Well... First of all, I must say that, I agree Blood Moon is not as well positioned now as it once was.
However, I think Blood Moon is great on Mardu, exactly because this deck doesn't commit to it all that much. We play only two copies (sometimes three, but usually a meta call), we don't play any acelerators for it, and we don't make huge concessions on our manabases to play them. We can also discard them for Faithless Lootings, Brutalitys, Lilianas or Revelers if they are not useful in any given match-up. So I don't see them as a liability at all.
On the other hand, Blood Moon not only gives us a pretty good fighting chance against Big Mana decks (which we're probably not beating without it), as well as it ocasionally wins the game on it's own. I wouldn't cut them from the deck now, and certainly wouldn't feel comfortable in having no land destruction in my sideboard.
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
What do you guys think about Cabal Therapist? Could it be good enough? I think it sinergizes really well with our heavy discard package, because we can easily look at our opponent's hand with an IoK or Thoughtseize, we might even discard a removal spell with them, and than proceed with playing a Cabal Therapist and naming a key card on their hand.
It also can work well with Lingering Souls and Pyromancer, since they can feed him with tokens to keep attacking our opponent's hand on the mid/late game.
However, it doesn't work as well without other discard spells and it is a creature, which is bad for Pyromancer and Reveler.
I see a lot of people commenting about Cabal Therapist, and thinking of ways to constantly create tokens or recur creatures to continuously make the opponent discard something. I don't really know if it should be played this way. I mean... ok. Our deck does create a lot of tokens, so they might be useful to feed Therapist, but I think it should be primarily seen as a one shot Cabal Therapy that may be answered with an instant speed removal spell (which is not bad in my opinion, since it could just eat a removal that would otherwise be pointed at a Pyromancer, or we could just discard their removal first with other discard spell).
Anyways... do you guys think it could be good enough? I'm not sure, but I think it could be good.
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
The general vibe ive seen from black-based discard players, myself included, is that its too slow in todays Modern. Discard is always at its best early, and the earliest this can do you any good is main phase turn 2, and it only gets slower trying to get more value outta him by waiting for elemental/spirit tokens to show up. If you get them on turn 3 (casting souls or pyro plus spell) it means you cant sac em till the turn after. And remember, this is with spending turn 1 commiting to therapist and not thoughtseizing. Storm has already stormed, Tron has already tronned, Ad has already Nauseamed, Valakut has already Molten Pinnacled (or is close enough that it doesnt matter) If the format slows down, like maybe Modern Horizens has in store, then i will revisit my analysis.
I played a tournament on my local store yesterday (about 25 players) and the deck ran really smoothly. Won my first three matches and luckly accepted my fourth opponent's sugestion to ID. Later I came to know he was playing Monogreen Tron. My deck was the following:
Tried to cover the Big Manas, Burns and Grindy matches. Missing the 3rd and 4th Blackcleave Cliffs, so I substitued them for an Arid Mesa and a Godless Shrine (which I didn't like much). Chandra was to help on the Grindy matches and to serve as another Win Condition. She did a really good job. Played against Esper Control, Revolting Zoo and Hollow One. I'll try to post a report later.
Some thoughts:
1 - Really liked the Chandra, at least for now. I drew her on 2 games, and she won both of them by herself. She's really good in this deck with our large army of tokens to protect her;
2 - Found Fatal Push a bit lackluster. Sure, it did help me against a Wild Nacatl and a Fireblade Adept, but a bunch of times I found myself being pressured by a Gurmag Angler, Hollow One, a Jace or a Teferi, and I just had a FP. I managed to win those games, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to cut some of them or even, them all, to put a bunch more of Dreadbores or Terminates. Of course I get the efficiency importance of CMC 1 vs CMC 2 in our deck that plays a low land count and aims to be as efficient as possible. But... is the CMC 1 really worth the much lower number of targets?
3 - Thinking about cutting the second Wear/Tear from the sideboard. KCI got banned, and the only enchantment that I see being really important to destroy on the current meta is Hardened Scales. Of course it destroys artifacts too, but I have a bunch of removal for those;
4 - Been thinking about trying a Kaya on the sideboard. She seems pretty good in a bunch of matches;
5 - Not sure about the Rakdos Charm over a second Nihil Spellbomb. Sure, it destroys artifacts and is an instant, what makes it work better with Pyros and Revelers. But not sure if it's worth the higher CMC and to be down a card on comparison to using Spellbomb;
6 - Wanted to sneak in a Kalitas somewhere in the 75...;
1 - Chandra seems good, as an toolbox-style threat that can also get around Ensnaring Bridge.
