I agree. Mardu charm is decent, but maybe as a one of.
Soulfire grand master is really not bad. At the very least, its two mana with lifelink and also gives lifelink to our burn spells. Against aggressive decks it might be important.
What about sorin, lord of innistrad instead of sorin, solemn visitor? Which of the two is better? The first one puts dudes with lifelink, and has a very useful emblem. The second one gives lifelink to our creatures, some of them already have lifelink, making this redundant. I really don't know which one is better.
Using visitor because I own a few of him. I have 0 lord at the moment, but might be worth trying instead. I like the pump until your next turn, thought gonna test both back and forth.
A charm main might be good, but what to cut for it is my concern. From the top of my head I could exchange with a terminate or a seize, both which already are good at what they do in the list.
Thoughts:
I run only 2 pieces of hard removal in dreadbore, 0 path 0 terminate. I run 4 discard spells.
Because of this, I have a fair amount of room for other careds, such as mardu charm. I did try a full set of of them, but 2 seems to be about where I wanted to be.
I am running a 1-1 split of the w/b sorins. I feel good about that.
LoI gives butcher fodder, and his buffs last, but lifelink is crazy strong, and pumping the team with visitor doesn't set him back any loyalty.
That being said, visitor is definitely better, because generally you are casting the planeswalker to give an anthem effect. Occasionally you might need the butcher fodder that turn, but with visitor giving lifelink, he has you covered there too.
Soulfire's been exceeding expectations a lot for me. Originally it just went in because I don't like getting crushed by burn, where if they bolt it that's 3 damage that wasn't at your face & if they don't they definitely aren't blocking it, so helix & one swing (even if it WERE blocked) is enough to seriously change the game. Also because of 2 instances of lifelink (on spells and combat) you can play around skullcrack effects a bit. I'm finding its random lifegain pretty strong in tandem with a sometimes painful manabase + thoughtseizes, and helps save us against affinity and zoo also.
The surprise was the relevance of the second ability actually; in a slower matchup it's a must-kill creature, the threat of activating the buyback multiple times (esp with bolt, using both abilities) is too big of an advantage. In faster matches though, like affinity or infect, if you can stabilize the early game they pretty much scoop to untapping with 5 mana + bolt / path + soulfire, and those decks don't pack many MD answers to soulfire.
A charm main might be good, but what to cut for it is my concern. From the top of my head I could exchange with a terminate or a seize, both which already are good at what they do in the list.
Agreed. My issue with charm is how much competition @ 3 mana there is: Lingering Souls, Kolaghan's Command, Crackling Doom, Liliana of the Veil, Monastery Mentor, etc. I feel like usually those options are stronger than the charm, but on the other hand Kolaghan's Command is proving that flexibility is pretty valuable & Charm could be worth testing for that reason.
I agree. Mardu charm is decent, but maybe as a one of.
Soulfire grand master is really not bad. At the very least, its two mana with lifelink and also gives lifelink to our burn spells. Against aggressive decks it might be important.
What about sorin, lord of innistrad instead of sorin, solemn visitor? Which of the two is better? The first one puts dudes with lifelink, and has a very useful emblem. The second one gives lifelink to our creatures, some of them already have lifelink, making this redundant. I really don't know which one is better.
From my experience, Sorin SV is the only Sorin who can gain life fast enough against Burn. Sorin LoI makes a Lifelink token on Turn 4 and gains 1-2 life on Turn 5, which Burn ignores too often. Turn 4 Sorin SV demands the immediate Skullcrack to the life total or he often threatens to gain at least 3 life that turn (assuming you have at least one other creature out). If they Skullcrack his loyalty, Burn's often still doomed.
Despite playing at least 25 instants/sorceries and 8 burn spells, I actually find Soulfire Grand Master underwhelming. I have 0-1 instants/sorceries in hand by the time I stick it too often, then I have to use the I/S and can't quasi-Buyback it. I've been getting better mileage from Mardu Charm, although I basically never make tokens with it.
Man... I was going to get kaloghan's command but they're like 6$ where I live, almost as much as Sorin SV... They were 2$ yesterday...
Might this just be the grixis delver hype?
Kolaghan's Command is the real deal, it's an easy 2-for-1 with extra utility on top. Since it's a standard card as well I don't see it going under $5 for awhile.
Command's actually another reason I'm iffy on charm: the modes are worse, sure, but I get 2 of them.
Kolaghan's Command is the real deal, it's an easy 2-for-1 with extra utility on top. Since it's a standard card as well I don't see it going under $5 for awhile.
Command's actually another reason I'm iffy on charm: the modes are worse, sure, but I get 2 of them.
My current Cockatrice Mardu Midrange list has a creature card suite of only 4 Young Pyromancer and 1 Butcher of the Horde, which is why I can't put Kolaghan's Command in my maindeck. I find that its Raise Dead mode is one of Kommand's best modes and is possibly THE reason to play it. I hate it every time I use Kommand as a Discard + Shock to the head when they have at least 2 cards in hand (this happens too often for me already whenever I'm on other decks).
