Welcome Bludlust - glad you saw clear to the next level. And, big ups on your 3-0 finish with Pyro Prison. You tossed out some game theory that I'll address with brevity and bluntness, since I'm simply short for time. I appreciate your contributions, and understand that your comments reflect beliefs not exclusively held by you. You Said..........
...exclude Magus of the Moon is 'correct'. Many times I'll have a turn 1 or 2 Magus only to be snipped by a removal spell.
IMHO, Magus of the Moon is a critical element of the blood moon-density quotient -- allowing for Turn 1-2 deployment. Others in this thread have also 'incorrectly' believed it to be overly-redundant. Duplicates can serve a mid-late game purpose and are addressed by scry (magma jet) or pitch (tormenting voice / hazoret).
At FNM yesterday, due in part to my usage of (2) Magus and (1) Desperate Ritual, I did a Turn 1 moon effect (3) times, and it was an automatic win each time. Personally, I respect differing views, but please note that the veterans of this thread universally run (5) Rituals and (6) Moons. Dropping an on-time blood moon on turn 3 is way late. As for an easy kill on Magus, how so? The only colorless kill spell is Dismember, and Mountain-ization of our opponent's lands allows for pretty much only lightning bolt (totally unplayed today).
the Molten Rain inclusion can be used as a tempo play (correct me if I'm wrong) and a way to remove their basics to make the impact of our Moon more powerful.
The removal of a basic land is indeed an application. It can be said that it never would have been fetched if an early Moon-effect landed. Also, it can be a tempo play, but we're not a deck that typically 'races' for the win in land resources (like Ponza). Our idea is to give them a whole lotta worthless mountains with the inability for their spells to impact game play due to our chalice of the void and Ensnaring Bridge. That said, I totally love the recent suggestion by Paleglove to use Molten Rain. I now run a singleton.
sic. Magma Jet and... Tormenting Voice and have also lost games because it was stuck in my hand. I think we want more threats and consistency over trying to dig and set up the right draw.
As for more 'consistency', that's precisely why these 2 specific cards are used. As for more 'threats', there are diminishing returns when you try to grow beyond the "power lock suite" and core planeswalker/creature foundations. Voice and Jet prevent you from getting stuck on 2 mana.
I used to be on the 21 land, 5 Ritual, 6 Moon plan and many times, I'd be stuck on 2 mana after using an accellerant. While blasting out a Moon or Magus turn 1 or 2 can be very powerful, its just not game ending and where we fall is when we don't back up our lock pieces. That being said, Sweltering Suns as a two of has been great as a board wipe but more so to dig and find my threats. The ability to cycle these and to pop off a Molten Rain to slow down our opponents felt very smooth for me yesterday along with the 22 lands I now run.
There's a lot to unpack here. First, we can all admit that there is little difference between 21 land with an extra ritual versus 22 land. Splitting hairs: so suit to taste. But, the claim afterwards seems upside down. You've left behind the all-important 2-drop accelerants (magma jet/tormenting voice) in order to add (3) 3-drops [molten rain], and the 'more so' dig of (2) sweltering suns which also costs 3 mana. This design does not seem to be 'very smooth'. In fact, it clutters up our already crowded 3-cmc slot, which has somehow been granted reprieve by the addition of a single extra mountain in the 60?
I have never beat Eldrazi Tron...Witchbane Orb and Ratchet Bomb specifically feel very out of place and have never been useful to me yet.
To beat Eldrazi Tron, you should bring in both Witchbane Orb and Ratchet Bomb. The bomb knocks out Walking Ballista / Hangarback Walker. The Orb protects planeswalkers from Endbringer and Walking Ballista.
Again, please accept my apologies for being direct and bullet-pointing out my responses. Hey - it's Saturday, and I've gotta back to my Fanduel prep! Again, happy to have you around the fire, bludlust!
No worries Raystack! Everyone has their own opinion from their own experience I'll try to explain myself and thoughts a little further.
Addressing Magus of the Moon: early Moons are powerful, there's no doubt about that. What I don't like is how vulnerable it is. Push, path, dismember, and even bolt are real threats to Magus and all our opponent needs to do is float the color they need while its on the stack. When it sticks and there's no response from the opponent, of course its great but in my personal experience he doesn't last much longer than a turn or two. Our opponents will also fetch accordingly games 2 and 3. For this reason, I'm experimenting without him or at least dropping to 1 instead of 2.
