I'm down for whatever information I can get my hands on. It's good to know that Channel the Suns is working out for you, I thought it might be decent, but it seems to be better than you expected. Also, through testing, I realized how important it is as well to be able to get rewinds into the graveyard. When I was running Heartbeat, you could afford to counter some spell of your own to get rewind into the GY, but without Heartbeat we can't really take that luxury. I hadn't thought of obzedat's aid, but it seems good on paper. That being said, I'm wary about becoming 5c at this point. Maybe it's the right thing to do, idk, I'm just cautionary of colors here. A second wincon is good, I will agree there. Worm Harvest seems fine, but maybe there are better options? I love teachings, so I'm willing to test it here.
INS: I would be very curious to see what list you were trying out. Mystic Retrieval has a lot of applications as a storm engine with volute: if you have enough instants, it adds +8 storm (MRx2, returned sorceryx2, instants off volutex4).
So during the day I did some mental goldfishing, trying to work out some minimal initial starting points that could result in a kill. Here are the results:
X means "don't care"
Needs Gifts, Faithless Looting, and Gitaxian Probe in hand.
EOT Gifts: Volute (SV), reclaim, noxious revival, Rewind
Get Rewind in GY somehow and SV in hand.
land, SV -> rewind
Probe -> Rewind -> counter probe, untap 4, sv -> gifts
Faithless looting -> gifts: Pyretic Ritual (PRit), Desperate Ritual (DRit), Manamorphonse (MM), Gifts; SV -> Reclaim
[3 floating, 2 draws]
If given PRit, Drit
Note: one of the first piles only produces 2 mana, which means that if the cantrip to play the last gifts needs to be probe, or you'll fizzle. However, since none of the piles actually need blue mana, we could possibly replace the manamorphose in the former pile with something that makes +1 mana. What exactly would require me to go through it again.
The nice thing about this thought experiment is that the deck only needs 2 looting, 3 rituals, 1 retrieval, 1 grapeshot, 1 reclaim, 1 noxious revival, 1 volute, and some probes. This is a minimal set, but it gives a reasonable idea what the combo core of the deck might look like. In addition this is a very minimal set, we saw at least 4 new cards and didn't take into account anything discarded: if we start chaining draw spells and rituals, things can get out of hand very easily. Also, if you could play volute then pass the turn and untap, that 5 extra mana from lands would make things really smooth.
I wish we could use Seething song and/or rite of flame
So, I'm wondering how this deck compares to the usual Pyromancer's Ascension UR Storm decks? This looks much more fun, but is it competitive on at least the same level as the other storm decks?
Goldfishing a few times, I didn't have to do anything so precise as my builds above, you have have to be aware what sort of cards you need, but it's pretty easy to get enough momentum going. I'd prefer to not play rewind, since I don't really like having to counter my own spell, but I can't think of a way to get 4 or more mana form any other instant (rip seething song)
I've been testing a few different builds of RUG lists with red board sweepers and EE for anti-aggro tools, 4 Manamorphose/4 Rewind/1 IV/1 Channel, 4 Volute and 2-4 recursion cards for it, 4 Gifts, 2 looting effects, Loam/Jab, a Worm Harvest, and then some other stuff. I'm basically just goldfishing to work out some kinks before I do actual testing. I'm shaking off some rust while doing this, too--it has been a couple years since I've played with Volute, after all.
I feel like there is a spectrum between pure combo and heavy control with a minimalist combo endgame. On one end is a list similar to your (Ecophagy's) very simplified list with lots of rituals, lots of 1-drop sorceries that dig, etc. On the other end, we could have a Gifts-Control deck that plays enough counterspells to warrant a set of Rewinds at the top of its answer curve, finishing games with a Volute plan. I'm pretty impressed with your list right now, and your analysis thus far of planned sequences, so I think I might go to the other end of the spectrum and work on a control build instead, with storage lands and what-not. May we meet somewhere in the middle....