Ah, well that makes sense. I find that most of the time my modes are shock a creature & discard, which is pretty great, but you don't always have shock targets & having disentomb targets definitely widens the utility. Dome & discard is generally the worst-case scenario and Mardu Charm's targeted discard is usually (as long as they have more than 1 card) better than that. Shocking a player for lack of a better mode is literally the only way it doesn't net card advantage, if you have 10+ creatures I think it's solid.
How's Myth Realized performing for you? I assume you're running a more control-oriented build that treats it as a 'set-it-and-forget-it' turn-1 finisher?
Hello Everyone,
I want to ask about 2 things right now: removal suits, and sideboards.
1. Removal suits, Why are you running 7-8 lightning bolts in your deck!?!?!
That is my main complaint with all the decks I have seen. I have done a lot of testing with said number of bolts/helixes, and I find that the second they start dropping their 4+ toughness creatures (Tasigur, Exarch, Goyf, Rhino, Liege, Gurmag Angler, Golgari Grave Troll etc. . .) we suddenly have crappy removal on our hands. I understand that it can be used to bolt your opponent, but with a deck as relatively slow as ours, I think it would be better if we spent more of our removal slots on hard creature kills rather than flexible burn spells. For you SGM fanatics, the perfect card to use is flameslash. One mana, sorcery, but you still get to take out all the 5 toughness creatures that are VERY popular right now. Granted this kind of a switch is worse against creatureless decks, but those have lost almost all of their popularity in favor of midrange strategies of late.
Also, Path to Exile has been working very poorly for me of late, what about you all? I usually end up pathing 2 of their creatures turns 2 and 3 (because that's all the removal in my hand) and then while I'm dropping a YP, they are dropping 5 drops.
Here is the list I am going to be trying for a couple of weeks. I will let you know how it works in comparison to before.
2. Sideboards!
As far as sideboarding goes, The thing most of the recent decks posted are lacking is graveyard hate.
We only have lingering souls (and maybe grim lavamancer) interaction in our graveyards, which is less than almost all the other decks we will be facing. Graveyard hate really hurts Abzan company, Storm, Big Abzan, Grixis Delver, Living End etc. . . So it seems more than safe to have at least 4 slots in our boards that can hurt the graveyard be it through Rest in Peace, Rakdos Charm, or G cage.
I don't think we need any Stony Silence's or Shatterstorm at this point. We have Anger of the Gods, K command, and Hide // Seek, so is there really a point to Stony Silence?
For those of you running token based decks, make sure you remember that there is token hate in sideboards, so make sure you have a second way to win.
For you SGM fanatics, the perfect card to use is flameslash. One mana, sorcery, but you still get to take out all the 5 toughness creatures that are VERY popular right now.
You ask why we run so many bolts, but then have to path creatures on turn 2-3. That is exactly why. No one wants to give an opponent 4 lands on turn 3, and most turn 2 or 3 creatures die to bolts.
Damage based removal (ie: flameslash, roast, bolt, helix, mardu charm, etc) are all good with or without sfgm.
I personally run 0 path to exile, my only hard removal is 2 dreadbores. This felt questionable when I first tried it, and it does occasionally get me in trouble, but generally you can race bigger creatures, thoughtseize them, or chump them. Occasionally, you might have to double-bolt a goyf or something, which hurts, but if you have sfgm, this is a lot less painful, if you are buying them back, or even just gaining life off them as well. Murderous cut is also a good choice next to path, terminate, and dreadbore for hard removal.
Not sure I agree with sfgm in the sideboard for you, you don't exactly have a lot of spells realistically burning them for very much with it. Kor firewalker/timely reinforcements might be a better choice. I also think hide and seek belongs firmly in the sideboard. It's good, but useless in a lot of matchups.
So far pretty happy with my list. Testing so far have been good, though I have changed a terminate for a Kolaghan's Command main, and thinking about changing a path for a Slaughter Pact or a Flame Slash.
My money's on Fulminator. I think the versatility of having a creature OR a Stone Rain alone makes it the right choice. Turn 3 on the play sure I probably want to pop him asap & Molten Rain may be better, but turn 6 when I topdeck it I'll be glad it can attack / block instead. Also, the casting cost is easier & the ability can be instant-speed which can occasionally be relevant. Recurring it with command is awesome, like you mentioned, but I'd say that's a fair trade for not triggering Pyro, they're both fairly minor payoffs.
Why are you running 7-8 lightning bolts in your deck!?!?!
That is my main complaint with all the decks I have seen. I have done a lot of testing with said number of bolts/helixes, and I find that the second they start dropping their 4+ toughness creatures (Tasigur, Exarch, Goyf, Rhino, Liege, Gurmag Angler, Golgari Grave Troll etc. . .) we suddenly have crappy removal on our hands.
Bolts are just huge early game, really the best removal spell you can play in the first 2 turns, and the cost-efficiency really helps with Pyromancer as well to make it easy to stack up triggers. A lot of the decks in the format never get to that dreaded point in the game of dropping 4+ toughness creatures, also. Junk is really the main offender, as it's pretty much designed to to have an entire creature suite immune to bolt, but against decks like Infect, Affinity, Burn, Melira Junk, Merfolk, Eves, they all get torn up by early bolts. Even grixis delver running Tasigurs and Anglers has tons of bolt targets. Main thing is that it's never dead, it's good as the first card you play or the last card you play, and that's esp important with Pyromancer / Monastery Mentor (holding a terminate with no good targets as your opponent bolts your pyromancer is a bad feel). Plus, Lightning Helix lifegain helps with painlands and Burn / Affinity / Zoo.
