On the subject of copter in the list, I recently tried Sam Black's version. Some of the cards just didn't do it for me but copter was great. I ended up switching out the pias and mentor for goblin rabblemaster and I've liked it a lot. He generates tokens easily, if you have copter it doesn't have to suicide into anything either as you can use all of them to crew so they don't get eaten up before you are ready to swing with them. It also feels like Young Pyro was just a little slow. There were a couple games where I played rabble on 3, killed their creature on 4 and 5 and they were basically dead. If they kill rabble before he spits out a token you can still crew before he dies. I've been surprised at how good copter has been in this deck.
I've also added one butcher of the horde. After making this change I've been 4-1 in 3 consecutive leagues. My loss in each of them was ad nauseum. Not sure about that matchup yet. I'd be interested to try the aristocrat as she default has haste. I havent done a lot of saccing for lifelink, it has almost exclusively been for haste and aristocrat has that already.
While I was looking for cheap creatures for the deck I found Hangarback Walker which seems to fit the deck well as a grindy creature that gets better the longer the game goes and is a good at piloting the Copter or being sac'ed to Butcher.
Another option that works well with the Copter is Blade Splicer.
For Bedlam Reveler you need 20+ instants and sorceries cast them proactively (meaning that removal isn't very good with it) while emptying your hand.
I don't think it fits this deck and I would rather use Asylum Visitor which can also draw cards in the late game in top-deck mode and can be cast early for some attacks and then crew Copter.
I don't have a ton of experience playing hangarback in a mardu shell but I used to play it a lot in Tezzeret builds. You have to remember, walker benefits farm more with Tezz and even then that card is slow as molasses. If you are using it to fuel copter you have to understand it's going to basically be a 2 mana 1/1 or a 4 mana 2/2 for essentially the entire game. That is exceedingly mediocre. Sure, he makes a dude or 2 when he dies but is that good enough? He will be most likely killed immediately which is both a good and bad thing.
It's hard to say how push is going to change things and how many paths are going to be around. Push makes him better as I'm assuming it means less paths and will garauntee he actually dies. Path makes him the worst as you get 0 value.
So to sum up, If you are using him to basically only fuel vehicles you are better off with doomed traveler. He can also be much bigger obviously but he's super, super slow especially with no way to pump him or add counters easily.
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Modern: BG eldrazi midrange BWG Abzan value evolution BUG BUG Midrange
I don't think cutting terminates all together is correct. If push is going to be as big as we all know it will be, it's going to make people play bigger dudes. I think you want that extra catch all removal you can get. Who knows what the meta will actually do though. I don't think you should cut both terminates, cutting 1 seems fine. Or if you do, add crackling doom or something. I suppose both gideon and nahiri will help in removing big dudes as well but they need to be tapped.
If people are playing 5 drops to evade removal, I'm not sure that terminate is the right answer. Terminate is pretty bad against batterskull, Sigarda, host of herons, Reality Smasher, Thragtusk, etc.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
all removal is bad against the things you just listed...
Yes path is king in terms of removal but very relevant things push can't hit and bolt/helix have trouble with are: tasigur, gurmag, world breaker, wurm coil, reality smasher, any of the titans, etc.
Yes it's still bad vs some of those but you still need something. You won't always have path especially if people are cutting to 3. Plus there will be times you can't activate revolt on push. Having a terminate will help vs the 4 drops of the field. I'm not advocating more than 1 terminate but ignoring all these things will cause you to lose games.
all removal is bad against the things you just listed...
Yes path is king in terms of removal but very relevant things push can't hit and bolt/helix have trouble with are: tasigur, gurmag, world breaker, wurm coil, reality smasher, any of the titans, etc.
Yes it's still bad vs some of those but you still need something. You won't always have path especially if people are cutting to 3. Plus there will be times you can't activate revolt on push. Having a terminate will help vs the 4 drops of the field. I'm not advocating more than 1 terminate but ignoring all these things will cause you to lose games.
None of the big dudes are playable except in decks already playing them, so it's not logical to say people will play bigger things to get around Push. The only example I can think of are Abzan builds running 1-2 Tasigur more.
