MTG Salvation

Quote from Onime »

I think it could see play in Blue Jund, card advantage is what that deck suffers from.

Jace and Snaps = no CA?

Quote from Equinox2793 »

THE BIG THING about Jori En is that she cantrips if you cast anything before her on cast. Also there are a good amount of 0-1 drop artifacts that no one is mentioning.

Are you sure about that? If you cast one spell followed by Jori, Jori is on the stack and not in play yet.

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

Quote from MarcWizard »

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Quote from Valanarch »

Quote from MarcWizard »

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Compulsive Research is a terrible card to compare it to and I think your maths is off.

1. Jori is a body. Research is a Sorcery. Before anything else, Jori is a 2/3 body. Research gains you 1 card at best and cantrips at worst. Its a really really bad card. So I'll change the card for you: Painful Truths. Now THAT'S gaining 2 cards.

2. You said Jori needs to stick around 3 turns. No. Compulsive Research assuming you discarded a land, gained you 1 card, Jori got you a 2/3 body on the board. If you're interested to Delve, then let's put all these aside and play Thought Scour, a far superior card for that purpose. If I draw even one card off of Jori, she has replaced herself.

3. Paying 3 on your turn to draw a card and paying 3 to put a 2/3 must-answer on the board are 2 very different things. What you're doing is like comparing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to Tormenting Voice. At worst, Jori will soak up a bolt and we'll be behind 2 mana, but on card parity. At best, we'll untap, and the value engine begins.

4. You say Research can be snapcasted. It's a terrible card to snapcast (or even play at all), but you're right. Well, Jori En can be Kommanded. Which is better play?

Jori with Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, and Think Twice sounds like a lovely deck.

Also other things that cantrip, like Remand. Maybe Squelch in the sideboard because I'm all about the spice.

Quote from MarcWizard »

Quote from Valanarch »

Quote from MarcWizard »

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Compulsive Research is a terrible card to compare it to and I think your maths is off.

1. Jori is a body. Research is a Sorcery. Before anything else, Jori is a 2/3 body. Research gains you 1 card at best and cantrips at worst. Its a really really bad card. So I'll change the card for you: Painful Truths. Now THAT'S gaining 2 cards.

2. You said Jori needs to stick around 3 turns. No. Compulsive Research assuming you discarded a land, gained you 1 card, Jori got you a 2/3 body on the board. If you're interested to Delve, then let's put all these aside and play Thought Scour, a far superior card for that purpose. If I draw even one card off of Jori, she has replaced herself.

3. Paying 3 on your turn to draw a card and paying 3 to put a 2/3 must-answer on the board are 2 very different things. What you're doing is like comparing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to Tormenting Voice. At worst, Jori will soak up a bolt and we'll be behind 2 mana, but on card parity. At best, we'll untap, and the value engine begins.

4. You say Research can be snapcasted. It's a terrible card to snapcast (or even play at all), but you're right. Well, Jori En can be Kommanded. Which is better play?

Compulsive Research isn't terrible and it has seen Modern play before. Also, a 2/3 body is a disadvantage not an advantage as it just dies to everything. And Compulsive Research gains you about 2 cards if you are delving away that land later and replacing it with a nonland card in your hand. Most of your argument seems to cetner around the premise that Compulsive Research is terrible, but it really isn't.

Quote from Valanarch »

Quote from MarcWizard »

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Quote from MarcWizard »

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Compulsive Research is a terrible card to compare it to and I think your maths is off.

1. Jori is a body. Research is a Sorcery. Before anything else, Jori is a 2/3 body. Research gains you 1 card at best and cantrips at worst. Its a really really bad card. So I'll change the card for you: Painful Truths. Now THAT'S gaining 2 cards.

2. You said Jori needs to stick around 3 turns. No. Compulsive Research assuming you discarded a land, gained you 1 card, Jori got you a 2/3 body on the board. If you're interested to Delve, then let's put all these aside and play Thought Scour, a far superior card for that purpose. If I draw even one card off of Jori, she has replaced herself.

3. Paying 3 on your turn to draw a card and paying 3 to put a 2/3 must-answer on the board are 2 very different things. What you're doing is like comparing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to Tormenting Voice. At worst, Jori will soak up a bolt and we'll be behind 2 mana, but on card parity. At best, we'll untap, and the value engine begins.

4. You say Research can be snapcasted. It's a terrible card to snapcast (or even play at all), but you're right. Well, Jori En can be Kommanded. Which is better play?