I'm down for whatever information I can get my hands on. It's good to know that Channel the Suns is working out for you, I thought it might be decent, but it seems to be better than you expected. Also, through testing, I realized how important it is as well to be able to get rewinds into the graveyard. When I was running Heartbeat, you could afford to counter some spell of your own to get rewind into the GY, but without Heartbeat we can't really take that luxury. I hadn't thought of obzedat's aid, but it seems good on paper. That being said, I'm wary about becoming 5c at this point. Maybe it's the right thing to do, idk, I'm just cautionary of colors here. A second wincon is good, I will agree there. Worm Harvest seems fine, but maybe there are better options? I love teachings, so I'm willing to test it here.
I worry about 5c, too. And since we have access to both Reclaim and Noxious, those are likely enough by themselves to Gifts-->Volute safely and then combo. The only thing Aid does differently is it costs 5 instead of 6 (for Reclaim in upkeep-->Volute mainphase), which can sometimes be critical. But if we just put a ritual into the pile, that replaces the need for a 5 cmc Aid by just +1ing mana in your mainphase to make up for the upkeep-Reclaim.
I think Worm Harvest is probably not the best option for a B-plan, but I haven't put a whole lot of thought into finding a better one. I figure if we just devote a slot to an alternate win-con, we can identify it later.
As far as Rewind goes: Maybe we should find a way to make it profitable to hardcast it? Or, at least, even parity. Right now, my back-up plan is to leave myself the ability to make 2RUU and just Rewind a Flame Jab, if need be. That's -1 mana initially, but at least it puts it in the yard and leaves you 4 mana open to cast other stuff. But honestly, if we could find a way to make Rewind better mid-combo when it's in hand, that would really fix a lot of mechanical issues with going off.
I've been lurking this thread for quite a while and felt like popping in.
It's probably too slow and leaves us vulnerable, but I like the effect of Hypersonic Dragon. It's almost like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir for sorcery spells and gets better if you play Teferi. We could use it to combo off at the last possible moment. With Volute we can rewind our opponent's stuff from the graveyard if we need to. It attacks. You can also do the Worldfire thing with it.
Not a bad concept. There are a couple other effects which can allow sorceries to be cast at instant speed, and I think Alchemist's Refuge and Vedalken Orrery are both safer (as well as cheaper) than the Dragon. But it definitely would be nice to have something to be able to use Volute in response to spells, like a Dralnu. I'd gladly play something to do that, if it wasn't a 5-drop Dragon that's going to have giant crosshairs on its face (as the only creature in the deck).
Not a bad concept. There are a couple other effects which can allow sorceries to be cast at instant speed, and I think Alchemist's Refuge and Vedalken Orrery are both safer (as well as cheaper) than the Dragon. But it definitely would be nice to have something to be able to use Volute in response to spells, like a Dralnu. I'd gladly play something to do that, if it wasn't a 5-drop Dragon that's going to have giant crosshairs on its face (as the only creature in the deck).
Right, but do you want to be trusting a blue 4-toughness creatures in a format where Deceiver Exarch is a major part of the metagame? Hypersonic Dragon is going to die on a regular basis, and it's a pain in the neck to set it up with Gifts.
Ok, I added Lightning Bolts and Repeals to the mainboard and the matchup against zoo is now close to even on the first game, which I find great (I didn't win a single game before). The deck feels much more realistic now, really, Bolt is one of the most played cards in the format for something. What's even better, it opens up another combo lines of attack. Against zoo, which often hurts itself with shocklands for pretty much, I never needed going really big with Forked Channel the Suns, and having a Bolt in the yard or a couple Rituals in hand, Gifting for Past in Flames, Grapeshot, Ritual (or Bolt) and Increasing Vengeance would let me IV with flashback the Bolt and then Grapeshot for the win. It's a line of play that doesn't have the huge damaging capabilities that Channel the Suns and Remand give, but it requires less resources and certainly can have the game ended. My current list looks like this:
Now you guys were talking of Mystic Retrieval and it seems (functionally) a perfect a card for Gifts Ungiven. Do you feel it could have a good use in a PiF build? I feel it might be too slow for a deck with no other ramp than rituals
I think Mystic Retrieval is good with Gifts Ungiven, but if you're already using PiF, I think Retrieval is redundant. Teachings is better at being a way to continue the Gifts chain in a pile, and Teachings acts like a 5th or 6th Gifts for the midgame (when you're looking for a Gifts sometimes). Retrieval can do some different things, like getting an answer back from the yard (which Teachings cannot do) and being half the price to flashback, but I think in a PiF build it's a bit weak because you can just do almost everything from the yard with PiF.
