Hello everyone, I'm an older player that's recently started playing again and I always loved Fires decks. I've searched around to see if there's been any major updates to the deck over the years, and so far the main suggestion I've seen is Thrun, The Last Troll. So I'd like to share what I've come up with so far and see if anyone else has any comments or suggestions. I've honestly never heard of Fires having success after leaving standard, but I like the deck so I want to see what I can do. Also, I currently play in a small casual play group, but we may find a local card shop to start attending.
Doubling Season:
In terms of new tech for the deck, this is the 800 LB gorilla. Having this card in play takes the deck from satisfying sometimes over the top beatdown to LITERALLY INSANE. Burst normally swings for 12. Doubling Season will double the number of fade counters Burst comes in with AND double the number of tokens it creates. So if you eat a turn and drop this first, Burst creates 14 7/7's and swings for 98!!! Holy *****. Do you play free-for-all's? I do. You can take out several players at a time with this insanity. I was testing Savage Beating before this, and while it is no doubt a good card, it doesn't match the power of Doubling Season. The only drawback here is that dropping a Season after Burst can potentially be underwhelming (you can still remove a 4th counter for an extra bonus token if the situation calls). However, it also has synergy with several other cards in the deck. Blastoderm also comes in with double the counters, Volt Charge adds double, Fangren Firstborn adds double. If you've got a Fangren and a Burst in play, swing and Fangren gives everything +1/+1 and a Volt Charge will give all your tokens +2/+2 by adding an additional +1/+1 counter and a fade counter to Burst. So the tokens get +3/+3. Got a Season in play? Your tokens now get +6/+6. Raging Ravine would also fit nicely here as it's like a mini Fangren and will benefit from the counter tech. But I've yet to test it and it comes into play tapped. If Season is out of your budget, then Savage Beating is great and Volt Charge is still worth having as it plays well with Derm, Burst, and Fangren.
Jund:
So you can see I've splashed black for Terminate and (kinda) Flesh // Blood. Depending on your meta, you could also swap that for Abrupt Decay, Putrefy, Dismember, or even Vampiric Tutor or the like to make sure I get that Fires. If you like Fling, I consider Blood to be strictly better in G/R decks. It's sorcery speed, but doesn't require you to sac. In the olden days, you could put damage on the stack and then Fling so it didn't matter, but nowadays you have to choose between attacking and Flinging... Blood gives you your cake and lets you eat it too. Also, note that if you fuse the card, the rules say play the left half, THEN the right half. So the ideal play here is to cast Flesh // Blood for 7 and pitch a Derm from the yard targeting Shivan Wurm to make a 12/12 trample, then throw 12 to the face. SWING. You can also turn your Birds into a fat flier mid to late game. Did I mention Doubling Season? If you don't want to splash, Blood is still a great card on it's own and Birds alone will occasionally let you play Flesh. You could swap the Terminates for more burn or Rancor's (I was running Chain Lightning before). Fecundity is also an interesting suggestion.
Dorks:
Birds is obviously a staple. Tribe Elder is a Rampant Growth on a stick, which means it's not a total waste of card late game or if you've got enough mana (even if you don't you can block then sac). I've recently discovered Utopia Sprawl, and may play test that over Tribe Elder or possibly even Birds, because mana dorks are so easily removed as previously mentioned. Also, being that Sprawl is an enchantment it doesn't suffer from summoning sickness, so if you drop it on an untapped Forest you can use it right away even without Fires in play. Also, Eternal Witness is of course a great all around utility creature for any green deck. Need land? Bring back a Foothills/Birds/Elder. Pesky buggers on the other side of the table? Get another use out of your Bolt or Terminate. Etc. It also makes another great target for Shivan Wurm.
