For the last slot, I spent a long time browsing various staple lists and other red decklists and nothing seemed to stand out as obviously good, but I did see one red deck that played Ensnaring Bridge; which got me thinking about that card.
It seems like it could have a lot of potential in a Jaya deck. In red, you'll usually have a small hand size. You can also be tricky by shrinking you handsize at the beginning of combat with a Jaya activation. It's a hard counter to Creatorhoof Behemoth. Even a 5/5 Prossh would have trouble attacking under the bridge. The only voltron general who would probably not be stonewalled would be Rafiq, but Jaya does a pretty good job of managing him on her own. The best part is that Jaya often wins through non-combat damage, Bridge can buy you time while you dig for Comet Storm, Repercussions, or you just blast them enough times with Jaya.
Disclaimer: I haven't played with brdige yet, so Ensaring Bridge is all theory for now, but I'm going to try it out ASAP. Do any of you have experience playing with or against it in EDH.
I've played it, and it's very good. Just don't expect to have it in play for too long - the fact that everyone else's creatures are bogged down regardless of whom they want to swing at can earn this a swift Krosan Grip to the I-beams.
Is is possible to do a budget version of this deck, but say that my criteria was only cards equal or under $10 unless a card is core/must-have to the deck?
Definitely possible. You're going to be a little less consistent, but it's not going to be unplayable by any means. A quick scan of the list on deckstats for $10+ cards gives me:
Magus of the Moon/Blood Moon - Not a huge loss. They slow down opponents, but they're less effective against decks running more basics anyways so they're already a bit of a meta choice. Skip them.
Akroma's Memorial - Useful and recently reprinted, so you can likely find this one. It's protection for Jaya and haste, so it's very helpful. If you go lower budget, you'll probably lose some of the disruption and want to be a little more aggressive anyways. Grab it if you can.
Batterskull - Lifelink and a threat that kind of survives explosions. Powerful, but not essential.
Crucible of Worlds, fetchlands - Listed together because they work together. Crucible is significantly better than the fetches if you have to choose, because it can more or less negate the discard cost. Pick it up if you can, but there are many alternatives (like Squee, Goblin Nabob and it's not going to make the deck work on its own. Skip the fetches for sure.
Gauntlet of Might, Gauntlet of Power - Skip Might. It's very pricey for an effect you can already get from a few cards. Power should be easier to find, but is not required. It normally gets blown up quickly anyways.
Any expensive mana rocks - Lots of cheap alternatives to these. Just use the best ones you can find.
Sensei's Divining Top - Not nearly as good if you're not running fetches and other shuffle effects. Probably outclassed by Crystal Ball in that case.
Sword of Fire and Ice - Protection, card draw, and a little bit of a finisher. There are other choices for all three of these effects. It's nice if you have it, but again, it won't make or break the deck.
Stranglehold - Decent disruption. There are other otptions, and it doesn't directly contribute to the deck's gameplan.
Chandra, Pyromaster - Card draw. You can swap her out for a looting effect of some kind and get similar functionality.
All is Dust - Mostly good for taking out enchantments, but any of the other red wrath effects can take its place.
Gamble - Tutoring. You can get around this a bit by using goblins, but there's no direct substitute for it.
Wheel of Fortune - There are a few other wheel effects out there, so you should be fine without it.
In a nutshell, none of the really pricey stuff is essential. It mostly means you're going to have to find your card advantage in other places. What I would probably do is run a goblin package and a little more artifact support. Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter are both cheap, and can find you a bunch of different effects: Squee, Goblin Nabob to play with looters, Rummaging Goblin to toss him, Goblin Welder to have artifact shenanigans, Stingscourger as soft removal, etc. Check out Gaka's Norin primer for some more in depth looks at available goblins.
You can also take a page from his book and run a little more chaos. Jaya is well suited to play around a lot of it, so it can slow the game down to your desired speed for everyone else.
Other land hate can be good too. It's easy to build a manabase that gets around Ruination, and you're normally safe from Wake of Destruction.
The most dangerous (and therefore most effective) cards in the deck are pretty cheap. Repercussion is probably the best thing to have with Jaya in a creature light deck. Steel Hellkite is a finisher and removal. All of the phoenix are recurring threats. If you're interested in playing a deck like this, I would try throwing a rough list together and posting it (either in this thread or its own). There are obviously a few people who have played around with the idea enough to give you some good feedback. Even more important than that is just playing some games. This format varies wildly from playgroup to playgroup, so the things that work for me are not necessarily the things that are going to work for you. So, on to other things that have happened in the thread. JOU is giving this deck a lot more toys than BNG, which is nice. Dictate of the Twin Gods seems like a good one if you like the damage doublers, either swapping out Furnace or running them concurrently for the possibility of x4/x8 damage. Prophetic Flamespeaker seems great for any creature heavy red decks. I don't think mine will be able to make much use of it, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Harness by Force is a nice threaten effect. I'm not sure that it's better than Mass Mutiny or Insurrection, but it's definitely more flexible. Twinflame is in a similar situation to Flamespeaker. Better with creature heavy decks, but could be a good one somewhere.
There's still some room for other good stuff here, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Ensnaring Bridge seems like a decent defensive option. It and Crawlspace fill similar roles, so I'd imagine it depends on what decks you see on a regular basis. It's also not great if you can keep your hand full. It's not exactly a common problem in mono-R, but wheels and land fetches keep me well stocked a lot of the time. Portcullis is one of those high risk, high reward cards. It can slow things down a lot. It can also leave you with an empty board and not a lot of outs. The big issue with it is that things enter, then are exiled, so any ETB abilities still go off. It actually doubles them, so be aware of that. Tahngarth, Talruum Hero does seem a lot like Kumano. I still prefer Kumano, but I haven't made any secret of the fact that he's a bit of a pet card for me. I don't like that he can't go to the face, but he makes a better attacker than a lot of the creatures I run and plays a decent defensive game. Orcish Settlers seems worse than Goblin Settler (if budget isn't a concern) as well as Strip Mine and friends. I've never really noticed an issue dealing with lands in this deck, but it's a reasonable choice. Seems good with land fetches and mana doublers.
I'll update the primer again someday, but school is busy times and I really don't want to deal with the formatting headache that the forum switch left behind. I'd guess sometime in the next couple months, but my track record in dealing with my own threads has not been so hot lately. I can tell you that there haven't been any significant changes to my list because the new sets haven't offered much, but I also haven't been playing it all that much recently.
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Call me crazy, but I'm going to give Prophetic Flamespeaker a shot. It's probably just going to sit on the table for a turn and just die, but there's potential here. I'll rotate Kumano out to make room for a couple weeks and see what happens. Flamespeaker seems disgusting if you can get some kind of equipment onto him.
Edit: I'm having some political problems in my local metagame. I'm sure I'll be ale to work through them or find a cardboard solution.
My new plan for the deck was to cut about 6 cards and put in a stax package, but the original deck wasn't built with stax in mind and I don't want to cut all my 5+ drops for small token gen and more stax pieces; I don't think Smokestack and Tanglewire on their own really do that much to stop what I want to stop. Scratch plan A.
