MTG Salvation

Horobi, Death's Wail seems like it could be fun, play nice or your stuff dies

Quote from LouCypher »

Of course what's worthy of note here is that this scenario likely involved YOU being the one with the Edric deck, knowing what you've posted about in the past.

And as always, the same advice applies: Talk to your playgroup about all this. It's not gentlemanly, but neither is taking multiple turns and STILL NOT WINNING.

This guy just keeps spinning the story into his favor instead of doing what we keep telling him to do. "Talk to your Group". It's clear the decks are way to strong for the play group(from also reading his other posts). That's why they target you, that's why they are salty, that's why they make plays like this in most cases just to give the other players a chance. If I sat down not knowing you and presented the commanders you have you would automatically be on my radar for biggest threat, playing a 2nd game would most likely make me target you first. Unless this is a Tournament where prizes are on the line or its cEDH the only problem I see is that your play group hates to play with you.

Shout out to Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer. No built in evasion but with equipment he can get big very fast and find easy ways to get though. Add in some tokens and you can swing by going wide and voltron. My Deck is both Plan A & B and allows me take out multiple people at once.

Quote from metalevolence »

The only commander that interests me is tymna the weaver. Still not sure who I want to partner her with, I think all the other partners are pretty sucky.

Thinking about running her with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa. This will allow you to push though with your 2 Power creatures and get to draw the cards. Curves into him for a turn 4 play and Draw. Pack lots of Hate Bears and you should have no problem drawing cards

Quote from Weebos »

Quote from Weebo »

I'm amused by the skywhales. I'm hoping there's a solidly playable one. Aethersquall Ancient seems fun if they support energy enough, but is way too slow on its own.

I dream of a legendary Skywhale.

Mobile Dick RRUU1
Legendary - Artifact Whale Construct
Flying
Tap an artifact you control. Put in a Flying Artifact whale construct with power and toughness equal to the tap artifact CCM. Do this only as a sorcery and only once during your turn
4/6
IDK just board at work lol

Look for B.R.E.A.D and a decent mana curve and any deck should be able to do well. Also dont be afraid to ask for help on building a deck.

Do you think older Magic sets that didn't have Plainswalkers to tell the story are really just her stories. She was there for almost everything not doing anything, just watching and cataloging the events?

I had a long thing written up for all of the people auguring on this topic but its pointless. OP you and your group need to figure this out for your self. There is no right answer to this problem because people will be butt hurt either way.

@ hate_bear_foil_hunter: Torrent Elemental is considered Black Green Blue so you would not be able to play it in a G/U deck.



As far as token Generators go: Awakening Zone, From Beyond, Thopter Spy Network can pump them out each turn. Fungal Sprouting also seems very strong once you pump up a guy big enough.

In a five player game with the default decks I think It would go along the lines of: R/W or W/B, Then U/G, B/G, R/U.
But if you were to alter the Decks to make them stronger: B/G, U/G, R/U, W/B, R/W.
The way I see it the Better the deck is out of the box the worse potential it has at getting better. Granted this is if you keep with one of the themes of the Deck, Some of the new commanders can be built very differently and still be very good.

That "just win" issue is why I don't mind seeing iona on the field, even if it's locking me out. If the player actually spent the mana to slam it, good for them for making it that far, but they could have resolved a bigger threat that could have ended the game. Same is true if they spent the resources to trick it into play. It could have been a game-ending card but instead it's a medium annoyance that doesn't end the game.

My playgroup isn't cedh, and while we do have competitive decks, iona isn't good enough for any of them. Our deck strength average is around a 6 and iona would never be good enough at our table. It truly is a medium-to-bad trap card. It's a learning experience that is eventually unsleeved and forgotten about. But hey this is what they think is a ban-worthy card.

This argument about running colorless answers is a joke. all is dust, ugin, the spirit dragon, perilous vault, and oblivion stone are better cards than iona. Others like duplicant and spine may even be synergistic for the deck, because most artifact decks I've seen run those too. If you're not already playing those, then either your meta is too quick and there isn't an iona, your meta is too weak and there still isn't an iona, or your choosing to not play obviously good cards that can answer any number of threats.