2 - If you want to stick to 1cmc, Path would work, despite being a nonbo with Blood Moon. Dismember could work as a pseudo-1cmc as well. If you don't mind going to 2cmc, I think at least two 2cmc kill spells are necessary for threats like Angler. I prefer the instant speed of Terminate, but if you have lots of PWs walking around 2 Dreadbores would be solid.
3 - Given your deck, I'd stay with 2x Wear//Tear and drop the Rakdos charm, you have enough artifact hate with the Kcommands. If you're worried about losing a piece of grave hate, I'd replace something in your SB with another Nihil Spellbomb.
4 - I play one Kaya main, she's done work for me. MB grave hate / possible life gain is great vs. Burn and other midrange decks, the -1 can get rid of a decent amount of problem permanents (most recently for me a Voice of Resurgence token, a couple Aether Vials, and a Death's Shadow), and the ultimate is a legitimate threat.
5 - see 3.
6 - I like to try spicy one-of creatures in place of a Bedlam Reveler, you can test it out there. The incidental grave hate good in a lot of metas recently.
Unrelated to your points, but a bit of tech I've found to work quite nicely is a one-of Vault of the Archangel. The lifegain and death touch can really help stabilize, especially since this deck tends to start turning the corner in the 5-12 life range. It being colorless hasn't come back to bite me as much as I thought it would, especially since I can Blood Moon it into a red source.
Why aren't we playing mb surgical and what happened to the presence of the deck at bigger tournaments? Is it just not good in the meta or have pros just moved onto other decks? also stealing from the GDS Primer thread, is ravenous trap worth a sb slot?
I also think that this metagame is not good for Mardu.
IMO Mardu was much better positioned when the best decks were Humans, GDS and Spirits.
Now the Tier 1 decks are Phoenix and Dredge. Both bad match-ups for us.
The Tier 2 decks that are more present now are Tron, Burn, GDS, Rock, Spirits, Hardened Scales, Amulet Titan and Humans.
Of all these, I think Mardu is good vs GDS, Rock, Hardened Scales and Humans, while Tron, Spirits, Amulet Titan and Burn are bad match-ups.
So... in the end, IMO we're bad against the Tier 1 decks, and we're good against half of the Tier 2. Not a really good position to be.
It's also bad for us that the 2 best decks in the format are weak to graveyard hate. People fill their sideboards and even main decks with graveyard hate to fight those stupid birds and zombies, and they end up hating us as well.
The good news are that our deck is really flexible. We can probably adjust our deck between main and sideboard to improve our bad match-ups.
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
To be honest, I didn't play this match-up a lot yet, but when I played it, I felt really unfavored. These were the reasons I felt unfavored:
1 - Discard spells are pretty mediocre against them. You're very likely seeing a lot of cantrips on their hand, and nothing really good to target, so you end up discarding the best of the cantrips or a Bolt, and having close to no information about what they'll be doing on the following turns, since they'll probably cycle all their hand quickly. You need to be very lucky to snipe a Crackling Drake or a Thing in the Ice, and even if you do so, they're probably drawing a substitute fast;
2 - Pyromancer felt underwhelming on the match-up. We can't chump Phoenix or Drake with the tokens, and Thing in the Ice just gets rid of him with all the tokens;
3 - I just couldn't stop the Phoenixes. They fly, what makes them easily ignore our Pyromancers and tokens, and no removal we play are good against them. All I could do against them on Game 1 was chump with Lingering Souls tokens and try to race them with Pyros and Elemental tokens, but it didn't work, since they were just faster;
4 - We also have no answer to Pyromancer Ascension, that have been seen a lot of play on this deck;
5 - They now play Surgical main deck, so even Lingering Souls are not that reliable;
On Games 2 and 3 it got much better. But Games 1 felt really bad.
Has anybody tried Kaya yet? She seems like she could put in some work right now. I’m going to try a 1 of and see how it goes.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Has anybody tried Kaya yet? She seems like she could put in some work right now. I’m going to try a 1 of and see how it goes.
I'll give her a try. I feel like the deck needs to focus it's sideboard on fighting these 3 archetypes: Graveyard decks (Phoenix and Dredge), Burn and Big Mana (Valakut, Tron and Amulet Titan). I think those are probably our worst match-ups.
That said, I put a lot of thought on my sideboard this week to try to cover all of these, the best way possible. And I concluded I'm gonna make these two changes on my sideboard:
Out Hazoret, in Kalitas
I didn't like Hazoret all that much. Maybe I was just unlucky, but I did draw her a bunch of times I had a lot of cards in my hand. I ended up discarding her for a Looting, because I couldn't see me casting her profiterably in less than two turns. A bunch of times, I had an empty hand, and would be very happy to draw her, but I didn't. So... my conclusion is she's powerful, but not much reliable.
I'm going for Kalitas because he covers 2 of the worst match-ups. He's good vs graveyard and Burn. He's also good on Grindy matches, which is nice.
Out Rakdos Charm, in Kaya
Pretty simple. Rakdos Charm is just decent. One shot graveyard hate, but costs 2, and doesn't replace itself like Spellbomb. I'm trying Kaya for now, as she's able to constantly exile things from my opponent's graveyard, and also gains life in the process. She's also really good against Burn, GDS, Lantern, Affinity and a bunch of other things. So... IMO Kaya is much more flexible than Rakdos Charm, although slower, and she does help in more matches, specially Burn, which I think is one of the thoughest matches possible for Mardu.
My new sideboard will be:
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Fulminator Mage
3x Molten Rain
2x Wear / Tear
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Anger of the Gods
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Modern RBWMardu Pyromancer R.I.P. BG The Rock
Commander W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
This weekend I decided to try a one of surgical extraction in the main. Didn’t play against any Phoenix decks but I did get to thoughtseize a karn and extract it. Might be something worth considering since it can easily be pitched to looting or used and make a token. Also, Liliana of the veil was surprisingly good every time I played her. Not sure why I doubted her in this archetype.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Hey everyone, I'm currently building the deck, any thoughts on Ashiok, Dream Render and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer? Ashiok can help fuel our GY, can act multiple times as opponent GY hate, and shuts down opponent's fetches and other incidental search effects like Field of Ruin. Double black is a downside though. Saheeli is like Pyromancer 5-8 (although probably don't want more than 2 in the 75). Was thinking Liliana, the Last Hope would be a good inclusion too, which makes me wonder if Liliana's Triumph becomes a good card for the deck. Also wondering about Angrath's Rampage and Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord. Rampage is like a pseudo-Dreadbore with additional artifact hate stapled on. Sorin can help recover some life and can also recur Pyromancer.
Ashiok seems slow but I could be wrong. I would highly recommend tryin Liliana of the Veil. I’ve been very impressed by the work that she does in almost every matchup. I don’t think liliana’s triumph is necessary or angraths rampage for that matter. We have both of those in our removal package already. Saheeli might be pretty good. Not sure about sorin.
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Little angel, go away come again some other day the Devil has my ear today I'll never hear a word you say. He promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind. Whatever. just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous.
Hello folks. I am new to this deck (not to Modern) as well. I am currently 80% of the way to acquiring the cards. Should finish soon.
A couple of questions and a comment.
Is the fastland necessary for this deck? Can Dragonskull Summit surmise?
Would you see this deck as a sleeper that needs a couple of cards to explode? Which grindy deck is it good against?
I feel Ashiok is what this deck needed? It is good against all of the weak matchups mentioned above. It is hate against (not solely, in combination with this deck’s discard and removal, of course) Phoenix, Tron, Dredge and Scapeshift variants. Am I off?
I am looking forward to joining this fray. I am usually a hardcore Elves player and have contributed a lot to that thread, btw. Still my first love, but I have always wanted a grindy midrange deck to add to my arsenal.
Hello folks. I am new to this deck (not to Modern) as well. I am currently 80% of the way to acquiring the cards. Should finish soon.
A couple of questions and a comment.
Is the fastland necessary for this deck? Can Dragonskull Summit surmise?
