I'd say one thing about the dragons, most threats really, is don't expect them to stick.
I've absolutly had games where I plop down Scourge and I'm just able to suit him up with equipment and ride him to victory against a deck that can't deal with me being about to easily answer their creatues just by tapping mana. Even if they don't stick for a long time and you only get them for a short time, those are cards your opponents have to kill because even if their current board isn't under threat from the dragon, that invisible power becomes a threat again. They just can't play out random token army cards and hope things work while that is on the table.
Try them. I think they play out much better in actual games then they look from just reading the card.
I was expecting God-Pharaoh's Statue to not be that good of a card, but I wanted to try it anyway because it's kind of ramp in that it'll slow your opponents down. I also expect it to just be annoying enough that if somebody does draw a Disenchant, they'll shot it and not my other stuff that is probably more important.
I've only managed to draw it in two games so far.
The first game I got it, it didn't come down till super late game. We were already down to a 1v1, but it was still pretty relevant because my opponent just couldn't chain spells. He could play 2 creatures or 1 creature 1 kill spell and he needed the extra mana to play all 3 cards that turn to stabalize, so it did contribute to the win.
Second game, I got it turn 4 after a Sol Ring start. I got to zoom ahead, while teo other players got to durdle around and kind of keep up with me, but one player fell lreally far behind because he kept a mana light hand that could not cast spells costing an extra 2. The statue did eat a kill spell eventually, but I did have a players tell me they were really blown away by how strong that card was.
It's probably always going to be a card that doesn't "feel" that good to have out, because you're not really denying them from playing, you're just making their spells more mana inefficent; but it'll always have an element of invisible power to it. There are probably going to be many situations where the Green/X deck just top decks Hoof with several creatues in play, but doesn't have enough to actually cast hoof through the statue that I will never know about unless somebody points it out.
I do tend to change the deck up pretty often. There are a couple anti-creature stax cards in right now that I often swap out for Forks if I feel the meta shifting to spell heavy decks.
After playing Jaya EDH for years upon years, I've got it it 99% pimped out.
Everything that can be foil is foil. There is one one white border card that may eventually get upgrades to a black border version, but that card tends to come in and out of the deck often enough that I'm happy with where I have the deck currently.
For you pimps out there, what's next? I really don't any another deck I'd like to go all out with and I prefer english cards to forign.
I decided to test out Eye of Ugin my my own list because Trippy mentioned it.
It's been resonably good, but I do play four Eldrazi titans. Really reminds me of when I used to play Planar Portal, because you almost always used it to tutor up a titan or in rare cases Ugin for removal. Going to keep testing with it.
I'm trying out a version of Jaya that is going overboard on Fork effects. I feel like EDH has entered the era of Expropriate and Torment of Hellfire and a red deck getting to join in on those powerful plays is good.
Skullclamp is clearly a good card, but I never liked it in Jaya because you don't have much to clamp except for Squee and Kobald tokens. I think there is a case to be made for taking it out, but then you might ba able to put more support for it in to make a stronger card.
I played Neheb, the Eternal in my deck for a bit and while I did get some wins from afflict; he doesn't really have as much of an impact as I'd like in my own list, which is a bit disappointing because he's very good at the helm of a mono red deck. I often found him just getting removed or then small amount of mana I did get wasn't used for anything.
A couple cards from Battlebond look promising for a Jaya deck.
Victory Chimes - Ignore the ability to gift someone else mana; that's rarely if ever going to be something you want to do in FFA commander games. A rock that untaps everyturn is just good on it's own. It has great synergy with Mind's Eye and one extra mana on each opponent's turn can be super helpful for getting top activations or just holding up enough mana to threaten Jaya activations.
Khorvath's Fury - It's Chandra, Flamecaller's 0 ability for one less mana with the ability to Sudden Impact all your opponents. It's going to lose out to Chandra if she lives for multiple turns, but it's hard to keep a walker around for many turns. Sudden Impact effects can be very good in commander too.
Stolen Strategy - Not quite as good as the Etali, Primal Storm trigger every upkeep, but being able to psedo draw a card off each opponent's deck is likely to cause all sorts of craziness.
I am not sure how I feel about Dire Fleet Daredevil. It's nice that it is cheap, but I do not like that it is limited to only the turn it is cast. I also do not like that it is limited to Instant/Sorcery (would be OP if it did everything obviously). Let us know when you see it in games and what it does.
I have the same problem as you Weebo. This mono red shell has been here for years...it is tough to find cuts.