Beaters:
Derm, Flametongue, Shivan, and Burst are all staples. I'd swap a Derm for a Thrun, but I don't have one yet. I've been playtesting between Fangren Firstborn and Bloodbraid Elf, and I've decided to go with Fangren because it has more synergy with other cards in the deck, particularly Doubling Season and Volt Charge. Even without that it can grow your dorks and makes them useful later in the game. If you've got one out with Burst then it means your tokens are swinging for 4 every turn. Bloodbraid is a good card and I like that it is independent of Fires and digs into your deck, but it will also throw all your great 4 and 5 drops to the bottom of your library which isn't ideal. Also, the Mosswort Bridge's dig as well and don't care about CMC. Also, for those who don't have Bloodbraid's, Fangren is much cheaper.
Lands:
As mentioned, Mosswort Bridge provides some digging. Here and there it actually hurts, but usually it helps. Note that if you're running Savage Beating, you can still pay the entwine cost off the Bridge. However, with Flesh // Blood, you have to choose one or the other. The best is bridging into a Fires and then dropping a Burst with surprise haste. Gaea's Crade is pretty self explanatory, and supplies the deck with ample mana, especially once a Burst or two hits play. Cradle plus a couple of mana dorks can get the Fires, Season, then Burst in play as early as turn 4. Also note that with the new legend rule, if you haven't dropped a land yet you can tap your Cradle, drop another Cradle (destroying the first) and then tap that for more mana. If you have Stomping Ground's, you could remove some of the basics.
Sideboard:
I've currently got lots of 2 of's in the build for testing and because I play casual right now without a sideboard. I think for a sideboard I'd start with Utopia Sprawl's and Predator Ooze to swap for birds in the face of removal, and Vexing Shusher against permission.
As much as I love the strategy, Fires is simply not powerful and/or degenerate enough to see play in actual competitive Legacy (there are decks that can Sneak Attack an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play on turn 3 with Force of Will backup, which will make your hasty Blastoderm just look silly. That's not to say that it couldn't be a good strategy for a more casual environment.
I would recommend playing 8 mana dorks (Birds + Arbor Elf, as they can untap your Bayou/Taiga.) Skip the two-drops like the Tribe-Elder and use your 1-mana guys to go straight for 3 and 4+ drops. Creatures have gotten progressively better over the years; you might find better things to do with your time than Blastoderm. Saproling Burst is still a gas, especially with Doubling Season.
I would recommend playing no more non-basic lands than absolutely necessary, because Legacy is essentially defined by three cards, one of which is Wasteland (the other two are Brainstorm and the aforementioned Force of Will, FYI) Loading up on Fetchlands is OK though since they dodge Wasteland and fetch basics.
To the extent that you splash black, you should basically be doing it for two cards: Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize--maybe a singleton Maelstrom Pulse. Everything else seems kind of gratuitous.
I was afraid that was what I would hear :/. Thanks for the tips though, Hydra looks interesting and Maelstrom Pulse is a good suggestion. I suppose I'll have to cry my way back to the casual forums
This could actually be pretty easily converted to Modern except Saproling Burst hasn't been reprinted
Well, I wouldn't knock it just yet. Frankly, there is something to be said for playing a core of beaters and removal that dodge the most commonly played removal and discard (fatal push, inquisition of kozilek, lightning bolt, abrupt decay) and with sensei's divining top going the way of the dodo, I could actually see it being pretty solid as a midrange deck. I don't, however, believe that fires of yavimaya itself is good enough to play here, nor is shivan wurm (love the card, but returning a creature is pretty rough). I could completely see a deck playing 3 or 4 thrun, the last troll and 4 blastoderm having something to say, however, especially backed up by some serious removal and interaction. You're going to have troubles if you don't have that interaction, however. I will concede that flametongue kavu as a 2 of actually isn't that bad, depending on your meta. Cards like that eat other aggro matchups alive. If you can consider the early mana drops to be good, then maybe a chalice of the void/trinisphere shell like stompy plays could make it more viable?
