromancer - Young Pyromancer grew up. Filtering or draw on the way in, instant speed token production from the yard. This feels like too small an effect for this list, but there's a chance that it plays well enough with the equipment and GY themes to be better than I'm expecting. I like having value spread around the curve so this is a weak candidate for testing. Outside of mono-R, I'll almost certainly jam it in a reanimator list somewhere.
Shenanigans - Ohhhhh! This is a decent card and another one that should be tested out. Repeated artifact destruction is a nice effect and there isn't much of a hoop to jump through here. I've outright won games thanks to Caustic Caterpillar recursion and this has the same possibilities. I'd make sure to keep some mass hate like Vandalblast or Shattering Spree around in addition to this.
Tectonic Reformation - It's late in the alphabet, but this is my favorite card of the set so far for Jaya. It plays very nicely with Crucible of Worlds, Experimental Frenzy, and all of the to hand land searching. When it doesn't do any of that, you can just cycle it. I do like making more land drops than is necessary in this deck because of wheels and other late game, mana intensive plays, but there's still a point where you're just looking for ways to kill the table or find one of your limited answers. This is the card I most want to run out of the set so far.
Throes of Chaos - Basically all the same stuff that was just said about Tectonic Reformation, but with a higher startup cost. I do like that this can be freely discarded and still serve it's primary function. This feels a lot like Reality Scramble with a higher floor and a lower ceiling, and that's a card that's tempted me in the past.
Artifact/Land
Arcum's Astrolabe - If you're running a snow manabase, this is the cheapest cantrip I'm aware of in red. It's a decent grease piece if you have that and heavy artifact themes. Outside of that, I'd skip this one.
Mox Tantalite - Very slow, small upside. If you're very focused on the late game and have heavy artifact themes, it's a little better.
Scrapyard Recombiner - There are some very good constructs available. I'm currently running exactly 0 of them. This is a better fit for decks like Daretti, Scrap Savant that are likely to have a higher density or artifact creatures.
Sword of Sinew and Steel - Another pro-red sword. Finding targets for the artifact is not a difficult thing in an EDH game, even if the planeswalker part of the ability is more likely to go unused. I don't think that 3 swords is necessary, especially with Goblin Engineer as an option, so this would replace one of the other two. Sword of Fire and Ice is one of the best cards in the deck, so it's not really a consideration. Sword of War and Peace has some room for discussion. The lifegain is frequently helpful and I've liked having a fast clock sometimes. I'll have to try the new one and see if I like the repeatable artifact destruction even more than that.
Sword of Truth and Justice - Eh. The protections are generically good and the counter/proliferate is fine. I value pro-red much higher than the other colors here for obvious reasons, and the creature density is too low to go super equipment heavy. I'm not planning on trying this here at all.
Frostwalk Bastion - Respectable manland if you're running snow. I think there are better utility land options.
Tectonic Reformation is pretty clearly the strongest card for this deck spoiled so far and the one I'm most interested in including. After that, I think that Goblin Engineer, Shenanigans, and Sword of Sinew and Steel have the broadest applications. There are a few more that could fit depending on how your deck is constructed. On the whole, great set for EDH and for Jaya. On a sadder note, this forum is shutting down in a little over a month, which obviously means this thread is going to end. The current staff has plans to create a new forum so I'm at least going to give that a shot, including migrating this thread over. The text of the primer has lived on a local file forever and could probably use an update or three anyways. As long as that is up and running before this one goes read only, I'll also throw links in this thread to push anyone who finds it later in that direction. I'll post about that again closer to the day it's actually going dark, so hopefully the discussion keeps going elsewhere.
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Looks really nice. I appreciate that there are a bunch of shared cards between our lists where we've gone for very different pimp options (which also reminds me that I should update those pictures because there have been a bunch of changes since I posted mine). How do you like God-Pharaoh's Statue so far?
As for what's next, appreciate not spending money/time/effort on the project for a while? There are bound to be new cards sooner or later, so it's not like it's ever really done. If you really want to keep working on it, you could always try and pick up some of the stuff that you bring in and out. I've got a pretty good stash of foil mono-R staples at this point. You get to keep a close eye on reprint sets and judge foils too - there are a couple commander set cards that are bound to show up in those eventually. The other thing I did was to pimp out a second list (aside from BB duals) and get a generally shiny collection, which isn't really a fiscally responsible choice.
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Got Ugin, the Ineffable down last night and it was solid, in large part due to the number of walker heavy decks at the table. There weren't enough creatures to effectively pressure walkers and there were a lot of walkers splitting attention, which is more or less ideal circumstances for getting sustained value out of walkers. It stuck around for ~5 turns generating tokens, including a turn where I also had Rings of Brighthearth, and discounted 4 artifacts/All is Dust in that time, so overall paid for and replaced itself many times over. I'm guessing it's rarely going to do quite that well, but I'm more than happy to keep on running it for the time being and would recommend trying it out for anyone who's been on the fence.
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Testing those changes is complicated a little by not wanting to just keep running this deck back and playing about once a week, especially with all of the fun stuff in other colors in this set.
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We're still a few days out from the full set spoiled, but the two walkers from before have been officially confirmed. My feelings on them haven't changed. Both of them are perfectly defensible choices and are going to depend heavily on the rest of the deck and the meta. It's also worth mentioning Mycosynth Lattice in relation to Karn. I have no intention of including it even if I try new Karn, but it's worth considering in a higher power meta if you're trying to get Jaya working. It also has the benefit of working very well with a couple of other cards I like a lot for Jaya, like Vandalblast and Shattering Spree, even if it would primarily be a combo piece with Karn. I don't think that pushes it over the edge. It at least has more utility than some combo pieces.
For new cards, there have been some nice options.
Ugin, the Ineffable (name subject to change once we have an official translation) matches the earlier rumor and actually feels really nice here. Six CMC isn't too unreasonable and most mono-R decks run pretty heavy on colorless spells in my experience. The +1 is probably the most Jaya-friendly token production printed to date, because you don't care about blowing them up. Destroying a colored permanent with a colorless permanent as the source gets around a lot of protections and is likely to answer many of the problem permanents for mono-R (i.e. enchantments). This version of Ugin is probably the second strongest contender for a spot in the deck, following just behind the next new card.
Blast Zone is my favorite colorless removal option in a long time. I'm a huge fan of filling your manabase with utility, both because there are so many good options throughout Magic's history and because an artifact heavy mono-R list can afford to do it without serious repercussions. Blast Zone offers an admittedly expensive removal option with a very low opportunity cost. Coming in untapped and producing mana makes this easy to fit. It also has the potential to sweep several things and works as a somewhat limited mana sink if you want to hold mana up. The big question for me is what to cut to fit this.
Finale of Promise feels very powerful, with the caveat that I'm not sure I'm instant heavy enough to really take advantage of it. Rebuying PoP or Chaos Warp is strong, but that's pretty narrow. I don't think I like it enough with just sorceries, given that I'm already not running Recoup. This is definitely worth a look in any list that can support it better, even without the big X clause.
Jaya, Venerated Firemage I'll mostly mention because it's Jaya. I love the art, but I don't think the card does enough. Jaya feels much better in something like a goblin list, where you're likely to have red tokens that can take advantage of the static ability.
Sarkhan, the Masterless gets a mention because I've talked about all of the other walkers so far. I'm not even a little tempted here because he's unsurprisingly dragon focused.
I know I want Blast Zone and I'm pretty sure Ugin is worth a slot. The big thing that I run into here is the same problem as with every new set or overlooked option, what to cut. The strongest possibility for the utility land is Wastes. I like having that to search up in a pinch but it's really just supporting Kozilek, the Great Distortion, which already comes out very late. I don't think I would really miss it, despite effectively lowering the number of colorless sources in the deck. The other option would be Buried Ruin, which gets activated on a pretty regular basis. For Ugin, I think I'd be looking at one of the phoenix, probably Skarrgan Firebird. While I appreciate having the option of recurring it, it mostly functions as a beater and Ugin can fill a similar role while also generating card advantage. Magma Phoenix has a little more utility, plays better with a broader selection of equipment, and comes down cheaper.
Odds are pretty bad that we get much more out of this set, though there are still a few potentially good spoilers yet to come. There are already two very promising options to try out, which is above the curve for this deck, so I'm not complaining if that's the case.
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Despite the set not being fully spoiled yet, I figure I can give some thoughts in progress. We've actually gotten a couple neat spoilers so far.
Burning Prophet - If it was a little less fragile, it would be kind of tempting. This deck is pretty heavily noncreature and repeated scry triggers are good selection. Unfortunately for this card, the reason the deck is so noncreature heavy is to make it more hostile to creatures so I can't see this lasting.
Dreadhorde Arcanist - Same song, second verse. Recasting cheap spells is nice and I'm already running equipment and anthems that could buff it up but I doubt it would get many chances to actually do something. This looks like much more of a 60 card constructed player.
Honor the God-Pharoah - More small looting. Creating a 1/1 token is a small upside that could occasionally be useful. It's probably not enough upside to justify 3 CMC unless you're going super deep on this effect.
Mizzium Tank - I like this card a lot conceptually, not so much in practice. There are some turns here that could make this into a significant threat and it's easy to protect from creature wipes. Swinging for what will probably be 3-5 damage typically isn't worth a card slot.
Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion - My feelings on this guy are similar to the last Neheb. It's a great effect for the deck on a body that's likely to die quickly. It's a much better fit in a more aggressive list, which is where I'll be playing around with it.
Tibalt, Rakish Instigator - Mostly because of the novelty of talking about a Tibalt card that isn't terrible. "Opponents can't gain life" is a great effect and I think this is the first time we've seen this in mono-R (as opposed to a universal "Players can't gain life"). It's a little too easy to remove and the -2 is low impact, so I don't see this having a serious shot at inclusion. It's still a neat card.