Hi!
I was in the same spot 2 - 3 month ago. I started out with 3 Dragonskull Summit to replace Blackcleave Cliffs and it kind of worked but there were situations were I got screwed. Now I acquired the fastlands now and I don't look back. Being able to have painless access to black or red mana on turn 1 is great and since we rarely need more than 3 - 4 lands, the fastlands are almost always better or equal to the checklands (in this deck).
My conclusion: If you wanna test the deck, Dragonskull Summit can be ok, but I'd try to borrow some Blackcleave Cliffs for FNMs etc.
Would you see this deck as a sleeper that needs a couple of cards to explode? Which grindy deck is it good against?
Mardu might be a bit too fair and too slow if your LGS has a lot of Tron or Dredge and other silly decks. However, it's a very enjoyable deck that kind of fell out of favor. And, I found the Phoenix decks not to be a too bad match up.
I wouldn't say it's a sleeper deck. But it's definitively a modern deck with which you can have success if you master it's steep learning curve. However, we hope that Modern Horizons will bring some cards to Modern to improve fair decks. So, there is a chance that Mardu Pyro will be better positioned again.
I feel Ashiok is what this deck needed? It is good against all of the weak matchups mentioned above. It is hate against (not solely, in combination with this deck’s discard and removal, of course) Phoenix, Tron, Dredge and Scapeshift variants. Am I off?
The new Ashiok looks very interesting. My guess is, that we'll have to test whether a turn 3 (and double black) sorcery-speed spell (that can be attacked) is good enough to slow down tutor decks and graveyard decks. Maybe more experienced Mardu players have different opinions on Ashiok, Dream Render.
edit: grammer
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However, I think Blood Moon is great on Mardu, exactly because this deck doesn't commit to it all that much. We play only two copies (sometimes three, but usually a meta call), we don't play any acelerators for it, and we don't make huge concessions on our manabases to play them. We can also discard them for Faithless Lootings, Brutalitys, Lilianas or Revelers if they are not useful in any given match-up. So I don't see them as a liability at all.
On the other hand, Blood Moon not only gives us a pretty good fighting chance against Big Mana decks (which we're probably not beating without it), as well as it ocasionally wins the game on it's own. I wouldn't cut them from the deck now, and certainly wouldn't feel comfortable in having no land destruction in my sideboard.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
Maybe Rix Maadi Reveler is viable...
Modern Dredge
Budget Dredge
Mardu Pyromancer
Belcher
It also can work well with Lingering Souls and Pyromancer, since they can feed him with tokens to keep attacking our opponent's hand on the mid/late game.
However, it doesn't work as well without other discard spells and it is a creature, which is bad for Pyromancer and Reveler.
I see a lot of people commenting about Cabal Therapist, and thinking of ways to constantly create tokens or recur creatures to continuously make the opponent discard something. I don't really know if it should be played this way. I mean... ok. Our deck does create a lot of tokens, so they might be useful to feed Therapist, but I think it should be primarily seen as a one shot Cabal Therapy that may be answered with an instant speed removal spell (which is not bad in my opinion, since it could just eat a removal that would otherwise be pointed at a Pyromancer, or we could just discard their removal first with other discard spell).
Anyways... do you guys think it could be good enough? I'm not sure, but I think it could be good.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
I played a tournament on my local store yesterday (about 25 players) and the deck ran really smoothly. Won my first three matches and luckly accepted my fourth opponent's sugestion to ID. Later I came to know he was playing Monogreen Tron. My deck was the following:
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Marsh Flats
1x Arid Mesa
2x Blood Crypt
2x Sacred Foundry
1x Godless Shrine
2x Mountain
2x Swamp
Creatures
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Bedlam Reveler
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Fatal Push
2x Dreadbore
3x Kolaghan's Command
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
Enchantments
2x Blood Moon
Planeswalkers
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1x Hazoret the Fervent
2x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Fulminator Mage
3x Molten Rain
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Wear/Tear
1x Anger of the Gods
Tried to cover the Big Manas, Burns and Grindy matches. Missing the 3rd and 4th Blackcleave Cliffs, so I substitued them for an Arid Mesa and a Godless Shrine (which I didn't like much). Chandra was to help on the Grindy matches and to serve as another Win Condition. She did a really good job. Played against Esper Control, Revolting Zoo and Hollow One. I'll try to post a report later.
