"Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're dead."
-Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Is this the deck for me?
Introducing Jaya Ballard!
Why not play a different mono-red general?
Decklist
Changelog
Playing Mono-Red Control
Playing Jaya Ballard
Sample Hands
Typical Gameplan
Early Game
Mid Game
Late Game
Choosing Your...
Creatures
Artifacts
Enchantments
Planeswalkers
Instants
Sorceries
Lands
Conclusion
Meet SocorroTortoise
Primer Bookkeeping
- You like explosive board control
- You enjoy a few restrictions with your deckbuilding
- Graveyard strategies in an unusual color combo are appealing
- Creature based strategies are prevalent in your meta
- You prefer a noninteractive game
- You want to answer everything, every time, right away
- You're done with your creatures as soon as they hit the field
- There are a lot of dedicated combo decks in your meta
A couple brief notes on the primer
If you've looked farther down the page already, you may have noticed that there are a lot of words here. I write more than I should and I try not to overuse spoilers. To counter this, I've tried to organize things in a somewhat intuitive sense and I have liberally sprinkled Back to Top links throughout, which are the easiest way to navigate the primer when combined with the table of contents.
With that out of the way, let's get to Jaya!
Jaya was a bit character who showed up repeatedly in the flavor text of Ice Age block cards, almost always on cards relating to fire or destruction. She's the kind of classy lady who finds dinner and a movie boring and would much rather see something-or someone-go up in a massive cloud of flames. Her remarks sassed up quite a few cards, and I fell in love with her long before I knew her story and years before she showed up as a card.Savor the Flavor wrote:Jaya Ballard is a Task Mage. This is the term for a maverick wizard who works as a hired gun. There are cryptomancer task mages and auramancer task mages and healers and diviners and countermagicians. There are Swiss Army Knife task mages who can do a little bit of everything. Jaya Ballard does one thing – burn stuff!
Flash forward over a decade to the release of Time Spiral. WotC is going back and creating cards based on a number of characters who had previously only been referenced in card names and flavor text. Here, Jaya Ballard sees print as a card for the first time, as a lovely leather clad lady sporting not one, not two, but three abilities evoking some of our favorite red spells from Magic's history. So let's see what she can do.
Cost:
Glancing at colors, you may experience a sudden sinking feeling. Nothing but little fireballs up there, so we're looking at mono red. Considered by many to be the worst color in EDH/Commander because of the lack of drawing and tutoring capabilities, I'm here to tell you not to be afraid! Jaya can still hold her own with the big boys.
Typing: Human Spellshaper
Ability #1: Half of Pyroblast
Ability #2: Incinerate
Ability #3: Inferno
There are a lot of other red legends. What's wrong with them?
- Ashling the Pilgrim – Probably the most similar general to Jaya for what this deck wants to do, Ashling is a popular choice for the gimmick 99 mountains + general list, which has gotten a few people into the format. Ashling is better for card advantage and doesn't require haste, but she's kind of a one-trick pony. All she does is blow up the board. While that's a powerful trick, I like the flexibility a bit more.
- Daretti, Scrap Savant – One of the artifact focused generals. Mono-R naturally leans towards artifacts to fill in holes in its strategy, and Daretti plays very nicely with that plan. He's also got a lot of power as a looting effect, provided you can keep your hand full of things you don't really need or play with them out of the yard. I wasn't after as artifact heavy a deck as he promotes, and he was also released years after I first built Jaya.
- Feldon of the Third Path – Probably the most unique red legendary, Feldon plays a completely different game from most of the others. He's very GY focused and tends to rely on powerful etd/ltb triggers to do a lot of work. He's one of the more flexible options, but is hit the hardest by GY hate.
- Godo, Bandit Warlord – Godo obviously lends himself well to a voltron strategy, which is what decks built around him typically end up as. He's pretty quick and hits like a truck, but he's also a little one-dimensional at times.
- Heartless Hidetsugu – Mostly a combo or chaos general. I'm sure there are aggro decks out there, but they're not all that common. He doesn't quite play the role I wanted the general to here.
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker – Also a combo general a lot of the time, but Kiki-Jiki can be built in a variety of ways. The biggest thing is that Kiki-Jiki requires a lot of creatures – if you've glanced at my decklist, you might notice that it is very creature-light, in part because I want to wipe the board frequently.
- Krenko, Mob Boss – The current poster general for mono-R goblins. Krenko plays very explosively. He's typically built as a kind of aggro/combo hybrid, and repeatedly threatens to win the game very quickly if built competitively.
- Márton Stromgald – Not terribly common, but ISBPathfinder put together a very solid combo/aggro list on MTGS that's worth mentioning. Completely different themes from this deck, but certainly a good option if you feel like winning in the red zone.
- Neheb, the Eternal - Neheb is a powerhouse general who also plays really well with burn heavy strategies. I prefer Jaya for both historical reasons and because I'd rather have the burn in the command zone and the mana development in the deck than vice-versa.
- Norin the Wary – I'm not Gaka (if you don't understand this because you didn't come over from MTGS, Gaka was the poster who wrote the Norin primer there and can be credited with/blamed for a lot of Norin's internet popularity).