Perhaps I misspoke when I was saying adding in the 22nd land felt like it gave me more consistency. What I am trying to say is that I felt like more of my opening hands had 3 lands - which is where I want to be. I want to SSG or Ritual something out turn 1 or 2 and hit my land drops naturally without taking off a whole turn off to use something like Tormenting Voice, and play something else instead. Maybe I just think our filter spells are too expensive at 2 mana for my taste. I just want to hit 'bombs' over filters or scrying effects even at the expense of just drawing another land. I know this sounds crazy because those cards are there to shore up those 'bomb' draws - maybe I'm just crazy
As far as the Eldrazi Tron match, its more so the fact that they just make it to 7 lands and drop Karn Liberated or All is Dust. I'm convinced those cards are simply unbeatable when playing this deck unless we turn 1 moon into turn 2 rabble with no Dismember at the ready or a map to get Wastes. They simply don't care about Blood Moon effects as much as most other decks due to their available tools to combat it.
Eldrazi Tron is very winnable. Although All is Dust is a *****er, it's rarely more than a 2-of, and it does nothing to our Bridge, which is the real key. Karn is the biggest threat, but he can be stopped easily with Pithing Needle or Revoker, or of course, my new favorite, Sorcerous Spyglass!
If we are talking about removalless, all in on prison strategies, should we take a note from Lantern? Afterall, they really are all in.
Why not try Mishra's Bauble and Sorcerous Spyglass. This digs us deeper, lets us have near perfect information and protects us from combo, walkers, and even blanks fetches.
Food for thought. Love the idea of plusing chandra, with no mana open, but still hitting bauble.
Additionally, it empties the hand for haz and bridge. Fun times.
Idk if anyone here has given this any thought but a lot of players hate losing to Chalice of the Void apparently. Is anyone worried for a Chalice ban/deck ban on us?
Personally speaking I do not think we have to worry about a Chalice ban, especially considering we are the Modern format where 1 mana spells shouldn't be the only played cards. It has always been a fine card and easy to deal with assuming not all of your artifact disruption spells are 1 mana each. Heck, even hand disruption can take a Chalice early enough.
Also I have recently cut Hazoret from my lists. Been running a 1 of Earthquake in that spot and LOVING it.
The only tier 1 deck that uses chalice is eldrazi tron. If anything has a chance at being banned, it is eldrazi temple, or manamorphose/past in flames. Wizards hate storm.
I think having 0 creature interaction is wrong. Gw decks have quazali pridemage (or whatever, that gw that can pay 1 to destroy target artifact or enchant with exalted). Killing that is so key. Killing a 0 power creature can be so key because of the ability to get under bridge.
I just wanted to chime in on the removal situation, as it seems to always be the hardest part of the build to figure out. Here's what I've been running lately;
I'm trying a scryless, lootless build with an emphasis on making Blood Moon even stronger, and mana dorks are a problem. For this reason, I've turned to Arc Trail as a 2-drop x-for-1. Not only does it take care of up to 2 dorks, but as we know from Magma Jet, 2 damage is very relevant. As of right now, 38 of the 50 most played creatures in modern have 2 or less toughness. It also costs 2, so it keeps the 3-drop spot from being stuffed more than it already is, while also missing our Rabble/Magus, unlike Pyroclasm. I've only played a handful of matches with this build, and only time will tell how much we'll miss the filtering, but so far, so good!
I can dig it Caligula: Arc Trail......when the Meta Calls - The Mountain Trail answers. I hope people don't get sick of my indulgent puns
Point of fact, I ran (3) Arc Trail in a November Starcitygames IQ which I piloted to 2nd place finish [decklist is in the primer]. You know what else was in that assemblage? (1) Earthquake. The very same card that Timtamthebadman has been having terrific, recent success with (in place of Hazoret the Fervent). Crazy coincidence: In prep for my last FNM, I brought out arc trail and I also brought out my 1993 Unlimited Earthquake (gift from fellow MTGsalvation poster dcovino), and gave both sorceries a very hard look wondering to myself "Is it time to bring them back?" Well, according to reports from the mountainfolk...perhaps?
