Not really sure where this goes, I have a thread on it in the casual forum but ideally I would like my deck to be legal in a format if possible so I'm thinking about porting it into Vintage because there's not too much off about it, just the whole 4 Brainstorm thing.
Would this deck be decent? I'm already resigned to it not being competitive with a powered meta but that's ok.
A couple other questions too, I was thinking about what other cards I could add in and Balance found itself at the top of the list. The whole idea of Gushing into Balance as land destruction or using it as a third Goblin Bombardment with Blood Artist to sacrifice a field of tokens seems too good to pass up. What would people suggest I cut to make use of that?
Last, I'm kind of stuck on Tutors, right now I'm running Enlightened Tutor as it finds Carnival of Souls, Goblin Bombardment, Skullclamp, and Jitte but perhaps being able to find Balance too would be good? Should this instead be a Demonic Tutor? It's more mana but at the same time it doesn't cost me a draw step while being black gives it better synergy with Carnival of Souls.
Pyromancer/Gush is being used in Vintage right now, it's a valid strategy, don't have options to find a decklist right now, but I will check back in later post a list and critique your list a bit.
Edit on 12-16 starting here*
Here is a Non-Gush list for Pyromancer just as a starting point.
Now on to the topic at hand Pyromancer Gush - here are the results from the Vintage Championships and a Gush/Pyromancer Deck was in the finals for reference here is the deck.
Note that this list only plays 3 Pyromancer and is more of a Delver list but it does fit your criterion of Delver in Vintage.
With all that said, I am not sure that you are beating down the right path with Delver lists Carnival & Bombardment both seem very slow and too comboy (is that a word). Maybe you should pursue this more in the casual forum - there are a ton of creative and solid contributors there - who could probably steer you into some solid suggestions.
Note that this list only plays 3 Pyromancer and is more of a Delver list but it does fit your criterion of Delver in Vintage.
With all that said, I am not sure that you are beating down the right path with Delver lists Carnival & Bombardment both seem very slow and too comboy (is that a word). Maybe you should pursue this more in the casual forum - there are a ton of creative and solid contributors there - who could probably steer you into some solid suggestions.
Thanks for those lists it gives me something to think about and some cards to consider. I'm mainly drawing off of Legacy experience right now, but I realize Vintage is about as close to Legacy as Legacy is to Modern.
I originally started with Delver because both Delver and Young Pyromancer want a lot of the same cards so they seem like a natural fit, but then I got to thinking that Delver tends to be a removal magnet. Maybe dies to removal isn't the best outlook to have but in his unflipped state he's only a 1/1, and there's only a 33%-50% chance to blind flip him on turn 2 depending on the deck. Add in the restrictions on Brainstorm and Ponder to set up flips before T3 and it just seemed like he would be underpowered. I see Delver in an assumed good list here though, so is my thinking wrong here?
Again drawing from Legacy experience with a similar deck, I've found Bombardment to be extremely powerful. Sacrificing for value is extremely powerful and Bombardment is one of the best sac for value engines ever printed. I'm a bit more critical of Blood Artist but I was trying to add some ways to spend black mana from Carnival (which I'll get to in a second) and being able to drain my opponent while also offsetting the Carnival life loss seemed good. I was drawing from Standard here where my deck of choice was Aristocrats. Sac+Blood Artist broke the format so I thought it was worth a try here. My testing has shown it to be a bit win more though, so I'm definitely looking for something else in that slot though I'm pretty sure I want it to be black and gain life otherwise I risk dying to Lightning Bolt.
Carnival of Souls has been something I've been playing with. It's basically a 1 card combo in a deck like this with minimal downside. Being able to cast and flashback a Lingering Souls or gain mana off of shredding someones hand with Probe/Therapy/Pyromancer has been ridiculously good. There's probably a black/white token storm deck somewhere using it as an engine, but what format that deck would fall into I don't know, and it's not something I'm interested in right now. I've been very happy with the 1 carnival and tutors for it though.
The other things I've found are that Deathrite Shaman should go. I would be much better off with Moxen in that spot and Jitte should just be another Skullclamp.
So to sum that up it's
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-3 Deathrite Shaman
-3 Blood Artist
+1 Skullclamp
That leaves me with 6 more slots to add cards. I'm about 95% sure I want some Moxen and probably a Lotus (yay for proxies) but the other 2-3 cards I'm undecided on. Having a way to get some extra value out of the Moxen (sacrificing them) would probably be ideal but I don't know what my options for that are in Vintage. I haven't found anything interesting along those lines in card searches. Alternatively some X spell that isn't horrible at 4-5 total mana spent would work.
As for the casual suggestion, I actually asked there but didn't get any suggestions that take the deck where I would like it to go. They all revolved around adding cards like Basilisk Collar to the list. That's not really what I'm interested in doing.
As you are playing gush and tropical island, you could think of adding fastbond, tendril of agony and yawgmoth's will. It's kind of a alternate kill in this deck as you can cast alot of spells free. If you really want a sac utility for the moxen throw in a tinker and a robot.
As you are playing gush and tropical island, you could think of adding fastbond, tendril of agony and yawgmoth's will. It's kind of a alternate kill in this deck as you can cast alot of spells free. If you really want a sac utility for the moxen throw in a tinker and a robot.
Yep, I've been playing a version with Fastbond. It's pretty strong, but without the temptation of activating DRS with green I'm not sure I want to leave it in. The mana would improve if I cut it.
I'm not all in on the tendrils plan, Carnival of Souls definitely fuels doing it, but it feels more combo centric than where I want to take the deck.
Here's where I'm at right now, not sure if I'm going in the right direction.
