MTG Salvation

Gifts is bad without Song. With Song, once you cast Gifts you end up with 15 mana from Song + IV flashback. If you only have the two Rituals to work with, not only does that get in the way of Gifts' "different names" requirement, you also end up with less mana.

With regards to wincon, you'll need at least two (with different names) maindeck. Grapeshot alone isn't going to cut it. This deck at GP Turin played Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens, with Noxious Revival and Remand to complement them. I played Epic Experiment + Grapeshot, which probably still works, but without Song, you Experiment for much less, increasing your fizzle rate.

@SPC: What does your standard Gifts package look like?

the list seems good, but after a couple of games... idk... ill give it another try

Quote from MachuChang

@SPC: What does your standard Gifts package look like?

The most common one is Desperate Ritual Pyretic Ritual Manamorphose and Past of Flames. Most opponents dont know what to give me here. Most of them recently have been giving me the 2 mana-generating rituals, thinking that it reduces the amount i can draw and thus making me more likely to fizzle, but all it does is give me excess amounts of mana so i can afford to flashback gifts with ease. Once that happens, i gifts for the rituals and the singleton Grapeshot for the win.

This does change from time to time though. If i have an ascension in play that isnt active, ill gifts for the cards i have in hand with emphasis on rituals first. That guarantees that no matter what they give me i can dump my hand and get it active and hopefully kill them quickly.

Sometimes, but rarely, ill gifts for enablers only, finding goblin ascension and some mana, but usually only when i already have an enabler in hand and know my opponent wont give me either of them

There are also a bunch of piles to grab when trying to play through disruption, but as of yet i dont have any one go to anti-hate package.

How viable is this deck without the fetches? Currently I only have Arid Mesa for the Steam Vents, can we put Gemstone Mine instead?

SPC, if you're really serious about running Gifts, you should try experimenting with a single Noxious Revival in your deck. If you gifts on EOT you can basically ensure you get one of the things you want in addition to the other card the enemy gives you. Revival can also be used in conjunction with the million cantrips we have to pull something out of the yard if we need it.

Quote from Nic-V

As I saw izzetmage suggest in another post, the newly revealed Young Pyromancer seems like a sweet addition to a Storm deck based around Empty The Warrens. Playing the Young Pyromancer in such a list would allow us to power out a lot of guys quickly, and we get quite a few tokens even if we fizzle and never find ETW. Also, it would turn Infernal Plunge into Dark Ritual. Might be something to consider.

You also start looking at things like Battle Hymn and Burn at the Stake.

Quote from ken210

How viable is this deck without the fetches? Currently I only have Arid Mesa for the Steam Vents, can we put Gemstone Mine instead?

It's workable. It just changes the amount of certain lands that you would play.

Quote from Nic-V

I am suprised there's so little interest in the discussion of this archetype. I continue to play it on MTGO, and it is by no means a bad deck. My list is pretty close to Finkel's, except for the Cascade Bluffs and two Epic Experiments.

I suppose that's because there's almost no room for changes (if any). That build is pretty tight and solid and most people won't dare to change Finkel's design.

Quote from lucashungaro

I suppose that's because there's almost no room for changes (if any). That build is pretty tight and solid and most people won't dare to change Finkel's design.

Theres room for changes, the only reason people dont bother though is because Finkel's build is the only one thats had any success on a real stage, and thus will be the default stock-list for some time.

Hi guys, I've been interested in building this deck for awhile and have it almost finished, but I wanted to ask a question; forgive me if it seems a bit silly, as I haven't had a chance to pilot the deck to date.

But with the new legend rules change, would Koth of the Hammer be a viable choice in this deck? His -2 ability would be able to net a sizeable amount of mana, and we could then play another Koth, saccing the old one, and net us more mana again... It seems a bit situational I suppose, but I was just interested in whether it warranted any kind of discussion.

Nope. You typically never have more than 4 lands when you combo off. Koth doesn't gives you back more mana than it costs to cast him. Not to mention, some of those lands may be Islands or Shivan Reefs.

If you're looking for mana storage (something like T3 Koth, T4 -2 and combo off), we already have Goblin Electromancer filling that role.

Quote from izzetmage

Nope. You typically never have more than 4 lands when you combo off. Koth doesn't gives you back more mana than it costs to cast him. Not to mention, some of those lands may be Islands or Shivan Reefs.

If you're looking for mana storage (something like T3 Koth, T4 -2 and combo off), we already have Goblin Electromancer filling that role.

Ok, thanks for explaining. Indeed, I was thinking that the lack of Mountains would be problematic.

Young Pyromancer I like a lot, it has great synergy with Infernal Plunge and Battle Hymn, I think it fits a more Empty The Warrens build as well, with a few grapeshots

I have been grinding this on MTGO and yeah its quite better than I hoped, although having to cast a Gitaxian Probe and fork it twice to net 10 copies because of 2 active Ascensions because you need to find a Manamorphose to not fizzle is quite frustrating (found the morphose though)

How does this deck do vs UWR? There is a lot of it in my meta.