Also, Path to Exile has been working very poorly for me of late, what about you all? I usually end up pathing 2 of their creatures turns 2 and 3 (because that's all the removal in my hand) and then while I'm dropping a YP, they are dropping 5 drops.
That's just another reason that Bolt is so good, and the stream of 4+toughness guys is why Path is good; that's why most RW removal suites have 4 Bolts alongside 3-4 Paths. Again, mana efficiency helps for pyromancer.
As far as sideboarding goes, The thing most of the recent decks posted are lacking is graveyard hate.
We only have lingering souls (and maybe grim lavamancer) interaction in our graveyards, which is less than almost all the other decks we will be facing. Graveyard hate really hurts Abzan company, Storm, Big Abzan, Grixis Delver, Living End etc. . . So it seems more than safe to have at least 4 slots in our boards that can hurt the graveyard be it through Rest in Peace, Rakdos Charm, or G cage.
Rakdos Charm is my go-to here, since it's the most broadly applicable (helps with tron, affinity, twin, AND any graveyard strategies you need help with). My big issue with Rest In Peace is that Lingering Souls is, imo, one of the cornerstones of our deck. It's a huge part of why we're all in Mardu in the first place, and not worth turning off. You also mention the Junk matchup being weak to Rest in Peace - which is true - but in that matchup Lingering Souls is also one of our strongest cards; vs Junk I'd much rather have 4 Lingering Souls than 4 Rest in Peace. Relic of Progenitus is nice too though, you can proactively exile to stop Tasigurs etc & it cantrips.
I don't think we need any Stony Silence's or Shatterstorm at this point. We have Anger of the Gods, K command, and Hide // Seek, so is there really a point to Stony Silence?
Agreed, I cut Stony Silence awhile ago, I think Affinity is a great matchup for us as is. Especially if you run Crackling Doom (stops Etched Champion & Ensouled Darksteel Citadel, some of the harder plays to beat).
I'm very nervous about my burn matchup, hopefully the unlife and extra soulfire's will buy me enough time.
Like Cody suggested, Kor Firewalker is definitely the hardest card for Burn to beat if you only have room for 2 cards in the SB (and you think you can cast it turn 2 consistently); Soulfire's only as good as the volume of burn you run. I'm running Timely Reinforcements personally since it's also good against non-burn aggro, but being a 3-mana one-shot spell opens it wide up to Skullcrack so that's a risk Firewalker doesn't have. I'm maining 2 Soulfire and 3 Helix so I'm a little less concerned about that (may not be correct though).
here's the board I'm running now, I'm happy with it:
I wouldn't mind finding room for a second Liliana and a second Kolaghan's command, and Slaughter Pact is on my radar (free Pyromancer trigger & strength against Twin).
EDIT: Another general thought about the deck: has anyone considered Raven's Crime? I was just thinking that in lists with Pyromancer / Mentor, spells like Lingering Souls that can be cast multiple times are ideal since we don't have cantrips, which got me thinking about Raven's Crime (and Darkblast, to a lesser extent). Alternatively, any other cards you can think of with similar properties (triggers Pyro multiple times)?
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Note on the list: going in, I'd have played a 3rd Thoughtsieze over the SB Duress and a second mainboard Liliana if I'd had them available.
M1: UG Infect (2-0)
We're overwhelmingly favored here imo, so I won't go into too much detail; my opponent mulliganed both games so that didn't help him. He was on the play. Both games ended while I was holding multiple removal spells in hand. In general, knowing you're against infect & being able to fetch / shock / thoughtseize greedily helps, and Crackling Doom is the strongest card here as no amount of Vines / Apostle's Blessings / Spellskites can stop it. Always pass priority when they swing, forcing them to cast their pump so you can respond to it (or not cast the pump and deal an inconsequential amount of damage).
in: +1 Olivia (obviously strong here)
out: -1 Butcher (haste & lifelink are less relevant since we don't want to race)
M2: UW "RTR Standard" Control (2-1)
G1: I'm on the draw, no mulligans. I quickly see off of an early discard spell that I'm playing against what looks like an old RTR standard UW control deck ported to modern... Jace, Architect of Though, Supreme Verdice, Dissipate, yeah... Despite that, Jace's +1 invalidating Pyromancer & Lingering Spouls, and eating my bolts, alongside 4x Supreme Verdict & timely spot removal for bombs like Thundermaw was enough to slow down my already relatively slow gameplan until he could Sphinx's Revelation for 6. I didn't scoop on the spot, but it wouldn't have been wrong. Saw some other stuff like Detention Sphere, Nyx-Fleece Ram, Sunblast Angel(?!).
G2: I effectively get underneath him this game; turn 1 IoK an Azorius Charm, turn 2 Pyromancer. I don't see a Jace this game, Seize away a Verdict, and use a hasted Butcher alongside Pyro and burn to close the deal as quickly as possible. You know you're in a bad spot when you Revelation for 1.