- Purphoros, God of the Forge – The most explosive of the red generals, aside from maybe Krenko. Purphoros plays possibly the most general dependent game of any of the options here and he's extremely powerful when he works. It's a much more creature dependent plan than what I'm doing here.
- Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer – The other big artifact general for mono-R, in my opinion. Like I said when talking about Daretti, I didn't want artifacts to be the focus of the deck, despite the high number of them in here.
- Zirilan of the Claw – The mono-R dragon general. Zirilan can actually play a decent aggro or combo game, and is a lot of fun to play. Like a couple other options, Zirilan just doesn't fit what I'm trying to do here.
General
Creatures
Artifacts
Artifacts - Equipment
Enchantments
Planeswalkers
Instants
Sorceries
Lands
Note: I'm aware that I don't have Squee, Goblin Nabob, Painter's Servant, or Distorting Lens in the list. My detailed reasoning for not including them can be found in the card choices section.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk play style. There are several different ways to take Jaya, and which you should go for depends on how you like to play and how your group plays. As with any deck, you should have a multifaceted plan of attack, but feel free to let a couple of those facets shine brighter than others. At the end of each section, I'll list off a few cards as examples of what you could play. More in depth explorations and explanations for cards are going to come in a bit.
Big Mana
Examples: Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, and Gauntlet of Might.
Artifact Hate
Examples: Viashino Heretic, Vandalblast, and Shattering Spree.
Land Hate
The biggest issue with land hate is that some playgroups have a very negative attitude towards it. As with everything else, it's important to gauge how your playgroup is going to respond to land hate. Spot removal of powerful lands is almost universally accepted, but something like Ruination may make some people unhappy. In this deck, it's generally safe to err on the side of running it, because you can always discard powerful but situationally useless cards to Jaya.
Examples: Ruination, Dwarven Miner, and Devastation.
Stack Disruption
The other thing to remember is that these spells can be used as situational counterspells. If the blue mage tries to counter your spell, just redirect it to your redirection spell, or copy it to counter their counter. This is even more of a niche use than most of how you use these, but it can definitely save your game winning spell in a pinch.
Examples: Wild Ricochet, Reiterate, and Reverberate.
Hand Disruption
Examples: Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, and Chandra Ablaze.
Big Damage and Win Conditions
Examples: Comet Storm, Repercussion, and Furnace of Rath.
So I get mono red control. How does Jaya fit into this?
The second time she comes in, you want to guarantee that she's going to be able to blow something up or cause some damage. The other thing implied there is that you need to have developed your mana to the point where you can generate a pretty significant amount. If you can't almost guarantee an activation, don't rush her out again. You're a controlling deck and you're sitting on a pretty big life buffer, so take advantage of it.
End game, you have a few options. You can try to blow everyone out at once, generally with a damage doubler and an spell or Repercussion. This isn't terribly common, because all of the parts are threatening on their own and tend to draw removal, so you probably don't want to rely on this. Another option is to try and get an overwhelming mana advantage, generally by getting a doubler to stick. If you can replay Jaya and Inferno every turn, it's going to be difficult for anyone relying on creatures to get you, and the decks not relying on creatures are hopefully close enough to dead that decent chunks of damage every turn can finish them off. The last common approach is similar to the second one, but involves Jaya either being indestructible or pro-red. If she doesn't kill herself with her infernos, you're able to pull off a lot of damage with a lot less mana. Which of these approaches you take is almost entirely dependent on how you draw, because red is not the color for tutors. While that's going to annoy some people, I think most of the people still reading this are in the camp that thinks it makes for a more interesting game. Of course, the most powerful times are when you get to mix and match these approaches. If you can get Akroma's Memorial and Repercussion to stick, you're pretty much guaranteed a win. This kind of situation is ridiculously rare because of the high profile of everything involved, but it's a ton of fun when it happens.
The final note on Jaya usage is that she's not strictly necessary for the deck to perform. The deck is certainly designed to take advantage of her and the best games are the ones where you're able to execute a Jaya centric plan. There's still a lot of power and utility included alongside a lot of digging power (at least by mono-R standards) to find it all. If there's never an opportunity to play Jaya where you can reasonably expect to activate her, you're probably better off riding the other cards in the deck than trying to force it.
Mulligans
Early Plays
Next Draws
Mulligans
Early Plays
Next Draws
Mulligans
Early Plays
Next Draws
Mulligans
Early Plays
Next Draws
Mulligans
Early Plays
Next Draws
The overall gameplan of the deck comes down to mana development. Everything you're doing can be boiled down to either having the mana to follow through with your late game plan or surviving to reach the late game, and because of the huge life buffer you get in EDH the latter point is much less important. Given the choice of a proactive action or further developing your own board and mana you almost always want to make the developmental play absent an existential threat.
The Early Game
You don't need to do anything proactive yet. Ideally, you can fly under the radar a little. You're not ramping excessively, spending a lot of resources to filter your hands, or playing threats to the board, so you're not doing any of the things that are typically threatening in an EDH game. Sometimes, that means you get hit for being the open target, or if you're playing with a regular group you may get some early hate before you have a chance to setup better, which is just facts of life for this deck.
