I run 4 morpohse, 4 visions, 4 opt, 4 sleight and 4 thought scour. I'm thinking either scour or sleight could be cut.. Visions & morphose are our best cantrips. Opt is close to an instant speed sleight of hand. Scour is the weakest cantrip but it has the most synergy with mission briefing & ascension. Sleight gives us card selection where scour doesn't, but it also has the least synergy with mission briefing. So I guess it boils down to is the synergy between scour/briefing more beneficial for us then the card selection gained from sleight? I'm currently thinking yes, but will test both options out.
I think you are right about the manabase being an issue. 19 lands is possible but the problem with that solution is that we'd have to go to 3x something which slightly reduce the probability of getting ascension online. Plus I don't know if adding another land would fix the issue of needing to consistently hit UU plus RR plus W with 18 or 19 lands (without shocking yourself down to 12 life most games).
This might seem radical, but if mission briefing does turn out to be the real deal in this deck, would it be worth investigating other threats to replace bedlam reveler and avoid our RR mana issue?? Off the top of my head I am thinking of Myth Realizedor Jace, Vryn's Prodigy as potential options.
Regarding reveler, I've always felt that while its great a lot of the time as a finisher, there are also times when it sits in my hand for too long, waiting for me to empty my hand, then if I get to a point where I am ready to cast it, I'm probably going to win anyway. There is this underlying tension with it in this deck, because its a card that is best when you have an empty hand, being played in a deck full of cards that keep restocking your hand... Also, to me the horror synergy with titi is a bit 'cute' but not all that relevant as it normally comes down after titi has already flipped.
Thank tou! I think the deck can to be competitive, i did 4 tournament, 1 pptq won, 2 final 1 split 1 won, 1 tournament 4/2 with unluck; woth aascension i never draw spells and i draw 5 lands . The deck need more tune again
Congratulations on your Great finishes!
I would really like to hear your opinion on the potential new Addition Mission Briefing (the new pseudo-Snapcaster). What do you think?
I run 4 morpohse, 4 visions, 4 opt, 4 sleight and 4 thought scour. I'm thinking either scour or sleight could be cut.. Visions & morphose are our best cantrips. Opt is close to an instant speed sleight of hand. Scour is the weakest cantrip but it has the most synergy with mission briefing & ascension. Sleight gives us card selection where scour doesn't, but it also has the least synergy with mission briefing. So I guess it boils down to is the synergy between scour/briefing more beneficial for us then the card selection gained from sleight? I'm currently thinking yes, but will test both options out.
I think you are right about the manabase being an issue. 19 lands is possible but the problem with that solution is that we'd have to go to 3x something which slightly reduce the probability of getting ascension online. Plus I don't know if adding another land would fix the issue of needing to consistently hit UU plus RR plus W with 18 or 19 lands (without shocking yourself down to 12 life most games).
This might seem radical, but if mission briefing does turn out to be the real deal in this deck, would it be worth investigating other threats to replace bedlam reveler and avoid our RR mana issue?? Off the top of my head I am thinking of Myth Realizedor Jace, Vryn's Prodigy as potential options.
Regarding reveler, I've always felt that while its great a lot of the time as a finisher, there are also times when it sits in my hand for too long, waiting for me to empty my hand, then if I get to a point where I am ready to cast it, I'm probably going to win anyway. There is this underlying tension with it in this deck, because its a card that is best when you have an empty hand, being played in a deck full of cards that keep restocking your hand... Also, to me the horror synergy with titi is a bit 'cute' but not all that relevant as it normally comes down after titi has already flipped.
Anyway, food for thought...
I have similar thoughts about Reveler, I already cut one in favor of Land Nr. 19.
Myth Realized was also a consideration, but I think hence this Needs W and is optimal on Turn 1, this would make our Manabase really awkward. I'm not sure about Little Jace, since he is not really a win condition on his own.
My cantrip package is Visions, Opt, Looting, Morphose and Izzet charm. I don't have any Sleigths, so I had to improvise... Thought Scour feels a Little too random, cause it can mill our win conditions. But with the Addition of Mission Briefing, I can actually see it being good.
So for me it would maybe be, replace Looting with Scour and maybe Remand or even Visions with Mission Briefing.
I am also curious, what would be the correct number of Briefings? Do we have to run a full playset?
Note that flasbacking something from the grave will not trigger Pyro unless you have another card with the same name in the grave too.