Meta: When I ran (3) arc trail & (1) earthquake, Death's Shadow decks were just starting to develop (jund only). So, they made sense for the time. Since GDS has prevailed - Hazoret the Fervent has been a major factor in controlling Death's Shadow. So, when timtamthebadman has traded out Hazoret for Earthquake, I just wonder if we're leaving ourselves exposed.
Obviously what earthquake offers is X-for-1. It can be creature kill and it can be a disintegrate to the face/planeswalker. At this point, I'm running a single of the mechanically similar Slagstorm in my 60. Maybe Earthquake is better? Oh, man. Paleglove, the brewers war has a new auction block offering: Slagstorm vs. Earthquake.
Land destruction en masse appearing again in a list. The common wisdom has been that it's too slow to run. Maaaybe a couple in the sideboard, but not in the main. We're seeing a helluva pivot here. (3) Molten Rain in Caligula's test deck as well as other brewers decks. Just might be something there....
You Choose
Take the MTGsalvation Tier 1 decks and compare how impactful a Turn 1-2 Blood Moon Effect spell is versus a turn 2-3 Molten Rain. There are some permutations on the selected removal/creature kill cards which best pair with the [2] following designs. BUT Basically, your weapon complement is either
*A*) (6) Moon Effects with a (1) Molten Rain [my current design]
or
*B*) (4) Moon Effects and (3) Molten Rain. [the experimental deck of the day {although Caligula is running 5 moons}]
U/W Control ====> I'm leaning towards *A*) ::: They are land rich. They need 1 blue/1 white and can start to roll, thus moon-strong.
U/R Storm ===> *B*) It's a 2-color deck which already features Red. Also, Manamorphose is strong.
R/G Titanshift ===> *A*/*B*) Split. But lean towards A) as a moon paired with a bridge equals total oppression.
Grixis Death's Shadow ===> *A*) They run land light with little problem, but a Moon-effect will devastate them.
Burn ===> *A*) ===> Similarly, they run land light. True, they can easily kill Magus with Searing Blaze. Nevertheless, a 2/2 body is better than beating Burn with stone rains.
Colorless Eldrazi Tron ===> *A*) Keeping them off of Waste is critical, but more important is the Blood Moon effect since every land they play serves as a 2X(+). Hey if a Magus draws a Dismember, then that's one more Rabble that can sneak through for critical grow/beats.
Affinity ===> *A*) With 8 manlands and an extraordinarily low curve, land destruction perhaps is least impactful in this example.
RESULT
*A*) FIVE
*B*) ONE
*A/B*) ONE
Last note: remember to put extra importance on the blood moon density in a deck that does not have loot/search. I sincerely believe that you can not get by with (4). Maaaaybe (5). Maybe. But, consider our cousin deck, Free Win Red, as they have historically run 6-7 Moon effects. Their success -- especially since the earliest versions that I based Pyro Prison upon, had noChalice of the Void. I added that from Bloody Humans influence. Again, I actually have tested lowering numbers of Blood Moons, but I have emphatically returned to 6.
Bludlust points out that Tormenting Voice is an expensive loot spell - particularly in consideration of the fact that we run no 1-CMC spells. So, in essence, you can not fire off a game start, turn 2 tormenting voice followed by a Turn 3 Blood Moon. That's a horrific start, and bespeaks the difficult-to-define incongruity of our resource usage. We Do Not Ramp in Any Normal Fashion.
HARD TRUTH: Either you have a Blood Moon effect spell in your opening hand or on turn 2, or you (with few exceptions) won't overwhelmingly impact the game with a fairplay Turn 3 drop of Blood Moon/Magus.
Question for the fellows here. What are our outs to worship/leyline? Chandra’s +1 gets around leyline but worship + rhonas is unbeatable. I have a 1 of ratchet bomb in the side but that’s barely a hedge.
I am also hesitant on the flex slots. I feel like magma jet is too useful (scry) to cut but the molten rain could be useful, currently I am going to try a 3/1 split tomorrow. I constantly find myself cutting hazoret because it most games he is kind of useless. Is he really worth running?