God-Pharaoh's Statue - Lopsided double Sphere of Resistance is very powerful. It comes down too late to be a truly great card. I could definitely see this in the right deck given the slower pace of EDH games, at least in the metas where Jaya is an actual player, and this deck's late game goals.
Emergence Zone - Makes it much easier to hold up mana for Jaya despite the deck being heavily biased towards sorcery speed. The issue with any new utility land is finding an old one to cut, which gets more and more difficult as time goes on. The worst one I'm currently running is Buried Ruin and I'm not in any hurry to get rid of that.
Karn's Bastion - Obviously plays well with the number of planeswalkers I have. My concerns here are more gameplay pattern related. For this to be effective, you're most likely in one of two scenarios. First, you got to untap with a walker. You're probably already in pretty good shape if you can protect the board that well or it's early enough in the game that you would be better served progressing your board further for when your walker gets answered. Second, you have enough mana to play the walker and activate this in a single turn. For most of the walkers I have, it's not going to make much of a difference if they come in with one more starting loyalty. either I can protect them well enough that it's irrelevant or I wasn't expecting them to live to untap. I don't think this is impactful enough to merit cutting another utility land for it.
Mobilized District - This is a neat card. Activation cost is likely to be 3 or less in this format and the body is large enough to be relevant on some boards. I like to consider anything that is only a creature when I want it for this deck, even when they seem lower powered for the format. I would eventually like another creature or token source in my manabase even if this isn't the one that makes the cut.
In addition to those, we've gotten a couple spoilers that aren't confirmed yet. Most of the cards from the same source look legit, we just haven't seen official confirmation on wording, etc.
Karn, the Great Creator - It's a lopsided Null Rod. That alone makes this worthy of consideration. Turning artifacts into beaters and rebuying exiled artifacts are neat effects, but this would absolutely be played for the static ability. At 4 CMC that's a respectable speed bump because it still comes down early enough to screw with the part of the game where people are ramping.
Chandra, Fire Artisan - The floor on this is efficiently costed cantrip Lava Axe. I like this more than a couple of her earlier iterations because it finally lets you play lands off the exile, which has been a major sticking point for me. I'm still not big on letting my opponents attack my sources of card advantage with creatures so I'll see how I feel as we get to the actual set release.
There's also an even more unconfirmed wording for Ugin in the rumor mill. I'll hold off on discussing that until we have something more than hearsay from a Chinese message board, but I do like that card if it turns out to be legit.
Nothing spoiled so far that I'm definitely finding a place for, plenty that could be a good fit or fit into a different list. I appreciate that most of the things I like here fit more utilitarian roles than big bomb-y ones, so hopefully the rest of the set follows suit.
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@Weebo - Karn has been solid. Mostly a better Out Post Siege which sometimes drops big betters. Because my list runs so many planewalkers I find all of his abilities to be relevant. Switching over to the OG Kozilek allows me to recast him later in the game and pick up cards that have silver counters on them. Also it's interesting as karn has so much loyalty that usually its safe to drop him on turn 3-4 and start up ticking him. I could see running other cards in his slot but he fits the "theme" of the deck for me and provides blockers or draws cards doesn't die to Ugin or All is Dust. Jaya's Inferno is bonkers for my list. I run enough planewalkers and legends I'm rarely worried about that cast requirements and Commit Storm / Jaya's Inferno / Rolling Earthquake off a Goggles or Mana Doubler or Mana Geyser is usually how I win games. It's just a better Commit Storm usually.
@Flux277 - glad someone else is having success with the looting package. I think Pyromancer Goggles is just and insanely powerful effect having made us of it I can't see ever playing a mostly red deck and not wanting to use it.
I'll have to give Karn a shot at some point. I like putting cards in hand a lot but I'm not convinced about giving an opponent the choice of the top two, with no guarantee that I'll get a second activation. It's also appealing that I'll frequently have enough artifacts out to make his constructs survive an Inferno. I run enough equipment that making tokens is a nice option.
On Goggles, have you given any thought to Primal Amulet? There are a few more hoops to jump through to get the equivalent effect and I'm not sure whether there are enough instants and sorceries in the list to really take advantage (I'm sitting at 17 currently with the looting package). The front side isn't useless but obviously not the reason to play the card.
Thank you for keeping this updated.
I stumbled into foil Jaya at a vintage stock sale and just had to build her. Unfortunately, with so many commander options since then she has been left behind by good deck builders (of which I am not) so I thank you for probably the most kept up decklist I have ever seen. I hope you keep coming back to this thread to keep us updated
Thanks for reading! I'm not planning on retiring this deck any time soon. It's by far my longest running deck and one of the rare ones that I don't tear apart after a month or two. If you're looking for more inspiration, you should definitely check out lists from the other posters in this thread. There are quite a few lists that people have been working on for years at this point so you should have plenty of options to think about.
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@sjsilver, I'm very interested in hearing how little Karn works out. I've liked it a lot in other formats, but it's primarily been a source of big beaters there. Thae card advantage seems like the much more relevant ability for Jaya. Have you played Jaya's Immolating Inferno much yet? It's another one that looks good, assuming you can actually cast it. I've had a lot of success running heavier burn in a couple decks recently and it seems like a natural fit in Jaya.
I haven't seen PoP since I added it, but I've killed a number of people with that and Acidic Soil in other decks in the last couple weeks. Soil seems a little dangerous here, but I'm looking forward to PoP blowing people out. Small loot has been fine. I haven't really missed any of the stuff that was cut and I haven't had any trouble playing it, so I'm going to keep going that direction for the time being. It's also forced some people to play a little more conservatively just by having it in the deck. If someone dies to PoP once or twice, they're a lot more likely to play as if you're holding it in future games. It's a weird dynamic where having access to the burst damage actually slows the game down a little.
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Electrodominance has grown on me more as I've thought about it more. I think I was initially undervaluing the instant speed cheating of all other spells. I don't hate having another instant speed x-cost burn spell, either. Those make great finishers. I was going to pick one up either way (and preordered a nonfoil set for other formats) so maybe it moves up on my list of things to try.
I'm not a huge fan of the regular impulse draw, like Outpost Siege and friends. If it's the best option we have I'm still going to go for it, but I'm never thrilled with it. The lasting impulse draw, which up until now has only been Commune with Lava, has been excellent. I don't know how much of that is the instant speed and how much of that is the larger window to use the cards, but it's been substantially better one way or another. Light Up the Stage feels like it has a lot of potential thanks to the spectacle cost and I'm optimistic about it.
Nesting Dragon as board recovery after you blow everything up does sound good. How often have the eggs been a deterrent for people swinging at you? If it plays as a way to make people overcommit to the board before you nuke it in addition to recovering from the nuke, I may have to give it another look. There's a decent amount of landfall support in my list even without Ghirapur Orrery.
Has anyone, probably one of the more burn focused players, tried out Price of Progress? I've liked it a lot in more aggressive decks and have effectively 25 basics out of 38 lands (21 basics and 4 fetches), with 2 more that find basics (Myriad Landscape, Thawing Glaciers), 2 more beyond that that could be basics(Vesuva, Thespian's Stage), and 5 that can sacrifice themselves (Buried Ruin, Inventors' Fair, Petrified Field, Strip Mine, Wasteland). It's probably rare that I would ever do more than a 4-6 damage to myself and I've played plenty of games where this represents 10-20 damage to the rest of the table. I'm looking at ways to make the deck a little more red than artifact and casting PoP a couple times feels like a win con. Bonus points if it enables Jaya Ballard more, because I'd still like to run her at some point.
Aside, I really wish Recoup hit instants. I frequently only want to flashback one spell off Past in Flames, but it's frequently one of the handful of instants I run. If I do add PoP that hurts Rrecoup's chances of being good here even more.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
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My concern is that it's too high profile. Jaya threatens a lot of decks already. Blue decks have a strong incentive to remove her without any support cards, any deck relying on a small general doesn't want her on the table, and really no one other than the pilot wants her to stick with enough mana to activate the third ability. Increasing that to every deck at the table at all stages of the game is a big part of why I don't run Distorting Lens, despite the power.
There's definitely something to be said for running cards that function as removal magnets. I'd much rather lose a Servant than a Gauntlet effect to artifact hate and Jaya can be repeatedly replayed. They also come with enormous upside most of the time. If Painter and Jaya both stick, the effect is unquestionably great. The downside is that not every removal spell in a multiplayer format is aimed at you and the deck does make extensive use of Jaya as is, so additional incentives to target you are an actual downside.
This also feels like a good time to try Imperial Recruiter again, and to find a spot for Goblin Engineer. Having a high impact, low CMC artifact creature makes that entire package much more cohesive. I'm not sure what the cuts for those are yet.
I'm also in no particular hurry to make edits right now. There have been a lot of changes to the deck recently and I still haven't even seen all of those in game yet.
The other one I'd be curious about is Command Beacon. Jaya's activated abilities are pretty mana hungry, so going down a land to recast more cheaply doesn't seem quite as useful here as in other lists until you get up to the third cast or so. Nonbasic lands are also one of the places I've had the most trouble fitting everything that I'd like to run, so those slots are kind of precious to me.
On the whole I like it a lot. It looks like there's a lot of explosive potential with the spell copying and the burn spells, which is a really fun place to be late in the game.
For my list post-MH1, I swapped Magma Phoenix→Tectonic Reformation. I've found that I usually have enough to do that I don't recur the Phoenix all that often. There's a pretty good chance it comes back in for either Jaya Ballard or Dire Fleet Daredevil at some point - I like having the option to recur, even if I don't use it all that often, and I'm feeling a little light on fliers. I might also look into some of the other phoenix and dragons that I've either passed on before or cut from the deck in the past. I've found them really useful for carrying equipment and chipping in some damage to help supplement the burn plan.
