Ajani Goldmane

Planeswalker — Ajani

+1: You gain 2 life.

-1: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Those creatures gain vigilance until end of turn.

-6: Put a white Avatar creature token onto the battlefield. It has "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to your life total."

Discussion (47)

GeneralGarfunkel on Karlov, The HITMAN

2 weeks ago

You could definitely add some pay offs for your life gain triggers like Dawn of Hope, Well of Lost Dreams, Cliffhaven Vampire, and Boon Reflection.

There are also tons of other cards that get counters when you gain life such as, Sunbond, Light of Promise, Ajani's Pridemate, Wall of Limbs, and Bloodthirsty Aerialist which can all become problems very quickly since its per trigger of life gain.

You could also look into more spells that trigger at the end of turn if you gained a certain amount of life. Resplendent Angel, Regna, the Redeemer, Regal Bloodlord, Angelic Accord, the new Witch of the Moors, and Griffin Aerie.

And then adding more consistent forms of life gain will let you get more triggers therefore making you a bigger threat. Drana's Emissary, Shattered Angel, Soulmender, Nyx-Fleece Ram, Ajani's Mantra, Ajani Goldmane, and Palace Siege.

Finally, I've seen enough people win with Felidar Sovereign not to recommend it to any life gain deck.

king0fclubs on Steal From the Rich, Give to the Poor

2 months ago

Things I like:

I think it is a good idea that you have a good number of things to dissuade being attacked. Propaganda effects will be big for keeping people off your back.

The Sabotage section seems solid and you should be able to put the pressure on the problem player as needed.

Treasure Nabber is a great ramp card for this deck and with the bonus of being able redistribute afterward, should be solid.

Starke of Rath-I've always been curious to see him at work and he will be interesting here. Might need to be careful how you use him, but as far as removal goes, the guy is going to kill a fair bit of stuff, should be fun.

Smothering Tithe-great way to get tokens to give away and perfectly on theme! Only shame is they go away once used so it won't help your permanent count too much, but people are probably only going to use them when they really need them so who knows.

Humble Defector-Great card draw especially if you can work out a deal with whoever you give it to. Overall, I think you are going to be able dig pretty deep into your deck which is always nice.

Things I'd replace:

Pride Guardian-likely only going to get you 3 health and die, not particularly worth a slot

Viridian Longbow-a good card in a combo deck but i don't think you will get much from it here, a lot of man to equip makes it tough to use well

Goldmeadow Dodger-not likely going to impact things much

Longbow Archer-not likely going to impact things much

Reckless Cohort-this guy is gonna get himself killed or get someone mad at you

Somberwald Vigilante-not likely going to impact things much

Felidar Sovereign-Sovereign is interesting, I haven't seen it ever win someone the game, but I have seen it turn everyone at the table against the player. The other side (and this is probaby personal preference) is it might feel a little anticlimactic winning this way, but again I've never seen it. I'd say try it out and see how you feel though, it is 100% a legitimate way to win especially in a Zedruu deck

Sword of Vengeance-Not sure on this one. The stats it gives are good, but I don't think there are ton of creatures in your deck that will use it super effectively. The highest power you have right now is 3 I think, so at most they are going to be 5 power, which isn't bad but compared to some of the things they will be up against. However it is hard to know what things you are going to be taking, so maybe it will come in handy. Might need to playtest.

Suggestions:

Sol Ring-it is too good to ignore. Between Zedruu eating 3 mana with that ability and some of your cards hitting 7 CMC you are going to want this extra 2 mana.

Illusionist's Bracers-when equipped to Zedruu you can give away double the stuff. Also works with Bazaar Trader, Humble Defector (you get 2 cards when your opponent uses it too!), Starke of Rath

Chromatic Lantern-having the right colors will be important to using zedruu's abilities and this will free you up from having to worry about that too much

Cultural Exchange-a pretty quick way to re-balance the board, pricey manawise but pretty worth it, especially if you use it give your opponent a ton of things you own (for the same amount of mana Zedruu can only give away two things. If you do this for even 3 creatures are being more effecient and it is a decent jump up for your next Zedruu draw/lifegain)

Well of Lost Dreams-Double the number of cards you get on your Zedruu upkeep effect.