Terminate is much better than Push against Grixis Control and marginally better against Eldrazi. Against other fatty decks, every removal is bad except Path to Exile. My point is Terminate doesn't really have a niche that Path to Exile or Fatal Push has. The most logical solution is to play 4x Path to Exile and some split between Fatal Push/ Lightning Bolt. If you see a lot of Grixis throw in some Terminate but again, it doesn't have much of a niche outside of that. Being 2-mana is going to be more of a liability than anything against most aggro decks.
I don't believe we need fatal push at all, we have so many other options for removal that we can work with (bolt/path/helix/terminate/collective brutality). If anything, I believe we should focus on adding something in the 75 along the lines of crackling doom or blessed alliance. Because of the hype of push + the recent banning, there are 2 things that are possible of happening-
1. An overall appearance of more mid range creatures that are resistant to push/ some other forms of removal from decks like jund,abzan, bant eldrazi(i/e reality smasher, thrun the last troll, Thundermaw hellkite/stormbreath dragon, etched champion, etc.)
2. Boggles could be a thing that comes back and become what death shadow was since nearly all the creatures in that deck have built in protection from spot removal.
What I like about doom/alliance is that it can still interact with tougher creatures that have protection/hexproof/indestructible built in, or even infect (cant save a creature with apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood/spellskite)
I'm sure there are things I missed but I feel we should focus on cards like doom/alliance over push.
I don't believe we need fatal push at all, we have so many other options for removal that we can work with (bolt/path/helix/terminate/collective brutality). If anything, I believe we should focus on adding something in the 75 along the lines of crackling doom or blessed alliance. Because of the hype of push + the recent banning, there are 2 things that are possible of happening-
1. An overall appearance of more mid range creatures that are resistant to push/ some other forms of removal from decks like jund,abzan, bant eldrazi(i/e reality smasher, thrun the last troll, Thundermaw hellkite/stormbreath dragon, etched champion, etc.)
2. Boggles could be a thing that comes back and become what death shadow was since nearly all the creatures in that deck have built in protection from spot removal.
What I like about doom/alliance is that it can still interact with tougher creatures that have protection/hexproof/indestructible built in, or even infect (cant save a creature with apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood/spellskite)
I'm sure there are things I missed but I feel we should focus on cards like doom/alliance over push.
Crackling Doom is a 1-for-1 at 3-mana. Unless you're playing them against specific threats, it's not even worth discussing.
We can talk about all these fringe hypothetical scenarios but if we're being rational and talking about probability of relevant use, it's a pretty no brainer cards like Doom Blade/ Alliance are nowhere near Fatal Push in terms of utility. Except of course unless you're playing Blessed Alliance for a more diverse sideboard. If Boogles become a thing, yes we can consider more sac effects. But you're talking about a deck that doesn't even constitute 1% of the meta.
Doom Blade kills 5-mana threats that we rarely see outside of Reality Smasher. The most relevant high drops in Modern right now are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler and considering it can't even kill those, it's not worth the discussion.
And don't forget all these powerful 4+ drops are limited. Even Grixis Control don't play more than 4 high level creatures. Considering we already run 4 Path to Exile, you kinda have to forgo worst case scenarios.
If your deck is already running 4x Path to Exile, Fatal Push is better than Terminate, full stop. As previously stated in this thread, it hits a very high percentage of the format, even without revolt. If you have path in your deck to handle these 5+ cmc creatures, you will be fine. To need 5 or more spells that kill 5+ cmc creatures in the maindeck is just pure madness if you look at the format at large. Unless Valakut decks and Eldrazi become public enemy #1, you won't have to worry.
I don't believe we need fatal push at all, we have so many other options for removal that we can work with (bolt/path/helix/terminate/collective brutality). If anything, I believe we should focus on adding something in the 75 along the lines of crackling doom or blessed alliance. Because of the hype of push + the recent banning, there are 2 things that are possible of happening-
1. An overall appearance of more mid range creatures that are resistant to push/ some other forms of removal from decks like jund,abzan, bant eldrazi(i/e reality smasher, thrun the last troll, Thundermaw hellkite/stormbreath dragon, etched champion, etc.)
2. Boggles could be a thing that comes back and become what death shadow was since nearly all the creatures in that deck have built in protection from spot removal.