I don't have a cut in mind for Prismatic Vista yet. Mountain is an option, because it's not appreciably dropping the basic land count in terms of cards off the top and it's rare for me to actually get all of my basics out of the deck. I haven't wanted to go below 20 in the past, which has me a little hesitant. I also kind of want to fit the Wastes back in the deck once Vista is in, possibly Endbringer as well. That would give me thirteen colorless sources, which is enough to play Endbringer on curve 85% of the time and activate the card draw a turn later 60% of the time. The odds obviously get quite a bit better as the game goes on too. With the chip damage and combat manipulation options on top of that, it seems like it's probably a good fit. The downside being that I'd have to find even more cuts to make that fit.
I'm thinking of trying to do a large scale primer update when MTGNexus opens up. The existing formatting is already a little broken from the Curse acquisition (many years ago) and I never got around to fixing it. The new site is supposed to have very similar BBCode with expanded options, so it's likely some of it will break further and there will be opportunities to pretty it up a bit. It also needs some content reworking, to better reflect some of the new card options and changing thoughts on the old ones. It's tough to promise anything or give a timeline on it because of how much work needs to be done, but it's certainly time to attempt it.
I've only seen Frenzy a couple times, but I've liked it a lot. It's usually drawn a removal spell pretty quickly so I haven't really felt stuck with cards in hand. Accumulating cards in hand while still progressing a board state has been nice. I'm still waiting for the Frenzy play where I hit a long string of lands or something, because it's bound to happen sooner or later. Reformation also plays really nicely with it, because every time you hit a land you basically get to just pay R to move past it, and I'd like to see that interaction happen at least once. Frenzy's slot in the deck is obviously not set in stone, but I've really liked how it plays so far.
Engineer is the one I'm least sure about. The Welder-lite ability is OK but won't grab the things I most want to weld, and I'm not sure how well I can take advantage of the entomb. I like the card a lot, but I haven't gone deep to see if this deck supports it as built.
We also just got the first few M20 spoilers, and they're all Chandra. Chandra, Novice Pyromancer is clearly for a different deck and that's OK. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame is getting closer to good here. I'm not heavy enough on red walkers or cheap instants and sorceries (even if another way to flashback Comet Storm is usually welcome), so that's unlikely to make the cut either. Chandra, Awakened Inferno is in the spoiler below. I love the +2 so much. I don't think it's even that good in a 40 life format, but I love it. I'll happily drop this and spend a bunch of resources trying to protect it so I can stack those emblems. It reminds me a lot of Obsidian Fireheart, which is a card I try and run more often than I probably should. I'll probably try and run both of them simultaneously at some point after Chandra drops.
As an attempt at slightly less biased evaluation, the cons are that 6 CMC is a lot and the damage is glacially slow if you can't stack emblems. The pro is that uncounterable means that you're almost always getting some return on investment, barring a handful of counters that don't actually counter or a stifle effect on the activation. There are very few things more inevitable than an emblem under opponent control as well, which is appealing for a control deck. It also starts at 6, immediately ticks to 8, and the emblem ability is a plus, meaning anyone trying to stop it via creature combat probably has to commit at least a couple creatures. It's reasonable to think that you'll be able to get a second emblem some amount of the time, which makes the effect considerably better.
I'd want to get minimum 5-6 damage per opponent out of this on average to merit spending 6 mana and a card on it. That's still not great, but it's probably the best inevitability we have access to and that earns some additional points. This feels like it's worth a spot if you expect (A) to get a second activation a majority of the time and (B) that games will typically go several turns beyond 6 mana. The first condition there is killer, so this is probably borderline for the average list. Great inevitability but too slow for most games.
I'm definitely still running the card.
Red
- Aria of Flame - Fun card. The lifegain and targeted damage hopefully helps it fly under the radar a little (i.e. only one person wants to remove it, and they have a few spells before it undoes the life you gave them to begin with) and it comes down early enough to trigger on filtering effects. I'm guessing I don't have enough instants and sorceries to really take advantage.
- Force of Rage - Small effect and the alternate cost is rough. Without some kind of synergy to take advantage of the tokens, I can't see this finding a place here. I'd be surprised to see it in the format as a whole very often.
- Geomancer's Gambit - I normally would skip over targeted land destruction as a sorcery - Stone Rain has never been a serious consideration - but I like that it replaces itself. Cards are more often the bottleneck than mana unless you're wheeling, so taking out a strong nonbasic without spending a card is worth a look. While I'm not planning on making any cuts for this, it's a decent EDH spell.
- Goblin Engineer - Now we're into the good stuff. I run 14 artifacts this could recur and most of them are high impact. I'm usually happy to trade out one of my more situational artifacts for something more relevant, like getting rid of a late game Wayfarer's Bauble for a destroyed Rings, or swapping Scroll Rack out when I have no cards in hand. The tutor is the real appeal here. It can kick off one of the various card advantage/selection engines, or grab a higher cost artifact for one of the other recursion cards to bring back. I'm definitely interested in testing this out.
- Magmatic Sinkhole - Probably worse than Skred or Lightning Bolt most of the time (and snow mountains are getting easier to find with this set). Not the worst choice if you're looking for a third copy of those two, as much as I doubt most Jaya lists are.