So here's my attempt at making it legal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
Creature 10
3 Blood Artist
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer
Enchantment 3
1 Carnival of Souls
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
3 Daze
4 Dismember
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Gush
Sorcery 13
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
Artifact 2
1 Skullclamp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Chaos Warp
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Intangible Virtue
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wear // Tear
Would this deck be decent? I'm already resigned to it not being competitive with a powered meta but that's ok.
A couple other questions too, I was thinking about what other cards I could add in and Balance found itself at the top of the list. The whole idea of Gushing into Balance as land destruction or using it as a third Goblin Bombardment with Blood Artist to sacrifice a field of tokens seems too good to pass up. What would people suggest I cut to make use of that?
Last, I'm kind of stuck on Tutors, right now I'm running Enlightened Tutor as it finds Carnival of Souls, Goblin Bombardment, Skullclamp, and Jitte but perhaps being able to find Balance too would be good? Should this instead be a Demonic Tutor? It's more mana but at the same time it doesn't cost me a draw step while being black gives it better synergy with Carnival of Souls.
Perhaps I need Fastbond too?
Edit on 12-16 starting here*
Here is a Non-Gush list for Pyromancer just as a starting point.
3 Gorilla Shaman
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
3 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 City of Brass
1 Strip Mine
1 Taiga
1 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
3 Skullclamp
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Brainstorm
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Mental Misstep
2 Pyroblast
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Thoughtseize
1 Time Walk
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27211_Brewing-and-Vintage.html
Now on to the topic at hand Pyromancer Gush - here are the results from the Vintage Championships and a Gush/Pyromancer Deck was in the finals for reference here is the deck.
2 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Young Pyromancer
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Black Lotus
1 Brainstorm
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Gush
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mental Misstep
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
3 Spell Pierce
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Time Walk
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/eternal13/welcome#6a
Note that this list only plays 3 Pyromancer and is more of a Delver list but it does fit your criterion of Delver in Vintage.
With all that said, I am not sure that you are beating down the right path with Delver lists Carnival & Bombardment both seem very slow and too comboy (is that a word). Maybe you should pursue this more in the casual forum - there are a ton of creative and solid contributors there - who could probably steer you into some solid suggestions.
Thanks for those lists it gives me something to think about and some cards to consider. I'm mainly drawing off of Legacy experience right now, but I realize Vintage is about as close to Legacy as Legacy is to Modern.
I originally started with Delver because both Delver and Young Pyromancer want a lot of the same cards so they seem like a natural fit, but then I got to thinking that Delver tends to be a removal magnet. Maybe dies to removal isn't the best outlook to have but in his unflipped state he's only a 1/1, and there's only a 33%-50% chance to blind flip him on turn 2 depending on the deck. Add in the restrictions on Brainstorm and Ponder to set up flips before T3 and it just seemed like he would be underpowered. I see Delver in an assumed good list here though, so is my thinking wrong here?
Again drawing from Legacy experience with a similar deck, I've found Bombardment to be extremely powerful. Sacrificing for value is extremely powerful and Bombardment is one of the best sac for value engines ever printed. I'm a bit more critical of Blood Artist but I was trying to add some ways to spend black mana from Carnival (which I'll get to in a second) and being able to drain my opponent while also offsetting the Carnival life loss seemed good. I was drawing from Standard here where my deck of choice was Aristocrats. Sac+Blood Artist broke the format so I thought it was worth a try here. My testing has shown it to be a bit win more though, so I'm definitely looking for something else in that slot though I'm pretty sure I want it to be black and gain life otherwise I risk dying to Lightning Bolt.
Carnival of Souls has been something I've been playing with. It's basically a 1 card combo in a deck like this with minimal downside. Being able to cast and flashback a Lingering Souls or gain mana off of shredding someones hand with Probe/Therapy/Pyromancer has been ridiculously good. There's probably a black/white token storm deck somewhere using it as an engine, but what format that deck would fall into I don't know, and it's not something I'm interested in right now. I've been very happy with the 1 carnival and tutors for it though.
The other things I've found are that Deathrite Shaman should go. I would be much better off with Moxen in that spot and Jitte should just be another Skullclamp.
So to sum that up it's
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-3 Deathrite Shaman
-3 Blood Artist
+1 Skullclamp
That leaves me with 6 more slots to add cards. I'm about 95% sure I want some Moxen and probably a Lotus (yay for proxies) but the other 2-3 cards I'm undecided on. Having a way to get some extra value out of the Moxen (sacrificing them) would probably be ideal but I don't know what my options for that are in Vintage. I haven't found anything interesting along those lines in card searches. Alternatively some X spell that isn't horrible at 4-5 total mana spent would work.
As for the casual suggestion, I actually asked there but didn't get any suggestions that take the deck where I would like it to go. They all revolved around adding cards like Basilisk Collar to the list. That's not really what I'm interested in doing.
Yep, I've been playing a version with Fastbond. It's pretty strong, but without the temptation of activating DRS with green I'm not sure I want to leave it in. The mana would improve if I cut it.
I'm not all in on the tendrils plan, Carnival of Souls definitely fuels doing it, but it feels more combo centric than where I want to take the deck.
Here's where I'm at right now, not sure if I'm going in the right direction.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
Creature 4
4 Young Pyromancer
Enchantment 3
1 Carnival of Souls
2 Goblin Bombardment
Instant 17
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Daze
3 Dismember
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Gush
2 Plunge into Darkness
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
1 Time Walk
Artifact 7
2 Skullclamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Intangible Virtue
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wear // Tear
There's 2 sideboard slots to go, and a few other cards are in flux.