Depends on how you value Thoughtseize. It has a huge demand from standard right now but that has less than 12 months to go. If somebody thinks it's worth $30 let them.
Maybe you missed that it was two Thoughtseizes for the Canopy. The numbers we were using were 'seize=17, Canopy=34, 'Skite=18. But any old goon can look up numbers on a price guide--I was more concerned with utility and overall playability. Which do you think would be best to have in hand, 2x Spellskite or 2x Thoughtseize or 1x Horizon Canopy?
Also, you're implying that Thoughtseize will go down in price after it rotates out of Standard? Even though it's used just as much (?) in other formats? If that's the case, then maybe I should wait and pick them up a year from now, since I'm in no particular hurry.
During the Spring and Summer of 2011, in the brief time of New Phyrexia and M12, before the release of Innistrad, there were a glorious six months where I, as a Standard player and a red mage at heart, could play with the fancy new Shrine of Burning Rage, and my trusty old Goblin Guides hadn't rotated out of the format yet. I still have most of the pieces of that deck lying around, and have just recently been bitten by the nostalgia bug. What tweaks would you make to this deck, to amp it up for the Modern format?
Another question: if my storm count is at 9, and I have an active Ascension, and I canst Grapeshot, does it just do 11 damage, or does it do 20 damage
Eleven. Just like the copies created by the Storm ability itself, the copy created by Pyromancer Ascension is not "cast," and so it won't trigger its own storm ability. You end up with ten copies (nine from Storm, one from PA) plus the original, for a total of eleven.
Also, cerulean wisps lets you untap your creature twice right?
That's correct, you get to untap twice with Cerulean Wisps, netting an additional mana in the process since you can tap for one in between untapping it the first time for Blistercoil's trigger and then again for the spell's own effect.
I'd still just rather have Aphotic Wisps here, I think. Maybe it's sort of an eggs-in-one-basket type of spell since it doesn't have the rebound or flashback of the other two, but I feel the cantrip on Wisps is indispensable (or, rather, the lack of cantrip on the others is a complete deal-breaker), and in the few cases where "fear" doesn't just mean the same thing as "unblockable" (i.e. you're facing down a black and/or artifact creature) then they probably won't also have shroud or hexproof, in which case you can just burn them out with Grapeshot and clear the way for your Blistercoil.
+1 power seems important sometimes, you can´t cast it the second time whenever you want but if blistercoil survives one more turn its a free spell
If Blistercoil survives another turn, then it means the game is still going. That means you didn't end it last turn, probably because your combo fizzled out because you filled the deck up with too many dead cards like Artful Dodge or Distortion Strike which brick the combo because they don't cantrip. If they did cantrip, you could have drawn a card, played that card, and still got the +1 power you're so fond of.
Cantrips are key here, folks. They are what this deck is about, what makes it tick, and every card you add that doesn't do it is just another nail in the coffin when your combo bricks because you ran out of spells to cast.
BUT IMO Psychotic Fury is powerfull enough to have a place, so you can kill with a 10/10 blistercoil weird.
At least this one cantrips, but in the end, it suffers from the same problem as Fling in that, really, it's just another Grapeshot that can't be split between multiple targets. I say that because, essentially, they all do pretty much the same thing which is just "cause damage equal to the storm count by one means or another." At that point, why not just add in Grapeshots #3 and 4 before hitting up the other, lesser versions of it? I guess it gets around Leyline of Sanctity, but it's still no help against blockers. I really don't think we can get away without using Grapeshot here, unless maybe as a meta call -- if you know your friends aren't playing black or artifact creatures, and you already have Aphotic Wisps to get around blockers, then you could use Psychotic Fury instead of Grapeshot as an out against Leyline shenanigans. But in a generic list, it's pretty indispensable, which means that to include Fury there you'd need to cut one of the one-mana cantrips instead, or maybe Ideas Unbound. However, unless you're in danger of drawing out your entire deck before you count to twenty (or ten and a Grapeshot, or seven and both Grapeshots -- you are drawing out your entire deck in this scenario, remember), then I think that the extra cards from Ideas would work out just as well, to help you power through dead cards like extra lands, Weirds, or Mantles that you might draw into mid-combo.
