ive seen the deck played enough to understand the matchups. this isnt an over-generalization. ive even tested something similar for 2 months. i just dont like it. there are more consistent decks out there. even WW quest can be a big problem. granted pyroclasm is a beast to agro decks. but c'mon, man. proxy the t1 decks relative and tell me where pyromancer stacks. also, im not saying this deck isnt bad. i understand its capabilities. im just saying there are better, more consistent decks right now. that will change when the next set comes out and so on.
I must have misunderstood this statement:
pyro ascension is not a tournamnet deck now. may never be again.
That seems like you think the deck is pretty terrible, hence why I said that you were just overgeneralizing about all the matchups.
Anyway not been having fun with forsee... I get why it's in the deck but it clumps my hand up to much. Any thoughts for a replacement?
I've thought of Ingenuity but its just so expensive too... hard to find such power cheap and instant speed.
Removing Forsee probably hits the consistency of the deck too hard, but I could be completely wrong as I haven't tested this version of the deck without it. I know that forsee has been amazing for me so far. I sometimes board out a few depending on the matchup though.
How do you guys win without Time Warp? this deck just looks average at best without it.
Time warp was often boarded out in the pre-rotation version in certain matchups. Sometimes a 5 mana sorcery isn't exactly what you want to be playing, so it really just depends on what your specific plan is for a matchup. If you think of this deck as a u/r control deck with a combo finish, things begin to make a lot more sense as to how it can consistently kill people.
A five mana spell doesn't seem to fit the deck too tremendously well. You could try 4 Treasure Hunt, using the lower curve to keep your hand full and activate Ascension faster.
Treasure hunt could definitely be a place to start, but i'm not sure that you want it, with how inconsistent that card can be sometimes. Definitely worth testing, but I'm not sure how good it is.
first off, combo decks are incredibly inconsistent. what do you do against b/u? you lose to memoricide, or a counter war. lets say you stick an ascension. bounce kills the counters on it only to be countered later.
Some combo decks are incredibly inconsistent. I think if you're trying to hit a t2 ascension every game (which is generally just going to be something incorrect to aim for), then you'll find this deck to be inconsistent also. If you think in terms of activating your pyromancer's ascension and establishing control, the deck is fairly consistent at that.
This definitely can happen, but that's where experience in a matchup plays a huge roll in this deck. Nick spagnolo crushed me in the t8 because he had a great understanding of the matchup (and he's also a much better player than i). b/u can definitely get the best of you depending on their card selection, but saying that memoricide just beats your is hardly accurate. Testing the matchup extensively can definitely show that they have less game against you than you would think. Duress is probably their best card against you for obvious reasons, and that's what tips the matchup in their favor, imo.
you have no answer for valakut. and its faster than you.
You don't have a real answer for valakut, but you have answers for every single other spell they play. It's faster than you if you keep a hand full of burn and let them do whatever they want. If you play the control deck of the matchup and counter what you can, bounce their expeditions, etc you'll find yourself in a better position than you would think.
you might actually beat eldrazi green if ulamog doesnt blow up the ascension. but they side in hate that just so happens to be a problem for you.
This is assuming that they are casting ulamog. Granted ulamog isn't THAT HARD to cast in that deck, it's not what their general plan consists of. Slowing them down via counterspells and some early burn is generally good enough for what you will need.
vampires are quick and some deck versions gain life. which is bad for you.
I imagine this matchup could be worse post board if they board in some disruption against you (i'm not sure what the current lists look like). Their maindeck could cause issues, being that you probably don't have enough removal for all their guys, but playing the matchup can probably yield which guys are more important to deal with. I haven't tested this matchup, so I can't really comment on how good it is or isn't. The gaining of life is less of an issue that one would think, given you generally have some inevitability when ascension gets online.
b/w just plays ratchet bomb and wins. youve only got 6 counters. they get the bomb back if they stick a sun titan. or just play another one.
The number of ratchet bombs being played are probably lower than one might expect. If they play it proactively, there's a good chance of it getting countered, but if they play it reactively, they might not have enough time to deal with your ascension threatening them. Sun Titan seems like the worst card to be playing in that deck currently, so I would worry less about that card than other things being played currently.
and personally i play a ramp deck that can and has popped out either a superjace, a titan, or something else huge on turns 2-3. consistently!!! ive played against pyro ascension several times. ive never worried. and ive never lost to it. thats why i say it sucks. this deck has the element of surprise. thats all. once people see it. you have a greater chance of losing cause your sideboard is a combo deck sideboard. which means you either have alt win in there or something to help protect the combo. or both. which also means you cant stop your opponent from doing what they want. do you think valakut cares if you have a frost titan on board? no. and since youve sided, you are now slower than before cause the optimal cards to make the combo work have been reduced to shuffle in some sideboard. its just bad, man. sorry. ive never seen an ascension deck win a tourney. it may have top 8'd but so what. a friend of mine got bubbled into the top 8 because someone else lost.
