We need a banner for the primer. Anyone arty here?
I wrote with the mods and FZA, who was the owner of the old thread and we agreed that I could make this primer so here we go.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why I renamed the deck
Why play Pyromancer Ascension?
Links
Modern Pyromancer Ascension Core
Preferred Card Choices
Experimental Card Choices
UWR or UR? The crunch question.
Machtups and Sideboarding
Sample decklists
Disclaimer
Introduction
What is Pyromancer Ascension? Pyromancer Ascension is a card, which is a centerpiece in UR Storm decks and UR(W) decks like this deck which utilize the card Pyromancer Ascension to gain value and whittle down their opponent with a classic burn package instead of generating massive storm counts.
The goal of the deck previously known as Thing Ascension is to turn the Ascension on and cycle through your decks with cantrips and/or clean the board or ping your opponent to death. Instead of the known Modern list of UR Storm this deck is theoretically able to fight through discard and removal. There exists two main versions at the moment (one playing with UWR and one with UR, which I will go through.
Why I renamed the deck
The deck was called UR(W) Thing Ascension before, but the more I played the deck the more I understood that the deck is about Pyromancer Ascension foremost and secondly about payoff cards like Monastery Mentor, Monastery Swiftspear, Bedlam Reveler, Thing in the Ice and Young Pyromancer. We dont win anything if we play with Thin in the Ice all the time. In some MU it just might be bad and we shouldn't play the card. As I though about this I also came to the conclusion that the same apllies to the name. The engine is our Ascension, the payoffs don't get a part of the naming. Also I wanna mention that the team from Modernnexus named the deck Pyromancer Ascension, which furthermore insured me to change the name.
Why play Pyromancer Ascension?
Reasons to play the deck]While UR Storm is a scary deck, the archetype is mere fringe at the moment. The bans to Seething Song and Preordain cut Storms wings and while some people are brewing with Bedlam Reveler to refuel the hands in a mono R Storm list, the old Storm deck doesn't look that good at the moment. Another possibility to use your Pyromancer Ascensions is to run this deck instead. Positive things about Pyromancer Ascension are:
Competiveness
Ryoichi Tamade took this list to a Top 8 finish at GP Guangzhou. It also won some Competitive Modern Leagues. While part of this may come from the relatively short time the deck is around and the fast that people are not (yet) overly prepared for the deck, Tamada also took the deck to worlds and its playrate is around 1% percent and rising in MTGO. Mondernnexus recognizes the deck as a fringe Tier 3 deck, which is something.
Inevitability
Aside from removal either a flipped thing or an Ascension guarantee a fast clock on your opponent. Most of the time you can win the game from turn 3 to 5 on if your opponent is tapped out and you combo to infinity. If you can start your combo(s) you can get yourself in a board state where (most of the time) you can burn your opponent that much, that even if he swipes your wincons a simple bolt is enough to finish him of.
Combo potential
This overlaps with the previous part. Often times your opponent cannot cope with the value you are generating while comboing off - be it flipping your thing and timewalking his board, while cantripping through your deck or be it cantripping through your deck while generating 8 mana and burning him for 12 life in a turn. This deck is not as flashy as UR Storm, but not only can you built it half Storm, half Thing In the Ice, you also get more consitency going the Thing in the Ice route.
Nuance
The deck is very new, but some people like Sam Black, Dylan Botten and Okada Naoya are brewing around it, while Ross Merriam already wrote about it and modernnexus as well examined a first version of the deck. Not only can you go UR or URW, where white gives you acces to the premiere removal spell Path to Exile and life gain along the road, choices like going with Monastery Swiftspear or Monastery Mentor to keep the aggression high and force the enemies to remove this cheap threat (which may let your real threats slip through their guards) or Bedlam Reveler to restock your hand make the deck building interesting and can adapt your deck to a given metagame.
Newness
While value Ascension decks are nothing new, this deck is the new kid around your block which plays woth all the new toys (Thing in the Ice, Bedlam Reveler) you want to play like forever, but your family never bought those for you. Don't give up, befriend the new kid.
These are cards that are already played in the deck, but are not necessarily part of the MB:
Visions of Beyond
While the payoff is great when you draw 3 cards or even 6 when the Ascension is online, Bedlam Reveler can do the same consistently in the midgame for one more mana and he has a resonable body. Tho we must not forget that Visions works instant and can fuel shenanigans to flip your thing and bounce a board.
Faitless Looting
In the early turns we rely on your graveyard by getting spells in it to put counters on Ascension. While it's good that we can flash it back, the card is straight disadvantage in the later game. It certainly is good to put land topdecks into your graveyard tho. In my opinion it can be substituted with Bedlam Reveler.
Some decks like Sam Blacks UR list want Thing in the SB to bounce the board of aggro and midrange decks. In control matchups however I have the feeling that we need to goldfish our Ascension online and gain card advantage to put down Bedlam Reveler as a prowess beatstick. Should be atleast in the SB in most decks.
A card that pops up here and there, when someone tries to make the deck more resilient. The issue is that we don't like having to many mana open as it sets us back. We operate with very little mana and under the assumption that we can make some mana with Manamorphose if we need to while drawing through our deck.
Experimental Card Choices: coming soon
UWR or UR? The crunch question: coming soon
Machtups and Sideboarding: coming soon
Sample decklists: coming soon
Disclaimer:
APPROVED POSTS
Discussing Pyromancer Ascension decks - those with 4 Pyromancer Ascensions that are value based combo-control, aggro-control or aggro-combo based and do not primarily kill with storm countsSuggesting an idea that has or has not been tried yet
(e.g. "This deck seems to struggle with Tron; has anyone tried some land hate instead of going Blood Moon?")
Constructively criticizing another user's idea.
(e.g. "That idea was already discussed and found lacking. Here's the test results we did back in May...")
Posts in this category are totally okay as long as you are also following the forum rules.
The following posts are not allowed. Users who engage in this behavior will be warned or infracted accordingly.
PROHIBITED POSTS
All MTGS forum rules apply here
(e.g. no spamming, trolling, flaming, etc.)
DON'T RESPOND TO TROLLING/FLAMING/SPAMMING. Just report it!
If you get involved in a flame war you can get infracted too, regardless of who started it.
No decks that are not Pyromancer Ascension based value decks. Decks must have 4 Ascensiions, be UWR
(e.g. "I've been trying this 5 colour deck which controls the early game and sticks an Ascension as a midgame wincon; it's awesome!")
Also remember that this is not my primer, it's yours. If you find anything wrong, want your decklist to be featured or have constructive feedback (especially for the MUs) please shoot me a message or post in this thread. Thanks,
King.