As far as your Zoo match-up goes: If you just play/board a package of board sweepers to kill a bunch of 1-drops, you're going to crush the hell out of that deck.
Agree with INS that retrieval is not needed if you have PiF. I guess it might be ok to use in a pile to get grapeshot back easily (since grapeshot flashbacked off PiF can't be remanded), but I don't think it'd be super useful elsewhere. You could always test it out and see how often you actually need to use it. It's good in Volute because it makes loads of storm and keeps the chain going.
Luesto: Personally, I'd probably want to play more remands, and maybe more Izzet Charms. Are spell pierce really that useful main deck? Not sure you need 2 Manamorphose either, since once you fork the Channel colours are something of a non-issue, but not having goldfished the PiF version for a while I can't remember how useful they are.
Uhh, I don't play modern, just casual (my group's decks probably are modern deck level though) and I really like this type of deck.
I usually just lurk, but since I've been finding similar finds to you while testing (The need for looting that INS brought up, and the addition of Reclaim to Noxious Revival that Eco did) I think I'll start posting insights that I get when I play this.
I do have a question though. What is the proper sorcery to instant ratio you want? I've been cutting down on sorceries and focusing on the Flame Jab and Life from the Loam to get most of my spells back, but I feel having normal sorceries (for example Gitaxian Probe that the guy who brought up Spellweaver Volute mentioned) might make the deck better imho.
I quite like Mystical Retrieval however, I've not tested it, but it allows the card + recursion + recursion + random gift piles that you'd want without adding the full Reclaim (I don't know why, but I like Noxious Revival lots more, I'd rather just run it than both.
The instant to sorcery ratio is something I know I'm still working out. I still like Gitaxian Probe, but I'm not sure everybody agrees with me. I do know that Flame Jab and Life from the Loam should be your main recursive sorceries. Noxious revival is better because its free, and I tested with only revival, and it was good. The advantage of reclaim is that you can gifts for multiple things throughout the game and be able to get them in your hand, and you can gifts for reclaim and noxious revival. I think it's more or less personal preference however.
Mystic Retrieval is one of my favorite cards in the deck. It's recursion potential is unmatched by any other card in the deck.
I'm starting testing with a URw build running Rites/Griselbrand. The ability to go for Griselbrand was a HUGE coup in the summer of 2012 before Deathrite got printed, so it's a reasonable place to start for me. I'm putting Hivatron aside for now: it mainly flourished in a field of midrange decks, and with Jund gone, a lot of its natural prey has vanished.
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Good to hear that! I've played a few matches against UWR control today and it went pretty horrible... Although there were many situations were I didn't know what to do and I feel that my Gifts piles completely sucked in those games... Vendilion from the side is an excellent card against us.
Does anyone have any advice on this matchup?? For reference my list is posted above.
It actually makes a lot of sense... They might take an eon to kill us if we get that going, and Flame Jab is excellent in Gifts piles. Still I don't know if it's enough to beat them. They run ~3 Tectonic Edges so storage lands aren't that reliable, and a crapload of counters. I haven't found Gigadrowse that useful as they tend to have more lands than us in the long run (more blue sources allover generally), but I've been missing land drops too often for my taste. I'm running 23 lands: I thought that would be enough but this deck REALLY wants to hit all the land drops... I will test 24 next; I might even go to 25.
LegitKarona, don't you find Path to Exile to be a thing prevalent enough that there are little times you want to go for Griselbrand? Almost every deck has an out to it (Path, Cryptic, Lily, Terminate, Karn, Oblivion Stone, Zealous Conscripts) and sometimes you won't be in a situation where you can pay 7 life without risking it (against zoo I bet this plan is pretty bad, since they Path and you aren't likely to be able to pay 7 life by then). Even then, as this is not Storm combo, drawing that many cards might not be enough to win on the spot (say you don't hit PiF, for example, or can't reach the mana to go Gifts --> Combo on the following turn)
Of course you can always opt to go for other Gifts piles, but there will be times when you draw Grisel/Rites and they will sit in your hand blankly. This arises the need for at least one looter in the deck: I guess that Izzet Charm is pretty easy here as it's a very useful card overall and is Merchant Scrollable...