I love when modern bans occur because there are solid reasoning and you can actually follow the thought process as to why something was banned. For example bridge was just banned to tone down hogaack. Doesn't kill the deck, does affect dredge to the point that it's not overshadowed by hogaack, and the degenerate potential turn-1 wins from neoform were left alone because development looked at the % of players actually using the deck and its performance. Not the complaints but the performance.

Now then we have edh bans where painter was unbanned by someone who complains about combos in edh, and build-around cards like engine are banned when if he really understood how those decks worked then he could have just banned dramatic reversal - a card that only exists in the format to be abused.

Maybe he was just terrified that people would break urza (and to a lesser extent golos, tireless pilgrim) with engine. I'm so glad that infinite mana commanders can't be broken still in this format with other combos that cost less mana investment and card density to start up.

As of 13.07 this this thread is inactive, because i decided to move all future deck updates and discussions to MTG Nexus and tappedout.

You can find the most recent decklist following either of these links:
http://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=457
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/traxos-stompy-of-kroog/

Disclaimer:

• My decklists are actual paper lists, unusual includes/excludes might be meta calls, pet cards or overlap and budget considerations.
• Our playgroup unanimously house banned both Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, so don't expect them in here.
• I'm not a fan of Mass Land Destruction, Extra Turns and Infinite Combos, don't expect them either.

Last Deck Update: 09.07.19, Avg. CMC: 2,37

*Number in front of card is CMC, except lands, where it's the number of copies included.

Deck History and Summary:

Back in 2017 i've built a cycle of mono colored EDH decks, consisting of:

• W Odric, Master Tactician (now Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle)
• U Talrand, Sky Summoner
• B Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• R Zada, Hedron Grinder
• G Ezuri, Renegade Leader

While i did that i was already considering a colorless C aka mono-brown deck, but none of the Eldrazi did appeal to me, nor did Karn, Silver Golem or Hope of Ghirapur. When Traxos, Scourge of Kroog got spoilered for Dominaria i felt like trying it out. And what can i say? The beatstick is a ton of fun!

Usually you want to cast a mana rock on turn 2, Traxos, Scourge of Kroog on turn 3, then start punching people on turn 4.
The main ingredients for any win are Vigilance and Evasion. Accorder's Shield and Cathar's Shield really shine at untapping and granting Vigilance.
A major weakness of the deck is its vulnerability to Vandalblast, Austere Command and the likes, so if i draw into Warping Wail i cling onto that until i very desperately need it. Plan B is recurring key pieces via Myr Retriever, Scrap Trawler, Junk Diver and Workshop Assistant.

Let me know what you think of the deck! I'm always happy to get input.

Quote from Card Slinger J »

It's all fun and games until someone equips Helm of the Host onto Iona, Shield of Emeria by locking everyone else out of the game.

To be fair, there's a fair argument that Helm of the Host + Iona, Shield of Emeria is fun and games in and of itself.

If someone was able to achieve that, it seems like an epic & memorable play. It's also imminently stoppable. And if you do it once, the salt-level would probably get you hated out of doing anything for the rest of the day.

If someone won with a Craterhoof (btw, winning a game is more productive and actually easier than stopping others from winning the game), the salt-level is no where near the same as with the Iona scenario. And even if you did it again and again, what are your opponents going to do about it? Countering ETB's is tougher than removing a creature.

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from Faruel »

Are you speaking of multi-player games? Iona is a 7/7 flyer without any protection. She will not be on the battlefield forever. The monocolor player doesn't have to sit there and wait. He can give up and leave if he wants. Triumpf of hordes often kills just one player. That player has to wait until the game is finished or find another group. Is basically the same.

No not everyone has to play colorless removal because not everyone is playing mono color decks. You should know your game group and you can perfectly adjust your deck to your meta.

There are better ways to keep other players from playing magic. She is an iconic card for me. One of the first creature I got by trading with friends. I have good memories with her, like preventing some Bord wipes or protection from counters.

If other players aren't affected (or majorly affected) by iona, they may well get an advantage from her existing and want to protect her, so that the mono-colored player is locked out. So yes, Iona can survive for a long time and meanwhile you're stuck there doing nothing. Does it always play out that way? Well no. But the range of "how annoying is Iona" goes from "pretty annoying" to "incredibly annoying" with no real room for "actually pretty fun".

My meta is like 30 people. If you get knocked out early, you can find other people to play with. Not a big problem. But I'm supposed to tailor my decks to 30-odd people playing hundreds of different decks of wildly different power levels?

What you mentioned with other people not being affected or just lightly affected and protecting Iona by spending resources is actually great. Is *****ty for the one player but great in a political/multiplayer way. If they keep spending resources in a card that they are not even controlling just to lock the mono-color player, than maybe that player has done something wrong or was leading anyways. I mean look yes she can be odd in some games but there are cards that do this for every player and they are legal. Color hate, stax cards etc. for far less mana. And painter open up combos much more disgusting that Iona could ever be.

So if someone has a stasis/orb lock online everything is okay because he wins the game and the other 3 player can give up because they can do nothing. But if a mono-color player get locked by an Iona than everything is miserable because he has to sit there and do nothing? Where is the different for you to be defeated early in the game or be locked?

And no you don't have to tailor your decks to 30-odd people but you can prepare yourself for the one hate card out there that seemly is destroying your day/fun.

But well this discussion won't change any opinions. She is banned now and will disappear in my binder.

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from Faruel »

Agree. I don't think that a 9 Mana card in the worse color that not even win you the game on the spot like other cards with that mana cost and can easily be interacted with before she enters the battlefield or with colorless removal is that broken. Did she required some build around/answers well yes but so do other cards. There are other feel bad cards, too. Like loosing to Triumph of the Hordes early in the game. MtG was really good at adding answers against her. But she was call out for years now, so I guess they wanted to throw the community a bone.

-"being in the worst color" doesn't really mean anything as long as multicolor commanders exist (fun fact, there are a decent number of them).

-being 9 mana doesn't mean much in a format with so many ways to cheat things into play

-colorless removal is rare and mostly very inefficient, do you seriously want every deck to run karn and tutor for it ASAP just in case iona gets played? How are you supposed to predict that?

-the problem with iona is NOT that she's too powerful. She's not. The problem is that she creates undesirable game states for a casual game, where someone is completely prevented from casting anything because they're playing a mono-color deck. It also creates a problem because mono-color is already a big disadvantage, and iona punishes players even more for playing it.

Triumph of the hordes ends the game if it works. You can go start another one, no problem. Iona keeps you in the game, but unable to do anything. Way less fun. Kill me and get it over with.

Are you speaking of multi-player games? Iona is a 7/7 flyer without any protection. She will not be on the battlefield forever. The monocolor player doesn't have to sit there and wait. He can give up and leave if he wants. Triumpf of hordes often kills just one player. That player has to wait until the game is finished or find another group. Is basically the same.

No not everyone has to play colorless removal because not everyone is playing mono color decks. You should know your game group and you can perfectly adjust your deck to your meta.

There are better ways to keep other players from playing magic. She is an iconic card for me. One of the first creature I got by trading with friends. I have good memories with her, like preventing some Bord wipes or protection from counters.

I'm playing Oona as a mono black deck.

The large amount of mana that mono black can generate with cards like Nirkana Revenant, Crypt Ghast, Cabal Coffers, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Cabal Stronghold works very well with her ability.

At the same time, being in this color idenity lets you cast fun surprise cards like mental mistep, phyrexian metamorph and memory plunder even though you don't have islands.

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Introduction

I've had a more or less zombie tribal build of some description for the last 3-4 years under various generals. I've tried Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Gisa and Geralf, and Thraximundar. None of them really suited what I wanted the build to be, so when Varina, Lich Queen was spoiled I was very excited. In fact, she's the only commander form 2018 precons that I had any interest in building.

As a commander, Varina is interesting in that there are several avenues she can run down. There's lifegain builds, attrition builds, pure tribal zombies, all-in reanimator, token swarm, library manipulation/miracle, combo...she's remarkably versatile. In building, I knew I wanted a strong zombie theme, but I also wanted more than just to cram whatever zombies I could find in here and turn them sideways. In fact, of the strategies mentioned above, there's probably a little bit of everything here, so as the title suggests it's probably a midrange build. Varina suits this well; she's naturally got a lot of filtering power on her attack trigger, she has some life gain, she dumps to graveyard, and she likes company.


I've always liked reanimation strategies, and this deck should make that obvious. It plays in really well with attrition with zombies, specifically with lords like Diregraf Captain, Vengeful Dead and Wayward Servant. Being able to pump out tokens makes this a valuable strategy, and there's some real gems for zombie tokens too - Tombstone Stairwell, Diregraf Colossus and Ghoulcaller Gisa. As well as this, we need an element of control too - we need to be able to make sure the board state favours us - a lot of times that means wiping it clean, or removing key pieces where needed. Regardless, there's a lot of tools in our belt, and victory is often just assessing what works best for us in the scenario we find ourselves in.

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In playtesting, the deck sort of has a momentum to it. So long as you have your colours and some juice in your hand you're ok, and you can make sure you keep the momentum going. It's fairly rare there's not a good time to swing with something, and it's easy enough to keep advantage heading your way. Every swing gives us the opportunity to draw into some level of advantage and puts us a little further away from defeat. And that's sort of how we play - we survive and keep fighting until the pieces come together. We can take a lot of heat in early stages, so keeping a hand with early drops is advisable, but once we've got some momentum going it's hard to stop us.


All this being said, it's important to choose your spells carefully. We're running a fairly lean engine and won't generally have a huge surplus of spare mana unless things go exceptionally well. It can happen, but it's rare enough to not plan around. So with this in mind, we're more or less never going to look at playing our hand out and entering topdeck mode. We're looking at making optimal plays, maximising our advantage as cheaply as we can and incrementally advancing our game. This also gives us valuable options for Varina's trigger. It's important to note that while she does draw you cards, she makes you discard as many, so keeping cards in hand is important. It's part of why she's worked so well with a midrange strategy - we play optimally, swing to sculpt our hand, and set ourselves up with options. If we vomit our hand on to the board, we're really just filling our yard sub-optimally and keeping nothing back for answers.

This segues us into a fairly appropriate topic at a good time. It's important to know what to toss and when to toss it. This is going to happen a lot - Varina's filtering is fantastic, but you're not ever going to be able to keep all of the cards in hand you want to. This is fairly convenient in that there's a reasonable degree to graveyard interaction in the tribe, and in the spells I've chosen for the list. It will also mean that there are sometimes hard choices to make; do you keep land drops, do you hold up removal, reanimation, creatures? The situation will vary, but don't be afraid to turf land drops or wipes if you have redundancy in hand. After all, that's what Varina's second ability is for. You shouldn't be afraid to use this either. It's instant speed, can give you board presence to untap with on your turn and can turn your excess land or spells you don't need right now into advantage and further filtering next combat.

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It should be no surprise that Varina is in colours that can combo out quite easily. I've chosen not to follow this through, although I am aware that there are synergies that can be abused pretty heavily here, and many that will go infinite. When these come up, I usually ignore them, but there's no reason to follow suit if your stance on combo varies from mine. I'm happy to go over some of the options available here, too - there are plenty, in both combo and stax/lock options. I won't discuss them in the initial post, but I am happy to mention what I'm aware of in subsequent posts. It just isn't my play style to do this, but that's entirely a self imposed regulation, and you need not feel bad for leaning into that area, each deck is different and it's your prerogative to build what you enjoy

My strategy is to leverage my most powerful strategies without going fully infinite or comboing. There's plenty here, and dropping the right spell at the right time while building momentum will allow us to do plenty and stay relevant. Usually I try to maintain a fairly low profile early and build some momentum while I dig for my clutch cards. That's part of why I've chosen the cards I've chosen - all of my draw is pretty burst related, so that I can discard for value and reanimation, and dig deep. There are specific cards in the deck that fit well together, so depending what we have in hand, we're digging for reasonably specific things to pair up or work those synergies.