Changelog
Day / month / year
28.09.2016: Primer got created
29.09.2016: minor changes including some pictures, the addition of a changelog and some changes to the structure of the whole primer
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Hey guys, I've been watching the deck, looks great, and thank you Kinfuzius for starting the primer. I'm not playing it right now, but I have a few questions, I was reading from the old thread, and haven't actually seen the tron match up yet, but has any body tried stone rain, or any other 3 mana land destruction in place of blood moon? It seems pretty awesome with ascension on line, I played skred for a while, and bloodmoon just doesn't do enough in that match up.
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
I think in a meta with burn / affinity / other aggro it's best to take advantage of Lightning Helix and Rest for the Weary. Even if the manabase is a bit more painful, Helix more than makes up for it against fast decks. I'm hoping the new fastland will make the manabase a bit better against burn too.
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
I think in a meta with burn / affinity / other aggro it's best to take advantage of Lightning Helix and Rest for the Weary. Even if the manabase is a bit more painful, Helix more than makes up for it against fast decks. I'm hoping the new fastland will make the manabase a bit better against burn too.
I don't think that they are gonna help. I build a new mana base today and it was inconsistent as **** since you cannot fetch Spirebluff Canal. But maybe it was just because I did something wrong. I am gonna work on it again.
Flooded Strands are replacing Scalding Tarns until I get them. I haven't run into many issues on XMage, but I took a pretty conservative approach to adding them. I'll report back with how it goes at FNM tomorrow, and maybe start trying to add more. One question is- is Sulfur Falls still worth consideration?
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
Hm, not really. Prowess means a creature has to get through unopposed, which isn't quite as easy as simply burning someone out with copied bolts. At least, in many games I win, I won by 'comboing off' on the last possible turn and bolting them for 18+ without a creature that could even attack. I suppose it's easier if you play Monastery Swiftspear, but creatures are still more easily dealt with than bolts. Also, 1 helix more than pays for the untapped shock already and all subsequent ones gain you 3 life. With Ascension, you can get pretty obscene amounts of life that easily keeps you alive in aggro matchups. Not losing as much life isn't quite the same as gaining tons.
This is my current list, btw. I'm a bit on the fence about the new fastland. Land #4 has been important enough so far that I prefer the Sulfur Falls as not many 1 landers are really keepable anyway. It's not like burn where you can go GG into GG and burn them out with a few bolts. Bricking on land 2 has so far cost me the game in the majority of cases, as far as I can tell.
Hey guys, I've been watching the deck, looks great, and thank you Kinfuzius for starting the primer. I'm not playing it right now, but I have a few questions, I was reading from the old thread, and haven't actually seen the tron match up yet, but has any body tried stone rain, or any other 3 mana land destruction in place of blood moon? It seems pretty awesome with ascension on line, I played skred for a while, and bloodmoon just doesn't do enough in that match up.
I've played against Tron twice so far (both Gw, funnily enough, never played against that version before that I can remember) and the matchup is not as bad as I thought it was (even though I lost and drew against them, odd games). Between blue moon on the one hand (unwinnable) and UR storm on the other (unlosable), we're much closer to storm than blue moon so they are quite pressed to get karn out quickly and if they don't, they're likely dead. If I played against regular Gr tron instead, I would have easily won in at least one of the matches and would have had a very good chance in the other, because path to exile is way better than any red spell against us.
Anyway, the point is that blood moon is fine against them because our game plan is fast enough to not allow them to just get to 7 land (or even 5, for stone) and I think it's necessary for enough otherwise probably not very great matchups that I wouldn't want to cut them. I just see them as a hoser of a strategy (valakut, eldrazi, tron, etc) and not a 'let's hope they don't fetch around it' mana screwer. In a matchup like esper control I would bring them in because I wouldn't bring in Path, but if I want path (for goyf, fx) I don't bring in moon unless it also hoses them completely and they can't fetch around it (valakut and eldrazi is pretty much it where I would bring in both, from the top of my head).
I'm not a fan of blood moon. I've found bedlam reveler a lot better against GBx and control (in the SB), and we can race the other decks. Also, moon can be very slow if you can't get it out on turn 2 againt Tron/Valakut etc, and sometimes it doesn't do anything. Don't get me wrong, it is a good card and can outright win some games, but I prefer a more flexible sideboard. I also play 4 counterspells (2 spell pierce, 1 swan song, 1 dispel) in the side
(Edit) I think that you are quite hyperbolic. Last weekend I played in 4 competitive modern leagues with the deck (not great record btw, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1, 3-2 - I played really badly on some games due to fatigue, so could have been a lot better). I faced mono U tron a total of 4 times (I think I saw the same guy 2 or 3 times over the week end), and only lost once. The matchup is clearly winnable. Just as against control, you need to bait their counterspells, and you should remand their Thrist for knowledge (key spell in their deck). As you say, you need to be fast vs Tron (same vs living end/scapeshift). Blue scapeshift seems difficilt (only played it once): counterspells+ a fast clock is a beating.
I've never played against storm with this deck, but I've been on the opposite side of the MU, and I felt it was very favorable for storm, which is a lot faster and the UWR deck has little disruption, especially game 1.
@king: in your primer, you say that you can kill someone from 12hp etc. In reality, I've found that with the right hand, the deck can litteraly combo off (generally on turn 5-7, 4 if you're very lucky) and one-shot someone from 20 life. You just need some manamorphoses (also works with 2 ascensions). With active ascension and manamorphose (especially 2 or more) the deck just feels like regular storm (but better )
I'm interesting in cutting faitless looting (already cut the 3rd one for bedlam reveler), or trimming it back to 1 (can help against flooding, or dead cards in hand). I feel this deck mulligans very badly (most of your cards just cantrip into 1 new card, and it can be very hard to come back from a mull to 6, 5, especially if you mull to a hand with looting (virtual additional mulligan).
EDIT: A very interesting list went 5-0 in the modern league: http://magic.wizards.com/fr/node/1080751 (it should be the 3rd or 4th one). Notable inclusions: Flash Slash, 3 Bedlam reveler, cryptic command...
I'm not sure you meant me when you said "I think that you are quite hyperbolic", but in case you were: why? Maybe you misunderstood what I tried to say in the comparison with blue moon and UR storm vs tron. From the perspective of the respective deck vs tron, blue moon has an unwinnable matchup against tron and UR storm an unlosable one (say, 80/20 or even more lopsided) and Thing Ascension is much closer to storm than to blue moon. This is why I think that blood moon is fine in our deck against tron and we don't need molten rain or the like.
The reason I like blood moon in this deck is because it completely hoses some strategies that could race us with the added benefit of being good against 3 color non-red decks with few basics. Depending on how they fetch g2, you can take out/bring in blood moon for g3. If they fetch around it while you don't have it in your deck anymore, that's great and if they don't while you do, that's also great. It's just pretty bad to have blood moon in your hand/deck when they fetch around it, especially if you don't have ways to discard it profitably (looting, reveler).