I love the plan for Games 2 and 3, as the opponent isn't likely to keep removal in, but as the format is right now, I think one risks quite a blowout by going with it on Game 1. Still it can steal easy free wins here and there...
Flame Jab from the yard is pretty good against Vendilion Cliques and Snapcaster Mages.
But then you're not playing lands, making it harder for yourself to go off, and as I see it you're basically 2-for-1'ing yourself, since both snap and clique provide value at ETB. Of course that may be right if the other option is dying to value creature beatdown, but it seems hardly optimal.
Flame Jab from the yard is pretty good against Vendilion Cliques and Snapcaster Mages.
But then you're not playing lands, making it harder for yourself to go off, and as I see it you're basically 2-for-1'ing yourself, since both snap and clique provide value at ETB. Of course that may be right if the other option is dying to value creature beatdown, but it seems hardly optimal.
Like we've been talking about in the last few pages, you use it with Life from the Loam. Of all people, I am probably the last person you should expect to tell you that it's a good idea to stop hitting your land drops. My favorite card in the history of this game is Dreadship Reef.
On another note, when Vendilion Clique targets you and cycles away something from your hand, how is that a 2-for-1? It's cycling. You draw a card to replace the card lost. That's not card advantage at all; it's parity. If you were all-in on that certain card in hand, then it's a tempo issue where you're suffering from disruption--but you're still sitting on the same number of cards in hand.
Granted, sometimes it's a pain in the neck when you make a play and you need a certain card, and then Vendilion cycles it away--but if you want to be successful in Modern, you have to be able to take Thoughtseizes and Vendilions in stride; your deck has to be redundant enough to press on after being disrupted like that. And sometimes, that means you play with Gifts Ungiven differently--either you hold it back longer, or you stack a pile that doesn't lose to Vendilion cycling something away. This isn't easy, by any means--but it's necessary.
All right, let's cross out the Griselbrand plan for the moment. Back in the day, it was amazing because it was a 7/7 flying lifelinker so they had to deal with it or die, but even if they did you could just draw 7 cards, survive for one turn, and then explode. Without Seething Song, however, there aren't enough good rituals to reliably draw your way into the combo off a Griselbrand Activation, so it's no longer an auto win unless they can kill you that turn.
I think I'm going to try out straight RUg next, possibly with a Plasm Capture to act like a mana drain. It makes Firespout better, gives you Channel the Suns and Ancient Grudge, and lets you do the whole Volute/Loam shenanigans (though I think that should be plan B behind just playing a giant Past in Flames).
Also, I remember when I first started building this deck, before even Punishing Fire was banned, my first iterations were more midrangey, with cards like Timely Reinforcements, Mind Spring, and Slagstorm, and the idea was more "trade off some stuff, Past in Flames for value using Gifts to set it up, and eventually win with a giant Empty the Warrens or similar. That may actually be the way to go, since it lets your overall card power be a little greater. It was much worse when you could consistently get a turn-3 Griselbrand, and easily go off with Seething Song to just multi-cast Grapeshot, but the banning made that strategy a lot worse. Thoughts?
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Wouldn't Rewind be better in most situations than Plasm Capture? As this deck is so Gifts-hungry to go off, it's likely Rewind would fulfill the role better, allowing you to Gifts on that same turn, although I don't know if countering something is always that necessary when you are almost ready to go off. Plasm Capture won't always allow you to go off on the next turn as the format is based mostly on cheap cards. I tested it (very little, but still) and it just seemed to sit around in my hand, plus I almost always would prefer to resolve a Gifts Ungiven than countering something with Plasm Capture.
About going more midrangy, we now have 3 different 3CC sweepers (Firespout, Slagstorm, Anger of the Gods) which makes for inevitable sweeper piles against aggro, but I wouldn't play 3 of them maindeck.
