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?
Well, that happens. I would keep FLooting + one land only in combination with one mana disruption spell (discard in particular). As for your question, I wouldn't add any more lands because our curve is so low, that we can often operate even with two lands (not ideal, but doable). I added 1 Ghost Quarter as a utility land into the sideboard for particular matches(Tron/Scapeshift) because aside from it's primary usage, it helps resolve 3 mana spell on turn 3 more consistently
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 disagree with that plan a little bit. I would leave in Terminate over Push since Terminate can kill Gideon Jura. The extra mana does not matter in this matchup really. Therefore I think boarding out Push is correct.
I am also not high on all EE vs them when we already bring in Wear // Tear. It feels overloading on enchantment removal which can be stuck in your hand. If I had only 1 Wear // Tear though its prob okay to bring in 1 EE as well.
Blood Moon is quite bad vs straight UW, even if it deals with Colonnade. But Colonnade is not the main problem, its the PW as wincons.
Kambal is not great either, but its a threat against them and the deck basically only consists of noncreature Spells, I think its fine to bring in to increase the threat density. Keep them on the backfoot is always important.
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?
Yes it happens. For this reason I strictly stick to 20 lands now. There are some builds running only 19 lands also. I think thats wrong.
I think keeping a 1 lander with Looting is in general okay, but I would want to be operatable for 1 turn if I miss my landdrop once. So if the rest of the hand is only Bedlam Reveler, KComands and LoTVs, then I am shipping it back.
Replaced my Liliana of the Veil with Liliana, the Last Hope in the mainboard, and she is doing a fantastic job. Oliver Tiu then confirmed in his article my feelings about the card. Against the top decks of the meta - Humans and Hollow One - I prefer the Last Hope and she is also amazing in any attrition-based matchup.
I do also see quite a lot of people cutting Blood Moon from the mainboard, which is a big mistake in my opinion. The card just gives you free wins and we all know how important free wins are in a bigger tournament.
@Delver, currently started testing 3 Swamps/2Mountains (ca 50 matches in) and I start liking that configuration. Makes having BB after a resolved Blood Moon way easier.
Against the top decks of the meta - Humans and Hollow One - I prefer the Last Hope and she is also amazing in any attrition-based matchup.
I do also see quite a lot of people cutting Blood Moon from the mainboard, which is a big mistake in my opinion. The card just gives you free wins and we all know how important free wins are in a bigger tournament.
I am going to keep asking this until I get a concrete answer, which no one in this thread has provided: What decks do you supposedly get "Free wins" from by playing blood moon? Everyone says that it gives yo free wins, but no one will ever tell me what decks you get those wins against.
The decks you list - Tron, Humans, Hollow One; none of them care about a turn 3 blood moon - either their mana is so set that it doesn't affect them, or the one deck that WOULD be affected by it can just rawdog their threats on turn 6 and 7 without fear because we aren't able to use the three intervening turns to actually win the game. Young Pyromancer continues to be half of a dragon fodder for the cost, and that's assuming you draw it, which is not at all reliable.
I want to play the deck because the theory behind it looks amazing - but in practice you just loot 5 times, maybe flashback one lingering souls and die to a horde of 4/4s or 5/6s or bigger. It doesn't DO anything proactive.
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Tron: Blood Moon is not at it's best here, you simply buy yourself some turns. Most important thing is to implement a clock in this matchup.
Hollow One: Board out Blood Moon because it is useless in this particular matchup.
Humans: Blood Moon is very efficient in this matchup, especially postboard. A good Humans player will board out Aether Vial because they need more threats and because we have access to Kolaghan's Command, which means that postbaord you can play Blood Moon turn 3, kill their Hierarch and the game is basically over.
But what do I mean with having free wins when playing Blood Moon?
Think about it, usually your opponent doesn't know what deck you are playing, which means it is unlikely your opponent starts fetching a basic on turn 1. This deck has usually discard on turn 1 or 2, you can either pick their counter or discard and play Blood Moon on turn 3. There are many greedy manabases around in modern (look at all the 3 color midrange and control decks for example, Amulet Titan, Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Tron etc) which are all punishable when having Blood Moon in the deck.
Imagine you are on the play against UW Control. You play discard on turn 1, take their mana leak. Then you follow up with a Young Pyromancer while your opponent has a Glacial Fortress in play and plays a Hallowed Fountain tapped and paths your Pyromancer. You play turn 3 Blood Moon and your opponent is basically locked out of the game. Again, this is only a simple example and a perfect situation, but believe me, these kind of situations happen quite often in modern.
