I dont mean to be rude, but isn't this deck is too SLOW in multiplayer game? As the Cruel Ultimatum + Mirari = 10 mana or at least 7 mana? Playing this deck in multiplayer is suicide.
Plus you need to protect the combo while you play it, end up you consume even more mana and become even more slow when you don't even have a single mana acceleration's tools in your deck. Pact of Negation is definitely better then Rune Snag.
I dont mean to be rude, but isn't this deck is too SLOW in multiplayer game? As the Cruel Ultimatum + Mirari = 10 mana or at least 7 mana? Playing this deck in multiplayer is suicide.
Multiplayer is a very slow format, and this deck is not slow. It has 8 CMC1 cantrip/search spells to find and enable an early Pyromancer Ascension. It has early protection in Lightning Bolt and Terminate, though I might change the Terminate's into a sweeper like Pyroclasm.
Plus you need to protect the combo while you play it, end up you consume even more mana and become even more slow when you don't even have a single mana acceleration's tools in your deck. Pact of Negation is definitely better then Rune Snag.
I don't think Pact is better, as there will often be Rune Snags in the 'yard after using Forbidden Alchemy, or countering early threats.
the deck needs some way to actually stay alive while getting to 7 mana. you have 8 spells that can deal with creatures between turns 2 and 6. that's a long time to be sitting with your pants around your ankels.
I addressed the land issue in my OP, do you have any suggestions on what to cut for 3 lands?
Suggesting a card is much more helpful than a sentence.
Ok, cut 2 Mirarri and 4 runesnag. You still need actual win conditions here, and you are in 3 colours so you have about a billion choices. I am not here to make the deck for you.
Ok, cut 2 Mirarri and 4 runesnag. You still need actual win conditions here, and you are in 3 colours so you have about a billion choices. I am not here to make the deck for you.
This forum is for posting decks and deck ideas in order for the community to help build the deck. If you're going to come into my thread and make comments that are not constructive toward my deck then I'd rather you not comment at all.
the deck needs some way to actually stay alive while getting to 7 mana. you have 8 spells that can deal with creatures between turns 2 and 6. that's a long time to be sitting with your pants around your ankels.
Spellweaver Helix and Cruel combo pretty well. Imprint Cruel Ultimatum and something with Retrace (like Flame Jab), then if you find a second flame jab you can cast cruel very easily and repeatedly. Pyromancer Ascension works well with retrace, you just need 2 copies of a retrace spell.
Spellweaver Helix and Cruel combo pretty well. Imprint Cruel Ultimatum and something with Retrace (like Flame Jab), then if you find a second flame jab you can cast cruel very easily and repeatedly. Pyromancer Ascension works well with retrace, you just need 2 copies of a retrace spell.
Very cool suggestion, I'll look into it. Probably will cut the Mirari plan and stick to Pyromancer.
Yeah pyroclasm isn't really going to help you that much. i was thinking something more powerfull like wrath. in red something like Chain Reaction or Blasphemous Act will give you better reach. But even those will only take you so far unless you dedicate some serious deck space to wipers and other cards that have an impact on the board.
The other direction is to play creatures / artifacts which will take away from the Ascension but then again you've got to survive. Aether Membrane, Sun Drop and Spellskite are all good starts.
The problem with the Ascension plan is that the key instants / soceries have no impact on general play. Forbidden Alchemy, Ponder, Preordain, Call to Mind are all great for powering up the assecion but your oppontents really aren't going to worry that much about you playing them. Once the Ascension is powered up your soceries / instants still are not that devistating until you get to the Ultimatum and even then you can only hit 2 players (and kill neither of them). also you are ignoring 1/3 of a very powerful spell by playing no creatures.
I have no easy fix but you probably need to play this deck to see if its actually playable. Personally i can't see it.
Noodle hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. The deck is 99% setup and 1% impact, but the problem is that it's very hard to actually win the game from just the -5 life portion of Cruel Ult. While I wouldn't throw bad creatures into the deck to just support its revival aspect, I'm just not sure if this deck actually has what it takes to win. Furthermore, Spellweaver Helix is much less practical than it probably seems. I've seen people try and abuse the **** out of it with cards such as Insurrection and Blatant Thievery before, but everyone seems to forget one important aspect of the card; you need those spells in your graveyard first. You can't just throw a bunch of tutors/dig into your deck and expect it to do anything. It won't. You need those Frantic Searches, Careful Studys, Breakthroughs or whatever that allow you to pitch important spells that you intend on copying. Stuff like Ponder and Brainstorm just plain do nothing for the deck. You're MUCH better off with something like Insidious Dreams. I've just seen a lot of piss-poor Helix decks in my day because people overlooked the fact that the spells need to be binned at some point in time.
Anyways, I typically dislike these kinds of effects in general. I actually think that Mirari is almost unplayable. In order to activate it at a reasonable rate you need to be playing with small-medium sized spells. These tend to be weak in general, which makes your deck weak in general. Getting value out of Mirari means playing a bad deck with bad cards. Like, doubling up on Bolts or whatever is trivial. It's basically nothing. Ascension is better since it hits early and doesn't require a significant mana investment like other cards do, but it's still far from perfect. The problem is that you need to fill your deck with useless dig such as Peer Through Depths that just plain do nothing. Eventually your spells will be fairly strong, but your deck is still super threat-light overall. Unless your plan is to win the game by chaining "take an extra turn after this one" spells, you really can't get much going. The best use that I've seen for Mirari is cards such as Syphon Mind, Blood Tithe, and Browbeat. Not too cheap, not too expensive, and strong enough to hold their own in multiplayer. You can just plain cast these spells and still be happy with the effect. Doubling them up is fine, but you're not upset to just throw them out as is. Like, you will not win the game by doubling up your Terminates and Lightning Bolts. Congratulations, you've just paid 4 mana and used 2 cards for something that Innocent Blood probably could have accomplished. Copy Cruel? Not a chance. I mean, you will get up to 10 mana eventually, but let's be realistic here.
Thanks for everyone's input. I edited the OP with some ideas taken from your suggestions. I've decided to drop the Mirari route altogether and stick to Pyromancer Ascension. First, because I like the idea of doubling cards relatively easily, and secondly, I have a playset lying around.
A couple questions:
I have Desperate Ravings, but no Frantic Search - which do you think is better?. The random discard kind of hurts, but it comes down a turn earlier, and can be used twice. Frantic Search is from Urza block and as a result is ungodly. I'd have to pick some up from the store.
Blood Tithe vs Exsanguinate. Blood Tithe comes down earlier, and can be copied earlier, but doesn't have a chance to grow. Exsanguinate comes down a turn later, can be copied at the same time, but is much, much better in the long run.
Added a couple creatures to help abuse my instants/sorceries, and also to get a little more value out of Cruel Ultimatum.
Umm... My talk of Frantic Search and Careful Study was with respect to Spellweaver Helix. You said that were planning on going with that route which is why I brought it up. Both are cards are horrible in general since they're card disadvantage (I'm not talking about Dredge/Storm/Tolarian Academy decks here) and should only be played if you plan to abuse the **** out them (i.e. you're playing Dredge/Storm/Tolarian Academy lol). If you're not planning to run Helix then do not use those kinds of cards. They're absolutely terrible unless your goal is to pitch cards/untap broken lands such as Tolarian Academy.
Umm... My talk of Frantic Search and Careful Study was with respect to Spellweaver Helix. You said that were planning on going with that route which is why I brought it up. Both are cards are horrible in general since they're card disadvantage (I'm not talking about Dredge/Storm/Tolarian Academy decks here) and should only be played if you plan to abuse the **** out them (i.e. you're playing Dredge/Storm/Tolarian Academy lol).
