So thats 2 bad MU covered by 1 card, which is a decent qualification for the board.
I never said the card was bad. I literally listed all the reasons for why you could consider playing the card. What I did say was you shouldn't make a crappy Mardu build just to play the thing and instead play 1 Sacred Foundry if Valakut bothers you that much. Meanwhile decent sideboard options for Tron already exist. Pithing Needle is highly underrated for this matchup and useful for things like KCI, manlands, Lantern Control, etc.
I'm more inclined to say that the incredible amount of disruption still hasn't allowed this deck any good finishes since,
Good finishes are influenced by (a) how many people play the deck and (b) how many people that play the deck choose not to play garbage lists like you. Unfortunately both those factors don't look so great for this deck. People buy this deck because it's more budget friendly, hence the lower skill floor of the players. It's the same reason the old Amulet Bloom deck never gained popularity despite being objectively the best deck in the format by win %.
Legion's Landing. Making Legion's Landing flip means you're winning? Let's be real, you'll attack with plenty of games with 3 tokens but it won't mean the game is won yet.
It doesn't mean you're winning, it just means that extra land isn't going to be doing anything 90% of the time because by then you already have 3-4 lands in play. The more serious reason to not run the card is because you're playing a 1/1 lifelink with no evasion for one mana. That's a terrible conversion rate. Instead of relying on a 1/1 lifelink card to shore up your aggro match, why don't you actually 'get gud' and play some more removals and discard spells that will save your more life in the long run? Am I being too logical here?
RE: Mardu Pyromancer. As you have pointed out, whether a deck is good or not depends on the meta. Its good now. Is BW Tokens "better" than this? Hell no. How long has it been since a meta that favored this deck was present? I mean you can carry on waiting, while the rest of us post "terrible decks". Maybe another year?
Uh you do realize Mardu Pyromancer has terrible conversation rates? Just to give an example 0/6 Mardu players made Pro Tour top 35 in a creature heavy meta. Yeah BW Tokens is a better deck than this garbage. Your control elements - a.k.a discards and removals - are nearly as good; actually it's better because their mana base can't handle path to exile which is the only way to deal with Gurmag Angler and Hollow Ones. This deck is geared to beat only one deck and that's Humans. Meanwhile BW Tokens has by far the better control, combo, and even most creature matchups. You think BW Tokens has a bad matchup against Valakut and Tron? Try playing Mardu Pyromancer, which can barely get cards into the graveyard. BW Tokens is better against removals, beats creature decks with evasion, and applies faster pressure most of the time.
Tokens is hell of a lot better than people think it is with a proper build and the right pilot. You complain about "not the right meta" based on what exactly? The meta is way better now than it was a 1-2 years ago when I moved on to Legacy. Combo decks are at an all time low and most of the aggro decks aside from Humans is a decent matchup like Shadows, Affinity, and even Burn. Ux Control is like 50/50 depending on how you build the deck. Tron is the one popular deck that's heavily favored against Tokens but now you have far superior answers to Tron than you did a year ago. Warning issued for flaming. --CavalryWolfPack
It's been a year since I've posted here. People are still posting terrible decks it seems. The #1 mistake people make are evaluation of "win more" cards. It's the reason why most people thought Narset Transcendent was going to be a good card. Rather than picking cards that are situational, one should be picking cards that are flexible, high impact, and low risk.
There is no reason to splash red. Back before Fatal Push was printed, the deck desperately needed an additional early removal spell to handle aggro and did not give a free land. That was the reason for experimentation with red. Now it's no longer necessary.
I wouldn't run a full set of Fatal Push though. Two copies can be replaced by a Dismember and a Collective Brutality. Dismember handles the numerous big threats in the meta and Brutality gives the deck flexibility.
Trying to shore up matches against Valakut is an inevitably disappointing endeavor. It's honestly not common enough to prepare for. At least against Tron you have Pithing Needle and Damphing Sphere. Against Valakut you basically have nothing. Run some Lost Legacy if you're desperate. Alpine Moon if you go a red splash, which is highly not recommended for 99% of the meta. You certainly would run a Sacred Foundry instead of going full red if you did run this card.
There shouldn't be any discussion of adding creatures to the deck. It's been tried for many years now and the result has always been the same: don't turn on opponent's removals. Only exceptions have been cards like Auriok Champion, which is only decent in the Grixis matchup (unreliable for Burn). Just think about it logically. Pyromancer is a 2/1 for two mana that MIGHT generate tokens. You have to cast multiple spells just to generate a bunch of 1/1s with no evasion.
BW Tokens is a better deck than this. Mardu Pyromancer was never a good deck because it's even more passive than BW Tokens, heavily relying on creature matchups to be good. Sometimes bad decks do well in certain metas and Mardu Pyromancer is no exception. It's like the Legacy Death and Taxes of Modern.
It does depend on the meta but I find that Liliana of the Veil, with the proper manabase, is very reliable. In most matches she finds a way to be relevant as removal + discard is a desirable combination. I don't recommend running more than 2 because she's not an early game card like she is in Jund.
Jeff Hoogland tested a build with History of Benaria. It's a decent card under some circumstances. If you have a lot of control/ combo in the meta, this is a better card than Spectral Procession. It's not bad against aggro/ midrange either but Spectral is superior there. The card I can't agree with playing is Legion's Landing. This is a win-more-card. Not amazing in the early game or the late game. By the time you make it into a land, you don't need the extra mana and probably don't need that token generation either. More importantly, this card is competing for a very valuable 1-drop slot. You really want a 1/1 with lifelink over a discard or removal spell? I'll take my chances with the latter.
According to metashares Valakut is far less common than you think: http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO & https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#paper
I actually like to deal with actual numbers over my subjective experiences.
I never said the card was bad. I literally listed all the reasons for why you could consider playing the card. What I did say was you shouldn't make a crappy Mardu build just to play the thing and instead play 1 Sacred Foundry if Valakut bothers you that much. Meanwhile decent sideboard options for Tron already exist. Pithing Needle is highly underrated for this matchup and useful for things like KCI, manlands, Lantern Control, etc.
Good finishes are influenced by (a) how many people play the deck and (b) how many people that play the deck choose not to play garbage lists like you. Unfortunately both those factors don't look so great for this deck. People buy this deck because it's more budget friendly, hence the lower skill floor of the players. It's the same reason the old Amulet Bloom deck never gained popularity despite being objectively the best deck in the format by win %.
It doesn't mean you're winning, it just means that extra land isn't going to be doing anything 90% of the time because by then you already have 3-4 lands in play. The more serious reason to not run the card is because you're playing a 1/1 lifelink with no evasion for one mana. That's a terrible conversion rate. Instead of relying on a 1/1 lifelink card to shore up your aggro match, why don't you actually 'get gud' and play some more removals and discard spells that will save your more life in the long run? Am I being too logical here?
Uh you do realize Mardu Pyromancer has terrible conversation rates? Just to give an example 0/6 Mardu players made Pro Tour top 35 in a creature heavy meta. Yeah BW Tokens is a better deck than this garbage. Your control elements - a.k.a discards and removals - are nearly as good; actually it's better because their mana base can't handle path to exile which is the only way to deal with Gurmag Angler and Hollow Ones. This deck is geared to beat only one deck and that's Humans. Meanwhile BW Tokens has by far the better control, combo, and even most creature matchups. You think BW Tokens has a bad matchup against Valakut and Tron? Try playing Mardu Pyromancer, which can barely get cards into the graveyard. BW Tokens is better against removals, beats creature decks with evasion, and applies faster pressure most of the time.
Tokens is hell of a lot better than people think it is with a proper build and the right pilot. You complain about "not the right meta" based on what exactly? The meta is way better now than it was a 1-2 years ago when I moved on to Legacy. Combo decks are at an all time low and most of the aggro decks aside from Humans is a decent matchup like Shadows, Affinity, and even Burn. Ux Control is like 50/50 depending on how you build the deck. Tron is the one popular deck that's heavily favored against Tokens but now you have far superior answers to Tron than you did a year ago.
Warning issued for flaming. --CavalryWolfPack
BW Tokens is a better deck than this. Mardu Pyromancer was never a good deck because it's even more passive than BW Tokens, heavily relying on creature matchups to be good. Sometimes bad decks do well in certain metas and Mardu Pyromancer is no exception. It's like the Legacy Death and Taxes of Modern.