Introduction
One of the cards that got me the most excited for this game when I first started playing was Blaze. I couldn't help but build a deck with every variant, once I discovered things like Fireball and Volcanic Blast. Well now a few years into the game none of those cards made it into my deck, but the spirit of the cards lives on. This deck is just what the pyromancer in all of us is craving in Modern Magic.
Why Play it?
If you had to shelve your burn deck when you got into competitive magic: this deck might be for you.
If you hate the emphasis on creature combat in Modern design, because you are a pyromancer darn it: this deck is probably for you.
If you love casting spells as they hit your hand without giving it much thought: this deck probably isn't for you.
If you cast all your Blaze cards too soon you can get your opponent down to three life and not draw into another spell for several fatal turns. It's very important to time your Fireballs right, don't fire away until you need to or you know it'll do the job.
Control Drought
Another trouble you can run into is a handful of Blaze with none of the control elements. Not only does that put you in a damage race you probably aren't going to win, but it devides your damage spells between creatures and the player. Slowing you down even further.
Banefire is the Blaze made for this deck. Get X above 5 you say? In a tron deck... well I'll try. Demonfire shares it's cousin's resilience against counter magic, just hold it back for last and crispy fried blue mage. Red Sun's Zenith is a great card to play early since it shuffles back into your library, safe from graveyard removal ready to be played again later in the match. (Zenith 1-3 are Zenith 4-6) Comet Storm can be a bit mathy with X and multikicker 1, but it pays off in power. Both a control piece and a big damager. Bonfire of the Damned shares this trait. It can be a bit dodgey when drawn in the opening hand or before you have enough mana out with the double X cost. Only producing X of 3 with a fullcomplementoflands, but that's three to everything and with just one more Mountain you get a spread shot of 4, potentially better than Comet Storm depending on the number of targets.
Titan's Revenge and Volcanic Geyser might find a way into the deck for recursion and instant speed respectively. The only thing stopping them from being shoe-ins is the RR in their cost. Last thing we want is 9 or 11 potential damage on the board except for the lack of a Mountain.
Sideboard Explained
Silent Arbiter and Ensnaring Bridge I go back and forth on keeping in the main deck. They are great for keeping hordes of creatures at bay, especially because even when playing conservatively our hand empties quick. And since we aren't running creatures there is no down side for us. They survive All is Dust but not Oblivion Stone or Perilous Vault and the threat of every Naturalize and Abrupt Decay makes me feel they are best in the side. But vs black decks or Eldrazi they are really very nice.
Form of the Dragon I'll be honest, it's in this deck mainly because I can play it and turning into a dragon is pretty awesome. But it does offer recurring damage and invulnerability to ground troops. I have won with it and it did feel awesome.
This is a pretty cool idea. How consistently do you get Tron together? It seems like 4 maps is a lot less than most dedicated Tron lists use to get the 3 pieces together in a timely manner. I guess if you can control enough, you can approach it more like U based tron and just get the lands going when you get them.
Is there a special reason for 4 Elixir of Immortality? I can see why you would want to gain some life against aggro, but 4 Elixir in the main just seems like you will be getting way more of them than you want. Perhaps just some Lightning Bolts could be solid to fend off those early creatures.
I get Tron together fairly consistently, I think a lot of tron decks have more searching because they are racing to get Tron out in redundancy so they can cast things like Emrakul, not only that but they need redundancy because they are completely hosed if they lose tron. This deck only needs big manna for one turn if your opponent has any life left after that a couple of smaller burn spells do the trick. Cutting down some Elixir's for bolt might be a good idea. But as you say Elixir is good to recover after shutting down aggro. I've also won games with it by stalemating UW control. Perhaps if I shuffled things around thusly:
I think if you cut some blazes for 4 rakdos signets, you could start blazing for 6 turn 3 if you have the natural tron (outside of using an expedition map).
The real trouble I see with Rakdos Signet and such is I lose them to Oblivion Stone style board wipes. Maybe in a build that relied more on Ensnaring Bridge and other permanent artifact control. I'll have to think on it.
"Fire never dies alone," Blaze
Introduction
One of the cards that got me the most excited for this game when I first started playing was Blaze. I couldn't help but build a deck with every variant, once I discovered things like Fireball and Volcanic Blast. Well now a few years into the game none of those cards made it into my deck, but the spirit of the cards lives on. This deck is just what the pyromancer in all of us is craving in Modern Magic.