Eh I dunno. I hate Ascension and think it's a terrible card because the only budget way to support it is by running 4x Brainstorm 4x Ponder and 4x Peer Through Depths in your deck. Even then you need fetchlands to make it consistent since you need to be able to shuffle away dead draws. The ideal cards to run are cheap tutors such as Mystical Tutor and Demonic Tutor since then you can just go tutor -> tutor -> tutor -> Cruel or whatever and stack your draws for the entire game. That's obviously not budget though. You could go with slow tutors obviously, but then you just have a slow "do nothing" deck.
There's just no good way to abuse Cruel Ultimatum in multiplayer. Your best bet, in my mind, is to just build a solid Grixis Control deck that can naturally cast it as time goes on. Like, simply field solid Control spells and draw and eventually use it to refill your hand, revive a bomb and crush someone in the later stages of the game. Your Ascension deck will always be filled with a bunch of small dig spells that have no impact on the game to try and fuel Ascension. Between 12 or so useless dig spells, 4 Ascensions and 4 Cruels there's basically no room inthe deck for actual meat that gives it any sort of staying power. You're just basically always going to be praying that no one bothers you while you try and assembly your atrocious mana requirements while playing very suboptimal spells.
Eh I dunno. I hate Ascension and think it's a terrible card because the only budget way to support it is by running 4x Brainstorm 4x Ponder and 4x Peer Through Depths in your deck. Even then you need fetchlands to make it consistent since you need to be able to shuffle away dead draws. The ideal cards to run are cheap tutors such as Mystical Tutor and Demonic Tutor since then you can just go tutor -> tutor -> tutor -> Cruel or whatever and stack your draws for the entire game. That's obviously not budget though. You could go with slow tutors obviously, but then you just have a slow "do nothing" deck.
There's just no good way to abuse Cruel Ultimatum in multiplayer. Your best bet, in my mind, is to just build a solid Grixis Control deck that can naturally cast it as time goes on. Like, simply field solid Control spells and draw and eventually use it to refill your hand, revive a bomb and crush someone in the later stages of the game. Your Ascension deck will always be filled with a bunch of small dig spells that have no impact on the game to try and fuel Ascension. Between 12 or so useless dig spells, 4 Ascensions and 4 Cruels there's basically no room inthe deck for actual meat that gives it any sort of staying power. You're just basically always going to be praying that no one bothers you while you try and assembly your atrocious mana requirements while playing very suboptimal spells.
I'll be sticking with the Ascension plan, so there's no real getting around that. Demonic Tutor is 10$ at my LGS, which seems entirely worth it.
I think Fact or Fiction could also be very powerful in this deck.
Also cut a couple Crosis's Charm simply because I don't have any copies of the card and doubt that my LGS will have any. If they don't they'll be replaced by Sun Droplet.
Cut the 2 Sun Droplet for the time being, hopefully I'll be gaining enough life through Exsanguinate.
Thoughts and comments are appreciated.
EDIT: Going through my collection saw Breath of Malfegor. Seems like a perfect fit in this deck. I'll hopefully have all the cards assembled today and be able to test it tomorrow.
Ran the deck in a 4 player FFA on cockatrice today. Worked out really well actually. Basic run down of how the game went:
Player 1: Green/Black Ramp into nothing
Player 2: Artifact ramp
Player 3: Uril, the Miststalker
Player 4: Me
Player 1 literally ramped the whole game and never played a threat.
Player 2 ramped into a double Sol RingContagion Engine with Tezzeret the Seeker. He could've used Tezz's ultimate to dish out 50+ damage a turn but for whatever reason didn't. Two of his key cards were 2x Blinkmoth Urn which helped me power out a bigger Exsanguinate. He also had Unwinding Clock so he could continuously proliferate his Tez.
Player 3: Only played a couple threats Uril and Rhox War Monk. He was playing Mayael's Aria as well but the game was over before it even triggered.
Me: I kept a hand with 3 lands, Pentad Prism, Pyromancer's Ascension, Volt Charge, Crosis' Charm. Pentad Prism was so key to this deck, especially when you can keep some counters on it for Volt Charge's proliferate. Basically I stalled a bit with the charm, got out 2 prisms which were netting me 4 colourless/turn because of Blinkmoth Urn. My first Exsanguinate was for 8 which was definitely sweet. I got attacked after that and dropped into the 30s. I Volt Charged with one in the GY so that put Pyro online immediately (sweet!). Eventually I cast Snapcaster Mage flashing back Exsanguinate for 6x2.
Are you still interested in the Spellweaver Helix deck someone mentionned a while back? If so I've got a decklist for you. It's grixis color. It's faster than your deck but has very little creature control. Basicly get to turn 4-5, Cruel, turn 5-6 cruel x3.
Are you still interested in the Spellweaver Helix deck someone mentionned a while back? If so I've got a decklist for you. It's grixis color. It's faster than your deck but has very little creature control. Basicly get to turn 4-5, Cruel, turn 5-6 cruel x3.
Nah I think I'm going to stick with Pyromancer Ascension, thanks though.
Ran it in another 4 man FFA and came 2nd, my opponent had Dimir, Circu Lobotomist and exiled Volt Charge. He was at 3 and I was at 2, with a Charge in my hand.
EDIT: Won the third game. I think Volcanic Fallout is pretty necessary after facing a Counter/Wizard deck with Patron Wizard and FoWs. I played around his counters enough to win, but it would have been nice to be able to set up faster. He at least drew the attention of the other 2 players. The best part is that I doubled up on a Cruel Ultimatum off of Pyromancer Ascension, and then won the game without the Ascension. So the deck can go all the way even without it's namesake.
24 land seems to be working great, I can't stress enough how awesome Pentad Prism is. It's basically a storage land that never needs to tap. Who doesn't love free mana? The bonus is great with Volt Charge in there, though I sometimes wish I had a way to abuse them when they've been depleted.
1x Snapcaster Mage
Instants: 13
4x Forbidden Alchemy
4x Volt Charge
2x Crosis's Charm
3x Breath of Malfegor
3x Cruel Ultimatum
3x Exsanguinate
4x Preordain
3x Browbeat
2x Call to Mind
3x Pentad Prism
Enchantments: 4
4x Pyromancer Ascension
Lands: 24
4x City of Brass
4x Crumbling Necropolis
4x Terramorphic Expanse
12x blah
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Plus you need to protect the combo while you play it, end up you consume even more mana and become even more slow when you don't even have a single mana acceleration's tools in your deck. Pact of Negation is definitely better then Rune Snag.
Dark Ritual, Lotus Bloom, Lotus Petal. You're gonna need them, it helps. Use Propaganda, Duress, Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek for early disruption if you had to.
Then those mana need to be fixed. I suggest you try out Shock lands.
Multiplayer is a very slow format, and this deck is not slow. It has 8 CMC1 cantrip/search spells to find and enable an early Pyromancer Ascension. It has early protection in Lightning Bolt and Terminate, though I might change the Terminate's into a sweeper like Pyroclasm.
I don't think Pact is better, as there will often be Rune Snags in the 'yard after using Forbidden Alchemy, or countering early threats.
Single-use mana acceleration is particularly bad in multiplayer.
Targeted discard is especially terrible in multiplayer.
Way out of budget and this isn't a zoo deck, so they'd come into play tapped 95% of the time.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
I addressed the land issue in my OP, do you have any suggestions on what to cut for 3 lands?
Suggesting a card is much more helpful than a sentence.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Ok, cut 2 Mirarri and 4 runesnag. You still need actual win conditions here, and you are in 3 colours so you have about a billion choices. I am not here to make the deck for you.
This forum is for posting decks and deck ideas in order for the community to help build the deck. If you're going to come into my thread and make comments that are not constructive toward my deck then I'd rather you not comment at all.
Updated the OP with some ideas.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
My Cube.
Casual Decks
UG Madness GU
W Stonehewer Equipment W
WU Millfolk UW
B Necroskitter (FFA) B
WU Multi-Kicker (FFA) UW
BW Near-Death Experience (FFA) WB
Very cool suggestion, I'll look into it. Probably will cut the Mirari plan and stick to Pyromancer.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Yeah pyroclasm isn't really going to help you that much. i was thinking something more powerfull like wrath. in red something like Chain Reaction or Blasphemous Act will give you better reach. But even those will only take you so far unless you dedicate some serious deck space to wipers and other cards that have an impact on the board.
The other direction is to play creatures / artifacts which will take away from the Ascension but then again you've got to survive. Aether Membrane, Sun Drop and Spellskite are all good starts.
The problem with the Ascension plan is that the key instants / soceries have no impact on general play. Forbidden Alchemy, Ponder, Preordain, Call to Mind are all great for powering up the assecion but your oppontents really aren't going to worry that much about you playing them. Once the Ascension is powered up your soceries / instants still are not that devistating until you get to the Ultimatum and even then you can only hit 2 players (and kill neither of them). also you are ignoring 1/3 of a very powerful spell by playing no creatures.
I have no easy fix but you probably need to play this deck to see if its actually playable. Personally i can't see it.
Anyways, I typically dislike these kinds of effects in general. I actually think that Mirari is almost unplayable. In order to activate it at a reasonable rate you need to be playing with small-medium sized spells. These tend to be weak in general, which makes your deck weak in general. Getting value out of Mirari means playing a bad deck with bad cards. Like, doubling up on Bolts or whatever is trivial. It's basically nothing. Ascension is better since it hits early and doesn't require a significant mana investment like other cards do, but it's still far from perfect. The problem is that you need to fill your deck with useless dig such as Peer Through Depths that just plain do nothing. Eventually your spells will be fairly strong, but your deck is still super threat-light overall. Unless your plan is to win the game by chaining "take an extra turn after this one" spells, you really can't get much going. The best use that I've seen for Mirari is cards such as Syphon Mind, Blood Tithe, and Browbeat. Not too cheap, not too expensive, and strong enough to hold their own in multiplayer. You can just plain cast these spells and still be happy with the effect. Doubling them up is fine, but you're not upset to just throw them out as is. Like, you will not win the game by doubling up your Terminates and Lightning Bolts. Congratulations, you've just paid 4 mana and used 2 cards for something that Innocent Blood probably could have accomplished. Copy Cruel? Not a chance. I mean, you will get up to 10 mana eventually, but let's be realistic here.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
A couple questions:
I have Desperate Ravings, but no Frantic Search - which do you think is better?. The random discard kind of hurts, but it comes down a turn earlier, and can be used twice. Frantic Search is from Urza block and as a result is ungodly. I'd have to pick some up from the store.
Blood Tithe vs Exsanguinate. Blood Tithe comes down earlier, and can be copied earlier, but doesn't have a chance to grow. Exsanguinate comes down a turn later, can be copied at the same time, but is much, much better in the long run.
Added a couple creatures to help abuse my instants/sorceries, and also to get a little more value out of Cruel Ultimatum.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
So cut the Frantic Search/Desperate Ravings and add in?
I'm definitely going Pyromancer Ascencion, not Mirari, or Spellweaver.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
There's just no good way to abuse Cruel Ultimatum in multiplayer. Your best bet, in my mind, is to just build a solid Grixis Control deck that can naturally cast it as time goes on. Like, simply field solid Control spells and draw and eventually use it to refill your hand, revive a bomb and crush someone in the later stages of the game. Your Ascension deck will always be filled with a bunch of small dig spells that have no impact on the game to try and fuel Ascension. Between 12 or so useless dig spells, 4 Ascensions and 4 Cruels there's basically no room inthe deck for actual meat that gives it any sort of staying power. You're just basically always going to be praying that no one bothers you while you try and assembly your atrocious mana requirements while playing very suboptimal spells.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I'll be sticking with the Ascension plan, so there's no real getting around that. Demonic Tutor is 10$ at my LGS, which seems entirely worth it.
I think Fact or Fiction could also be very powerful in this deck.
What do you guys think about adding Obelisk of Grixis/Darksteel Ingot/Pentad Prism/Sphere of the Suns/Fellwar Stone?
If I use Sphere of the Suns or Pentad Prism I could toss in Volt Charge or Tezzeret's Gambit, but I still think Fact or Fiction would be better.
Actually I really like the idea of Pentad Prism, Volt Charge, and Pyromancer Ascension...
Updated the OP with changes. I ended up cutting a couple Call to Mind for Snapcaster Mage. I think he'll be better with Cruel Ultimatum returning him to my hand.
Also cut a couple Crosis's Charm simply because I don't have any copies of the card and doubt that my LGS will have any. If they don't they'll be replaced by Sun Droplet.
Cut the 2 Sun Droplet for the time being, hopefully I'll be gaining enough life through Exsanguinate.
Thoughts and comments are appreciated.
EDIT: Going through my collection saw Breath of Malfegor. Seems like a perfect fit in this deck. I'll hopefully have all the cards assembled today and be able to test it tomorrow.
Ran the deck in a 4 player FFA on cockatrice today. Worked out really well actually. Basic run down of how the game went:
Player 1: Green/Black Ramp into nothing
Player 2: Artifact ramp
Player 3: Uril, the Miststalker
Player 4: Me
Player 1 literally ramped the whole game and never played a threat.
Player 2 ramped into a double Sol Ring Contagion Engine with Tezzeret the Seeker. He could've used Tezz's ultimate to dish out 50+ damage a turn but for whatever reason didn't. Two of his key cards were 2x Blinkmoth Urn which helped me power out a bigger Exsanguinate. He also had Unwinding Clock so he could continuously proliferate his Tez.
Player 3: Only played a couple threats Uril and Rhox War Monk. He was playing Mayael's Aria as well but the game was over before it even triggered.
Me: I kept a hand with 3 lands, Pentad Prism, Pyromancer's Ascension, Volt Charge, Crosis' Charm. Pentad Prism was so key to this deck, especially when you can keep some counters on it for Volt Charge's proliferate. Basically I stalled a bit with the charm, got out 2 prisms which were netting me 4 colourless/turn because of Blinkmoth Urn. My first Exsanguinate was for 8 which was definitely sweet. I got attacked after that and dropped into the 30s. I Volt Charged with one in the GY so that put Pyro online immediately (sweet!). Eventually I cast Snapcaster Mage flashing back Exsanguinate for 6x2.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts
Nah I think I'm going to stick with Pyromancer Ascension, thanks though.
Ran it in another 4 man FFA and came 2nd, my opponent had Dimir, Circu Lobotomist and exiled Volt Charge. He was at 3 and I was at 2, with a Charge in my hand.
EDIT: Won the third game. I think Volcanic Fallout is pretty necessary after facing a Counter/Wizard deck with Patron Wizard and FoWs. I played around his counters enough to win, but it would have been nice to be able to set up faster. He at least drew the attention of the other 2 players. The best part is that I doubled up on a Cruel Ultimatum off of Pyromancer Ascension, and then won the game without the Ascension. So the deck can go all the way even without it's namesake.
24 land seems to be working great, I can't stress enough how awesome Pentad Prism is. It's basically a storage land that never needs to tap. Who doesn't love free mana? The bonus is great with Volt Charge in there, though I sometimes wish I had a way to abuse them when they've been depleted.
Multiplayer:
MonoBlack
Mono-Red
Cycling
Crush of Wurms
Zoo
Immortal Coil
Control
Reanimator
Mono-G
Cruel Ascension
Landfall
Esper Spirits/Tokens
Phantom Vigor
Not Explicitly Multiplayer:
Allies
Bant
Artifacts