Plan B was simply look at some cards and see if I missed anything that could be impactful. I got some hits.
Edit: Made a list of a few cards that I was considering, but decided that most of them were impulse choices and would probably not do enough. I did order some cards, I'll let you know if anything holds promise.
I got a big surprise present for my birthday, Imperial Recruiter! I was very surprised to finally have one and immediately put it in my deck. I figure that it's fine to just play him getting whatever seems good, but having him in the deck can and will effect card choices going forward, because any creature is better if I can tutor for it.
Are there any creatures that you would be more likely to play because you had an Imperial Recruiter?
Call me crazy, but I'm going to give Prophetic Flamespeaker a shot. It's probably just going to sit on the table for a turn and just die, but there's potential here. I'll rotate Kumano out to make room for a couple weeks and see what happens. Flamespeaker seems disgusting if you can get some kind of equipment onto him.
I'll probably give him a shot at some point. I'm likely to pick a few up for constructed purposes if I can come up with anything that makes him hum, so I should have them on hand.
Edit: I'm having some political problems in my local metagame. I'm sure I'll be ale to work through them or find a cardboard solution.
My new plan for the deck was to cut about 6 cards and put in a stax package, but the original deck wasn't built with stax in mind and I don't want to cut all my 5+ drops for small token gen and more stax pieces; I don't think Smokestack and Tanglewire on their own really do that much to stop what I want to stop. Scratch plan A.
Plan B was simply look at some cards and see if I missed anything that could be impactful. I got some hits.
Edit: Made a list of a few cards that I was considering, but decided that most of them were impulse choices and would probably not do enough. I did order some cards, I'll let you know if anything holds promise.
I got a big surprise present for my birthday, Imperial Recruiter! I was very surprised to finally have one and immediately put it in my deck. I figure that it's fine to just play him getting whatever seems good, but having him in the deck can and will effect card choices going forward, because any creature is better if I can tutor for it.
Are there any creatures that you would be more likely to play because you had an Imperial Recruiter?
I want to jam stax stuff on a pretty regular basis, but this has never seemed like a good deck to do it. It's already kind of grindy, but in a different way, so it would likely take some rebuilding to make that happen. I might consider that in a bit, as I'm in the process of consolidating all of my decks into one giant box and building on the fly, which should make my list a lot more fluid.
I've actually had a Recruiter for a while now. I picked up on of the judge foils when they were a little more reasonably (comparatively) priced, but I haven't tried to stick it in here. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with a little more of a utility creature package seems like a good start, but even grabbing things like Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart is a respectable use for him. Anarchist could be a reasonable choice, as could Flamespeaker if you think you can protect him/clear a path. Some kind of tutorable GY hate card (Heap Doll?) would be ok if you have a few GY focused decks in the area. I might readd Squee, Goblin Nabob. Stuffy Doll might be cute. Duplicant exiles. There are quite a few dudes who are decent if they stick around, but that doesn't play well with the nuke the board strategy that I'm fond of. It's tough to say, because I have yet to put mine into a mono-R deck. I enjoy finding Dark Confidant with it too much.
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I've been running Imperial Recruiter since building mine and it's been quite useful. I use it to find Goblin Welder or Squee about every time but I think they make it worth it
If there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that often the best red card in the set is just not made of the right stuff to be good in Jaya EDH.
That ogre is insanely good in decks with a more proactive strategy. You can do crazy stuff like turn 4 Eldrazi or turn 4 Purphoros, turn 5 ogre + Myr Incubator = win. Honestly, I expect people to break that ogre day 1.
He's just not that good with Jaya. Sure you can get 13 red mana on turn 4, but just what are you going to cast with it that is so dangerous? This deck doesn't have have an "If I get this in play I'll win" card so the ogre doesn't enable the same kind of degeneracy early. You really have to play him as an all-in kind of card, since if you're just going to use him or 1 or 2 mana here or there, why not just play a mana rock instead?
I think the best we can do is drop an early Mind's Eye and then drawing 3 cards off it for 24 life payment. Which is actually reasonably good for mono red card advantage.
Paying life also fights against Jaya's inferno ability, you'll quickly find yourself down in the single digits with Ogre which means that the deck has a lot fewer options for killing creatures if inferno is off limits. I think it's actually a card that I'd like to see on my opponent's side of the table more then mine. I'd love to see someone drop down to 10 or less, makes Jaya's job easy.
Granted, there are a few situations where I can see the Ogre being at least okay in this deck. I've been at over 200 before because of a lifelinked inferno after someone cast Rise from the Dark Realms, but that is a very rare occurrence, this deck usually doesn't have life to spare.
Granted, this is all hypothetical. The ogre may be one of those cards that is just way better when you get to play with him, but I think this decks controlling nature and lack of a proactive plan combined with the self-inflicted pain of inferno means that he's just not cut out for this EDH deck.
Well, yeah, you'd have to be conservative with the ability. But I seem to run into too many situations where I'm one or two mana short of being able to boardwipe effectively. Jaya's Inferno ability behooves you to include Basilisk Collar and Batterskull, anyway...
Those are some good points about Treasonous Ogre. I'm a bit pessimistic about it, because I'm thinking of it in a 'well, all these cards need to come together for this to be good the turn I play him' but it may just be a case of him being good because he's a body and he can enable something good next turn or the turn after that if I happen to draw into something worth the life payment for.
It's been a while since I posted a decklist, but I'd like to share what I've been tinkering on.
I feel like I'm starting to diverge from the list outlined in the primer, mostly due to cuts I've made, but it is still a Jaya EDH deck. Now to talk about some of the more interesting inclusions:
Forward: I normally play at an LGS that runs a commander league. There is a heavy handed points penalty for winning with an infinite combo, so there are very few combo decks played. The way you earn point is to knock a player out of the game. Generally, as a creature lite deck that doesn't have a good creature presence early, I'll find myself the victim of opportunistic attacks from the first player with a decent sized creature out. My best answer for this is to clear the board with an inferno, but then I usually fall behind in life and people start to eye my dwindling life total with greedy eyes and seek to continue bashing on me for my point. Sometimes you do manage to battle back and win. I sometimes feel like I'm being focused off the table. My recent changes attempt to acknowledge this pattern and curb it's occurrence.
1. Meekstone - I was in one of those deck building moods a while back and looked through gatherer for every single red card and artifact ever printed. This was the true gemstone of a card that I found. My playgroup sees a lot of creature based decks being played and the one thorn in my side has always been if someone gets out a creature that is just outside of inferno range of heaven forbid Blasphemous Act range. I am aware that it is a nombo with my dragon or Jaya being pumped by an equipment or a gauntlet, but there are a few sources vigilance in the deck. My belief is that the longer the game drags out the better chance Jaya has to win vs big creature strategies. I consider Meekstone a key piece of my trinity of lockout artifacts, along with Portcullis and Ensnaring Bridge.
2. Diaochan, Artful Beauty - she is usually seen as a decks commander and not as one of the 99. I do like that she destroys creatures, which means she can deal with threats outside of inferno range. She also does a good job politically by letting you and someone else conspire to take down the player on top. She also benefits from the equipment package the deck already plays. I'm currently testing her. My only concern is that she is very fragile without the equipment in play and could just be a do nothing card.
3. Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze - I've included these because they are great colorless rattlesnake cards that will either make people look elsewhere for a target to attack or stop some of the pain if suffer. Maze of Ith can give one of your bigger creatures pseudo vigilance if you're attacking with Meekstone out.
4. Molten Disaster - This is the strangest of the bunch. I just told you I want to avoid being attacked and keep my own life total up, but then I'm playing a card that is just like inferno and will deal me damage. This card is primarily a hate card for a local Roon of the Hidden Realms deck that has been abusing Prophet of Kruphix. There is so much available flicker in Bant that even with 3 players ganging up to kill PoK, we'd run into an endless wall of blink effects for point kill and Ghostaway for mass kill. I've had enough of the 'I'll just take 4 minutes during the end of your turn to play my turn then untap and do it again 2 more times.' Split Second should be on more cards. I honestly don't expect this card to last that long in the deck, since if I stop seeing that deck across the table then I wont need a niche answer for it.
5. Grafdigger's Cage - I love Tormod's Crypt, but I feel that the multiplayer nature of EDH often means that Crypt can only stop one graveyard, I need something that can stop more then one player. Cage has it's own problems, like not being able to stop Eternal Witness, but it does have some upsides too, like being able to stop Genesis Wave or Lurking Predators. I'll keep my eyes out for any more relevant interactions.
I really like GV, since it makes Jaya a much quicker clock, but I think that it ends up being win-more in most cases.
Mad Prophet and Wild Guess I dropped because after putting MP back in the deck, I felt that using them as card selection engines is normally not what I want to be doing unless I happen to have Squee, because they compete with Jaya for fodder cards and don't actually net me any card advantage. I'm hoping red gets more draw soon.
You'd play Shard Phoenix over Skarrgan Firebird? Do you find yourself under pressure from non-flying X/2's a lot? Because otherwise, I'd think you'd rather have the big phoenix; he's an effective closer once you've got the field under control.
You'd play Shard Phoenix over Skarrgan Firebird? Do you find yourself under pressure from non-flying X/2's a lot? Because otherwise, I'd think you'd rather have the big phoenix; he's an effective closer once you've got the field under control.
I don't see a ton of X/2's but I still think Shard Phoenix is worth it. It's not that rare for me to see Krenko, Prossh, or Avenger of Zendikar, so being able to sweep up the tokens is nice. It can kill a lot of small but powerful generals too, like Captain Sisay, Hanna, or a small Animar. Shardy can also be fetched with Imperial Recruiter and even though his recursion is more restricted in time, it doesn't require damage being dealt. Having cards to pitch became less important when I dropped looters. I also play with a cool Stronghold one, it's probably just a pet card of mine.
If I find myself wanting more recursion, then I can always put Skarrgan Firebird back into the deck.
WyvernSlayer, how has Prophetic Flamespeaker been testing for you? I'm eager to hear any details.
One thing I'd like to write up about my deck above in a section with a view of the future; these are cards I want to give consideration to in my future brews of Jaya EDh.
1. Koth of the Hammer - I was never too keen on this guy before, I even felt he was weak. You expose your mountains to removal spells. He's hard to protect. The 1 damage emblem isn't a speedy clock at all; but I think that this card is much better in my version of Jaya. Animating a mountain is a good way to get around Meekstone and Portcullis. If you do emblem him, you have eternal pressure against all players life total and can ping off small critters with ease.
2. Goblin Welder - I originally had this card in the deck, but cut him after 1.) Never drawing him ever and 2.) When I did get him, never having any of my artifacts killed and never using him once for any value. However, I hear nothing but eternal praise for this 1 drop; so I'll consider him in future versions. I think having Imperial Recruiter available to search up Welder is a welcome boost. Additionally, I imagine that I could pull cool tricks with Welder by being able to weld out a Portcullis, Ensnaring Bridge, or Meekstone so that it was not in play on my turn, then weld it back so it would affect my opponents.
3. Uphill Battle, Mudslide, Smoke - I did play Smoke for a time, but found it to be ineffective at stopping creatures. I don't think the other cards hold that much promise on their own; but they do offer unique effects that aren't common territory for mono-red decks. It's just something I want to keep in mind incase of future metagame developments.
WyvernSlayer, how has Prophetic Flamespeaker been testing for you? I'm eager to hear any details.
One thing I'd like to write up about my deck above in a section with a view of the future; these are cards I want to give consideration to in my future brews of Jaya EDh.
1. Koth of the Hammer - I was never too keen on this guy before, I even felt he was weak. You expose your mountains to removal spells. He's hard to protect. The 1 damage emblem isn't a speedy clock at all; but I think that this card is much better in my version of Jaya. Animating a mountain is a good way to get around Meekstone and Portcullis. If you do emblem him, you have eternal pressure against all players life total and can ping off small critters with ease.
I haven't actually drawn Prophetic Flamespeaker yet, so I've got nothing to report there.
I've seen some wildly varying opinions on Koth of the Hammer, ranging from the stone cold nuts to just a liability. I personally feel he's one of the strongest cards available for a deck with a ton of Mountains. If nothing else, he's a 4-mana ritual that will gain you some life. I usually find that people will ignore him unless I have an empty field or he's sitting at 5 loyalty. If you get him out early, you can throw Mountains at people to soften them up for late-game Infernos. If you draw him late, just -2 him right away and fuel a big Fireball-type spell. He won't win you a game by himself, but neither does something like Solemn Simulacrum - both of these cards are role-players.
Goblin Welder - I originally had this card in the deck, but cut him after 1.) Never drawing him ever and 2.) When I did get him, never having any of my artifacts killed and never using him once for any value. However, I hear nothing but eternal praise for this 1 drop; so I'll consider him in future versions. I think having Imperial Recruiter available to search up Welder is a welcome boost. Additionally, I imagine that I could pull cool tricks with Welder by being able to weld out a Portcullis, Ensnaring Bridge, or Meekstone so that it was not in play on my turn, then weld it back so it would affect my opponents.
I wouldn't dismiss him so easily. He seemed underwhelming to me until I realized he could be used for all kinds of shenanigans involving my opponents. I've used him to swap a Sword of Fire and Ice off a creature for a mana rock. Or a Blightsteel Colossus for a mana rock. Or a Winter Orb for a mana rock.
I'm always looking for reasons to say his flavour text.
Diaochan is awful, I love her to death, but she is just not that good. I ran a deck just like this with the few things that protect and abuse her, and won maybe 2 games out of abusing her, playing tons. Jaya is absolutely better. Tech i dont see enough people playing is staff of nin. Having a dictate/furnace out makes it reasonable removal, and the draw is awesome.
Modern: UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy: UWBMiracles
Edh: UUUThassa Control WWWHokori Stax GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy BBBGriselbrand French List RBGShattergang(Super Villians) RWGHazezon Flicker UBRMarchesa Aggro URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
Weebo, thank you for creating this thread. It has been a great resource to me ever since I started playing Jaya a little over 6 months ago. The fact that you and others (special call out to WyvernSlayer) continue to provide feedback and updates makes this thread all the more valuable. In fact, I joined the MTG Salvation forums today for the sole purpose of posting here.