I've thought about adding Vendilion Clique to the main, do you think it's a decent idea? Information on the opponent's hand is pretty useful in a deck full of decisions as this, its mild disruption can serve us well and it's a decent threat although it will likely eat all the removal the opponent has rotting in his hand.
Warrens has the upside that a hand with 3 rituals and an Empty the Warrens can steal some games easily, while having the downside of Burst of Speed being pretty much dead in our hand if we draw it. Echoing Truth and Engineered Explosives hoses this win badly too.
Grapeshot has the advantage of being a "cleaner" way of killing (aka less interactive) and Noxious Revival is miles better to draw into than Burst of Speed, as it can be pretty useful pre-combo too if you are in need for a certain card and it happens to sit in your graveyard. Drawing into Grapeshot will almost never allow for an early combo though, as you really need to go all the way through to kill with it.
LK, your last list in your blog used the Warrens kill, why did you change to it from Grapeshot??
Warrens is much easier to set up a kill with, and allows for simple late-game piles where you've traded back and forth and go for something like: Desperate Ritual Pyretic Ritual Empty the Warrens Past in Flames.
With grapeshot, that pile's useless. With Empty, that's quite powerful. Also, for all the purity of the grapeshot kill, it's just harder to set up across the board, is slower most of the time (since you need to build up more resources), and has no safety valve.* It just makes the deck easier to play, and in this deck, that's a relevant quality.
*: When I say safety valve, I mean a way to get value out of it if you misplay. If you storm up a bunch and realize you can't get Grapeshot into your hand anymore, you're practically toast. Likewise if you were relying on drawing the right card off a chain of Manamorphoses and such and don't draw it (sometimes you need to do that to draw a land or spell). In both of those cases, Grapeshot is either dead or just a board wipe with some damage. Empty presents a MASSIVE board presence out of nowhere.
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I agree with Luesto about Rewind over Plasm Capture. I think that, even if your manabase supports Capture just fine, Rewind is always going to produce 4 mana so you can cast a Gifts right there and then--Capture won't do that most of the time, as most of the cards in this format are cheaper than 4 mana.
If I'm choosing between two 2-card-combo setups and thinking about deckspace, Grapeshot+Noxious Revival is not exactly going to count as 2 slots in my book, as contrasted against Empty the Warrens+Burst of Speed. Noxious Revival is always live, not just as a recursion spell but also because it can do things like shaft an opposing Persist trigger or Unburial Rites, or simply time walk an opponent who has nothing in hand (by putting a blank on top of their deck). What does Burst of Speed ever do on its own, as compared to that? Nothing.
I think Warrens is fine, but saying that Grapeshot is blank early--that's just false. Grapeshot can kill things. So honestly, if I was to play Warrens, I'd rather just open another slot and play both Grapeshot and Warrens together--I would never, ever, ever cut Grapeshot.
Yesterday I tried Empty the Warrens-Burst of Speed instead of Grapeshot-Noxiuous Revival and didn't like it that much... Mainly because I'm going more and more often for small storm runs involving Lightning Bolt and non-RemandGrapeshoting, which are often enough to kill unwary opponents who have shocked themselves a couple of times with their lands (I even won one game where opponent triple fetched and was at 11 life, and I just emptied a storage land, forked a Bolt with Increasing Vengeance and then cast the flashback with the Bolt still on the stack, to make a neat 12 damage, it was pretty awesome). In these situations the fact that Grapeshot costs 2 mana less and doesn't require Burst of Speed to do damage on that turn might be relevant. The truth is that I'm not used to Empty the Warrens in this deck and to discover the piles that matter in each situation might take some time... God is this deck difficult to play.
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UGR Ritual Gifts
Legacy Decks
UBRG Storm Decks
---------------------------------------------------
The Storm Boards
So during the day I did some mental goldfishing, trying to work out some minimal initial starting points that could result in a kill. Here are the results:
X means "don't care"
Needs Gifts, Faithless Looting, and Gitaxian Probe in hand.