The Mid Game
Because you're not tutoring much in this deck, the plan changes depending on what you have in hand. Try to look ahead to what the most likely kill seems like. If you have a good land drop engine going with a Gauntlet sticking, you're probably aiming to burn people out with either an spell or repeated Jaya activations. If someone is swarming with tokens, you can try and control them and burn more gradually. If everyone is drawing heavily, there's even options like trying to mill people out through repeated wheels. This stage of the game is all about reading your draw and the actions of the rest of the table to see what the most likely path to victory is. Most of the time, the answer involves a bunch of burn to try and get everyone to zero, but not always.
You might not play Jaya at all here. If she somehow stuck from the early game, great. If not, you generally don't want to replay her unless there's a good chance you'll be able to activate for 7 or you have truly nothing else going on. Even with all of the activated abilities and efforts to have options available, there are games where you just don't draw well or get needed cards answered and end up dead in the water for a while. In those cases, playing Jaya again without a plan is fine - you would rather do that than nothing.
The Late Game
There's not really a wrong way to play here. The goal is to have enough mana to capitalize on whichever lines you identified during the mid game. You probably also have access to a lot of digging power to try and find those lines, as long as you know what in the deck you're looking for. The combination of topdeck filter, shuffle effects, and wheels means you can get 20ish cards deep on a pretty regular basis as long as you've kept up with mana development. That's a lot of potential options. There are two things to keep in mind there. First, know how much mana you need to use what you're looking for. If your out to a situation is Ugin or All is Dust, hold open the mana to play them the turn of for as long as you can. Second, that kind of digging draws a lot of attention your way. Ideally, you want to wait until you're about to die or someone else is about to win. The timing is almost like a combo deck in that respect.
Now, on to the card options!
One more note before I get into it. One of the common things you'll see in mono-R lists is a goblin package, even in those lists without any particular tribal support. They're a good thing to have because of the ease of toolboxing. I'm not running that package, so my card evaluation reflects that. The value of any creature with goblin typing goes up a lot if you're running Goblin Matron and/or Goblin Recruiter.
(A) Creatures who don't mind being dead:
Squee, Goblin Nabob - Squee isn't actually in the list anymore. The reason he's not in a spoiler is because he's considered to be a Jaya staple, insofar as anything is, and I felt that my reasoning on the card should be easy to find. My problem with Squee is that he does nothing except being discarded most games. Other cards that are included as discard fodder have some kind of use aside from recursion, so they're still functional when you don't need to discard anything. Squee is an expensive chump blocker or an ineffective equipment carrier in those situations, so I'd rather have cards that are more independently useful. All of that said, Squee is a perfectly good choice for this deck, especially in the context of a goblin package.
Skarrgan Firebird - My other phoenix of choice. There's a condition on the recursion ability, but it's an easy one to meet in a multiplayer game and isn't tied to a trigger, so you still have the opportunity to activate end of turn. It's also relatively easy to play as a 6/6 flier, which is a respectable threat alongside the steady stream of burn damage coming from Jaya and the rest of the deck.
(B) Creatures who do something when they enter or leave:
Godo, Bandit Warlord - Equipment has an unexpectedly prominent place in this deck. The creature count is low, so making the most of the ones you do have is helpful. It also helps your threats stick through board wipes and there are several pieces that are exellent Jaya support on their own. Godo supports that plan well for obvious reasons. He also functions as a decent wincon later on if he picks up something good. The 6 CMC cost isn't nearly as bad when you consider that he's not only finding the equipment, he's also cheating it onto the field, which is typically worth 2-5 mana in this deck.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion - This isn't technically an ETB trigger but it's close enough to lump in here. This deck wants to go long enough that a 10 CMC threat isn't unreasonable, and it also refills your hand on cast. In addition, it's a nice threat that survives Jaya infernos and is difficult to chump block. The activated ability is also an angle of attack typically not available to mono-R. It's an overall nice package in a single card.
Imperial Recruiter - Availability used to be the primary thing keeping this card out of decks, but it's gotten a lot more accessible after a Master's set reprint. Red has a relatively small number of tutors and this one has a lot of flexibility. There's definitely an argument for including it. The thing keeping it out of my list is much the same as Engineer - there are just too many cards I'd like to play and this one is slightly less interesting to me. It obviously picks up utility as you run more possible targets.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - This is a stand in for the other Eldrazi as well. My list doesn't really support multiple huge Eldrazi, though Jaya as a general certainly can. I prefer Great Distortion to the others, so that's the one in the list. If you're interested in a Polymorph plan using cards like Reality Scramble or if you would rather use large creature threats than burn as a primary win con, these pick up a lot of value. For the ROE ones, the GY shuffle trigger is a mixed bag. Jaya tends to run cards that make good use of the GY, like the creatures in (A). Shuffling those away can be a hit. On the flip side, the ability to discard the big Eldrazi can allow you to reuse cards in the long game or protect your yard from hate, both of which have value.