One of my favorite things about multiplayer EDH/Commander is that politics help balance out gaps in monetary investment. Those playing ultra-powerful decks get focused, giving those of us with less expensive decks the opportunity to stay alive and enjoy the game. My Jaya deck (below) has won more than its fair share of games solely because it is rarely the biggest threat at the table, but once the most dangerous players have been eliminated it has just enough damage output to finish off the survivors.
My deck is built as what I call an "Ultra-Budget Deck," meaning that I've restrict myself to spending no more than 50 cents on any given card. There are a few gems that I picked up cheap (15 cents for Darksteel Plate) or in a favorable trade (Blasphemous Act, Steel Hellkite), but these should be considered an exception to the rule. I would greatly appreciate feedback on how I could improve my deck while maintaining my 50 cents/card monetary restriction (or at the very least, keep recommendations under $1 per card).
Creatures: Probably my weakest two creatures are the Thopter Assembly and Wojek Embermage. Thopter Assembly gives good air defense and returns to hand for reuse after Jaya wipes the board with her Inferno. I just added the Embermage because I have visions of annihilating mass quantities of large green creatures after equipping the Gorgon Flail or Gorgon's Head for deathtouch. I'm keeping an eye out for Jeska, Warrior Adept because she seems like a great addition to go with the Gorgon deathtouch cards and her first strike works well with Butcher's Cleaver's +3 power and lifelink, but, alas, she is currently 65 cents.
Miscellaneous: Distorting Lens, Scuttlemutt, and Glacial Chasm combo nicely with Jaya. Most games I've won came down to the line on hit points, so I added Sun Droplet to buffer the damage I take from Jaya's inferno. Trading Post also helps in this regard as well as converting mana rocks into cards late game.
Mana Rocks, etc: Grinning Ignus is probably the oddball choice here. My thought process was that if I find myself short on mana, he can boost me from 5 mana to the 7 necessary for Jaya's inferno. The Ignus dodges destruction and, in a pinch, can even be used as the discard for Jaya's inferno.
Card Draw & Filtering: This is probably the area that needs the most work in my deck. Jaya's abilities favor raw drawing power over tutoring or filtering and I've found that 3 mana per card is about as good as mono-red can expect. Dreamstone Hedron gives 3 cards for 9 mana and doubles as a mana rock, Tower of Fortunes (while having a high activation cost) gives 4 cards for 12 mana, and Sorcerer's Strongbox (while unreliable) gives 3 cards for ~8 mana, and Armillary Sphere also gives card advantage. In addition, many of the phoenixes can return to hand for 3-4 mana after being discarded by Jaya as an incinerate or inferno. Browbeat consistently draws me 3 cards since no one in my group ever wants to take 5 damage. Moonring Mirror seems like the ideal card to complement Red's looting effects (e.g., Mad Prophet). To complement Moonring Mirror, I originally had both Shattered Perception and Incendiary Command in my deck, but was uncertain about when to use them effectively when Moonring Mirror was not in play, so I took them out. Mindmoil was outstanding the one time I played it and can result in extreme amounts of card draw with Moonring Mirror in play. Unfortunately, Mind's Eye is far to expensive for my budget. Staff of Nin is on my short list, but is just out of my budget restrictions (though I'm keeping my eye out for a cheap one).
Damage/Destruction Spells: Primarily focus on removing big creatures that Jaya can't handle directly. There have been several times when X spells have finished the game for me, so Devil's Play and Red Sun's Zenith made the cut.
Utility Spells: Artifact destruction and redirect/copy/anti-counterspell cards.
Enchantments: Pyrohemia is like a recurring Earthquake that hits fliers. Plus, with Magebane armor or Darksteel Plate you don't have to worry about losing it if you kill every creature on the field. Vicious Shadows is the one card in this deck that can instantly win the game and I'm giving Burning Sands a try since it has a similar synergy with Jaya's inferno.
Lands: My focus here is on lands that can convert into other useful items. Haunted Fengraf, Hellion Crucible, and Gargoyle Castle turn into a creatures, Buried Ruin turns into an artifact, Dormant Volcano in essence gives an extra Mountain in hand for Jaya to discard, and Ghost Town can be returned to hand for Jaya to discard.
Thank you for taking the time to read all this!
EDIT: Added spoiler text to make the post less daunting.
Any one have any thoughts on Coercive Portal it seems like it could be a second Jaya when you don't have her out or just more card draw for you. Seems to fit very well in the deck. Also if you have Goblin Welder out you can control it if the votes do not go your way. Only downside to this card is voting and when it blows up it takes your Artifacts with it as well.
Re: Coercive Portal
My main concern would be the loss of all my artifacts. On the plus side, this is another way Red can remove enchantments and the card draw is nice.
After more thought, it seems that the only time this would go off is when a minority (1-2) of players are obviously in the lead. It's more of a catch-up mechanism than a game winning card and if you're the one in the driver's seat, it could backfire. I'd much rather field Nevinyrral's Disk and have full control of when the board wipe goes off.
Here are some under $0.50 budget suggestions for your list. I'm using TCG player medium price to verify each card.
I've found lockdown to be a great strategy in my Jaya deck. They buy you a lot of time to draw cards and set up a strong boardstate while slowing down players who ramped hard or otherwise got out to a strong start.
While Jeska may be $0.65, her older brother Kamahl, Pit Fighter is only $0.46 and he pings for 3 times the amount.
@HamBone About Coercive Portal, I think it's better in spell slinger decks where they are unlikely to lose several of their own permanents to the portal. I would not consider playing it in my version because I'd be worried about losing my own artifacts to collateral damage. That being said; If you like the card, then the best thing you can do is give it a try and see how it goes. It may end up being an all-star and if it is, come tell us about it.
Speaking of all-stars; Prophetic Flamespeaker is the stone-cold nuts. The card doesn't look that special from just reading it, but it's abilities have amazing synergy with each other. Double Strike and Trample mean that your opponent cannot simply chump block it with a 1/1 and you can use Jaya's incinerate before first strike damage to kill a bigger blocker and let the damage trample over. He gets even better with equipment.
While you do have potential to just exile your top cards when you don't have enough mana to play them, my decks average CMC is 3.74 so I'm very likely to be able to play 1 or both cards each time it connects. As lomg as you're not playing spells pre-combat; If you don't have enough mana to play the card, you're probably in a situation where topdecking it would be a dead draw anyway.
Speaking of all-stars; Prophetic Flamespeaker is the stone-cold nuts. The card doesn't look that special from just reading it, but it's abilities have amazing synergy with each other. Double Strike and Trample mean that your opponent cannot simply chump block it with a 1/1 and you can use Jaya's incinerate before first strike damage to kill a bigger blocker and let the damage trample over. He gets even better with equipment.
While you do have potential to just exile your top cards when you don't have enough mana to play them, my decks average CMC is 3.74 so I'm very likely to be able to play 1 or both cards each time it connects. As lomg as you're not playing spells pre-combat; If you don't have enough mana to play the card, you're probably in a situation where topdecking it would be a dead draw anyway.