While I don't think it's good for competitive legacy I did love playing the deck. The fact that blue can play a 3/2 flyer for U shows you how much power creep has happened. That said I honestly think one of the best upgrades is bloodbraid elf. The real issue is that something like fires doesn't do much by itself so to justify playing it something has to be made substantially better. If you can't eke out an advantage somewhere then you don't want to forcibly be giving yourself a disadvantage.
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I think that Rhythm of the Wild is way stronger than Fires of Yavimaya unless you are playing token generator, but in this kind of deck you usually don't, so it shouldn't matter. Rhythm of the Wild allows you to avoid counters and Chalice of the Void and gives you the possibility to choose between a small permanent boost or Haste if you want to attack immediately. A token +1/+1 breaks immediately the simmetry with opposite Tarmogoyf[/card] (for example) so it isn't exactly forgettable.
Also, you can play CoTV yourself because you effectively run Rhythm of the Wild: this can be a way to update further the deck.
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4x Taiga
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Mosswort Bridge
2x Gaea's Cradle
1x Badlands
1x Bayou
4x Forest
2x Mountain
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
3x Eternal Witness
3x Flametongue Kavu
3x Blastoderm
2x Fangren Firstborn
2x Shivan Wurm
4x Fires of Yavimaya
4x Saproling Burst
2x Doubling Season
Instants/Sorceries:
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Volt Charge
2x Flesh // Blood
2x Terminate
2x Destructive Revelry
Doubling Season:
In terms of new tech for the deck, this is the 800 LB gorilla. Having this card in play takes the deck from satisfying sometimes over the top beatdown to LITERALLY INSANE. Burst normally swings for 12. Doubling Season will double the number of fade counters Burst comes in with AND double the number of tokens it creates. So if you eat a turn and drop this first, Burst creates 14 7/7's and swings for 98!!! Holy *****. Do you play free-for-all's? I do. You can take out several players at a time with this insanity. I was testing Savage Beating before this, and while it is no doubt a good card, it doesn't match the power of Doubling Season. The only drawback here is that dropping a Season after Burst can potentially be underwhelming (you can still remove a 4th counter for an extra bonus token if the situation calls). However, it also has synergy with several other cards in the deck. Blastoderm also comes in with double the counters, Volt Charge adds double, Fangren Firstborn adds double. If you've got a Fangren and a Burst in play, swing and Fangren gives everything +1/+1 and a Volt Charge will give all your tokens +2/+2 by adding an additional +1/+1 counter and a fade counter to Burst. So the tokens get +3/+3. Got a Season in play? Your tokens now get +6/+6. Raging Ravine would also fit nicely here as it's like a mini Fangren and will benefit from the counter tech. But I've yet to test it and it comes into play tapped. If Season is out of your budget, then Savage Beating is great and Volt Charge is still worth having as it plays well with Derm, Burst, and Fangren.
Jund:
So you can see I've splashed black for Terminate and (kinda) Flesh // Blood. Depending on your meta, you could also swap that for Abrupt Decay, Putrefy, Dismember, or even Vampiric Tutor or the like to make sure I get that Fires. If you like Fling, I consider Blood to be strictly better in G/R decks. It's sorcery speed, but doesn't require you to sac. In the olden days, you could put damage on the stack and then Fling so it didn't matter, but nowadays you have to choose between attacking and Flinging... Blood gives you your cake and lets you eat it too. Also, note that if you fuse the card, the rules say play the left half, THEN the right half. So the ideal play here is to cast Flesh // Blood for 7 and pitch a Derm from the yard targeting Shivan Wurm to make a 12/12 trample, then throw 12 to the face. SWING. You can also turn your Birds into a fat flier mid to late game. Did I mention Doubling Season? If you don't want to splash, Blood is still a great card on it's own and Birds alone will occasionally let you play Flesh. You could swap the Terminates for more burn or Rancor's (I was running Chain Lightning before). Fecundity is also an interesting suggestion.