EOT Gifts: Volute (SV), reclaim, noxious revival, Rewind
Get Rewind in GY somehow and SV in hand.
land, SV -> rewind
Probe -> Rewind -> counter probe, untap 4, sv -> gifts
Faithless looting -> gifts: Pyretic Ritual (PRit), Desperate Ritual (DRit), Manamorphonse (MM), Gifts; SV -> Reclaim
[3 floating, 2 draws]
If given PRit, Drit
If given XRit, Gifts
So a this point, we have 10 storm (lethal with 2 grapshots), some mana floating and Gifts enchanted with Spellweaver Volute.
Play a sorcery drawn (preferably a Probe) -> Gifts for grapeshot, looting, mystic retrieval, rit; SV->rit
Storm:12
If grapeshot, looting (requires RX in pool)
If Looting, Mystic R (Requires R in pool)
If Mystic, Rit (requires RX in pool)
The nice thing about this thought experiment is that the deck only needs 2 looting, 3 rituals, 1 retrieval, 1 grapeshot, 1 reclaim, 1 noxious revival, 1 volute, and some probes. This is a minimal set, but it gives a reasonable idea what the combo core of the deck might look like. In addition this is a very minimal set, we saw at least 4 new cards and didn't take into account anything discarded: if we start chaining draw spells and rituals, things can get out of hand very easily. Also, if you could play volute then pass the turn and untap, that 5 extra mana from lands would make things really smooth.
I wish we could use Seething song and/or rite of flame
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Reclaim
1 Noxious Revival
1 Rewind
2 Spellweaver Volute
1 Manamorphose
1 Grapeshot
1 Mystic Retrieval
4 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
4 Remand
4 Izzet Charm
4 Serum Visions
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Steam Vents
3 Island
2 Mountain
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Halimar Depths
1 Breeding Pool
Goldfishing a few times, I didn't have to do anything so precise as my builds above, you have have to be aware what sort of cards you need, but it's pretty easy to get enough momentum going. I'd prefer to not play rewind, since I don't really like having to counter my own spell, but I can't think of a way to get 4 or more mana form any other instant (rip seething song)
I feel like there is a spectrum between pure combo and heavy control with a minimalist combo endgame. On one end is a list similar to your (Ecophagy's) very simplified list with lots of rituals, lots of 1-drop sorceries that dig, etc. On the other end, we could have a Gifts-Control deck that plays enough counterspells to warrant a set of Rewinds at the top of its answer curve, finishing games with a Volute plan. I'm pretty impressed with your list right now, and your analysis thus far of planned sequences, so I think I might go to the other end of the spectrum and work on a control build instead, with storage lands and what-not. May we meet somewhere in the middle....
I worry about 5c, too. And since we have access to both Reclaim and Noxious, those are likely enough by themselves to Gifts-->Volute safely and then combo. The only thing Aid does differently is it costs 5 instead of 6 (for Reclaim in upkeep-->Volute mainphase), which can sometimes be critical. But if we just put a ritual into the pile, that replaces the need for a 5 cmc Aid by just +1ing mana in your mainphase to make up for the upkeep-Reclaim.
I think Worm Harvest is probably not the best option for a B-plan, but I haven't put a whole lot of thought into finding a better one. I figure if we just devote a slot to an alternate win-con, we can identify it later.
As far as Rewind goes: Maybe we should find a way to make it profitable to hardcast it? Or, at least, even parity. Right now, my back-up plan is to leave myself the ability to make 2RUU and just Rewind a Flame Jab, if need be. That's -1 mana initially, but at least it puts it in the yard and leaves you 4 mana open to cast other stuff. But honestly, if we could find a way to make Rewind better mid-combo when it's in hand, that would really fix a lot of mechanical issues with going off.
It's probably too slow and leaves us vulnerable, but I like the effect of Hypersonic Dragon. It's almost like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir for sorcery spells and gets better if you play Teferi. We could use it to combo off at the last possible moment. With Volute we can rewind our opponent's stuff from the graveyard if we need to. It attacks. You can also do the Worldfire thing with it.
