It seems that this card is most powerful if you have only 1 type of non-legendary creature in the deck, and a source of creature production to sacrifice. For example, you could run 4 Terra Stomper in the deck as the only creature spells aside from Jalira, Master Polymorphist. Then use Raise the Alarm to get sacrifice bait in play. A problem is not being able to use normal mana ramping like Elvish Mystic or Sylvan Caryatid, since having those would risk having them get found with Jalira instead of the Terra Stomper. And there isn't a lot in the way of green land-fetching sorceries either. Font of Fertility might help a little bit.
Thoughts? Do you see a way to use this card effectively?
It would be nice if Jalira had hexproof, but we can't have everything.
Actually, you can run creatures other than Jalira and the creature you want to polymorph into, they just have to legendary. So, having Brimaz, King of Oreskos or Polukranos, World Eater in the deck is fine and Brimaz in particular provides tokens you can use for polymorphing. Just a thought.
It can be a deck but besides Worldspine Wurm I don't think there is any other creature with getting. Sure, there are a lot of good creatures but most of them are good because of the other cards/strategies they are played for or they have mana sinks... which won't work too well in this deck. I'm not going to say you can't try but the deck is very fragile and such... and maybe World isn't good enough to get there... :/ (you could run Soul Bond)
There's already some brew that play Esper colors with Ashen Rider as the creature to hunt for. I think I also saw something with a singleton Worldspine Wurm
You can use other legendary creatures like Brimaz to supplement the board state until comboing.
During Shadowmoor/Alara block I played Mighty Morphing Progenitus which ended up being just a bunch of sweepers and fog effects with some token generation to Polymorph into Progenitus so you never ran into creatures and there was not much need to actually be ramping.
Fogs were probably much better at that point in time because you had Pollen Lullaby and token generation like Goblin Assault to make sure you could stop damage with relative ease.
As far as I can tell, the finisher selection is not all that great either. If Detention Sphere and Banishing Light were not solid options for decks to be dealing with things all of the time, Worldspine Wurm might be a reasonable choice. There could be something I am missing in the available card pool though.
Remember that it says non legendary creature.. so you can run polukranos, world eater and any number of gods in your deck without messing up your combo.
If you pair it with white you get a lot of token production.
I would strongly recommend Ashen Rider, it is good to sac to the polymorph ability. Exile your land, nezt turn sac., exlie a land, new rider, exile a land seems strong in grindy metas.
The biggest problem with Jalira, is that you need another creature to sacrifice.
This is a major inherent flaw in her ability, as in order to be able to use her ability reliably you end up weakening it at the same time.
You need cheap creatures to use as a sacrifice, but the more you have in her deck the weaker her ability gets.
There are 2 ways to get around this problem:
1) Play only Legendary Creatures.
This isn't a great option to be honest, the legendaries CMCs are usually too high to be able to use them effectively and the colors are spread quite widely so you would have a very unstable mana base.
2) Use Tokens.
This is the far better option in my opinion - you can have an easy supply of creatures without a wonky mana-base.
For colors you have a few choices, I would personally pick UWR as it has plenty of support for a control strategy with a few new additions in M15 as well.
Basically the strategy would be to keep your opponent in check with a range of Burn, Bounce, Counters, Chump-block Tokens and board-wipes until you land a Jalira and some tokens. Then sac those tokens to accelerate into your kill condition sooner.
For an actual kill condition there are also a surprising amount of creatures to choose from, which is best will depend on the deck you're playing against so it may be feasible to keep some in the sideboard:
1) Worldspine Wurm - Everyone knows this guy, He's definitely the best all-round pick in my opinion. He's nigh impossible to kill for good. Has evasion. Insanely high power, and as an added bonus makes an incredible sacrifice engine for Jalira as well - you can grow a board of 5/5 tramplers in no time flat. He is vulnerable to exile effects though, not a problem if you keep mana open to use Jalira in response.
2) Ashen Rider - She immediately removes something from the game when she hits, and yet another when she dies. You can quickly starve your opponent of lands, creatures, enchantments etc. Best to simply keep mana open for Jalira and sac it in response to your opponent trying something rather than simply going on a sac-spree as you will eventually run out of Ashen riders. Wordlspine Wurm doesn't have that problem.
3) Utvara Hellkite - Attack, get token, Sac Token, get another Utvara, Attack, Get 2 Tokens, Sac Token, Get 3rd Utvara, Attack, Get 4 tokens...
4) Hellkite Tyrant - Blow Affinity out the water!
-Actually, many of the dragons are good targets - so just check the rest of them out. Izzet Dragons may actually be playable as an archetype (ENTER THE DRAGON!).
5) Hornet Queen - A bit unorthadox, but in a token strategy with Purphoros, God of the Forge it can be utterly deadly. Also, hoses any creature based decks.
6) Scuttling Doom Engine - All round great card. About the only card on this list you could actually cast without needing Jalira either, and his ability makes him even more powerful with her on the field. Also combo's well with burn in general.
7) Stormtide Leviathan - Stops most aggressive decks in their tracks, but he is very weak to removal when compared to the other targets.
Note: All of the above go straight through Elspeth, Sun's Champion's Tokens so you never truly need to fear her. Her 2nd ability is a B***h, but Worldspine Wurm, Ashen Rider, Scuttling Doom Engine and Hornet Queen all avoid it (ashen Rider just outright kills her the turn she hits, Scuttling Doom Engine takes her with it, Worldspine wurm kills her on the backswing and Hornet Queen just laughs). Esper's worst nightmare
I personally think this type of deck could be viable:
+You can accelerate your threats out far faster than a traditional control deck, effectively out-racing them.
+The threats you put out are difficult for other control decks to deal with, conversely their most common threats don't bother you.
+You will never miss with Jalira, due to everything else being instants/sorceries.
+Tokens by themselves can overwhelm many decks even if you aren't able to land Jalira.
+The tokens themselves actually help cover a Control decks biggest weakness - fast aggro. Many aggro decks creatures have 1 toughness so chump block away! (Legion Loyalist rotates out soon, YAY!)
+May be feasible to run less lands than an average Control deck due to your effective curve being lower.
-Jalira needs to stay alive for at least one turn, so it can be disrupted. (Very important - if your opponent runs removal, always leave counterspell mana up!)
-Less Space in the deck for counterspells, burn and kill-spells due to tokens.
-Your own Board-wipes can hit your tokens.
-Holy Crap, Didn't realize I'd typed so much!
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Thoughts? Do you see a way to use this card effectively?
It would be nice if Jalira had hexproof, but we can't have everything.
You can use other legendary creatures like Brimaz to supplement the board state until comboing.
During Shadowmoor/Alara block I played Mighty Morphing Progenitus which ended up being just a bunch of sweepers and fog effects with some token generation to Polymorph into Progenitus so you never ran into creatures and there was not much need to actually be ramping.
Fogs were probably much better at that point in time because you had Pollen Lullaby and token generation like Goblin Assault to make sure you could stop damage with relative ease.
As far as I can tell, the finisher selection is not all that great either. If Detention Sphere and Banishing Light were not solid options for decks to be dealing with things all of the time, Worldspine Wurm might be a reasonable choice. There could be something I am missing in the available card pool though.
If you pair it with white you get a lot of token production.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
This is a major inherent flaw in her ability, as in order to be able to use her ability reliably you end up weakening it at the same time.
You need cheap creatures to use as a sacrifice, but the more you have in her deck the weaker her ability gets.
There are 2 ways to get around this problem:
1) Play only Legendary Creatures.
This isn't a great option to be honest, the legendaries CMCs are usually too high to be able to use them effectively and the colors are spread quite widely so you would have a very unstable mana base.
2) Use Tokens.
This is the far better option in my opinion - you can have an easy supply of creatures without a wonky mana-base.
I personally think the best way to build around her is to play in a Control-like shell with plenty of instants and sorceries and Tokens instead of creatures.
These are the best token generators for this in my opinion: Raise the Alarm, Triplicate Spirits, Call of The Conclave, Beck // call, Flurry of Horns, Goblin Rally, Hive Stirrings, Molten birth, Slime Molding, Selesnya Charm.
Special Mention to: Brimaz, King of Oreskos
NOTE: You don't want to run too many token creators. Be careful when using Triplicate Spirits in the deck - It's cost can be quite high, unless you get some tokens out first.
For colors you have a few choices, I would personally pick UWR as it has plenty of support for a control strategy with a few new additions in M15 as well.
Basically the strategy would be to keep your opponent in check with a range of Burn, Bounce, Counters, Chump-block Tokens and board-wipes until you land a Jalira and some tokens. Then sac those tokens to accelerate into your kill condition sooner.
For an actual kill condition there are also a surprising amount of creatures to choose from, which is best will depend on the deck you're playing against so it may be feasible to keep some in the sideboard:
1) Worldspine Wurm - Everyone knows this guy, He's definitely the best all-round pick in my opinion. He's nigh impossible to kill for good. Has evasion. Insanely high power, and as an added bonus makes an incredible sacrifice engine for Jalira as well - you can grow a board of 5/5 tramplers in no time flat. He is vulnerable to exile effects though, not a problem if you keep mana open to use Jalira in response.
2) Ashen Rider - She immediately removes something from the game when she hits, and yet another when she dies. You can quickly starve your opponent of lands, creatures, enchantments etc. Best to simply keep mana open for Jalira and sac it in response to your opponent trying something rather than simply going on a sac-spree as you will eventually run out of Ashen riders. Wordlspine Wurm doesn't have that problem.
3) Utvara Hellkite - Attack, get token, Sac Token, get another Utvara, Attack, Get 2 Tokens, Sac Token, Get 3rd Utvara, Attack, Get 4 tokens...
4) Hellkite Tyrant - Blow Affinity out the water!
-Actually, many of the dragons are good targets - so just check the rest of them out. Izzet Dragons may actually be playable as an archetype (ENTER THE DRAGON!).
5) Hornet Queen - A bit unorthadox, but in a token strategy with Purphoros, God of the Forge it can be utterly deadly. Also, hoses any creature based decks.
6) Scuttling Doom Engine - All round great card. About the only card on this list you could actually cast without needing Jalira either, and his ability makes him even more powerful with her on the field. Also combo's well with burn in general.
7) Stormtide Leviathan - Stops most aggressive decks in their tracks, but he is very weak to removal when compared to the other targets.
Note: All of the above go straight through Elspeth, Sun's Champion's Tokens so you never truly need to fear her. Her 2nd ability is a B***h, but Worldspine Wurm, Ashen Rider, Scuttling Doom Engine and Hornet Queen all avoid it (ashen Rider just outright kills her the turn she hits, Scuttling Doom Engine takes her with it, Worldspine wurm kills her on the backswing and Hornet Queen just laughs). Esper's worst nightmare
I personally think this type of deck could be viable:
+You can accelerate your threats out far faster than a traditional control deck, effectively out-racing them.
+The threats you put out are difficult for other control decks to deal with, conversely their most common threats don't bother you.
+You will never miss with Jalira, due to everything else being instants/sorceries.
+Tokens by themselves can overwhelm many decks even if you aren't able to land Jalira.
+The tokens themselves actually help cover a Control decks biggest weakness - fast aggro. Many aggro decks creatures have 1 toughness so chump block away! (Legion Loyalist rotates out soon, YAY!)
+May be feasible to run less lands than an average Control deck due to your effective curve being lower.
-Jalira needs to stay alive for at least one turn, so it can be disrupted. (Very important - if your opponent runs removal, always leave counterspell mana up!)
-Less Space in the deck for counterspells, burn and kill-spells due to tokens.
-Your own Board-wipes can hit your tokens.
-Holy Crap, Didn't realize I'd typed so much!
Great place to get Anime, Figurines, Comics and Magic The Gathering cards in South Africa: www.heroesofgc.com