(C) Creatures for the early game:
Goblin Welder - There have already been a few mentions of "Welder effects" and this is the namesake card. It lets you swap out any artifact on the board for another artifact in the controller's GY. That means you can cheat out haymakers like Akroma's Memorial by cashing out an early mana rock or similar, ditch less relevant artifacts for more relevant ones, or disrupt opposing equipment by swapping it with mana rocks. Welder is the highest impact one drop in the deck and arguably one of the highest impact one drops in the format. It's also realistically more of a late game card than an early development card, but it tends to have uses at most stages in the game.
(D) Surprise category - Creatures that don't fit into A-C:
Painter's Servant - Like Squee, this isn't in the deck but will lead to questions if I don't explain my reasoning for not having it. The short version is that it's too high profile. Jaya's ability to destroy blue permanents and small creatures already draws a lot of attention, because those categories cover a lot of popular generals. With Painter out, the first ability turns into a straight instant-speed Vindicate, which makes everyone pay attention. I haven't yet found the table (where Jaya would be appropriate, i.e. not cEDH) where a two card repeatable Vindicate combo is allowed to go undisrupted. On it's own, that's not enough to keep Painter out of the deck - powerful cards get removed, and you play them anyways for the times when they don't. The bigger problem with Painter is that it does nothing outside of combo with the general and it actively hurts one of the other cards in the list, Sword of Fire and Ice. If Jaya doesn't stick, Painter is just a mediocre chump blocker and I know how much Jaya gets removed on her own strengths alone.
Steel Hellkite - While mono-R has gotten a few good options to remove problematic permanents (read: enchantments), Hellkite is still a good board control card. It tends to be a high profile removal target so it connecting is never a sure thing. When it does stick, it can easily take out multiple other cards with only a mana investment and that kind of card advantage is great for a controlling mono-R deck.
Stuffy Doll - This survives Jaya thanks to being indestructible, blocks well for the same reason, and works as a force multiplier for Jaya infernos. Welder effects can be used to reset the player choice if your original choice is killed or if someone else turns out to be the bigger threat. It's also a weirdly effective equipment carrier as long as you're swinging at the named player.
I talked briefly about equipment above when going over Godo, Bandit Warlord, but I'll revisit here. There are two big reasons equipment is important to this list. First, it's a way to effectively have threats survive board wipes, which is the endgame here. If a kobold token can pick up a Sword and swing in, it's much more threatening than it's usual 0/1 self. The second reason is that there are several pieces of equipment that directly support Jaya, whether that's helping her survive her board wipe, giving you a life buffer to work with, or opening up the creatures that she can remove.
(A) Regular artifacts:
Armillary Sphere/Journeyer's Kite/Wayfarer's Bauble - These are playing the role of mana rocks in this list. There are a few reasons I've gone this route instead of the more traditional rocks. The biggest and most important is that I'm running several Gauntlet effects, which double the mana. An additional mountain in play is regularly worth more than 1 mana. Jaya can also make good lategame use of cards in hand, so cards that put lands into hand for early game mana development have more utility late game once you have enough lands out. The third reason is that Valakut regularly does some work, so finding mountains means more Bolts.
Caged Sun/Gauntlet of Might/Gauntlet of Power - These effects are some of the best reasons to run monocolored decks in this format. Red gets an extra advantage if you've been playing forever/play with proxies/play online/have poor impulse control when it comes to card buying, because Might is red specific. Even without that, these are fantastic cards.
Coercive Portal - Most of the time, this is a colorless Phyrexian Arena. It's relatively uncommon for everyone to vote against you in a 4 player game. You do need to be careful about playing this out into an empty or mostly empty board. On the flip side, if someone other than you is running away from the game it doubles as a board wipe.
Crucible of Worlds - Even better than usual in this list. There are a handful of lands that sac themselves for some kind of value. More importantly, it helps mitigate the discard cost of Jaya's abilities. This is at its best when you're not only using it in combo with Jaya, but it's still perfectly functional with just her and the red looting/rummaging effects. It also fits into a very, very grindy card advantage engine with Inventors' Fair.
Distorting Lens - Another one that's not included. The logic behind skipping this is exactly the same as with Painter's Servant. CliffsNotes version - it's a combo piece that doesn't do anything on its own and it's very high profile for limited power.
Endless Atlas - Repeatable card draw at a reasonable cost gated behind an easily attainable condition. Not much else to say here.
Expedition Map - EDH decks can fit a lot of utility into the manabase, and this helps to find it all. The most common target for this is probably Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle unless you already have that or need another utility piece. It also functions as a very slow artifact tutor with Inventors' Fair.
Memory Jar - This is some of the safer burst card draw available to mono-R because your opponents don't have much of a window to use what they draw. It can also be used in conjunction with other wheel effects and artifact recursion to deck someone drawing heavily.
Rings of Brighthearth - This is one of my favorite cards in the list. It's not necessary for the deck to work and admittedly does nothing on its own, but it turns so many other cards in the list up to 11. There's the obvious interaction with Jaya abilities, all of the walkers, and fetch lands, plus numerous other miscellaneous activated abilities. I'm not actively looking for it and not disappointed when it inevitably gets hit. I do still love having it on the table.