Dorks:
Birds is obviously a staple. Tribe Elder is a Rampant Growth on a stick, which means it's not a total waste of card late game or if you've got enough mana (even if you don't you can block then sac). I've recently discovered Utopia Sprawl, and may play test that over Tribe Elder or possibly even Birds, because mana dorks are so easily removed as previously mentioned. Also, being that Sprawl is an enchantment it doesn't suffer from summoning sickness, so if you drop it on an untapped Forest you can use it right away even without Fires in play. Also, Eternal Witness is of course a great all around utility creature for any green deck. Need land? Bring back a Foothills/Birds/Elder. Pesky buggers on the other side of the table? Get another use out of your Bolt or Terminate. Etc. It also makes another great target for Shivan Wurm.
Beaters:
Derm, Flametongue, Shivan, and Burst are all staples. I'd swap a Derm for a Thrun, but I don't have one yet. I've been playtesting between Fangren Firstborn and Bloodbraid Elf, and I've decided to go with Fangren because it has more synergy with other cards in the deck, particularly Doubling Season and Volt Charge. Even without that it can grow your dorks and makes them useful later in the game. If you've got one out with Burst then it means your tokens are swinging for 4 every turn. Bloodbraid is a good card and I like that it is independent of Fires and digs into your deck, but it will also throw all your great 4 and 5 drops to the bottom of your library which isn't ideal. Also, the Mosswort Bridge's dig as well and don't care about CMC. Also, for those who don't have Bloodbraid's, Fangren is much cheaper.
Lands:
As mentioned, Mosswort Bridge provides some digging. Here and there it actually hurts, but usually it helps. Note that if you're running Savage Beating, you can still pay the entwine cost off the Bridge. However, with Flesh // Blood, you have to choose one or the other. The best is bridging into a Fires and then dropping a Burst with surprise haste. Gaea's Crade is pretty self explanatory, and supplies the deck with ample mana, especially once a Burst or two hits play. Cradle plus a couple of mana dorks can get the Fires, Season, then Burst in play as early as turn 4. Also note that with the new legend rule, if you haven't dropped a land yet you can tap your Cradle, drop another Cradle (destroying the first) and then tap that for more mana. If you have Stomping Ground's, you could remove some of the basics.
Sideboard:
I've currently got lots of 2 of's in the build for testing and because I play casual right now without a sideboard. I think for a sideboard I'd start with Utopia Sprawl's and Predator Ooze to swap for birds in the face of removal, and Vexing Shusher against permission.
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Vexing Shusher
3x Predator Ooze
4x Stomping Ground
2x Savage Beating
2x Bloodbraid Elf
1x Thrun, The Last Troll
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Putrefy
2x Vampiric Tutor
2x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Domri Rade
1x Banefire
1x Fecundity
1x Raging Ravine
1x Rolling Earthquake
1x Pyroclasm
I would recommend playing 8 mana dorks (Birds + Arbor Elf, as they can untap your Bayou/Taiga.) Skip the two-drops like the Tribe-Elder and use your 1-mana guys to go straight for 3 and 4+ drops. Creatures have gotten progressively better over the years; you might find better things to do with your time than Blastoderm. Saproling Burst is still a gas, especially with Doubling Season.
I would recommend playing no more non-basic lands than absolutely necessary, because Legacy is essentially defined by three cards, one of which is Wasteland (the other two are Brainstorm and the aforementioned Force of Will, FYI) Loading up on Fetchlands is OK though since they dodge Wasteland and fetch basics.
To the extent that you splash black, you should basically be doing it for two cards: Abrupt Decay and Thoughtseize--maybe a singleton Maelstrom Pulse. Everything else seems kind of gratuitous.
I was afraid that was what I would hear :/. Thanks for the tips though, Hydra looks interesting and Maelstrom Pulse is a good suggestion. I suppose I'll have to cry my way back to the casual forums
This could actually be pretty easily converted to Modern except Saproling Burst hasn't been reprinted
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Also, you can play CoTV yourself because you effectively run Rhythm of the Wild: this can be a way to update further the deck.