Mission Brieving seems like something to test though!
Good hint - I hope the included Surveil will help with that. Cause, if you surveil a second copy of a card into the graveyard and then flashback it, Ascension triggers, right?
Just made some proxies to test the Card.
I am not sure about Snapcaster in the list - although BGx might see a raise in Meta-%. Ooze is the concern here, and TiTi gets killed by the deck anyways. So my hope is, that Mission Briefing will make the Matchup slightly more favourable.
Has anyone tested maindeck counterspells like Spell Pierce? I run a playset of Izzet Charm, which is quite neat, also because of its flexibility.
I tested a Version yesterday with 2 Mission Briefing instead of Remand and Thought Scour instead of Looting, and it feels good. I also ran 19 lands (cause of the 4 Izzet Charms) and only a single Reveler.
What is especially nice about Briefing is the Surveil as an extra "Scry", which helps to find Win conditions. And the ton of flexibility, since you will almost always have a full graveyard. That's completely new to me, because I actually never played Snapcaster before - and it feels good.
I am still not sure about Bedlam Reveler. Once it's in your Hand, you are Kind of obligated to empty your Hand, which can be pretty annoying. In more grindy matchups, or as a late game Card it is actually really useful. How do we feel about moving it to the Sideboard and adding a more Fitting Win Con to the Maindeck? I was thinking something like Thermo-Alchemist could be worth a try, mainly because I would think we still Need a Minimum of 9 WinCons maindeck.
What do you guys think about playing Visions of Beyond in the deck? I've noticed just how fast this deck churns through its cards with all its cheap cantrips and spells. Seems like it wouldn't be too hard to have 20 cards in our graveyard when playing with Faithless Looting and Thought Scour in the same deck along with fetches. I've noticed this deck can run out of gas quickly when Pyromancer ascension isn't online and Visions of Beyond can help us gain much needed card advantage if the game goes late. At worse, it at least replaces itself and provides a trigger for Thing in the Ice.
My recent testing was actually not really good, the deck seems to have a high entry Level, especially if you're coming from fast Aggro Shells. I am still not really sure if I am doing the right Things while playing. And the BGx matchups are indeed really hard.
Regarding this, I already considered playing Silence or Spell Pierce in the Mainboard.
At today's FNM I will test a Version with 2 Drakes, Revelers in the SB, the Visions/Opt/Sleight/Morphose package, and 2 Lootings, 2 Izzet Charms and 1 Peek.
Actually managed to finish 4-0 on Friday.
But to be fair, the matchups were 2x Bant Spirits, UW Spirits and BW Tokens, so all creature-based decks which really care about Thing in the Ice AND are struggling to handle Pyro Ascension.
I have to admit this finish gives me additional motivation to invest more effort into the deck. Because my last attempts were not that successful - as Rodebo pointed out before, the BGx matchup is horrible (or at least I do not see that many tools for it).
In the latest YouTube uploads by Jeff Hoogland there is a stream with Firemind's Research included. How are we feeling about this one?
Let's talk about meta. I see that like against control, big mana and the new graveyard decks we're favored. Our worst match up is bgx and burn by far. Against burn the plan is to draw quickly Titi on turn 2 and pray for 1-2 helix. Against bgx... Well, I would try to fight the game 1 and in game 2 and 3 add 4 young pyromancer and blood moons. Also monastery mentor, bedlam reveler... It's not that bad...
How does this deck fare against Mono G Tron? I just built it and I'm wondering as I've not been able to test it out.
In my experience, we are heavily favored against any type of creature-based decks. Thing is maindeck mass-removal, and most decks have a hard time interacting with Pyro Ascension. My last FNMs, I beat several Sprits and Token decks, flipping Thing on turn 3 consistently.
The Burn matchup in my experience is really a matter of us drawing Helix and them drawing Eidolon.
The BGx matchup is indeed one of the hardest I have experienced. They simply can interact with anything we put on the table. The Death Shadow matchup is slightly better, sometimes we can burn them out by surprise.
The Tron Matchup is a straight up race, and I would guess we are NOT favored. It Kind of depends on the win condition they put on the table, Karn is hard, O-Stone still leaves us a turn, Wurmcoil is not that big of a problem, while Ugin and Ulamog are basically game over.
So far I am not a fan of Remand in the deck, since I do not think we can afford to take the Control role from the maindeck. In my experience, the deck performs a lot better being proactive, and Remand is simply not a proactive Card.
Role assessment seems crucial for this deck, and I am still not sure when there is the correct time to be Controlling and when not to. But in a few instances I had the Feeling that you can definitely "over-sideboard" the deck into a bad Control-Deck.
I would really like to know how you guys feel about this issues!
I agree with you, but in my experience with the deck, I like the tron matchup. The only card that its a gg is Ulamog, the rest are our main target for remand. And running remand doesnt make our deck a control deck. This card is mainly used for winning time and on the draw is the card that you want to have always in turn 2 and pass.
Sure, but if you're holding the Remand Turn 2 and then remand a Tron Wincon on Turn 3, you most likely don't have a Wincon yourself. And the Tron Player is very likely playing more Wincons after that, so the time window for us to stick a threat is quite small. Of Course, untapping with a Thing or Ascension AND a Remand in Hand to react to Trons next Play is awesome, but even at this Point I actually prefer a proactive spell to activate our Threat. I actually Play Izzet Charm as a 2-of in the Slot of Remand.
But I might be missing something here, could you Sketch a matchplan how you beat Tron? Also I would really like to see your Iteration of the Deck.
Regarding the different versions of the deck, The one above is definitely my favorite, since some of the others are simply different decks. UR Pyromancer is a real Control deck to me, and the Jeskai Ascendancy Version seems not really appealing, cause it is just mashing up two decks. Actually I would be more interested in a combination of Ascendancy and Pyromancer, the pump on all the Tokens seems neat.
The Wagner Version seems dangerous to me without Gitaxian Probe - I have to admit I looked at an older list, where this was still legal. To be clear, is this a Version with only Pyro Ascension?
What I recently discovered is the mainly discussed Version with Ascension and Thing, but in straight UR, switching Helix for Burst Lightning: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20533&d=334997&f=MO
What do we think about that?
As I already wrote, I completely agree on Remand, it just hasn't felt right the times I played it. My olution in the place of Remand is still Izzet Charm, and I can't complain.
The 3rd Path to Exile is also a Thing that came to my mind, with so much Dredge and Phoenixes in the Meta. I added the third Path to the Sideboard for these Matchups.
I also replaced my single copy of Mission briefing with a single Echoing Truth, which was pretty impressive so far (almost never a dead card). And regarding the Mana issues with Crackling Drake in Jeskai, I replaced my single Basic Plains with an Inspiring Vantage, which works out quite well so far.
All in all I'm experiencing Progress in my own gameplay from match to match. The deck is quite hard to master, but it provides some really explosive games if you can Pilot it well. Also, Sideboarding is quirte hard, especially changing Win-Conditions.
How has Ral, Izzet Viceroy worked out for you? I also own one copy, but it looked quite clunky with 5 mana for a deck like ours. I can see the Appeal, and with that many cantrips we can easily find our lands, but is the Card worth the effort?
It's mainly the same list Jeff Hoogland plays. With some minor tweaks.
Tested it against a wide variety of decks. Would like to share my opinion on some specific cards and the overall deck:
Crackling drake: This card is insane! If this resolves and can swing at least once, it's game over. This deck plays so many spells, it's an easy 10+ power creature. In my opinion much better than Bedlam Reveler (which I tested in the past) Sleight of hand: While its a great cantrip ofcourse, I sometimes doubt whether this should be a Peek. Because our threats are scarce, I feel we need to know the removal the opponent has. So we can play out our ascension or thing in the ice more effectively. Like to know your opinion about this. Ravenous Trap: with so many Faithless looting and Thought scour in the current meta, this card is fantastic. Modern is playing more and more graveyard-strategy. This card >> surgical extraction in my opinion. Negate: for me an easy playset in the SB. Won me multiple matches. Can replace a full playset of the MB and therefore still fuel the Pyromancer Ascension.
Deck overall:
My win rate is about 60% at this moment. Besides this is great obivously, this deck is a hell lot of fun! Semi-control, semi-combo. Really a blast to play!
I think you are right about the manabase being an issue. 19 lands is possible but the problem with that solution is that we'd have to go to 3x something which slightly reduce the probability of getting ascension online. Plus I don't know if adding another land would fix the issue of needing to consistently hit UU plus RR plus W with 18 or 19 lands (without shocking yourself down to 12 life most games).
This might seem radical, but if mission briefing does turn out to be the real deal in this deck, would it be worth investigating other threats to replace bedlam reveler and avoid our RR mana issue?? Off the top of my head I am thinking of Myth Realizedor Jace, Vryn's Prodigy as potential options.
Regarding reveler, I've always felt that while its great a lot of the time as a finisher, there are also times when it sits in my hand for too long, waiting for me to empty my hand, then if I get to a point where I am ready to cast it, I'm probably going to win anyway. There is this underlying tension with it in this deck, because its a card that is best when you have an empty hand, being played in a deck full of cards that keep restocking your hand... Also, to me the horror synergy with titi is a bit 'cute' but not all that relevant as it normally comes down after titi has already flipped.
Anyway, food for thought...
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
Congratulations on your Great finishes!
I would really like to hear your opinion on the potential new Addition Mission Briefing (the new pseudo-Snapcaster). What do you think?
I have similar thoughts about Reveler, I already cut one in favor of Land Nr. 19.
Myth Realized was also a consideration, but I think hence this Needs W and is optimal on Turn 1, this would make our Manabase really awkward. I'm not sure about Little Jace, since he is not really a win condition on his own.
My cantrip package is Visions, Opt, Looting, Morphose and Izzet charm. I don't have any Sleigths, so I had to improvise... Thought Scour feels a Little too random, cause it can mill our win conditions. But with the Addition of Mission Briefing, I can actually see it being good.
So for me it would maybe be, replace Looting with Scour and maybe Remand or even Visions with Mission Briefing.
I am also curious, what would be the correct number of Briefings? Do we have to run a full playset?
Good hint - I hope the included Surveil will help with that. Cause, if you surveil a second copy of a card into the graveyard and then flashback it, Ascension triggers, right?
Just made some proxies to test the Card.
I am not sure about Snapcaster in the list - although BGx might see a raise in Meta-%. Ooze is the concern here, and TiTi gets killed by the deck anyways. So my hope is, that Mission Briefing will make the Matchup slightly more favourable.
Has anyone tested maindeck counterspells like Spell Pierce? I run a playset of Izzet Charm, which is quite neat, also because of its flexibility.
What is especially nice about Briefing is the Surveil as an extra "Scry", which helps to find Win conditions. And the ton of flexibility, since you will almost always have a full graveyard. That's completely new to me, because I actually never played Snapcaster before - and it feels good.
I am still not sure about Bedlam Reveler. Once it's in your Hand, you are Kind of obligated to empty your Hand, which can be pretty annoying. In more grindy matchups, or as a late game Card it is actually really useful. How do we feel about moving it to the Sideboard and adding a more Fitting Win Con to the Maindeck? I was thinking something like Thermo-Alchemist could be worth a try, mainly because I would think we still Need a Minimum of 9 WinCons maindeck.
My recent testing was actually not really good, the deck seems to have a high entry Level, especially if you're coming from fast Aggro Shells. I am still not really sure if I am doing the right Things while playing. And the BGx matchups are indeed really hard.
Regarding this, I already considered playing Silence or Spell Pierce in the Mainboard.
At today's FNM I will test a Version with 2 Drakes, Revelers in the SB, the Visions/Opt/Sleight/Morphose package, and 2 Lootings, 2 Izzet Charms and 1 Peek.
But to be fair, the matchups were 2x Bant Spirits, UW Spirits and BW Tokens, so all creature-based decks which really care about Thing in the Ice AND are struggling to handle Pyro Ascension.
I have to admit this finish gives me additional motivation to invest more effort into the deck. Because my last attempts were not that successful - as Rodebo pointed out before, the BGx matchup is horrible (or at least I do not see that many tools for it).
In the latest YouTube uploads by Jeff Hoogland there is a stream with Firemind's Research included. How are we feeling about this one?
How does this deck fare against Mono G Tron? I just built it and I'm wondering as I've not been able to test it out.
The Burn matchup in my experience is really a matter of us drawing Helix and them drawing Eidolon.
The BGx matchup is indeed one of the hardest I have experienced. They simply can interact with anything we put on the table. The Death Shadow matchup is slightly better, sometimes we can burn them out by surprise.
The Tron Matchup is a straight up race, and I would guess we are NOT favored. It Kind of depends on the win condition they put on the table, Karn is hard, O-Stone still leaves us a turn, Wurmcoil is not that big of a problem, while Ugin and Ulamog are basically game over.
So far I am not a fan of Remand in the deck, since I do not think we can afford to take the Control role from the maindeck. In my experience, the deck performs a lot better being proactive, and Remand is simply not a proactive Card.