- Pashalik Mons - Mentioned here because I love how deep this set is going on references. Decent if you're running a goblin package, hard pass otherwise. No surprise for a tribal card.
- Planebound Accomplice - Prevailing format wisdom is that you should only be running a walker if you're ok with getting a single activation out of them. I've generally found that they live longer than that, but you could do worse than this if you're running walker heavy and want to sneak Karn or Ugin in to remove something. This has better homes in more combo oriented lists in other colors. That said, it's actually fine with just its "fair" use here.
- Pyrophobia - Cowards can't block Warriors.
- Seasoned Pyromancer - Young Pyromancer grew up. Filtering or draw on the way in, instant speed token production from the yard. This feels like too small an effect for this list, but there's a chance that it plays well enough with the equipment and GY themes to be better than I'm expecting. I like having value spread around the curve so this is a weak candidate for testing. Outside of mono-R, I'll almost certainly jam it in a reanimator list somewhere.
- Shenanigans - Ohhhhh! This is a decent card and another one that should be tested out. Repeated artifact destruction is a nice effect and there isn't much of a hoop to jump through here. I've outright won games thanks to Caustic Caterpillar recursion and this has the same possibilities. I'd make sure to keep some mass hate like Vandalblast or Shattering Spree around in addition to this.
- Tectonic Reformation - It's late in the alphabet, but this is my favorite card of the set so far for Jaya. It plays very nicely with Crucible of Worlds, Experimental Frenzy, and all of the to hand land searching. When it doesn't do any of that, you can just cycle it. I do like making more land drops than is necessary in this deck because of wheels and other late game, mana intensive plays, but there's still a point where you're just looking for ways to kill the table or find one of your limited answers. This is the card I most want to run out of the set so far.
- Throes of Chaos - Basically all the same stuff that was just said about Tectonic Reformation, but with a higher startup cost. I do like that this can be freely discarded and still serve it's primary function. This feels a lot like Reality Scramble with a higher floor and a lower ceiling, and that's a card that's tempted me in the past.
Artifact/Land- Arcum's Astrolabe - If you're running a snow manabase, this is the cheapest cantrip I'm aware of in red. It's a decent grease piece if you have that and heavy artifact themes. Outside of that, I'd skip this one.
- Mox Tantalite - Very slow, small upside. If you're very focused on the late game and have heavy artifact themes, it's a little better.
- Scrapyard Recombiner - There are some very good constructs available. I'm currently running exactly 0 of them. This is a better fit for decks like Daretti, Scrap Savant that are likely to have a higher density or artifact creatures.
- Sword of Sinew and Steel - Another pro-red sword. Finding targets for the artifact is not a difficult thing in an EDH game, even if the planeswalker part of the ability is more likely to go unused. I don't think that 3 swords is necessary, especially with Goblin Engineer as an option, so this would replace one of the other two. Sword of Fire and Ice is one of the best cards in the deck, so it's not really a consideration. Sword of War and Peace has some room for discussion. The lifegain is frequently helpful and I've liked having a fast clock sometimes. I'll have to try the new one and see if I like the repeatable artifact destruction even more than that.
- Sword of Truth and Justice - Eh. The protections are generically good and the counter/proliferate is fine. I value pro-red much higher than the other colors here for obvious reasons, and the creature density is too low to go super equipment heavy. I'm not planning on trying this here at all.
- Frostwalk Bastion - Respectable manland if you're running snow. I think there are better utility land options.
- Prismatic Vista - I effectively run 4 copies of this already and I think I'm happy to go to 5. Fetches play well with Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Experimental Frenzy, Crucible of Worlds, Rings of Brighthearth, and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with very little downside. If you're running enough effects that can take advantage of this, it's great. If you're not, it's worse than a basic. This is not worth running for deck thinning. The effect on your draws is smaller than the impact of the life loss, even in EDH.
Tectonic Reformation is pretty clearly the strongest card for this deck spoiled so far and the one I'm most interested in including. After that, I think that Goblin Engineer, Shenanigans, and Sword of Sinew and Steel have the broadest applications. There are a few more that could fit depending on how your deck is constructed. On the whole, great set for EDH and for Jaya.On a sadder note, this forum is shutting down in a little over a month, which obviously means this thread is going to end. The current staff has plans to create a new forum so I'm at least going to give that a shot, including migrating this thread over. The text of the primer has lived on a local file forever and could probably use an update or three anyways. As long as that is up and running before this one goes read only, I'll also throw links in this thread to push anyone who finds it later in that direction. I'll post about that again closer to the day it's actually going dark, so hopefully the discussion keeps going elsewhere.
As for what's next, appreciate not spending money/time/effort on the project for a while? There are bound to be new cards sooner or later, so it's not like it's ever really done. If you really want to keep working on it, you could always try and pick up some of the stuff that you bring in and out. I've got a pretty good stash of foil mono-R staples at this point. You get to keep a close eye on reprint sets and judge foils too - there are a couple commander set cards that are bound to show up in those eventually. The other thing I did was to pimp out a second list (aside from BB duals) and get a generally shiny collection, which isn't really a fiscally responsible choice.
