I'm also a fan of Tormod's Crypt and Scavenger Grounds. Jaya decks tend to use the yard to some degree and are generally not full of reanimation targets, so one sided hate is great. Being able to jam the effect in your manabase on a land that enters untapped is worth playing the symmetrical effect. Crook isn't a bad one either. Targeting makes up for the increased cost over Relic in most EDH games.
Experimental Frenzy is one of the best Jaya cards in a long, long time. It doesn't turn off casting your general, and Jaya can make use of all the cards in hand that you otherwise can't play. When you really get into trouble with it or draw a haymaker play for turn, you just ditch it and go back to a normal game (see: reasons why Aggressive Mining was awkward, though I could honestly see revisiting that with Enchanter's Bane). Also not gonna lie, as a lifelong coffee drinker/coffee snob I love the pro-coffee flavor text.
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I am also really excited to try out Experimental Frenzy. It just fits so perfectly into Jaya's playstyle.
I'm also really interested in Risk Factor. Sure it's little more than a Browbeat but the fact that it has Jump Start means it can be discarded for Jaya and then used again later.
I'm not big on Risk Factor. It's definitely better than Browbeat, if only because you target an opponent and that leaves some political options open. I can't imagine it's anything but 4 damage for 3 mana the majority of the time and you're still burning a card to reuse it.
I'll write a set review someday. I just moved after a month of condo renovation work, so I haven't had much time to do anything but that.
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As promised, GRN set review. It's a long one, so you might want to grab a snack.
Red
Arclight Phoenix - I feel morally obligated to discuss any new phoenix. I don't have anywhere near enough instants and sorceries for this and I much prefer the phoenix that return to hand, not to the board. Not the right place for this. Also true of basically every other instant/sorcery focused Izzet card in the set - Electrostatic Field, Erratic Cyclops, etc.
Book Devourer - Generally worse than Dragon Mage and I don't think anyone is dying to run that. There's something to be said for not being a symmetric effect, but always being card neutral doesn't make this all that desirable.
Direct Current - Too small an effect even though I like the thought.
Experimental Frenzy - Jaya all star, windmill slam include for me. Future sight effects are great and the downside doesn't stop you from playing or activating Jaya. It plays very nicely with activated ability looting as well.
Goblin Cratermaker - Solid utility card. Add it to the list of "good in decks with a goblin package."
Legion Warboss - Not the right deck for this. Possibly not the right format, despite the power level.
Risk Factor - I really don't like it. Instant speed and target player both make it orders of magnitude better than Browbeat. That's not enough for me - I can't see anyone in my group ever letting me draw unless they're on the verge of death (and maybe not even then, honestly. We're delightfully petty after playing together as long as we have).
Torch Courier - Worth consideration in a goblin package even if it's ultimately not good enough. Haste is a great ability.
Artifact and Land
Wand of Vertebrae - Kind of card selection with the GY play in the deck? There aren't really any artifacts worth talking about for mono-R in this set. There aren't any lands either. I guess you can use the basic mountains for a change of pace from whatever you had before.
Not surprisingly for a Ravnica set, not a ton for monocolor EDH here. I'm currently leaning towards cutting Mind's Eye for Experimental Frenzy. The constant mana input is a significant downside for that card. There's an argument that I should be trying out a package more like what Trippy is doing above as well as a couple other people, with Alhammarret's Archive, Pyromancer's Goggles, and the small rummaging effects for card draw. I like the idea, especially because it makes the deck that much more red. It's a pretty large number of changes so I need to consider what the other cuts are there.