It would work as an alternate win-con as well.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
2 Breeding Pool
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Forest
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Reflecting Pool
2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Fungal Reaches
1 Calciform Pools
1 Halimar Depths
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Desperate Ritual
2 Pyretic Ritual
2 Manamorphose
1 Increasing Vengeance
2 Past in Flames
1 Channel the Suns
1 Mana Seism
1 Grapeshot
1 Noxious Revival
2 Repeal
2 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
1 Mana Leak
1 Izzet Charm
1 Electrolyze
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Snapcaster Mage
Now you guys were talking of Mystic Retrieval and it seems (functionally) a perfect a card for Gifts Ungiven. Do you feel it could have a good use in a PiF build? I feel it might be too slow for a deck with no other ramp than rituals
As far as your Zoo match-up goes: If you just play/board a package of board sweepers to kill a bunch of 1-drops, you're going to crush the hell out of that deck.
Luesto: Personally, I'd probably want to play more remands, and maybe more Izzet Charms. Are spell pierce really that useful main deck? Not sure you need 2 Manamorphose either, since once you fork the Channel colours are something of a non-issue, but not having goldfished the PiF version for a while I can't remember how useful they are.
I usually just lurk, but since I've been finding similar finds to you while testing (The need for looting that INS brought up, and the addition of Reclaim to Noxious Revival that Eco did) I think I'll start posting insights that I get when I play this.
I do have a question though. What is the proper sorcery to instant ratio you want? I've been cutting down on sorceries and focusing on the Flame Jab and Life from the Loam to get most of my spells back, but I feel having normal sorceries (for example Gitaxian Probe that the guy who brought up Spellweaver Volute mentioned) might make the deck better imho.
I quite like Mystical Retrieval however, I've not tested it, but it allows the card + recursion + recursion + random gift piles that you'd want without adding the full Reclaim (I don't know why, but I like Noxious Revival lots more, I'd rather just run it than both.
I'll keep testing and see what comes up.
Mystic Retrieval is one of my favorite cards in the deck. It's recursion potential is unmatched by any other card in the deck.
UGR Ritual Gifts
Legacy Decks
UBRG Storm Decks
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The Storm Boards
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
Does anyone have any advice on this matchup?? For reference my list is posted above.
LegitKarona, don't you find Path to Exile to be a thing prevalent enough that there are little times you want to go for Griselbrand? Almost every deck has an out to it (Path, Cryptic, Lily, Terminate, Karn, Oblivion Stone, Zealous Conscripts) and sometimes you won't be in a situation where you can pay 7 life without risking it (against zoo I bet this plan is pretty bad, since they Path and you aren't likely to be able to pay 7 life by then). Even then, as this is not Storm combo, drawing that many cards might not be enough to win on the spot (say you don't hit PiF, for example, or can't reach the mana to go Gifts --> Combo on the following turn)
Of course you can always opt to go for other Gifts piles, but there will be times when you draw Grisel/Rites and they will sit in your hand blankly. This arises the need for at least one looter in the deck: I guess that Izzet Charm is pretty easy here as it's a very useful card overall and is Merchant Scrollable...
I love the plan for Games 2 and 3, as the opponent isn't likely to keep removal in, but as the format is right now, I think one risks quite a blowout by going with it on Game 1. Still it can steal easy free wins here and there...
Eager to hear what your testing results are!
But then you're not playing lands, making it harder for yourself to go off, and as I see it you're basically 2-for-1'ing yourself, since both snap and clique provide value at ETB. Of course that may be right if the other option is dying to value creature beatdown, but it seems hardly optimal.
Like we've been talking about in the last few pages, you use it with Life from the Loam. Of all people, I am probably the last person you should expect to tell you that it's a good idea to stop hitting your land drops. My favorite card in the history of this game is Dreadship Reef.
On another note, when Vendilion Clique targets you and cycles away something from your hand, how is that a 2-for-1? It's cycling. You draw a card to replace the card lost. That's not card advantage at all; it's parity. If you were all-in on that certain card in hand, then it's a tempo issue where you're suffering from disruption--but you're still sitting on the same number of cards in hand.