Some thoughts:
1 - Really liked the Chandra, at least for now. I drew her on 2 games, and she won both of them by herself. She's really good in this deck with our large army of tokens to protect her;
2 - Found Fatal Push a bit lackluster. Sure, it did help me against a Wild Nacatl and a Fireblade Adept, but a bunch of times I found myself being pressured by a Gurmag Angler, Hollow One, a Jace or a Teferi, and I just had a FP. I managed to win those games, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to cut some of them or even, them all, to put a bunch more of Dreadbores or Terminates. Of course I get the efficiency importance of CMC 1 vs CMC 2 in our deck that plays a low land count and aims to be as efficient as possible. But... is the CMC 1 really worth the much lower number of targets?
3 - Thinking about cutting the second Wear/Tear from the sideboard. KCI got banned, and the only enchantment that I see being really important to destroy on the current meta is Hardened Scales. Of course it destroys artifacts too, but I have a bunch of removal for those;
4 - Been thinking about trying a Kaya on the sideboard. She seems pretty good in a bunch of matches;
5 - Not sure about the Rakdos Charm over a second Nihil Spellbomb. Sure, it destroys artifacts and is an instant, what makes it work better with Pyros and Revelers. But not sure if it's worth the higher CMC and to be down a card on comparison to using Spellbomb;
6 - Wanted to sneak in a Kalitas somewhere in the 75...;
Any thoughts?
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
2 - If you want to stick to 1cmc, Path would work, despite being a nonbo with Blood Moon. Dismember could work as a pseudo-1cmc as well. If you don't mind going to 2cmc, I think at least two 2cmc kill spells are necessary for threats like Angler. I prefer the instant speed of Terminate, but if you have lots of PWs walking around 2 Dreadbores would be solid.
3 - Given your deck, I'd stay with 2x Wear//Tear and drop the Rakdos charm, you have enough artifact hate with the Kcommands. If you're worried about losing a piece of grave hate, I'd replace something in your SB with another Nihil Spellbomb.
4 - I play one Kaya main, she's done work for me. MB grave hate / possible life gain is great vs. Burn and other midrange decks, the -1 can get rid of a decent amount of problem permanents (most recently for me a Voice of Resurgence token, a couple Aether Vials, and a Death's Shadow), and the ultimate is a legitimate threat.
5 - see 3.
6 - I like to try spicy one-of creatures in place of a Bedlam Reveler, you can test it out there. The incidental grave hate good in a lot of metas recently.
Unrelated to your points, but a bit of tech I've found to work quite nicely is a one-of Vault of the Archangel. The lifegain and death touch can really help stabilize, especially since this deck tends to start turning the corner in the 5-12 life range. It being colorless hasn't come back to bite me as much as I thought it would, especially since I can Blood Moon it into a red source.
IMO Mardu was much better positioned when the best decks were Humans, GDS and Spirits.
Now the Tier 1 decks are Phoenix and Dredge. Both bad match-ups for us.
The Tier 2 decks that are more present now are Tron, Burn, GDS, Rock, Spirits, Hardened Scales, Amulet Titan and Humans.
Of all these, I think Mardu is good vs GDS, Rock, Hardened Scales and Humans, while Tron, Spirits, Amulet Titan and Burn are bad match-ups.
So... in the end, IMO we're bad against the Tier 1 decks, and we're good against half of the Tier 2. Not a really good position to be.
It's also bad for us that the 2 best decks in the format are weak to graveyard hate. People fill their sideboards and even main decks with graveyard hate to fight those stupid birds and zombies, and they end up hating us as well.
