I've found Dreamstone Hedron to be a solid budget card. I almost never have enough mana to do everything I want to on a turn, and 3 extra mana can really help. As a 6 mana drop, I can cast it for 6 and then tap it immediately to cast a Darksteel Plate or other 3 cost artifact. On the next turn I'll have 9-10 mana, which is a pretty big boost that allows me to empty my hand faster. Once I run low on cards or find I have more than enough mana, I can sacrifice to replenish my hand.
Keep in mind that my low budget means I have no mana doublers, so this is one of the few ways I can get a bit of a mana spike in my deck. I also think my deck's mana curve has been a bit high in the past (I've been gradually reducing it over time), so that probably exacerbated my need for the extra mana.
The thing about Dreamstone Hedron is that at 9 mana for 3 cards it is actually quite mana efficient when compared to other budget card draw options. On a budget, 3 mana per card is typically as good as you can expect to get. Seer's Sundial, for example, costs 10 total mana for 3 cards and generally takes 3 turns assuming you hit your land drops (granted, you can continue to use it and get 4 cards for 12 mana, etc.). Dreamstone Hedron has the advantage that you can use it as a large mana rock and, when you want them, you can draw your 3 cards immediately rather than having to wait around.
I used to run Tower of Fortunes as well. If you consistently hit 8 mana, I think it is one of the best options out there. I ultimately removed it from my deck because, while I can consistently hit 7 mana to bring Jaya's inferno online, 8 mana has been hit or miss for me. The times I did have 8 mana and Tower of Fortunes in hand, I was too busy casting Jaya's inferno or doing other things with my mana to stay alive.
I have not actually played Hedron Archive in a game yet, but I used to run both Ur-Golem's Eye and Sisay's Ring for mana ramp, which were useful, but not great. In my last deck overhaul, I replaced them with Hedron Archive and Worn Powerstone since they are both an obvious step up.
It has been a very long time since I've piloted Jaya. I've maintained a Latulla, Keldon Overseer spell-slinger deck for a very long time, and I've built multiple Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh brews from spell-slinger, temp/good-stuff, aggro, 1v1 creatureless burn, thematic, and others.
Being bluntly honest with myself, Latulla is beyond underpowered (even when optimized) and I only maintain the deck since I've loved her for so long, and my Chandra designs are all limited due Chandra herself.
I'm looking to rebuild a new Jaya deck, but I'm stuck with my current lot of cards for making cuts. With the tech that Jaya works well with, she could swing more focused around her ability, or more good-stuff mono-red, or more semi-voltron/aggro due to the equipment.
I know that this entire thread is around Weebo's control list, but I'm wagering that many posters here have tested Jaya with other deck shells/archetypes. Does anyone have a preference, or has any specific type of build worked out better than others?
This most likely depends on your opponents too, but I'm needing some external opinions on how to lean my design before I start collecting cards.
Below in the spoiler is the current brew that I'm working with, but needs 29x cuts. The brew is still in its infancy and could easily bend to more aggro, good-stuff, voltron, control, or spell-slinger. I recall from the last time playing Jaya that some phoenixs were just not worth running, and some of the color enablers like Scuttlemutt are not worth running as the broadcasted synergy is too vulnerable;
I currently pilot a spellslinger version of the deck with Squee, Goblin Nabob at the helm, though I have on occasion swapped him out for Jaya. A spell-heavy build tends to be more explosive, centered around Past In Flames and lots of Wheel effects. Having played several iterations of the deck, I think Jaya tends to lend herself to a slower, techy control build like Weebo's.
If you are looking for cuts, I'd start with Fiery Temper, Act of Aggression, the non-R Swords, and some of the burn spells.
A friend recently gave me a Duplicant. It seems like an outstanding card for Jaya since it's a way to handle large and indestructible creatures (e.g., Ulamog, Darksteel and Blightsteel Colossi, etc.) that would otherwise be problematic. However, it doesn't look like many people are running this is their list. Is there some down side I'm missing?
A friend recently gave me a Duplicant. It seems like an outstanding card for Jaya since it's a way to handle large and indestructible creatures (e.g., Ulamog, Darksteel and Blightsteel Colossi, etc.) that would otherwise be problematic. However, it doesn't look like many people are running this is their list. Is there some down side I'm missing?
It has been a very long time since I've piloted Jaya. I've maintained a Latulla, Keldon Overseer spell-slinger deck for a very long time, and I've built multiple Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh brews from spell-slinger, temp/good-stuff, aggro, 1v1 creatureless burn, thematic, and others.
Being bluntly honest with myself, Latulla is beyond underpowered (even when optimized) and I only maintain the deck since I've loved her for so long, and my Chandra designs are all limited due Chandra herself.
I'm looking to rebuild a new Jaya deck, but I'm stuck with my current lot of cards for making cuts. With the tech that Jaya works well with, she could swing more focused around her ability, or more good-stuff mono-red, or more semi-voltron/aggro due to the equipment.
I know that this entire thread is around Weebo's control list, but I'm wagering that many posters here have tested Jaya with other deck shells/archetypes. Does anyone have a preference, or has any specific type of build worked out better than others?
This most likely depends on your opponents too, but I'm needing some external opinions on how to lean my design before I start collecting cards.
Below in the spoiler is the current brew that I'm working with, but needs 29x cuts. The brew is still in its infancy and could easily bend to more aggro, good-stuff, voltron, control, or spell-slinger. I recall from the last time playing Jaya that some phoenixs were just not worth running, and some of the color enablers like Scuttlemutt are not worth running as the broadcasted synergy is too vulnerable;
I currently pilot a spellslinger version of the deck with Squee, Goblin Nabob at the helm, though I have on occasion swapped him out for Jaya. A spell-heavy build tends to be more explosive, centered around Past In Flames and lots of Wheel effects. Having played several iterations of the deck, I think Jaya tends to lend herself to a slower, techy control build like Weebo's.
If you are looking for cuts, I'd start with Fiery Temper, Act of Aggression, the non-R Swords, and some of the burn spells.
Agree with d0su for the most part (though I have ended quite a few games by chaining wheels into decking someone).
I'm not a fan of the color specific stuff. Even if the end result of a 1 CMC Vindicate is decently powerful, the individual pieces are pretty fragile and you get a lot of attention trying to pull it off. My experience has been that opponents don't want Jaya to stick on her own, so I can't imagine getting the Vindicate working unless I'm already winning. None of the madness cards have done much for me either. For example, look at Avacyn's Judgment. It's good in narrow situations where you have a lot of mana to throw around, but don't want to Inferno. How often does that scenario come up? It's also not a very impressive card if you can't pay its madness cost. I would rather run cards that are independently good with a secondary focus on supporting the general than the other way around.
Most of how you want to build the deck comes down to personal preference and meta. I would lean towards spellslinger or control. Red has so many better options for voltron and Jaya has to jump through a lot of hoops to be really effective at that. Goodstuff and aggro have some awkward internal tension because Jaya's Inferno is her strongest ability and it wipes your side of the board as well. Spellslinger and control can capitalize on that ability a lot more as either a win condition or a control mechanism. You also have to take what you'll be playing against into account. If you regularly see combo decks focused on anything but creatures, mono-R control is a pretty terrible plan. A spellslinger build or a more aggressive beatdown build with Jaya as a panic button is going to be more successful.
A friend recently gave me a Duplicant. It seems like an outstanding card for Jaya since it's a way to handle large and indestructible creatures (e.g., Ulamog, Darksteel and Blightsteel Colossi, etc.) that would otherwise be problematic. However, it doesn't look like many people are running this is their list. Is there some down side I'm missing?
Six CMC is the only real downside. It's a strong removal card that fills in some of the holes left by Jaya's abilities. I don't run it mostly because I don't see the things it answers all that often, and I can generally rely on someone else at the table to answer them the rare times they show up. I don't mind leaving some holes in my coverage if it makes the gameplan for the things I can reliably deal with much better. Scour From Existence is another possibility for that slot. One more mana buys you instant speed and more flexible targets, at the cost of losing that on board threat afterwards.
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Duplicant is good if you already have a solid foundation to abuse goblin welder (like the goblins to help tutor him up). It is my #3 favorite thing to ashtray (#1 & #2 being memory jar and wurmcoil engine respectively).
I agree with the color specific enablers to help Jaya vindicate. The creatures that require to tap are not that good for my environment. Even the opponents without a threatening permanent may misjudge threat assessment as soon as someone else points out the interaction. I still like distorting lens since I can use it immediately.
I do like the possible instant speed madness of Avacyn's Judgment with Jaya discarding it. Using her incinerate activation the mana-to-damage becomes (essentially) an instant speed fireball. If there are fewer opponents, having the alternative turn-2 removal spell for most utility creatures is also pretty helpful. I suppose in a big-mana doubling deck full of x-burn-spells it may find a home.
Without Jaya the card becomes abysmal, so I guess in environments where Jaya is known to be a primary threat and she is hard to stick, then the card isn't worth the cut.
I've been working more on my list and it is slowly evolving into another warp world permanent brew. I have a terrible tendency to do this when I get stuck brewing, just building a generic good-stuff build until I make up my mind. I really need to bend away from this approach otherwise I'll just remove Jaya for another general like Urabrask, which defeats the point of my revisiting Jaya and building in the first place.
Post 1 of 2: In which I share an epiphany I recently had that was probably obvious to everyone else...
Based on the comments regarding Tamiyo's Journal in the last two pages and the fact that I recently acquired some new cards, I revisited the card draw options for my budget deck. (For those new to the thread, I only play cards that I've acquired for 50 cents or less.) Upon further analysis, I discovered a flaw in my method of evaluating the effectiveness of card draw spells.