Lets be clear, I don't think this deck is the end-all deck of the format. However, to simply discount it and say it isn't playable is far from the truth. I've played against ramp players and generally don't have an issue (valakut probably being the worst matchup of the 3 major ramp decks in the format). I think you're either experiencing this deck at the hand of a bad player, or overgeneralizing the matchups.
Keep in mind i'm not trying to advocate that this deck is the best deck in the format. I'm simply trying to say that I believe you find the deck more narrow than it actually is. The deck is incredibly versatile, and probably not the easiest deck to play (which would lead to many pilot errors in testing/tournament play).
That being said, I will be playing this deck for the foreseeable future as decks aren't specifically targeting it with hate, it's incredibly powerful, and very versatile.
pyro ascension is not a tournamnet deck now. may never be again.
Completely incorrect. I being that you didn't provide much of a basis for such a claim, I don't really know why you feel this is the case. I feel that the deck is one of the top in standard, simply because of the fact that not everyone has it on their mind when preparing for a tournament. The u/b matchup is a little soft, but I'm pretty sure the Rug matchup is fine, and it's powerful enough to not care what a number of other decks are doing.
Jace, the Mindsculptor. Who loves him, who thinks he's not necessary in the deck?
I like Jace, The Mind Sculptor as a board card (I've been boarding it in against certain matchups, transforming into a more u/r control build when I feel people are trying to target the combo).
Here's my list from a few weeks ago where I t8'd in charlotte:
Flashfreeze was often a pretty pretty lackluster for me. In the ramp matchups, it does effectively the same thing, except it doesn't counter primeval titan. However, the number of decks playing primeval titan is dwindling. The -1 Jace TMS, +1 Jace Beleren is just hedging against different jace decks. I might recommend adding another Jace, TMS back to the board in favor of a spell pierce or something along those lines.
During the tournament, I would often times board in +3 Jace, TMS, +2 Frost Titan, +2 Spell Pierce, -4 Ascension, -3 Burn spell (whichever is the least relevant depending on the matchup). It just depended on the matchup and what their board plan was.
I played this in the nats qualifiers last weekend, the gp this weekend, and the PTQ this weekend. I haven't drawn a game. Just practice and know the individual lines of play before taking this to a tournament. When in a large tournament, sit facing the clock so that you are aware of how much time is left in the round.
I've seen people stamp cards for drafts in their shop, but the also do it at larger events (PTs and whatnot), but I don't recall using a Pooh and Piglet stamp ever.
Oh my God, that's, that's, amazing is the only word that comes to mind. I think I came in my pants when I saw that. That deck must run in excess of $2000.
I rode this list to an invite to nats and 3 byes for dc this weekend, so hopefully I'll pick up some kind of feature match from ggslive to show off the pimp a little bit more this weekend :). Who knows!
Made Daily Deck List, as I figured it eventually would.
This is actually a buddy of mine that played the deck at the Greensboro PTQ (he t8d) and at both the richmond PTQs (missing on t8 in the last round each day). I played the deck day 1 to a poor finish, 1-2 drop.
Round 1: Thopter/Sword Bant.
Both games, I lock him out with a combination of wrecking ball and blood moon and he doesn't have much of a chance.
Round 2: Zoo
Game 1, I have a greedy keep (Double damnation, jace, island, chrome mox, terminate, blood moon). I only kept this because I know he's playing zoo (and probably not boom/bust zoo, due to previous knowledge of the player and talking to him). I land a turn 3 blood moon (mountain off the top) and he is locked out with a 3/3 knight on the table. I just need to draw a second blue or a second black to win the game. He topdecks a plains, sacs it with knight, plays a goyf. I never draw a second blue or second black and lose.
Game 2, I draw almost no action and lose the game after a fine keep.
I was pretty upset about this as I know this matchup is in my favor. Game 1 was definitely a poor keep, but Game 2 just didn't go my way.
Round 3: U/W Reveillark
Game 1: I figure he's playing u/w thopter and think i've got the game in hand when I play Night of Souls' betrayal. I Jace him and he loses.
Game 2: He starts the game with an Emeria into play tapped (wtf?). Later on, I see larks, meddling mages, archmages, etc.
Game 3: He plays multiple meddling mages naming damnation and terminate. Not even close
1-2 drop.
I was pretty unhappy with my performance saturday as I completely lost the zoo matchup and the lark matchup on my own accord. Had I actually been paying attention game 1, I would have boarded in some kind of GY hate and not had to ever deal with recurring larks.