Granted, sometimes it's a pain in the neck when you make a play and you need a certain card, and then Vendilion cycles it away--but if you want to be successful in Modern, you have to be able to take Thoughtseizes and Vendilions in stride; your deck has to be redundant enough to press on after being disrupted like that. And sometimes, that means you play with Gifts Ungiven differently--either you hold it back longer, or you stack a pile that doesn't lose to Vendilion cycling something away. This isn't easy, by any means--but it's necessary.
I think I'm going to try out straight RUg next, possibly with a Plasm Capture to act like a mana drain. It makes Firespout better, gives you Channel the Suns and Ancient Grudge, and lets you do the whole Volute/Loam shenanigans (though I think that should be plan B behind just playing a giant Past in Flames).
Also, I remember when I first started building this deck, before even Punishing Fire was banned, my first iterations were more midrangey, with cards like Timely Reinforcements, Mind Spring, and Slagstorm, and the idea was more "trade off some stuff, Past in Flames for value using Gifts to set it up, and eventually win with a giant Empty the Warrens or similar. That may actually be the way to go, since it lets your overall card power be a little greater. It was much worse when you could consistently get a turn-3 Griselbrand, and easily go off with Seething Song to just multi-cast Grapeshot, but the banning made that strategy a lot worse. Thoughts?
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
About going more midrangy, we now have 3 different 3CC sweepers (Firespout, Slagstorm, Anger of the Gods) which makes for inevitable sweeper piles against aggro, but I wouldn't play 3 of them maindeck.
I've thought about adding Vendilion Clique to the main, do you think it's a decent idea? Information on the opponent's hand is pretty useful in a deck full of decisions as this, its mild disruption can serve us well and it's a decent threat although it will likely eat all the removal the opponent has rotting in his hand.
Finally, I've been thinking on Grapeshot vs Empty the Warrens. I wouldn't run Warrens without Burst of Speed, and I wouldn't run Grapeshot without Noxious Revival to bring it to my hand and be able to Remand it, so both wins use up the same space.
Warrens has the upside that a hand with 3 rituals and an Empty the Warrens can steal some games easily, while having the downside of Burst of Speed being pretty much dead in our hand if we draw it. Echoing Truth and Engineered Explosives hoses this win badly too.
Grapeshot has the advantage of being a "cleaner" way of killing (aka less interactive) and Noxious Revival is miles better to draw into than Burst of Speed, as it can be pretty useful pre-combo too if you are in need for a certain card and it happens to sit in your graveyard. Drawing into Grapeshot will almost never allow for an early combo though, as you really need to go all the way through to kill with it.
LK, your last list in your blog used the Warrens kill, why did you change to it from Grapeshot??
Desperate Ritual
Pyretic Ritual
Empty the Warrens
Past in Flames.
With grapeshot, that pile's useless. With Empty, that's quite powerful. Also, for all the purity of the grapeshot kill, it's just harder to set up across the board, is slower most of the time (since you need to build up more resources), and has no safety valve.* It just makes the deck easier to play, and in this deck, that's a relevant quality.
*: When I say safety valve, I mean a way to get value out of it if you misplay. If you storm up a bunch and realize you can't get Grapeshot into your hand anymore, you're practically toast. Likewise if you were relying on drawing the right card off a chain of Manamorphoses and such and don't draw it (sometimes you need to do that to draw a land or spell). In both of those cases, Grapeshot is either dead or just a board wipe with some damage. Empty presents a MASSIVE board presence out of nowhere.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
If I'm choosing between two 2-card-combo setups and thinking about deckspace, Grapeshot+Noxious Revival is not exactly going to count as 2 slots in my book, as contrasted against Empty the Warrens+Burst of Speed. Noxious Revival is always live, not just as a recursion spell but also because it can do things like shaft an opposing Persist trigger or Unburial Rites, or simply time walk an opponent who has nothing in hand (by putting a blank on top of their deck). What does Burst of Speed ever do on its own, as compared to that? Nothing.
I think Warrens is fine, but saying that Grapeshot is blank early--that's just false. Grapeshot can kill things. So honestly, if I was to play Warrens, I'd rather just open another slot and play both Grapeshot and Warrens together--I would never, ever, ever cut Grapeshot.