What I like about doom/alliance is that it can still interact with tougher creatures that have protection/hexproof/indestructible built in, or even infect (cant save a creature with apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood/spellskite)
I'm sure there are things I missed but I feel we should focus on cards like doom/alliance over push.
Crackling Doom is a 1-for-1 at 3-mana. Unless you're playing them against specific threats, it's not even worth discussing.
We can talk about all these fringe hypothetical scenarios but if we're being rational and talking about probability of relevant use, it's a pretty no brainer cards like Doom Blade/ Alliance are nowhere near Fatal Push in terms of utility. Except of course unless you're playing Blessed Alliance for a more diverse sideboard. If Boogles become a thing, yes we can consider more sac effects. But you're talking about a deck that doesn't even constitute 1% of the meta.
Doom Blade kills 5-mana threats that we rarely see outside of Reality Smasher. The most relevant high drops in Modern right now are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler and considering it can't even kill those, it's not worth the discussion.
And don't forget all these powerful 4+ drops are limited. Even Grixis Control don't play more than 4 high level creatures. Considering we already run 4 Path to Exile, you kinda have to forgo worst case scenarios.
My bad for not specifying, I was thinking of those cards more for the sideboard than anything else, as for other removal options, there's dreadbore, celestial purge, and go for the throat
As for fatal push, what I meant is that it'll have much more of an impact on a deck like sultai or esper, since they didn't have as many ways to deal with creatures on the board, so this will end up being their bolt/path. Since we already have both bolt and path, we don't need it as much, although I wouldn't be opposed to testing it out as a 1 or even 2 of.
I don't believe we need fatal push at all, we have so many other options for removal that we can work with (bolt/path/helix/terminate/collective brutality). If anything, I believe we should focus on adding something in the 75 along the lines of crackling doom or blessed alliance. Because of the hype of push + the recent banning, there are 2 things that are possible of happening-
1. An overall appearance of more mid range creatures that are resistant to push/ some other forms of removal from decks like jund,abzan, bant eldrazi(i/e reality smasher, thrun the last troll, Thundermaw hellkite/stormbreath dragon, etched champion, etc.)
2. Boggles could be a thing that comes back and become what death shadow was since nearly all the creatures in that deck have built in protection from spot removal.
What I like about doom/alliance is that it can still interact with tougher creatures that have protection/hexproof/indestructible built in, or even infect (cant save a creature with apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood/spellskite)
I'm sure there are things I missed but I feel we should focus on cards like doom/alliance over push.
Crackling Doom is a 1-for-1 at 3-mana. Unless you're playing them against specific threats, it's not even worth discussing.
We can talk about all these fringe hypothetical scenarios but if we're being rational and talking about probability of relevant use, it's a pretty no brainer cards like Doom Blade/ Alliance are nowhere near Fatal Push in terms of utility. Except of course unless you're playing Blessed Alliance for a more diverse sideboard. If Boogles become a thing, yes we can consider more sac effects. But you're talking about a deck that doesn't even constitute 1% of the meta.
Doom Blade kills 5-mana threats that we rarely see outside of Reality Smasher. The most relevant high drops in Modern right now are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler and considering it can't even kill those, it's not worth the discussion.
And don't forget all these powerful 4+ drops are limited. Even Grixis Control don't play more than 4 high level creatures. Considering we already run 4 Path to Exile, you kinda have to forgo worst case scenarios.
My bad for not specifying, I was thinking of those cards more for the sideboard than anything else, as for other removal options, there's dreadbore, celestial purge, and go for the throat
As for fatal push, what I meant is that it'll have much more of an impact on a deck like sultai or esper, since they didn't have as many ways to deal with creatures on the board, so this will end up being their bolt/path. Since we already have both bolt and path, we don't need it as much, although I wouldn't be opposed to testing it out as a 1 or even 2 of.
I also said this card wouldn't break Mardu and that it's much more of a boost to other decks. However, that does not invalidate whether or not a couple copies can be played in the deck.
As I said before, the advantage this card has over Lightning Bolt is that it's a better defensive card. Considering bolt is a removal 90% of the time and not a tool for reach, it's a decent argument to cut some copies of bolt. Of course, the advantage of bolt is that it can not only go to the face but also to planeswalker which makes it less dead against non-interactive matches. The question is whether this is all that substantial considering we have trouble dealing with planeswalkers and non-interactive decks to begin with.