edit: Brainstorming the cuts for a smaller rummaging based draw package, so this is a little stream of consciousness/wall of text. The payoff cards for that are Archive and Goggles, like I said above. The engine cards that I'd be looking to add are Tormenting Voice, Wild Guess, and potentially Magmatic Insight, Cathartic Reunion, and Jaya Ballard (this and Goggles are not so secret incentives to try this out, just lower priority than having a functional deck). With that in mind, I'm looking for minimum four cuts. First cuts are going to be expensive cards that fill similar roles: Staff of Nin and Solemn Simulacrum, both artifacts that are middling at their job. I'm never particularly disappointed to see them, but I'm never excited either. I'm thinking the third cut is Magus of the Moon. I see enough basics that I'm not taking people off of colors well about half the time and it's much more fragile than the enchantment version anyways. Fourth cut is probably Commander's Sphere. Early game filtering is almost as good as ramp in this deck because I'm never going to be particularly explosive anyways, so hitting the land drops works just as well. I'm losing some draw synergies with Goblin Welder and Rings of Brighthearth, which is arguably the more important role for the card and the big reason I wouldn't mind cutting it for some draw. It's actually a little tempting to cut Mind Stone to fit one more as well for very similar reasons. Wayfarer's Bauble sticks as a way to get instant speed Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle bolts. If I'm already fitting everything else in there, I'll probably try dropping Chandra Ablaze for Jaya walker. That leaves the final tally as Out: Commander's Sphere, Mind Stone, Staff of Nin, Magus of the Moon, Solemn Simulacrum, and Chandra Ablaze; In: Alhammarret's Archive, Pyromancer's Goggles, Magmatic Insight, Tormenting Voice, Wild Guess, and Jaya Ballard. I'm losing one ramp spell in exchange for an overall lower curve and more cheap draw. The bigger loss is a couple early-ish creatures, which makes stabilizing much more reliant on Jaya.
Overall, worth a shot. It's also a good reason to pull out Jaya with a couple other new decks, which means I can be lazy about building anything new for quite a while.
Finally had the chance to play Jaya again today, I have really missed playing her, had one of the longest and most fun games of commander I've had in a long time.
Thoughts from the game; I was trying a silly thing with running all the red walkers that make emblems and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker really surprised me with how much help he was, removed one opponent's Nissa, Voice of Zendikar by attacking and then later killed his Ravos, Soultender with the -3, almost had the emblem out but I drew Reforge the Soul that turn and went for the miracle instead. I think his emblem is a bad addition in Jaya since it leaves you with no cards in hand for other player's turns, but his +1 is nice to be able to swing with a 4/4 indestructible flier every turn. I'll probably cut him for the Experimental Frenzy in all honesty but it was definitely a surprise.
The number of times I got a draw effect it was usually a full wheel, or a copied big draw spell, and I didn't see Alhammarret's Archive or most of my small draw effects. So I'm still not sure whether I'm going to get the kind of value out of it I hope, or if it's going to fluctuate in performance. I may have to put a Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel in here.
Over all. Very glad to be playing Jaya again, Alhammarret's Archive is probably going to be worth it (if I can draw it), and I'm looking forward to seeing what Experimental Frenzy is going to play like.
Eye of Ugin probably fits typical Jaya game plans better than goblins (which I don't run). Eldrazi are a lot less likely to get swept up in Jaya infernos, I like the cornerstone card of the package being a land, and the activation cost isn't out of reach for Jaya late games. I don't think my list has enough big colorless dudes to support it or a nonland card I want to cut right now. I could see it working out very well for the broader mono-R control Jaya archetype.
Got a chance to play with Experimental Frenzy last night. It was more or less the ideal situation for the card - extreme late game, stocked GY including PiF and fetches, Crucible and Scroll Rack on board. Unsurprisingly, it was very solid. I never missed the ability to play from hand and I had a couple turns where I chained several cards off the top. I'm more interested in seeing how it goes when I don't have Scroll Rack and an on-demand shuffle effect in the future. Still haven't made the broader changes to the card draw package that I outlined a couple posts up so I don't have thoughts on that yet.
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Had another chance to play Jaya again today, didn't get to test out the Experimental Frenzy or the Eye of Ugin package (desolation twin, emrakul, kozilek, darksteel colossus, steel hellkite, and stuffy doll. I think I'm gonna add Void Winnower, Reality Smasher, and one of either Bosh, Iron Golem, Ancient Stone Idol, or Metalwork Colossus as well.)
