Long time reader, first time poster here. I recently took mardu pyro to an FNM and had some great games, but out of 4 rounds I went to time and drew twice (which was disappointing because in both matches I was only a turn or two away from winning).
The decks I played against were 2x junk, U/W control and Jeskai Geist. Other than Jeskai which was a quick 2-0 I noticed that this deck takes forever and then some to close out a game; especially when you run into graveyard hate post board. I also noticed that more often than not that I was not happy to see a pyromancer in my hand.
Something I'm playing around with at the moment is replacing all the young pyros with goblin rabblemasters for closing speed and 3 copies of blood moon main instead of playing any copies of Liliana (2 Lilianas in the sideboard though).
I was just curious if anyone else had tried this and if so what kind of results they had.
I don't recommend doing that. YP is a fantastic engine generating lots of value from all our spells.
Why exactly did you feel YP in your hand was bad?
Against decks where value matters, only play YP either after turn 1 discard on turn 2, or on turn 3 when you immediatly can pair him with a spell to get a token. That way, a single target removal on YP is still a 2-for-1 guaranteed.
I agree that the synergy is certainly there with young pyromancer. And those are the rules I would follow for casting it.
My issue was that if the board wasn't empty it could never attack nor reasonably block and trade for anything relevant and if the board was empty then the pressure it put on the opponent was generally pitiful.
In my experience so far it really only seems to pump out chump blockers. Only approximately 1/10 games has it felt like a sufficient threat, while in the testing I've done so far Rabblemaster on an empty board is a fast clock and otherwise can threaten a chunk of damage if the opponent gets too aggressive or trade for a larger creature if I'm attacking with it.
I realise that my experience is limited, but so far I'm more impressed with Rabblemaster in that slot.
I'm building this deck rn, and my local meta seems to be burn/humans/storm heavy. What tweaks should I make from a relatively stock list? I'm thinking of maybe 1 moon and an extra brutality MD, and maybe two Kambal's SB?
I agree that the synergy is certainly there with young pyromancer. And those are the rules I would follow for casting it.
My issue was that if the board wasn't empty it could never attack nor reasonably block and trade for anything relevant and if the board was empty then the pressure it put on the opponent was generally pitiful.
In my experience so far it really only seems to pump out chump blockers. Only approximately 1/10 games has it felt like a sufficient threat, while in the testing I've done so far Rabblemaster on an empty board is a fast clock and otherwise can threaten a chunk of damage if the opponent gets too aggressive or trade for a larger creature if I'm attacking with it.
I realise that my experience is limited, but so far I'm more impressed with Rabblemaster in that slot.
It depends on the actual board state, but YP can get out of hand quickly. If you know your combat dynamics well, then you can sometimes just take a hit from their attackers and kill them on the backswing. I would stick to YP and jam afew more games. Eventually you will get the idea behind the cards and why its so good in the deck.
I'm building this deck rn, and my local meta seems to be burn/humans/storm heavy. What tweaks should I make from a relatively stock list? I'm thinking of maybe 1 moon and an extra brutality MD, and maybe two Kambal's SB?
Blood Moon is not great against either of those decks. In theory it is good vs Humans, but it can backfire hard when the board is already full of creatures and you topdeck a BM later on. I am not a fan of running such a card in a matchup where you are on the backfoot.
Kambal and CB are certainly cards which are great against Storm and Burn. Definitely run 2 Kambals and the 4 CBs in your 75.
For Humans, run 2 EEs and maybe an extra Anger to have enough sweepers against them.
I agree that the synergy is certainly there with young pyromancer. And those are the rules I would follow for casting it.
My issue was that if the board wasn't empty it could never attack nor reasonably block and trade for anything relevant and if the board was empty then the pressure it put on the opponent was generally pitiful.