Role assessment seems crucial for this deck, and I am still not sure when there is the correct time to be Controlling and when not to. But in a few instances I had the Feeling that you can definitely "over-sideboard" the deck into a bad Control-Deck.
I would really like to know how you guys feel about this issues!
Sure, but if you're holding the Remand Turn 2 and then remand a Tron Wincon on Turn 3, you most likely don't have a Wincon yourself. And the Tron Player is very likely playing more Wincons after that, so the time window for us to stick a threat is quite small. Of Course, untapping with a Thing or Ascension AND a Remand in Hand to react to Trons next Play is awesome, but even at this Point I actually prefer a proactive spell to activate our Threat. I actually Play Izzet Charm as a 2-of in the Slot of Remand.
But I might be missing something here, could you Sketch a matchplan how you beat Tron? Also I would really like to see your Iteration of the Deck.
Here's mine:
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Inspiring Vantage
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Pyromancer's Ascension
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Crackling Drake
4 Opt
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
2 Izzet Charm
2 Path to Exile
1 Mission Briefing
2 Alpine Moon
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Sweltering Suns
1 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
2 Negate
3 Wear // Tear
1 Firemind's Research
2 Young Pyromancer
1 Bedlam Reveler
Regarding the different versions of the deck, The one above is definitely my favorite, since some of the others are simply different decks. UR Pyromancer is a real Control deck to me, and the Jeskai Ascendancy Version seems not really appealing, cause it is just mashing up two decks. Actually I would be more interested in a combination of Ascendancy and Pyromancer, the pump on all the Tokens seems neat.
The Wagner Version seems dangerous to me without Gitaxian Probe - I have to admit I looked at an older list, where this was still legal. To be clear, is this a Version with only Pyro Ascension?
What I recently discovered is the mainly discussed Version with Ascension and Thing, but in straight UR, switching Helix for Burst Lightning:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20533&d=334997&f=MO
What do we think about that?
The 3rd Path to Exile is also a Thing that came to my mind, with so much Dredge and Phoenixes in the Meta. I added the third Path to the Sideboard for these Matchups.
I also replaced my single copy of Mission briefing with a single Echoing Truth, which was pretty impressive so far (almost never a dead card). And regarding the Mana issues with Crackling Drake in Jeskai, I replaced my single Basic Plains with an Inspiring Vantage, which works out quite well so far.
All in all I'm experiencing Progress in my own gameplay from match to match. The deck is quite hard to master, but it provides some really explosive games if you can Pilot it well. Also, Sideboarding is quirte hard, especially changing Win-Conditions.
How has Ral, Izzet Viceroy worked out for you? I also own one copy, but it looked quite clunky with 5 mana for a deck like ours. I can see the Appeal, and with that many cantrips we can easily find our lands, but is the Card worth the effort?
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Steam Vents
Threats:
2 Crackling Drake
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Thing in the Ice
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
4 Opt
4 Path to Exile
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Alpine Moon
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Firemind's Research
4 Negate
2 Ravenous Trap
3 Wear // Tear
It's mainly the same list Jeff Hoogland plays. With some minor tweaks.
Tested it against a wide variety of decks. Would like to share my opinion on some specific cards and the overall deck:
Crackling drake: This card is insane! If this resolves and can swing at least once, it's game over. This deck plays so many spells, it's an easy 10+ power creature. In my opinion much better than Bedlam Reveler (which I tested in the past)
Sleight of hand: While its a great cantrip ofcourse, I sometimes doubt whether this should be a Peek. Because our threats are scarce, I feel we need to know the removal the opponent has. So we can play out our ascension or thing in the ice more effectively. Like to know your opinion about this.
Ravenous Trap: with so many Faithless looting and Thought scour in the current meta, this card is fantastic. Modern is playing more and more graveyard-strategy. This card >> surgical extraction in my opinion.
Negate: for me an easy playset in the SB. Won me multiple matches. Can replace a full playset of the MB and therefore still fuel the Pyromancer Ascension.
Deck overall:
My win rate is about 60% at this moment. Besides this is great obivously, this deck is a hell lot of fun! Semi-control, semi-combo. Really a blast to play!
RBWMardu Nahiri, GBElves, UW Emeria, RSkred Red,
GBelcher, BDevotion, GWRNaya landfall, UWBEsper Miracles