Scroll Rack/Sensei's Divining Top - Despite many new prints and a conscious effort to focus on it here, red doesn't have a lot of ways to put cards in hand. card filtering is the next best thing. In conjunction with the fetches, these give you a lot of looks for whatever it is you need at the time. Both are a lot of fun with Experimental Frenzy as well.
Soul-Guide Lantern - GY hate is a necessity in this format. Lantern is a nice one because it hits the rest of the table simultaneously, which can be helpful for general control even if you're primarily going to use it in response to specific threats. It also has the benefit of leaving your own yard alone, which matters for this deck. If you're in the rare game where no one is trying to abuse the yard, this cycles in a pinch.
Torpor Orb - This is a great way to get everyone trying to kill you turn two. Turning off ETB effects in the format most likely to use and abuse them is a secondary benefit.
Ensnaring Bridge - This one does protect walkers. It also tends to annoy the table. Whether that's a positive or a negative is up to you. The other problem with this is that you typically want cards in hand in a control deck. That is a little less relevant with Jaya sweeping small creatures. It's been on the cusp of inclusion for a while.
Extraplanar Lens - This is Gauntlet number 4. I'm less of a fan of this one because of the potential to get yourself Stone Rained by any artifact removal. It does work very well if you treat it as more of a ritual because it's cheap enough to drop and follow up in a single turn.
Pyromancer's Goggles - It plays very nicely with the small drawing effects and has some use for the larger spells. This needs a high density of instants and sorceries that benefit from being copied to be better than something like Fire Diamond.
Thousand-Year Elixir - Pseudo-haste and an untap effect are nice effects. The untap loses a lot of its utility with Jaya because of the discard cost on her abilities and the fact that she routinely nukes herself. Without that, actual haste effects like Fervor are typically better.
Tormod's Crypt - GY hate is a necessity and this one leaves my own yard alone. It's a 0 cost artifact that can serve as Welder fuel if you're at a unicorn table where no one is using the yard.
Trading Post - This does a lot of things that the deck likes and I'm always down for super grindy value. This is yet another card that I'd be happy to run with another 20 available slots in the list.
(B) Equipment:
Batterskull - As with Collar, lifegain is the big reason to include this. Jaya tends to do a lot of self damage and some big burst lifegain goes a long way towards keeping you in the game until you can execute your lategame plan. There are several other small synergies as well. With one Gauntlet effect on board this makes Jaya big enough to survive an inferno. It's also a decent lifelink blocker that can still swing in, and it's easy to recur and replay. It also plays nicely with Godo, which is especially relevant because he can tutor it up on ETB. It's less vital to the deck's core gameplan and more a collection of small synergies on a decent standalone card.
Darksteel Plate - It helps Jaya or another important creature survive an inferno. There's not much subtlety here.
Lightning Greaves - Haste and protection from targeted removal makes it a lot easier to get Jaya online. Again, not subtle.
Sword of Fire and Ice - The pro red is the most important part of this card, followed closely by the card draw. It's a little unusual here because the creature holding this will frequently stay back on defense to represent an activation. It does also add to the clock when you're ready to start going after someone's life total.
Sword of the Animist - Having basic mountains in play is very important to this list. Sword is nice because it stays relevant late game due to Valakut, beyond the obvious use of increasing available mana. There's some light Godo synergy because of the multiple attack steps.
Sword of War and Peace - The second pro red Sword in the list. This one is better at turning the corner and beating down than the other options and comes with some lifegain. With another source of haste and a suitable amount of mana, this can represent a lot of damage off of Godo out of nowhere.
Swiftfoot Boots - A lot of the time, the best use of haste in this deck is playing and activating Jaya in a single turn cycle. Even on the first cast, that's a big resource ask if you're trying to use inferno. Shaving a mana off that sequence of plays is relevant a fair amount of the time. Hexproof is good, but less important than haste.
Sword of Sinew and Steel - This and War and Peace are roughly neck and neck. Jaya is already a fairly effective answer to walkers already and red has plenty of tools to answer artifacts, so the trigger is less valuable than it would be in a color combo like UB. Repeatable card advantage at an efficient cost is never something to sniff at, so this is a strong possibility for the deck. I'm mostly unsure if 3 pro red equipment is more than I want.
Gratuitous Violence - One of the win con enchantments. Doubling the damage coming off of your creatures is great, and doing it without doubling the damage coming at you is perfect. This works particularly well with Stuffy Doll, which goes from pinging for 1 per turn cycle to 4 per turn cycle.
Repercussion - Another win con enchantment. The big thing that this does is turn Jaya infernos or other big damage sweepers into enormous player damage while you're usually somewhat insulated due to the low creature count and pro red options. This also makes blocking into an offensive action rather than a form of damage prevention. That's usually more relevant to other decks at the table but is definitely worth keeping in mind.
Tectonic Reformation - There are a number of ways to find lands in this list, so this helps turn them into gas. It also plays nicely with Crucible of Worlds for readily apparent reasons.