The good news are that our deck is really flexible. We can probably adjust our deck between main and sideboard to improve our bad match-ups.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
1 - Discard spells are pretty mediocre against them. You're very likely seeing a lot of cantrips on their hand, and nothing really good to target, so you end up discarding the best of the cantrips or a Bolt, and having close to no information about what they'll be doing on the following turns, since they'll probably cycle all their hand quickly. You need to be very lucky to snipe a Crackling Drake or a Thing in the Ice, and even if you do so, they're probably drawing a substitute fast;
2 - Pyromancer felt underwhelming on the match-up. We can't chump Phoenix or Drake with the tokens, and Thing in the Ice just gets rid of him with all the tokens;
3 - I just couldn't stop the Phoenixes. They fly, what makes them easily ignore our Pyromancers and tokens, and no removal we play are good against them. All I could do against them on Game 1 was chump with Lingering Souls tokens and try to race them with Pyros and Elemental tokens, but it didn't work, since they were just faster;
4 - We also have no answer to Pyromancer Ascension, that have been seen a lot of play on this deck;
5 - They now play Surgical main deck, so even Lingering Souls are not that reliable;
On Games 2 and 3 it got much better. But Games 1 felt really bad.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
I'll give her a try. I feel like the deck needs to focus it's sideboard on fighting these 3 archetypes: Graveyard decks (Phoenix and Dredge), Burn and Big Mana (Valakut, Tron and Amulet Titan). I think those are probably our worst match-ups.
That said, I put a lot of thought on my sideboard this week to try to cover all of these, the best way possible. And I concluded I'm gonna make these two changes on my sideboard:
Out Hazoret, in Kalitas
I didn't like Hazoret all that much. Maybe I was just unlucky, but I did draw her a bunch of times I had a lot of cards in my hand. I ended up discarding her for a Looting, because I couldn't see me casting her profiterably in less than two turns. A bunch of times, I had an empty hand, and would be very happy to draw her, but I didn't. So... my conclusion is she's powerful, but not much reliable.
I'm going for Kalitas because he covers 2 of the worst match-ups. He's good vs graveyard and Burn. He's also good on Grindy matches, which is nice.
Out Rakdos Charm, in Kaya
Pretty simple. Rakdos Charm is just decent. One shot graveyard hate, but costs 2, and doesn't replace itself like Spellbomb. I'm trying Kaya for now, as she's able to constantly exile things from my opponent's graveyard, and also gains life in the process. She's also really good against Burn, GDS, Lantern, Affinity and a bunch of other things. So... IMO Kaya is much more flexible than Rakdos Charm, although slower, and she does help in more matches, specially Burn, which I think is one of the thoughest matches possible for Mardu.
My new sideboard will be:
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Fulminator Mage
3x Molten Rain
2x Wear / Tear
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Anger of the Gods
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
A couple of questions and a comment.
Is the fastland necessary for this deck? Can Dragonskull Summit surmise?
Would you see this deck as a sleeper that needs a couple of cards to explode? Which grindy deck is it good against?
I feel Ashiok is what this deck needed? It is good against all of the weak matchups mentioned above. It is hate against (not solely, in combination with this deck’s discard and removal, of course) Phoenix, Tron, Dredge and Scapeshift variants. Am I off?
I am looking forward to joining this fray. I am usually a hardcore Elves player and have contributed a lot to that thread, btw. Still my first love, but I have always wanted a grindy midrange deck to add to my arsenal.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
Hi!
I was in the same spot 2 - 3 month ago. I started out with 3 Dragonskull Summit to replace Blackcleave Cliffs and it kind of worked but there were situations were I got screwed. Now I acquired the fastlands now and I don't look back. Being able to have painless access to black or red mana on turn 1 is great and since we rarely need more than 3 - 4 lands, the fastlands are almost always better or equal to the checklands (in this deck).
My conclusion: If you wanna test the deck, Dragonskull Summit can be ok, but I'd try to borrow some Blackcleave Cliffs for FNMs etc.
Mardu might be a bit too fair and too slow if your LGS has a lot of Tron or Dredge and other silly decks. However, it's a very enjoyable deck that kind of fell out of favor. And, I found the Phoenix decks not to be a too bad match up.
I wouldn't say it's a sleeper deck. But it's definitively a modern deck with which you can have success if you master it's steep learning curve. However, we hope that Modern Horizons will bring some cards to Modern to improve fair decks. So, there is a chance that Mardu Pyro will be better positioned again.
The new Ashiok looks very interesting. My guess is, that we'll have to test whether a turn 3 (and double black) sorcery-speed spell (that can be attacked) is good enough to slow down tutor decks and graveyard decks. Maybe more experienced Mardu players have different opinions on Ashiok, Dream Render.
edit: grammer