I saw a version playing 2 gelectrode... not sure about it
Again, if it doesn't cantrip, there needs to be a really strong case for including it in the deck. Disrupting Shoal might have such a case going for it, but Gelectrode almost certainly does not.
Flame Jab might end up being a good alternative to Grapeshot. Turning lands into live draws is always nice.
I'm not seeing it. Without Grapeshot, you straight up have to pump Blistercoil all the way to 20, and just pray there are no blockers. With it, you only need to pump him half that much, and can deal with pretty much any number of blockers by pumping just a little bit more. If anything, I would say it might be a replacement for Faithless Looting as that's our current "out" for excess lands in hand, but I don't think I would ditch Grapeshot for it, ever. (Although, the amount of testing I've done with this has been exactly zero, so maybe there's something else I'm not seeing?)
I'm getting the feeling that the lands (at least the shocks, maybe not so much the fetch?) are pretty much always a good pick right now as long as the $$ values are pretty close, but I'm never sure when something else is on the same level.
This one is a lot closer. All of the cards involved are in short supply and relatively similar amounts of demand. There's a small value advantage in pile A (maybe a dollar or two) if you want to nitpick, but it's close enough that I'd take whichever pile is more useful to you to construct your decks. If you're just looking to gain value, you should take pile A... but the gain really is incremental.
Thanks a lot, that's just the kind of feedback that's helpful to me. (No sarcasm, it really does help.)
How about (A) 2x Birthing Pod vs. (B) 2x GTC Watery Grave? Same boat then, or is one of them clearly better than the other, this time?
I like the Fountains here. They're as low as they're going to get barring another mass reprint, while the Khans fetches will continue to drop as more product gets opened.
You guys are fast. I was going to edit in another one but as you've already responded I'll just post again.
I thought that the Simian Spirit Guides would be useful to get the extra mana for Grapeshot.. Guess I'll have to brainstorm on it again.
Cerulean Wisps and Gitaxian Probe both do the same thing, and without bricking the combo, at that. (Manamorphose can too, kind of, but you need 2 mana to cast that in the first place so it doesn't really count.)
As for the lands, on an initial thought, I pulled in the Flooded Strands for the white splash (Path to Exile removing blockers) but I guess that we could swap 'em for basics.
You could just tap Blistercoil for the white mana, though, then untap and attack. And again, Aphotic Wisps can fill roughly the same role without being a dead card in the combo.
Gotcha, thanks
Maybe you missed that it was two Thoughtseizes for the Canopy. The numbers we were using were 'seize=17, Canopy=34, 'Skite=18. But any old goon can look up numbers on a price guide--I was more concerned with utility and overall playability. Which do you think would be best to have in hand, 2x Spellskite or 2x Thoughtseize or 1x Horizon Canopy?
Also, you're implying that Thoughtseize will go down in price after it rotates out of Standard? Even though it's used just as much (?) in other formats? If that's the case, then maybe I should wait and pick them up a year from now, since I'm in no particular hurry.
Vs.
B: 1x Horizon Canopy
EDIT:
C: 1x Thoughtseize (THS)
Vs.
D: 1x Spellskite
vs.
Snapcaster Mage
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Teetering Peaks
11 Mountain
4 Goblin Guide
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Ember Hauler
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Forked Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
1 Koth of the Hammer
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
2 Act of Aggression
4 Dismember
2 Hero of Oxid Ridge
3 Manic Vandal
1 Mark of Mutiny
3 Vulshok Refugee
What if it was Wurmcoil Engine (SoM) vs. the Blood Moon, instead?
Pile B: Blood Moon (MMA)
Eleven. Just like the copies created by the Storm ability itself, the copy created by Pyromancer Ascension is not "cast," and so it won't trigger its own storm ability. You end up with ten copies (nine from Storm, one from PA) plus the original, for a total of eleven.
That's correct, you get to untap twice with Cerulean Wisps, netting an additional mana in the process since you can tap for one in between untapping it the first time for Blistercoil's trigger and then again for the spell's own effect.
I'd still just rather have Aphotic Wisps here, I think. Maybe it's sort of an eggs-in-one-basket type of spell since it doesn't have the rebound or flashback of the other two, but I feel the cantrip on Wisps is indispensable (or, rather, the lack of cantrip on the others is a complete deal-breaker), and in the few cases where "fear" doesn't just mean the same thing as "unblockable" (i.e. you're facing down a black and/or artifact creature) then they probably won't also have shroud or hexproof, in which case you can just burn them out with Grapeshot and clear the way for your Blistercoil.
If Blistercoil survives another turn, then it means the game is still going. That means you didn't end it last turn, probably because your combo fizzled out because you filled the deck up with too many dead cards like Artful Dodge or Distortion Strike which brick the combo because they don't cantrip. If they did cantrip, you could have drawn a card, played that card, and still got the +1 power you're so fond of.
Cantrips are key here, folks. They are what this deck is about, what makes it tick, and every card you add that doesn't do it is just another nail in the coffin when your combo bricks because you ran out of spells to cast.
At least this one cantrips, but in the end, it suffers from the same problem as Fling in that, really, it's just another Grapeshot that can't be split between multiple targets. I say that because, essentially, they all do pretty much the same thing which is just "cause damage equal to the storm count by one means or another." At that point, why not just add in Grapeshots #3 and 4 before hitting up the other, lesser versions of it? I guess it gets around Leyline of Sanctity, but it's still no help against blockers. I really don't think we can get away without using Grapeshot here, unless maybe as a meta call -- if you know your friends aren't playing black or artifact creatures, and you already have Aphotic Wisps to get around blockers, then you could use Psychotic Fury instead of Grapeshot as an out against Leyline shenanigans. But in a generic list, it's pretty indispensable, which means that to include Fury there you'd need to cut one of the one-mana cantrips instead, or maybe Ideas Unbound. However, unless you're in danger of drawing out your entire deck before you count to twenty (or ten and a Grapeshot, or seven and both Grapeshots -- you are drawing out your entire deck in this scenario, remember), then I think that the extra cards from Ideas would work out just as well, to help you power through dead cards like extra lands, Weirds, or Mantles that you might draw into mid-combo.
Again, if it doesn't cantrip, there needs to be a really strong case for including it in the deck. Disrupting Shoal might have such a case going for it, but Gelectrode almost certainly does not.
I'm not seeing it. Without Grapeshot, you straight up have to pump Blistercoil all the way to 20, and just pray there are no blockers. With it, you only need to pump him half that much, and can deal with pretty much any number of blockers by pumping just a little bit more. If anything, I would say it might be a replacement for Faithless Looting as that's our current "out" for excess lands in hand, but I don't think I would ditch Grapeshot for it, ever. (Although, the amount of testing I've done with this has been exactly zero, so maybe there's something else I'm not seeing?)
1a: 2x Hallowed Fountain
-vs-
1b: 1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir (TSP)
[Edit]:
2a: Rugged Prairie
-vs-
2b: Windswept Heath (KTK)
3a: Temple Garden
-vs-
3b: Pact of Negation (FUT)
I'm getting the feeling that the lands (at least the shocks, maybe not so much the fetch?) are pretty much always a good pick right now as long as the $$ values are pretty close, but I'm never sure when something else is on the same level.
Thanks a lot, that's just the kind of feedback that's helpful to me. (No sarcasm, it really does help.)
How about (A) 2x Birthing Pod vs. (B) 2x GTC Watery Grave? Same boat then, or is one of them clearly better than the other, this time?
You guys are fast. I was going to edit in another one but as you've already responded I'll just post again.
Pile A:
1x (FUT) Venser, Shaper Savant
1x (GTC) Watery Grave
Pile B:
2x (RAV) Remand
-or-
1x (KTK) Windswept Heath
Cerulean Wisps and Gitaxian Probe both do the same thing, and without bricking the combo, at that. (Manamorphose can too, kind of, but you need 2 mana to cast that in the first place so it doesn't really count.)
You could just tap Blistercoil for the white mana, though, then untap and attack. And again, Aphotic Wisps can fill roughly the same role without being a dead card in the combo.