Cradle of Vitality-Put the lifegain to work to make your creatures increasingly large each turn.

Debt of Loyalty-not the best way to take control of things but not a terrible one either especially for only 3 mana.

Blatant Thievery-expensive but you get the best stuff the table has

Chamber of Manipulation-I like this on because for the cost of one mana you can take a creature and then have Zedruu give it away permanently (it won't be given back because Zedruu's ability overwrites that part of the Chamber's ability). At 4 mana total and the ability to continually do this each turn I think this is the most consistent and cheap way to steal stuff and give it away

Ajani, Caller of the Pride/Ajani Goldmane/Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants-Potential Little John? Quarterstaff weilding A-John-i is in line with your lifegain strategy and suitably strong for being your right hand man(cat)

Generally, I'd also say take a look at more tokening effects:

Elspeth Tirel/Elspeth, Knight-Errant-Another potential Maid Marian? I like Elspeth since she gives you tokens which you can give away, and she is can potentially win you the game if she sticks around. Livinia is comparatively not as useful in this deck (it shuts down Rakdos, Lord of Riots, but that is about it in our meta I think?)

Crested Sunmare-Gotta give Robin and Co. mounts and it doesn't get much better than a 5/5 indestructible horse

Griffin Aerie-Similar to Sunmare but maybe a little to fantasy for the theme, not sure how you feel

Last notes, I'd say some things to consider would be some of the fancier lands (shock/check lands) to make your colors easier to get, a little more enchant/artifact removal, and a board wipe or two because sometimes it all must go.

All in all, looking good!

Gprinziv on In-work Voltron

10 months ago

Return to Dust
Revoke Existence
Forsake the Worldly
^ The above 3 are all pretty much better than disenchant because they exile. Choose one or maybe all 3.

For removal, there are a lot of good Oblivion Ring style effects. You might want Gideon's Intervention to stop problematic commanders and the like as well.

Inventors' Fair is anothe good land you could use. Also grab an Ancient Den and Darksteel Citadel as well to maximize artifact synergies. Refurbish , Emeria, The Sky Ruin , and Open the Vaults can also let you get things out of your graveyard.

Don't forget key tutors like Enlightened Tutor and Open the Armory

Reya is probably too expensive. Sun Titan is better.
Cut Heavenly Blademaster, you don't have enough creatures to take advantage of her.
Kemba, Kha Regent would be a more appropriate one because she generates tokens as blockers and swarmers if neede.
I'm not huge on Nahiri, the Lithomancer . 5 mana to not really get a lot done but make a 1/1 and equip it once. Similarly, Ajani Goldmane doesn't seem to do a lot in your deck. I think walkers like Ugin, the Ineffable and Elspeth, Sun's Champion might just straight up be better fits. You want to capitalize on that artifact synergy.
If you absolutely need something expensive and threatening, Zetalpa, Primal Dawn or Heliod, God of the Sun are good options with baked-in indestructible.

as for artifacts and equipment, I don't think you're gonna get a lot out of Voltaic Servant or Voltaic Key . It might be better to put in other cards here. Etched Champion comes to mind.

Land Tax and Smothering Tithe may also be very big includes. The second generates artifacts for anything that needs them as well as makes lots of mana or slows your opponents down considerably. Both are good for you.

Finally, you have some fun infinite mana generation in there but... what does it do? You've got no real payoff for abusing Basalt Monolith. There's no way to chain or bounce things, no aetherflux resrvoir, etc. Maybe instead of Doubling Cube , you run more linear ramp like Sword of the Animist , Explorer's Scope , or Land Tax

DeinoStinkus on [COMMUNITY] What cards do you …

1 year ago

Ban: Aetherflux Reservoir

Reason: I completely understand that you can easily remove this, but it's a practical game ender, especially with cards like Angel's Grace and Ajani Goldmane . I doubt anyone uses it, but if they knew the stored power at their fingertips, they might.

