I knew that pic would be used! You're welcome!! It's my new background too. I took that photograph of a foil card that I have. I've tried to foil out this deck as much as possible.. (but of course no foil dual lands/geists/reckoners)
We can discuss the elemental and blistercoil though again, with the particular ingredients that I am running (thank you Travis Woo), I don't see any room for them in this deck.
I must admit that I do like the looks of the 'budget' version and I respect the versions using cypher spells etc. I've seen the other versions that you guys have posted and tried out but I'm interested to know how those versions fared at FNM.
Obviously, if we start to talk about 'casual' versions of this deck then all sorts of ideas will start to fly but personally I'm looking to keep the deck as competitive as possible and it seems to be pretty maxed out as it is. Though by no means am I trying to hijack this thread and turn the discussion to 'competitive ideas only' sort of thing. I've just decided that I'm personally gonna ride the Travis Woo train and play at FNM with this deck a bit and share my experiences with it before rotation.
The increased creature count gives me more resiliency than I had before and the Dryad is actually quite the beater. Having both Dryad & Nivmagus allows you to play through removal early on a bit until you can get 3/4 lands together to keep your creatures alive. Pyromancer + Dryad gives me plenty of early options that can become big problems into the mid-game and that's a great quality for a 2CMC creature to have.
Quicken + Hidden Strings is the deck's go-to combo at the moment, both during my opponents upkeep on their lands or EOT on blockers or my own lands. The effects of each allow me to chain into other spells to make my guys really big or get a lot of tokens with Pyromancer. Quicken also works with Armed for an instant-kill, very fun stuff.
I'm conisdering trying Flesh//Blood out only for the fling-like effect of Blood. I've used Fling in this deck before but not losing the creature sounds much, much better. Also, I'm trying to find often good green instant combat cards aside from Giant Growth that would be more effective so if anyone knows any good ones that I'm missing, please let me know!
Missed my last local standard FNM and last tourney I got to play was modern. My job either has me out of town or working Fri/Sat nights more often than not so haven't been able to do more than playtest standard. I have the deck on Magic Online now though so I'll report back with my results as time permits.
With only 7 flashback spells, you might consider ditching Thoughscour for something else. Unless you thoughtscour your opponent and get the cantrip of course.. But with 12 total possible looting effects, that additional cantrip isn't really 'missed' when it's gone. But if you feel strongly about it, then keep them and side them out if necessary. I'm definitely interested in your results!
This Izzet guild member would like to report a somewhat dismal, though promising, twentieth place finish out of a twenty-eight man duel attendance. One should be reminded that I finished 2nd out of 10 just last weekend also.
Duel One.
I was able to defeat my opponent 2-0 as the legendary Geist of Saint Traft came to my call as soon as possible and appreciated a handed off Boros Charm which he gave to his angel backup. Guttersnipes showed up in numbers this time and I applaud their passion for their work. They constantly redirected my spell usage and rather quickly disabled my opponent twice in a row. I even came to their protection by dispelling a spell attack from my opponent directed at them. Our opponent may have been a past Izzet member as he beat us down with repeated Helixes, a Restoration Angel, souls that constantly lingered and some minimal counter effects.
Duel Two.
I battled against a green/black/white mana using opponent. Again, Geist of St.Traft showed himself immediately but was quickly subdued by the many souls that kept lingering. And then this terribly scavenging sort of ooze would appear all over my spell pages making them unable to use a second time. But quickly looting through my tome brought me a pillar of flame against the ooze. Though this only happened once. My opponent performed a Tribute of Hunger on our ally, Geist of St.Traft. I must admit somewhat of an error here as I should have known our opponent had many ways to remove our threats. I should have held back until I could find my Dispel for backup though it may not have been enough. I was unable to reliably summon further threats in time and was beaten down. The second chance against the same opponent only presented itself with a flood of mana also delaying things enough that my opponent beat me down again. 0-2
Duel Three.