Compulsive Research isn't terrible and it has seen Modern play before. Also, a 2/3 body is a disadvantage not an advantage as it just dies to everything. And Compulsive Research gains you about 2 cards if you are delving away that land later and replacing it with a nonland card in your hand. Most of your argument seems to cetner around the premise that Compulsive Research is terrible, but it really isn't.

Compulsive research is pretty terrible. Maybe it was playable before, but I'm not playing Modern in the past, I'm playing it now, with Serum Visions.

Compulsive research is not capable of gaining you 2 cards, it will only ever gain you 1 card assuming you discard a land. You then get 1 delve mana, and that's not the same as a card. I don't think you're counting card advantage correctly.

A 2/3 body is not a "disadvantage", it merely, as you have said, succumbs to most removal, and we all know we're really talking about Lightning Bolt, which is played by 43% of all decks on mtgtop8, a significant vulnerability. However, the same can be said of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. That didn't stop it from becoming a staple. How about Dark Confidant? Is there anything that can kill Jori that can't kill a Dark Confidant? Well, maybe Doom Blade. But half an Electrolyze would kill him.

Do you see what I'm getting at now? In Modern, the "bolt-test" is indeed important, but its not the catch-all. Creatures are "allowed" to be boltable if they produce a huge advantage after you untap. Jace provides looting, and later, recursion. Bob provides direct card draw in exchange for life. Jori provides card draw for playing the 2nd spell each turn, which is something Grixis does most of the time anyway.

I kind of want to disagree that she doesn't fuel delve. She does, just not as directly, by encouraging you to play more spells per turn. She doesn't fuel delve as effectively/immediately, but she does.

I'd also argue that forcing your opponent to use removal on her rather than Jace/Delve Guy/V-Clique/Etc. is already at least one of the cards of advantage you get from Research. It's fairly trivial to cast a cantrip or other cheap spell alongside her the turn she's cast, so in most situations she'll be a two for one unless she's removed at instant speed, and you don't have an instant-speed spell to cast in response. That's quite a bit quicker than taking three turns to reach Compulsive Research's 2-3 (Depending on how much you need a land, how well your hand is able to use your graveyard, and how heavily your opponent is interacting with your graveyard, and how generously you want to define "Card Advantage").

I don't think Research is the best comparison, though. I think she's best compared to a less painful, but slightly more expensive Bob. She requires certain deck restrictions to work right (Plenty of spells that cast alongside others in a turn), she quickly gains insurmountable CA if not answered, and she provides a small but relevant body. I don't play Grixis, but from what I understand it would love to run Bob if Bob didn't suck up so much life when you flip a Tasigur.

Quote from MarcWizard »

Quote from Valanarch »

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Quote from MarcWizard »

Jori En would go very nicely into sorcery speed grixis shells. What I hate most about her is her 3 toughness. This really is all Lightning Bolt's fault.

On the upside, you can be sure that if you let a Grixis untap with Jori on the board, things are going to get real bad. Curving from T2 Jace into T3 Jori sounds pretty sweet, so if they're both lightning rods, maybe her 3 toughness isn't so bad. How many turns and cards does your opponent have to spend interacting with your stuff? And we can recur Jori and company with the usual Rise // Fall and Kolaghan's Command.

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Compulsive Research is a terrible card to compare it to and I think your maths is off.

1. Jori is a body. Research is a Sorcery. Before anything else, Jori is a 2/3 body. Research gains you 1 card at best and cantrips at worst. Its a really really bad card. So I'll change the card for you: Painful Truths. Now THAT'S gaining 2 cards.

2. You said Jori needs to stick around 3 turns. No. Compulsive Research assuming you discarded a land, gained you 1 card, Jori got you a 2/3 body on the board. If you're interested to Delve, then let's put all these aside and play Thought Scour, a far superior card for that purpose. If I draw even one card off of Jori, she has replaced herself.

3. Paying 3 on your turn to draw a card and paying 3 to put a 2/3 must-answer on the board are 2 very different things. What you're doing is like comparing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to Tormenting Voice. At worst, Jori will soak up a bolt and we'll be behind 2 mana, but on card parity. At best, we'll untap, and the value engine begins.

4. You say Research can be snapcasted. It's a terrible card to snapcast (or even play at all), but you're right. Well, Jori En can be Kommanded. Which is better play?