Also, for what it's worth, I actually think the deck should be called Thing Ascension. It's been a hugely important card for me and won games that would take a perfect storm (hehe) to win with ascension. I also don't see any lists that don't run it and those that have it in the side have swiftspear or reveler main instead so they also don't fully depend on ascension. Turn 2 thing, turn 3 flip and attack can lead to an easy t4 win while disrupting the opponent and there are quite a few matchups where it's a straight race. UR storm is already more of a turn 4 than a turn 3 deck and we're way slower than that with ascension due to the lack of rituals, electromancer, past in flames or grapeshot.
Cryptic command sounds pretty cool to copy but Remand seems more flexible to me. I guess flame slash is the next best option if you don't run white for helix, but it not going to the face seems rough.
I've ran 3 bedlam revelers in every iteration so far but I might go down to 2 in the main and put the 3rd in the side. It's useless to have 2 in hand and you don't really need one early as long as you have 4 thing and 4 ascension in the deck. The issue is that I don't know what to take out of the board and what to put in the main. A 1-off spell seems awful with ascension and the 4th remand also doesn't seem great.
Oh sorry I didnt get your point (thought you meant this deck had an unwinnable MU vs mono u tron and unlosable vs storm, read it too fast ).
I agree on the importance of thing. I think this card is what makes this deck really competitive as the 2 game plans (thing + ascension) are good against different matchups and compliment well each other
@king: in your primer, you say that you can kill someone from 12hp etc. In reality, I've found that with the right hand, the deck can litteraly combo off (generally on turn 5-7, 4 if you're very lucky) and one-shot someone from 20 life. You just need some manamorphoses (also works with 2 ascensions). With active ascension and manamorphose (especially 2 or more) the deck just feels like regular storm (but better )
Yeah, I think this is a good point. It's realistic to get a combo kill on turn 4 in the Visions of Beyond versions of the deck, and still possible with just sleight. It's important for players new to the deck to know that sometimes it's correct just to try to murder people with bolts if you have the right setup instead of playing too conservatively.
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
I think in a meta with burn / affinity / other aggro it's best to take advantage of Lightning Helix and Rest for the Weary. Even if the manabase is a bit more painful, Helix more than makes up for it against fast decks. I'm hoping the new fastland will make the manabase a bit better against burn too.
I don't think that they are gonna help. I build a new mana base today and it was inconsistent as **** since you cannot fetch Spirebluff Canal. But maybe it was just because I did something wrong. I am gonna work on it again.
Flooded Strands are replacing Scalding Tarns until I get them. I haven't run into many issues on XMage, but I took a pretty conservative approach to adding them. I'll report back with how it goes at FNM tomorrow, and maybe start trying to add more. One question is- is Sulfur Falls still worth consideration?
I think Spirebluff Canal is straight up better than Sulfur Springs, because you can play turn 1 to 3 the Canal everytime while the Springs are more conditionaln and need another land drop. So Spirebluff is the perfect subsitute for Sulfur Springs
I've played a few FNMs since the WMCQ and think that you definitely want to have the white splash for helix and side board cards. Effectively having 8 bolts, 4 of which gain you life, has been incredibly important and I don't see how you could play this without them.
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
Hm, not really. Prowess means a creature has to get through unopposed, which isn't quite as easy as simply burning someone out with copied bolts. At least, in many games I win, I won by 'comboing off' on the last possible turn and bolting them for 18+ without a creature that could even attack. I suppose it's easier if you play Monastery Swiftspear, but creatures are still more easily dealt with than bolts. Also, 1 helix more than pays for the untapped shock already and all subsequent ones gain you 3 life. With Ascension, you can get pretty obscene amounts of life that easily keeps you alive in aggro matchups. Not losing as much life isn't quite the same as gaining tons.
This is my current list, btw. I'm a bit on the fence about the new fastland. Land #4 has been important enough so far that I prefer the Sulfur Falls as not many 1 landers are really keepable anyway. It's not like burn where you can go GG into GG and burn them out with a few bolts. Bricking on land 2 has so far cost me the game in the majority of cases, as far as I can tell.
Hey guys, I've been watching the deck, looks great, and thank you Kinfuzius for starting the primer. I'm not playing it right now, but I have a few questions, I was reading from the old thread, and haven't actually seen the tron match up yet, but has any body tried stone rain, or any other 3 mana land destruction in place of blood moon? It seems pretty awesome with ascension on line, I played skred for a while, and bloodmoon just doesn't do enough in that match up.
I've played against Tron twice so far (both Gw, funnily enough, never played against that version before that I can remember) and the matchup is not as bad as I thought it was (even though I lost and drew against them, odd games). Between blue moon on the one hand (unwinnable) and UR storm on the other (unlosable), we're much closer to storm than blue moon so they are quite pressed to get karn out quickly and if they don't, they're likely dead. If I played against regular Gr tron instead, I would have easily won in at least one of the matches and would have had a very good chance in the other, because path to exile is way better than any red spell against us.
Anyway, the point is that blood moon is fine against them because our game plan is fast enough to not allow them to just get to 7 land (or even 5, for stone) and I think it's necessary for enough otherwise probably not very great matchups that I wouldn't want to cut them. I just see them as a hoser of a strategy (valakut, eldrazi, tron, etc) and not a 'let's hope they don't fetch around it' mana screwer. In a matchup like esper control I would bring them in because I wouldn't bring in Path, but if I want path (for goyf, fx) I don't bring in moon unless it also hoses them completely and they can't fetch around it (valakut and eldrazi is pretty much it where I would bring in both, from the top of my head).
I'm not a fan of blood moon. I've found bedlam reveler a lot better against GBx and control (in the SB), and we can race the other decks. Also, moon can be very slow if you can't get it out on turn 2 againt Tron/Valakut etc, and sometimes it doesn't do anything. Don't get me wrong, it is a good card and can outright win some games, but I prefer a more flexible sideboard. I also play 4 counterspells (2 spell pierce, 1 swan song, 1 dispel) in the side
I think that you are quite hyperbolic. Last weekend I played in 4 competitive modern leagues with the deck (not great record btw, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1, 3-2 - I played really badly on some games due to fatigue, so could have been a lot better). I faced mono U tron a total of 4 times (I think I saw the same guy 2 or 3 times over the week end), and only lost once. The matchup is clearly winnable. Just as against control, you need to bait their counterspells, and you should remand their Thrist for knowledge (key spell in their deck). As you say, you need to be fast vs Tron (same vs living end/scapeshift). Blue scapeshift seems difficilt (only played it once): counterspells+ a fast clock is a beating.
I've never played against storm with this deck, but I've been on the opposite side of the MU, and I felt it was very favorable for storm, which is a lot faster and the UWR deck has little disruption, especially game 1.
