I wouldnt play Flame Slash over Lightning Axe personally, as yes 5 Toughness is important to be able to hit, and its also an instant vs Sorcery.
Against truly heavy removal, you may need to bring in additional threats out of the sideboard, but unless they are running mass removal AND gy hate AND disruption, those Phoenix will be coming back and it only takes 1 Crackling Drake to stick, to present lethal in the late game.
I'm working on updating the first post, if there are any obvious errors feel free to tell me about it.
What list did you play? I found most of the time with the Thing/Drake/Swifty configuration it kind of just plays itself. Probably the smoothest deck I've played in a long long time, but I already have a ton of reps in Standard where its harder/slower.
Against truly heavy removal, you may need to bring in additional threats out of the sideboard, but unless they are running mass removal AND gy hate AND disruption, those Phoenix will be coming back and it only takes 1 Crackling Drake to stick, to present lethal in the late game.
I'm working on updating the first post, if there are any obvious errors feel free to tell me about it.
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4 Arclight Phoenix
2 Crackling Drake
2 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Thing in the Ice
//Sorcery
4 Faithless Looting
1 Flame Slash
4 Serum Visions
//Instant
3 Gut Shot
2 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
4 Opt
4 Thought Scour
3 Island
2 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Steam Vents
1 Abrade
2 Alpine Moon
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Dispel
1 Izzet Staticaster
4 Ravenous Trap
1 Threads of Disloyalty
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Abrade at 3 in the side, Surgical, and then it's getting thin.
Main Deck there isn't much but again what is there in the meta anyway?
As to bad match ups, I still think Rock is a beating as Push makes a joke out of Thing and Swiftspear and it has the tools to hate on the GY.
I don't think I have played around GDS with the deck yet but it could be an issue as well, but I think GDS is underplayed right now.
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Was this the configuration you tried?
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How did you like the Jace? I've seen a few comments about it being clunky at times.
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Of all the builds I have tried, the one with 2 Swiftspear has been the best.
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http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/125557
Its what I'm playing as well, and its awesome.
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http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/125194
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