Hazoret the Fervent is a real lightning rod, Abzanleap. I go back and forth on including The God in the 60. Although you stated otherwise in your post, Hazoret IS a 'she'. At least, it identifies as such.
In discussion of our options for 2-CMC spells, your comment on the scry importance of Magma Jet gave me pause. So, I did a cursory comparative breakdown of Magma Jetvs.Arc Trail when facing Tier 1 decks.
Which of the 2 is more effective against the following decks?? The outcome was.....stark.
So.. I had the day off yesterday, and I had a rare opportunity to play for about 6 hours with the test deck in the previous post, and, well, I learned some things!
I love Molten Rain. It came in handy in a lot of matches, especially after an early Moon or powered out on turn 2.. unfortunately I don't think I'm keeping it main deck.
Arc Trail was less impactful than I was hoping, as Ray illustrates with his breakdown of the tier 1 meta. Too often I was sending 2 to face and 1 to a 4/4.
The biggest difference in the way this deck felt was the lack of filtering, which wasn't a huge surprise. As I made these changes, I had a few problematic matches in mind I wanted to be a little better against, and for the most part, it worked.. however I was weaker against others. In my opinion, we just can't be consistent enough without filtering. Lesson re-learned.
As for filtering, I'm back to 3 Magma Jet. As I've stated, I hate mana dorks, so some type of removal is a must for me in a CoCo heavy meta, and the scry was sorely missed. As for the last 2 spots, I initially went back to T. Voice, but when I finished playing, I thought really hard about these 2 slots, and Faithless Looting just might be better after all. I come to this conclusion for the same reason most decks would exclude it.. card disadvantage. Looting on turn 1 increases our chances of a turn 2 Moon to 70%, which is huge, but it also 3-for-2's us, which helps us empty our hand for not only Bridge, but Hazoret as well.. And I don't know if you've ever swung with her on turn 3, but it's tough to lose if you get her online that early. Thoughts?
The problem is, Bauble doesn't filter, it just cycles.. apart from the Peek it's basically not even there. We tried it along with Manamorphose but abandoned both pretty quickly.
EDIT: Has anyone ever given Dangerous Wager any thought? Sure, early-game it's not going to help things, but we're usually close to hellbent on turn 3 or 4 anyway, and if it's your only card in hand you can cast it at instant speed and draw 2 for 2 mana.. that's the most efficient draw spell in modern... someone should test this!
And, then there is the other option: No Filter. Just do "Big Red" which will split the deck into pretty disparate sections of Acceleration, Locks, Threats. The danger is that you may 'draw the wrong half' and flounder. An opening hand of (4) 4-cmc spells, (2) land, and (1) Ritual is a scary prospect. Just a single filter spell on turn 2 can mediate the danger level.
Question: Do any of us really want to cast any of the cards listed above? No. Even the most impactful option, Magma Jet, is generally better optioned out for a 3-cmc sweeper play. I mean, if you're trying to kill a 2 toughness creature of an opponents, it's pretty likely that it's got friends named swarmy. So, I'm sticking with my Behemoth Crimson build: Just 1 filter card - a single tormenting voice. It's bold. But, like a rock and roll legend once said, "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead."
And, remember that a single mulligan gives you 2 chances at a workable hand. I mean, are (3) Magma Jet - a card that'll occur 1-in-20 cards in your deck - reeeeaalllly going to tie the room together, dude. It's more likely that we're trading down on card efficiency. Think about how much better the (75) shapes up for games 2-3 when you don't have multiple 2-cmc Shocks clogging up the machine. I mean, without them, we're talking about having that extra Eidolon (agree with Caligula!), Relic of Progenitus, or a squeezed in singleton Shattering Spree. I'm just generally speaking here on card selections, but we are a Sideboard Deck with a whole other Sideboard. Let's really beef up the 'answer' card quotient!
Faithless Looting vs. Tormenting Voice
I agree with Proxxy. That's probably where our debate should land. And, my thoughts are echoing much of what's been written by others here...