Quote from Trappleye98

How does this deck do vs UWR? There is a lot of it in my meta.

If its alot of your meta, i suggest you either find another deck to play or test the matchup heavily, cause it is rough.

Normally against decks with countermagic we can win simply by playing draw go, hitting our land drops until we have the capability to play through their counters. Against UWR however, we dont have time for that. Once they get geist in play, we have all of 3 turns to build a hand that can play through potentially 2 Mana Leaks at once.

The best way to beat UWR is to use Gitaxian Probe to help you resolve Pyromancer Ascension, then try and get it active as fast as possible

Hey guys, I have been doing a decent amount of testing with Finkel's deck as well as with a Young Pyromancer build. The Young Pyromancer build I tested runs the 4 Pyromancers along with 4 Electromancers, meaning that I had to cut the Ascensions because my instant and sorcery count was dipping too low. The deck had some explosive potential, but overall I found that it is not as consistent as the Ascension version and I found myself often making 5 or 6 guys and running out of gas, only to get destroyed by a board wipe or an opposing combo. I definitely want to make this deck work, but I think the Ascension route is still more consistent.

EDIT: Been doing some testing with this list and seeing a decent number of turn 4 and turn 5 wins, as long as I'm able to find an Ascension in a reasonable amount of time.



Obviously the manabase could be better, but I'm sort of working to build that up as I go. The list is sort of a mix of Gerry T's and Finkel's lists, with my own changes thrown in. I'm pretty sure we want 4 Grapeshots since there are often times when I'm at a storm count of around 9 or 10 and have to use 2 Grapeshots to go lethal. Also the 4 Lightning Bolts can be useful to finish the job if you can't Grapeshot for enough, can outright kill a player in multiples with an active Ascension, and help keep opposing creatures at bay to buy you extra time. Anyone have any improvement suggestions?

All the old lists played 3/4 Grapeshot and 0 Warrens main without any problems.

You should play Warrens now, but for a different reason. After Song got banned, it's much harder to keep the chain going. In the past it was easy to hit 6 mana, cast Past in Flames and continue comboing and building storm count. Now the best non-conditional ritual you have is a +1, which makes it much harder to get to 6. If you don't make it to 6, you're stuck. Casting Past at 5 leaves you with 1, and Pyretic/Desperate Ritual costs 2 (assuming no Electromancer).

In such a situation, you'd want a 4-5 mana finisher like Warrens or Ignite Memories instead of Past.

Quote from izzetmage

All the old lists played 3/4 Grapeshot and 0 Warrens main without any problems.

You should play Warrens now, but for a different reason. After Song got banned, it's much harder to keep the chain going. In the past it was easy to hit 6 mana, cast Past in Flames and continue comboing and building storm count. Now the best non-conditional ritual you have is a +1, which makes it much harder to get to 6. If you don't make it to 6, you're stuck. Casting Past at 5 leaves you with 1, and Pyretic/Desperate Ritual costs 2 (assuming no Electromancer).

In such a situation, you'd want a 4-5 mana finisher like Warrens or Ignite Memories instead of Past.

My build runs 4 Grapeshot, 0 EtW. I switched out Electromancer for Bolts to help against creature decks and serve as an alternate win. For the most part I only combo off once I get Ascension out. The hardest thing seems to be digging for Ascension. Once you have it online, a single ritual gives you 6 mana, which is enough to cast Past in Flames and flashback the ritual, which basically means you win at that point. Electromancer was nice in some games, but I always felt like Ascension is the key to winning consistently. If I get going with Ascension down, I almost never fail to finish the job.

All the current builds are kind of awkward. Ascension is still OK, I guess (Finkel Top 16ed GP Portland with it), but losing Song really hurts the EE version, because you can't Experiment for as much.

Bushwhacker does not synergize with Experiment or Ascension, so it's mostly relegated to the SB.

Do not do a straight-up swap of Grapeshot for Warrens. You need to understand that the issue is getting constrained on mana. In my example scenario, I mentioned that you'd rather have a Warrens in hand than a Past. So, cut Past. Experiments you can keep; flipping Warrens with Experiment is not earth-shattering, but at least it beats flipping Past with no way to continue.

My advice is to wait for M14 and play a creature-based build with Young Pyromancer. There are two advantages to this:
1) Ability to use Infernal Plunge
2) Ability to maindeck 4 Goblin Bushwhacker

This list goldfishes decently, but it is vulnerable to quite a few maindeck cards. Removal on Young Pyromancer is most likely GG, and if you don't kick Bushwhacker you might lose to Pyroclasm/Firespout.