War's Toll (reprint) is a potential Jaya card too. It cuts down instant speed responses quite a bit. I honestly couldn't say if I've tried it here in the past.
Stolen Strategy is far and away my favorite card out of BBD. Etali not surviving a 6 damage hit makes it awkward for Jaya. Sticking a similar effect on an enchantment is very welcome. I'll be trying this out in place of whichever card I replaced Vance's Blasting Cannons with.
I wish Rowan Kenrith had a little more utility on the first two abilities. As is, she doesn't do enough to bump anything in the deck no matter how much I'd enjoy having that emblem around. There's a chance I get super greedy and try her out for a game or two anyways - ultimate only takes two turns to reach and I run fairly walker heavy.
I agree that Khorvath's Fury could be a good one. Stapling damage onto filtering is generally appealing and I like having ways to trade grips full of lands and phoenix for business spells. I'm not sure yet if I'm testing this concurrently with Stolen Strategy, but I would like to try it out at some point. Being able to selectively wheel opponents' hands isn't useless either.
immediate edit: This basically ended up being a set review, so I'll just mention Bonus Round here as well - generally worse than cheaper fork effects or something like Wild Ricochet or Reiterate, unless you're running very instant/sorcery heavy. Sentinel Tower is in a similar boat. I'm still happy to get a couple solid possibilities out of only 16 new cards.
- Myrmadillo
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Weebo posted a message on [[Primer]] Mono-R Control with Jaya Ballard!Posted in: Multiplayer Commander Decklists -
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Zygous posted a message on [[Primer]] Mono-R Control with Jaya Ballard!A couple cards from Battlebond look promising for a Jaya deck.Posted in: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
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. -
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Jay13x posted a message on A Vorthos Guide to Magic StoryI've updated the original post with today's Ravnica article! Only one Archive Trap left!Posted in: Vorthos Content -
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Weebo posted a message on [[Primer]] Mono-R Control with Jaya Ballard!This probably won't be a pattern, but I figure I can simultaneously watch Ash vs. Evil Dead and type out a quick set review for DOM before the release for a change.Posted in: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Colorless
Karn, Scion of Urza - The reason that artifacts and lands are showing up before red cards this time around. Karn is much, much better when he can be played in multiples. Drawing a card at a reasonable cost is great, just less so when you're always getting the worse of the top two. Token generation is passable with the artifact count but not worth a card on its own.
Amaranthine Wall - Surprisingly solid for a lower powered deck. Forcing board stalls is great when you eventually want to clear them, it walls off lower power creatures with no additional investment, and it survives Jaya's inferno with a 2 mana investment. Not contributing towards actually winning the game is a significant downside. It's still a decent stalling creature.
Blackblade Reforged - Helps Jaya live through inferno and helps provide a win con. A straight P/T boost is decent for Jaya when you can regularly get +6/+6 or better, which this should do reliably here. The biggest selling point here is that it's going to be much cheaper than Sword of Fire and Ice while being a lot more impactful than Magebane Plate, so it's worth a look if you're after a way to keep Jaya alive to blow up the world multiple times.
Damping Sphere - Decent hate card, too hit or miss for me to be a big fan. If you see a lot of lands that tap for multiple mana in your meta or a lot of decks that chain spells together, it's a reasonable choice. Take advantage of Jaya to ditch it if it looks like you're not going to get any value out of it.
Gilded Lotus - Solid mana rock reprint. Everyone knows what this does by now, it's been a format fixture for a decade or more.
Helm of the Host - I'm not creature heavy enough to take advantage of this. Has an easy infinite with Godo if you're already running him and you're looking for one of those.
Mox Amber - Fast mana is generally good, this is a little too restrictive.
Thran Temporal Gateway - Opening up Quicksilver Amulet to artifacts makes it a lot better here. Still unlikely to be good enough unless it's cheating out an expensive walker or particularly bomb-y artifact.
Urza's Tome - Looting is good. Looting that turns into card draw by eating artifacts you no longer care about in the GY is better. Costing 3 is a lot. This should be an easily available source of card selection/advantage.
Weatherlight - Triggered ability is good, crew 3 might be tough. Crew 3 is easier than Conqueror's Galleon, might still be too high to hit reliably. Threats that dodge inferno and generate card advantage are always worth a look though.
Memorial to War - There are half a dozen better options than this unless you desperately need it to tap for red. Pass.
Zhalfirin Void - Not a bad land. There are too many better lands to make this a good choice.
Red
Fight with Fire - Passable burn spell, works as a decent finisher when kicked. Probably too redundant to matter with Jaya' inferno.
The First Eruption - Too small an effect to make the mountain sac worthwhile.
The Flame of Keld - I've spent a lot of time tweaking card advantage engines to try and keep cards in hand. I like 2/3 but not enough to play One With Nothing to get there.
Ghitu Chronicler - Effect is good, sticking it on a creature is not desirable here. This comes in behind Past in Flames and Recoup.
Haphazard Bombardment - I'd like this a lot more if it could hit enchantments. As is, it's an unreliable answer for permanents that mono-R can already answer effectively.
Jaya Ballard - The one that I've been waiting for. The instant/sorcery focus means this is a little out of place. The rummaging is great and I love that it's on a +1. It's really not building toward anything, which makes this a tough include.
Jaya's Immolating Inferno - Another possible finisher. Effectively only working when Jaya is on board makes this tough, because she already fills that role pretty well. I'd rather have an X cost burn spell that I can topdeck and win, rather than one that requires me to already be in a decent position.
Squee, the Immortal - This version of Squee falls into the trap that most of the modern phoenixes do - it's too efficient for a deck focused around a spellshaper. For most decks, coming straight to battlefield is a perk. For decks that want to discard for benefit, it makes them single shot fuel with upside. Plays nicely with a lot of the things that old Squee does, not as good for discard fuel.
On the whole, nothing that screams to be put in the deck. Weatherlight is probably the strongest option if you can crew reliably because the artifact density makes it fairly consistent card advantage. There are a couple decent filtering options for lower budget builds of the deck, none of which are likely to crack my list. I'm not anticipating any changes to this deck with this set. I'll be playing a lot of the cards elsewhere - this is unquestionably the best EDH set we've had in a while. -
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Jay13x posted a message on A Vorthos Guide to Magic StoryPosted in: Vorthos Content
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor were both a series of short stories. I recommend reading Oona's page if you want to know what happened in the main plot. It occurs about 20 years after the Mending.Quote from Myrmadillo »Thank you! I greatly appreciate the effort you've put into this thread. It's helped me greatly in getting caught up on all the magic lore.
I noticed that the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Cycles are missing as well as the two Legends Cycles. Could you comment on where those would fit in the timeline?
MTG Wiki appears to have plot summaries for the Legends Cycles, but not Lorwyn-Shadowmoor. Do you have any links you'd recommend to read summaries of the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor story?
Legends I happens about 400 years after the Ice Age, while Legends II happens around 800 years ago. Check out my piece on the Elders of Dominaria (linked above) for a brief summary of Legends II. Go to Multiverse in Review for good stuff on Legends I. -
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Jay13x posted a message on Availability of Ice Age Novels (The Gathering Dark, The Eternal Ice, The Shattered Alliance)They’re available on Kindle right now. scroll down in the subforum, someone posted a thread about it. There are also links to them in the storyline resources thread.Posted in: Magic Storyline -
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acman54321 posted a message on [Primer] GoblinsYou're right, Mogg War Marshal definitely helps the go-wide strategy and has some nice synergy with FSD, Piledriver, and the Bushwhackers. It just feels like such a slow card compared to the rest of the deck!Posted in: Aggro & Tempo
The problem with Devastating Summons is you really never want 2. Even getting 1 in hand too early is problematic if you only have 1 or 2 lands.
Don't forget that you can sacrifice 0 lands and pump your FSD by +2/+0!
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Weebo posted a message on [[Primer]] Mono-R Control with Jaya Ballard!Carrying on a proud tradition of procrastination, I'm going to do my initial set review for RIX the day the full spoiler drops despite having a bunch of stuff to get done. Without further ado,Posted in: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Red
Blood Sun - I love the cantrip. I don't love that it's guaranteed to heavily inconvenience me thanks to my heavy reliance on nonbasics and not guaranteed to do anything to my opponents. If you're playing a less techy manabase than I am, this is a solid include. I wouldn't run it over OG (Magus of the) Moon if you have access to that.
Brass's Bounty - Enormous ritual. I like this a lot if you have a use for the treasures beyond saccing them for mana. If it's just a ritual, this feels like too much of a do nothing card without an excessive number of lands and/or a mana doubler. It sets up a great following turn that everyone at the table knows is coming, which leaves a lot of time to disrupt and prepare.
Dire Fleet Daredevil - Standout card from the set. The downside of not being able to plan what role this fills during deck construction is massively outweighed by the utility that it offers in a multiplayer game. This is costed to be potentially eternal playable so don't sleep too long on it if you're interested. Odds are good that standard isn't the driving demand for this card.
Etali, Primal Storm - Solid finisher and Jaya already wants haste. Not surviving inferno is obviously a downside. That said, it generates so much card advantage that it probably eats a Doom Blade before that's ever relevant and a single anthem/equip gets it into safe range. This is the first 6 toughness big beater that I've been tempted by in a while, maybe since Inferno Titan.
Mutiny - Potentially decent budget removal. Sorcery hurts it a lot, as do the targeting restrictions. I wouldn't run this before Bolt.
