I saw someone talking about Firestorm elsewhere and was intrigued. I've been playing up graveyard interaction in my cube lately, and I've been looking for interesting ways for red to play in that area. Firestorm seems like it might be an interesting fit, but having never played the card in any format at all (I've never played dredge), I don't have any experience with it.
It seems like it's always going to be card disadvantage unless you're abusing it by discard something that wants to be in the graveyard, so I'm wondering if it's actually worth including or not.
I already play Looting, and Ravings doesn't support reanimator well enough to justify inclusion. I can't build Dredge-esque decks where most of the cards want to be in the yard, just a select few, so random discard seems pretty bad.
That said, those are entirely different cards that ONLY focus on card selection and getting into the graveyard. I'm also intrigued by the actual effect of Firestorm. Red wraths are fun.
True, but I've played Desperate Ravings in Grixis reanimator, it was really good, Tibalt as well, very sick. I don't find Firestorm very good because for discard outlets, they're better red cards, and for x damage spells, they're better red cards. It just seems to punt on both ends of the spectrum.
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Firestorm is a great card that a few cubes on here used to run (mine included). Among others wtwlf had a particular fondness for it and he probably runs it now at 450; I think there should be space for it at that level. It gives you a great deal for discarding lategame chaff like extra lands and can combo with LftL, reanimator, squee and other such. It generally gives you 9 damage for your one mana, discarding three, which is not often a bad deal.
I love this card. Being able to deal that kind of damage for a single mana is sick, despite being card disadvantage. It's also my favorite red discard outlet outside of Faithless Looting.
I really like this card. It has a high damage output and numerous interactions with other cube cards: reanimator, Crucible/Loam, Squee, Genesis, flashback, etc.In a pinch, it just bails you out of a bad situation.
I don't run it anymore, but now that I've upped my reanimator support I've been thinking about bringing it back. With Faithless Looting and Sneak Attack--along with the promised shift of some looting into red--red is looking like a better and better reanimator color.
I only tried this card out a few times but it has been a real house. Last game it hit a resto angel a jace at 4 loyalty, a meloku and my opponents face for 4 when i got flooded, allowing my dudes to swing for the win the next turn. Its a very versatile 1 mana instant that I've already grown attached to.
He really didnt expect that much of a blowout with 1 mana open.
The problem I have with this card is from one of the gatherer card rulings:
The value of X can’t exceed the number of cards in your hand or the number of available legal targets, whichever is smaller.
So if there are no creatures in play, you can only make X = 2 (assuming two players). Obviously gets better if your opponent has a creature you can kill, but it just seems unreliable. And three for one'ing and bolting yourself just to do three damage to your opponent and one of his creatures seems sort of bad to me, even for agro.
But maybe it plays better than I think it should. There are a lot of cards like that, so this wouldn't be the first.
Well, i forgot a rule for a game :/. I dont like that rule it just makes walkers stronger agaibst aggro when they already are strong. Its still a really strong card.
I don't think planeswalkers are particularly effective against aggro or that aggro is where I'm generally running cards that would be stronger if they could double up damage on players and planeswalkers (I'm thinking earthquake here. but maybe I'm missing something.)
I was at 6 life and had Chandra the Firebrand, Phyrexian Arena, 6 cards in hand and a couple land. I -2 Chandra and cast Dreadbore targeting the Boa and Troll. He regens both. I then cast Firestorm discarding 4 so I can kill his three guys and dome him for 4. In response he discards his ENTIRE hand (4 creatures!!) to make troll a 6/5 and lives.
He untaps and attacks for lethal. I was shellshocked and we still talk about it.
That said: I LOVE Firestorm- it is so uniquely powerful that I couldn't believe I wasn't playing it before.
Firestorm seems like it can fit into most red archetypes, i put it in an aggro/midrange boros deck and discarded four lands. Turning 3 lands into 3 bolts is good in any archetype.