A.) Faithless Looting: With (4) Chalice of the Void in the deck, you're more than likely to have one out when you draw a Looting outside of your starting (7) cards. On the flipside, if you ideally have one in your starting hand, then you're forced to choose a discard of 2 cards with little to no information about your opponent. And, we have 0 graveyard mechanics in our deck! None of this sounds good.
It's funny, because after I read Caligula's write-up, I tossed 1 in the main and got to testing......and, then I was like, "What the F*** am I doing?!" Charmed by this worthless siren again!! It sounds good again and again, but I refuse to believe in Faithless Looting in Pyro Prison.
B.) Tormenting Voice: Card equity. Much Better. And, I'll make this much simpler. Here's the setting: It's mid-game. The board is reasonably stalled. You have 5 land in play and a single card, desperate ritual , in your hand. It's the draw step, and you reach for the top of your deck. Question: What is the best card you can expect to draw? Answer: 2 cards. A top-decked Tormenting Voice = 2 cards. Can you imagine if you had out a Chalice of the Void on 1, and you top decked a Faithless Looting?
As we've all said before, the best time to play a T.Voice or Faithless Looting is as early as possible. If we don't have any given 2-of in our opening hand, how often will we draw it after that? About once every 27 draws. So most of the time we''ll never see it if we don't have it in our opening hand. Which of these spells is better in your opening hand? Very debatable, at least in my opinion. Do we turn 1 loot into a Thoughtseize? Or do we pass turn 1 and play a loot spell turn 2? Cast Looting into Chalice? Or get stranded with Voice in hand behind Bridge and take one on the chin? The debate continues....
I stand by faithless looting. It is about even with t voice except for one thing. Under a Chandra emblem, looting is 10 damage for 4 mana all the time. T voice is 5-10 depending on what you hit.
IMHO, Magus of the Moon is a critical element of the blood moon-density quotient -- allowing for Turn 1-2 deployment. Others in this thread have also 'incorrectly' believed it to be overly-redundant. Duplicates can serve a mid-late game purpose and are addressed by scry (magma jet) or pitch (tormenting voice / hazoret).
At FNM yesterday, due in part to my usage of (2) Magus and (1) Desperate Ritual, I did a Turn 1 moon effect (3) times, and it was an automatic win each time. Personally, I respect differing views, but please note that the veterans of this thread universally run (5) Rituals and (6) Moons. Dropping an on-time blood moon on turn 3 is way late. As for an easy kill on Magus, how so? The only colorless kill spell is Dismember, and Mountain-ization of our opponent's lands allows for pretty much only lightning bolt (totally unplayed today).
The removal of a basic land is indeed an application. It can be said that it never would have been fetched if an early Moon-effect landed. Also, it can be a tempo play, but we're not a deck that typically 'races' for the win in land resources (like Ponza). Our idea is to give them a whole lotta worthless mountains with the inability for their spells to impact game play due to our chalice of the void and Ensnaring Bridge. That said, I totally love the recent suggestion by Paleglove to use Molten Rain. I now run a singleton.
As for more 'consistency', that's precisely why these 2 specific cards are used. As for more 'threats', there are diminishing returns when you try to grow beyond the "power lock suite" and core planeswalker/creature foundations. Voice and Jet prevent you from getting stuck on 2 mana.
There's a lot to unpack here. First, we can all admit that there is little difference between 21 land with an extra ritual versus 22 land. Splitting hairs: so suit to taste. But, the claim afterwards seems upside down. You've left behind the all-important 2-drop accelerants (magma jet/tormenting voice) in order to add (3) 3-drops [molten rain], and the 'more so' dig of (2) sweltering suns which also costs 3 mana. This design does not seem to be 'very smooth'. In fact, it clutters up our already crowded 3-cmc slot, which has somehow been granted reprieve by the addition of a single extra mountain in the 60?
To beat Eldrazi Tron, you should bring in both Witchbane Orb and Ratchet Bomb. The bomb knocks out Walking Ballista / Hangarback Walker. The Orb protects planeswalkers from Endbringer and Walking Ballista.
Again, please accept my apologies for being direct and bullet-pointing out my responses. Hey - it's Saturday, and I've gotta back to my Fanduel prep! Again, happy to have you around the fire, bludlust!