Silverclad Ferocidons - This is the best enrage option we've seen this block. There are a few ways to do chip damage in here and it plays as nicely with inferno as any creature that dies to it. My gut feeling is that it falls into the camp of pricey answers to problem permanents, but my heart really wants to land this and Kumano, Master Yamabushi simultaneously. It has a place in slower metas and more budget builds.
Tilonalli's Summoner - Oddly enough, also a decent finisher. This deck tends to play towards the very late game and aims to have a large mana advantage over everything but the dedicated ramp decks. X-cost token production plays well with that. There's some political potential in that you can swing into one player with the 1/1 and send the elemental horde a different direction. Plays nicely with the anthem on Gauntlet effects (as well as mana doubling, obviously). I like this more here than I initially thought i was going to. I don't think there's anything that I would cut for it, though.
Artifact/Land
Arch of Orazca - Solid when drawn or tutored late, less so early game. Aside from the obvious, the ability is a overcosted for a single card. Sticking on a land cuts down on the opportunity cost quite a bit. If you have space for another colorless nonbasic, this is a reasonable consideration.
Azor's Gateway - Right off the bat, evaluate this based on the front. The back is obviously powerful and it's rarely going to get there undisrupted in a multiplayer EDH game without some kind of combo. The front is potentially good enough. Reasonably priced looting is good to have for mono-R. Looting to exile is much worse when you have various GY effects. This is tough to evaluate without playing it.
Golden Guardian - Wholly dependent on how reliably you can flip it, which is going to be deck dependent, because the back is very desirable here. There are some good tricks like fighting something small in response to a wrath, or fighting Stuffy Doll at basically any point. I have very few creatures large enough to just kill it in a fight so it's a tough sell for me.
The Immortal Sun - I talked about this briefly when it was spoiled and my thoughts are much the same. I run a little walker heavy to be really comfortable with this, though it may be good enough to overlook that anti-synergy. if you're not running walker heavy - which probably means a little more of a creature focus for closing games - this is a great card. Card draw and cost reduction are very solid effects for any controlling list, plus mono-R is already used to paying 6 for that kind of thing. I'll try this at some point, probably over a Chandra to cut down walker counts a little, and would recommend at least giving it a trial.
Orazca Relic - Off-brand Mind Stone. I like mana rocks that can cycle late, I don't so much like that you can't play this as early development and still get the effect. Three mana for a one mana rock is a poor return as well. If you're looking for something past Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere, and Hedron Archive, this is probably the next best in category. That's probably going too deep on those and I would stick to other 2 CMC rocks.
Silent Gravestone - Decent GY hate. While I play out of the yard pretty heavily, most of it doesn't involve targeted effects. Reanimation in EDH is heavily weighted towards targeted spells and abilities, so this is a nice roadblock that can be cashed in for a more permanent solution and replacement card late. This may be a better option than Relic of Progenitus for a GY heavy Jaya list, and a little worse to even with Tormod's Crypt.
The rundown: Dire Fleet Daredevil is one of the best cards printed for this deck in some time so I'm definitely finding a spot for that. Immortal Sun has a lot going for it despite the high CMC and is another potential include. Beyond those two, I run into the same problem I always have with new cards: I have to cut an old card to make room for them. There are a few that I would consider if I was building from scratch, specifically Azor's Gateway and Silent Gravestone, that are tough to fit into a six year old list.
As usual, let me know if there's something that I'm missing or that you're curious what I think about. Red this set is geared very midrange and a lot of the high impact EDH cards are multicolored so there aren't a ton of borderline cards. -
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DementedKirby posted a message on Zada - Grinding Up An Arcane StormPosted in: Multiplayer Commander DecklistsQuote from Myrmadillo »Any thoughts on Land's Edge? It is mentioned on the first page of this thread in a positive light, but never comes up again.
I like that it gives you something to do with extraneous lands in hand, but I'm guessing it just isn't enough damage to be worth it. Discarding 20 lands does 60 damage (enough to kill a player and half). However, to have that many lands in hand, you'd have to draw ~55 cards, which would be game over with Psychosis Crawler. I guess I'm just looking for a second opinion to confirm my suspicions.
It's just as you said, Psychosis Crawler is much better in taking advantage over how you're drawing than Land's Edge does. To put it into perspective, I never even considered Land's Edge for my own deck. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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I haven't picked up Act on Impulse yet. Was it underperforming for you or why did it get the axe? I've found Tower of Fortunes generally sits in my hand because I rarely have the 8 mana to dump into it, but you've got much better mana sources to power it than me.
I'll keep Aladdin in mind. I originally skipped over him in favor of Viashino Heretic. I'm feeling pretty good about Into the Core, Viashino Heretic, and Brittle Effigy right now, but we'll see how things shake out.