Compulsive Research isn't terrible and it has seen Modern play before. Also, a 2/3 body is a disadvantage not an advantage as it just dies to everything. And Compulsive Research gains you about 2 cards if you are delving away that land later and replacing it with a nonland card in your hand. Most of your argument seems to cetner around the premise that Compulsive Research is terrible, but it really isn't.

Compulsive research is pretty terrible. Maybe it was playable before, but I'm not playing Modern in the past, I'm playing it now, with Serum Visions.

Compulsive research is not capable of gaining you 2 cards, it will only ever gain you 1 card assuming you discard a land. You then get 1 delve mana, and that's not the same as a card. I don't think you're counting card advantage correctly.

A 2/3 body is not a "disadvantage", it merely, as you have said, succumbs to most removal, and we all know we're really talking about Lightning Bolt, which is played by 43% of all decks on mtgtop8, a significant vulnerability. However, the same can be said of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. That didn't stop it from becoming a staple. How about Dark Confidant? Is there anything that can kill Jori that can't kill a Dark Confidant? Well, maybe Doom Blade. But half an Electrolyze would kill him.

Do you see what I'm getting at now? In Modern, the "bolt-test" is indeed important, but its not the catch-all. Creatures are "allowed" to be boltable if they produce a huge advantage after you untap. Jace provides looting, and later, recursion. Bob provides direct card draw in exchange for life. Jori provides card draw for playing the 2nd spell each turn, which is something Grixis does most of the time anyway.

Jace and Bob are both two mana creatures. If I remember correctly, the bolt test has always been "If it doesn't have more than 3 toughness and costs more than 1-2 mana, it needs to do something very strong when it is cast, enters the battlefield, leaves the battlefield, or dies."

Also, when I said that Compulsive Research saw play in Modern I meant less than a year ago, not back in the days of Ponder and Preordain.

Quote from Pyrocumulus »

I kind of want to disagree that she doesn't fuel delve. She does, just not as directly, by encouraging you to play more spells per turn. She doesn't fuel delve as effectively/immediately, but she does.

I'd also argue that forcing your opponent to use removal on her rather than Jace/Delve Guy/V-Clique/Etc. is already at least one of the cards of advantage you get from Research. It's fairly trivial to cast a cantrip or other cheap spell alongside her the turn she's cast, so in most situations she'll be a two for one unless she's removed at instant speed, and you don't have an instant-speed spell to cast in response. That's quite a bit quicker than taking three turns to reach Compulsive Research's 2-3 (Depending on how much you need a land, how well your hand is able to use your graveyard, and how heavily your opponent is interacting with your graveyard, and how generously you want to define "Card Advantage").

I don't think Research is the best comparison, though. I think she's best compared to a less painful, but slightly more expensive Bob. She requires certain deck restrictions to work right (Plenty of spells that cast alongside others in a turn), she quickly gains insurmountable CA if not answered, and she provides a small but relevant body. I don't play Grixis, but from what I understand it would love to run Bob if Bob didn't suck up so much life when you flip a Tasigur.

If you are going to cast a spell other than Gitaxian Probe in the turn that you play Jori while also playing black, couldn't you just play Pack Rat (which also fuels delve). I could be wrong, but I just don't think that Jori is good enough.

Grixis has a fairly low CMC, so I'm not sure why you'd want to run Jori over Dark Confidant...I feel like Jori makes you want to play the game in a style that is fairly restricting for not much benefit.

Quote from Valanarch »

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Quote from Valanarch »

I personally think that Jori probably is worse than Compulsive Research in Grixis Midrange since she needs to stay alive for around 3 turns for her to be equal to Research in card advantage and she can't be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage and Jace and doesn't fuel delve.

Compulsive Research is a terrible card to compare it to and I think your maths is off.

1. Jori is a body. Research is a Sorcery. Before anything else, Jori is a 2/3 body. Research gains you 1 card at best and cantrips at worst. Its a really really bad card. So I'll change the card for you: Painful Truths. Now THAT'S gaining 2 cards.

2. You said Jori needs to stick around 3 turns. No. Compulsive Research assuming you discarded a land, gained you 1 card, Jori got you a 2/3 body on the board. If you're interested to Delve, then let's put all these aside and play Thought Scour, a far superior card for that purpose. If I draw even one card off of Jori, she has replaced herself.