What this deck does is disrupting your opponent while gaining advantage through Young Pyromancer. You take their best spells from hand, kill their creatures and create tokens. In the lategame, Reveler should usually seal the deal. Blood Moon is only one of many disrupting pieces in the deck, and even if it doesn't win you the game on the spot, it does at least disrupt your opponent in a way they have to make suboptimal plays.
The deck doesn't look spectacular on paper, but it is an absolute blast to play, has very few bad matchups and is very hard to hate out from the meta. I can only advice you to give the deck a try.
I've played the deck twice recently and generally struggle with my closing speed. Even if I stabilize, a deck like Elves seems to quickly refill with Collected Company or Lead the Stampede. That's my primary issue at the moment but it is a good deck, and very challenging to play precisely.
Last night I twice wanted to fetch up a Godless Shrine, and lamented not having a 1/1 split with Shrine and Sacred Foundry. I'm surprised 2x Sacred Foundry is the default build at the moment, and definitely will be running the 1/1 split in the future.
Tron: Blood Moon is not at it's best here, you simply buy yourself some turns. Most important thing is to implement a clock in this matchup.
Hollow One: Board out Blood Moon because it is useless in this particular matchup.
Humans: Blood Moon is very efficient in this matchup, especially postboard. A good Humans player will board out Aether Vial because they need more threats and because we have access to Kolaghan's Command, which means that postbaord you can play Blood Moon turn 3, kill their Hierarch and the game is basically over.
But what do I mean with having free wins when playing Blood Moon?
Think about it, usually your opponent doesn't know what deck you are playing, which means it is unlikely your opponent starts fetching a basic on turn 1. This deck has usually discard on turn 1 or 2, you can either pick their counter or discard and play Blood Moon on turn 3. There are many greedy manabases around in modern (look at all the 3 color midrange and control decks for example, Amulet Titan, Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Tron etc) which are all punishable when having Blood Moon in the deck.
Imagine you are on the play against UW Control. You play discard on turn 1, take their mana leak. Then you follow up with a Young Pyromancer while your opponent has a Glacial Fortress in play and plays a Hallowed Fountain tapped and paths your Pyromancer. You play turn 3 Blood Moon and your opponent is basically locked out of the game. Again, this is only a simple example and a perfect situation, but believe me, these kind of situations happen quite often in modern.
What this deck does is disrupting your opponent while gaining advantage through Young Pyromancer. You take their best spells from hand, kill their creatures and create tokens. In the lategame, Reveler should usually seal the deal. Blood Moon is only one of many disrupting pieces in the deck, and even if it doesn't win you the game on the spot, it does at least disrupt your opponent in a way they have to make suboptimal plays.
The deck doesn't look spectacular on paper, but it is an absolute blast to play, has very few bad matchups and is very hard to hate out from the meta. I can only advice you to give the deck a try.
I have given this deck a try. I am actively trying to make this deck work. The problem is that the scenarios you list by in large do not happen. The second my opponent sees faithless looting or young pyromancer, they know exactly what deck we're on and they know blood moon is a factor. Even if we do happen to catch them tapped out when we moon, jeskai control (the most common control deck in the format, UW control isn't played) has 5 non-mountain basics, if control finds any of them and we lose the 'advantage' we gained from blood moon while having done nothing to build pressure in the meantime. The idea of "disrupt the opponent while gaining advantage through young pyromancer" is still wholly reliant on finding young pyromancer, which is unreliable at best in this deck and its limited filtering. And again, making a couple 1/1 tokens every so often doesn't work well when your opponent is swinging with multiple 4-power creatures every turn.
I want the deck to work. But it never does, at least for me. I can't explain why. I envy those who can make it work, because it does look like a blast to play - assuming it works.
I've played the deck twice recently and generally struggle with my closing speed. Even if I stabilize, a deck like Elves seems to quickly refill with Collected Company or Lead the Stampede. That's my primary issue at the moment but it is a good deck, and very challenging to play precisely.
Elves has been and always will be next to unwinnable. They make more creatures than we do, faster than we do, and their creatures are bigger to the point that they can't be burned out. The matchup isn't even worth trying to win.
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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 disagree with that plan a little bit. I would leave in Terminate over Push since Terminate can kill Gideon Jura. The extra mana does not matter in this matchup really. Therefore I think boarding out Push is correct.