That last part, I can at least vouch for with respect to Prophetic Flamespeaker. His greatest impact is when you have some library manipulation in play, a la Sensei's Divining Top. With a larger degree of control over what you flip over when Flamespeaker hits someone, he gets a LOT better. I don't consider him the nuts, but maybe I've just had rotten luck with him. Haven't cut him yet, so there's that.
Coercive Portal is trying to be Staff of Nin and Oblivion Stone at the same time, and the results are decidedly meh. I'm not sure it's reliable enough outside of a 1v1 situation.
Also, @Myrmadillo: Thanks for the praise. Do I know you from somewhere? o_o
Have you had much success with these? With the exception of the Book of Rass, the Staff of Nin seems like a more powerful option (I may have break my rule and just buy the Staff). Health is not easy to come by in this deck, so I'm hesitant to start paying life for cards. Angelheart Vial could be nice as it also gives health back, but it seems so inefficient. I already own the following, but they all have certain drawbacks:
I skipped Alpha Brawl because it is so expensive. It seems similar to Mass Mutiny, which I own, but haven't been able to use effectively yet... Flowstone Slide is one I see the potential in, but not having any mana doublers I think my deck would struggle when trying to eliminating large creatures with it, and it seems like they'd be the most likely targets for the card. I do have Brittle Effigy in the deck to take care of indestructible creatures.
I skipped Aftershock because I own Fissure and Lava Flow (which I left out in favor of Brittle Effigy). I don't like giving up life and red has lots of ways to handle artifacts, but a lot of people seem to like Aftershock, so I feel like I'm missing something here.
I own all of these except the Star Compass, but I think I have enough mana rocks that I'm okay without it. What would you sub out for the other three?
I'll have to look into the Lockdown and Staying Alive cards you mention. I don't have any of those.
I almost picked up Kamahl, but without first strike he wasn't nearly as effective wielding the Butcher's Cleaver as Jeska...and again, what do I cut to put him in? When I started playing Commander, I never thought I'd have the problem of not being able to fit all the cards I wanted to into a deck!
@WyvernSlayer
I doubt we've met. It's just that, aside from Weebo, you've been the largest contributor to the continuation of this thread, so I've appreciated your comments.
The third largest contributor is Zygous, so here's my shout out to him!
I've played it, and it's very good. Just don't expect to have it in play for too long - the fact that everyone else's creatures are bogged down regardless of whom they want to swing at can earn this a swift Krosan Grip to the I-beams.
You can also take a page from his book and run a little more chaos. Jaya is well suited to play around a lot of it, so it can slow the game down to your desired speed for everyone else.
Other land hate can be good too. It's easy to build a manabase that gets around Ruination, and you're normally safe from Wake of Destruction.
The most dangerous (and therefore most effective) cards in the deck are pretty cheap. Repercussion is probably the best thing to have with Jaya in a creature light deck. Steel Hellkite is a finisher and removal. All of the phoenix are recurring threats. If you're interested in playing a deck like this, I would try throwing a rough list together and posting it (either in this thread or its own). There are obviously a few people who have played around with the idea enough to give you some good feedback. Even more important than that is just playing some games. This format varies wildly from playgroup to playgroup, so the things that work for me are not necessarily the things that are going to work for you.
So, on to other things that have happened in the thread. JOU is giving this deck a lot more toys than BNG, which is nice.
Dictate of the Twin Gods seems like a good one if you like the damage doublers, either swapping out Furnace or running them concurrently for the possibility of x4/x8 damage.
Prophetic Flamespeaker seems great for any creature heavy red decks. I don't think mine will be able to make much use of it, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
Harness by Force is a nice threaten effect. I'm not sure that it's better than Mass Mutiny or Insurrection, but it's definitely more flexible.
Twinflame is in a similar situation to Flamespeaker. Better with creature heavy decks, but could be a good one somewhere.
There's still some room for other good stuff here, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Ensnaring Bridge seems like a decent defensive option. It and Crawlspace fill similar roles, so I'd imagine it depends on what decks you see on a regular basis. It's also not great if you can keep your hand full. It's not exactly a common problem in mono-R, but wheels and land fetches keep me well stocked a lot of the time.
Portcullis is one of those high risk, high reward cards. It can slow things down a lot. It can also leave you with an empty board and not a lot of outs. The big issue with it is that things enter, then are exiled, so any ETB abilities still go off. It actually doubles them, so be aware of that.
Tahngarth, Talruum Hero does seem a lot like Kumano. I still prefer Kumano, but I haven't made any secret of the fact that he's a bit of a pet card for me. I don't like that he can't go to the face, but he makes a better attacker than a lot of the creatures I run and plays a decent defensive game.
Orcish Settlers seems worse than Goblin Settler (if budget isn't a concern) as well as Strip Mine and friends. I've never really noticed an issue dealing with lands in this deck, but it's a reasonable choice. Seems good with land fetches and mana doublers.
I'll update the primer again someday, but school is busy times and I really don't want to deal with the formatting headache that the forum switch left behind. I'd guess sometime in the next couple months, but my track record in dealing with my own threads has not been so hot lately. I can tell you that there haven't been any significant changes to my list because the new sets haven't offered much, but I also haven't been playing it all that much recently.
Edit: I'm having some political problems in my local metagame. I'm sure I'll be ale to work through them or find a cardboard solution.
My new plan for the deck was to cut about 6 cards and put in a stax package, but the original deck wasn't built with stax in mind and I don't want to cut all my 5+ drops for small token gen and more stax pieces; I don't think Smokestack and Tanglewire on their own really do that much to stop what I want to stop. Scratch plan A.
Plan B was simply look at some cards and see if I missed anything that could be impactful. I got some hits.
Edit: Made a list of a few cards that I was considering, but decided that most of them were impulse choices and would probably not do enough. I did order some cards, I'll let you know if anything holds promise.
I got a big surprise present for my birthday, Imperial Recruiter! I was very surprised to finally have one and immediately put it in my deck. I figure that it's fine to just play him getting whatever seems good, but having him in the deck can and will effect card choices going forward, because any creature is better if I can tutor for it.
Are there any creatures that you would be more likely to play because you had an Imperial Recruiter?
I want to jam stax stuff on a pretty regular basis, but this has never seemed like a good deck to do it. It's already kind of grindy, but in a different way, so it would likely take some rebuilding to make that happen. I might consider that in a bit, as I'm in the process of consolidating all of my decks into one giant box and building on the fly, which should make my list a lot more fluid.
I've actually had a Recruiter for a while now. I picked up on of the judge foils when they were a little more reasonably (comparatively) priced, but I haven't tried to stick it in here. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with a little more of a utility creature package seems like a good start, but even grabbing things like Solemn Simulacrum and Burnished Hart is a respectable use for him. Anarchist could be a reasonable choice, as could Flamespeaker if you think you can protect him/clear a path. Some kind of tutorable GY hate card (Heap Doll?) would be ok if you have a few GY focused decks in the area. I might readd Squee, Goblin Nabob. Stuffy Doll might be cute. Duplicant exiles. There are quite a few dudes who are decent if they stick around, but that doesn't play well with the nuke the board strategy that I'm fond of. It's tough to say, because I have yet to put mine into a mono-R deck. I enjoy finding Dark Confidant with it too much.