G3: He chooses to be on the draw this game. No mulligans. I have no huge early action, but I have a Liliana & an Outpost Siege & feel my chances are good if I can resolve either of these. Turn three I run a Lingering Souls into an expected Mana Leaked, and Leaked it is. Turn 4 I run out Outpost Siege, it Gets Dissipated. He drops a Jace, I drop a Liliana, +1 and flashback Souls. He immediately Detention Sphere's the Lilly, then proceeds to Sunblast Angel (that he drew with Jace) my tokens the next turn. I drop a Pyromancer & kill the Angel & Jace both with a Crackling Doom, starting to recover. I have a Slaughter Games in hand, but choose to run out Lingering Souls to up the pressure. Terrible play, I get verdicted, the next turn I slaughter games Revelation (though if I had any creatures I'd have named Verdict...) to see his hand of 2 Aetherlings and a Verdict. I draw lands and die to Aetherling. Bad misplay, may have cost me the game; in hindsight I should've considered bringing in Hide // Seek for his Detention Spheres. Strongest cards here are Liliana, Outpost Siege, and Thoughtseize. In general, I think control is tough for us, but fortunately there isn't much of it in modern. A second Liliana would have helped here.
M3: 8-Rack (2-0)
G1: A good friend of mine, but also a very interesting matchup. The typical rules of magic almost don't apply, things get wierd. I'm on the draw, no mull. He Seizes, I Seize, he took an early drop (Soulfire Grand Master I think, pretty strong in the matchup) and I saw a hand with another Seize and 2 Ensaring Bridge. I drew into Kolaghan's Command to get it Seized. At this point it gets wierd; I only have 1 copy of Kolaghan's command in the deck & he actually Seizes himself to go hellbent. At this point he has an Ensnaring Bridge I know I can't answer on the table, invalidating all of my creatures. He's also Seized a lot, doing fair damage, so I change my gameplan; from then on I stop casting spells entirely, waiting to draw burn and keeping my hand safely out of Rack range. I went though a lot of lands due to Ghost Quarters & Smallpox, and even Lilly's ult (after which I crackling doomed her) but eventually after going through about 40 cards I got there.
G2: It gets a lot better now, with relevant removal available. Turn 1, he Seizes & Surgical Extractions all of my Lingering Souls. I IoK his Ensnaring Bridge & he takes my Monastery Mentor, and later I get a Kolaghan's command to take out a Mutavault and his Rack putting him pretty far behind. From there I stick a Young Pyro & later a Thundermaw to close the game. Having minimal ways to interact game 1 makes this tough, games revolve around ensnaring bridge & keeping your hand size at 3 or more.
M3: BW Tokens (2-1)
G1: This seems like a bad matchup for us, since we main so much 1-for-1 removal. The first game went VERY long; I discarded his early intangible virtue, but all of his token spells made my bolts look pretty terrible. There was a lot of back & forth, Pyros and Mentors were strong, allowing for good combats with the help of our otherwise bad spot removal. Mentor especially was huge, the prowess allowed for a lot of very good combats. Eventually he had several fliers, dropped a second anthem, swung & activated Windbrisk Heights to play a 3rd anthem, and it was just too much to deal with.
in: +2 Anger the Gods, +1 Duress, +1 Olivia, +1 Outpost Siege, +2 Timely Reinforcements
out: -3 Path to Exile, -4 Young Pyromancer
G2: Monastery Mentor and Outpost Siege won this for me, no doubt. Never saw an Anger. Lavaman was big here, and a play with Monastery Mentor out when I cast a Timely Reinforcements was pretty huge. Spent the game killing Sorins and keeing him off of Windbrisk heights. Eventually casting & flashing back Lingering Souls in the same turn (2 turns in a row) with Mentor out was just too much pressure for him to handle.
G3: because G1 took ~30mins, we had about 5 minutes for this game. Raced hard with Soulfire (got pathed) into Mentor T3, into t4 Bolt & Kolaghans Command for damage & discard, into turn 5 Butcher + Bolt, into turn 6 Thundermaw for game. Won in turns, on turn 5. In general, Monastery Mentor was very strong in this matchup; they don't have bolt & mentor is a token generator and an anthem in one card that can set you up for combat blowouts. It also has the ability to prowess out of Anger of the Gods range, and Anger is our best card in this MU. Outpost Siege was also strong, compensating for the psuedo card-advantage they get from their spells making multiple creatures.
Overall, happy with the deck & SB. Not sure what to think about the UW Control Match; I feel like its tough for the same reasons Tron is, our plan is slow enough to be stopped by sweepers and their late game is just better than ours. Didn't get a chance to play against Burn & Abzan like I was hoping to (there were at least 2 of each at the event). I still definitely want a second Lilly, originally was going to be over the 3rd Monastery mentor (drawing too many Pyros & Mentors with too few spells can happen), but Mentor performed really well for me. I was surprised at how many times the Duress came in in situations where I cut my Thoughtsiezes, this makes me rethink swapping it with a 3rd Seize. I'm also thinking about a 2nd Kolaghan's command, if I can find room.
Any match insights? Any tips for what you might cut for those cards?
Blightning seems like a strong SB card against control, which isn't a super strong matchup for us, but there arent many modern control decks & they dont get much play. In almost all other situations Kolaghan's Command is the much better option; as people say, at worst it's a weak Blightning at instant speed, which is still fine against control & has a LOT of other uses.
I'm no expert, but it seems like most of the decks in your top 8 meta will be weak to graveyard hate, so switching the Olivia Voldaren for an extra Rakdos Charm seems like the most consistently good option. If you are super worried about burn, maybe just make it a third fire walker?
On a sidenote, if they know you will be playing this deck, is there a large chance they will be playing hate cards against you? You might want to think about what they will side against you and how to beat it*
Good Luck and have fun!
How good is tidehollow sculler in todays meta? I like the disruption that he provides, and on an empty board he chips away at life totals, but I cant block with him and it always feels like a two for one when hes removed. Am i thinking about that wrong? What MUs is he particularly good/bad against? Unless its a combo piece (twin,amulet of vigor, anafenza) i find myself zeroing in on removal 9 times outta 10, is this correct? Really on the fence about keeping him, and have had really mixed results, so looking for input.
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Soulfire grand master is really not bad. At the very least, its two mana with lifelink and also gives lifelink to our burn spells. Against aggressive decks it might be important.
What about sorin, lord of innistrad instead of sorin, solemn visitor? Which of the two is better? The first one puts dudes with lifelink, and has a very useful emblem. The second one gives lifelink to our creatures, some of them already have lifelink, making this redundant. I really don't know which one is better.
A charm main might be good, but what to cut for it is my concern. From the top of my head I could exchange with a terminate or a seize, both which already are good at what they do in the list.
I run only 2 pieces of hard removal in dreadbore, 0 path 0 terminate. I run 4 discard spells.
Because of this, I have a fair amount of room for other careds, such as mardu charm. I did try a full set of of them, but 2 seems to be about where I wanted to be.
I am running a 1-1 split of the w/b sorins. I feel good about that.
LoI gives butcher fodder, and his buffs last, but lifelink is crazy strong, and pumping the team with visitor doesn't set him back any loyalty.
That being said, visitor is definitely better, because generally you are casting the planeswalker to give an anthem effect. Occasionally you might need the butcher fodder that turn, but with visitor giving lifelink, he has you covered there too.
The surprise was the relevance of the second ability actually; in a slower matchup it's a must-kill creature, the threat of activating the buyback multiple times (esp with bolt, using both abilities) is too big of an advantage. In faster matches though, like affinity or infect, if you can stabilize the early game they pretty much scoop to untapping with 5 mana + bolt / path + soulfire, and those decks don't pack many MD answers to soulfire.
Agreed. My issue with charm is how much competition @ 3 mana there is: Lingering Souls, Kolaghan's Command, Crackling Doom, Liliana of the Veil, Monastery Mentor, etc. I feel like usually those options are stronger than the charm, but on the other hand Kolaghan's Command is proving that flexibility is pretty valuable & Charm could be worth testing for that reason.
From my experience, Sorin SV is the only Sorin who can gain life fast enough against Burn. Sorin LoI makes a Lifelink token on Turn 4 and gains 1-2 life on Turn 5, which Burn ignores too often. Turn 4 Sorin SV demands the immediate Skullcrack to the life total or he often threatens to gain at least 3 life that turn (assuming you have at least one other creature out). If they Skullcrack his loyalty, Burn's often still doomed.
Despite playing at least 25 instants/sorceries and 8 burn spells, I actually find Soulfire Grand Master underwhelming. I have 0-1 instants/sorceries in hand by the time I stick it too often, then I have to use the I/S and can't quasi-Buyback it. I've been getting better mileage from Mardu Charm, although I basically never make tokens with it.
Man... I was going to get kaloghan's command but they're like 6$ where I live, almost as much as Sorin SV... They were 2$ yesterday...
Might this just be the grixis delver hype?
Command's actually another reason I'm iffy on charm: the modes are worse, sure, but I get 2 of them.
My current Cockatrice Mardu Midrange list has a creature card suite of only 4 Young Pyromancer and 1 Butcher of the Horde, which is why I can't put Kolaghan's Command in my maindeck. I find that its Raise Dead mode is one of Kommand's best modes and is possibly THE reason to play it. I hate it every time I use Kommand as a Discard + Shock to the head when they have at least 2 cards in hand (this happens too often for me already whenever I'm on other decks).
(The rest of the threats are 4 Lingering Souls, 4 Myth Realized, 1 Sorin SV, 1 Elspeth 1.0, and 1-2 Lavaclaw Reaches.)
How's Myth Realized performing for you? I assume you're running a more control-oriented build that treats it as a 'set-it-and-forget-it' turn-1 finisher?
I want to ask about 2 things right now: removal suits, and sideboards.
1. Removal suits, Why are you running 7-8 lightning bolts in your deck!?!?!
That is my main complaint with all the decks I have seen. I have done a lot of testing with said number of bolts/helixes, and I find that the second they start dropping their 4+ toughness creatures (Tasigur, Exarch, Goyf, Rhino, Liege, Gurmag Angler, Golgari Grave Troll etc. . .) we suddenly have crappy removal on our hands. I understand that it can be used to bolt your opponent, but with a deck as relatively slow as ours, I think it would be better if we spent more of our removal slots on hard creature kills rather than flexible burn spells. For you SGM fanatics, the perfect card to use is flameslash. One mana, sorcery, but you still get to take out all the 5 toughness creatures that are VERY popular right now. Granted this kind of a switch is worse against creatureless decks, but those have lost almost all of their popularity in favor of midrange strategies of late.
