I absolutely advocate 4 Graven Cairns. It is our fastest way to play disruption (Smallpox) and the most reliable way to get Seismic into play. The only time 4 Cairns has been bad is when I'm desperately digging for a green source to start Loaming. But that's probably just me being inexperienced with the deck.
Dhamkhari, the consensus over the past few weeks have been that cutting Lightning Bolt altogether is probably correct for the meta right now. Abrupt Decay, Flame Jab and Seismic are enough of spot removal spells, and you will probably find yourself drawing into Bolts when you're looking for higher priority cards. I know it looks especially good beside Pyromancer, but we're really not interested in an overabundance of 1-for-1, one-shot removal spells (the exception being Abrupt just because it's so damned amazing). Flame Jab and Seismic are reusable removal machines whereas bolt has limited application in our deck.
I would recommend cutting the 2 Bolts and trying out 4 Lingering Souls. You could easily swap out an overgrown tomb for a godless shrine as well. Souls with Pyromancer is ... gross.
And if Bolt is in there to deal with aggro, you can always SB Anger of the Gods. Ace posted a SB list a few pages back that looks really close to ideal IMO.
EDIT:
main: -1 buried ruin, +1 fathless looting
side: -1 buried ruin, +1 gavony township
EDIT2:
side: -2 surgical, +2 needle
EDIT3: explosives moved to the side
Explosives have been good so far, a lot better than a 2nd flame jab. With them maelstrom pulse isn't needed anymore. They can be decay/smallpox 5-6 when we need to get rid of permanents.
Treetop village is fine as a manland but producing only green mana has been a problem, so i'm switching to a second ravine instead.
Something to know when siding vault of the archangel vs burn: rain of gore doesn't affect lifelink, since the source of the lifegain isn't a spell of ability but is damage. Very counter-intuitive rule here.
While I agree that Engineered Explosives is a good card (I've been running 2 in my Sideboard since Modern started and never cut it) but running Buried Ruin seems exceptionally slow as a means to recur it for little value. I've tried running Academy Ruins with it to get extra use out of it but it never really came up as worth the time. I know that Academy Ruins doesn't put it straight to your hand, which is a significant difference, but on terms of needing Explosives twice, the first time it goes off is usually enough to stabilize to let your other cards take control. I just see Buried Ruin as wasting 2 extra turns to board wipe again when you could have been doing something more proactive.
Also, running fewer than 4 Faithless Looting seems bad. It's just too good of an effect for this deck not to run as many as possible.
Have you thought about running Timely Reinforcements as your anti-Burn sideboard card? It was specifically designed to shut down RDW when it came out in standard and did a superb job at it. Not to mention it has value in other matchups. On the topic of sideboarding, does it really make sense to run both Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction? Could you pick on to run over the other and free up some slots for other match ups?
Yeah, i guess needing to explode twice won't happen that much, i was thinking if both explosives and ruins get dredged i can get some value from loam. In testing it hasn't happened that i would need to do this so i guess i could reintroduce 4th looting instead of ruins. Picking between spellbomb and surgical makes sense, i'll have to think about which one i keep and what to replace the other with.
The problem i see with timely reinforcements is that all burn decks play skullcrack and some flames of the blood hand as well... Dragon's claw still gains you life every spell, including flames and skullcrack. The other problem is the white cost.
I would say surgical is better as taking a key card can be nice. However, spellbomb is nice for it's cantrip which can double as loam protection. In response to an opposing surgical it can return Loam.
Well you have the Godless Shrine and Horizon Canopy. I figured one white source wouldn't be too difficult for you. Though you could also consider running Kitchen Finks. Dragon's Claw just seems mediocre though I know it has been used before as anti-burn hate. It's no Kor Firewalker though.
Inspired by this list, which finished in the top 8 of a recent premier event, I've been trying a Knight of the Reliquary 4c loam list. Admittedly, this stretches the mana base really far, and probably makes the deck too inconsistent, it's still been pretty fun to play.