Do you guys see potential in play Hidden Stockpile with Butcher of the Horde?
You can sacrifice a token to Butcher and in the end of your turn you put another token from Stockpile. You can repeat the process in the next turn.
You always will have a token to sacrifice with Butcher.
I think the closest points of comparison are Young Pyromancer and Bitterblossom.
T2 Young Pyromancer can have 1-3 tokens ready when Butcher is ready to attack T4, and he himself can be a sacrifice if needed.
Bitter Blossom will make 2 flying tokens and ping you for 2 life. Hidden stockpile -- if you have the fetches! -- will also make 2 tokens, trading the life ping for no flying and a stricter casting cost (that might end up shocking you, anyways). Both Blossom and Stockpile are difficult to remove.
I think that as long as you're building your deck with enough cheap spells (which Mardu excels at) Young Pyro technically has the highest reward ceiling.
If Stockpile's sacrifice to scry ability were free I'd be *very* interested in it for an Aristocrats build, but as it is I find it "ok". What do you think?
Problem with cards like Butcher and Stockpile is that they require too much setup. Not everything goes according to plan when you play magic. And furthermore, even if things work out perfectly, it's not anymore broken than what the other decks are doing (a.k.a Turn 3 Karn, boardwipe with Oblivion Stone, etc.).
Pyromancer faces a similar problem but moreover it dies too easily and demands too many resources. Our lack of cantrips, card draw, and 'free' counterspells (Force of Will, mental misstep, daze, etc.) for protection prevent it from being good. There is also less removal played in Legacy/ Vintage so there is that. In Modern, Pyromaner is just not that well positioned which is also why Grixis Delver doesn't play it anymore.
I agree about Hidden Stockpile, however Butcher as a 5/4 flyer for 4-mana isn't too bad on it's own.
I don't see what the comparison to "Tron" has to do with anything, it's like you can do anything similar to that deck anyway.
Young Pyromancer might not be great without cantrips and free spells but it can benefit from some cheap discard/removal for some value and play well with something like Smuggler's Copter.
Not sure if it is enough to make him playable, maybe 3-drops like Goblin Rabblemaster/Brimaz, King of Oreskos do better in the token shell (and also Bitterblossom of course).
I agree about Hidden Stockpile, however Butcher as a 5/4 flyer for 4-mana isn't too bad on it's own.
I don't see what the comparison to "Tron" has to do with anything, it's like you can do anything similar to that deck anyway.
Young Pyromancer might not be great without cantrips and free spells but it can benefit from some cheap discard/removal for some value and play well with something like Smuggler's Copter.
Not sure if it is enough to make him playable, maybe 3-drops like Goblin Rabblemaster/Brimaz, King of Oreskos do better in the token shell (and also Bitterblossom of course).
Yeah but "isn't too bad" isn't just good enough in a Modern fair deck. Phyrexian Obliterator is a 5/5 trample with Annihilator for 4 and it still isn't good enough in Modern. Most big beaters die to some kind of removal but to be playable they either need to make some impact as soon as possible (e.g Tarmogoyf) or have ETB effects. Butcher lacks either.
I was making the comparison to Tron because a build with Stockpile/ Butcher / Pyromancer is using a whole lot of setup for relatively low impact rather than a high one. Maybe the comparison is more appropriate with another combo deck.
Having cheap discard/ removals doesn't make Pyromancer great. It just makes it good. Discard spells are often cast before our creatures. Removals are also awkward when you're facing decks like Affinity/ Burn/ Infect that have a far higher chance of killing you if you play a turn 2 threat like Pyromancer. What if you're facing a deck with little to no creatures? All these little flaws add up. Not to mention there are so many answers to what Pyromancer does (e.g engineered explosives, izzet staticaster, zealous persecution etc.) At least a deck like BW Tokens can get around spot removals effectively as each token generator generates 3-4 tokens.