I am also not high on all EE vs them when we already bring in Wear // Tear. It feels overloading on enchantment removal which can be stuck in your hand. If I had only 1 Wear // Tear though its prob okay to bring in 1 EE as well.
Blood Moon is quite bad vs straight UW, even if it deals with Colonnade. But Colonnade is not the main problem, its the PW as wincons.
Kambal is not great either, but its a threat against them and the deck basically only consists of noncreature Spells, I think its fine to bring in to increase the threat density. Keep them on the backfoot is always important.
Terminate can kill Jura only if it's attacking. If UW opponent goes aggro against our deck, then we probably already lost. I see push as a more efficient removal for their blockers/manlands
I only suggested EE because he doesn't have second Wear//Tear in his 75. I wouldn't board it otherwise.
Blood Moon not only deals with Colonnade, but with flipped Azcanta as well, which is much more threatening imo.
Against the top decks of the meta - Humans and Hollow One - I prefer the Last Hope and she is also amazing in any attrition-based matchup.
I do also see quite a lot of people cutting Blood Moon from the mainboard, which is a big mistake in my opinion. The card just gives you free wins and we all know how important free wins are in a bigger tournament.
I am going to keep asking this until I get a concrete answer, which no one in this thread has provided: What decks do you supposedly get "Free wins" from by playing blood moon? Everyone says that it gives yo free wins, but no one will ever tell me what decks you get those wins against.
The decks you list - Tron, Humans, Hollow One; none of them care about a turn 3 blood moon - either their mana is so set that it doesn't affect them, or the one deck that WOULD be affected by it can just rawdog their threats on turn 6 and 7 without fear because we aren't able to use the three intervening turns to actually win the game. Young Pyromancer continues to be half of a dragon fodder for the cost, and that's assuming you draw it, which is not at all reliable.
I want to play the deck because the theory behind it looks amazing - but in practice you just loot 5 times, maybe flashback one lingering souls and die to a horde of 4/4s or 5/6s or bigger. It doesn't DO anything proactive.
I don't think there is a concrete answer you want, like "every time you play blood moon on T3 against deck X, you win". It gives time in some matches, a chance of easy win in others with a cost of being a dead card in third (which you can loot away, so no big deal). I keep 1 copy in main and feel fine about it.
I like the deck because it has a game against a major chunk of the field. It is not an easy one to master - sideboard, mulligans, all this adds up to your win percentage. Although it folds to Tron, figuring out an optimal sideboard plan makes it even more interesting for me.
@Algernone25 Well its a good thing that the best / second best deck in the format also happens to play Faithless Looting, so it is a good thing they don't always know what we are playing from turn 1 looting!
Easy answer: Blood Moon is free win vs. Knightfall comobo. I have yet to lose a match to this deck, mostly off the back of bolt the bird and slam blood moon. Another example: on the play vs. Jeskai, they go turn 2 Search, we go turn 3 blood moon, cuts off 1-2 colors and then if its games 2/3 I can molten rain their 1-of plains.
EE & Anger of the Gods are very good cards vs. Elves and we have a lot of spot removal to kill lords / payoffs, very far from an unwinnable matchup.
Can't really tell if you are being serious when you say things like, "I'm trying to make this deck work, but I can't," or if you are just trying to spew nonsense (like your Young Pyro and "Go wide" comments). If you want to get better, you have to play the deck. Also watching videos of other people play the deck and maybe see some new lines you would not have seen (ie. watching Gerry Thompson vs. Humans, his use of Collective Brutality was very interesting and I learned a lot about the matchup from watching him).
Firstly, thank you FlyingDelver for telling me to stick with young pyro. Went to an FNM last night and the deck did serious work (even beat Tron 2-0).
My only loss of the evening was to boggles. The matchup didn't feel even slightly close (mainboard leylines are a beating game 1). I have a crackling doom and a Liliana of the Veil in the sideboard, but I got totally steamrolled.
Is this just a bad matchup or is there something we can do other than sideboard more copies of crackling doom?
Firstly, thank you FlyingDelver for telling me to stick with young pyro. Went to an FNM last night and the deck did serious work (even beat Tron 2-0).
My only loss of the evening was to boggles. The matchup didn't feel even slightly close (mainboard leylines are a beating game 1). I have a crackling doom and a Liliana of the Veil in the sideboard, but I got totally steamrolled.
Is this just a bad matchup or is there something we can do other than sideboard more copies of crackling doom?
Sideboard for bogels: Wear // Tear & EE are the best two options in my testing. I think crackling doom can be too narrow. Matchup is definitely not favorable for us, but I've been able to squeak out some wins.