Why Play it?
If you had to shelve your burn deck when you got into competitive magic: this deck might be for you.
If you hate the emphasis on creature combat in Modern design, because you are a pyromancer darn it: this deck is probably for you.
If you love casting spells as they hit your hand without giving it much thought: this deck probably isn't for you.
What does it do?
It uses the tron lands to pump up massive blazing fireballs to hurl at your enemies. While colorless sweepers to keep the field clean of creatures.
What's the Biggest Weaknesses?
Mistimed Blaze
If you cast all your Blaze cards too soon you can get your opponent down to three life and not draw into another spell for several fatal turns. It's very important to time your Fireballs right, don't fire away until you need to or you know it'll do the job.
Targeted damage is about all this deck has to it. Witchbane Orb and Leyline of Sanctity are trouble.
I've got more testing to do to know for sure, but quick red decks with artifact removal I imagine to be a problem.
12x Mountain
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Tower
Instant/Sorcery (21)
4x Banefire
4x Demonfire
3x Red Sun's Zenith
3x Comet Storm
3x Bonfire of the Damned
4x All is Dust
4x Elixir of Immortality
4x Expedition Map
4x Spine of Ish Sah
3x Perilous Vault
1x Bonfire of the Damned
4x Silent Arbiter
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Form of the Dragon
2x Oblivion Stone
Blaze Cards
Banefire is the Blaze made for this deck. Get X above 5 you say? In a tron deck... well I'll try.
Demonfire shares it's cousin's resilience against counter magic, just hold it back for last and crispy fried blue mage.
Red Sun's Zenith is a great card to play early since it shuffles back into your library, safe from graveyard removal ready to be played again later in the match. (Zenith 1-3 are Zenith 4-6)
Comet Storm can be a bit mathy with X and multikicker 1, but it pays off in power. Both a control piece and a big damager.
Bonfire of the Damned shares this trait. It can be a bit dodgey when drawn in the opening hand or before you have enough mana out with the double X cost. Only producing X of 3 with a full complement of lands, but that's three to everything and with just one more Mountain you get a spread shot of 4, potentially better than Comet Storm depending on the number of targets.
Rejects
Fireball and Conflagrate just couldn't beat out Comet Storm or Bonfire of the Damned for the multidamage slots.
Blaze and Devil's Play likewise couldn't compete with Banefire, Demonfire, or Red Sun's Zenith. The Flashback on Devil's Play is tempting but it's not unusual to have it removed from the graveyard before we get our third Mountain.
Street Spasm, Magmaquake, and Heat Ray are all out for dealing no damage to the player.
Molten Disaster and Earthquake on the other hand are out for dealing damage to us.
Detonate is to restrictive to play efficiently.
Titan's Revenge and Volcanic Geyser might find a way into the deck for recursion and instant speed respectively. The only thing stopping them from being shoe-ins is the RR in their cost. Last thing we want is 9 or 11 potential damage on the board except for the lack of a Mountain.
Sideboard Explained
Silent Arbiter and Ensnaring Bridge I go back and forth on keeping in the main deck. They are great for keeping hordes of creatures at bay, especially because even when playing conservatively our hand empties quick. And since we aren't running creatures there is no down side for us. They survive All is Dust but not Oblivion Stone or Perilous Vault and the threat of every Naturalize and Abrupt Decay makes me feel they are best in the side. But vs black decks or Eldrazi they are really very nice.
Form of the Dragon I'll be honest, it's in this deck mainly because I can play it and turning into a dragon is pretty awesome. But it does offer recurring damage and invulnerability to ground troops. I have won with it and it did feel awesome.
Blazetron in Action
Vs Thassa
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
Is there a special reason for 4 Elixir of Immortality? I can see why you would want to gain some life against aggro, but 4 Elixir in the main just seems like you will be getting way more of them than you want. Perhaps just some Lightning Bolts could be solid to fend off those early creatures.
12x Mountain
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Tower
Instant/Sorcery (25)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Banefire
4x Demonfire
3x Red Sun's Zenith
3x Comet Storm
3x Bonfire of the Damned
4x All is Dust
2x Elixir of Immortality
4x Expedition Map
2x Oblivion Stone
3x Perilous Vault
3x Spine of Ish Sah
3x Silent Arbiter
4x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Form of the Dragon
2x Elixer of Immortality
I'll play around with this build for a bit and see how it feels.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron