Figured I'd share my recently-rebuilt Jaya deck since I'm definitely back in the mono-red groove again. It's pretty similar to Weebo's with a few changes that I think make a big difference. Also, By Force is in there instead of Shenanigans because the deck editor seems to think it's outside Jaya's color identity for some reason.
Braid of Fire has been nuts. It takes a bit to set up, but I've used it to kill someone with Comet Storm, cast Commune with Lava, or activate Jaya in an emergency.
Thousand Year Elixir has been really helpful if I need to activate Jaya twice or give people less time to react to Magus of the Wheel.
Karn, Scion of Urza: I don't get how everyone is lukewarm on this guy. Sure the opponent chooses the worst of the two revealed cards, but it's more draw! For 4!
Happy to answer any questions you may have about specific cards. I finally got a playgroup together again so I've had the opportunity to playtests this deck pretty regularly.
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For this one, some thoughts:
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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.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.
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I'll definitely give a replacement forum a shot. I've been on this one long enough that I should at least try it out.