Hi guys! Way to keep Mardu going! I had a question: why is there a trend of playing three basic Swamps in the main now? Isn't the third just unnecessary? I've never found myself needing a third swamp, but I don't play any Lilliana in my deck, mainly because I can't afford any right now. So why 3?
It's really only because of Liliana. I'm still on 3 mountains 2 swamps though since I don't mainboard Liliana either. Two blood moons mainboard with no Lilianas has been working nicely.
I keep one veil and one last hope in the sideboard, but I personally find that either one has a solid chance of being underwhelming in a lot of matchups (especially Liliana of the Veil these days).
Vs Affinity (1-2) Total: 0-1
Game 1: Did him dirty as our deck should. He also flooded.
Game 2: Kept double mountain no black, lost to fliers and double plating. Should’ve shocked in a blood crypt because I miscounted my black sources.
Game 3: Drew Lili + 2 Pyro + 3 Reveler. He had 2 platings again, and I didn’t draw any removal other than a push. Game 2 only saw an EE and a bolt, so just didn’t draw enough removal.
Round 2 vs Grixis DS (2-0) Total: 1-1
Game 1: Opponent didn’t de-sideboard, game loss for him.
Game 2: He takes a ton of damage, I chump forever, and then he goes to 7 and I go bolt, bolt, attack with a spirit.
Round 3 vs Jund (2-0) Total 2-1
Game 1: He has to choose between killing pyro or moon with his decay off elf, he chooses moon because of triple ravine, but I draw 3 revelers and ended with 2 Pyros and hardcassted souls into flashback.
Game 2: I have ALL the removal but not threat until 4. He kept a 1 lander, gets a second one turn 3, but never sees another. Eventually my souls + reveler kill him.
Round 4 vs Jeskai Control (2-1) Total: 3-1
Game 1: Thoughtseize turn 1, I leave him with Azcanta and double logic. He slams Azcanta on 2, and I Blood Moon on 3. He doesn’t play magic until I end.
Game 2: I don’t really have a whole lot, we durdle a bit. He slams Lyra (Baneslayer angel???) and Teferi and I lose.
Game 3: I play turn 1 thoughtseize after he mulls, then I play double looting and find a blood moon. Slam it turn 3, he fetched a mountain in response. Turn 4 I Molten Rain him off his only island, and then he doesn’t play magic until I find a reveler and souls a few turns later.
Round 5: vs affinity (2-0) Total: 4-1
Game 1: Drew ALL THE REMOVAL. Won after a grind when I found a threat.
Game 2: He blood mooned me...? And went to 5 with mostly lands and I K-Commanded his only card in hand (Karn) and I won after finding threats.
Round 6 vs Tron (1-1-1) Total: 4-1-1
So, going into this game: I got paired down. If I win or draw I'm into top 8. However, my opponent can win and get into top 8. So I have to play it out, which leads to my tilt game 1....
Game 1: Turn 1: I looting, discard moon + land and am left with a mediocre land. He goes turn 1 Urza's Mine into egg. I think great, my first chance to make top 8 and I have to play vs. tron...Moving on: I thoughtseize Ugin turn 4, Karn turn 5, and he has trouble getting tron setup. I went through like 4-5 Pyro (2 from Last hope) and o-stone and Kozileks’s return blew me out. So he’s at 6. I have 3 lands, and like bolt, tap land, looting. I go looting and keep bolt, tap land, and shock. I play the tap land (which means I can’t flashback souls that turn) to try to draw the 4th bolt off the flashback of my looting. I do exactly that. play the shock land, and cast double bolt for game 1 win vs tron.
Game 2: We grind for like 35 mins. He Karn's the blood moon, I molten rain him and keep him off Tron for a while. Then I punt. If I would've waited 1 turn for faithless looting, I could've kept dreadbore + bolt. But instead I do it one turn where I'm left with 2 cards in hand, so I have to discard bolt. My opponent ended the game at 3, 3 turns later...
Game 3: We have 4 minutes left. I make some mistakes trying to play quick, but I get two pyromancer's out and play through his o-stone. He's at 2, while I have 2 spirits out. He could carn one, and go to one, but then he is dead to ANY burn spell (which I played 0 so far), so K-command, Bolt, Molten Rain are all live draws. He has a wurmcoil in hand, so he thinks if he slams it next turn, he would win after it connect. But that gives me 2 turns to draw a burn spell. In the end, we draw, which is what I needed to top 8 (neither of us would concede).