I guess my experience with the card is quite different. I think it's a card that can really shine in very specific situations, but I haven't found it to be very flexible at all. I mean, when is it at its best? When the opponent has 3-4 creatures, all with toughness 4 or less, none of them have shroud, hexproof, or protection from red, and you're sitting with Firestorm and 4 lands in your hand, yeah, it's going to be super awesome. But most of the time I couldn't find myself wanting to get rid of so many resources (not necessarily just cards in hand, but sometimes in order to get the damage per target output high enough targeting one of my own creatures is needed) to do the appropriate amount of damage.
In aggro decks, it's awful. I think most agree here, it's really not good at doing a lot of damage to one target.
In control decks, it's awful. It's almost always card disadvantage. The only real selling point here is that it's only one mana, so you can basically determine whenever you need to play it. But red has so many more better crowd control options than this card with all the pyroclasm variants that actually do what control likes and that's gain card advantage.
In combo decks, it's playable. Because the heart of the combo decks is to win with a specific subset of cards, I find that more of the cards in the deck are expendable to justify such a ludicrous cost, and the one mana cost is real nice if this effect is needed on a turn you're "going off." Most of the time I'd still rather have a pyroclasm or starstorm, though.
I can see a case for it to be good in real graveyard-centric decks, but these aren't very prevalent in my cube so maybe that's part of why my experience is quite different than most here.
This is my experience, however, and I'm hoping to be convinced otherwise, because I think it's a real cool card, and it CAN be powerful, so please, if people could give some specifics as to decklists that want the card and what kind of board situations you want to play it - and especially the standard "mundane" uses, because the nut plays with it are usually recognizable.
Not cube related, but the best story I've ever heard about this card:
Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup
Player T1: Mountain, go
Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup x2, Swing for 2.
Player: Firestorm, x=5. You, Me, Pup, Pup, Pup.
Opponent: *Jaw Drops*
Tempest T2 Baby
The card seems strong. You're by nature always at -1 card advantage with the card, but name another card that comes close to a 1 mana instant speed flame wave. (Har har, balance. Sure.)
I was at 6 life and had Chandra the Firebrand, Phyrexian Arena, 6 cards in hand and a couple land. I -2 Chandra and cast Dreadbore targeting the Boa and Troll. He regens both. I then cast Firestorm discarding 4 so I can kill his three guys and dome him for 4. In response he discards his ENTIRE hand (4 creatures!!) to make troll a 6/5 and lives.
He untaps and attacks for lethal. I was shellshocked and we still talk about it.
That said: I LOVE Firestorm- it is so uniquely powerful that I couldn't believe I wasn't playing it before.
Looking at this, the correct play from the start (not knowing what's in his hand) was to -2 Chandra on the Firestorm. It gets you 4 extra damage, and you save a Dreadbore.
And in this particular situation, you could have used that saved dreadbore on his Troll, and won.
Looking at this, the correct play from the start (not knowing what's in his hand) was to -2 Chandra on the Firestorm. It gets you 4 extra damage, and you save a Dreadbore.
And in this particular situation, you could have used that saved dreadbore on his Troll, and won.
You sir are correct. We looked up te oracle text on Firestorm later and realized that was a possibility. Still it was fun to play out.
We play it with some success, often as much as a graveyard enabler as a way of dealing damage. Best plays are often to wipe out an aggro player's attackers to set up powerful midgame plays like reanimating a fatty.
It's often less good against control, both because there are often fewer targets and it is a miserable card to have countered.
In my cube experience, three cards are usually discarded. Turning dead draws into Lightning Bolts is fine.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Dandy_Lions;9647142']Not cube related, but the best story I've ever heard about this card:
Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup
Player T1: Mountain, go
Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup x2, Swing for 2.
Player: Firestorm, x=5. You, Me, Pup, Pup, Pup.
Opponent: *Jaw Drops*
Tempest T2 Baby
The card seems strong. You're by nature always at -1 card advantage with the card, but name another card that comes close to a 1 mana instant speed flame wave. (Har har, balance. Sure.)
I have been on the giving and receiving end of that exact situation. It has been a few years. I remember how happy I was to do it, and how angry I was when it happened to me.
I saw someone talking about Firestorm elsewhere and was intrigued. I've been playing up graveyard interaction in my cube lately, and I've been looking for interesting ways for red to play in that area. Firestorm seems like it might be an interesting fit, but having never played the card in any format at all (I've never played dredge), I don't have any experience with it.
It seems like it's always going to be card disadvantage unless you're abusing it by discard something that wants to be in the graveyard, so I'm wondering if it's actually worth including or not.
Have people used it? Thoughts?
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That said, those are entirely different cards that ONLY focus on card selection and getting into the graveyard. I'm also intrigued by the actual effect of Firestorm. Red wraths are fun.
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It does so much for one mana.
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I don't run it anymore, but now that I've upped my reanimator support I've been thinking about bringing it back. With Faithless Looting and Sneak Attack--along with the promised shift of some looting into red--red is looking like a better and better reanimator color.
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He really didnt expect that much of a blowout with 1 mana open.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
The value of X can’t exceed the number of cards in your hand or the number of available legal targets, whichever is smaller.
So if there are no creatures in play, you can only make X = 2 (assuming two players). Obviously gets better if your opponent has a creature you can kill, but it just seems unreliable. And three for one'ing and bolting yourself just to do three damage to your opponent and one of his creatures seems sort of bad to me, even for agro.
But maybe it plays better than I think it should. There are a lot of cards like that, so this wouldn't be the first.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I was at 6 life and had Chandra the Firebrand, Phyrexian Arena, 6 cards in hand and a couple land. I -2 Chandra and cast Dreadbore targeting the Boa and Troll. He regens both. I then cast Firestorm discarding 4 so I can kill his three guys and dome him for 4. In response he discards his ENTIRE hand (4 creatures!!) to make troll a 6/5 and lives.
He untaps and attacks for lethal. I was shellshocked and we still talk about it.
That said: I LOVE Firestorm- it is so uniquely powerful that I couldn't believe I wasn't playing it before.
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That's fine, because Firestorm isn't an aggro card.
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I'll have to try it out. Sounds like it may be another shrine of burning rage (another card that just seemed bad until I actually played with it).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
In aggro decks, it's awful. I think most agree here, it's really not good at doing a lot of damage to one target.
In control decks, it's awful. It's almost always card disadvantage. The only real selling point here is that it's only one mana, so you can basically determine whenever you need to play it. But red has so many more better crowd control options than this card with all the pyroclasm variants that actually do what control likes and that's gain card advantage.
In combo decks, it's playable. Because the heart of the combo decks is to win with a specific subset of cards, I find that more of the cards in the deck are expendable to justify such a ludicrous cost, and the one mana cost is real nice if this effect is needed on a turn you're "going off." Most of the time I'd still rather have a pyroclasm or starstorm, though.
I can see a case for it to be good in real graveyard-centric decks, but these aren't very prevalent in my cube so maybe that's part of why my experience is quite different than most here.
This is my experience, however, and I'm hoping to be convinced otherwise, because I think it's a real cool card, and it CAN be powerful, so please, if people could give some specifics as to decklists that want the card and what kind of board situations you want to play it - and especially the standard "mundane" uses, because the nut plays with it are usually recognizable.
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Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup
Player T1: Mountain, go
Opponent T1: Mountain, Jackel Pup x2, Swing for 2.
Player: Firestorm, x=5. You, Me, Pup, Pup, Pup.
Opponent: *Jaw Drops*
Tempest T2 Baby
The card seems strong. You're by nature always at -1 card advantage with the card, but name another card that comes close to a 1 mana instant speed flame wave. (Har har, balance. Sure.)
Looking at this, the correct play from the start (not knowing what's in his hand) was to -2 Chandra on the Firestorm. It gets you 4 extra damage, and you save a Dreadbore.
And in this particular situation, you could have used that saved dreadbore on his Troll, and won.
You sir are correct. We looked up te oracle text on Firestorm later and realized that was a possibility. Still it was fun to play out.
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EDH Decks
GOmnath, Locus of ManaG
WUBSen TripletsWUB
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG
It's often less good against control, both because there are often fewer targets and it is a miserable card to have countered.
In my cube experience, three cards are usually discarded. Turning dead draws into Lightning Bolts is fine.
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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I have been on the giving and receiving end of that exact situation. It has been a few years. I remember how happy I was to do it, and how angry I was when it happened to me.
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You have to go really deep before you want to ever run this