Tiphus on Oketra’s Whitehouse of Weenies

1 year ago

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ; Pearl Medallion ; Archangel of Thune ; Ranger-Captain of Eos ; Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant ; Ajani Goldmane ; Elspeth Tirel Just useful cards for the token deck.

Poseidon31 on Kemba, Cat Regent

1 year ago

What about Ajani Goldmane or Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants ?

Tzefick on Ajani, Soulforger

1 year ago

EDIT: Revised versions appear below after the initial iteration.

'

This idea bases around Ajani during the Shards of Alara story but not his rage mindset from Ajani Vengeant and instead focuses on his abilities to bring out aspects or avatars of the strengths of his allies.

Ajani has always kinda had this sort of behavior as we see in his planeswalker forms like;

Ajani Goldmane

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Ajani Steadfast

These sort of abilities have primarily manifested themselves in +1/+1 counters and often as a board wide buff or targeting multiple creatures. It works relatively well with White Wheenie strategies of many low cost efficient creatures.

However Ajani have also been shown to have abilities that are more focused. I'm thinking in the lines of Soul's Grace , Soul's Fire , Soul's Majesty , and Soul's Might - all of which are cards from Shards of Alara. To some extend it is also shown in Titanic Ultimatum . These abilities are more aligned with Naya's design of big fat creatures. I have always been disappointed that Ajani have never again shown any such ability in his future planeswalker designs and felt wanting a version that reflected these abilities.

So here goes an attempt at creating a Naya related version of Ajani Goldmane.

Ajani, Soulforger Show

Ajani, Soulforger

Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani

+2 Create a 0/1 white Avatar creature token with Soulbond and "As long as this creature is paired with a creature, it is a non-legendary copy of that creature with Soulbond and creatures paired with this creature cannot attack or block."

-1 Choose a creature you control. Create a red Aura enchantment token named Avatar of Flame attached to the chosen creature. The token has enchant creature and "Sacrifice Avatar of Flame: Avatar of Flame deals damage equal to enchanted creature's power to any target."

-3 Choose a permanent you control. Look at the top x cards of your library, where x is equal to the total power of creatures you control plus 3. You may exile a card from among them face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. When the chosen permanent leaves the battlefield, if the exiled card is a permanent you may put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise put it into your hand.

4

Sadly I couldn't get the Custom Card function to properly work.

,

Some issues I acknowledge right of the bat:

The abilities are rather lengthy and could be cut down to be less complicated at the expense of being less dynamic. For instance the +2 could be a static token that just copies the P/T at the time of creation. It's a lot less flavorful. So instead of manifesting a creature's soul and let that do the fighting and safeguard the actual creature, it would be more generic token creation, also with less limits. In the current wording you can in principle only have one avatar per creature but if the original creature gets removed, the magic of the avatar remains and can take on a new form whenever you have another creature enter the battlefield - which is something I like as an interaction.

Likewise the -1 could literally just be a Soul's Fire but it removes the ability to delay the damage to instant speed and the possibly to make the creature larger before blowing something up. It does however open the ability up to fizzling by removing the creature before the aura token is created.

The "ultimate" could be a fixed number of cards to look at. I was swaying a bit between a singular and a board wide application with more of an "ultimate feel" to it (obviously at a higher loyalty cost). However I figured this had a better application across formats and wouldn't be the typical EDH battle cruiser ability. It does however provide with some technical card advantage and can cheat out some powerful stuff, making it a risk removing permanents "enhanced" with a replacement. You are able to trigger it yourself but Ajani is also in colors that typically don't sacrifice their own permanents nor bounce them back to their hand. Well... green does have a slew of creatures that sacrifice themselves for lands or removal abilities, but in general these colors don't sacrifice their own. You can obviously utilize board wipes to facilitate their demise and secure you come out on top. It could be considered to change it so that you have to choose a non-artifact permanent, as many artifacts do sacrifice themselves.