Mostly cause I saw none of my card draw and only had a single mountain for the entire game. Lucky for me though I got Hazoret the Fervent in my opening hand and oh boy did she ever put in some work. I know Jaya usually the plan is to avoid having an empty hand and most of us put a lot of effort into keeping the hand stocked, but only playing a single red source and still being the deadliest threat at the table until Niv-Mizzet, Parun stabilised with a Torrential Gearhulk to block with. I'm half tempted to pick up an Invocation Hazoret and put a little more focus on being a fast aggressive list, instead of my current one that plays much slower into the massive beaters.
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.
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.
This has always interested me, but Fork is a bit too expensive for me at the moment. Are there any good alternatives? Only ones I can think of offhand are Reverberate and Wild Ricochet (which I'm personally a fan of, despite the CMC).
Reiterate is usually the closest one to dropping back into my list. Dualcaster Mage if you have more creature synergies (e.g. equipment) than instant/sorcery synergy.
Each of those also supports a combo of some type if you want to go that route: Mana Geyser for Reiterate, Heat Shimmer or Twinflame for Dualcaster. Those are all questionable inclusions on their own, but not so bad that they're unplayable.
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Not surprising for a Ravnica set, there's not a ton here for mono-R. Gruul has about as many options as expected and I'm skipping most of those cards here, but the spectacle mechanic from Rakdos fits Jaya pretty well even if there aren't a lot of options there. I'm looking at one card that I'll definitely be trying out with a couple possibilities.
Red
Deface - Destroying a creature with defender isn't going to come up often and sorcery speed limits the usefulness here. 1 CMC artifact destruction is the right rate, we just have better options.
Electrodominance - X-cost burn spells are usually decent here with the focus on hitting land drops and number of Gauntlets I run. Instant speed is a definite perk, even more so when it allows things that aren't usually instant speed to come down at the same time. This is my number two card from the set and the harder to evaluate one. I think it could definitely have a place but could also see it being just a burn spell more often than not.
Immolation Shaman - Incidental damage is fun. Shaman dies way too quickly here to be a good choice, even with the built in pump.
Light Up the Stage - Best card of the set for Jaya. Spectacle is an easy trigger and the floor on the card is roughly Divination much of the time. I like that we're seeing more of the "until the end of your next turn" wording from Commune with Lava.
Mirror March - Fun EDH card that will probably lead to a lot of memorable moments (for both the successes and failures). Not a good fit for Jaya - there are plenty of other expensive enchantments I'd look to before this one.
Rubble Reading - Stapling a scry to a Stone Rain still gives you a decent cost. This falls behind all of the options you can run in your manabase. Worth considering if you don't have access to any of those.
And that's it. All of the artifacts and lands in mono-R color identity are either tied closely to gate, to multicolor, or are overcosted with the exception of Scrabbling Claws, which is a reprint. As much as I like the setting, that's more or less what I expect from Ravnica. I'll be finding a place for Light Up the Stage for sure and maybe testing Electrodominance, because sneaking a Gauntlet out EOT sounds delightful. As usual, I'm interested in hearing what other people think of the set, especially when I've missed something.
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I’m definitely looking forward to trying out Eletrodominance for the cast spell of cmc X or less shenanigans. I like Light up the Stage but I feel like I’ve managed to find a good spot of card draw for my deck and I’m not really interested in the impulse draw, especially since in all my time using it I’ve found I very rarely actually play the cards exiled and am sad to see them exiled because I would have liked to have drawn them.
Been loving nesting dragon myself, it sets up a board after you activate jaya which is sweet. Im a bit more landfall heavy with ghirapur orrey and dark depths in my deck so it really feels good to get the dragon. Definitely looking forward to Electrodominance the most in the upcoming set.
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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I'll look to make some changes again likely soon. Had a great game recently where Chandra ToD was about to ultimate early into a game but was tucked under an O-Ring. Only for me to later stabilize from Theros Gods beating my face in by having Ugin blow up the board leaving me with an Ugin and Chandra who managed to get there with the support of a double sworded up Godo.
I like the changes, I've been trying to fit big red spells to make Jaya planeswalker more appealing as well with the new art coming out. It just didnt have the same feel or consistency. I gave your new build a try, with the looting effects as the support for her I really like it. I just feel a bit slower without the few mana rocks that got replaced by draw effects. The dream of electrodominace doing a ton of work cheating on mana and having sweet plays fell short as well. There just arent enough situations where you want both a fireball and a free spell. Id rather more utility in that slot.
Price of progress is much better with the support as well now, I gave it a shot before and it was alright, but the possibility of goggles in addition to past in flames makes it feel better to have in the deck with two chances to cast it twice. The next card I am probably cutting is sword of the animist as my new flex slot as I struggle to use it properly in my group. Overall though, I love the changes and I can see my list following suit as I really like the small loot support to filter better rather than large artifacts to draw a ton of cards slowly.
@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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With the addition of more spell support, I was looking a the spot of skred or lightning bolt that was previously there. I was personally going to give Volcanic Offering a try again as it uses jaya's 3 mana well and casting 2 with goggles seems back breaking for some opponents. At the same time it is just a very solid card on its own without them which makes me like it more.
@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.
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
@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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Experimental Frenzy is one of the best Jaya cards in a long, long time. It doesn't turn off casting your general, and Jaya can make use of all the cards in hand that you otherwise can't play. When you really get into trouble with it or draw a haymaker play for turn, you just ditch it and go back to a normal game (see: reasons why Aggressive Mining was awkward, though I could honestly see revisiting that with Enchanter's Bane). Also not gonna lie, as a lifelong coffee drinker/coffee snob I love the pro-coffee flavor text.
I'm also really interested in Risk Factor. Sure it's little more than a Browbeat but the fact that it has Jump Start means it can be discarded for Jaya and then used again later.
I'll write a set review someday. I just moved after a month of condo renovation work, so I haven't had much time to do anything but that.
Red
edit: Brainstorming the cuts for a smaller rummaging based draw package, so this is a little stream of consciousness/wall of text. The payoff cards for that are Archive and Goggles, like I said above. The engine cards that I'd be looking to add are Tormenting Voice, Wild Guess, and potentially Magmatic Insight, Cathartic Reunion, and Jaya Ballard (this and Goggles are not so secret incentives to try this out, just lower priority than having a functional deck). With that in mind, I'm looking for minimum four cuts. First cuts are going to be expensive cards that fill similar roles: Staff of Nin and Solemn Simulacrum, both artifacts that are middling at their job. I'm never particularly disappointed to see them, but I'm never excited either. I'm thinking the third cut is Magus of the Moon. I see enough basics that I'm not taking people off of colors well about half the time and it's much more fragile than the enchantment version anyways. Fourth cut is probably Commander's Sphere. Early game filtering is almost as good as ramp in this deck because I'm never going to be particularly explosive anyways, so hitting the land drops works just as well. I'm losing some draw synergies with Goblin Welder and Rings of Brighthearth, which is arguably the more important role for the card and the big reason I wouldn't mind cutting it for some draw. It's actually a little tempting to cut Mind Stone to fit one more as well for very similar reasons. Wayfarer's Bauble sticks as a way to get instant speed Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle bolts. If I'm already fitting everything else in there, I'll probably try dropping Chandra Ablaze for Jaya walker. That leaves the final tally as Out: Commander's Sphere, Mind Stone, Staff of Nin, Magus of the Moon, Solemn Simulacrum, and Chandra Ablaze; In: Alhammarret's Archive, Pyromancer's Goggles, Magmatic Insight, Tormenting Voice, Wild Guess, and Jaya Ballard. I'm losing one ramp spell in exchange for an overall lower curve and more cheap draw. The bigger loss is a couple early-ish creatures, which makes stabilizing much more reliant on Jaya.
Overall, worth a shot. It's also a good reason to pull out Jaya with a couple other new decks, which means I can be lazy about building anything new for quite a while.
Thoughts from the game; I was trying a silly thing with running all the red walkers that make emblems and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker really surprised me with how much help he was, removed one opponent's Nissa, Voice of Zendikar by attacking and then later killed his Ravos, Soultender with the -3, almost had the emblem out but I drew Reforge the Soul that turn and went for the miracle instead. I think his emblem is a bad addition in Jaya since it leaves you with no cards in hand for other player's turns, but his +1 is nice to be able to swing with a 4/4 indestructible flier every turn. I'll probably cut him for the Experimental Frenzy in all honesty but it was definitely a surprise.
The number of times I got a draw effect it was usually a full wheel, or a copied big draw spell, and I didn't see Alhammarret's Archive or most of my small draw effects. So I'm still not sure whether I'm going to get the kind of value out of it I hope, or if it's going to fluctuate in performance. I may have to put a Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel in here.
Over all. Very glad to be playing Jaya again, Alhammarret's Archive is probably going to be worth it (if I can draw it), and I'm looking forward to seeing what Experimental Frenzy is going to play like.
Got a chance to play with Experimental Frenzy last night. It was more or less the ideal situation for the card - extreme late game, stocked GY including PiF and fetches, Crucible and Scroll Rack on board. Unsurprisingly, it was very solid. I never missed the ability to play from hand and I had a couple turns where I chained several cards off the top. I'm more interested in seeing how it goes when I don't have Scroll Rack and an on-demand shuffle effect in the future. Still haven't made the broader changes to the card draw package that I outlined a couple posts up so I don't have thoughts on that yet.
Mostly cause I saw none of my card draw and only had a single mountain for the entire game. Lucky for me though I got Hazoret the Fervent in my opening hand and oh boy did she ever put in some work. I know Jaya usually the plan is to avoid having an empty hand and most of us put a lot of effort into keeping the hand stocked, but only playing a single red source and still being the deadliest threat at the table until Niv-Mizzet, Parun stabilised with a Torrential Gearhulk to block with. I'm half tempted to pick up an Invocation Hazoret and put a little more focus on being a fast aggressive list, instead of my current one that plays much slower into the massive beaters.
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.
This has always interested me, but Fork is a bit too expensive for me at the moment. Are there any good alternatives? Only ones I can think of offhand are Reverberate and Wild Ricochet (which I'm personally a fan of, despite the CMC).
Each of those also supports a combo of some type if you want to go that route: Mana Geyser for Reiterate, Heat Shimmer or Twinflame for Dualcaster. Those are all questionable inclusions on their own, but not so bad that they're unplayable.
It paid off big time when I got to copy Expropriate 5 times tonight.
This made my day.
- - - - - - -
Picked up a Karn, Scion of Urza last night. Excited to get some games in with it.
UBRNicol Bolas, the RavagerUBR
R Jaya Ballard, Task Mage R
2DH / Budget Commanders:
WMangara of Corondor 2DHW
BRXantcha, Sleeper Agent 2DHBR
Red
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.
Recent Changes:
+ Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
+ Karn, Scion of Urza
+ Reforge the Soul
+ Rolling Earthquake
+2 Snow-Covered Mountain
+ Glacial Chasm
- Goblin Welder
- Kozilek, the Great Distortion
- Commune with Lava
- Stolen Strategy
- Commander's Sphere
- Primal Amulet
- Command Beacon
I'll look to make some changes again likely soon. Had a great game recently where Chandra ToD was about to ultimate early into a game but was tucked under an O-Ring. Only for me to later stabilize from Theros Gods beating my face in by having Ugin blow up the board leaving me with an Ugin and Chandra who managed to get there with the support of a double sworded up Godo.
UBRNicol Bolas, the RavagerUBR
R Jaya Ballard, Task Mage R
2DH / Budget Commanders:
WMangara of Corondor 2DHW
BRXantcha, Sleeper Agent 2DHBR
Price of progress is much better with the support as well now, I gave it a shot before and it was alright, but the possibility of goggles in addition to past in flames makes it feel better to have in the deck with two chances to cast it twice. The next card I am probably cutting is sword of the animist as my new flex slot as I struggle to use it properly in my group. Overall though, I love the changes and I can see my list following suit as I really like the small loot support to filter better rather than large artifacts to draw a ton of cards slowly.
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.
@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.
UBRNicol Bolas, the RavagerUBR
R Jaya Ballard, Task Mage R
2DH / Budget Commanders:
WMangara of Corondor 2DHW
BRXantcha, Sleeper Agent 2DHBR
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
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.