@king: in your primer, you say that you can kill someone from 12hp etc. In reality, I've found that with the right hand, the deck can litteraly combo off (generally on turn 5-7, 4 if you're very lucky) and one-shot someone from 20 life. You just need some manamorphoses (also works with 2 ascensions). With active ascension and manamorphose (especially 2 or more) the deck just feels like regular storm (but better )
I'm interesting in cutting faitless looting (already cut the 3rd one for bedlam reveler), or trimming it back to 1 (can help against flooding, or dead cards in hand). I feel this deck mulligans very badly (most of your cards just cantrip into 1 new card, and it can be very hard to come back from a mull to 6, 5, especially if you mull to a hand with looting (virtual additional mulligan).
EDIT: A very interesting list went 5-0 in the modern league: http://magic.wizards.com/fr/node/1080751 (it should be the 3rd or 4th one). Notable inclusions: Flash Slash, 3 Bedlam reveler, cryptic command...
Sweet list. I thing going UWR or UR is somehow a meta call. I dont like the Rest for the Weary. I just don't like the card. Besides that talking about Prowess. The thing about Prowess. While Bedlam Reveler and Monastery Swiftspear pressure the opponent to bait removal they are important to insure damage. Both get stronger for drawing thorugh your deck AND Bedlam Reveler also refills your hand. Yes, both are creatures, but I am really really happy if my Monastery Swiftspear eats a Abrupt Decay
Hey man, I konw. It's with every engine in MTG ever. If you get it online you can swag away 19 life. Did I tell you the story? Once I flipped a thing and cast two bolts and did 19 damage in one turn ... on turn 3. To be fair I had three Manamorphose to turn on the Ascensiob, but yeah. Our deck works essentially like a combo deck unless it fizzles. The strength I see is that we can generate value until we combo off. We don't need to combo on turn 4, but we can often. This is strength.
Okay. I hope I don't forgot one post from you guys and gals. Honestly I am quite drunk already. Gonna reply tomorrow. I don't want Toprf, Lantern or ktkenshinx kill me for trolling
See you tomorrow,
King.
Sweet list. I thing going UWR or UR is somehow a meta call. I dont like the Rest for the Weary. I just don't like the card. Besides that talking about Prowess. The thing about Prowess. While Bedlam Reveler and Monastery Swiftspear pressure the opponent to bait removal they are important to insure damage. Both get stronger for drawing thorugh your deck AND Bedlam Reveler also refills your hand. Yes, both are creatures, but I am really really happy if my Monastery Swiftspear eats a Abrupt Decay
Hey man, I konw. It's with every engine in MTG ever. If you get it online you can swag away 19 life. Did I tell you the story? Once I flipped a thing and cast two bolts and did 19 damage in one turn ... on turn 3. To be fair I had three Manamorphose to turn on the Ascensiob, but yeah. Our deck works essentially like a combo deck unless it fizzles. The strength I see is that we can generate value until we combo off. We don't need to combo on turn 4, but we can often. This is strength.
Okay. I hope I don't forgot one post from you guys and gals. Honestly I am quite drunk already. Gonna reply tomorrow. I don't want Toprf, Lantern or ktkenshinx kill me for trolling
See you tomorrow,
King.
A pure life gain card has to be pretty good to be playable, I agree. Gain 8 for 2 mana at instant speed with the potential to be copied by ascension fits that bill though. Sadly, today it also proved that it's not enough to beat burn by itself. If they decay your swiftspear, that's great of course, but when do they do that? Probably not when it's a 1/2. I don't really see how you could kill on turn 3 with that, btw. You can't have both a non-summoning sick thing + active ascension on turn 3. Still, the point is that this deck is much more resilient than regular UR storm, indeed. Just a pity that an early chalice on 1 is still insane against us.
I played a PPTQ today, which went quite poorly. I didn't want to play Burn again (did that in a pptq yesterday, which also went poorly, after 2 top8s in a row :() because people were starting to hate it quite a bit. Funnily enough, there were 4 burn players in a field of 23 anyway.
R1 I played against Affinity and mulled to 4 game 1 (bad 1 lander into 2 bad 0landers) and he had the one thing that really was unbeatable game 1 with such a measly hand: Master of Etherium. Any other payoff spell that was susceptible to helix/bolt would have been fine but a double memnite/ornithopter + mox into t2 master hand I couldn't beat. G2 I easily win on the basis of tons of (copied) removal. G3 was looking very good, having just found and played an ascension after clearing out his threats, until he drops a chalice on 1, shutting down my entire hand. Also couldn't trigger the ascension due to no overlap between hand/gy so I had to draw into something. He only had 2 vault skirges as pressure so that seemed fine, but after chalice he immediately draws plating and I die in 2 turns.
R2 against Bant Eldrazi. He has a slowish draw without noble or temple and goes spellskite into displacer while I find an ascension. He then plays explosives and destroys both his spellskite and my ascension. Being left with a TKS and displacer, but tapped out, I helix his displacer and take a hit from TKS. I find a new ascension and activate it with a cantrip, but draw land and he plays smasher to finish me off.
G2 he has t2 chalice into EE on 2 for my thing that I just flipped in order to hopefully get somewhere despite throwing all my 1's into it. Just cannot catch a break today.
R3 bye.. yeah..
R4 against burn. I mull to 6 and have a slowish hand while he has not much. I probed his hand t1 and see wooded foothills, lava spike, swiftspear, rift bolt, searing blaze, bloodstained mire and copperline gorge. Seems fine, not much pressure, almost dead card in hand. Then, of course, he rips eidolon and I die. It didn't help that I forgot an ascension counter while trying to activate through the eidolon but without a bolt/helix to immediately kill the eidolon it was game over.
G2 I keep a hand with manamorphose, rest for the weary and lands. Probably a bad keep. I even rip helix and 2nd rest as well as an ascension to gain a total of 19 life and die horribly anyway because he has the full creature draw with nacatls, goblin guide and eidolon and I find no anger. To really rub it in, he also revelried my ascension.
R5 against Abzan
G1 he goes Inquisition into goyf and I probe him to see decay and 3 land. I play ascension into his decay and cantrip into a new one next turn, but he finds another goyf and path to increase the pressure and get rid of my thing.
G2 he has some pressure but no removal and I kill him with bolts/thing. Don't remember any specifics here. Reveler was good though.
G3 I mull to 6 and keep a hand with 3 land and 3 cantrips. He thoughtseizes and doesn't really know what to take because I don't have any payoff yet. Love that against those decks ;). He's very slowly increasing pressure with a tiny goyf and some spirits when he plays a leyline of sanctity. Great. I didn't board in my wear//tear so there's no way to get rid of it. In this game, Revelers really shine, though. I draw and played 2 in a row while activating ascension and double helixing to get rid of a liliana and stay alive. In the end I have a big combo turn during turns in which I bring a bedlam reveler to 12 power to swing for the win.
It's funny how I haven't lost to BGx so far, despite it being traditionally a bad matchup for ascension decks. Mostly due to reveler and path to exile, of course, but thing has been pretty good as well. He played the new BG fastland, so he didn't take as much damage as they used to, but it still doesn't take too much to kill them with a thing/reveler and bolts. For G2, I brought in 1 blood moon to mise, but even without seeing it he was fetching around it so I took it out for g3. Unless you play against inexperienced players, blood moon to screw BGx is just not worth it imho. If our deck would be 100% fine with it in play, you could argue it's always ok to at least hamper them and turn off their manlands, but that's not quite the case. At least not in the jeskai version, straight UR has a much easier time under blood moon, of course.
I had awkward draws etc, so I didn't play all that much magic today, but it still seems to me that Faithless Looting might need to be in the deck. Perhaps a 2-1 split of reveler/faithless looting. The reason for this is the fact that 1-landers are much easier to keep when you can dig for land with looting, which reveler doesn't do. Also, drawing a 2nd or 3rd reveler is 100% dead and it's not fast enough to need to draw it early. I'd love to be able to have 3 revelers after side against BGx, though, also because there I definitely don't want looting, but I have no idea what to take out of the sideboard. Maybe the explosives. They've never been particularly useful so far, even though they should be. It has quite some overlap with other cards in the side, though (anger, path, wear//tear), so perhaps it can go. It also doesn't help that you basically can't ever set it to 2 without wrecking yourself.
@R3doxNL, I think that not playing the full set of Faithless Lootings is a mistake. Whats the reason behind that decision? Also, what did you substitute it for? Sorry if you've already explained it.
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[Modern] RBGU Dredge RBGU RG Ponza RG UR Thing in the Ice Ascension UR
[EDH/CMDR] G Titania, Protector of Argoth G UB Grimgrin, Corpse-born UB UWR Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
@R3doxNL, I think that not playing the full set of Faithless Lootings is a mistake. Whats the reason behind that decision? Also, what did you substitute it for? Sorry if you've already explained it.
I'm currently playing this deck too and I can tell you looting is arguably the worst card in the deck. The most important reason is that it can't recycle itself. (Although it's great with activated ascension but anything is great with activated ascension so...) I think we rarely flashback looting unless it's in the mid-late game and we do not have any value card in hand.(which at that point you might've lost already) therefore, 3 copies are descent and sometimes it will be sideboarded out.
@R3doxNL, Path is practically a must include in the deck.
A full set of Faithless Lootings is needed, to fuel the ascensions and filter what you don't need.
Have you thought about running Snapcasters if your ascensions keep getting exiled/destroyed?
Snappy is not integrated into the deck at all. Not only takes up the important 2-mana drop curve, which, already contains 4 ascensions and 4 thing in the ice, Snappy doe not have great targets in our deck. I mean, target bolt and helix, sure, it's fine, but is it really worth it? It's not like targeting a kolagan's command or cryptic or anything with value. and we don't really need the 2/1 to speed up the clock.
@R3doxNL, I think that not playing the full set of Faithless Lootings is a mistake. Whats the reason behind that decision? Also, what did you substitute it for? Sorry if you've already explained it.
I took them out for Bedlam Reveler as they functionally overlap. In the WMCQ I actually removed all Remands instead of the Faithless Lootings, but I wasn't really happy with that because that's a lot of the same(ish) effect and Remand can do some pretty useful things in this deck besides slowing the opponent down. I think the problem I have with looting is that it's pretty high variance, ranging from abysmal to awesome. When you have a bad-card heavy hand, for whatever reason, it's basically a draw-2 with flashback. When facing discard, it's like committing suicide. What I found is that it's mostly important to have looting in land-light hands to dig deep for a land with upside for Ascension, but in many cases it's just -1 card for little value. Reveler, on the other hand, is very good against BGx which infests the meta at the moment. However, I've convinced myself that 2 reveler main is good enough and that I have room for 1 looting, relegating the 3rd reveler to the side instead of Engineered Explosives which has always been awkward in this deck and overlaps too much with Path. This is not a deck where you want to sideboard a lot so I prefer to keep the packages small.
@R3doxNL, Path is practically a must include in the deck.
A full set of Faithless Lootings is needed, to fuel the ascensions and filter what you don't need.
Have you thought about running Snapcasters if your ascensions keep getting exiled/destroyed?
Why the remark about Path? Snapcaster definitely doesn't belong in this deck. It's not even a 2-drop, really.
Full set is definitely way too much. I've seen lists with 4 but they are in the minority and I cannot fathom it's correct. The problem is that you can only filter what you don't need when you have cards in hand and this is -1 card. I've never liked this card in decks like these, be it UR Storm or Jeskai Ascendancy.
It's great against BGx decks that try to trade with your stuff 1 for 1 and strip your hand. It's basically treasure cruise with a 3/4 prowess attached to it that can't be decayed against them.
I'm still not convinced by Bedlam Reveler if I'm honest. When I cast it I'm usually already winning, and I can't say its ever won me a game on it's own. If someone can sell me on the card I'd be grateful.
The card I am in love with though is Noxious Revival. Yes its technically card disadvantage but it has sooo many uses. You can use it to put back that 2nd spell to trigger ascension earlier, you can use it to flip a thing when you are completely tapped out which is brutal, you can use it to smooth bad land draws by putting a fetch back on top and best of all it infi combos with Manamorphose and an active ascension. Milling someone out with this deck when they think they've won feels great. I'm currently running 3, but I might take that down to 2.
Blood Moon and Negates (1-2 Dispel is also ok against Jeskai) worked well for me against those matchups. Landing BM against Tron is pretty much good game but against Nahiri, the matchup involves a bit of racing as BM will only slow them down esepcially on games 2-3.
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We need a banner for the primer. Anyone arty here?
I wrote with the mods and FZA, who was the owner of the old thread and we agreed that I could make this primer so here we go.
What is Pyromancer Ascension? Pyromancer Ascension is a card, which is a centerpiece in UR Storm decks and UR(W) decks like this deck which utilize the card Pyromancer Ascension to gain value and whittle down their opponent with a classic burn package instead of generating massive storm counts.
The goal of the deck previously known as Thing Ascension is to turn the Ascension on and cycle through your decks with cantrips and/or clean the board or ping your opponent to death. Instead of the known Modern list of UR Storm this deck is theoretically able to fight through discard and removal. There exists two main versions at the moment (one playing with UWR and one with UR, which I will go through.
The deck was called UR(W) Thing Ascension before, but the more I played the deck the more I understood that the deck is about Pyromancer Ascension foremost and secondly about payoff cards like Monastery Mentor, Monastery Swiftspear, Bedlam Reveler, Thing in the Ice and Young Pyromancer. We dont win anything if we play with Thin in the Ice all the time. In some MU it just might be bad and we shouldn't play the card. As I though about this I also came to the conclusion that the same apllies to the name. The engine is our Ascension, the payoffs don't get a part of the naming. Also I wanna mention that the team from Modernnexus named the deck Pyromancer Ascension, which furthermore insured me to change the name.