Consider Seer's Sundial, which I've been running alongside Ghost Town for the last two years. I originally calculated this as costing 10 mana for 3 cards (3.33 mana per card) and 12 mana for 4 cards (3 mana per card). This seems competetively costed when compared to returning Skarrgan Firebird, Shard Phoenix, or Firewing Phoenix from graveyard to hand. However, this calculation neglects to account for the fact that one of the cards drawn by Seer's Sundial is simply the card you would have drawn if you didn't even have Seer's Sundial in your deck. In other words, the number of cards "gained" is actually one less than the number of cards drawn. That means it actually costs 10 mana for 2 cards (5 mana per card) and 12 mana for 3 cards (4 mana per card). In other words, Seer's Sundial must remain in play for 4 land drops before it catches up with the Firewing Phoenix in terms of fueling Jaya's abilities. Having no fetchlands in my deck, I pretty much never drop more than one land per turn and I occasionally miss a land drop, making Seer's Sundial a poor choice for my deck.
Tamiyo's Journal gives 2 cards for 11 mana (5 mana/card) and 3 cards for 13 mana (4.33 mana/card), which is worse than Seer's Sundial in terms of mana. For my deck, Tamiyo's Journal offers more consistent draw than Seer's Sundial, but needs to stay in play for 5 full rounds to catch up with the Firewing Phoenix. That's a long time considering the number of board wipes in EDH and the fact that it probably won't get played until the 4th turn at the earliest.
In essence, when casting Seer's Sundial or Tamiyo's Journal, you're committing 12-13 mana to a single card before they become worthwhile. Similarly, Tower of Fortunes has a 12 mana investment to yield 3 cards (4 mana/card), but its ability to provide a burst of cards in one turn makes it viable late game option for decks with sufficient mana.
Staff of Nin is the gold standard for trickle draw. It gives 2 cards for 6 mana (3 mana/card) and 3 cards for 6 mana (2 mana/card). Thus, it catches up with the phoenixes after 3 turns, only has a mana commitment of 6, and has an additional ability stapled on that typically costs 2-3 mana (cf. Prodigal Pyromancer).
Post 2 of 2: In which I look at budget card draw options and ask for opinions...
Seeing what makes the Staff of Nin so good got me looking at cards with 1 or 0 mana cost per card drawn:
Avarice Amulet: For 4 to cast plus 2 to equip, the mana cost per card is exactly the same as Staff of Nin. If used only on your commander, you get to keep it when your commander returns to its command zone. Unfortunately, having this equipped to your commander probably just makes them an even bigger target. Has anyone here used this effectively?
Mercadian Atlas: At 2 cards for 5 mana (2.5 mana/card) and 3 cards for 5 mana (1.67 mana/card) this seems pretty good. Having to give up land drops to draw a card is concerning though, particularly in a Jaya deck which needs quite a bit of mana. Any opinions?
Moonring Mirror: Identical value to Mercadian Atlas, but this time the downside is that you have to juggle two hands of cards. This card is amazing with looting effects as well as cards like Mindmoil/Teferi's Puzzle Box. However, I've pretty much removed looting from my deck at this point. While I intend to keep playing Mindmoil, I don't think there is enough synergy to keep this card in my deck at the moment.
Illuminated Folio: At 2 cards for 8 mana (4 mana/card) and 3 cards for 9 mana (3 mana/card), this catches up with the phoenixes after only 2 rounds (since you can use it the turn you drop it) and the mana commitment is lower than Seer's Sundial. Since Jaya generally wants to hold some cards in hand, its restriction might not be that bad. Any thoughts?
Additionally, seeing how the extra utility built into Staff of Nin adds value brought me back me to:
Endbringer: Costs 2 mana per card, but can be a nasty customer on its own. Since it has more utility than simply card draw, it is more appropriate to count any card draw as gain. This yields 3 cards for 12 mana (4 mana/card) and 4 cards for 15 mana (3.75 mana/card). Additionally, the ability to draw on every opponent's turn enables card advantage at a more rapid rate than the others discussed above. The big downside is that it dies to Jaya's inferno. Has anyone tried this guy out?
Dreamstone Hedron: Costs 9 mana for 2 cards (4.5 mana/card), but a single tap to gain 3 mana reduces that cost down to 6 mana for 2 cards (3 mana/card). As long as a mana rock of this size is useful in your deck, I think this is a worthy include.
I'm glad someone finally gave Illuminated Folio a mention - that card is criminally underrated as a budget draw option. I put one in my fiancée's mono-white Avacyn EDH and it's done some great work.
I'm glad someone finally gave Illuminated Folio a mention - that card is criminally underrated as a budget draw option. I put one in my fiancée's mono-white Avacyn EDH and it's done some great work.
I played Illuminated Folio in a Standard mono-W control deck some years ago. It was passable there. I imagine it will be better than that (even quite good) here.
Folio is a solid card. Watch out for artifact counts when you're using it. Mono-R tends towards artifact heavy, which can shut Folio off if you're not careful.
Endbringer would be my other choice from that list, assuming you have enough colorless sources to run it. It seems like a strong card, but very colorless mana intensive.
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I originally skipped Illuminated Folio when I started out because of a discussion I read on another thread. Basically, it boiled down to the Folio failing when you most need it, i.e., when you are out of cards in hand, but Seer's Sundial helping you when you most need it, i.e., out of cards and all you draw is a land. Based on that, I opted for the Sundial. However, Jaya tends to keep cards in hand, so the Folio is probably a better option for her. At the moment, about 1/3rd of my deck is Red cards.
Endbringer would be my other choice from that list, assuming you have enough colorless sources to run it. It seems like a strong card, but very colorless mana intensive.
I currently have 10 lands and 8 mana rocks that can produce colorless. In a normal game, I'd probably be able to activate the card draw ability at least once and probably twice per round. As a result, I can't take full advantage of Endbringer, but I should nearly always be able draw cards with it.
I like Avarice Amulet, but I don't think I like it in Jaya. She already eats a lot of removal in my experience, so making her a more attractive target seems questionable. That and you really can't take advantage of the combat buffs because she's pretty fragile despite all of the explosions.
I can honestly say I've never tried Mercadian Atlas in any deck and really have no strong opinion on it. Seems passable if you're well and truly out of cards, but I hate not making land drops with this deck and put a lot of effort into making sure that it happens, so Atlas would probably not work out well for me. I think I would make sure I have land search before going that route, even single shot land search. Basic mountain fuels Inferno as well as any other card and the early mana development is helpful.
Endbringer still has the highest potential ceiling though.
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Have you tested Avacyn's Judgment at all? I run a list that was heavily inspired by yours and I recently added the card to test, though I haven't actually drawn it enough to know how well it works.
I like Avarice Amulet, but I don't think I like it in Jaya. She already eats a lot of removal in my experience, so making her a more attractive target seems questionable. That and you really can't take advantage of the combat buffs because she's pretty fragile despite all of the explosions.
You know, I was thinking about this today; Jaya isn't actually fragile for the purposes of Avarice Amulet. She never 'dies', in the game sense. She always goes to the command zone. With that in mind, it'd be fairly uncommon for Avarice Amulet to trigger and end up under someone else's control.
Have you tested Avacyn's Judgment at all? I run a list that was heavily inspired by yours and I recently added the card to test, though I haven't actually drawn it enough to know how well it works.
I have not. It doesn't seem like it fits in Jaya, because her abilities typically already do what you would want Avacyn's Judgment to do. Looting effects make it more attractive, but not attractive enough to play it.
I also think it runs counter to the theory of Jaya (or, at least, how I envision Jaya in gameplay): skimp on creature removal in the maindeck and rely on Jaya to take care of most of it. Instead of creature removal, we run more resilient threats, answers to non-creatures, etc.
That said, I could probably use more kill in my Jaya deck, so it's deffo a consideration. People do squish her often, and sometimes I need the creature removal when she's out to lunch.
Have you tested Avacyn's Judgment at all? I run a list that was heavily inspired by yours and I recently added the card to test, though I haven't actually drawn it enough to know how well it works.
I have not. My thinking was that it's at its best when you can play it for the madness cost (obviously - no one is breaking down the doors to play overcosted Forked Bolt). My best way to do that is Jaya. If I have Jaya out, I can probably control creatures pretty well already. The only real use for it in that case is killing things that don't die to 6 damage, but would die to more than 6 damage, when I have a ton of mana. I'm sure there would be cases where it would drop off of one of her first abilities, but if I have the mana for that I can probably afford inferno instead. It's a redundant Jaya effect that only works well when its not needed, which is why I skipped it.
You know, I was thinking about this today; Jaya isn't actually fragile for the purposes of Avarice Amulet. She never 'dies', in the game sense. She always goes to the command zone. With that in mind, it'd be fairly uncommon for Avarice Amulet to trigger and end up under someone else's control.
You won't lose control of Amulet, but she's still fragile in the sense that a 2 toughness creature with no inbuilt protection is fragile. It's going to be difficult to take advantage of the offensive boost and vigilance so it's really just for the card draw. She's already a pretty high profile removal target, so I can't see Amulet drawing me too many cards. It also runs into some awkward internal tension where you want the ability to wrath the board in response to an action but doing so denies you your card for the turn, and you really can't equip it to anything other than Jaya without a strong possibility of losing it down the line. I love the card when I have Tajic, Blade of the Legion together, but I've never been tempted by it in Jaya.
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I'm sure there would be cases where it would drop off of one of her first abilities, but if I have the mana for that I can probably afford inferno instead. It's a redundant Jaya effect that only works well when its not needed, which is why I skipped it.
