I think if you are considering Bag of Holding or Chandra’s Regulator, make sure you are playing Endless Atlas first. I see it included in some lists already, which is good. It’s not as cute as the two newer options, but it sure is effective.
For anyone who's interested in continuing the discussion at MTGNexus, I've started up the new thread here. It's missing all of the actual primer text until I have some time to play with the BBCode options over there, which will hopefully happen over the next couple weeks.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
The banlist update today means a new elephant (scarecrow) in the room for Jaya decks: Painter's Servant. I'm of course going to try it out - it has the obvious use of turning Jaya's first ability into Vindicate, but cheaper and instant speed. It also plays nicely[?] with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Ugin, the Ineffable, both of which I like a lot in this deck. I'm also well aware that any self-respecting Jaya primer has to include something about Servant if it's legal. That's even more true if it doesn't stick, which is a possibility.
My concern is that it's too high profile. Jaya threatens a lot of decks already. Blue decks have a strong incentive to remove her without any support cards, any deck relying on a small general doesn't want her on the table, and really no one other than the pilot wants her to stick with enough mana to activate the third ability. Increasing that to every deck at the table at all stages of the game is a big part of why I don't run Distorting Lens, despite the power.
There's definitely something to be said for running cards that function as removal magnets. I'd much rather lose a Servant than a Gauntlet effect to artifact hate and Jaya can be repeatedly replayed. They also come with enormous upside most of the time. If Painter and Jaya both stick, the effect is unquestionably great. The downside is that not every removal spell in a multiplayer format is aimed at you and the deck does make extensive use of Jaya as is, so additional incentives to target you are an actual downside.
This also feels like a good time to try Imperial Recruiter again, and to find a spot for Goblin Engineer. Having a high impact, low CMC artifact creature makes that entire package much more cohesive. I'm not sure what the cuts for those are yet.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
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My concern is that it's too high profile. Jaya threatens a lot of decks already. Blue decks have a strong incentive to remove her without any support cards, any deck relying on a small general doesn't want her on the table, and really no one other than the pilot wants her to stick with enough mana to activate the third ability. Increasing that to every deck at the table at all stages of the game is a big part of why I don't run Distorting Lens, despite the power.
There's definitely something to be said for running cards that function as removal magnets. I'd much rather lose a Servant than a Gauntlet effect to artifact hate and Jaya can be repeatedly replayed. They also come with enormous upside most of the time. If Painter and Jaya both stick, the effect is unquestionably great. The downside is that not every removal spell in a multiplayer format is aimed at you and the deck does make extensive use of Jaya as is, so additional incentives to target you are an actual downside.
This also feels like a good time to try Imperial Recruiter again, and to find a spot for Goblin Engineer. Having a high impact, low CMC artifact creature makes that entire package much more cohesive. I'm not sure what the cuts for those are yet.