If we're playing threats like Goblin Rabblemaster we have to ask ourselves why we're not playing something like RW weenie. We want threats to be both resilient and offensively impactful. Brimaz meets the criteria somewhat but loses to other midrange decks that play equally-menacing threats for 1-2 mana that's bigger (e.g Tasigur/ Gurmag Angler / Tarmogoyf). Being legendary is just an insult to injury. We can go the Delve route but we just become worse than Grixis.
One midrange strategy off the top of my head is to run some defensive creatures to protect big fatties. For instance, Burrenton Forge Tender / Spellskite to protect Pyromancer/ Brimaz/ Mirran Crusader. Mirran Crusader in particular seems exceptional against all the midrange strategies right now, as well as Infect. Forge Tender is good against Burn and offers protection against Pyroclasm/ Anger of the Gods. Maybe combine this strategy with Honor of the Pure so it's not downright embarrassing on its own.
I decided to make the plunge into modern mardu after seeing this deck do well on mtgo: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-wbr-32657#online. I wanted to upgrade it so I switched the Butcher of the Horde with Kalitas and abbot with liliana of the veil. I also wanted to add push to the deck, so I came up with this:
I added bloodmoon to the sideboard because of all of the tron and big mana decks expecting to do well after the bans and I adjusted the sideboard to be similar to Jund decks that run bloodmoon (except they usually run 10 fetchlands, but I thought the shambling vents were too important with having bob and bitterblossom in the same deck).
I took a list similar to this except with 2 terminates and 1 grim lavamancer in place of the fatal pushes. I ended up going 2-1-1 in an event with little over 20 people. I drew with faeries round 1, which was an interesting match because of the bitterblossoms. I won round 2 against sun and moon pretty easily and won round 3 against Jund by playing a turn two bitterblossom both games. Round 4 I was paired up against U/R delver. I landed a turn two dragon's claw which kept my life total high until he landed two bedlam revelers late in the game and I couldn't find removal for them. All in all, I would attribute all of my wins to landing an early bitterblossom and outvaluing my opponent with that. Kalitas showed up once to keep me alive against U/B faeries by keeping me alive long enough to surive the final five turns.
I am open to any criticism on the deck. I don't play nahiri because I like dark confidant and I like the tokens strategy. I don't play young pyromancer because I don't think its good outside of a deck with cantrips.
I've also added one butcher of the horde. After making this change I've been 4-1 in 3 consecutive leagues. My loss in each of them was ad nauseum. Not sure about that matchup yet. I'd be interested to try the aristocrat as she default has haste. I havent done a lot of saccing for lifelink, it has almost exclusively been for haste and aristocrat has that already.
While I was looking for cheap creatures for the deck I found Hangarback Walker which seems to fit the deck well as a grindy creature that gets better the longer the game goes and is a good at piloting the Copter or being sac'ed to Butcher.
Another option that works well with the Copter is Blade Splicer.
I don't think it fits this deck and I would rather use Asylum Visitor which can also draw cards in the late game in top-deck mode and can be cast early for some attacks and then crew Copter.
Gideon is good.
Wall of Omens is good but a "nonbo" with Copter.
It's hard to say how push is going to change things and how many paths are going to be around. Push makes him better as I'm assuming it means less paths and will garauntee he actually dies. Path makes him the worst as you get 0 value.
So to sum up, If you are using him to basically only fuel vehicles you are better off with doomed traveler. He can also be much bigger obviously but he's super, super slow especially with no way to pump him or add counters easily.
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
If people are playing 5 drops to evade removal, I'm not sure that terminate is the right answer. Terminate is pretty bad against batterskull, Sigarda, host of herons, Reality Smasher, Thragtusk, etc.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Yes path is king in terms of removal but very relevant things push can't hit and bolt/helix have trouble with are: tasigur, gurmag, world breaker, wurm coil, reality smasher, any of the titans, etc.
Yes it's still bad vs some of those but you still need something. You won't always have path especially if people are cutting to 3. Plus there will be times you can't activate revolt on push. Having a terminate will help vs the 4 drops of the field. I'm not advocating more than 1 terminate but ignoring all these things will cause you to lose games.
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
None of the big dudes are playable except in decks already playing them, so it's not logical to say people will play bigger things to get around Push. The only example I can think of are Abzan builds running 1-2 Tasigur more.