So, 46 people, cut to top 8, and I get 7th.
Top 8: vs. Dredge (2-1)
Game 1: Dredge. He does his thing. He misses on bloodghast until the bottom 15 cards, so I thought I had a chance because he kept getting bad dredges, but in the end couldn't make it work.
Game 2: Turn 2 he has 11 power out (3 Amalgam + Bloodghast). I go turn 3 slam Anger of the Gods (kept a mull with 2 lands + looting + anger, drew 3rd land on turn 3). After that, Hazoret does work with blocking, and I chip away with spirits. Eventually he alpha strikes, but doesn't think about Hazoret's ability, and I kill him from 12 on a backswing.
Game 3: I have a tough choice, leave up turn 2 Rakdos Charm, or play a pyromancer to clock him. I leave up rakdos charm, and hit 3 dredgers, an amalgam, and a narcomeba. I then play a pyromancer, and have 1 more in hand, and 2 Manamorphose. I only have 3 lands, but if I draw another land I can live the dream. My opponent keeps chipping at me, I miss on a land, play pyro, and pass. Then the miracle turn happens. I go Manamorphose -> Manamorphose -> Lingering Souls, and had 14 power in play. He attacks out (because the ghasts can't block) and then I alpha strike him back for exactly lethal!!
Top 4: Split, money too much to pass up, I wanna go home, long day, and I used up all my luck drawing my graveyard hate in the last game. Good day of Magic.
Final Thoughts: Blood Moon is still amzing. Not sold on 2 K-Command only, the Lili Last hope, or Rabblemaster. 2 Manamorphose + 20 lands, was nice. Core of the deck still fantastic.
Firstly, thank you FlyingDelver for telling me to stick with young pyro. Went to an FNM last night and the deck did serious work (even beat Tron 2-0).
My only loss of the evening was to boggles. The matchup didn't feel even slightly close (mainboard leylines are a beating game 1). I have a crackling doom and a Liliana of the Veil in the sideboard, but I got totally steamrolled.
Is this just a bad matchup or is there something we can do other than sideboard more copies of crackling doom?
I would not play any less than 1 Engineered Explosives in my SB, its our best answer to Bogles naturally. But EE is mainly for Humans these days. Its a convenient answer to Bogles just in addition.
Hi guys! Way to keep Mardu going! I had a question: why is there a trend of playing three basic Swamps in the main now? Isn't the third just unnecessary? I've never found myself needing a third swamp, but I don't play any Lilliana in my deck, mainly because I can't afford any right now. So why 3?
I found that we want to have a second white source for consistancy sake. Usually the manabase was only including 1 Sacred Foundry. And since red is the most important colour, Godless Shrine is not a consideration imo. I quickly exchanged a fetchland with the second Sacred Foundry. However, by doing so you are loosing one black source. And I really like LoTV in the deck, for which you would ideally need 19 black sources to cast on turn 3. We have Looting for some selection, but I personally want at least those 16 black sources. By cutting a fetchland and adding Sacred Foundry, you go down to 15 black sources only. Therefore I just switched the nunmbers on Mountains and Swamps to maintain those 16 sources.
Well, that happens. I would keep FLooting + one land only in combination with one mana disruption spell (discard in particular). As for your question, I wouldn't add any more lands because our curve is so low, that we can often operate even with two lands (not ideal, but doable). I added 1 Ghost Quarter as a utility land into the sideboard for particular matches(Tron/Scapeshift) because aside from it's primary usage, it helps resolve 3 mana spell on turn 3 more consistently
I disagree with that plan a little bit. I would leave in Terminate over Push since Terminate can kill Gideon Jura. The extra mana does not matter in this matchup really. Therefore I think boarding out Push is correct.
I am also not high on all EE vs them when we already bring in Wear // Tear. It feels overloading on enchantment removal which can be stuck in your hand. If I had only 1 Wear // Tear though its prob okay to bring in 1 EE as well.
Blood Moon is quite bad vs straight UW, even if it deals with Colonnade. But Colonnade is not the main problem, its the PW as wincons.
Kambal is not great either, but its a threat against them and the deck basically only consists of noncreature Spells, I think its fine to bring in to increase the threat density. Keep them on the backfoot is always important.
Yes it happens. For this reason I strictly stick to 20 lands now. There are some builds running only 19 lands also. I think thats wrong.