Knight lets me run a little toolbox and frees up a few slots both in the maindeck and the sideboard. The only graveyard hate in the entire 75 is a single copy of bojuka bog, the only land hate is a maindeck tec edge and a pair of ghost quarters in the side. So far I haven't been left wanting anything more, being able to tec edge your own bog to recur it is actually quite powerful against really graveyard dependent decks. I could see running some number of utility lands, particularly township, Wolf Run or Vault but this deck thrives in stalled board state, I don't think they're needed.
It's also nice being able to out-class just about every creature in modern, I have blocked an emrakul with a surprise 16/16 knight which is probably the coolest play I have ever made. Knight is usually at least 6/6 by turn 5 and gives our opponent a must answer threat without really requiring any setup.
Since there has been a rather decent uptick in the discussion about these 4-color Young Pyromancer builds, I think it's time to get them included into the primer. Especially with some actual tournament results now. I'll get the tournament list and one of your guys' builds posted in the primer. Does some want to write up a quick Match Up report for the deck as well? There are instructions and some examples in the primer or you can PM me and get some answers as well. I'd appreciate it. Thank you for all the discussion here too. It's been great getting to work with all of you on your decks.
In claw's defense, don't forget they count our red spells as well. Every looting and pyromancer gains me life. If i manage to get flame jab + loam, burn will have a very hard time.
The white mana is no big deal really, it is a minor drawback. The other issue is vs burn if you start making tokens with pyro/souls and topdeck timely you won't get tokens because burn decks play very few creatures and most of them die quickly.
I think i'll keep spellbombs over surgical because i want to side something good vs living end. I'll also add some pithing needles because they are good catch all hate. They shine in the tron matchup and they shut down ooze/relic/etc.
Yeah, I know about it checking your own Red spells. It was tech for the RDW Mirror Match way back when. I just have a hard time justifying straight life gain as an acceptable card. If you ran more Flame Jabs or had more than just an odd handful of Red cards, I could maybe see it but it still comes across as a do-nothing card to me. Yes, Timely with Young Pyromancer isn't ideal but it is a sorcery that triggers YP for another elemental, so even then you gain 6 life and get a dude but you have the upside of getting three guys if you don't have any creatures out (which shouldn't be all that uncommon for your deck). I'm not claiming it is the perfect card but it strikes me as more proactive than an artifact that may draw out the game a turn or two. Divergent from all of that talk, Finks can be cast off of your Green mana and has a relevant body for blocking every time you cast it. It also has splash value against control and mid-range decks as being difficult to get rid of.
I absolutely advocate 4 Graven Cairns. It is our fastest way to play disruption (Smallpox) and the most reliable way to get Seismic into play. The only time 4 Cairns has been bad is when I'm desperately digging for a green source to start Loaming. But that's probably just me being inexperienced with the deck.
Dhamkhari, the consensus over the past few weeks have been that cutting Lightning Bolt altogether is probably correct for the meta right now. Abrupt Decay, Flame Jab and Seismic are enough of spot removal spells, and you will probably find yourself drawing into Bolts when you're looking for higher priority cards. I know it looks especially good beside Pyromancer, but we're really not interested in an overabundance of 1-for-1, one-shot removal spells (the exception being Abrupt just because it's so damned amazing). Flame Jab and Seismic are reusable removal machines whereas bolt has limited application in our deck.
I would recommend cutting the 2 Bolts and trying out 4 Lingering Souls. You could easily swap out an overgrown tomb for a godless shrine as well. Souls with Pyromancer is ... gross.
And if Bolt is in there to deal with aggro, you can always SB Anger of the Gods. Ace posted a SB list a few pages back that looks really close to ideal IMO.
I personally am still a large advocate for running lightning bolt. It's one of the most efficient removal spells for 1 mana that we can possibly run. The fact it's only a 1 for 1 doesn't really matter. The nature of our deck is degenerate card advantage with life from the loam, plus getting value out of it by running all the retrace spells and assault. Bolt is great against quick aggro strategies so that we have time to set up that engine. I'm really not sure why we'd want to cut it.
Bolt is good, that's for sure. But for this deck i never found myself missing it. For small stuff we have flame jab and tokens for blocking. Bigger stuff hurt us more and smallpox takes care of that in addition to being super disruptive. Decay can take down grown goyfs/ooze/knight and other random things, the extra mana is worth the flexibility. Bolt does nothing to twin as well (except pestermite). Honestly there isn't a single card i would take out from my main for bolts, choices have to be made. Also, we are not burn or pure aggro, the option to send bolt to the face isn't relevant here.
For my sideboard i think i will send explosives to fill the missing spots and put 2nd flame jab and 4th smallpox back in the main.
I running the pyromancer list without a white splash so perhaps my experience is slightly different. I run the full 4 smallpox, 2 bolts, a syphon life and a worm harvest. I see you're running 1 less smallpox and a full set of souls plus 2 explosives. Aside from explosives at 1 do you ever feel ok dropping it later in the game? It seems as though dropping at 0 nerfs pyromancer and dropping it at 2 endangers him.I did just notice you boarded it which is how I run it as well. So I think that was smart of you.
Yeah, i ended up leaving them in the sideboard. The times i found them useful i testing my 4th smallpox would have been better and my 2nd flame jab would have been about just as good. I haven't tested vs deck that explosives is extra good, the card is really great so i decided to leave them in the board. Aside from those matchups, explosives are super good at killing hate cards so i figure i mostly want to see them game 2 and 3. I'll update my previous list to avoid confusions.
Yeah. Explosives is something I've definitely found to be a great anti hate card. I found it to be great in the black white tokens match up especially when they've dropped multiple anthem effects. It's very nice for that match up being useful in destroying a field of tokens or their 2 mana anthem effects. It's also been exceptionally useful against affinity and hate bears which can be tough match ups pending our draws vs their
I know early on in this thread there was some debate between myself and some of the other people here about the inclusion of Lightning Bolt. Most people seemed to agree on it being worse than other choices. I guess I'm skewed because I run RUG and Snapcaster Mage with Bolt is exceptional reach. I think it is one of the most played cards in the format for a reason but I can understand not wanting to run it. I'd have to side with kat, that its utility as an easy answer to most creatures in the format makes its inclusion ideal. Though I would concede that it is not 100% mandatory for the deck.
I toyed around with a straight Jund variant that aimed to run all of the powerful cards I could jam into it. I tried testing it but people kept kicking me from games on Cockatrice. Which I'd assume is a good thing because I was in a substantial lead every time by about turn 4. Here's the list. Any feedback would be appreciated. I won't be able to test this list in paper this week since I'm currently toying with a 4-Color Tempo deck, but this will be my next project to test.
Also, I was just curious how many people are playing the Creatureless/Pyromancer versions of the deck because they feel it's the superior version or because of budget concerns related to Tarmogoyf/Bob/Liliana. By no means is this to imply decks with those money cards are better. I just want to get an idea of where people are coming from.
For me it is simply preference. I play pox in legacy and the creatureless version feels somewhat similar. Pyromancer is very close in build so it made sense to start testing and playing.
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Dhamkhari, the consensus over the past few weeks have been that cutting Lightning Bolt altogether is probably correct for the meta right now. Abrupt Decay, Flame Jab and Seismic are enough of spot removal spells, and you will probably find yourself drawing into Bolts when you're looking for higher priority cards. I know it looks especially good beside Pyromancer, but we're really not interested in an overabundance of 1-for-1, one-shot removal spells (the exception being Abrupt just because it's so damned amazing). Flame Jab and Seismic are reusable removal machines whereas bolt has limited application in our deck.
I would recommend cutting the 2 Bolts and trying out 4 Lingering Souls. You could easily swap out an overgrown tomb for a godless shrine as well. Souls with Pyromancer is ... gross.
And if Bolt is in there to deal with aggro, you can always SB Anger of the Gods. Ace posted a SB list a few pages back that looks really close to ideal IMO.
edit: This is Ace1's SB:
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Duress
1 Vault Of The Archangel
1 dakmor salvage
3 Anger Of The Gods
My new list:
4 Faithless Looting
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Raven's Crime
2 Flame Jab
4 Smallpox
4 Life From The Loam
4 Lingering Souls
instants: 4
4 Abrupt Decay
enchantments: 3
3 Seismic Assault
creatures: 4
4 Young Pyromancer
lands: 25
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Arid Mesa
2 Graven Cairns
2 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Raging Ravine
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Duress
3 Anger Of The Gods
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
2 surgical extraction
2 engineered explosives
1 syphon life
1 Vault of the Archangel
EDIT:
main: -1 buried ruin, +1 fathless looting
side: -1 buried ruin, +1 gavony township
EDIT2:
side: -2 surgical, +2 needle
EDIT3: explosives moved to the side
Explosives have been good so far, a lot better than a 2nd flame jab. With them maelstrom pulse isn't needed anymore. They can be decay/smallpox 5-6 when we need to get rid of permanents.