Addressing Magus of the Moon: early Moons are powerful, there's no doubt about that. What I don't like is how vulnerable it is. Push, path, dismember, and even bolt are real threats to Magus and all our opponent needs to do is float the color they need while its on the stack. When it sticks and there's no response from the opponent, of course its great but in my personal experience he doesn't last much longer than a turn or two. Our opponents will also fetch accordingly games 2 and 3. For this reason, I'm experimenting without him or at least dropping to 1 instead of 2.
Perhaps I misspoke when I was saying adding in the 22nd land felt like it gave me more consistency. What I am trying to say is that I felt like more of my opening hands had 3 lands - which is where I want to be. I want to SSG or Ritual something out turn 1 or 2 and hit my land drops naturally without taking off a whole turn off to use something like Tormenting Voice, and play something else instead. Maybe I just think our filter spells are too expensive at 2 mana for my taste. I just want to hit 'bombs' over filters or scrying effects even at the expense of just drawing another land. I know this sounds crazy because those cards are there to shore up those 'bomb' draws - maybe I'm just crazy
As far as the Eldrazi Tron match, its more so the fact that they just make it to 7 lands and drop Karn Liberated or All is Dust. I'm convinced those cards are simply unbeatable when playing this deck unless we turn 1 moon into turn 2 rabble with no Dismember at the ready or a map to get Wastes. They simply don't care about Blood Moon effects as much as most other decks due to their available tools to combat it.
Why not try Mishra's Bauble and Sorcerous Spyglass. This digs us deeper, lets us have near perfect information and protects us from combo, walkers, and even blanks fetches.
Food for thought. Love the idea of plusing chandra, with no mana open, but still hitting bauble.
Additionally, it empties the hand for haz and bridge. Fun times.
Could be worth testing.
"Carving out your piece of the online market."
Personally speaking I do not think we have to worry about a Chalice ban, especially considering we are the Modern format where 1 mana spells shouldn't be the only played cards. It has always been a fine card and easy to deal with assuming not all of your artifact disruption spells are 1 mana each. Heck, even hand disruption can take a Chalice early enough.
Also I have recently cut Hazoret from my lists. Been running a 1 of Earthquake in that spot and LOVING it.
RG BBE Ponza
UX Eldrazi Tron
UR Jace Breach
I think having 0 creature interaction is wrong. Gw decks have quazali pridemage (or whatever, that gw that can pay 1 to destroy target artifact or enchant with exalted). Killing that is so key. Killing a 0 power creature can be so key because of the ability to get under bridge.
2 Koth of the Hammer
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Pyretic Ritual
2 Arc Trail
3 Gemstone Caverns
18 Mountain
I'm trying a scryless, lootless build with an emphasis on making Blood Moon even stronger, and mana dorks are a problem. For this reason, I've turned to Arc Trail as a 2-drop x-for-1. Not only does it take care of up to 2 dorks, but as we know from Magma Jet, 2 damage is very relevant. As of right now, 38 of the 50 most played creatures in modern have 2 or less toughness. It also costs 2, so it keeps the 3-drop spot from being stuffed more than it already is, while also missing our Rabble/Magus, unlike Pyroclasm. I've only played a handful of matches with this build, and only time will tell how much we'll miss the filtering, but so far, so good!
Point of fact, I ran (3) Arc Trail in a November Starcitygames IQ which I piloted to 2nd place finish [decklist is in the primer]. You know what else was in that assemblage? (1) Earthquake. The very same card that Timtamthebadman has been having terrific, recent success with (in place of Hazoret the Fervent). Crazy coincidence: In prep for my last FNM, I brought out arc trail and I also brought out my 1993 Unlimited Earthquake (gift from fellow MTGsalvation poster dcovino), and gave both sorceries a very hard look wondering to myself "Is it time to bring them back?" Well, according to reports from the mountainfolk...perhaps?
Meta: When I ran (3) arc trail & (1) earthquake, Death's Shadow decks were just starting to develop (jund only). So, they made sense for the time. Since GDS has prevailed - Hazoret the Fervent has been a major factor in controlling Death's Shadow. So, when timtamthebadman has traded out Hazoret for Earthquake, I just wonder if we're leaving ourselves exposed.