3. Paying 3 on your turn to draw a card and paying 3 to put a 2/3 must-answer on the board are 2 very different things. What you're doing is like comparing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to Tormenting Voice. At worst, Jori will soak up a bolt and we'll be behind 2 mana, but on card parity. At best, we'll untap, and the value engine begins.

4. You say Research can be snapcasted. It's a terrible card to snapcast (or even play at all), but you're right. Well, Jori En can be Kommanded. Which is better play?

Compulsive Research isn't terrible and it has seen Modern play before. Also, a 2/3 body is a disadvantage not an advantage as it just dies to everything. And Compulsive Research gains you about 2 cards if you are delving away that land later and replacing it with a nonland card in your hand. Most of your argument seems to cetner around the premise that Compulsive Research is terrible, but it really isn't.

Compulsive research is pretty terrible. Maybe it was playable before, but I'm not playing Modern in the past, I'm playing it now, with Serum Visions.

Compulsive research is not capable of gaining you 2 cards, it will only ever gain you 1 card assuming you discard a land. You then get 1 delve mana, and that's not the same as a card. I don't think you're counting card advantage correctly.

A 2/3 body is not a "disadvantage", it merely, as you have said, succumbs to most removal, and we all know we're really talking about Lightning Bolt, which is played by 43% of all decks on mtgtop8, a significant vulnerability. However, the same can be said of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. That didn't stop it from becoming a staple. How about Dark Confidant? Is there anything that can kill Jori that can't kill a Dark Confidant? Well, maybe Doom Blade. But half an Electrolyze would kill him.

Do you see what I'm getting at now? In Modern, the "bolt-test" is indeed important, but its not the catch-all. Creatures are "allowed" to be boltable if they produce a huge advantage after you untap. Jace provides looting, and later, recursion. Bob provides direct card draw in exchange for life. Jori provides card draw for playing the 2nd spell each turn, which is something Grixis does most of the time anyway.

Jace and Bob are both two mana creatures. If I remember correctly, the bolt test has always been "If it doesn't have more than 3 toughness and costs more than 1-2 mana, it needs to do something very strong when it is cast, enters the battlefield, leaves the battlefield, or dies."

Also, when I said that Compulsive Research saw play in Modern I meant less than a year ago, not back in the days of Ponder and Preordain.

Yea well now I'm thinking you're plain lying to defend a card. Or maybe trolling, I don't know. Why don't you tell me the name of this deck, which according to you, uses a 3 mana sorcery to draw 3 and discard 1/2, during a time when Treasure Cruise was either around or freshly banned, Serum Visions was available, and Delver was using Thought Scour? I honestly want to know because this is going round in circles. I played MTG from Ice Age to Apocalypse, stopped, then came back in Khans to play Delver, watched Trasure Cruise die, then played the Tasigur version. I have never, ever seen someone play Compulsive Research. I'm calling it out now, so tell me what deck played it.

edit: I did the homework myself and found it in Scapeshift decks in August. That doesn't do anything that a deck fielding Jori En would want to do!

With regards to Jori. You're right, she's 3 cmc, which comes down a turn later, a lot in the modern context. The 3 drop slot is shared by Twin's combo pieces, if we're talking Grixis colors, and control would be leaving mana untapped anyway for interaction. This is why I said, if there were a shell for her, it would be the new tap-out Sorcery speed Grixis that maximizes its mana usage every turn for value plays like Rise//Fall, Discard like IOK and catch-alls like Dreadbore. That shell wouldn't mind tapping out turn 3, unless its fighting Twin and hasn't Thoughtseized, of course.

Is there a 3 cmc creature that needs to survive the round with less than 3 toughness before producing value in modern? Not yet. I'm suggesting shells where it might work, but unexpectedly, she's being compared to a pretty terrible sorcery.

Compulsive Research was a 2-of in the Scapeshift deck that T8ed GP Oklahoma City.

Jori feeds herself by drawing more cards, that's it. I don't know if there's any other positive thing I can say about her. There's a long list of creatures that trigger off you casting spells, like YP, Monastery Mentor, Guttersnipe, Talrand, Sky Summoner, anything else with Prowess. Other than YP and Monastery Swiftspear in Burn/Suicide Zoo, the rest suck.

Mana cost is crucial for two reasons: 1) less tempo loss if it gets Bolted, and 2) the cheaper the creature is, the earlier you can get it down and the faster you can start making tokens/drawing cards/getting Prowess boosts/whatever. Ever wonder why Glimpse of Nature is banned while Soul of the Harvest/Primordial Sage are not? That's right, mana cost. And while the difference between 2 and 3 mana is less than the difference between 1 and 6, it's still significant enough for Guttersnipe to not see any play and Monastery Mentor to appear about as infrequently as Compulsive Research. Or for Bob to see play in BGx instead of Phyrexian Arena.

Quote from izzetmage »

Compulsive Research was a 2-of in the Scapeshift deck that T8ed GP Oklahoma City.

Jori feeds herself by drawing more cards, that's it. I don't know if there's any other positive thing I can say about her. There's a long list of creatures that trigger off you casting spells, like YP, Monastery Mentor, Guttersnipe, Talrand, Sky Summoner, anything else with Prowess. Other than YP and Monastery Swiftspear in Burn/Suicide Zoo, the rest suck.

Mana cost is crucial for two reasons: 1) less tempo loss if it gets Bolted, and 2) the cheaper the creature is, the earlier you can get it down and the faster you can start making tokens/drawing cards/getting Prowess boosts/whatever. Ever wonder why Glimpse of Nature is banned while Soul of the Harvest/Primordial Sage are not? That's right, mana cost. And while the difference between 2 and 3 mana is less than the difference between 1 and 6, it's still significant enough for Guttersnipe to not see any play and Monastery Mentor to appear about as infrequently as Compulsive Research. Or for Bob to see play in BGx instead of Phyrexian Arena.

This is a much stronger argument against Jori than a comparison to Compulsive Research.

Quote from Valanarch »

Quote from Pyrocumulus »

I kind of want to disagree that she doesn't fuel delve. She does, just not as directly, by encouraging you to play more spells per turn. She doesn't fuel delve as effectively/immediately, but she does.

I'd also argue that forcing your opponent to use removal on her rather than Jace/Delve Guy/V-Clique/Etc. is already at least one of the cards of advantage you get from Research. It's fairly trivial to cast a cantrip or other cheap spell alongside her the turn she's cast, so in most situations she'll be a two for one unless she's removed at instant speed, and you don't have an instant-speed spell to cast in response. That's quite a bit quicker than taking three turns to reach Compulsive Research's 2-3 (Depending on how much you need a land, how well your hand is able to use your graveyard, and how heavily your opponent is interacting with your graveyard, and how generously you want to define "Card Advantage").

I don't think Research is the best comparison, though. I think she's best compared to a less painful, but slightly more expensive Bob. She requires certain deck restrictions to work right (Plenty of spells that cast alongside others in a turn), she quickly gains insurmountable CA if not answered, and she provides a small but relevant body. I don't play Grixis, but from what I understand it would love to run Bob if Bob didn't suck up so much life when you flip a Tasigur.

If you are going to cast a spell other than Gitaxian Probe in the turn that you play Jori while also playing black, couldn't you just play Pack Rat (which also fuels delve). I could be wrong, but I just don't think that Jori is good enough.

Pack Rat needs five mana to do anything the turn it's cast, whereas Jori can require four (With a one-mana spell) or three (With Gitaxian Probe). Jori also produces CA, which Pack Rat only kind of sort of does if we're saying that putting cards in your graveyard is CA in a deck that runs Snapcaster/Jace.

I'm not convinced she's good enough, either, but I think she's interesting enough to argue in favor of on forums for the sake of stimulating my thought process on her.

Quote from Aegraen »

Grixis has a fairly low CMC, so I'm not sure why you'd want to run Jori over Dark Confidant...I feel like Jori makes you want to play the game in a style that is fairly restricting for not much benefit.

Grixis tends to run Tasigur and Gurmag Angler, both of which lose you a huge amount of life if flipped.

I don't think she's any more restrictive than Confidant, either. In fact, they basically have the same restriction: A low mana curve, but hers treats delve and other alternate-cost spells as the mana they end up costing instead of the CMC it says on the card.

Her benefit is exactly identical to that of Confidant.

The major flaws I see in her (Which may be crippling, but again, I'm undecided) are that she's one CMC more than Confidant, and that she isn't useful when hellbent. Her pros are that she's slightly more survivable (Can't be Kommanded, Electrolyzed, and trades with or eats more things), she can produce CA the turn she's cast if you have Gitaxian Probe or wait for four mana, she doesn't lose life, and she plays nicer with Delve/some other alternate cost spells that might be relevant I guess.