Reasons to play the deck]While UR Storm is a scary deck, the archetype is mere fringe at the moment. The bans to Seething Song and Preordain cut Storms wings and while some people are brewing with Bedlam Reveler to refuel the hands in a mono R Storm list, the old Storm deck doesn't look that good at the moment. Another possibility to use your Pyromancer Ascensions is to run this deck instead. Positive things about Pyromancer Ascension are:
Ryoichi Tamadas list from GP Guanghzou
Ryoichi Tamadas Decklist he played at worlds
SaffronOlive playing the deck
Okada Naoya playing the deck
0 - 4 Thing in the Ice
0 - 3 Bedlam Reveler
Sorceries
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
0 - 3 card draw spells
Instants
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
4 Thought Scour
0 - 3 Remand
0 - 4 Visions of Beyond
4 Pyromancer Ascension
Lands
16 - 18 lands
These are cards that are already played in the deck, but are not necessarily part of the MB:
Visions of Beyond
While the payoff is great when you draw 3 cards or even 6 when the Ascension is online, Bedlam Reveler can do the same consistently in the midgame for one more mana and he has a resonable body. Tho we must not forget that Visions works instant and can fuel shenanigans to flip your thing and bounce a board.
Faitless Looting
In the early turns we rely on your graveyard by getting spells in it to put counters on Ascension. While it's good that we can flash it back, the card is straight disadvantage in the later game. It certainly is good to put land topdecks into your graveyard tho. In my opinion it can be substituted with Bedlam Reveler.
Thing in the Ice
Some decks like Sam Blacks UR list want Thing in the SB to bounce the board of aggro and midrange decks. In control matchups however I have the feeling that we need to goldfish our Ascension online and gain card advantage to put down Bedlam Reveler as a prowess beatstick. Should be atleast in the SB in most decks.
Mana Leak
A card that pops up here and there, when someone tries to make the deck more resilient. The issue is that we don't like having to many mana open as it sets us back. We operate with very little mana and under the assumption that we can make some mana with Manamorphose if we need to while drawing through our deck.
Experimental Card Choices: coming soon
UWR or UR? The crunch question: coming soon
Machtups and Sideboarding: coming soon
Sample decklists: coming soon
Disclaimer:
APPROVED POSTS
Discussing Pyromancer Ascension decks - those with 4 Pyromancer Ascensions that are value based combo-control, aggro-control or aggro-combo based and do not primarily kill with storm countsSuggesting an idea that has or has not been tried yet
(e.g. "This deck seems to struggle with Tron; has anyone tried some land hate instead of going Blood Moon?")
Constructively criticizing another user's idea.
(e.g. "That idea was already discussed and found lacking. Here's the test results we did back in May...")
Posts in this category are totally okay as long as you are also following the forum rules.
The following posts are not allowed. Users who engage in this behavior will be warned or infracted accordingly.
PROHIBITED POSTS
All MTGS forum rules apply here
(e.g. no spamming, trolling, flaming, etc.)
DON'T RESPOND TO TROLLING/FLAMING/SPAMMING. Just report it!
If you get involved in a flame war you can get infracted too, regardless of who started it.
No decks that are not Pyromancer Ascension based value decks. Decks must have 4 Ascensiions, be UWR
(e.g. "I've been trying this 5 colour deck which controls the early game and sticks an Ascension as a midgame wincon; it's awesome!")
Also remember that this is not my primer, it's yours. If you find anything wrong, want your decklist to be featured or have constructive feedback (especially for the MUs) please shoot me a message or post in this thread. Thanks,
King.
Day / month / year
28.09.2016: Primer got created
29.09.2016: minor changes including some pictures, the addition of a changelog and some changes to the structure of the whole primer
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
Mods are gonna merge this and the old thread, right?
RBGU Dredge RBGU
RG Ponza RG
UR Thing in the Ice Ascension UR
[EDH/CMDR]
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
UB Grimgrin, Corpse-born UB
UWR Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
I think the old thread got locked and I linked the old thread.
I am gonna take much information out of the old thread.
Greetings
King
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
RIP Karn EDH
Prowess can substitute for the Helix. Also you can take less damage without the Wsplash in the first place. Whats your list?
Greetings
King
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
I think in a meta with burn / affinity / other aggro it's best to take advantage of Lightning Helix and Rest for the Weary. Even if the manabase is a bit more painful, Helix more than makes up for it against fast decks. I'm hoping the new fastland will make the manabase a bit better against burn too.
I don't think that they are gonna help. I build a new mana base today and it was inconsistent as **** since you cannot fetch Spirebluff Canal. But maybe it was just because I did something wrong. I am gonna work on it again.
Greetings
King
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
18 Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Spirebluff Canal
1 Mountain
3 Island
Flooded Strands are replacing Scalding Tarns until I get them. I haven't run into many issues on XMage, but I took a pretty conservative approach to adding them. I'll report back with how it goes at FNM tomorrow, and maybe start trying to add more. One question is- is Sulfur Falls still worth consideration?
Hm, not really. Prowess means a creature has to get through unopposed, which isn't quite as easy as simply burning someone out with copied bolts. At least, in many games I win, I won by 'comboing off' on the last possible turn and bolting them for 18+ without a creature that could even attack. I suppose it's easier if you play Monastery Swiftspear, but creatures are still more easily dealt with than bolts. Also, 1 helix more than pays for the untapped shock already and all subsequent ones gain you 3 life. With Ascension, you can get pretty obscene amounts of life that easily keeps you alive in aggro matchups. Not losing as much life isn't quite the same as gaining tons.
This is my current list, btw. I'm a bit on the fence about the new fastland. Land #4 has been important enough so far that I prefer the Sulfur Falls as not many 1 landers are really keepable anyway. It's not like burn where you can go GG into GG and burn them out with a few bolts. Bricking on land 2 has so far cost me the game in the majority of cases, as far as I can tell.
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Mountain
2 Island
Creatures (7)
4 Thing in the Ice
3 Bedlam Reveler
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Thought Scour
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyromancer Ascension
3 Remand
3 Path to Exile
3 Blood Moon
2 Rest for the Weary
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Wear // Tear
2 Dispel
1 Swan Song
2 Anger of the Gods
I've played against Tron twice so far (both Gw, funnily enough, never played against that version before that I can remember) and the matchup is not as bad as I thought it was (even though I lost and drew against them, odd games). Between blue moon on the one hand (unwinnable) and UR storm on the other (unlosable), we're much closer to storm than blue moon so they are quite pressed to get karn out quickly and if they don't, they're likely dead. If I played against regular Gr tron instead, I would have easily won in at least one of the matches and would have had a very good chance in the other, because path to exile is way better than any red spell against us.