What follows below is a non-exhaustive description of some of the stronger synergies on offer here and how they get us ahead:

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Aristocrats:

• Wayward Servant
• Shepherd of Rot
• Diregraf Captain
• Plague Belcher
• Vengeful Dead
• The Scarab God

Each of these gives us a way to slowly eke away at life totals. We don't specifically swarm, but there are some really great cards to pair up with these. Tombstone Stairwell is unbearably, incredibly good at this. Every single turn (not just every turn of yours, every turn), you get a zombie with haste for each creature in your yard. Wayward Servant can bleed people out for that, and gain you some life. Then they die at end of turn. Any of the others here can make use of that - specifically, Vengeful Dead will hurt your opponents for every single zombie that dies this way, not just yours. Ghoulcaller Gisa can do similar things, albeit somewhat more slowly, and from time to time Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding and Zombie Apocalypse can chime in too.

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Aminatou, Walkers and Age counters
She's sort of our draw fixer and swiss army knife. Her first ability is nice, but her value is superb for the second ability. She resets counters on things and gives us extra ETB triggers. We have three walkers here, 2 of which she can blink, and we have 2 strong effects with cumulative upkeeps and associated age counters that she can get rid of - we'll never be entirely free of them, but she can keep them manageable (her lieutenant Soul Diviner can help here too). Not only this, she can keep our board expanding with Ghoulcaller Gisa, give us an untapped utility land, or even just untap our biggest guy for defense.

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Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
So, we all know about Mike and his pal Trike. Trike isn't here, and we're slim on unlimited sacrifice outlets anyway. That's not what we're aiming for. He's here to keep our board presence, mostly. That being said, he is still capable of allowing some really strong interactions:

Recovery from our own board wipes (his ability goes on the stack when he dies regardless)
A rugged bleeder cycle with Wayward Servant and pals
Another one with Plague Belcher and Gravecrawler, for as much B as you have spare
A continual source of incremental draw with Soul Diviner

Again, it would be easy enough to make these combo material in a number of ways. That's not what I'm going for, but don't let it stop you - most of these interactions would go infinite with Rooftop Storm or Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar. He's also going to be an immediate target regardless, so it's really important to make sure you cast him when it's worth casting him. Casting him to an empty board and passing turn is a bad idea and won't get you far at all. He's best cheated into play considering his CMC, but that can telegraph a little. Ideally, however it's managed, we want to drop him into an existing board with some interactive components already in place - Eldrazi Monument, Noosegraf Mob, Carrion Feeder, whatever you can find, Mike is the last piece you want to cast before you leverage him for profit.

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Removal
We run an ample suite here, lots of standard wipes. And mostly we're not afraid of them, either. Having an aristocrat on board totally changes how things look post-wipe. We've got bounce in the ubiquitous Cyclonic Rift, wipes that will leave us better off with Citywide Bust and Austere Command, exile effects with Return to Dust, Silence the Believers and Utter End. We're also running removal with extra effects to keep our board state up with Living Death (my favourite card ever). However, we also have a couple of other really effective tricks up our sleeve.

Archfiend of Ifnir
He's not a zombie. He is, however, absolutely devastating. Combine him with Varina's attack trigger, Forgotten Creation's upkeep trigger, or any of the other loot effects we have, and we can literally flatten the rest of the board, with permanence. As a plus, he will kill indestructibles, too.

Noxious Ghoul
While not quite as strong due to the impermanent nature of his effect, with Tombstone Stairwell, Noosegraf Mob, Open the Graves or Endless Ranks of the Dead it can wreck a board state too. Devastating coming into play from a Living Death resolution as well.

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The Win

These strategies have been listed in terms of efficacy. Our bleeders can win, and win easy. They're mostly cheap, they're plentiful and easy to assemble. We can do some great reanimation tricks, which are a ton of fun. We can generate a lot of advantage with our walkers, and we can break down a board state with relative efficacy.

That being said, sometimes it won't all come together well. That's where we fall back to our base game plan - we turn sideways. We have a fairly high density of lords and their pump effects, and we have options for evasion too. Eldrazi Monument can win games with 3-4 creatures on board (thanks Gravecrawler!). Graf Harvest or Lord of the Accursed gives us twice the attack power against other creatures. Death Baron makes sure we trade well in combat, and so does Vault of the Archangel. And the great part of all of this is that Varina draws us into further juice and further life gain every time we swing, even if we don't swing with her. There's an air of inevitability to this - if we're not dealt with, we will eventually gather enough momentum to roll over for the win. Even if our stuff gets removed, Varina can exile it for tokens, as can Graf Harvest. When this happens it's not a glamorous win, but it gets you over the line, and that's what counts.