In my experience so far it really only seems to pump out chump blockers. Only approximately 1/10 games has it felt like a sufficient threat, while in the testing I've done so far Rabblemaster on an empty board is a fast clock and otherwise can threaten a chunk of damage if the opponent gets too aggressive or trade for a larger creature if I'm attacking with it.
I realise that my experience is limited, but so far I'm more impressed with Rabblemaster in that slot.
As FlyingDelver said, YP here for generating value from our spells (8 of them has flashback) and it's 1 mana cheaper which is important for our curve. Rabblemaster is a bigger clock indeed but only on the empty board, otherwise it trades for pretty much any grizzly bear as it doesn't have any kind of evasion.
So there's been some builds to include a 1 of snapcaster mage & blue shocks to add opt/thoughtscour and cutting out the lingering souls to fit in these cards. Is it too cute, or is it warrant enough attention to attempt to build a grixis/4c version? Manabase would be quite stretched with 4c but there's no wasteland so I don't think its that bad.
Imo, Mardu as a deck has only 1 really bad matchup right now, which is Tron. And for that we need closing speed (Rabblemasters in the SB) not blue spells. So I don't see what a blue splash does for the deck.
If you try something different, always do it for a reason. Just because it was seen online doesn't mean we should automatically do it. I like to think about it first. And I can't really find a reason why we would include Snappy and cantrips. We would play even harder into the GY susceptibility also.
I'm sticking with regular Mardu for my upcoming tournament, but after that I will probably try 4c Pyro and see whichever fits me the best. I do feel that sometimes you can draw too many answers and not enough action and the 4c has more threats but of course much worse mana. Still worth trying imho.
Yeah but you are talking about adding green here I suppose, but blue.
Had a tournament yesterday. Went 4-0-1 in Swiss portion and got Troned in top8. I feel like I had the chance in the second game but never drew the 3rd land (cast 2 lootings) with moon and rabblemaster in hand. I even consider adding Ghost Quarter into the sideboard as the 21th land / surgical combo piece to minimize this kind of situation in future
Speaking of closing speed, is Goblin Bushwacker crazy with all the token we have? The obvious problem is that it doesn't do a whole lot by itself
Had a tournament yesterday. Went 4-0-1 in Swiss portion and got Troned in top8. I feel like I had the chance in the second game but never drew the 3rd land (cast 2 lootings) with moon and rabblemaster in hand. I even consider adding Ghost Quarter into the sideboard as the 21th land / surgical combo piece to minimize this kind of situation in future
Thats the reason I find it crazy for the deck to run any less than 20 lands.
Goblin Rabblemaster should be great against them. Going wide in general seems good to make gigadrowse less effective. And obviously discard is great against them.
Against Hollow One don't cut targeted discard. Its important to either take enablers (Goblin Lore, Looting and to lesser extent Burning) or removal for our Pyromancer. Pyromancer is important to stick in the matchup to fill up the board with tokens.
Against Tron, don't cut IOK, cut Terminate instead. Also don't bring in Crackling, I don't see a reason why you would.
Why would you cut Dreadbore against Affinity/Bant Company? Don't find Crackling all that good against Affinity. Plating shenanigans can mess this card up heavily.
On UW matchup (I assume we're talking about UW Control)
Push deals with colonnade
Moon deals with colonnade, Azcanta, Field of Ruin
Kambal doesn't really do anything relevant
So taking this into an account I would do this:
- Terminate (I find it to be more expensive push in this MU)
- Path (I don't think it's necessary)
- 2 Lightning Bolt (not enough relevant targets, trying to burn them out seems like a bad plan).
+ CB (discard their sweepers is important)
+ Liliana
+ Wear//Tear (Azcanta, Seas, Detention Sphere, RiP after sideboard)
+ EE (can deal with enchantments, tokens, and even planeswalkers)
I've played about 20 games with this deck on MO these days. What troubled me most is the mana base. With only 20 lands in the deck, it's usual to see only 1 land and Faithless looting in the openning hand. I thought they were keepable hands, but then I stuck to 1 land and lost quickly for 3-4 times. Any suggestion on that?