Day 2, I played R/G Scapeshift and that didn't go as well for me as the last time I played it. Le sigh.
EDIT: If I was going to play the grixis deck again (which there's a decent chance I would if I had any upcoming extended events to go to), I would probably play something similar to kenji's build. I'd have to test it, but it seems pretty good!
I went 5-2 with some slight changes to this deck at the PTQ in Burlington, NC this past weekend. I'll probably be making some further changes and playing the deck at the double PTQ next weekend.
We had one copy of this deck t8, with several people from my testing group taking it and doing "okay". I think this deck will continue to remain under the radar for the time being (depending on its results at other locations).
Was that a published note from Wizards, or was that a suspected change? From what I can tell, Wizards hasn't published errata for that card specifically, denoting creature types. Things may change once RoE is more in perspective.
From the WWK FAQs:
Eye of Ugin
Legendary Land
Colorless Eldrazi spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
{7}, {T}: Search your library for a colorless creature card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
* Eye of Ugin doesn't have a mana ability.
* Eldrazi is a creature type that, as of the _Worldwake_ release, has not yet been printed on any creatures.
* Currently, only Mistform Ultimus and creatures with changeling are Eldrazi. If they become colorless, possibly due to Mycosynth Lattice, Eye of Ugin would reduce the cost to cast them by {2}.
* Eye of Ugin's second ability lets you find any colorless creature card in your deck, such as an artifact creature card that has no colored mana symbols in its mana cost, or a creature card that's become colorless due to Mycosynth Lattice.
I must have misunderstood this statement:
That seems like you think the deck is pretty terrible, hence why I said that you were just overgeneralizing about all the matchups.
But that's fine, agree to disagree, I suppose.
Removing Forsee probably hits the consistency of the deck too hard, but I could be completely wrong as I haven't tested this version of the deck without it. I know that forsee has been amazing for me so far. I sometimes board out a few depending on the matchup though.
Time warp was often boarded out in the pre-rotation version in certain matchups. Sometimes a 5 mana sorcery isn't exactly what you want to be playing, so it really just depends on what your specific plan is for a matchup. If you think of this deck as a u/r control deck with a combo finish, things begin to make a lot more sense as to how it can consistently kill people.
Treasure hunt could definitely be a place to start, but i'm not sure that you want it, with how inconsistent that card can be sometimes. Definitely worth testing, but I'm not sure how good it is.
Some combo decks are incredibly inconsistent. I think if you're trying to hit a t2 ascension every game (which is generally just going to be something incorrect to aim for), then you'll find this deck to be inconsistent also. If you think in terms of activating your pyromancer's ascension and establishing control, the deck is fairly consistent at that.
This definitely can happen, but that's where experience in a matchup plays a huge roll in this deck. Nick spagnolo crushed me in the t8 because he had a great understanding of the matchup (and he's also a much better player than i). b/u can definitely get the best of you depending on their card selection, but saying that memoricide just beats your is hardly accurate. Testing the matchup extensively can definitely show that they have less game against you than you would think. Duress is probably their best card against you for obvious reasons, and that's what tips the matchup in their favor, imo.
You don't have a real answer for valakut, but you have answers for every single other spell they play. It's faster than you if you keep a hand full of burn and let them do whatever they want. If you play the control deck of the matchup and counter what you can, bounce their expeditions, etc you'll find yourself in a better position than you would think.
This is assuming that they are casting ulamog. Granted ulamog isn't THAT HARD to cast in that deck, it's not what their general plan consists of. Slowing them down via counterspells and some early burn is generally good enough for what you will need.
I imagine this matchup could be worse post board if they board in some disruption against you (i'm not sure what the current lists look like). Their maindeck could cause issues, being that you probably don't have enough removal for all their guys, but playing the matchup can probably yield which guys are more important to deal with. I haven't tested this matchup, so I can't really comment on how good it is or isn't. The gaining of life is less of an issue that one would think, given you generally have some inevitability when ascension gets online.
The number of ratchet bombs being played are probably lower than one might expect. If they play it proactively, there's a good chance of it getting countered, but if they play it reactively, they might not have enough time to deal with your ascension threatening them. Sun Titan seems like the worst card to be playing in that deck currently, so I would worry less about that card than other things being played currently.
Lets be clear, I don't think this deck is the end-all deck of the format. However, to simply discount it and say it isn't playable is far from the truth. I've played against ramp players and generally don't have an issue (valakut probably being the worst matchup of the 3 major ramp decks in the format). I think you're either experiencing this deck at the hand of a bad player, or overgeneralizing the matchups.
Keep in mind i'm not trying to advocate that this deck is the best deck in the format. I'm simply trying to say that I believe you find the deck more narrow than it actually is. The deck is incredibly versatile, and probably not the easiest deck to play (which would lead to many pilot errors in testing/tournament play).