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And there it is for now. There's still a few bits under consideration as I'm able to find them or afford them:
Corpse Harvester
Godless Shrine
Hallowed Fountain

I'm pretty happy with how the deck is running at the moment, the only real issue it has is colour fixing from time to time, but otherwise it's remarkably solid, and it's a lot of fun to play. No two games are exactly the same, and at present it's probably my most successful existing deck.



Feel free to critique, offer strategies or suggestions or just generally discuss. This deck isn't going anywhere, and I'm very much open to assessment of future amendments.
Enjoy!

Toc

Quick thoughts on 2020:

Brought Back is neat. Doesn't really seem particularly helpful...I guess it helps you ramp a bit. It's cool but I just see no real reason we'd need it.

Cryptic caves - if the MH1 lands were borderline, this is pretty weak.

drawn from dreams is like dig through time, except not that good. But if you aren't running fetches it might be ok for a budgety list.

flood of tears - so many better options for this effect.

lotus field is...fine. Doesn't really seem useful, though.

Tale's End - maybe the only card I'm actually particularly interested in. I've been liking stifle effects in my decks, and this gives us a way to include one without sacrificing too much flexibility.

ferocious pup is interesting. We're basically impossible to attack on the ground, but it also means we can't play board wipes. I mean, legally we can, but morally it's pretty much impossible. I think this is probably too much of a drawback.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Expedition Map to find it.

Definitely Tectonic Reformation.

Basilisk Collar for massive lifegain and to kill the bigger things.

Scythe of the Wretched to steal everything you kill.

Darksteel Plate, Shield of Kaldra, Hammer of Nazahn, Magebane Armor to keep Ashling alive through its own activations.

Godo, Bandit Warlord to find one of the equipment.

I'm starting this now because of a slow meeting, but it's also so I have less to go through when the full set drops tomorrow: intial thoughts on MH1. Red has gotten plenty of goodies here, including a few cards that look like solid Jaya options.

Red

• Aria of Flame - Fun card. The lifegain and targeted damage hopefully helps it fly under the radar a little (i.e. only one person wants to remove it, and they have a few spells before it undoes the life you gave them to begin with) and it comes down early enough to trigger on filtering effects. I'm guessing I don't have enough instants and sorceries to really take advantage.
• Force of Rage - Small effect and the alternate cost is rough. Without some kind of synergy to take advantage of the tokens, I can't see this finding a place here. I'd be surprised to see it in the format as a whole very often.
• Geomancer's Gambit - I normally would skip over targeted land destruction as a sorcery - Stone Rain has never been a serious consideration - but I like that it replaces itself. Cards are more often the bottleneck than mana unless you're wheeling, so taking out a strong nonbasic without spending a card is worth a look. While I'm not planning on making any cuts for this, it's a decent EDH spell.
• Goblin Engineer - Now we're into the good stuff. I run 14 artifacts this could recur and most of them are high impact. I'm usually happy to trade out one of my more situational artifacts for something more relevant, like getting rid of a late game Wayfarer's Bauble for a destroyed Rings, or swapping Scroll Rack out when I have no cards in hand. The tutor is the real appeal here. It can kick off one of the various card advantage/selection engines, or grab a higher cost artifact for one of the other recursion cards to bring back. I'm definitely interested in testing this out.
• Magmatic Sinkhole - Probably worse than Skred or Lightning Bolt most of the time (and snow mountains are getting easier to find with this set). Not the worst choice if you're looking for a third copy of those two, as much as I doubt most Jaya lists are.
• Pashalik Mons - Mentioned here because I love how deep this set is going on references. Decent if you're running a goblin package, hard pass otherwise. No surprise for a tribal card.
• Planebound Accomplice - Prevailing format wisdom is that you should only be running a walker if you're ok with getting a single activation out of them. I've generally found that they live longer than that, but you could do worse than this if you're running walker heavy and want to sneak Karn or Ugin in to remove something. This has better homes in more combo oriented lists in other colors. That said, it's actually fine with just its "fair" use here.
• Pyrophobia - Cowards can't block Warriors.
• Seasoned Pyromancer - Young Pyromancer grew up. Filtering or draw on the way in, instant speed token production from the yard. This feels like too small an effect for this list, but there's a chance that it plays well enough with the equipment and GY themes to be better than I'm expecting. I like having value spread around the curve so this is a weak candidate for testing. Outside of mono-R, I'll almost certainly jam it in a reanimator list somewhere.
• Shenanigans - Ohhhhh! This is a decent card and another one that should be tested out. Repeated artifact destruction is a nice effect and there isn't much of a hoop to jump through here. I've outright won games thanks to Caustic Caterpillar recursion and this has the same possibilities. I'd make sure to keep some mass hate like Vandalblast or Shattering Spree around in addition to this.
• Tectonic Reformation - It's late in the alphabet, but this is my favorite card of the set so far for Jaya. It plays very nicely with Crucible of Worlds, Experimental Frenzy, and all of the to hand land searching. When it doesn't do any of that, you can just cycle it. I do like making more land drops than is necessary in this deck because of wheels and other late game, mana intensive plays, but there's still a point where you're just looking for ways to kill the table or find one of your limited answers. This is the card I most want to run out of the set so far.
• Throes of Chaos - Basically all the same stuff that was just said about Tectonic Reformation, but with a higher startup cost. I do like that this can be freely discarded and still serve it's primary function. This feels a lot like Reality Scramble with a higher floor and a lower ceiling, and that's a card that's tempted me in the past.