Anyway, the point is that blood moon is fine against them because our game plan is fast enough to not allow them to just get to 7 land (or even 5, for stone) and I think it's necessary for enough otherwise probably not very great matchups that I wouldn't want to cut them. I just see them as a hoser of a strategy (valakut, eldrazi, tron, etc) and not a 'let's hope they don't fetch around it' mana screwer. In a matchup like esper control I would bring them in because I wouldn't bring in Path, but if I want path (for goyf, fx) I don't bring in moon unless it also hoses them completely and they can't fetch around it (valakut and eldrazi is pretty much it where I would bring in both, from the top of my head).
(Edit)
I think that you are quite hyperbolic. Last weekend I played in 4 competitive modern leagues with the deck (not great record btw, 2-3, 3-2, 4-1, 3-2 - I played really badly on some games due to fatigue, so could have been a lot better). I faced mono U tron a total of 4 times (I think I saw the same guy 2 or 3 times over the week end), and only lost once. The matchup is clearly winnable. Just as against control, you need to bait their counterspells, and you should remand their Thrist for knowledge (key spell in their deck). As you say, you need to be fast vs Tron (same vs living end/scapeshift). Blue scapeshift seems difficilt (only played it once): counterspells+ a fast clock is a beating.
I've never played against storm with this deck, but I've been on the opposite side of the MU, and I felt it was very favorable for storm, which is a lot faster and the UWR deck has little disruption, especially game 1.
@king: in your primer, you say that you can kill someone from 12hp etc. In reality, I've found that with the right hand, the deck can litteraly combo off (generally on turn 5-7, 4 if you're very lucky) and one-shot someone from 20 life. You just need some manamorphoses (also works with 2 ascensions). With active ascension and manamorphose (especially 2 or more) the deck just feels like regular storm (but better )
I'm interesting in cutting faitless looting (already cut the 3rd one for bedlam reveler), or trimming it back to 1 (can help against flooding, or dead cards in hand). I feel this deck mulligans very badly (most of your cards just cantrip into 1 new card, and it can be very hard to come back from a mull to 6, 5, especially if you mull to a hand with looting (virtual additional mulligan).
EDIT: A very interesting list went 5-0 in the modern league: http://magic.wizards.com/fr/node/1080751 (it should be the 3rd or 4th one). Notable inclusions: Flash Slash, 3 Bedlam reveler, cryptic command...
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
The reason I like blood moon in this deck is because it completely hoses some strategies that could race us with the added benefit of being good against 3 color non-red decks with few basics. Depending on how they fetch g2, you can take out/bring in blood moon for g3. If they fetch around it while you don't have it in your deck anymore, that's great and if they don't while you do, that's also great. It's just pretty bad to have blood moon in your hand/deck when they fetch around it, especially if you don't have ways to discard it profitably (looting, reveler).
Also, for what it's worth, I actually think the deck should be called Thing Ascension. It's been a hugely important card for me and won games that would take a perfect storm (hehe) to win with ascension. I also don't see any lists that don't run it and those that have it in the side have swiftspear or reveler main instead so they also don't fully depend on ascension. Turn 2 thing, turn 3 flip and attack can lead to an easy t4 win while disrupting the opponent and there are quite a few matchups where it's a straight race. UR storm is already more of a turn 4 than a turn 3 deck and we're way slower than that with ascension due to the lack of rituals, electromancer, past in flames or grapeshot.
Cryptic command sounds pretty cool to copy but Remand seems more flexible to me. I guess flame slash is the next best option if you don't run white for helix, but it not going to the face seems rough.
I've ran 3 bedlam revelers in every iteration so far but I might go down to 2 in the main and put the 3rd in the side. It's useless to have 2 in hand and you don't really need one early as long as you have 4 thing and 4 ascension in the deck. The issue is that I don't know what to take out of the board and what to put in the main. A 1-off spell seems awful with ascension and the 4th remand also doesn't seem great.
I agree on the importance of thing. I think this card is what makes this deck really competitive as the 2 game plans (thing + ascension) are good against different matchups and compliment well each other
Currently Playing:
Modern Grixis Shadow, Storm
Legacy: Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show
Duel Commander: Kess High Tide
Vintage Big blue(MTGO)
Yeah, I think this is a good point. It's realistic to get a combo kill on turn 4 in the Visions of Beyond versions of the deck, and still possible with just sleight. It's important for players new to the deck to know that sometimes it's correct just to try to murder people with bolts if you have the right setup instead of playing too conservatively.
I think Spirebluff Canal is straight up better than Sulfur Springs, because you can play turn 1 to 3 the Canal everytime while the Springs are more conditionaln and need another land drop. So Spirebluff is the perfect subsitute for Sulfur Springs
Sweet list. I thing going UWR or UR is somehow a meta call. I dont like the Rest for the Weary. I just don't like the card. Besides that talking about Prowess. The thing about Prowess. While Bedlam Reveler and Monastery Swiftspear pressure the opponent to bait removal they are important to insure damage. Both get stronger for drawing thorugh your deck AND Bedlam Reveler also refills your hand. Yes, both are creatures, but I am really really happy if my Monastery Swiftspear eats a Abrupt Decay
Hey man, I konw. It's with every engine in MTG ever. If you get it online you can swag away 19 life. Did I tell you the story? Once I flipped a thing and cast two bolts and did 19 damage in one turn ... on turn 3. To be fair I had three Manamorphose to turn on the Ascensiob, but yeah. Our deck works essentially like a combo deck unless it fizzles. The strength I see is that we can generate value until we combo off. We don't need to combo on turn 4, but we can often. This is strength.
Okay. I hope I don't forgot one post from you guys and gals. Honestly I am quite drunk already. Gonna reply tomorrow. I don't want Toprf, Lantern or ktkenshinx kill me for trolling
See you tomorrow,
King.
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
A pure life gain card has to be pretty good to be playable, I agree. Gain 8 for 2 mana at instant speed with the potential to be copied by ascension fits that bill though. Sadly, today it also proved that it's not enough to beat burn by itself. If they decay your swiftspear, that's great of course, but when do they do that? Probably not when it's a 1/2. I don't really see how you could kill on turn 3 with that, btw. You can't have both a non-summoning sick thing + active ascension on turn 3. Still, the point is that this deck is much more resilient than regular UR storm, indeed. Just a pity that an early chalice on 1 is still insane against us.
I played a PPTQ today, which went quite poorly. I didn't want to play Burn again (did that in a pptq yesterday, which also went poorly, after 2 top8s in a row :() because people were starting to hate it quite a bit. Funnily enough, there were 4 burn players in a field of 23 anyway.