Treetop village is fine as a manland but producing only green mana has been a problem, so i'm switching to a second ravine instead.
Something to know when siding vault of the archangel vs burn: rain of gore doesn't affect lifelink, since the source of the lifegain isn't a spell of ability but is damage. Very counter-intuitive rule here.
Also, running fewer than 4 Faithless Looting seems bad. It's just too good of an effect for this deck not to run as many as possible.
Have you thought about running Timely Reinforcements as your anti-Burn sideboard card? It was specifically designed to shut down RDW when it came out in standard and did a superb job at it. Not to mention it has value in other matchups. On the topic of sideboarding, does it really make sense to run both Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction? Could you pick on to run over the other and free up some slots for other match ups?
The problem i see with timely reinforcements is that all burn decks play skullcrack and some flames of the blood hand as well... Dragon's claw still gains you life every spell, including flames and skullcrack. The other problem is the white cost.
Previous post edited.
Inspired by this list, which finished in the top 8 of a recent premier event, I've been trying a Knight of the Reliquary 4c loam list. Admittedly, this stretches the mana base really far, and probably makes the deck too inconsistent, it's still been pretty fun to play.
Knight lets me run a little toolbox and frees up a few slots both in the maindeck and the sideboard. The only graveyard hate in the entire 75 is a single copy of bojuka bog, the only land hate is a maindeck tec edge and a pair of ghost quarters in the side. So far I haven't been left wanting anything more, being able to tec edge your own bog to recur it is actually quite powerful against really graveyard dependent decks. I could see running some number of utility lands, particularly township, Wolf Run or Vault but this deck thrives in stalled board state, I don't think they're needed.
It's also nice being able to out-class just about every creature in modern, I have blocked an emrakul with a surprise 16/16 knight which is probably the coolest play I have ever made. Knight is usually at least 6/6 by turn 5 and gives our opponent a must answer threat without really requiring any setup.
Here's what I've been playing:
The white mana is no big deal really, it is a minor drawback. The other issue is vs burn if you start making tokens with pyro/souls and topdeck timely you won't get tokens because burn decks play very few creatures and most of them die quickly.
I think i'll keep spellbombs over surgical because i want to side something good vs living end. I'll also add some pithing needles because they are good catch all hate. They shine in the tron matchup and they shut down ooze/relic/etc.
My new side:
2 Duress
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 syphon life
2 free slots
I guess vs burn i can side syphon life, vault, duress and extraction, that might be enough. I'll have to think about the remaining free slots.
I'll try the no Bolts route. Already got the Anger of the Gods in my sb for the aggro match-up, but with the souls, it should be enough vs. Aggro.
For my sideboard i think i will send explosives to fill the missing spots and put 2nd flame jab and 4th smallpox back in the main.
2 Duress
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 syphon life
2 engineered explosives
I toyed around with a straight Jund variant that aimed to run all of the powerful cards I could jam into it. I tried testing it but people kept kicking me from games on Cockatrice. Which I'd assume is a good thing because I was in a substantial lead every time by about turn 4. Here's the list. Any feedback would be appreciated. I won't be able to test this list in paper this week since I'm currently toying with a 4-Color Tempo deck, but this will be my next project to test.
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells: 23
3 Raven's Crime
4 Faithless Looting
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Seismic Assault
Lands: 25
3 Graven Cairns
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Arid Mesa
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Treetop Village
1 Raging Ravine
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Dismember
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Liliana of the Veil
Also, I was just curious how many people are playing the Creatureless/Pyromancer versions of the deck because they feel it's the superior version or because of budget concerns related to Tarmogoyf/Bob/Liliana. By no means is this to imply decks with those money cards are better. I just want to get an idea of where people are coming from.