Things were not much better as a Selenysian member opposed us and had unfair amounts of help from none other than those damned dryad militants who, again, like the strange ooze that I already described, also demanded that no spell be cast twice. While I frantically searched my tome for pillars of flame to bring down upon them, I was quickly overcome by conclave centaurs. One of those militants was also ‘unflinchingly’ courageous and was able to heal our opponent as we dueled giving another unfair advantage over this reporting guild member. Twice they beat me in a row. Me 0-2
Duel Four.
A somewhat new duelist tried wielding black, white and some blue mana against me. He also had help from Jace “Memory Adept” Or shall I say, I had the help from Jace on his side! He carelessly shredded my spell book in front of me and threw it in my face. I simply focused on three artful dodges charging the Cyclops to 10 power. A guttersnipe was also in the field inflicting 6 more and both attacked for a total of 18. This opponent was defeated twice in a row. Me 2-0
Duel Five.
Now with a record of 2-2, I faced my last opponent of the same standing. He made short work of me with the help of his cohort, Sire of Insanity twice in a row. Some dryad militants were around also making matters worse. I couldn’t mount much against him and was beat twice. Me 0-2
Finishing record of 2-3.
Many opponents were somewhat confused and confounded at my Izzet Blitz approach and were unsure what to use the second time against me. So our experiment is working in that regard however, formidable threats are still out there and still seem un-phased with our tests. It might do me a service to learn some Ray of Revelation spells as a backup against this so called ‘unflinching courage’ that many creatures are learning.
This guild member is still convinced that our experiment continues to show ingenuity, flexibility, shock and surprise and as a result, continues to be promising. I have, in fact, been more successful with this same approach in the past and I was close to defeating my opponent by either one turn or maybe just one certain card needed. Those reasons for defeat can be the same in many different approaches and our opponents also face the same.
So I've just started playing with this deck, and gotta say i'm loving how fun it is. Has anyone suggested Possibility Storm? I think it's a pretty awesome curve topper. Basically all we're trying to do is pump cyclops or snipe with spells, so PS is just giving us double triggers. Anything graveyard cast won't trigger PS, so we can still get off those loots and dodges when we really need them, and it screws our opponents' stabilization strategies 100% of the time.
This Izzet guild member would like to report 9th-12th place finish out of 19 duelists in attendance at the Game Day Grand Duel hosted by the Azorious of the 10th District and held at the Grand Coliseum.
I was 1 TURN away from 8th Place
I was 1 TURN and 1 DISPEL away from 4-7th
Duel One.
The first duel was against a duelst ‘of the woods’ and he brought all of his elven friends along. Who I might add were all packing ‘extra power’ quickly summoning a magnificient Craterhoof Behemoth against me. Although I was able to beat this opponent once, he in turn, beat me twice. Mono-green. Me 1-2
Duel Two.
Paired downwards, I battled a newcomer duelist. Though I applaud his appearance, his unsleeved spell book pages numbered well over the normal 60 pages seen in duels of this sort and of course he simply couldn’t get much arranged. Though my Guttersnipes did him in the first time, the second game showcased the perfect hand of spells. The Nivix Cyclops was quickly rev’d up to 10 and he took in a Boros Charm for double strike. This was absolute perfection of this experiment. Me 2-0
Duel Three.
Paired upwards in the arena now, I was set to duel against a good friend of mine from the Azorious Guild. He played a complete counterspell deck with the aid of Restoration Angels who mounted some surprise blocks on me. Geist of St Traft was able to bring me to victory but only once against this opponent. Multiple Supreme Verdicts from him kept the battlefield empty. I never had a Boros Charm to defend against the verdicts. On our last duel, however, he was only 1 turn away from being defeated. Me 1-2 very close.
Duel Four.
Back to the paired-down arena, I again battled a somewhat new duelist who had the aid of multiple Blood Artists and Vampire Nighthawks. Neither of these mattered though as Guttersnipes and a multitude of artful dodges, pillars of flame, boros charms and faithless looting beat him down. The Cyclops helped with a final 12 damage in game two. Me 2-0
Duel Five. The One That Mattered.
At this point in the competition I am now straight up the middle. I needed badly to win this final duel but alas, it was against a blue/white counter-everything-and-everthing-else-until-Entreating the angels deck. The first game he countered, charmed and unsummoned everything including a 20 damage cyclops. I then faced 6 angels for 24 damage. The second game I very very carefully chipped away at him with numerous faithless lootings into boros charms and searing spears. I was able to do the final 4 damage to him with Geist of StTraft and the use of 2 backup counters; Faiths Shield giving the angel pro blue from an Unsummon and a Dispel to handle a Snapcasted Negate against my Faiths Shield. But then time was up and this game was a 1-1-1 Draw. [/FONT]
[FONT="Arial"]So, in short I finished right up the middle. I was told that if I won my last game instead of drawing, I would have had 8th place but that control deck really grinded things out. I was also just 1 card or 1 turn away from a much better standing as well (in the other matches). Again, this experiment shows promise but I have only been getting 'half-way there' which must be improved! I think I'll move to 4 Dispel instead of 3. I actually had a hard time getting them to my hand even with tons of looting. [/FONT]
Would Silence be of any help to this deck? If used at the beg of turn 4, it forces the opponent to kill your threat, regardless if u were going to go off or not. It also still pumps Cyclops to go off if you need to.... Thoughts?
I'm liking wild guess a lot as a replacement for thought scour. With 12 flashbacks (I'm loving feeling of dread), it generally has a safe discard outlet and nets you a card.
WILD GUESS VS THOUGHT SCOUR
RR: 1 choice disc. for 2 draw U: 2 random disc. for 1 draw
Opinion choice i suppose, depends on the mana curve. I think i have room for it at the 2 spot instead of the 1.
I'm liking wild guess a lot as a replacement for thought scour. With 12 flashbacks (I'm loving feeling of dread), it generally has a safe discard outlet and nets you a card.
WILD GUESS VS THOUGHT SCOUR
RR: 1 choice disc. for 2 draw U: 2 random disc. for 1 draw
Opinion choice i suppose, depends on the mana curve. I think i have room for it at the 2 spot instead of the 1.
Thought scour is an instant, costs one, and you can mill 2 on your opponent.
After some more playtesting I'd like to say that Flesh//Blood really belongs in this deck if anyone is playing green. It's very powerful with Quirion Dryad, Nivmagus Elemental, and Nivix Cyclops in particular.
I'm considering trying out Simic charm, not sure if anyone else out there is using it. Seems pretty useful, I think I'll cut my Giant Growth's for them.
EDIT: Did some playtesting this morning, on T3 I played a Nivix Cyclops, on T4 I used Simic Charm to give him +6/3 making him power 7, then cast Blood and I found that I did 10 damage to the player and not 7. I don't know why but I didn't anticipate that. This allowed me to kill them on the spot as they durdled a bit on T3.
Would Silence be of any help to this deck? If used at the beg of turn 4, it forces the opponent to kill your threat, regardless if u were going to go off or not. It also still pumps Cyclops to go off if you need to.... Thoughts?
I'd agree with this, silence is really strong. Although I would probably just SB it and throw it in main against stuff like celestial flare and Fog which can really hurt if you cast a bunch going down to 1-2 cards in hand then getting your planned disrupted.
How's everyone's results of late. Mtgo or fnm? I've been consistent with my list. Wins come fast. Ill post my list later today. I've found I've put more active use in hands of binding and hidden strings then any other aspect of the deck. Rarely do I win of a cyclops. It's the fast turn four clock off a blistercoil weird with cypher triggers. Hitting double cypher triggers with a guttersnipe in play is the tits. Play spell, play spell,hit and untap lands for your next play. Having the weird untap after attracts is icing. I've also move my burns spells into my side and gone with unsummons in the main. Tempo boost for sure. Also young pyromancer a in the main is just weak. I bring three in from my sideboard and extra burn for a faster clock against aggro or slower post decks and the like. Either way, just like to say this is the funniest deck I've played in three years. So many combat and combo tricks make it very fun and enjoyable. A nice break from play creature and remove opposing creature. Ill post my decklist tonight. But let's get some more activity on this sub forum. Lets make this their 1!!!
How's everyone's results of late. Mtgo or fnm? I've been consistent with my list. Wins come fast. Ill post my list later today. I've found I've put more active use in hands of binding and hidden strings then any other aspect of the deck. Rarely do I win of a cyclops. It's the fast turn four clock off a blistercoil weird with cypher triggers. Hitting double cypher triggers with a guttersnipe in play is the tits. Play spell, play spell,hit and untap lands for your next play. Having the weird untap after attracts is icing. I've also move my burns spells into my side and gone with unsummons in the main. Tempo boost for sure. Also young pyromancer a in the main is just weak. I bring three in from my sideboard and extra burn for a faster clock against aggro or slower post decks and the like. Either way, just like to say this is the funniest deck I've played in three years. So many combat and combo tricks make it very fun and enjoyable. A nice break from play creature and remove opposing creature. Ill post my decklist tonight. But let's get some more activity on this sub forum. Lets make this their 1!!!
Yeah the deck is so fun to play, opponents hate to watch you combo off on MTGO though which is the one downside. Other than that it's just so fun to play in standard right now. Everyone says combo is dead in standard but we know better!
This thing is really close to what I had a few months ago, just a few observations from someone who has played this quite a lot:
- Blistercoil's clock is nice but Nivmagus is much faster. Yes you exile spells but much of the time these are going to be cipher effects our cheap cantrips such as Quicken. The 'combat surprise' factor with Nivmagus is key here and can get you some easy finishes.
- Card advantage is key. If your creature dies when you are casting Hidden Strings, Unsummon isn't really helping you. Mizzium Skin I think is a better card in your deck although Unsummon does have a place in your SB. You may also want some cantrips in there somewhere too.
- Artful Dodge is still legal and is just amazing with cipher effects & the Cyclops. So many things about this card work well with this deck and it's hard not to justify at least a lot or two on the SB. I usually maindeck at least one.
Cool beans. Ill try the elementals again. I started out with them but was to happy. Could of just been using them badly. I had three mizz skins in my first draft but was unhappy with them as we'll. ill give ten a shot again. And I'm running three artful dodges main. There key most of the time. Your absolutely right about the cant rips though. Might throw in some think twices into it tonight on mtgo. Thanks for the feedback. I can't wait to see what theros brings us. Could make it a dead deck, or push us over the top instead.
I like the OP list but I would use young pyromancer instead of snapcaster. This seems to want to win fast and with so many 2 CMC spells do you really want to snapcaster for something like that? And it seems this deck needs more draw. Cantrips are uber important in these kind of storm-esk builds.
Cool beans. Ill try the elementals again. I started out with them but was to happy. Could of just been using them badly. I had three mizz skins in my first draft but was unhappy with them as we'll. ill give ten a shot again. And I'm running three artful dodges main. There key most of the time. Your absolutely right about the cant rips though. Might throw in some think twices into it tonight on mtgo. Thanks for the feedback. I can't wait to see what theros brings us. Could make it a dead deck, or push us over the top instead.
Mizzium Skin is kind of a meta-call. If you're combo needs protection from kill spells (apart from Devour Flesh and Tribute to Hunger) it's spectacular. If not .. well, maybe you don't need it. For me, I can't live without it as my opponents will just kill my wincon.
Dunno how I missed your Artful Dodge's there!
As for cantrips, of the choices available, Faithless Looting is likely the best and Think Twice is also very good. Looking ahead to post-rotation, I feel cards like Quicken, Divination, and possibly even a card like Thoughtflare or Opportunity as they can be cast on T3 or T4 with Hidden Strings effects. For now I'm sticking with Quicken, Faithless Looting & Think Twice. Also there's Izzet Charm but it's not really just a cantrip is it?
Im running four izzet for all three uses including the looting. I removed the hands of binding cause they were junk and threw in think twices as replacement. Gonna try faithless looting in that spot too. See what works best. I feel like I'm missing the spot removal in pillars main most matchups. Aggros going crazy lately. And I've switched 2 electrickerys in the SB for two ratchet bombs. Tokens galore lately.
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pic instantly became my desktop background, ty!
you all seem to have this tuned pretty well, has blistercoil weird been discussed?
We can discuss the elemental and blistercoil though again, with the particular ingredients that I am running (thank you Travis Woo), I don't see any room for them in this deck.
I must admit that I do like the looks of the 'budget' version and I respect the versions using cypher spells etc. I've seen the other versions that you guys have posted and tried out but I'm interested to know how those versions fared at FNM.
Obviously, if we start to talk about 'casual' versions of this deck then all sorts of ideas will start to fly but personally I'm looking to keep the deck as competitive as possible and it seems to be pretty maxed out as it is. Though by no means am I trying to hijack this thread and turn the discussion to 'competitive ideas only' sort of thing. I've just decided that I'm personally gonna ride the Travis Woo train and play at FNM with this deck a bit and share my experiences with it before rotation.
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Nivix Cyclops
2 Guttersnipe
2 Armed//Dangerous
2 Artful Dodge
4 Hidden Strings
2 Hands of Binding
3 Quicken
2 Dispel
3 Izzet Charm
2 Mizzium Skin
2 Giant Growth
2 Think Twice
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Breeding Pool
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
2 Island
1 Armed//Dangerous
2 Desperate Ravings
2 Electrickery
1 Epic Experiment
1 Giant Growth
1 Ral Zarek
2 Rancor
2 Ranger's Guile
2 Pillar of Flame
1 Unsummon
Creatures 15
Spells 24
Land 21
The increased creature count gives me more resiliency than I had before and the Dryad is actually quite the beater. Having both Dryad & Nivmagus allows you to play through removal early on a bit until you can get 3/4 lands together to keep your creatures alive. Pyromancer + Dryad gives me plenty of early options that can become big problems into the mid-game and that's a great quality for a 2CMC creature to have.
Quicken + Hidden Strings is the deck's go-to combo at the moment, both during my opponents upkeep on their lands or EOT on blockers or my own lands. The effects of each allow me to chain into other spells to make my guys really big or get a lot of tokens with Pyromancer. Quicken also works with Armed for an instant-kill, very fun stuff.
I'm conisdering trying Flesh//Blood out only for the fling-like effect of Blood. I've used Fling in this deck before but not losing the creature sounds much, much better. Also, I'm trying to find often good green instant combat cards aside from Giant Growth that would be more effective so if anyone knows any good ones that I'm missing, please let me know!
What sort of record do you get at FNM with it? if you play FNM that is..
4x Izzet Charm
3x Mizzium Skin
4x Searing Spear
3x Thought Scour
Sorcery (13)
3x Armed / Dangerous
3x Artful Dodge
4x Faithless Looting
3x Pillar of Flame
4x Delver of Secrets Flip
3x Guttersnipe
4x Nivix Cyclops
2x Snapcaster Mage
Land (20)
6x Island
6x Mountain
4x Steam Vents
4x Sulfur Falls
1x Artful Dodge
3x Burning Earth
2x Electrickery
2x Essence Scatter
1x Hands of Binding
1x Mizzium Skin
1x Pillar of Flame
2x Turn / Burn
2x Unsummon
This is what I plan on playing today at game day.
Duel Report:
08.09.2013
This Izzet guild member would like to report a somewhat dismal, though promising, twentieth place finish out of a twenty-eight man duel attendance. One should be reminded that I finished 2nd out of 10 just last weekend also.
Duel One.
I was able to defeat my opponent 2-0 as the legendary Geist of Saint Traft came to my call as soon as possible and appreciated a handed off Boros Charm which he gave to his angel backup. Guttersnipes showed up in numbers this time and I applaud their passion for their work. They constantly redirected my spell usage and rather quickly disabled my opponent twice in a row. I even came to their protection by dispelling a spell attack from my opponent directed at them. Our opponent may have been a past Izzet member as he beat us down with repeated Helixes, a Restoration Angel, souls that constantly lingered and some minimal counter effects.
Duel Two.
I battled against a green/black/white mana using opponent. Again, Geist of St.Traft showed himself immediately but was quickly subdued by the many souls that kept lingering. And then this terribly scavenging sort of ooze would appear all over my spell pages making them unable to use a second time. But quickly looting through my tome brought me a pillar of flame against the ooze. Though this only happened once. My opponent performed a Tribute of Hunger on our ally, Geist of St.Traft. I must admit somewhat of an error here as I should have known our opponent had many ways to remove our threats. I should have held back until I could find my Dispel for backup though it may not have been enough. I was unable to reliably summon further threats in time and was beaten down. The second chance against the same opponent only presented itself with a flood of mana also delaying things enough that my opponent beat me down again. 0-2
Duel Three.
Things were not much better as a Selenysian member opposed us and had unfair amounts of help from none other than those damned dryad militants who, again, like the strange ooze that I already described, also demanded that no spell be cast twice. While I frantically searched my tome for pillars of flame to bring down upon them, I was quickly overcome by conclave centaurs. One of those militants was also ‘unflinchingly’ courageous and was able to heal our opponent as we dueled giving another unfair advantage over this reporting guild member. Twice they beat me in a row. Me 0-2
Duel Four.
A somewhat new duelist tried wielding black, white and some blue mana against me. He also had help from Jace “Memory Adept” Or shall I say, I had the help from Jace on his side! He carelessly shredded my spell book in front of me and threw it in my face. I simply focused on three artful dodges charging the Cyclops to 10 power. A guttersnipe was also in the field inflicting 6 more and both attacked for a total of 18. This opponent was defeated twice in a row. Me 2-0
Duel Five.
Now with a record of 2-2, I faced my last opponent of the same standing. He made short work of me with the help of his cohort, Sire of Insanity twice in a row. Some dryad militants were around also making matters worse. I couldn’t mount much against him and was beat twice. Me 0-2
Finishing record of 2-3.
Many opponents were somewhat confused and confounded at my Izzet Blitz approach and were unsure what to use the second time against me. So our experiment is working in that regard however, formidable threats are still out there and still seem un-phased with our tests. It might do me a service to learn some Ray of Revelation spells as a backup against this so called ‘unflinching courage’ that many creatures are learning.
This guild member is still convinced that our experiment continues to show ingenuity, flexibility, shock and surprise and as a result, continues to be promising. I have, in fact, been more successful with this same approach in the past and I was close to defeating my opponent by either one turn or maybe just one certain card needed. Those reasons for defeat can be the same in many different approaches and our opponents also face the same.
BMK44
Duel Report:
08.09.2013 Game Day
This Izzet guild member would like to report 9th-12th place finish out of 19 duelists in attendance at the Game Day Grand Duel hosted by the Azorious of the 10th District and held at the Grand Coliseum.
I was 1 TURN away from 8th Place
I was 1 TURN and 1 DISPEL away from 4-7th
Duel One.
The first duel was against a duelst ‘of the woods’ and he brought all of his elven friends along. Who I might add were all packing ‘extra power’ quickly summoning a magnificient Craterhoof Behemoth against me. Although I was able to beat this opponent once, he in turn, beat me twice. Mono-green. Me 1-2
Duel Two.
Paired downwards, I battled a newcomer duelist. Though I applaud his appearance, his unsleeved spell book pages numbered well over the normal 60 pages seen in duels of this sort and of course he simply couldn’t get much arranged. Though my Guttersnipes did him in the first time, the second game showcased the perfect hand of spells. The Nivix Cyclops was quickly rev’d up to 10 and he took in a Boros Charm for double strike. This was absolute perfection of this experiment. Me 2-0
Duel Three.
Paired upwards in the arena now, I was set to duel against a good friend of mine from the Azorious Guild. He played a complete counterspell deck with the aid of Restoration Angels who mounted some surprise blocks on me. Geist of St Traft was able to bring me to victory but only once against this opponent. Multiple Supreme Verdicts from him kept the battlefield empty. I never had a Boros Charm to defend against the verdicts. On our last duel, however, he was only 1 turn away from being defeated. Me 1-2 very close.
Duel Four.
Back to the paired-down arena, I again battled a somewhat new duelist who had the aid of multiple Blood Artists and Vampire Nighthawks. Neither of these mattered though as Guttersnipes and a multitude of artful dodges, pillars of flame, boros charms and faithless looting beat him down. The Cyclops helped with a final 12 damage in game two. Me 2-0
Duel Five. The One That Mattered.
At this point in the competition I am now straight up the middle. I needed badly to win this final duel but alas, it was against a blue/white counter-everything-and-everthing-else-until-Entreating the angels deck. The first game he countered, charmed and unsummoned everything including a 20 damage cyclops. I then faced 6 angels for 24 damage. The second game I very very carefully chipped away at him with numerous faithless lootings into boros charms and searing spears. I was able to do the final 4 damage to him with Geist of StTraft and the use of 2 backup counters; Faiths Shield giving the angel pro blue from an Unsummon and a Dispel to handle a Snapcasted Negate against my Faiths Shield. But then time was up and this game was a 1-1-1 Draw. [/FONT]
[FONT="Arial"]So, in short I finished right up the middle. I was told that if I won my last game instead of drawing, I would have had 8th place but that control deck really grinded things out. I was also just 1 card or 1 turn away from a much better standing as well (in the other matches). Again, this experiment shows promise but I have only been getting 'half-way there' which must be improved! I think I'll move to 4 Dispel instead of 3. I actually had a hard time getting them to my hand even with tons of looting. [/FONT]
WILD GUESS VS THOUGHT SCOUR
RR: 1 choice disc. for 2 draw U: 2 random disc. for 1 draw
Opinion choice i suppose, depends on the mana curve. I think i have room for it at the 2 spot instead of the 1.
Thought scour is an instant, costs one, and you can mill 2 on your opponent.
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
I'm considering trying out Simic charm, not sure if anyone else out there is using it. Seems pretty useful, I think I'll cut my Giant Growth's for them.
EDIT: Did some playtesting this morning, on T3 I played a Nivix Cyclops, on T4 I used Simic Charm to give him +6/3 making him power 7, then cast Blood and I found that I did 10 damage to the player and not 7. I don't know why but I didn't anticipate that. This allowed me to kill them on the spot as they durdled a bit on T3.
I'd agree with this, silence is really strong. Although I would probably just SB it and throw it in main against stuff like celestial flare and Fog which can really hurt if you cast a bunch going down to 1-2 cards in hand then getting your planned disrupted.
4 blistercoil weirds
4 guttersnipes
4 nizzex cyclops
3 ral zareks
4 izzet charms
4 hidden strings
3 hands of bindings
3 unsummons
3 quickens
3 armed/dangerous
3 artful dodges
2 catch/release
20 lands
4 sulfurs
4 steam vents
6 islands
6 mountains
Sb:
4 pillar of flames
3 young pyromancers
2 electrickerys
2 izzet staticasters
2 witchbane orbs
2 skullcracks
Yeah the deck is so fun to play, opponents hate to watch you combo off on MTGO though which is the one downside. Other than that it's just so fun to play in standard right now. Everyone says combo is dead in standard but we know better!
- Blistercoil's clock is nice but Nivmagus is much faster. Yes you exile spells but much of the time these are going to be cipher effects our cheap cantrips such as Quicken. The 'combat surprise' factor with Nivmagus is key here and can get you some easy finishes.
- Card advantage is key. If your creature dies when you are casting Hidden Strings, Unsummon isn't really helping you. Mizzium Skin I think is a better card in your deck although Unsummon does have a place in your SB. You may also want some cantrips in there somewhere too.
- Artful Dodge is still legal and is just amazing with cipher effects & the Cyclops. So many things about this card work well with this deck and it's hard not to justify at least a lot or two on the SB. I usually maindeck at least one.
Hope this helps!
Mizzium Skin is kind of a meta-call. If you're combo needs protection from kill spells (apart from Devour Flesh and Tribute to Hunger) it's spectacular. If not .. well, maybe you don't need it. For me, I can't live without it as my opponents will just kill my wincon.
Dunno how I missed your Artful Dodge's there!
As for cantrips, of the choices available, Faithless Looting is likely the best and Think Twice is also very good. Looking ahead to post-rotation, I feel cards like Quicken, Divination, and possibly even a card like Thoughtflare or Opportunity as they can be cast on T3 or T4 with Hidden Strings effects. For now I'm sticking with Quicken, Faithless Looting & Think Twice. Also there's Izzet Charm but it's not really just a cantrip is it?