R1 I played against Affinity and mulled to 4 game 1 (bad 1 lander into 2 bad 0landers) and he had the one thing that really was unbeatable game 1 with such a measly hand: Master of Etherium. Any other payoff spell that was susceptible to helix/bolt would have been fine but a double memnite/ornithopter + mox into t2 master hand I couldn't beat. G2 I easily win on the basis of tons of (copied) removal. G3 was looking very good, having just found and played an ascension after clearing out his threats, until he drops a chalice on 1, shutting down my entire hand. Also couldn't trigger the ascension due to no overlap between hand/gy so I had to draw into something. He only had 2 vault skirges as pressure so that seemed fine, but after chalice he immediately draws plating and I die in 2 turns.
R2 against Bant Eldrazi. He has a slowish draw without noble or temple and goes spellskite into displacer while I find an ascension. He then plays explosives and destroys both his spellskite and my ascension. Being left with a TKS and displacer, but tapped out, I helix his displacer and take a hit from TKS. I find a new ascension and activate it with a cantrip, but draw land and he plays smasher to finish me off.
G2 he has t2 chalice into EE on 2 for my thing that I just flipped in order to hopefully get somewhere despite throwing all my 1's into it. Just cannot catch a break today.
R3 bye.. yeah..
R4 against burn. I mull to 6 and have a slowish hand while he has not much. I probed his hand t1 and see wooded foothills, lava spike, swiftspear, rift bolt, searing blaze, bloodstained mire and copperline gorge. Seems fine, not much pressure, almost dead card in hand. Then, of course, he rips eidolon and I die. It didn't help that I forgot an ascension counter while trying to activate through the eidolon but without a bolt/helix to immediately kill the eidolon it was game over.
G2 I keep a hand with manamorphose, rest for the weary and lands. Probably a bad keep. I even rip helix and 2nd rest as well as an ascension to gain a total of 19 life and die horribly anyway because he has the full creature draw with nacatls, goblin guide and eidolon and I find no anger. To really rub it in, he also revelried my ascension.
R5 against Abzan
G1 he goes Inquisition into goyf and I probe him to see decay and 3 land. I play ascension into his decay and cantrip into a new one next turn, but he finds another goyf and path to increase the pressure and get rid of my thing.
G2 he has some pressure but no removal and I kill him with bolts/thing. Don't remember any specifics here. Reveler was good though.
G3 I mull to 6 and keep a hand with 3 land and 3 cantrips. He thoughtseizes and doesn't really know what to take because I don't have any payoff yet. Love that against those decks ;). He's very slowly increasing pressure with a tiny goyf and some spirits when he plays a leyline of sanctity. Great. I didn't board in my wear//tear so there's no way to get rid of it. In this game, Revelers really shine, though. I draw and played 2 in a row while activating ascension and double helixing to get rid of a liliana and stay alive. In the end I have a big combo turn during turns in which I bring a bedlam reveler to 12 power to swing for the win.
It's funny how I haven't lost to BGx so far, despite it being traditionally a bad matchup for ascension decks. Mostly due to reveler and path to exile, of course, but thing has been pretty good as well. He played the new BG fastland, so he didn't take as much damage as they used to, but it still doesn't take too much to kill them with a thing/reveler and bolts. For G2, I brought in 1 blood moon to mise, but even without seeing it he was fetching around it so I took it out for g3. Unless you play against inexperienced players, blood moon to screw BGx is just not worth it imho. If our deck would be 100% fine with it in play, you could argue it's always ok to at least hamper them and turn off their manlands, but that's not quite the case. At least not in the jeskai version, straight UR has a much easier time under blood moon, of course.
I had awkward draws etc, so I didn't play all that much magic today, but it still seems to me that Faithless Looting might need to be in the deck. Perhaps a 2-1 split of reveler/faithless looting. The reason for this is the fact that 1-landers are much easier to keep when you can dig for land with looting, which reveler doesn't do. Also, drawing a 2nd or 3rd reveler is 100% dead and it's not fast enough to need to draw it early. I'd love to be able to have 3 revelers after side against BGx, though, also because there I definitely don't want looting, but I have no idea what to take out of the sideboard. Maybe the explosives. They've never been particularly useful so far, even though they should be. It has quite some overlap with other cards in the side, though (anger, path, wear//tear), so perhaps it can go. It also doesn't help that you basically can't ever set it to 2 without wrecking yourself.
RBGU Dredge RBGU
RG Ponza RG
UR Thing in the Ice Ascension UR
[EDH/CMDR]
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
UB Grimgrin, Corpse-born UB
UWR Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
@R3doxNL, Path is practically a must include in the deck.
A full set of Faithless Lootings is needed, to fuel the ascensions and filter what you don't need.
Have you thought about running Snapcasters if your ascensions keep getting exiled/destroyed?
I hold the job of resurrecting dead threads.
Formerly presumed dead, but also formerly presumed alive.
I'm currently playing this deck too and I can tell you looting is arguably the worst card in the deck. The most important reason is that it can't recycle itself. (Although it's great with activated ascension but anything is great with activated ascension so...) I think we rarely flashback looting unless it's in the mid-late game and we do not have any value card in hand.(which at that point you might've lost already) therefore, 3 copies are descent and sometimes it will be sideboarded out.
Snappy is not integrated into the deck at all. Not only takes up the important 2-mana drop curve, which, already contains 4 ascensions and 4 thing in the ice, Snappy doe not have great targets in our deck. I mean, target bolt and helix, sure, it's fine, but is it really worth it? It's not like targeting a kolagan's command or cryptic or anything with value. and we don't really need the 2/1 to speed up the clock.
I took them out for Bedlam Reveler as they functionally overlap. In the WMCQ I actually removed all Remands instead of the Faithless Lootings, but I wasn't really happy with that because that's a lot of the same(ish) effect and Remand can do some pretty useful things in this deck besides slowing the opponent down. I think the problem I have with looting is that it's pretty high variance, ranging from abysmal to awesome. When you have a bad-card heavy hand, for whatever reason, it's basically a draw-2 with flashback. When facing discard, it's like committing suicide. What I found is that it's mostly important to have looting in land-light hands to dig deep for a land with upside for Ascension, but in many cases it's just -1 card for little value. Reveler, on the other hand, is very good against BGx which infests the meta at the moment. However, I've convinced myself that 2 reveler main is good enough and that I have room for 1 looting, relegating the 3rd reveler to the side instead of Engineered Explosives which has always been awkward in this deck and overlaps too much with Path. This is not a deck where you want to sideboard a lot so I prefer to keep the packages small.
Why the remark about Path? Snapcaster definitely doesn't belong in this deck. It's not even a 2-drop, really.
Full set is definitely way too much. I've seen lists with 4 but they are in the minority and I cannot fathom it's correct. The problem is that you can only filter what you don't need when you have cards in hand and this is -1 card. I've never liked this card in decks like these, be it UR Storm or Jeskai Ascendancy.
Have a list with the revival in it?
URWJeskai Pyromancer AscensionURW
UR Storm UR