Artifact/Land

• Arcum's Astrolabe - If you're running a snow manabase, this is the cheapest cantrip I'm aware of in red. It's a decent grease piece if you have that and heavy artifact themes. Outside of that, I'd skip this one.
• Mox Tantalite - Very slow, small upside. If you're very focused on the late game and have heavy artifact themes, it's a little better.
• Scrapyard Recombiner - There are some very good constructs available. I'm currently running exactly 0 of them. This is a better fit for decks like Daretti, Scrap Savant that are likely to have a higher density or artifact creatures.
• Sword of Sinew and Steel - Another pro-red sword. Finding targets for the artifact is not a difficult thing in an EDH game, even if the planeswalker part of the ability is more likely to go unused. I don't think that 3 swords is necessary, especially with Goblin Engineer as an option, so this would replace one of the other two. Sword of Fire and Ice is one of the best cards in the deck, so it's not really a consideration. Sword of War and Peace has some room for discussion. The lifegain is frequently helpful and I've liked having a fast clock sometimes. I'll have to try the new one and see if I like the repeatable artifact destruction even more than that.
• Sword of Truth and Justice - Eh. The protections are generically good and the counter/proliferate is fine. I value pro-red much higher than the other colors here for obvious reasons, and the creature density is too low to go super equipment heavy. I'm not planning on trying this here at all.
• Frostwalk Bastion - Respectable manland if you're running snow. I think there are better utility land options.
• Prismatic Vista - I effectively run 4 copies of this already and I think I'm happy to go to 5. Fetches play well with Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Experimental Frenzy, Crucible of Worlds, Rings of Brighthearth, and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle with very little downside. If you're running enough effects that can take advantage of this, it's great. If you're not, it's worse than a basic. This is not worth running for deck thinning. The effect on your draws is smaller than the impact of the life loss, even in EDH.

Tectonic Reformation is pretty clearly the strongest card for this deck spoiled so far and the one I'm most interested in including. After that, I think that Goblin Engineer, Shenanigans, and Sword of Sinew and Steel have the broadest applications. There are a few more that could fit depending on how your deck is constructed. On the whole, great set for EDH and for Jaya.

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On a sadder note, this forum is shutting down in a little over a month, which obviously means this thread is going to end. The current staff has plans to create a new forum so I'm at least going to give that a shot, including migrating this thread over. The text of the primer has lived on a local file forever and could probably use an update or three anyways. As long as that is up and running before this one goes read only, I'll also throw links in this thread to push anyone who finds it later in that direction. I'll post about that again closer to the day it's actually going dark, so hopefully the discussion keeps going elsewhere.