Also, Path to Exile has been working very poorly for me of late, what about you all? I usually end up pathing 2 of their creatures turns 2 and 3 (because that's all the removal in my hand) and then while I'm dropping a YP, they are dropping 5 drops.
Here is the list I am going to be trying for a couple of weeks. I will let you know how it works in comparison to before.
2 Lightning Helix
2 Terminate
2 Path to Exile
2 Crackling Doom
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Hide // Seek
2. Sideboards!
As far as sideboarding goes, The thing most of the recent decks posted are lacking is graveyard hate.
We only have lingering souls (and maybe grim lavamancer) interaction in our graveyards, which is less than almost all the other decks we will be facing. Graveyard hate really hurts Abzan company, Storm, Big Abzan, Grixis Delver, Living End etc. . . So it seems more than safe to have at least 4 slots in our boards that can hurt the graveyard be it through Rest in Peace, Rakdos Charm, or G cage.
I don't think we need any Stony Silence's or Shatterstorm at this point. We have Anger of the Gods, K command, and Hide // Seek, so is there really a point to Stony Silence?
For those of you running token based decks, make sure you remember that there is token hate in sideboards, so make sure you have a second way to win.
Here is my sideboard for the foreseeable future:
2 Soulfire Grand Master
1 Olivia Voldaren
2 Blood Baron Of Vizkopa
2 Hide // Seek
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Phyrexian Unlife
I'm very nervous about my burn matchup, hopefully the unlife and extra soulfire's will buy me enough time.
So that's it! please respond if you have any opinions on what I said, or if you have any suggestions!
RGW Naya Company
RWB Mardu Control
Doesn't Flame Slash only deal 4 damage?
Damage based removal (ie: flameslash, roast, bolt, helix, mardu charm, etc) are all good with or without sfgm.
I personally run 0 path to exile, my only hard removal is 2 dreadbores. This felt questionable when I first tried it, and it does occasionally get me in trouble, but generally you can race bigger creatures, thoughtseize them, or chump them. Occasionally, you might have to double-bolt a goyf or something, which hurts, but if you have sfgm, this is a lot less painful, if you are buying them back, or even just gaining life off them as well. Murderous cut is also a good choice next to path, terminate, and dreadbore for hard removal.
Not sure I agree with sfgm in the sideboard for you, you don't exactly have a lot of spells realistically burning them for very much with it. Kor firewalker/timely reinforcements might be a better choice. I also think hide and seek belongs firmly in the sideboard. It's good, but useless in a lot of matchups.
My sideboard is currently looking like this:
1 olivia voldaren
2 leyline of sanctity
2 crackling doom
2 hide//seek
4 rakdos charm
2 slaughter games
Im not completely sold on it, but it handles most matchups with something, which is good. Any suggestions might be cool.
My money's on Fulminator. I think the versatility of having a creature OR a Stone Rain alone makes it the right choice. Turn 3 on the play sure I probably want to pop him asap & Molten Rain may be better, but turn 6 when I topdeck it I'll be glad it can attack / block instead. Also, the casting cost is easier & the ability can be instant-speed which can occasionally be relevant. Recurring it with command is awesome, like you mentioned, but I'd say that's a fair trade for not triggering Pyro, they're both fairly minor payoffs.
Bolts are just huge early game, really the best removal spell you can play in the first 2 turns, and the cost-efficiency really helps with Pyromancer as well to make it easy to stack up triggers. A lot of the decks in the format never get to that dreaded point in the game of dropping 4+ toughness creatures, also. Junk is really the main offender, as it's pretty much designed to to have an entire creature suite immune to bolt, but against decks like Infect, Affinity, Burn, Melira Junk, Merfolk, Eves, they all get torn up by early bolts. Even grixis delver running Tasigurs and Anglers has tons of bolt targets. Main thing is that it's never dead, it's good as the first card you play or the last card you play, and that's esp important with Pyromancer / Monastery Mentor (holding a terminate with no good targets as your opponent bolts your pyromancer is a bad feel). Plus, Lightning Helix lifegain helps with painlands and Burn / Affinity / Zoo.
That's just another reason that Bolt is so good, and the stream of 4+toughness guys is why Path is good; that's why most RW removal suites have 4 Bolts alongside 3-4 Paths. Again, mana efficiency helps for pyromancer.
Rakdos Charm is my go-to here, since it's the most broadly applicable (helps with tron, affinity, twin, AND any graveyard strategies you need help with). My big issue with Rest In Peace is that Lingering Souls is, imo, one of the cornerstones of our deck. It's a huge part of why we're all in Mardu in the first place, and not worth turning off. You also mention the Junk matchup being weak to Rest in Peace - which is true - but in that matchup Lingering Souls is also one of our strongest cards; vs Junk I'd much rather have 4 Lingering Souls than 4 Rest in Peace. Relic of Progenitus is nice too though, you can proactively exile to stop Tasigurs etc & it cantrips.
Agreed, I cut Stony Silence awhile ago, I think Affinity is a great matchup for us as is. Especially if you run Crackling Doom (stops Etched Champion & Ensouled Darksteel Citadel, some of the harder plays to beat).
Like Cody suggested, Kor Firewalker is definitely the hardest card for Burn to beat if you only have room for 2 cards in the SB (and you think you can cast it turn 2 consistently); Soulfire's only as good as the volume of burn you run. I'm running Timely Reinforcements personally since it's also good against non-burn aggro, but being a 3-mana one-shot spell opens it wide up to Skullcrack so that's a risk Firewalker doesn't have. I'm maining 2 Soulfire and 3 Helix so I'm a little less concerned about that (may not be correct though).
here's the board I'm running now, I'm happy with it:
1x Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1x Celestial Purge
2x Hide/Seek
1x Olivia Voldaren
1x Outpost Siege
2x Rakdos Charm
2x Slaughter Games
1x Thoughtseize
2x Timely Reinforcements
Lacks strong game vs Tron, and I mentioned my concerns about Timely Reinforcements vs burn, but otherwise it's been good.
and my removal suite:
3x Path to Exile
3x Lighting Helix
2x Crackling Doom
1x Kolaghan's command
1x Liliana of the Veil
I wouldn't mind finding room for a second Liliana and a second Kolaghan's command, and Slaughter Pact is on my radar (free Pyromancer trigger & strength against Twin).
EDIT: Another general thought about the deck: has anyone considered Raven's Crime? I was just thinking that in lists with Pyromancer / Mentor, spells like Lingering Souls that can be cast multiple times are ideal since we don't have cantrips, which got me thinking about Raven's Crime (and Darkblast, to a lesser extent). Alternatively, any other cards you can think of with similar properties (triggers Pyro multiple times)?
Matches were against two jank decks, two splinter twins and Jund. I smoked the jank decks and jund, tied with one twin and lost to another twin.
Twin loss was very close with him equipping a Batterskull to a flashed in Vendilion Clique. My topdeck was Wear // Tear
Other twin match went to time with him stalling with cryptic command and snapcaster mage.
Going forward I'm playing the full set of Path to Exile and Thoughtseize. Also adding a single Ajani Vengeant to the main deck.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
2x Arid Mesa
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Godless Shrine
1x Isolated Chapel
2x Lavaclaw Reaches
2x Marsh Flats
1x Mountain
1x Plains
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Swamp
1x Vault of the Archangel
Planeswalker (1)
1x Liliana of the Veil
2x Butcher of the Horde
1x Grim Lavamancer
3x Monastery Mentor
2x Soulfire Grand Master
2x Thundermaw Hellkite
4x Young Pyromancer
Instant (13)
2x Crackling Doom
1x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Lightning Helix
3x Path to Exile
Sorcery (9)
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1x Celestial Purge
2x Hide/Seek
1x Olivia Voldaren
1x Outpost Siege
2x Rakdos Charm
2x Slaughter Games
1x Duress
2x Timely Reinforcements
M1: UG Infect (2-0)
We're overwhelmingly favored here imo, so I won't go into too much detail; my opponent mulliganed both games so that didn't help him. He was on the play. Both games ended while I was holding multiple removal spells in hand. In general, knowing you're against infect & being able to fetch / shock / thoughtseize greedily helps, and Crackling Doom is the strongest card here as no amount of Vines / Apostle's Blessings / Spellskites can stop it. Always pass priority when they swing, forcing them to cast their pump so you can respond to it (or not cast the pump and deal an inconsequential amount of damage).
in: +1 Olivia (obviously strong here)
out: -1 Butcher (haste & lifelink are less relevant since we don't want to race)
M2: UW "RTR Standard" Control (2-1)
G1: I'm on the draw, no mulligans. I quickly see off of an early discard spell that I'm playing against what looks like an old RTR standard UW control deck ported to modern... Jace, Architect of Though, Supreme Verdice, Dissipate, yeah... Despite that, Jace's +1 invalidating Pyromancer & Lingering Spouls, and eating my bolts, alongside 4x Supreme Verdict & timely spot removal for bombs like Thundermaw was enough to slow down my already relatively slow gameplan until he could Sphinx's Revelation for 6. I didn't scoop on the spot, but it wouldn't have been wrong. Saw some other stuff like Detention Sphere, Nyx-Fleece Ram, Sunblast Angel(?!).
in: +1 Outpost Siege, +1 Duress, +2 Slaughter Games
out: -2 Path, -1 Lavaman, -1 Crackling Doom
G2: I effectively get underneath him this game; turn 1 IoK an Azorius Charm, turn 2 Pyromancer. I don't see a Jace this game, Seize away a Verdict, and use a hasted Butcher alongside Pyro and burn to close the deal as quickly as possible. You know you're in a bad spot when you Revelation for 1.
G3: He chooses to be on the draw this game. No mulligans. I have no huge early action, but I have a Liliana & an Outpost Siege & feel my chances are good if I can resolve either of these. Turn three I run a Lingering Souls into an expected Mana Leaked, and Leaked it is. Turn 4 I run out Outpost Siege, it Gets Dissipated. He drops a Jace, I drop a Liliana, +1 and flashback Souls. He immediately Detention Sphere's the Lilly, then proceeds to Sunblast Angel (that he drew with Jace) my tokens the next turn. I drop a Pyromancer & kill the Angel & Jace both with a Crackling Doom, starting to recover. I have a Slaughter Games in hand, but choose to run out Lingering Souls to up the pressure. Terrible play, I get verdicted, the next turn I slaughter games Revelation (though if I had any creatures I'd have named Verdict...) to see his hand of 2 Aetherlings and a Verdict. I draw lands and die to Aetherling. Bad misplay, may have cost me the game; in hindsight I should've considered bringing in Hide // Seek for his Detention Spheres. Strongest cards here are Liliana, Outpost Siege, and Thoughtseize. In general, I think control is tough for us, but fortunately there isn't much of it in modern. A second Liliana would have helped here.
M3: 8-Rack (2-0)
G1: A good friend of mine, but also a very interesting matchup. The typical rules of magic almost don't apply, things get wierd. I'm on the draw, no mull. He Seizes, I Seize, he took an early drop (Soulfire Grand Master I think, pretty strong in the matchup) and I saw a hand with another Seize and 2 Ensaring Bridge. I drew into Kolaghan's Command to get it Seized. At this point it gets wierd; I only have 1 copy of Kolaghan's command in the deck & he actually Seizes himself to go hellbent. At this point he has an Ensnaring Bridge I know I can't answer on the table, invalidating all of my creatures. He's also Seized a lot, doing fair damage, so I change my gameplan; from then on I stop casting spells entirely, waiting to draw burn and keeping my hand safely out of Rack range. I went though a lot of lands due to Ghost Quarters & Smallpox, and even Lilly's ult (after which I crackling doomed her) but eventually after going through about 40 cards I got there.
in: +2 Rakdos Charm, +2 Hide // Seek, +1 Duress, +1 Celestial Purge
out: -3 Path to Exile, -1 Liliana, -2 Thoughtsieze
G2: It gets a lot better now, with relevant removal available. Turn 1, he Seizes & Surgical Extractions all of my Lingering Souls. I IoK his Ensnaring Bridge & he takes my Monastery Mentor, and later I get a Kolaghan's command to take out a Mutavault and his Rack putting him pretty far behind. From there I stick a Young Pyro & later a Thundermaw to close the game. Having minimal ways to interact game 1 makes this tough, games revolve around ensnaring bridge & keeping your hand size at 3 or more.
M3: BW Tokens (2-1)
G1: This seems like a bad matchup for us, since we main so much 1-for-1 removal. The first game went VERY long; I discarded his early intangible virtue, but all of his token spells made my bolts look pretty terrible. There was a lot of back & forth, Pyros and Mentors were strong, allowing for good combats with the help of our otherwise bad spot removal. Mentor especially was huge, the prowess allowed for a lot of very good combats. Eventually he had several fliers, dropped a second anthem, swung & activated Windbrisk Heights to play a 3rd anthem, and it was just too much to deal with.
in: +2 Anger the Gods, +1 Duress, +1 Olivia, +1 Outpost Siege, +2 Timely Reinforcements
out: -3 Path to Exile, -4 Young Pyromancer
G2: Monastery Mentor and Outpost Siege won this for me, no doubt. Never saw an Anger. Lavaman was big here, and a play with Monastery Mentor out when I cast a Timely Reinforcements was pretty huge. Spent the game killing Sorins and keeing him off of Windbrisk heights. Eventually casting & flashing back Lingering Souls in the same turn (2 turns in a row) with Mentor out was just too much pressure for him to handle.
G3: because G1 took ~30mins, we had about 5 minutes for this game. Raced hard with Soulfire (got pathed) into Mentor T3, into t4 Bolt & Kolaghans Command for damage & discard, into turn 5 Butcher + Bolt, into turn 6 Thundermaw for game. Won in turns, on turn 5. In general, Monastery Mentor was very strong in this matchup; they don't have bolt & mentor is a token generator and an anthem in one card that can set you up for combat blowouts. It also has the ability to prowess out of Anger of the Gods range, and Anger is our best card in this MU. Outpost Siege was also strong, compensating for the psuedo card-advantage they get from their spells making multiple creatures.
Overall, happy with the deck & SB. Not sure what to think about the UW Control Match; I feel like its tough for the same reasons Tron is, our plan is slow enough to be stopped by sweepers and their late game is just better than ours. Didn't get a chance to play against Burn & Abzan like I was hoping to (there were at least 2 of each at the event). I still definitely want a second Lilly, originally was going to be over the 3rd Monastery mentor (drawing too many Pyros & Mentors with too few spells can happen), but Mentor performed really well for me. I was surprised at how many times the Duress came in in situations where I cut my Thoughtsiezes, this makes me rethink swapping it with a 3rd Seize. I'm also thinking about a 2nd Kolaghan's command, if I can find room.
Any match insights? Any tips for what you might cut for those cards?
On a sidenote, if they know you will be playing this deck, is there a large chance they will be playing hate cards against you? You might want to think about what they will side against you and how to beat it*
Good Luck and have fun!
RGW Naya Company
RWB Mardu Control