I think keeping a 1 lander with Looting is in general okay, but I would want to be operatable for 1 turn if I miss my landdrop once. So if the rest of the hand is only Bedlam Reveler, KComands and LoTVs, then I am shipping it back.
I do also see quite a lot of people cutting Blood Moon from the mainboard, which is a big mistake in my opinion. The card just gives you free wins and we all know how important free wins are in a bigger tournament.
@Delver, currently started testing 3 Swamps/2Mountains (ca 50 matches in) and I start liking that configuration. Makes having BB after a resolved Blood Moon way easier.
Here are some additional new resources for you guys:
Olivier Tiu's article on CFB: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/mardu-deck-guide/
Ryland Taliaferro's Competitive League with Mardu Pyromancer: http://modernnexus.com/video-series-with-ryland-mardu-pyromancer/
I am going to keep asking this until I get a concrete answer, which no one in this thread has provided: What decks do you supposedly get "Free wins" from by playing blood moon? Everyone says that it gives yo free wins, but no one will ever tell me what decks you get those wins against.
The decks you list - Tron, Humans, Hollow One; none of them care about a turn 3 blood moon - either their mana is so set that it doesn't affect them, or the one deck that WOULD be affected by it can just rawdog their threats on turn 6 and 7 without fear because we aren't able to use the three intervening turns to actually win the game. Young Pyromancer continues to be half of a dragon fodder for the cost, and that's assuming you draw it, which is not at all reliable.
I want to play the deck because the theory behind it looks amazing - but in practice you just loot 5 times, maybe flashback one lingering souls and die to a horde of 4/4s or 5/6s or bigger. It doesn't DO anything proactive.
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RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Hollow One: Board out Blood Moon because it is useless in this particular matchup.
Humans: Blood Moon is very efficient in this matchup, especially postboard. A good Humans player will board out Aether Vial because they need more threats and because we have access to Kolaghan's Command, which means that postbaord you can play Blood Moon turn 3, kill their Hierarch and the game is basically over.
But what do I mean with having free wins when playing Blood Moon?
Think about it, usually your opponent doesn't know what deck you are playing, which means it is unlikely your opponent starts fetching a basic on turn 1. This deck has usually discard on turn 1 or 2, you can either pick their counter or discard and play Blood Moon on turn 3. There are many greedy manabases around in modern (look at all the 3 color midrange and control decks for example, Amulet Titan, Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Tron etc) which are all punishable when having Blood Moon in the deck.
Imagine you are on the play against UW Control. You play discard on turn 1, take their mana leak. Then you follow up with a Young Pyromancer while your opponent has a Glacial Fortress in play and plays a Hallowed Fountain tapped and paths your Pyromancer. You play turn 3 Blood Moon and your opponent is basically locked out of the game. Again, this is only a simple example and a perfect situation, but believe me, these kind of situations happen quite often in modern.
What this deck does is disrupting your opponent while gaining advantage through Young Pyromancer. You take their best spells from hand, kill their creatures and create tokens. In the lategame, Reveler should usually seal the deal. Blood Moon is only one of many disrupting pieces in the deck, and even if it doesn't win you the game on the spot, it does at least disrupt your opponent in a way they have to make suboptimal plays.
The deck doesn't look spectacular on paper, but it is an absolute blast to play, has very few bad matchups and is very hard to hate out from the meta. I can only advice you to give the deck a try.
Last night I twice wanted to fetch up a Godless Shrine, and lamented not having a 1/1 split with Shrine and Sacred Foundry. I'm surprised 2x Sacred Foundry is the default build at the moment, and definitely will be running the 1/1 split in the future.
I have given this deck a try. I am actively trying to make this deck work. The problem is that the scenarios you list by in large do not happen. The second my opponent sees faithless looting or young pyromancer, they know exactly what deck we're on and they know blood moon is a factor. Even if we do happen to catch them tapped out when we moon, jeskai control (the most common control deck in the format, UW control isn't played) has 5 non-mountain basics, if control finds any of them and we lose the 'advantage' we gained from blood moon while having done nothing to build pressure in the meantime. The idea of "disrupt the opponent while gaining advantage through young pyromancer" is still wholly reliant on finding young pyromancer, which is unreliable at best in this deck and its limited filtering. And again, making a couple 1/1 tokens every so often doesn't work well when your opponent is swinging with multiple 4-power creatures every turn.
I want the deck to work. But it never does, at least for me. I can't explain why. I envy those who can make it work, because it does look like a blast to play - assuming it works.