That being said, I will be playing this deck for the foreseeable future as decks aren't specifically targeting it with hate, it's incredibly powerful, and very versatile.
Completely incorrect. I being that you didn't provide much of a basis for such a claim, I don't really know why you feel this is the case. I feel that the deck is one of the top in standard, simply because of the fact that not everyone has it on their mind when preparing for a tournament. The u/b matchup is a little soft, but I'm pretty sure the Rug matchup is fine, and it's powerful enough to not care what a number of other decks are doing.
I like Jace, The Mind Sculptor as a board card (I've been boarding it in against certain matchups, transforming into a more u/r control build when I feel people are trying to target the combo).
Here's my list from a few weeks ago where I t8'd in charlotte:
4 Pyromancer Ascension
Instants
4 Burst Lightning
3 Into the Roil
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
Planeswalkers
2 Jace Beleren
2 Call to Mind
4 Foresee
4 Preordain
4 See Beyond
Basic Lands
9 Island
7 Mountain
Lands
3 Halimar Depths
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Frost Titan
4 Flashfreeze
2 Spell Pierce
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pyroclasm
Since then, I might recommend adding another spell pierce to the main, but I'm not sure what to cut. I would change the sideboard to the following:
4 Negate
2 Spell Pierce
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Jace Beleren
4 Pyroclasm
Flashfreeze was often a pretty pretty lackluster for me. In the ramp matchups, it does effectively the same thing, except it doesn't counter primeval titan. However, the number of decks playing primeval titan is dwindling. The -1 Jace TMS, +1 Jace Beleren is just hedging against different jace decks. I might recommend adding another Jace, TMS back to the board in favor of a spell pierce or something along those lines.
During the tournament, I would often times board in +3 Jace, TMS, +2 Frost Titan, +2 Spell Pierce, -4 Ascension, -3 Burn spell (whichever is the least relevant depending on the matchup). It just depended on the matchup and what their board plan was.
I rode this list to an invite to nats and 3 byes for dc this weekend, so hopefully I'll pick up some kind of feature match from ggslive to show off the pimp a little bit more this weekend :). Who knows!
7 Cards not foil in the deck, 1 Divination, 1 Gideon Jura, 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant, 1 Glacial Fortress, 3 Negate. Everything else is foil.
This is actually a buddy of mine that played the deck at the Greensboro PTQ (he t8d) and at both the richmond PTQs (missing on t8 in the last round each day). I played the deck day 1 to a poor finish, 1-2 drop.
Round 1: Thopter/Sword Bant.
Both games, I lock him out with a combination of wrecking ball and blood moon and he doesn't have much of a chance.
Round 2: Zoo
Game 1, I have a greedy keep (Double damnation, jace, island, chrome mox, terminate, blood moon). I only kept this because I know he's playing zoo (and probably not boom/bust zoo, due to previous knowledge of the player and talking to him). I land a turn 3 blood moon (mountain off the top) and he is locked out with a 3/3 knight on the table. I just need to draw a second blue or a second black to win the game. He topdecks a plains, sacs it with knight, plays a goyf. I never draw a second blue or second black and lose.
Game 2, I draw almost no action and lose the game after a fine keep.
I was pretty upset about this as I know this matchup is in my favor. Game 1 was definitely a poor keep, but Game 2 just didn't go my way.
Round 3: U/W Reveillark
Game 1: I figure he's playing u/w thopter and think i've got the game in hand when I play Night of Souls' betrayal. I Jace him and he loses.
Game 2: He starts the game with an Emeria into play tapped (wtf?). Later on, I see larks, meddling mages, archmages, etc.
Game 3: He plays multiple meddling mages naming damnation and terminate. Not even close
1-2 drop.
I was pretty unhappy with my performance saturday as I completely lost the zoo matchup and the lark matchup on my own accord. Had I actually been paying attention game 1, I would have boarded in some kind of GY hate and not had to ever deal with recurring larks.
Day 2, I played R/G Scapeshift and that didn't go as well for me as the last time I played it. Le sigh.
EDIT: If I was going to play the grixis deck again (which there's a decent chance I would if I had any upcoming extended events to go to), I would probably play something similar to kenji's build. I'd have to test it, but it seems pretty good!
The beginnings of my legacy collection. I've built aggro loam and am just collecting random things for other decks:
Japanese Foil Knight of the Reliquaries:
Random Standard Pimp stuff that i've been picking up:
Foil Jaces and some lands:
I didn't even see it at the PTQ I went to this past weekend, not just in matches, but at any table period.
We had one copy of this deck t8, with several people from my testing group taking it and doing "okay". I think this deck will continue to remain under the radar for the time being (depending on its results at other locations).
From the WWK FAQs: