I'll be attending the @wizards_magic panel today as Jaya Ballard! Hope to see some of you there
Given Wizards' marketing strategy of living in the now, there would be no reason to have this unless Jaya were actually being used to hype a product, and basically nowhere Jaya would fit except the C14 red deck.
2) It would be great to have Jaya in her planeswalker form as the face of the red deck.
She has virtually no contestant there except Lord Windgrace, who shall nevertheless be BR or GBR, if printed. But he was on a couple of red-aligned spells in INV block.
Ugh. The only saving grace for wasting a mono-red 'walker slot on Chandra's identical twin sister is the "Can be your commander" ability. At least playing her as a commander will feel original.
Assuming we're not reading too much into what could be an innocent cosplay, of course.
She has virtually no contestant there except Lord Windgrace, who shall nevertheless be BR or GBR, if printed. But he was on a couple of red-aligned spells in INV block.
I still say Slobad is a viable choice... the Jaya cosplay could be foreshadowing, but on the other hand so could the printing of Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient and the reprinting of Hoarding Dragon, which suggest red's getting more of the artifact utility treatment, and the Mirrodin lore is well-liked to my knowledge. Not to mention Tezz has shown us how good trinket walkers can be...
Honestly if you a going for an red oldwalker she is really the only choice like Serra is for white. Black and Green each have a couple but honestly Red is hard to name another mono walker possibility.
Jeska as a red "body" walker like Gideon was another idea people were throwing around, but Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker just covered that, so less likely now.
In all seriousness though Jaya was my pick as soon as I thought of walkers they would use that are mono red. Makes complete sense. There is no one else who can realistically compete.
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Personally hoping for Slobad. He was a planeswalker (however briefly), people have been wanting a Goblin planeswalker for some time, and he wouldn't be stepping on Chandra's toes mechanically the way that Jaya would. Jaya's cool (I like her more than Chandra), but they cover the exact same part of red and WotC is trying to make the planeswalkers have fairly good mechanical identity.
remember they said that not all the commander planeswalkers are old walkers, it could easily be Tezzeret's apprentice (the red artificer pw from the books), honestly I would be excited for that.
It's interesting because her card from time spiral looks like a planeswalker bata card Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
I read a mod somewhere here said (I think it was Barinellos?) that her Time Spiral card was a prototype of the Planeswalker card.
While there are obvious similarities, it seems much more likely that they came from different directions. Jaya was a flavour text character represented as a Spellshaper who replicated some of the best known spells to feature her. Planeswalkers are the result of a rather extensive processstarting from the position of walkers having "their own plans". According to MaRo, Planeswalkers were removed from Future Sight when they still operated automatically, so they were less like Jaya than the final incarnation. There doesn't seem to be enough time to put a "pilot" version of a subsequent concept into Time Spiral, much less one that fits an established character so well, when they were removed from the third set of the block at what we're led to believe to be the eleventh hour. Barinellos, if it was him, was probably just speculating based on the similarity of the final products but I think it's more likely to be convergent evolution than intent.
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Given Wizards' marketing strategy of living in the now, there would be no reason to have this unless Jaya were actually being used to hype a product, and basically nowhere Jaya would fit except the C14 red deck.
Moved to Speculation - Wildfire393
2) It would be great to have Jaya in her planeswalker form as the face of the red deck.
She has virtually no contestant there except Lord Windgrace, who shall nevertheless be BR or GBR, if printed. But he was on a couple of red-aligned spells in INV block.
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Assuming we're not reading too much into what could be an innocent cosplay, of course.
I still say Slobad is a viable choice... the Jaya cosplay could be foreshadowing, but on the other hand so could the printing of Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient and the reprinting of Hoarding Dragon, which suggest red's getting more of the artifact utility treatment, and the Mirrodin lore is well-liked to my knowledge. Not to mention Tezz has shown us how good trinket walkers can be...
Playtesting | Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Narset, Enlightened Master | Ephara, God of the Polis
Established | Gahiji, Honored One | Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker | Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo | Rubinia Soulsinger
Retired | Medomai the Ageless | Diaochan, Artful Beauty
---
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Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
So popular that they made the red Walker inspired on her (MaRo's words)
While it would surely be a nice pick, I guess a different one would have more design space.
So... Jeska maybe?
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Jeska as a red "body" walker like Gideon was another idea people were throwing around, but Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker just covered that, so less likely now.
Playtesting | Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Narset, Enlightened Master | Ephara, God of the Polis
Established | Gahiji, Honored One | Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker | Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo | Rubinia Soulsinger
Retired | Medomai the Ageless | Diaochan, Artful Beauty
In all seriousness though Jaya was my pick as soon as I thought of walkers they would use that are mono red. Makes complete sense. There is no one else who can realistically compete.
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I read a mod somewhere here said (I think it was Barinellos?) that her Time Spiral card was a prototype of the Planeswalker card.
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While there are obvious similarities, it seems much more likely that they came from different directions. Jaya was a flavour text character represented as a Spellshaper who replicated some of the best known spells to feature her. Planeswalkers are the result of a rather extensive process starting from the position of walkers having "their own plans". According to MaRo, Planeswalkers were removed from Future Sight when they still operated automatically, so they were less like Jaya than the final incarnation. There doesn't seem to be enough time to put a "pilot" version of a subsequent concept into Time Spiral, much less one that fits an established character so well, when they were removed from the third set of the block at what we're led to believe to be the eleventh hour. Barinellos, if it was him, was probably just speculating based on the similarity of the final products but I think it's more likely to be convergent evolution than intent.