Elves has been and always will be next to unwinnable. They make more creatures than we do, faster than we do, and their creatures are bigger to the point that they can't be burned out. The matchup isn't even worth trying to win.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Terminate can kill Jura only if it's attacking. If UW opponent goes aggro against our deck, then we probably already lost. I see push as a more efficient removal for their blockers/manlands
I only suggested EE because he doesn't have second Wear//Tear in his 75. I wouldn't board it otherwise.
Blood Moon not only deals with Colonnade, but with flipped Azcanta as well, which is much more threatening imo.
I haven't tried Kambal tbh, so maybe it's decent.
I don't think there is a concrete answer you want, like "every time you play blood moon on T3 against deck X, you win". It gives time in some matches, a chance of easy win in others with a cost of being a dead card in third (which you can loot away, so no big deal). I keep 1 copy in main and feel fine about it.
I like the deck because it has a game against a major chunk of the field. It is not an easy one to master - sideboard, mulligans, all this adds up to your win percentage. Although it folds to Tron, figuring out an optimal sideboard plan makes it even more interesting for me.
Easy answer: Blood Moon is free win vs. Knightfall comobo. I have yet to lose a match to this deck, mostly off the back of bolt the bird and slam blood moon. Another example: on the play vs. Jeskai, they go turn 2 Search, we go turn 3 blood moon, cuts off 1-2 colors and then if its games 2/3 I can molten rain their 1-of plains.
EE & Anger of the Gods are very good cards vs. Elves and we have a lot of spot removal to kill lords / payoffs, very far from an unwinnable matchup.
Can't really tell if you are being serious when you say things like, "I'm trying to make this deck work, but I can't," or if you are just trying to spew nonsense (like your Young Pyro and "Go wide" comments). If you want to get better, you have to play the deck. Also watching videos of other people play the deck and maybe see some new lines you would not have seen (ie. watching Gerry Thompson vs. Humans, his use of Collective Brutality was very interesting and I learned a lot about the matchup from watching him).
My only loss of the evening was to boggles. The matchup didn't feel even slightly close (mainboard leylines are a beating game 1). I have a crackling doom and a Liliana of the Veil in the sideboard, but I got totally steamrolled.
Is this just a bad matchup or is there something we can do other than sideboard more copies of crackling doom?
Sideboard for bogels: Wear // Tear & EE are the best two options in my testing. I think crackling doom can be too narrow. Matchup is definitely not favorable for us, but I've been able to squeak out some wins.
I keep one veil and one last hope in the sideboard, but I personally find that either one has a solid chance of being underwhelming in a lot of matchups (especially Liliana of the Veil these days).
Vs Affinity (1-2) Total: 0-1
Game 1: Did him dirty as our deck should. He also flooded.
Game 2: Kept double mountain no black, lost to fliers and double plating. Should’ve shocked in a blood crypt because I miscounted my black sources.
Game 3: Drew Lili + 2 Pyro + 3 Reveler. He had 2 platings again, and I didn’t draw any removal other than a push. Game 2 only saw an EE and a bolt, so just didn’t draw enough removal.
Round 2 vs Grixis DS (2-0) Total: 1-1
Game 1: Opponent didn’t de-sideboard, game loss for him.
Game 2: He takes a ton of damage, I chump forever, and then he goes to 7 and I go bolt, bolt, attack with a spirit.
Round 3 vs Jund (2-0) Total 2-1
Game 1: He has to choose between killing pyro or moon with his decay off elf, he chooses moon because of triple ravine, but I draw 3 revelers and ended with 2 Pyros and hardcassted souls into flashback.
Game 2: I have ALL the removal but not threat until 4. He kept a 1 lander, gets a second one turn 3, but never sees another. Eventually my souls + reveler kill him.
Round 4 vs Jeskai Control (2-1) Total: 3-1
Game 1: Thoughtseize turn 1, I leave him with Azcanta and double logic. He slams Azcanta on 2, and I Blood Moon on 3. He doesn’t play magic until I end.
Game 2: I don’t really have a whole lot, we durdle a bit. He slams Lyra (Baneslayer angel???) and Teferi and I lose.
Game 3: I play turn 1 thoughtseize after he mulls, then I play double looting and find a blood moon. Slam it turn 3, he fetched a mountain in response. Turn 4 I Molten Rain him off his only island, and then he doesn’t play magic until I find a reveler and souls a few turns later.
Round 5: vs affinity (2-0) Total: 4-1
Game 1: Drew ALL THE REMOVAL. Won after a grind when I found a threat.