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The decks I played against were 2x junk, U/W control and Jeskai Geist. Other than Jeskai which was a quick 2-0 I noticed that this deck takes forever and then some to close out a game; especially when you run into graveyard hate post board. I also noticed that more often than not that I was not happy to see a pyromancer in my hand.
Something I'm playing around with at the moment is replacing all the young pyros with goblin rabblemasters for closing speed and 3 copies of blood moon main instead of playing any copies of Liliana (2 Lilianas in the sideboard though).
I was just curious if anyone else had tried this and if so what kind of results they had.
Why exactly did you feel YP in your hand was bad?
Against decks where value matters, only play YP either after turn 1 discard on turn 2, or on turn 3 when you immediatly can pair him with a spell to get a token. That way, a single target removal on YP is still a 2-for-1 guaranteed.
My issue was that if the board wasn't empty it could never attack nor reasonably block and trade for anything relevant and if the board was empty then the pressure it put on the opponent was generally pitiful.
In my experience so far it really only seems to pump out chump blockers. Only approximately 1/10 games has it felt like a sufficient threat, while in the testing I've done so far Rabblemaster on an empty board is a fast clock and otherwise can threaten a chunk of damage if the opponent gets too aggressive or trade for a larger creature if I'm attacking with it.
I realise that my experience is limited, but so far I'm more impressed with Rabblemaster in that slot.
It depends on the actual board state, but YP can get out of hand quickly. If you know your combat dynamics well, then you can sometimes just take a hit from their attackers and kill them on the backswing. I would stick to YP and jam afew more games. Eventually you will get the idea behind the cards and why its so good in the deck.
Blood Moon is not great against either of those decks. In theory it is good vs Humans, but it can backfire hard when the board is already full of creatures and you topdeck a BM later on. I am not a fan of running such a card in a matchup where you are on the backfoot.
Kambal and CB are certainly cards which are great against Storm and Burn. Definitely run 2 Kambals and the 4 CBs in your 75.
For Humans, run 2 EEs and maybe an extra Anger to have enough sweepers against them.
As FlyingDelver said, YP here for generating value from our spells (8 of them has flashback) and it's 1 mana cheaper which is important for our curve. Rabblemaster is a bigger clock indeed but only on the empty board, otherwise it trades for pretty much any grizzly bear as it doesn't have any kind of evasion.
list from SCG Atlanta https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1068235#paper
If you try something different, always do it for a reason. Just because it was seen online doesn't mean we should automatically do it. I like to think about it first. And I can't really find a reason why we would include Snappy and cantrips. We would play even harder into the GY susceptibility also.
Yeah but you are talking about adding green here I suppose, but blue.
Speaking of closing speed, is Goblin Bushwacker crazy with all the token we have? The obvious problem is that it doesn't do a whole lot by itself
Thats the reason I find it crazy for the deck to run any less than 20 lands.
Goblin Rabblemaster should be great against them. Going wide in general seems good to make gigadrowse less effective. And obviously discard is great against them.
Against Tron, don't cut IOK, cut Terminate instead. Also don't bring in Crackling, I don't see a reason why you would.
Why would you cut Dreadbore against Affinity/Bant Company? Don't find Crackling all that good against Affinity. Plating shenanigans can mess this card up heavily.
Push deals with colonnade
Moon deals with colonnade, Azcanta, Field of Ruin
Kambal doesn't really do anything relevant
So taking this into an account I would do this:
- Terminate (I find it to be more expensive push in this MU)
- Path (I don't think it's necessary)
- 2 Lightning Bolt (not enough relevant targets, trying to burn them out seems like a bad plan).
+ CB (discard their sweepers is important)
+ Liliana
+ Wear//Tear (Azcanta, Seas, Detention Sphere, RiP after sideboard)
+ EE (can deal with enchantments, tokens, and even planeswalkers)