She's also a Merfolk, so I guess 'folk could splash red for her and Lightning Bolt. Probably not good, but I hope someone tests it.

Now that Pyro has mentioned merfolk, i think this may be the thing that merfolk will finally splash red for (look at me totally overselling again. But I am sales by profession, just humor me).

Picture this, merfolk don't care much for that 3 toughness thing because they have 1. Lords, and 2. Vials. Unless I'm mistaken, a vialled merfolk still counts towards "second spell", which is to say if the Fish Pilot spell pierces something and then vials in Jori, they're collecting a card. This is huge because Fish players empty their hands even with the self-replacing Silvergill Adept. Do they cast 2 spells per turn often? Hmmmmm well it would happen more often if they packed lightning bolts...

Quote from Pyrocumulus »

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Quote from Pyrocumulus »

I kind of want to disagree that she doesn't fuel delve. She does, just not as directly, by encouraging you to play more spells per turn. She doesn't fuel delve as effectively/immediately, but she does.

I'd also argue that forcing your opponent to use removal on her rather than Jace/Delve Guy/V-Clique/Etc. is already at least one of the cards of advantage you get from Research. It's fairly trivial to cast a cantrip or other cheap spell alongside her the turn she's cast, so in most situations she'll be a two for one unless she's removed at instant speed, and you don't have an instant-speed spell to cast in response. That's quite a bit quicker than taking three turns to reach Compulsive Research's 2-3 (Depending on how much you need a land, how well your hand is able to use your graveyard, and how heavily your opponent is interacting with your graveyard, and how generously you want to define "Card Advantage").

I don't think Research is the best comparison, though. I think she's best compared to a less painful, but slightly more expensive Bob. She requires certain deck restrictions to work right (Plenty of spells that cast alongside others in a turn), she quickly gains insurmountable CA if not answered, and she provides a small but relevant body. I don't play Grixis, but from what I understand it would love to run Bob if Bob didn't suck up so much life when you flip a Tasigur.

If you are going to cast a spell other than Gitaxian Probe in the turn that you play Jori while also playing black, couldn't you just play Pack Rat (which also fuels delve). I could be wrong, but I just don't think that Jori is good enough.

Pack Rat needs five mana to do anything the turn it's cast, whereas Jori can require four (With a one-mana spell) or three (With Gitaxian Probe). Jori also produces CA, which Pack Rat only kind of sort of does if we're saying that putting cards in your graveyard is CA in a deck that runs Snapcaster/Jace.

I'm not convinced she's good enough, either, but I think she's interesting enough to argue in favor of on forums for the sake of stimulating my thought process on her.

Quote from Aegraen »

Grixis has a fairly low CMC, so I'm not sure why you'd want to run Jori over Dark Confidant...I feel like Jori makes you want to play the game in a style that is fairly restricting for not much benefit.

Grixis tends to run Tasigur and Gurmag Angler, both of which lose you a huge amount of life if flipped.

I don't think she's any more restrictive than Confidant, either. In fact, they basically have the same restriction: A low mana curve, but hers treats delve and other alternate-cost spells as the mana they end up costing instead of the CMC it says on the card.

Her benefit is exactly identical to that of Confidant.

The major flaws I see in her (Which may be crippling, but again, I'm undecided) are that she's one CMC more than Confidant, and that she isn't useful when hellbent. Her pros are that she's slightly more survivable (Can't be Kommanded, Electrolyzed, and trades with or eats more things), she can produce CA the turn she's cast if you have Gitaxian Probe or wait for four mana, she doesn't lose life, and she plays nicer with Delve/some other alternate cost spells that might be relevant I guess.

She's also a Merfolk, so I guess 'folk could splash red for her and Lightning Bolt. Probably not good, but I hope someone tests it.

By restricting, I mean, if you want to get any value out of her you have to play your spells in a very constricting manner(there is a huge variance in how you play your removal per MU, and when you want to cast your spells). Are you going to play your removal spells at sorcery speed now to take advantage of your other sorcery spells? That's a huge cost. Some MU's you want to do this, others you want to play them at instant speed.

I haven't seen a Grixis midrange deck play Angler...in...months and months. Angler is only played in Grixis Delver decks iirc. Bob is just a much better card for the deck if you want that value effect stapled on a body. Deck construction is also less limiting than forcing you to play 2 spells in a turn. If she didn't have the draw once rider, she could possibly have been an engine for some decks (or new deck), but she's not. If any creature is slotting into the Grixis lists from OGW it's going to be Kalitas because he fulfills a part of the deck that it's wanted for a long time while also providing value.

Actually plenty of Grixis control lists still include the fish. Whether we like it or not, Tasigur is Legendary, you can only have 1 of him on board at any time, so grixis still counts on Fish to have multiple beaters on board, and it kills 4/5 Goyfs which is the "normal" size.

With regards to that restriction, I don't think one needs to bend over backwards to meet it, unless you're playing some weird combination of countermagicks AND discard. Lately, people have been either leaning toward Jace+Discard/Rise//Fall, or the old school Snaps/Pierce/Snare/Mana Leak. So you're either one or the other. Clearly though the countermagicks version won't be interested to tap out turn 3, or even later, so I'm thinking the Jace+sorcery speed deck would be more interested.

The strongest argument against Jori en isn't so much how hard it is to activate her surge ability, which I feel is really good; Its her mana cost OR toughness, depending on how you look at it. She could be 1/3 for UR and totally more playable, or 2/4, even 1/4 for the current cost and still be good. Or, give her flash. Any of these changes would make her a lot more playable in modern.

Quote from MarcWizard »

Unless I'm mistaken, a vialled merfolk still counts towards "second spell", which is to say if the Fish Pilot spell pierces something and then vials in Jori, they're collecting a card.

You are mistaken. And on top of that jori would not trigger on itself being cast when you 1. don't cast her and she 2. isn't on the battlefield at the time of casting. Vial directly works against jori since the vial makes you not cast spells.

Dang it. Oh well, she has nice art.

Jori En seems fine as a sideboard card for grindy match ups. Compulsive Research is really bad. if you want good card draw in Grixis play Painful truths.
I don't think Jori would be very good in the "baby Jace" "blue Jund" version of grixis. seems like she would play better in counter wars and other instant speed player interactions. remanding your remand draw 2 sounds strong. it would make fighting over removing a creature less draining on your assets. you bolt a creature; they dispel or vines or something you bolt+draw a card keeps you at parity as far as resources from the hand.

the card over all seems okay, not busted or even staple of a URx deck build. its better the longer the game goes on, the longer the game goes on the less likely you are going to be to keep it on the board. The fact that it cost 3 also puts it in contention with many of the other mid-range activities that deck is looking to do. flip jace recast a spell? not if your trying to stick this on three. tas' plus counter up, nope.

it seems more like a five drop for decks that often add +2cc to any threat to keep up counter magic. that said if you untap with this in play you are very likely to pull ahead snap+serum suddenly becomes much better than it already was. all in all snap+any cantrip with this in play seems like a massive amount of value.

maybe UR delver wants this as the top end of its curve? they already run probe and mishras babble which would help trigger this often.

im going to pick up 2 and test them out. impression is a optimistic meh.

Ruins of Oran-Rief seems decent in affinity

Jori sounds like she helps decks that like to combo out spells and go all out. Off the top of my head my thoughts are drifting towards counter-burn, some sort of light weight Jeskai or Izzet aggro deck, or potentially storm where that extra card might really pay off.

Quote from MarcWizard »

Actually plenty of Grixis control lists still include the fish. Whether we like it or not, Tasigur is Legendary, you can only have 1 of him on board at any time, so grixis still counts on Fish to have multiple beaters on board, and it kills 4/5 Goyfs which is the "normal" size.

With regards to that restriction, I don't think one needs to bend over backwards to meet it, unless you're playing some weird combination of countermagicks AND discard. Lately, people have been either leaning toward Jace+Discard/Rise//Fall, or the old school Snaps/Pierce/Snare/Mana Leak. So you're either one or the other. Clearly though the countermagicks version won't be interested to tap out turn 3, or even later, so I'm thinking the Jace+sorcery speed deck would be more interested.

The strongest argument against Jori en isn't so much how hard it is to activate her surge ability, which I feel is really good; Its her mana cost OR toughness, depending on how you look at it. She could be 1/3 for UR and totally more playable, or 2/4, even 1/4 for the current cost and still be good. Or, give her flash. Any of these changes would make her a lot more playable in modern.

Jori seems better on sideboard against decks that board out removal against you because Jori punishes that. Also seems good against decks that don't play much removal. She probably has a place.

Quote from Equinox2793 »

Ruins of Oran-Rief seems decent in affinity

I don't think so. ETB tapped is huge.