,

Reflection:

I found it a bit more difficult than I imagined to create abilities that worked off of the Soul's X template that wouldn't just be incredibly powerful or incredibly bad, depending on cost and application. The concept is also heavily reliant on having creatures to be truly beneficial but I also think the abilities are strong enough to offset that drawback. The idea was to get away from the generic +1/+1 counters that in some terms signifies bringing out the power of the individual but is just so generic, boring, and done to death, and in that regard I consider this version successful.

The wording may need a helping hand, especially the +2 ability. In general tokens don't have abilities that grant them further abilities.

The flavor texts of all the Soul's X cards notes that Ajani sculpts these avatars (e.g. Soul's Majesty ) but it felt weird calling him Ajani, Soulsculptor... kinda running a bit too close to a certain other person of the Lorwyn-5.

Any feedback and suggestions are welcome.

'

Edit: I forgot to mention this before, but I figure this Ajani callback is destined for a supplemental product that doesn't go into Standard. First of all because he is quite powerful for typical Standard and more complex with ability keywords that is not explained directly on the card.

Ajani, Soulforger v2 Show

Ajani, Soulforger

Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani

+2 Create a 0/1 white Avatar creature token with Soulbond and "As long as this creature is paired with a creature, it has power and toughness equal to that creature's power and toughness. It has Soulbond and "Creatures paired with this creature can't attack or block."

-1 Target creature you control deal damage equal to its power to any target.

-3 Look at the top 5 cards of your library, you may reveal a Creature, Enchantment, or Equipment from among them. If that card's converted mana cost is less than the greatest power among creatures you control, you may put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

4

'

So, a revised version. I kept the +2 relatively intact for a couple reasons.

First to defend Ajani, the token is 0/1 by itself but is fully capable of chump-blocking.

Second the idea of making avatars out of your creatures to engage in combat is pseudo card-advantage although missing out on that creature's abilities (in the revised version). It also has the added benefit that if you attack with the Avatar and the Avatar dies, the original creature can block, effectively giving it Vigilance. However if the attacking creature is too big to die or gets through, the original creature cannot engage in combat - effectively making it "worse" on larger creatures. I find Vigilance on large creatures to be oppressive in terms of combat, more so than many other keywords.

Another benefit that befits red is that if the Avatar lingers unpaired, it can effectively grant Haste to new creatures.

Lastly I heavily want to avoid the "traditional Ajani pump", as that design is lazy and has been done to death.

-1 changed to straight Soul's Fire . It was the least original idea and was generally just there for a good ability that had a fair requirement.

-3 changed to a more static ability that provides some card advantage that Ajani has been known to be able to do previously; Ajani, Mentor of Heroes , Ajani Unyielding , and Ajani, Valiant Protector .

I traded Mentor of Heroes's ability to grab Planeswalkers for Equipment. Mostly because Equipment in general doesn't get much love, like Auras, but also because Ajani seems to have slumped down into a Superfriends booster segment, which I get with where his story goes after Shards of Alara but as this is set during Shards, I think it makes more sense that he favors Equipment. After all he used his dead brother's axe to make his iconic Twin Axe to seek revenge for his brother's murder.

As for the ability to cheat them onto the battlefield, remember that Ajani is 3 colors (the 3rd of that kind if we exclude the Commander planeswalkers), and it requires a creature with high power to gain a large swing from it. Ajani is also in colors that don't manipulate the top of their library... much... - looking at you Sylvan Library , Mirri's Guile , and Sensei's Divining Top .

Post scriptum; I just now noticed that all iterations of Ajani has something to do with life. Either straight life gain, lifelink or life total... Kinda breaking that format with this version.

Although I think life gain in general is a weak ability without the capabilities to utilize it as a benefactor, so in interest of keeping a 3-color Ajani relatively powerful, I'll break that trend.

Etoilebane on Trostani's Big Tokens

1 year ago

Ajani Goldmane makes a really fun token to populate.
Downside though is the math on his -1 ability gets a little ugly with a token deck.