Underworld Breach - A value card, not a combo card, for this list. The floor on this is usually going to be Regrowth, which is a fine card. There are going to be some games where this recurs 3-4 cards for the same cost, and occasionally it's going to play more like a combo card and churn through the deck with wheel effects. It's playable in mono-red even at the floor, so I'd expect this to be in most decks barring out-of-game reasons like card availability.
Fervor - I've mentioned several times that haste is useful. This is one of the most straightforward ways to get it. There are other cards that do something else on top of haste, so those are usually preferred.
Outpost Siege - This is the best permanent based source of red's impulse draw. This is also one of the better ones because it allows you to play lands. Jaya wants cards in hand more than cards available to play but this does play well with the more proactive gameplan.
Stranglehold - Another meta dependent hate piece. If your meta is heavy on tutors or extra turns, this is a valuable tool to fight that. If tutoring is mostly limited to basic land ramp, this is a little narrow.
Chandra, Flamecaller - Included almost solely for the 0 ability. This is one of a limited number of ways for red decks to increase cards in hand in addition to offering a lot of digging power. There are occasional times where she'll be a 6 CMC cycle/Ball Lightning/sweeper, which could definitely be worse.
Daretti, Scrap Savant - Early, he offers filtering. Late, he returns an artifact. Although he's costed a little too high for either of those abilities independently, the flexibility and possibility of getting a second activation helps to make up for that.
Ugin, the Ineffable - Primarily here for the +1. Generating board presence that turns into card advantage is powerful, even more so when it's on a walker that's ticking up to do it. The cost reduction and removal ability are both powerful abilities that are regularly going to impact games. The other nice thing about this Ugin is that the floor on the card is 1-for-1, either by repolacing itself or removing something, barring corner cases.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Included as a sweeper. The +2 is a nice ability and it's almost never the first one activated. Clearing away everything on the board is wonderful, and this list is artifact heavy enough that your board will regularly come out on top.
Chandra, Pyromaster - Another permanent source of impulse draw and the second one behind Outpost Siege. Being able to play lands off of it is important because of the utility in the manabase and the relevance of mountain count to the deck. The downside to her is the one common to all walkers in this format, her fragility. If it's possible to attack a source of card advantage with creatures, many players are going to take advantage of that.
Jaya Ballard - She's a little borderline despite the obvious flavor connection. Filtering on +1 is solid if a little extreme a lot of the time, when you don't have 3 cards that you want to discard. The mana +1 is powerful but this is not really the right deck for it.
Karn Liberated - He's overcosted, sorcery speed spot removal. The reason that's OK here is because there are limited ways to remove enchantments in mono-R. That combined with being a permanent answer for any permanent and the possibility of a second shot gets him the slot. He also has the potential for repeated upticks, which is great for harassing one other deck. Immediately going to 10 loyalty and picking up 4 more per turn cycle makes him much easier to protect than a few of the others.
Koth of the Hammer - Koth does a lot of things the deck likes. His biggest issues are that he's at his best when he sticks around for a couple turns and he can expose your mountains to infernos. There are enough options out there that he's usually not top of the list.
Comet Storm - This is a common way to win games. if you survive long enough, it's not hard to find and you typically have enough mana to do significant damage to the table. It's also respectable removal early in the game. Don't be afraid to fire it off for a small number with the intent of recurring it later.
Commune with Lava - Probably my favorite card advantage card in the list. The relevant wording here is "your next turn," which means you have a lot of flexibility in how you play this card. If you fire it off EOT of the player before you, you get to untap, make a land drop from the revealed cards, and play whatever you want out of them. It also works well main phase, because you'll get the remainder of your resources for the turn plus your full following turn, making it a very effective digging spell. Be aware that the rest of the table also sees what you exile, so showing a big threat the turn before you can play it is sometimes a problem.
Price of Progress - Despite the high nonbasic count in the list, the table is frequently pretty basic heavy for you. There are a lot of fetches and lands that sac themselves for effects, so you can take a relatively small amount of damage from this. It is meta dependent on how much you'll be able to hit other players for. As long as the average nonbasic count among your opponents is in the 3+ range, this is a very efficient burn spell. Casting this once or twice can be an effective way to get the final points of damage in at a table.
Thrill of Possibility - The lone instant speed card in the rummaging package. Like I discuss in the sorcery section, these effects work well when copied thanks to the discard being an additional cost. Even if you're just getting the text on the card, there's usually something worth discarding (e.g. a basic land when your mana is already well developed) that can be discarded for two fresh looks.
Fault Line/Starstorm - Earthquake analogues can do a lot of work in this format. My preference usually runs to the instant speed variants, with some additional preference given to the ones that can hit players as well as creatures. I haven't felt a lack of those here, because Jaya does a great job of filling that role 90% of the time. It's also possible I'm overvaluing instant speed given the rest of the deck.
Lightning Bolt - I truly think Bolt is underplayed in this format. It's admittedly less powerful than in a 20 life, 1v1 format. It's still an excellent answer for small creatures and going upstairs is not unheard of. It's also great for mana efficiency, especially in a deck full of wheels. I value it lower here because there's already a fair amount of removal. It's still never that far out of consideration.