Mt thinking is that the most common types of instant and sorceries you are going to see in graveyards are ramp spells, tutors, and removal. Every once in a while, somebody will have a crazy bomb spell in the graveyard to steal, like a Time Warp or Insurrection; but those will be rare. I think that paying 5 for a 2/1 plus Cultivate or 4 for a 2/1 plus Demonic Tutor seems strong. Ofsource, there is only so much I can say about the card until it comes out and we actually get to play with it.
Just over 1/3rd of the set is spoiled so far and I'm already hyped for 4 cards in the set. Jaya is super hard to make cuts in already. Going to be really hard to try out everything I want.
So far I am not seeing much I am interested in for Jaya. Perhaps next set.
I have been looking into acquiring an Ensnaring Bridge. When my play group whips out their critter decks I seem to be getting targeted (when I have a bunch of artifacts out) or taken out in a big swing. I like the synergy Bridge has with Jaya. I know that we play a lot of cards that attempt to restock our hand but I feel like when we are playing Mono-red it is ok to have an effect like this in the list. Thoughts?
We still have half the set to be revelaed. Plenty of room for a good card or two.
On the topic of Ensnaring Bridge; I've been playing it in my own deck for a long time and I've very happy with how the card performs. It's good at covering one of the decks main weaknesses; that being lack of releveant blockers, so you just get atatcked relenetlessly by the first person with a 6/6 down who is looking for a soft target. You usually do not have to be fully hellbent for it to do it's job, which is good for us. Bridge just being on the battlefield turns off many voltron type decks, the vast majority of goodstuff ETB creatures that go into combat, and the ever-present Craterhoof Behemoth. The main reason to consider it in Jaya is that while she is adept at handeling small creature and large swarms of medium sized creatures; anything with a butt of 7 or better is safe and Bridge makes sure those 7/7s don't get to attack. (0/7 creatures can still attack even if you are hellbent, so watch out for Doran) The other interaction worth mentioning is that you can use Jaya at instant speed as a discard outlet. I've used her to pitch a card at the atart of combat, thus raising the bridge so someone couldn't attack with a threatening creature.
Mana Geyser and Reiterate can go infinite without any other card needed, you just need some way to spend the mana.
Myrmadillo , I was looking at cards a few days ago and noticed a few mana rocks that I'm even thinking about for my own Jaya deck. Those being Seer's Lantern and Magnifying Glass, I'm more intrigued by the glass then the lanturn, because it can actually draw cards as opposed to just scrying. I wont if either of these cards wouldn't just be strict upgrades over some of your manarocks.
Has anyone done much testing with Extraplanar Lens and can offer an opinion? I don't like opening myself up for to a 2-for-1, but double mana is really powerful.
If you want them foil, then you need to see them in foil and evaluate based on that. You don't want to be disappointed by the foiling.
One thing I'll mention because of lore is that the only plane Jaya has been known to have been to besides Dominaria (during the ice age) is Regatha. There are some Regathan mountains in Magic Origins, but they aren't anything special IMO. However, consdiering how WotC has been hitting the origins planes regularly with the new sets, we may be in for a Regatha set at some point in the next few years, which will hopefully have some sexy foil mountains that are also a flavor win for Jaya.
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I've absolutly had games where I plop down Scourge and I'm just able to suit him up with equipment and ride him to victory against a deck that can't deal with me being about to easily answer their creatues just by tapping mana. Even if they don't stick for a long time and you only get them for a short time, those are cards your opponents have to kill because even if their current board isn't under threat from the dragon, that invisible power becomes a threat again. They just can't play out random token army cards and hope things work while that is on the table.
Try them. I think they play out much better in actual games then they look from just reading the card.
I've only managed to draw it in two games so far.
The first game I got it, it didn't come down till super late game. We were already down to a 1v1, but it was still pretty relevant because my opponent just couldn't chain spells. He could play 2 creatures or 1 creature 1 kill spell and he needed the extra mana to play all 3 cards that turn to stabalize, so it did contribute to the win.
Second game, I got it turn 4 after a Sol Ring start. I got to zoom ahead, while teo other players got to durdle around and kind of keep up with me, but one player fell lreally far behind because he kept a mana light hand that could not cast spells costing an extra 2. The statue did eat a kill spell eventually, but I did have a players tell me they were really blown away by how strong that card was.
It's probably always going to be a card that doesn't "feel" that good to have out, because you're not really denying them from playing, you're just making their spells more mana inefficent; but it'll always have an element of invisible power to it. There are probably going to be many situations where the Green/X deck just top decks Hoof with several creatues in play, but doesn't have enough to actually cast hoof through the statue that I will never know about unless somebody points it out.
I do tend to change the deck up pretty often. There are a couple anti-creature stax cards in right now that I often swap out for Forks if I feel the meta shifting to spell heavy decks.
Everything that can be foil is foil. There is one one white border card that may eventually get upgrades to a black border version, but that card tends to come in and out of the deck often enough that I'm happy with where I have the deck currently.
For you pimps out there, what's next? I really don't any another deck I'd like to go all out with and I prefer english cards to forign.
It paid off big time when I got to copy Expropriate 5 times tonight.
It's been resonably good, but I do play four Eldrazi titans. Really reminds me of when I used to play Planar Portal, because you almost always used it to tutor up a titan or in rare cases Ugin for removal. Going to keep testing with it.
I'm trying out a version of Jaya that is going overboard on Fork effects. I feel like EDH has entered the era of Expropriate and Torment of Hellfire and a red deck getting to join in on those powerful plays is good.
Skullclamp is clearly a good card, but I never liked it in Jaya because you don't have much to clamp except for Squee and Kobald tokens. I think there is a case to be made for taking it out, but then you might ba able to put more support for it in to make a stronger card.
I played Neheb, the Eternal in my deck for a bit and while I did get some wins from afflict; he doesn't really have as much of an impact as I'd like in my own list, which is a bit disappointing because he's very good at the helm of a mono red deck. I often found him just getting removed or then small amount of mana I did get wasn't used for anything.
Victory Chimes - Ignore the ability to gift someone else mana; that's rarely if ever going to be something you want to do in FFA commander games. A rock that untaps everyturn is just good on it's own. It has great synergy with Mind's Eye and one extra mana on each opponent's turn can be super helpful for getting top activations or just holding up enough mana to threaten Jaya activations.
Khorvath's Fury - It's Chandra, Flamecaller's 0 ability for one less mana with the ability to Sudden Impact all your opponents. It's going to lose out to Chandra if she lives for multiple turns, but it's hard to keep a walker around for many turns. Sudden Impact effects can be very good in commander too.
Stolen Strategy - Not quite as good as the Etali, Primal Storm trigger every upkeep, but being able to psedo draw a card off each opponent's deck is likely to cause all sorts of craziness.
Mt thinking is that the most common types of instant and sorceries you are going to see in graveyards are ramp spells, tutors, and removal. Every once in a while, somebody will have a crazy bomb spell in the graveyard to steal, like a Time Warp or Insurrection; but those will be rare. I think that paying 5 for a 2/1 plus Cultivate or 4 for a 2/1 plus Demonic Tutor seems strong. Ofsource, there is only so much I can say about the card until it comes out and we actually get to play with it.
We still have half the set to be revelaed. Plenty of room for a good card or two.
I'm thinking of trying out Oracle's Vault and Glorybringer.
On the topic of Ensnaring Bridge; I've been playing it in my own deck for a long time and I've very happy with how the card performs. It's good at covering one of the decks main weaknesses; that being lack of releveant blockers, so you just get atatcked relenetlessly by the first person with a 6/6 down who is looking for a soft target. You usually do not have to be fully hellbent for it to do it's job, which is good for us. Bridge just being on the battlefield turns off many voltron type decks, the vast majority of goodstuff ETB creatures that go into combat, and the ever-present Craterhoof Behemoth. The main reason to consider it in Jaya is that while she is adept at handeling small creature and large swarms of medium sized creatures; anything with a butt of 7 or better is safe and Bridge makes sure those 7/7s don't get to attack. (0/7 creatures can still attack even if you are hellbent, so watch out for Doran) The other interaction worth mentioning is that you can use Jaya at instant speed as a discard outlet. I've used her to pitch a card at the atart of combat, thus raising the bridge so someone couldn't attack with a threatening creature.
Myrmadillo , I was looking at cards a few days ago and noticed a few mana rocks that I'm even thinking about for my own Jaya deck. Those being Seer's Lantern and Magnifying Glass, I'm more intrigued by the glass then the lanturn, because it can actually draw cards as opposed to just scrying. I wont if either of these cards wouldn't just be strict upgrades over some of your manarocks.
Has anyone done much testing with Extraplanar Lens and can offer an opinion? I don't like opening myself up for to a 2-for-1, but double mana is really powerful.
One thing I'll mention because of lore is that the only plane Jaya has been known to have been to besides Dominaria (during the ice age) is Regatha. There are some Regathan mountains in Magic Origins, but they aren't anything special IMO. However, consdiering how WotC has been hitting the origins planes regularly with the new sets, we may be in for a Regatha set at some point in the next few years, which will hopefully have some sexy foil mountains that are also a flavor win for Jaya.