That mana ability is making me smile.
If there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that often the best red card in the set is just not made of the right stuff to be good in Jaya EDH.
That ogre is insanely good in decks with a more proactive strategy. You can do crazy stuff like turn 4 Eldrazi or turn 4 Purphoros, turn 5 ogre + Myr Incubator = win. Honestly, I expect people to break that ogre day 1.
He's just not that good with Jaya. Sure you can get 13 red mana on turn 4, but just what are you going to cast with it that is so dangerous? This deck doesn't have have an "If I get this in play I'll win" card so the ogre doesn't enable the same kind of degeneracy early. You really have to play him as an all-in kind of card, since if you're just going to use him or 1 or 2 mana here or there, why not just play a mana rock instead?
I think the best we can do is drop an early Mind's Eye and then drawing 3 cards off it for 24 life payment. Which is actually reasonably good for mono red card advantage.
Paying life also fights against Jaya's inferno ability, you'll quickly find yourself down in the single digits with Ogre which means that the deck has a lot fewer options for killing creatures if inferno is off limits. I think it's actually a card that I'd like to see on my opponent's side of the table more then mine. I'd love to see someone drop down to 10 or less, makes Jaya's job easy.
Granted, there are a few situations where I can see the Ogre being at least okay in this deck. I've been at over 200 before because of a lifelinked inferno after someone cast Rise from the Dark Realms, but that is a very rare occurrence, this deck usually doesn't have life to spare.
Granted, this is all hypothetical. The ogre may be one of those cards that is just way better when you get to play with him, but I think this decks controlling nature and lack of a proactive plan combined with the self-inflicted pain of inferno means that he's just not cut out for this EDH deck.
It's been a while since I posted a decklist, but I'd like to share what I've been tinkering on.
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Scourge of Kher Ridges
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Diaochan, Artful Beauty
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Anger
1 Burnished Hart
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Firewing Phoenix
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
Artifacts
1 Caged Sun
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Fire Diamond
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Mind Stone
1 Sol Ring
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Mind's Eye
1 Staff of Nin
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Planar Portal
1 Portcullis
1 Meekstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Rings of Brightheart
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Batterskull
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Karn Liberated
Sorceries
1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Vandalblast
1 Gamble
1 Molten Disaster
1 All is Dust
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Aftershock
Instants
1 Comet Storm
1 Chaos Warp
1 Skred
Enchantments
1 Stranglehold
1 Repercussion
Lands
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Terrain Generator
1 Strip Mine
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Temple of the False God
1 Winding Canyons
1 Maze of Ith
1 Scaling Tarn
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Buried Ruin
1 Vesuva
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Kher Keep
1 Mystifying Maze
20 Snow-Covered Mountain
I feel like I'm starting to diverge from the list outlined in the primer, mostly due to cuts I've made, but it is still a Jaya EDH deck. Now to talk about some of the more interesting inclusions:
Forward: I normally play at an LGS that runs a commander league. There is a heavy handed points penalty for winning with an infinite combo, so there are very few combo decks played. The way you earn point is to knock a player out of the game. Generally, as a creature lite deck that doesn't have a good creature presence early, I'll find myself the victim of opportunistic attacks from the first player with a decent sized creature out. My best answer for this is to clear the board with an inferno, but then I usually fall behind in life and people start to eye my dwindling life total with greedy eyes and seek to continue bashing on me for my point. Sometimes you do manage to battle back and win. I sometimes feel like I'm being focused off the table. My recent changes attempt to acknowledge this pattern and curb it's occurrence.
1. Meekstone - I was in one of those deck building moods a while back and looked through gatherer for every single red card and artifact ever printed. This was the true gemstone of a card that I found. My playgroup sees a lot of creature based decks being played and the one thorn in my side has always been if someone gets out a creature that is just outside of inferno range of heaven forbid Blasphemous Act range. I am aware that it is a nombo with my dragon or Jaya being pumped by an equipment or a gauntlet, but there are a few sources vigilance in the deck. My belief is that the longer the game drags out the better chance Jaya has to win vs big creature strategies. I consider Meekstone a key piece of my trinity of lockout artifacts, along with Portcullis and Ensnaring Bridge.
2. Diaochan, Artful Beauty - she is usually seen as a decks commander and not as one of the 99. I do like that she destroys creatures, which means she can deal with threats outside of inferno range. She also does a good job politically by letting you and someone else conspire to take down the player on top. She also benefits from the equipment package the deck already plays. I'm currently testing her. My only concern is that she is very fragile without the equipment in play and could just be a do nothing card.
3. Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze - I've included these because they are great colorless rattlesnake cards that will either make people look elsewhere for a target to attack or stop some of the pain if suffer. Maze of Ith can give one of your bigger creatures pseudo vigilance if you're attacking with Meekstone out.
4. Molten Disaster - This is the strangest of the bunch. I just told you I want to avoid being attacked and keep my own life total up, but then I'm playing a card that is just like inferno and will deal me damage. This card is primarily a hate card for a local Roon of the Hidden Realms deck that has been abusing Prophet of Kruphix. There is so much available flicker in Bant that even with 3 players ganging up to kill PoK, we'd run into an endless wall of blink effects for point kill and Ghostaway for mass kill. I've had enough of the 'I'll just take 4 minutes during the end of your turn to play my turn then untap and do it again 2 more times.' Split Second should be on more cards. I honestly don't expect this card to last that long in the deck, since if I stop seeing that deck across the table then I wont need a niche answer for it.
5. Grafdigger's Cage - I love Tormod's Crypt, but I feel that the multiplayer nature of EDH often means that Crypt can only stop one graveyard, I need something that can stop more then one player. Cage has it's own problems, like not being able to stop Eternal Witness, but it does have some upsides too, like being able to stop Genesis Wave or Lurking Predators. I'll keep my eyes out for any more relevant interactions.
Cuts I made:
I really like GV, since it makes Jaya a much quicker clock, but I think that it ends up being win-more in most cases.
Mad Prophet and Wild Guess I dropped because after putting MP back in the deck, I felt that using them as card selection engines is normally not what I want to be doing unless I happen to have Squee, because they compete with Jaya for fodder cards and don't actually net me any card advantage. I'm hoping red gets more draw soon.
I don't see a ton of X/2's but I still think Shard Phoenix is worth it. It's not that rare for me to see Krenko, Prossh, or Avenger of Zendikar, so being able to sweep up the tokens is nice. It can kill a lot of small but powerful generals too, like Captain Sisay, Hanna, or a small Animar. Shardy can also be fetched with Imperial Recruiter and even though his recursion is more restricted in time, it doesn't require damage being dealt. Having cards to pitch became less important when I dropped looters. I also play with a cool Stronghold one, it's probably just a pet card of mine.
If I find myself wanting more recursion, then I can always put Skarrgan Firebird back into the deck.
WyvernSlayer, how has Prophetic Flamespeaker been testing for you? I'm eager to hear any details.
One thing I'd like to write up about my deck above in a section with a view of the future; these are cards I want to give consideration to in my future brews of Jaya EDh.
1. Koth of the Hammer - I was never too keen on this guy before, I even felt he was weak. You expose your mountains to removal spells. He's hard to protect. The 1 damage emblem isn't a speedy clock at all; but I think that this card is much better in my version of Jaya. Animating a mountain is a good way to get around Meekstone and Portcullis. If you do emblem him, you have eternal pressure against all players life total and can ping off small critters with ease.
2. Goblin Welder - I originally had this card in the deck, but cut him after 1.) Never drawing him ever and 2.) When I did get him, never having any of my artifacts killed and never using him once for any value. However, I hear nothing but eternal praise for this 1 drop; so I'll consider him in future versions. I think having Imperial Recruiter available to search up Welder is a welcome boost. Additionally, I imagine that I could pull cool tricks with Welder by being able to weld out a Portcullis, Ensnaring Bridge, or Meekstone so that it was not in play on my turn, then weld it back so it would affect my opponents.
3. Uphill Battle, Mudslide, Smoke - I did play Smoke for a time, but found it to be ineffective at stopping creatures. I don't think the other cards hold that much promise on their own; but they do offer unique effects that aren't common territory for mono-red decks. It's just something I want to keep in mind incase of future metagame developments.
I haven't actually drawn Prophetic Flamespeaker yet, so I've got nothing to report there.
I've seen some wildly varying opinions on Koth of the Hammer, ranging from the stone cold nuts to just a liability. I personally feel he's one of the strongest cards available for a deck with a ton of Mountains. If nothing else, he's a 4-mana ritual that will gain you some life. I usually find that people will ignore him unless I have an empty field or he's sitting at 5 loyalty. If you get him out early, you can throw Mountains at people to soften them up for late-game Infernos. If you draw him late, just -2 him right away and fuel a big Fireball-type spell. He won't win you a game by himself, but neither does something like Solemn Simulacrum - both of these cards are role-players.
I wouldn't dismiss him so easily. He seemed underwhelming to me until I realized he could be used for all kinds of shenanigans involving my opponents. I've used him to swap a Sword of Fire and Ice off a creature for a mana rock. Or a Blightsteel Colossus for a mana rock. Or a Winter Orb for a mana rock.
I'm always looking for reasons to say his flavour text.
Draft it Here!
UUUBlue Man Group
Legacy:
UWBMiracles
Edh:
UUUThassa Control
WWWHokori Stax
GGGJolrael, Empress of Land Stompy
BBBGriselbrand French List
RBGShattergang(Super Villians)
RWGHazezon Flicker
UBRMarchesa Aggro
URGMaelstom Wanderer (Maelstorm)
One of my favorite things about multiplayer EDH/Commander is that politics help balance out gaps in monetary investment. Those playing ultra-powerful decks get focused, giving those of us with less expensive decks the opportunity to stay alive and enjoy the game. My Jaya deck (below) has won more than its fair share of games solely because it is rarely the biggest threat at the table, but once the most dangerous players have been eliminated it has just enough damage output to finish off the survivors.
My deck is built as what I call an "Ultra-Budget Deck," meaning that I've restrict myself to spending no more than 50 cents on any given card. There are a few gems that I picked up cheap (15 cents for Darksteel Plate) or in a favorable trade (Blasphemous Act, Steel Hellkite), but these should be considered an exception to the rule. I would greatly appreciate feedback on how I could improve my deck while maintaining my 50 cents/card monetary restriction (or at the very least, keep recommendations under $1 per card).
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Creatures (13)
1 Firewing Phoenix
1 Kuldotha Phoenix
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Skarrgan Firebird
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Hoarding Dragon
1 Hound of Griselbrand
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Rage Thrower
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Thopter Assembly
1 Wojek Embermage
Equipment (6)
1 Butcher's Cleaver
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Gorgon Flail
1 Gorgon's Head
1 Magebane Armor
1 Swiftfoot Boots
Miscellaneous (6)
1 Codex Shredder
1 Distorting Lens
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Scuttlemutt
1 Trading Post
1 Sun Droplet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Fire Diamond
1 Mind Stone
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Foriysian Totem
1 Pristine Talisman
1 Sisay's Ring
1 Ur-Golem's Eye
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Grinning Ignus
Card Draw & Filtering (9)
1 Browbeat
1 Crystal Ball
1 Faithless Looting
1 Mad Prophet
1 Mindmoil
1 Moonring Mirror
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Sorcerer's Strongbox
1 Tower of Fortunes
Damage/Destruction Spells (6)
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Brittle Effigy (artifact)
1 Fissure
1 Grab the Reins
1 Devil's Play
1 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Reverberate
1 Ricochet Trap
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Smash
Enchantments (3)
1 Burning Sands
1 Pyrohemia
1 Vicious Shadows
Lands (38)
1 Buried Ruin
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Dormant Volcano
1 Ghost Town
1 Gargoyle Castle
1 Hellion Crucible
1 Encroaching Wastes
1 Ghost Quarter
30 Mountain
Comments
Equipment: Butcher's Cleaver is my poor man's substitute for the Loxodon Warhammer (a card I'd love to have), but it works with Kumano, Master Yamabushi, Rage Thrower, Wojek Embermage, and Jeska, Warrior Adept (if I ever get her). The other equipment is there to boost Jaya's effectiveness and/or ability to survive.
Miscellaneous: Distorting Lens, Scuttlemutt, and Glacial Chasm combo nicely with Jaya. Most games I've won came down to the line on hit points, so I added Sun Droplet to buffer the damage I take from Jaya's inferno. Trading Post also helps in this regard as well as converting mana rocks into cards late game.
Mana Rocks, etc: Grinning Ignus is probably the oddball choice here. My thought process was that if I find myself short on mana, he can boost me from 5 mana to the 7 necessary for Jaya's inferno. The Ignus dodges destruction and, in a pinch, can even be used as the discard for Jaya's inferno.
Card Draw & Filtering: This is probably the area that needs the most work in my deck. Jaya's abilities favor raw drawing power over tutoring or filtering and I've found that 3 mana per card is about as good as mono-red can expect. Dreamstone Hedron gives 3 cards for 9 mana and doubles as a mana rock, Tower of Fortunes (while having a high activation cost) gives 4 cards for 12 mana, and Sorcerer's Strongbox (while unreliable) gives 3 cards for ~8 mana, and Armillary Sphere also gives card advantage. In addition, many of the phoenixes can return to hand for 3-4 mana after being discarded by Jaya as an incinerate or inferno. Browbeat consistently draws me 3 cards since no one in my group ever wants to take 5 damage. Moonring Mirror seems like the ideal card to complement Red's looting effects (e.g., Mad Prophet). To complement Moonring Mirror, I originally had both Shattered Perception and Incendiary Command in my deck, but was uncertain about when to use them effectively when Moonring Mirror was not in play, so I took them out. Mindmoil was outstanding the one time I played it and can result in extreme amounts of card draw with Moonring Mirror in play. Unfortunately, Mind's Eye is far to expensive for my budget. Staff of Nin is on my short list, but is just out of my budget restrictions (though I'm keeping my eye out for a cheap one).
Damage/Destruction Spells: Primarily focus on removing big creatures that Jaya can't handle directly. There have been several times when X spells have finished the game for me, so Devil's Play and Red Sun's Zenith made the cut.
Utility Spells: Artifact destruction and redirect/copy/anti-counterspell cards.
Enchantments: Pyrohemia is like a recurring Earthquake that hits fliers. Plus, with Magebane armor or Darksteel Plate you don't have to worry about losing it if you kill every creature on the field. Vicious Shadows is the one card in this deck that can instantly win the game and I'm giving Burning Sands a try since it has a similar synergy with Jaya's inferno.
Lands: My focus here is on lands that can convert into other useful items. Haunted Fengraf, Hellion Crucible, and Gargoyle Castle turn into a creatures, Buried Ruin turns into an artifact, Dormant Volcano in essence gives an extra Mountain in hand for Jaya to discard, and Ghost Town can be returned to hand for Jaya to discard.
Thank you for taking the time to read all this!
EDIT: Added spoiler text to make the post less daunting.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
My main concern would be the loss of all my artifacts. On the plus side, this is another way Red can remove enchantments and the card draw is nice.
After more thought, it seems that the only time this would go off is when a minority (1-2) of players are obviously in the lead. It's more of a catch-up mechanism than a game winning card and if you're the one in the driver's seat, it could backfire. I'd much rather field Nevinyrral's Disk and have full control of when the board wipe goes off.
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR
Here are some under $0.50 budget suggestions for your list. I'm using TCG player medium price to verify each card.
I've found lockdown to be a great strategy in my Jaya deck. They buy you a lot of time to draw cards and set up a strong boardstate while slowing down players who ramped hard or otherwise got out to a strong start.
Draw
Book of Rass
Angelheart Vial
Barrin's Codex
Urza's Blueprints
Removal
Aftershock
Flowstone Slide
Alpha Brawl
Tormod's Crypt
Ramp
Druidic Satchel
Burnished Hart
Walking Atlas
Star Compass
Anti-Artifact
Aladdin
Joven
Ingot Chewer
Lockdown
Brand of Ill Omen
Uphill Battle
Mudslide
Smoke
Magnetic Mountain
An-Zerrin Ruins
Icy Manipulator
Trip Noose
Staying Alive
Fortune Thief
Colossus of Akros
Elixir of Immortality
While Jeska may be $0.65, her older brother Kamahl, Pit Fighter is only $0.46 and he pings for 3 times the amount.
@HamBone About Coercive Portal, I think it's better in spell slinger decks where they are unlikely to lose several of their own permanents to the portal. I would not consider playing it in my version because I'd be worried about losing my own artifacts to collateral damage. That being said; If you like the card, then the best thing you can do is give it a try and see how it goes. It may end up being an all-star and if it is, come tell us about it.
Speaking of all-stars; Prophetic Flamespeaker is the stone-cold nuts. The card doesn't look that special from just reading it, but it's abilities have amazing synergy with each other. Double Strike and Trample mean that your opponent cannot simply chump block it with a 1/1 and you can use Jaya's incinerate before first strike damage to kill a bigger blocker and let the damage trample over. He gets even better with equipment.
While you do have potential to just exile your top cards when you don't have enough mana to play them, my decks average CMC is 3.74 so I'm very likely to be able to play 1 or both cards each time it connects. As lomg as you're not playing spells pre-combat; If you don't have enough mana to play the card, you're probably in a situation where topdecking it would be a dead draw anyway.
That last part, I can at least vouch for with respect to Prophetic Flamespeaker. His greatest impact is when you have some library manipulation in play, a la Sensei's Divining Top. With a larger degree of control over what you flip over when Flamespeaker hits someone, he gets a LOT better. I don't consider him the nuts, but maybe I've just had rotten luck with him. Haven't cut him yet, so there's that.
Coercive Portal is trying to be Staff of Nin and Oblivion Stone at the same time, and the results are decidedly meh. I'm not sure it's reliable enough outside of a 1v1 situation.
Also, @Myrmadillo: Thanks for the praise. Do I know you from somewhere? o_o
Have you had much success with these? With the exception of the Book of Rass, the Staff of Nin seems like a more powerful option (I may have break my rule and just buy the Staff). Health is not easy to come by in this deck, so I'm hesitant to start paying life for cards. Angelheart Vial could be nice as it also gives health back, but it seems so inefficient. I already own the following, but they all have certain drawbacks:
Seer's Sundial - Must play a land to draw a card.
Phyrexian Portal - Focused on card filtering rather than straight drawing power.
Jar of Eyeballs - Deck is low on creatures.
Culling Dais - Deck is low on creatures.
Rummaging Goblin - Looting, not card draw
Darksteel Pendant - Scrying, not card draw.
Incendiary Command - Replaces hand, not card draw.
Shattered Perception - Replaces hand, not card draw.
For this reason, I went with options that gave me a burst of cards in one shot:
Browbeat
Dreamstone Hedron
Reforge the Soul
Sorcerer's Strongbox
Tower of Fortunes
I don't know if this is a good approach. I'd love to hear what others would select using some combination of any of the cards mentioned above, plus Crystal Ball, Faithless Looting, Mad Prophet, Mindmoil, and Moonring Mirror.
I skipped Alpha Brawl because it is so expensive. It seems similar to Mass Mutiny, which I own, but haven't been able to use effectively yet... Flowstone Slide is one I see the potential in, but not having any mana doublers I think my deck would struggle when trying to eliminating large creatures with it, and it seems like they'd be the most likely targets for the card. I do have Brittle Effigy in the deck to take care of indestructible creatures.
For graveyard hate, I own Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Scrabbling Claws, Phyrexian Furnace, and Junktroller. Tormod's Crypt is probably the best, though fielding both Scrabbling Claws and Phyrexian Furnace might be an option, but I'm not sure what to sub out for any of them.
I skipped Aftershock because I own Fissure and Lava Flow (which I left out in favor of Brittle Effigy). I don't like giving up life and red has lots of ways to handle artifacts, but a lot of people seem to like Aftershock, so I feel like I'm missing something here.
For artifact destruction, I own Viashino Heretic, Vandalblast, Into the Core, Icefall, Fissure Vent, Shatterstorm, as well as the two already included in the deck Shattering Pulse and Smash. Again, I wasn't sure what to include and what to sub out.
I own all of these except the Star Compass, but I think I have enough mana rocks that I'm okay without it. What would you sub out for the other three?
I'll have to look into the Lockdown and Staying Alive cards you mention. I don't have any of those.
I almost picked up Kamahl, but without first strike he wasn't nearly as effective wielding the Butcher's Cleaver as Jeska...and again, what do I cut to put him in? When I started playing Commander, I never thought I'd have the problem of not being able to fit all the cards I wanted to into a deck!
@WyvernSlayer
I doubt we've met. It's just that, aside from Weebo, you've been the largest contributor to the continuation of this thread, so I've appreciated your comments.
The third largest contributor is Zygous, so here's my shout out to him!
Budget Modern: GStompyG | R8-WhackR