Testing those changes is complicated a little by not wanting to just keep running this deck back and playing about once a week, especially with all of the fun stuff in other colors in this set.
For new cards, there have been some nice options.
- Ugin, the Ineffable (name subject to change once we have an official translation) matches the earlier rumor and actually feels really nice here. Six CMC isn't too unreasonable and most mono-R decks run pretty heavy on colorless spells in my experience. The +1 is probably the most Jaya-friendly token production printed to date, because you don't care about blowing them up. Destroying a colored permanent with a colorless permanent as the source gets around a lot of protections and is likely to answer many of the problem permanents for mono-R (i.e. enchantments). This version of Ugin is probably the second strongest contender for a spot in the deck, following just behind the next new card.
- Blast Zone is my favorite colorless removal option in a long time. I'm a huge fan of filling your manabase with utility, both because there are so many good options throughout Magic's history and because an artifact heavy mono-R list can afford to do it without serious repercussions. Blast Zone offers an admittedly expensive removal option with a very low opportunity cost. Coming in untapped and producing mana makes this easy to fit. It also has the potential to sweep several things and works as a somewhat limited mana sink if you want to hold mana up. The big question for me is what to cut to fit this.
- Finale of Promise feels very powerful, with the caveat that I'm not sure I'm instant heavy enough to really take advantage of it. Rebuying PoP or Chaos Warp is strong, but that's pretty narrow. I don't think I like it enough with just sorceries, given that I'm already not running Recoup. This is definitely worth a look in any list that can support it better, even without the big X clause.
- Jaya, Venerated Firemage I'll mostly mention because it's Jaya. I love the art, but I don't think the card does enough. Jaya feels much better in something like a goblin list, where you're likely to have red tokens that can take advantage of the static ability.
- Sarkhan, the Masterless gets a mention because I've talked about all of the other walkers so far. I'm not even a little tempted here because he's unsurprisingly dragon focused.
I know I want Blast Zone and I'm pretty sure Ugin is worth a slot. The big thing that I run into here is the same problem as with every new set or overlooked option, what to cut. The strongest possibility for the utility land is Wastes. I like having that to search up in a pinch but it's really just supporting Kozilek, the Great Distortion, which already comes out very late. I don't think I would really miss it, despite effectively lowering the number of colorless sources in the deck. The other option would be Buried Ruin, which gets activated on a pretty regular basis. For Ugin, I think I'd be looking at one of the phoenix, probably Skarrgan Firebird. While I appreciate having the option of recurring it, it mostly functions as a beater and Ugin can fill a similar role while also generating card advantage. Magma Phoenix has a little more utility, plays better with a broader selection of equipment, and comes down cheaper.Odds are pretty bad that we get much more out of this set, though there are still a few potentially good spoilers yet to come. There are already two very promising options to try out, which is above the curve for this deck, so I'm not complaining if that's the case.
- Burning Prophet - If it was a little less fragile, it would be kind of tempting. This deck is pretty heavily noncreature and repeated scry triggers are good selection. Unfortunately for this card, the reason the deck is so noncreature heavy is to make it more hostile to creatures so I can't see this lasting.
- Dreadhorde Arcanist - Same song, second verse. Recasting cheap spells is nice and I'm already running equipment and anthems that could buff it up but I doubt it would get many chances to actually do something. This looks like much more of a 60 card constructed player.
- Honor the God-Pharoah - More small looting. Creating a 1/1 token is a small upside that could occasionally be useful. It's probably not enough upside to justify 3 CMC unless you're going super deep on this effect.
- Mizzium Tank - I like this card a lot conceptually, not so much in practice. There are some turns here that could make this into a significant threat and it's easy to protect from creature wipes. Swinging for what will probably be 3-5 damage typically isn't worth a card slot.
- Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion - My feelings on this guy are similar to the last Neheb. It's a great effect for the deck on a body that's likely to die quickly. It's a much better fit in a more aggressive list, which is where I'll be playing around with it.
- Tibalt, Rakish Instigator - Mostly because of the novelty of talking about a Tibalt card that isn't terrible. "Opponents can't gain life" is a great effect and I think this is the first time we've seen this in mono-R (as opposed to a universal "Players can't gain life"). It's a little too easy to remove and the -2 is low impact, so I don't see this having a serious shot at inclusion. It's still a neat card.
- God-Pharaoh's Statue - Lopsided double Sphere of Resistance is very powerful. It comes down too late to be a truly great card. I could definitely see this in the right deck given the slower pace of EDH games, at least in the metas where Jaya is an actual player, and this deck's late game goals.
- Emergence Zone - Makes it much easier to hold up mana for Jaya despite the deck being heavily biased towards sorcery speed. The issue with any new utility land is finding an old one to cut, which gets more and more difficult as time goes on. The worst one I'm currently running is Buried Ruin and I'm not in any hurry to get rid of that.