Game 2: He blood mooned me...? And went to 5 with mostly lands and I K-Commanded his only card in hand (Karn) and I won after finding threats.
Round 6 vs Tron (1-1-1) Total: 4-1-1
So, going into this game: I got paired down. If I win or draw I'm into top 8. However, my opponent can win and get into top 8. So I have to play it out, which leads to my tilt game 1....
Game 1: Turn 1: I looting, discard moon + land and am left with a mediocre land. He goes turn 1 Urza's Mine into egg. I think great, my first chance to make top 8 and I have to play vs. tron...Moving on: I thoughtseize Ugin turn 4, Karn turn 5, and he has trouble getting tron setup. I went through like 4-5 Pyro (2 from Last hope) and o-stone and Kozileks’s return blew me out. So he’s at 6. I have 3 lands, and like bolt, tap land, looting. I go looting and keep bolt, tap land, and shock. I play the tap land (which means I can’t flashback souls that turn) to try to draw the 4th bolt off the flashback of my looting. I do exactly that. play the shock land, and cast double bolt for game 1 win vs tron.
Game 2: We grind for like 35 mins. He Karn's the blood moon, I molten rain him and keep him off Tron for a while. Then I punt. If I would've waited 1 turn for faithless looting, I could've kept dreadbore + bolt. But instead I do it one turn where I'm left with 2 cards in hand, so I have to discard bolt. My opponent ended the game at 3, 3 turns later...
Game 3: We have 4 minutes left. I make some mistakes trying to play quick, but I get two pyromancer's out and play through his o-stone. He's at 2, while I have 2 spirits out. He could carn one, and go to one, but then he is dead to ANY burn spell (which I played 0 so far), so K-command, Bolt, Molten Rain are all live draws. He has a wurmcoil in hand, so he thinks if he slams it next turn, he would win after it connect. But that gives me 2 turns to draw a burn spell. In the end, we draw, which is what I needed to top 8 (neither of us would concede).
So, 46 people, cut to top 8, and I get 7th.
Top 8: vs. Dredge (2-1)
Game 1: Dredge. He does his thing. He misses on bloodghast until the bottom 15 cards, so I thought I had a chance because he kept getting bad dredges, but in the end couldn't make it work.
Game 2: Turn 2 he has 11 power out (3 Amalgam + Bloodghast). I go turn 3 slam Anger of the Gods (kept a mull with 2 lands + looting + anger, drew 3rd land on turn 3). After that, Hazoret does work with blocking, and I chip away with spirits. Eventually he alpha strikes, but doesn't think about Hazoret's ability, and I kill him from 12 on a backswing.
Game 3: I have a tough choice, leave up turn 2 Rakdos Charm, or play a pyromancer to clock him. I leave up rakdos charm, and hit 3 dredgers, an amalgam, and a narcomeba. I then play a pyromancer, and have 1 more in hand, and 2 Manamorphose. I only have 3 lands, but if I draw another land I can live the dream. My opponent keeps chipping at me, I miss on a land, play pyro, and pass. Then the miracle turn happens. I go Manamorphose -> Manamorphose -> Lingering Souls, and had 14 power in play. He attacks out (because the ghasts can't block) and then I alpha strike him back for exactly lethal!!
Top 4: Split, money too much to pass up, I wanna go home, long day, and I used up all my luck drawing my graveyard hate in the last game. Good day of Magic.
Final Thoughts: Blood Moon is still amzing. Not sold on 2 K-Command only, the Lili Last hope, or Rabblemaster. 2 Manamorphose + 20 lands, was nice. Core of the deck still fantastic.
Deck: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mardu-pyromancer-v12/?cb=1526265542
I would not play any less than 1 Engineered Explosives in my SB, its our best answer to Bogles naturally. But EE is mainly for Humans these days. Its a convenient answer to Bogles just in addition.
I found that we want to have a second white source for consistancy sake. Usually the manabase was only including 1 Sacred Foundry. And since red is the most important colour, Godless Shrine is not a consideration imo. I quickly exchanged a fetchland with the second Sacred Foundry. However, by doing so you are loosing one black source. And I really like LoTV in the deck, for which you would ideally need 19 black sources to cast on turn 3. We have Looting for some selection, but I personally want at least those 16 black sources. By cutting a fetchland and adding Sacred Foundry, you go down to 15 black sources only. Therefore I just switched the nunmbers on Mountains and Swamps to maintain those 16 sources.