Yeah , pretty soon after I asked about the card, I ended up taking it out of my deck for a lot of the reasons you listed here. I'm trying out Avarice Amulet instead. I think you have some good points about why you're hesitant, but I'm still optimistic, especially since card draw is where the deck has really struggled for me. Of course, since adding the card I haven't actually drawn it yet, so we'll see...
One other thing to look into is a couple phoenixes as they can be discarded and then pulled back to your hand. My favorites are Skarrgan Firebird and Firewing Phoenix.
How has Pyromancer's Goggles worked out for you? I don't have a high enough density of sorceries and instants to use it and a lot of them usually don't need to be doubled (e.g., Blasphemous Act).
I really like Pyromancer's Goggles. It's a little pricey mana-wise, but I think there's more than enough instants and sorceries that give huge value when copied. There's nothing quite like copying Molten Psyche when you have metalcraft...
Keep in mind that my low budget means I have no mana doublers, so this is one of the few ways I can get a bit of a mana spike in my deck. I also think my deck's mana curve has been a bit high in the past (I've been gradually reducing it over time), so that probably exacerbated my need for the extra mana.
The thing about Dreamstone Hedron is that at 9 mana for 3 cards it is actually quite mana efficient when compared to other budget card draw options. On a budget, 3 mana per card is typically as good as you can expect to get. Seer's Sundial, for example, costs 10 total mana for 3 cards and generally takes 3 turns assuming you hit your land drops (granted, you can continue to use it and get 4 cards for 12 mana, etc.). Dreamstone Hedron has the advantage that you can use it as a large mana rock and, when you want them, you can draw your 3 cards immediately rather than having to wait around.
I used to run Tower of Fortunes as well. If you consistently hit 8 mana, I think it is one of the best options out there. I ultimately removed it from my deck because, while I can consistently hit 7 mana to bring Jaya's inferno online, 8 mana has been hit or miss for me. The times I did have 8 mana and Tower of Fortunes in hand, I was too busy casting Jaya's inferno or doing other things with my mana to stay alive.
I have not actually played Hedron Archive in a game yet, but I used to run both Ur-Golem's Eye and Sisay's Ring for mana ramp, which were useful, but not great. In my last deck overhaul, I replaced them with Hedron Archive and Worn Powerstone since they are both an obvious step up.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
Being bluntly honest with myself, Latulla is beyond underpowered (even when optimized) and I only maintain the deck since I've loved her for so long, and my Chandra designs are all limited due Chandra herself.
I'm looking to rebuild a new Jaya deck, but I'm stuck with my current lot of cards for making cuts. With the tech that Jaya works well with, she could swing more focused around her ability, or more good-stuff mono-red, or more semi-voltron/aggro due to the equipment.
I know that this entire thread is around Weebo's control list, but I'm wagering that many posters here have tested Jaya with other deck shells/archetypes. Does anyone have a preference, or has any specific type of build worked out better than others?
This most likely depends on your opponents too, but I'm needing some external opinions on how to lean my design before I start collecting cards.
Below in the spoiler is the current brew that I'm working with, but needs 29x cuts. The brew is still in its infancy and could easily bend to more aggro, good-stuff, voltron, control, or spell-slinger. I recall from the last time playing Jaya that some phoenixs were just not worth running, and some of the color enablers like Scuttlemutt are not worth running as the broadcasted synergy is too vulnerable;
1x Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Creature (22)
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
1x Burnished Hart
1x Dualcaster Mage
1x Firewing Phoenix
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Knollspine Dragon
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Kuldotha Phoenix
1x Magma Phoenix
1x Magus of the Wheel
1x Pilgrim's Eye
1x Prophetic Flamespeaker
1x Sandstone Oracle
1x Scuttlemutt
1x Shard Phoenix
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Spawn of Thraxes
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Stuffy Doll
1x Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
1x Viashino Heretic
1x Wild-Field Scarecrow
Instant (11)
1x Act of Aggression
1x Arcbond
1x Commune with Lava
1x Fiery Temper
1x Grab the Reins
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Price of Progress
1x Reiterate
1x Shattering Pulse
1x Smash
1x Starstorm
1x All Is Dust
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Avacyn's Judgment
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Devil's Play
1x Faithless Looting
1x Insurrection
1x Mizzium Mortars
1x Recoup
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Ruination
1x Vandalblast
1x Wheel of Fortune
Enchantment (5)
1x Dictate of the Twin Gods
1x Furnace of Rath
1x Gratuitous Violence
1x Outpost Siege
1x Repercussion
Planeswalker (5)
1x Chandra, Flamecaller
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
1x Karn Liberated
1x Koth of the Hammer
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Artifact (34)
1x Akroma's Memorial
1x Armillary Sphere
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Batterskull
1x Caged Sun
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Darksteel Plate
1x Distorting Lens
1x Expedition Map
1x Fire Diamond
1x Gauntlet of Might
1x Gauntlet of Power
1x Hedron Archive
1x Illusionist's Bracers
1x Journeyer's Kite
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Loxodon Warhammer
1x Magebane Armor
1x Mind Stone
1x Perilous Vault
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Staff of Nin
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Sword of Body and Mind
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of the Animist
1x Sword of War and Peace
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
34x Mountain
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Terrain Generator
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
If you are looking for cuts, I'd start with Fiery Temper, Act of Aggression, the non-R Swords, and some of the burn spells.
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I'm not a fan of the color specific stuff. Even if the end result of a 1 CMC Vindicate is decently powerful, the individual pieces are pretty fragile and you get a lot of attention trying to pull it off. My experience has been that opponents don't want Jaya to stick on her own, so I can't imagine getting the Vindicate working unless I'm already winning. None of the madness cards have done much for me either. For example, look at Avacyn's Judgment. It's good in narrow situations where you have a lot of mana to throw around, but don't want to Inferno. How often does that scenario come up? It's also not a very impressive card if you can't pay its madness cost. I would rather run cards that are independently good with a secondary focus on supporting the general than the other way around.
Most of how you want to build the deck comes down to personal preference and meta. I would lean towards spellslinger or control. Red has so many better options for voltron and Jaya has to jump through a lot of hoops to be really effective at that. Goodstuff and aggro have some awkward internal tension because Jaya's Inferno is her strongest ability and it wipes your side of the board as well. Spellslinger and control can capitalize on that ability a lot more as either a win condition or a control mechanism. You also have to take what you'll be playing against into account. If you regularly see combo decks focused on anything but creatures, mono-R control is a pretty terrible plan. A spellslinger build or a more aggressive beatdown build with Jaya as a panic button is going to be more successful.
Six CMC is the only real downside. It's a strong removal card that fills in some of the holes left by Jaya's abilities. I don't run it mostly because I don't see the things it answers all that often, and I can generally rely on someone else at the table to answer them the rare times they show up. I don't mind leaving some holes in my coverage if it makes the gameplan for the things I can reliably deal with much better. Scour From Existence is another possibility for that slot. One more mana buys you instant speed and more flexible targets, at the cost of losing that on board threat afterwards.
I agree with the color specific enablers to help Jaya vindicate. The creatures that require to tap are not that good for my environment. Even the opponents without a threatening permanent may misjudge threat assessment as soon as someone else points out the interaction. I still like distorting lens since I can use it immediately.
I do like the possible instant speed madness of Avacyn's Judgment with Jaya discarding it. Using her incinerate activation the mana-to-damage becomes (essentially) an instant speed fireball. If there are fewer opponents, having the alternative turn-2 removal spell for most utility creatures is also pretty helpful. I suppose in a big-mana doubling deck full of x-burn-spells it may find a home.
Without Jaya the card becomes abysmal, so I guess in environments where Jaya is known to be a primary threat and she is hard to stick, then the card isn't worth the cut.
I've been working more on my list and it is slowly evolving into another warp world permanent brew. I have a terrible tendency to do this when I get stuck brewing, just building a generic good-stuff build until I make up my mind. I really need to bend away from this approach otherwise I'll just remove Jaya for another general like Urabrask, which defeats the point of my revisiting Jaya and building in the first place.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Based on the comments regarding Tamiyo's Journal in the last two pages and the fact that I recently acquired some new cards, I revisited the card draw options for my budget deck. (For those new to the thread, I only play cards that I've acquired for 50 cents or less.) Upon further analysis, I discovered a flaw in my method of evaluating the effectiveness of card draw spells.
Consider Seer's Sundial, which I've been running alongside Ghost Town for the last two years. I originally calculated this as costing 10 mana for 3 cards (3.33 mana per card) and 12 mana for 4 cards (3 mana per card). This seems competetively costed when compared to returning Skarrgan Firebird, Shard Phoenix, or Firewing Phoenix from graveyard to hand. However, this calculation neglects to account for the fact that one of the cards drawn by Seer's Sundial is simply the card you would have drawn if you didn't even have Seer's Sundial in your deck. In other words, the number of cards "gained" is actually one less than the number of cards drawn. That means it actually costs 10 mana for 2 cards (5 mana per card) and 12 mana for 3 cards (4 mana per card). In other words, Seer's Sundial must remain in play for 4 land drops before it catches up with the Firewing Phoenix in terms of fueling Jaya's abilities. Having no fetchlands in my deck, I pretty much never drop more than one land per turn and I occasionally miss a land drop, making Seer's Sundial a poor choice for my deck.
Tamiyo's Journal gives 2 cards for 11 mana (5 mana/card) and 3 cards for 13 mana (4.33 mana/card), which is worse than Seer's Sundial in terms of mana. For my deck, Tamiyo's Journal offers more consistent draw than Seer's Sundial, but needs to stay in play for 5 full rounds to catch up with the Firewing Phoenix. That's a long time considering the number of board wipes in EDH and the fact that it probably won't get played until the 4th turn at the earliest.
In essence, when casting Seer's Sundial or Tamiyo's Journal, you're committing 12-13 mana to a single card before they become worthwhile. Similarly, Tower of Fortunes has a 12 mana investment to yield 3 cards (4 mana/card), but its ability to provide a burst of cards in one turn makes it viable late game option for decks with sufficient mana.
Staff of Nin is the gold standard for trickle draw. It gives 2 cards for 6 mana (3 mana/card) and 3 cards for 6 mana (2 mana/card). Thus, it catches up with the phoenixes after 3 turns, only has a mana commitment of 6, and has an additional ability stapled on that typically costs 2-3 mana (cf. Prodigal Pyromancer).
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
Seeing what makes the Staff of Nin so good got me looking at cards with 1 or 0 mana cost per card drawn:
Avarice Amulet: For 4 to cast plus 2 to equip, the mana cost per card is exactly the same as Staff of Nin. If used only on your commander, you get to keep it when your commander returns to its command zone. Unfortunately, having this equipped to your commander probably just makes them an even bigger target. Has anyone here used this effectively?
Mercadian Atlas: At 2 cards for 5 mana (2.5 mana/card) and 3 cards for 5 mana (1.67 mana/card) this seems pretty good. Having to give up land drops to draw a card is concerning though, particularly in a Jaya deck which needs quite a bit of mana. Any opinions?
Moonring Mirror: Identical value to Mercadian Atlas, but this time the downside is that you have to juggle two hands of cards. This card is amazing with looting effects as well as cards like Mindmoil/Teferi's Puzzle Box. However, I've pretty much removed looting from my deck at this point. While I intend to keep playing Mindmoil, I don't think there is enough synergy to keep this card in my deck at the moment.
Illuminated Folio: At 2 cards for 8 mana (4 mana/card) and 3 cards for 9 mana (3 mana/card), this catches up with the phoenixes after only 2 rounds (since you can use it the turn you drop it) and the mana commitment is lower than Seer's Sundial. Since Jaya generally wants to hold some cards in hand, its restriction might not be that bad. Any thoughts?
Additionally, seeing how the extra utility built into Staff of Nin adds value brought me back me to:
Endbringer: Costs 2 mana per card, but can be a nasty customer on its own. Since it has more utility than simply card draw, it is more appropriate to count any card draw as gain. This yields 3 cards for 12 mana (4 mana/card) and 4 cards for 15 mana (3.75 mana/card). Additionally, the ability to draw on every opponent's turn enables card advantage at a more rapid rate than the others discussed above. The big downside is that it dies to Jaya's inferno. Has anyone tried this guy out?
Dreamstone Hedron: Costs 9 mana for 2 cards (4.5 mana/card), but a single tap to gain 3 mana reduces that cost down to 6 mana for 2 cards (3 mana/card). As long as a mana rock of this size is useful in your deck, I think this is a worthy include.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Endbringer would be my other choice from that list, assuming you have enough colorless sources to run it. It seems like a strong card, but very colorless mana intensive.
So the general consensus is that Avarice Amulet and Mercadian Atlas are bad?
I originally skipped Illuminated Folio when I started out because of a discussion I read on another thread. Basically, it boiled down to the Folio failing when you most need it, i.e., when you are out of cards in hand, but Seer's Sundial helping you when you most need it, i.e., out of cards and all you draw is a land. Based on that, I opted for the Sundial. However, Jaya tends to keep cards in hand, so the Folio is probably a better option for her. At the moment, about 1/3rd of my deck is Red cards.
I currently have 10 lands and 8 mana rocks that can produce colorless. In a normal game, I'd probably be able to activate the card draw ability at least once and probably twice per round. As a result, I can't take full advantage of Endbringer, but I should nearly always be able draw cards with it.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
I can honestly say I've never tried Mercadian Atlas in any deck and really have no strong opinion on it. Seems passable if you're well and truly out of cards, but I hate not making land drops with this deck and put a lot of effort into making sure that it happens, so Atlas would probably not work out well for me. I think I would make sure I have land search before going that route, even single shot land search. Basic mountain fuels Inferno as well as any other card and the early mana development is helpful.
Endbringer still has the highest potential ceiling though.
[Primer] Dralnu Control/Reanimator BU
[Primer] Jolrael, Empress of Beasts GG
Nath Stax BG | Borborygmos Enraged RG | Ladies of Magic UGW | Aminatou Control UWB | Enduring Ideal Zedruu UWR | Momir Vig Combo UG
Modern
Restore Balance RWUG
Kiki Chord RWG
You know, I was thinking about this today; Jaya isn't actually fragile for the purposes of Avarice Amulet. She never 'dies', in the game sense. She always goes to the command zone. With that in mind, it'd be fairly uncommon for Avarice Amulet to trigger and end up under someone else's control.
http://www.commandercast.com/category/articles/generally-speaking
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I also think it runs counter to the theory of Jaya (or, at least, how I envision Jaya in gameplay): skimp on creature removal in the maindeck and rely on Jaya to take care of most of it. Instead of creature removal, we run more resilient threats, answers to non-creatures, etc.
That said, I could probably use more kill in my Jaya deck, so it's deffo a consideration. People do squish her often, and sometimes I need the creature removal when she's out to lunch.
http://www.commandercast.com/category/articles/generally-speaking
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You won't lose control of Amulet, but she's still fragile in the sense that a 2 toughness creature with no inbuilt protection is fragile. It's going to be difficult to take advantage of the offensive boost and vigilance so it's really just for the card draw. She's already a pretty high profile removal target, so I can't see Amulet drawing me too many cards. It also runs into some awkward internal tension where you want the ability to wrath the board in response to an action but doing so denies you your card for the turn, and you really can't equip it to anything other than Jaya without a strong possibility of losing it down the line. I love the card when I have Tajic, Blade of the Legion together, but I've never been tempted by it in Jaya.
Yeah , pretty soon after I asked about the card, I ended up taking it out of my deck for a lot of the reasons you listed here. I'm trying out Avarice Amulet instead. I think you have some good points about why you're hesitant, but I'm still optimistic, especially since card draw is where the deck has really struggled for me. Of course, since adding the card I haven't actually drawn it yet, so we'll see...
[Primer] Dralnu Control/Reanimator BU
[Primer] Jolrael, Empress of Beasts GG
Nath Stax BG | Borborygmos Enraged RG | Ladies of Magic UGW | Aminatou Control UWB | Enduring Ideal Zedruu UWR | Momir Vig Combo UG
Modern
Restore Balance RWUG
Kiki Chord RWG
I'd be curious to see your deck list if you get a chance. It sounds like you may be running a more budget-conscience list like me.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
1 Avarice Amulet
1 Caged Sun
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Crawlspace
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Distorting Lens
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Howling Mine
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Magebane Armor
1 Mind Stone
1 Pyromancer's Goggles
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Staff of Nin
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Tamiyo's Journal
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Torpor Orb
1 Trading Post
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Anger
1 Burnished Hart
1 Goblin Welder
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Void Winnower
1 All Is Dust
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Chain Reaction
1 Faithless Looting
1 Incendiary Command
1 Molten Psyche
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Vandalblast
1 Comet Storm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Reiterate
1 Reverberate
1 Smash
1 Starstorm
1 Braid of Fire
1 Dictate of the Twin Gods
1 Fervor
1 Repercussion
1 Vicious Shadows
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Buried Ruin
1 Flamekin Village
1 Kher Keep
30 Mountain
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
[Primer] Dralnu Control/Reanimator BU
[Primer] Jolrael, Empress of Beasts GG
Nath Stax BG | Borborygmos Enraged RG | Ladies of Magic UGW | Aminatou Control UWB | Enduring Ideal Zedruu UWR | Momir Vig Combo UG
Modern
Restore Balance RWUG
Kiki Chord RWG
One thing I did with my deck to help out on card draw was using all the mana rocks that can be converted into cards. You have Mind Stone and Commander's Sphere. Have you considered Hedron Archive or Dreamstone Hedron? Also, Armillary Sphere and possibly Wild-Field Scarecrow aren't card draw, but they do give card advantage (which is all Jaya's abilities care about). These could replace cards like Darksteel Ingot and Pyromancer's Goggles. I stopped using Darksteel Ingot and Spine of Ish Sah when Unstable Obelisk came out. How has Pyromancer's Goggles worked out for you? I don't have a high enough density of sorceries and instants to use it and a lot of them usually don't need to be doubled (e.g., Blasphemous Act). Burnished Hart and Journeyer's Kite also help out with card advantage, but I always found that they needed too much mana to use effectively when I drew them (my deck has no mana doublers).
For direct card draw/filtering, Mind's Eye is the premier card (but falls outside my budget restrictions, so I don't have it either). You have Staff of Nin, which is great. Have you considered Crystal Ball, Outpost Siege, or Commune with Lava? I think all of these are stronger than Tamiyo's Journal and more reliable than Avarice Amulet. I think I'd even give Illuminated Folio a go over those two.
One other thing to look into is a couple phoenixes as they can be discarded and then pulled back to your hand. My favorites are Skarrgan Firebird and Firewing Phoenix.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
I really like Pyromancer's Goggles. It's a little pricey mana-wise, but I think there's more than enough instants and sorceries that give huge value when copied. There's nothing quite like copying Molten Psyche when you have metalcraft...
I hadn't thought about Hedron Archive. I think I might try that in place of Avarice Amulet.
[Primer] Dralnu Control/Reanimator BU
[Primer] Jolrael, Empress of Beasts GG
Nath Stax BG | Borborygmos Enraged RG | Ladies of Magic UGW | Aminatou Control UWB | Enduring Ideal Zedruu UWR | Momir Vig Combo UG
Modern
Restore Balance RWUG
Kiki Chord RWG