Fork/Reiterate/ReverberateWild Ricochet - These are all comparable and even have a section dedicated to them under gameplay. I bring them in and out. I don't like that the best uses for them are copying opposing spells in a deck that doesn't always want to keep mana up for instant speed responses. If the deck was built in that direction, and it certainly could be with Jaya's abilities, these would pick up a lot of value.
Skred - This obviously relies on a snow manabase. If you have that, this is probably the biggest payoff card in my opinion. Lategame, it removes most creatures you'll see hit the board and it's good at killing small utility creatures early. There's also the combo with Stuffy Doll to throw a bunch of damage at someone's head.
Shattering Pulse - This is one of my favorite artifact hate spells. It's reasonably costed for a single use, and you can use it over time to regulate artifacts. This is another card that gains a lot of value in the theoretical instant speed Jaya list.
Blasphemous Act - This does overlap with Jaya's inferno a little. the reason for including it is twofold. First, you don't always have Jaya out. I write a lot of these under the scenario where you can stick Jaya long enough to activate, and some games that's not possible. Second, this is much cheaper to cast than an inferno activation. That comes into play with walkers in particular. Wiping the board of creatures and following with a walker can be a big swing.
Faithless Looting - One of mono-R's best filtering spells. This list already plays a lot of GY interaction and this plays right along with that. There are also a few situational cards and to-hand land tutors that can fuel this.
Gamble - It's an unconditional tutor in mono-R. There's not much to say. You can use it as a low risk way to kick off some of the GY based value engines if you have other pieces on board. If you run Squee, using this to find and discard him is a super satisfying play.
Light Up the Stage - This is a lot like Commune with Lava in it's timing restrictions. Mono-R has poor enough card advantage that even a straight Divination is playable and this has the potential to be much better. Try and hold off on making a land drop until after this is cast when planning out your turn.
Magmatic Insight/Tormenting Voice/Wild Guess - The small rummaging package. These work particularly well when copied as the discard is an additional cost. In general, there's usually something in hand you're happy to discard in exchange for two new cards.
Past in Flames - This is effectively a win con. You throw a lot of cards into the yard in this deck, and this is both a way to reuse a lot of them and something you can play from the yard. It's also a way to recast burn spells to get across the finish line, or to dig even deeper with wheel effects. All around great card.
Reforge the Soul/Wheel of Fortune - Classic red card draw spells. Wheel is one of the cheapest ways in the game to draw 7 cards, even if you're refilling the rest of the table to do it. It's also excellent hand disruption for anyone holding back and sculpting. You do need to be aware of GY focused lists who can take advantage of it and reactive decks who you're refilling, but it's still worth the slot here.
Shattering Spree - Artifact hate that can clear out several targets or fight through most countermagic. Sorcery speed is a little disappointing but this is still an excellent removal spell.
Vandalblast - Arguably best in class for sorcery speed artifact hate. This gets cast with overload probably 75% of the time, because it's worth clearing out all opposing artifacts if you have the mana. Even if all you're hitting is mana rocks, bringing everyone back down in mana is usually worthwhile. Don't be afraid to cast it for a single target, though.
Earthquake/Molten Disaster/Rolling Earthquake - These are all decent creature hate and reach. Rolling Earthquake is probably the best because horsemanship is rare enough that it's usually just a wipe. You gain a lot of value in having the ability to customize how much damage you're doing at the cost of efficiency.
Fiery Confluence - Nice flexible card. If you use it as a straight burn spell, it's reasonably efficient. It's a great early play to take out setup artifacts and sweep early utility creatures, and you don't need to make a meta call about the effect before the game starts. This is high on my list of possible includes.
Rolling Thunder - If I were going to add another burn spell, this is probably where I would start. Splitting damage at no additional cost gives you a lot of flexibility in the midgame and makes it decent reach for the lategame. I value that over the upsides that some of the other options give.
Ruination/Wake of Destruction - These cards are actually polar opposites, but similar enough in function that they're lumped together. It's a very powerful effect that usually doesn't affect you too much. There's strong opposition to this sort of effect in a lot of metas, so be aware of that before you cast these.
Scrap Mastery - This deck doesn't really have the potential to abuse this (via saccing artifacts, etc), so it's more a lategame mass recursion spell. I'd go for the targeted Welder effects first. It's an obviously powerful effect in any artifact heavy list.
Shenanigans - Another reusable artifact hate spell. The dredge here is less GY stocking and more consistent reuse when necessary. Sorcery speed and GY makes it forecasted, which isn't necessarily a problem.
The immediate decision to make with lands is whether you're running a snow-covered manabase or not. The difference is relatively small - you get access to Skred, Scrying Sheets, and a slightly more selfish Extraplanar Lens. I've gone for regular mountains because I wanted a greater variety of foil options, which has about as much weight to me as the tiny handful of cards I'm giving up to do it.
Blast Zone - Can eventually remove any permanent with CMC > 0, or combo with Thespian's Stage if you really need to clear out a token swarm. Typical use for this is going to be hitting one thing with potential for collateral damage. It's frequently worth saving this for problematic enchantments, because most other permanent types can be answered in mono-red without too much trouble.
Buried Ruin - Artifact recursion in the manabase. This is part of the grindy Crucible of Worlds options, because each can recur the other. It's also fine as a one shot value card to bring back an important artifact like a Gauntlet.
Geier Reach Sanitarium - Looting in the manabase. It's usually OK that it's a symmetrical effect, because you can control the timing, you have GY interaction, and other decks are already likely to have some card advantage and filtering tools. If it looks like someone is going to take advantage of it too well, just don't activate it.
Inventors' Fair - Artifact tutoring in the manabase (seeing a theme?). The tutoring is the more relevant ability on the card. It kicks off Crucible of Worlds plays and finds high impact card. The small incidental lifegain has won me games before too - sometimes all you need is one or two more life points to survive and crack back.
Kher Keep - This works a lot like Maze of Ith a lot of the time. Creating a token to chump is common. They also make decent sword carriers in a pinch and can have nonzero power with Gauntlet support, though that's usually not the main reason to play a Gauntlet.
Myriad Landscape - This has most of the same synergies as the fetchlands with added ramp on its own. Coming in tapped is a shame, but ramp when you have nothing else going on for a few mana, late game Valakut triggers, and all of the other fetch benefits is still worthwhile.
Petrified Field - The insurance policy for all the other lands. There's a lot of value in the manabase and sometimes you just need a second pop with one of the other lands. It also pulls Valakut back, which is a popular target for removal.
Strip Mine/Wasteland - Removes Valakut problematic utility lands. If there's only one problematic player, you can also use these turn after turn with Crucible of Worlds to keep them off mana. That's usually not a good plan, both because it's bad manners at a lot of tables and because it leaves two players free to develop while you and your target are stuck.
Terrain Generator - Ramp in the manabase. This deck is more focused on hitting land drops than ramping and this is a nice middle ground. It's almost always incorrect to activate this if there's anything else you could be using the mana for. You'll have opportunities to drop lands in following turns, and if you don't get those turns this was unlikely to make a difference. It's still one of my most used utility lands most games that I see it.
Thawing Glaciers - This serves as a way to keep hitting land drops. It's as slow as the name suggests, so don't feel obligated to use it the turn after it's played if you have anything else to do. It has a lot of interactions similar to the fetches, minus the GY specific parts.
Thespian's Stage/Vesuva - Like I mentioned with Petrified Field, there's a lot of value in the manbase. Plan A for these is almost always copying Valakut. Doubling the number of triggers is great and it gives you some additional resilience to removal. It's not worth holding Vesuva for a good target if you would otherwise miss a land drop. You can always destroy it and bring it back if you really need to change the copy.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - I've mentioned this card in a lot of other places. It has a disproportionate impact on the deck for being a single card. It's the most common tutor target for Expedition Map by a wide margin and responsible for a reasonable number of wins. Turning land drops into bolts is insanely good and this is one of the reasons to be in mono-R.
Deserted Temple - There are limited cards that this works with. Most of the good nonbasics here sac themselves, so there are only a few good interactions. I do really like those interactions, it's just not reliable enough for me to include something that's otherwise a blank.
Flamekin Village/Hall of the Bandit Lord - Haste in the manabase is nice. Village is the better of the two because it taps for red. It also doesn't bolt you on every tap, which can add up in this list.
Forgotten Cave/Smoldering Crater - Cycling lands are a great way to increase land count while keeping spell density high. Gauntlets and Valakut mean you need to keep basic mountain count high, which means these would be replacing other nonbasics. I prefer the ones that I have now and Tectonic Reformation gives enough upside that I'd rather stick with that.
Glacial Chasm - Another land that's basically a spell. Plays very, very nicely with Crucible of Worlds and with Jaya activations. This deck regularly wins through noncombat means, so the downside of not attacking is negligible. The upkeep cost is much more significant.
Maze of Ith - Yet another land that's basically a spell. There's a good chance this should still be included due to the low creature count. As with so many other cards, it's a question of finding the cuts.
Scrying Sheets - If you're playing a snow manabase, this is one of the payoffs. It's not worth dedicating resources to hit off the ability most of the time and snow density is low enough that you're more likely to miss than hit for any given activation. Not a terrible card, jsut outclassed by other options.
I came to Jaya after trying a few generals. I started with Kumano, Master Yamabushi in a fairly generic mono red deck. My goal at the time was to have a deck where I could freely shuffle generals between a few different legends, depending on my mood at the time. To make that work, I started slotting in support cards for each of them. One of those was Jaya. Over time, I went to Jaya as a general more and more, eventually relegating Kumano to a spot in the deck with the others full time. I've been playing Jaya for a decade now, and she remains my favorite deck and my fallback when I'm not playing around with one of the others. As mentioned above, this primer was originally written at and located on MTGSalvation, where I post under the username Weebo. At the time of this writing, I'm unsure how active I'll remain at that location.
Primer formatting exists thanks to feyd_ruin's excellent BBCode options and guide here.
Banner at the top is by me, using art from Inferno|7ED and Jaya Ballard, Task Mage|TSP. You can tell because it's basically the bare minimum amount of work needed to put Jaya and some text on another image.
07/25/2019
07/24/2019