- Karn's Bastion - Obviously plays well with the number of planeswalkers I have. My concerns here are more gameplay pattern related. For this to be effective, you're most likely in one of two scenarios. First, you got to untap with a walker. You're probably already in pretty good shape if you can protect the board that well or it's early enough in the game that you would be better served progressing your board further for when your walker gets answered. Second, you have enough mana to play the walker and activate this in a single turn. For most of the walkers I have, it's not going to make much of a difference if they come in with one more starting loyalty. either I can protect them well enough that it's irrelevant or I wasn't expecting them to live to untap. I don't think this is impactful enough to merit cutting another utility land for it.
- Mobilized District - This is a neat card. Activation cost is likely to be 3 or less in this format and the body is large enough to be relevant on some boards. I like to consider anything that is only a creature when I want it for this deck, even when they seem lower powered for the format. I would eventually like another creature or token source in my manabase even if this isn't the one that makes the cut.
In addition to those, we've gotten a couple spoilers that aren't confirmed yet. Most of the cards from the same source look legit, we just haven't seen official confirmation on wording, etc.- Karn, the Great Creator - It's a lopsided Null Rod. That alone makes this worthy of consideration. Turning artifacts into beaters and rebuying exiled artifacts are neat effects, but this would absolutely be played for the static ability. At 4 CMC that's a respectable speed bump because it still comes down early enough to screw with the part of the game where people are ramping.
- Chandra, Fire Artisan - The floor on this is efficiently costed cantrip Lava Axe. I like this more than a couple of her earlier iterations because it finally lets you play lands off the exile, which has been a major sticking point for me. I'm still not big on letting my opponents attack my sources of card advantage with creatures so I'll see how I feel as we get to the actual set release.
There's also an even more unconfirmed wording for Ugin in the rumor mill. I'll hold off on discussing that until we have something more than hearsay from a Chinese message board, but I do like that card if it turns out to be legit.Nothing spoiled so far that I'm definitely finding a place for, plenty that could be a good fit or fit into a different list. I appreciate that most of the things I like here fit more utilitarian roles than big bomb-y ones, so hopefully the rest of the set follows suit.
On Goggles, have you given any thought to Primal Amulet? There are a few more hoops to jump through to get the equivalent effect and I'm not sure whether there are enough instants and sorceries in the list to really take advantage (I'm sitting at 17 currently with the looting package). The front side isn't useless but obviously not the reason to play the card.
Thanks for reading! I'm not planning on retiring this deck any time soon. It's by far my longest running deck and one of the rare ones that I don't tear apart after a month or two. If you're looking for more inspiration, you should definitely check out lists from the other posters in this thread. There are quite a few lists that people have been working on for years at this point so you should have plenty of options to think about.
I haven't seen PoP since I added it, but I've killed a number of people with that and Acidic Soil in other decks in the last couple weeks. Soil seems a little dangerous here, but I'm looking forward to PoP blowing people out. Small loot has been fine. I haven't really missed any of the stuff that was cut and I haven't had any trouble playing it, so I'm going to keep going that direction for the time being. It's also forced some people to play a little more conservatively just by having it in the deck. If someone dies to PoP once or twice, they're a lot more likely to play as if you're holding it in future games. It's a weird dynamic where having access to the burst damage actually slows the game down a little.
I'm not a huge fan of the regular impulse draw, like Outpost Siege and friends. If it's the best option we have I'm still going to go for it, but I'm never thrilled with it. The lasting impulse draw, which up until now has only been Commune with Lava, has been excellent. I don't know how much of that is the instant speed and how much of that is the larger window to use the cards, but it's been substantially better one way or another. Light Up the Stage feels like it has a lot of potential thanks to the spectacle cost and I'm optimistic about it.
Nesting Dragon as board recovery after you blow everything up does sound good. How often have the eggs been a deterrent for people swinging at you? If it plays as a way to make people overcommit to the board before you nuke it in addition to recovering from the nuke, I may have to give it another look. There's a decent amount of landfall support in my list even without Ghirapur Orrery.
Has anyone, probably one of the more burn focused players, tried out Price of Progress? I've liked it a lot in more aggressive decks and have effectively 25 basics out of 38 lands (21 basics and 4 fetches), with 2 more that find basics (Myriad Landscape, Thawing Glaciers), 2 more beyond that that could be basics(Vesuva, Thespian's Stage), and 5 that can sacrifice themselves (Buried Ruin, Inventors' Fair, Petrified Field, Strip Mine, Wasteland). It's probably rare that I would ever do more than a 4-6 damage to myself and I've played plenty of games where this represents 10-20 damage to the rest of the table. I'm looking at ways to make the deck a little more red than artifact and casting PoP a couple times feels like a win con. Bonus points if it enables Jaya Ballard more, because I'd still like to run her at some point.
Aside, I really wish Recoup hit instants. I frequently only want to flashback one spell off Past in Flames, but it's frequently one of the handful of instants I run. If I do add PoP that hurts Rrecoup's chances of being good here even more.