Terminate is much better than Push against Grixis Control and marginally better against Eldrazi. Against other fatty decks, every removal is bad except Path to Exile. My point is Terminate doesn't really have a niche that Path to Exile or Fatal Push has. The most logical solution is to play 4x Path to Exile and some split between Fatal Push/ Lightning Bolt. If you see a lot of Grixis throw in some Terminate but again, it doesn't have much of a niche outside of that. Being 2-mana is going to be more of a liability than anything against most aggro decks.
1. An overall appearance of more mid range creatures that are resistant to push/ some other forms of removal from decks like jund,abzan, bant eldrazi(i/e reality smasher, thrun the last troll, Thundermaw hellkite/stormbreath dragon, etched champion, etc.)
2. Boggles could be a thing that comes back and become what death shadow was since nearly all the creatures in that deck have built in protection from spot removal.
What I like about doom/alliance is that it can still interact with tougher creatures that have protection/hexproof/indestructible built in, or even infect (cant save a creature with apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood/spellskite)
I'm sure there are things I missed but I feel we should focus on cards like doom/alliance over push.
Crackling Doom is a 1-for-1 at 3-mana. Unless you're playing them against specific threats, it's not even worth discussing.
We can talk about all these fringe hypothetical scenarios but if we're being rational and talking about probability of relevant use, it's a pretty no brainer cards like Doom Blade/ Alliance are nowhere near Fatal Push in terms of utility. Except of course unless you're playing Blessed Alliance for a more diverse sideboard. If Boogles become a thing, yes we can consider more sac effects. But you're talking about a deck that doesn't even constitute 1% of the meta.
Doom Blade kills 5-mana threats that we rarely see outside of Reality Smasher. The most relevant high drops in Modern right now are Tasigur and Gurmag Angler and considering it can't even kill those, it's not worth the discussion.
And don't forget all these powerful 4+ drops are limited. Even Grixis Control don't play more than 4 high level creatures. Considering we already run 4 Path to Exile, you kinda have to forgo worst case scenarios.
My bad for not specifying, I was thinking of those cards more for the sideboard than anything else, as for other removal options, there's dreadbore, celestial purge, and go for the throat
As for fatal push, what I meant is that it'll have much more of an impact on a deck like sultai or esper, since they didn't have as many ways to deal with creatures on the board, so this will end up being their bolt/path. Since we already have both bolt and path, we don't need it as much, although I wouldn't be opposed to testing it out as a 1 or even 2 of.
I also said this card wouldn't break Mardu and that it's much more of a boost to other decks. However, that does not invalidate whether or not a couple copies can be played in the deck.
As I said before, the advantage this card has over Lightning Bolt is that it's a better defensive card. Considering bolt is a removal 90% of the time and not a tool for reach, it's a decent argument to cut some copies of bolt. Of course, the advantage of bolt is that it can not only go to the face but also to planeswalker which makes it less dead against non-interactive matches. The question is whether this is all that substantial considering we have trouble dealing with planeswalkers and non-interactive decks to begin with.
You can sacrifice a token to Butcher and in the end of your turn you put another token from Stockpile. You can repeat the process in the next turn.
You always will have a token to sacrifice with Butcher.
T2 Young Pyromancer can have 1-3 tokens ready when Butcher is ready to attack T4, and he himself can be a sacrifice if needed.
Bitter Blossom will make 2 flying tokens and ping you for 2 life. Hidden stockpile -- if you have the fetches! -- will also make 2 tokens, trading the life ping for no flying and a stricter casting cost (that might end up shocking you, anyways). Both Blossom and Stockpile are difficult to remove.
I think that as long as you're building your deck with enough cheap spells (which Mardu excels at) Young Pyro technically has the highest reward ceiling.
If Stockpile's sacrifice to scry ability were free I'd be *very* interested in it for an Aristocrats build, but as it is I find it "ok". What do you think?
First you grab some tissues. Second you play game 1, then proceed to cry and use said tissues. Third you play game 2 and cry more. There is no game 3.
Pyromancer faces a similar problem but moreover it dies too easily and demands too many resources. Our lack of cantrips, card draw, and 'free' counterspells (Force of Will, mental misstep, daze, etc.) for protection prevent it from being good. There is also less removal played in Legacy/ Vintage so there is that. In Modern, Pyromaner is just not that well positioned which is also why Grixis Delver doesn't play it anymore.
I don't see what the comparison to "Tron" has to do with anything, it's like you can do anything similar to that deck anyway.
Young Pyromancer might not be great without cantrips and free spells but it can benefit from some cheap discard/removal for some value and play well with something like Smuggler's Copter.
Not sure if it is enough to make him playable, maybe 3-drops like Goblin Rabblemaster/Brimaz, King of Oreskos do better in the token shell (and also Bitterblossom of course).
Against "Tron" discard might do some work to slow them down, from the SB: Stony Silence, Pithing Needle and Molten Rain, Dreadbore can help.
Yeah but "isn't too bad" isn't just good enough in a Modern fair deck. Phyrexian Obliterator is a 5/5 trample with Annihilator for 4 and it still isn't good enough in Modern. Most big beaters die to some kind of removal but to be playable they either need to make some impact as soon as possible (e.g Tarmogoyf) or have ETB effects. Butcher lacks either.
I was making the comparison to Tron because a build with Stockpile/ Butcher / Pyromancer is using a whole lot of setup for relatively low impact rather than a high one. Maybe the comparison is more appropriate with another combo deck.
Having cheap discard/ removals doesn't make Pyromancer great. It just makes it good. Discard spells are often cast before our creatures. Removals are also awkward when you're facing decks like Affinity/ Burn/ Infect that have a far higher chance of killing you if you play a turn 2 threat like Pyromancer. What if you're facing a deck with little to no creatures? All these little flaws add up. Not to mention there are so many answers to what Pyromancer does (e.g engineered explosives, izzet staticaster, zealous persecution etc.) At least a deck like BW Tokens can get around spot removals effectively as each token generator generates 3-4 tokens.
If we're playing threats like Goblin Rabblemaster we have to ask ourselves why we're not playing something like RW weenie. We want threats to be both resilient and offensively impactful. Brimaz meets the criteria somewhat but loses to other midrange decks that play equally-menacing threats for 1-2 mana that's bigger (e.g Tasigur/ Gurmag Angler / Tarmogoyf). Being legendary is just an insult to injury. We can go the Delve route but we just become worse than Grixis.
One midrange strategy off the top of my head is to run some defensive creatures to protect big fatties. For instance, Burrenton Forge Tender / Spellskite to protect Pyromancer/ Brimaz/ Mirran Crusader. Mirran Crusader in particular seems exceptional against all the midrange strategies right now, as well as Infect. Forge Tender is good against Burn and offers protection against Pyroclasm/ Anger of the Gods. Maybe combine this strategy with Honor of the Pure so it's not downright embarrassing on its own.
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Helix
4 Lingering Souls
1 Kolaghan's Command
3 Bitterblossom
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Shambling Vent
4 Swamp
3 Blood Moon
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Disenchant
3 Dragon's Claw
I added bloodmoon to the sideboard because of all of the tron and big mana decks expecting to do well after the bans and I adjusted the sideboard to be similar to Jund decks that run bloodmoon (except they usually run 10 fetchlands, but I thought the shambling vents were too important with having bob and bitterblossom in the same deck).
I took a list similar to this except with 2 terminates and 1 grim lavamancer in place of the fatal pushes. I ended up going 2-1-1 in an event with little over 20 people. I drew with faeries round 1, which was an interesting match because of the bitterblossoms. I won round 2 against sun and moon pretty easily and won round 3 against Jund by playing a turn two bitterblossom both games. Round 4 I was paired up against U/R delver. I landed a turn two dragon's claw which kept my life total high until he landed two bedlam revelers late in the game and I couldn't find removal for them. All in all, I would attribute all of my wins to landing an early bitterblossom and outvaluing my opponent with that. Kalitas showed up once to keep me alive against U/B faeries by keeping me alive long enough to surive the final five turns.
I am open to any criticism on the deck. I don't play nahiri because I like dark confidant and I like the tokens strategy. I don't play young pyromancer because I don't think its good outside of a deck with cantrips.
Modern:
BRBightning RackBR
RGoblinsR
WBDeath and TaxesWB
Legacy:
BPoxB