Obviously what earthquake offers is X-for-1. It can be creature kill and it can be a disintegrate to the face/planeswalker. At this point, I'm running a single of the mechanically similar Slagstorm in my 60. Maybe Earthquake is better? Oh, man. Paleglove, the brewers war has a new auction block offering: Slagstorm vs. Earthquake.
Land destruction en masse appearing again in a list. The common wisdom has been that it's too slow to run. Maaaybe a couple in the sideboard, but not in the main. We're seeing a helluva pivot here. (3) Molten Rain in Caligula's test deck as well as other brewers decks. Just might be something there....
You Choose
Take the MTGsalvation Tier 1 decks and compare how impactful a Turn 1-2 Blood Moon Effect spell is versus a turn 2-3 Molten Rain. There are some permutations on the selected removal/creature kill cards which best pair with the [2] following designs. BUT Basically, your weapon complement is either
*A*) (6) Moon Effects with a (1) Molten Rain [my current design]
or
*B*) (4) Moon Effects and (3) Molten Rain. [the experimental deck of the day {although Caligula is running 5 moons}]
*A*) FIVE
*B*) ONE
*A/B*) ONE
Last note: remember to put extra importance on the blood moon density in a deck that does not have loot/search. I sincerely believe that you can not get by with (4). Maaaaybe (5). Maybe. But, consider our cousin deck, Free Win Red, as they have historically run 6-7 Moon effects. Their success -- especially since the earliest versions that I based Pyro Prison upon, had no Chalice of the Void. I added that from Bloody Humans influence. Again, I actually have tested lowering numbers of Blood Moons, but I have emphatically returned to 6.
Bludlust points out that Tormenting Voice is an expensive loot spell - particularly in consideration of the fact that we run no 1-CMC spells. So, in essence, you can not fire off a game start, turn 2 tormenting voice followed by a Turn 3 Blood Moon. That's a horrific start, and bespeaks the difficult-to-define incongruity of our resource usage. We Do Not Ramp in Any Normal Fashion.
HARD TRUTH: Either you have a Blood Moon effect spell in your opening hand or on turn 2, or you (with few exceptions) won't overwhelmingly impact the game with a fairplay Turn 3 drop of Blood Moon/Magus.
I am also hesitant on the flex slots. I feel like magma jet is too useful (scry) to cut but the molten rain could be useful, currently I am going to try a 3/1 split tomorrow. I constantly find myself cutting hazoret because it most games he is kind of useless. Is he really worth running?
In discussion of our options for 2-CMC spells, your comment on the scry importance of Magma Jet gave me pause. So, I did a cursory comparative breakdown of Magma Jet vs. Arc Trail when facing Tier 1 decks.
Which of the 2 is more effective against the following decks?? The outcome was.....stark.
I love Molten Rain. It came in handy in a lot of matches, especially after an early Moon or powered out on turn 2.. unfortunately I don't think I'm keeping it main deck.
Arc Trail was less impactful than I was hoping, as Ray illustrates with his breakdown of the tier 1 meta. Too often I was sending 2 to face and 1 to a 4/4.
The biggest difference in the way this deck felt was the lack of filtering, which wasn't a huge surprise. As I made these changes, I had a few problematic matches in mind I wanted to be a little better against, and for the most part, it worked.. however I was weaker against others. In my opinion, we just can't be consistent enough without filtering. Lesson re-learned.
As for filtering, I'm back to 3 Magma Jet. As I've stated, I hate mana dorks, so some type of removal is a must for me in a CoCo heavy meta, and the scry was sorely missed. As for the last 2 spots, I initially went back to T. Voice, but when I finished playing, I thought really hard about these 2 slots, and Faithless Looting just might be better after all. I come to this conclusion for the same reason most decks would exclude it.. card disadvantage. Looting on turn 1 increases our chances of a turn 2 Moon to 70%, which is huge, but it also 3-for-2's us, which helps us empty our hand for not only Bridge, but Hazoret as well.. And I don't know if you've ever swung with her on turn 3, but it's tough to lose if you get her online that early. Thoughts?
"Carving out your piece of the online market."
EDIT: Has anyone ever given Dangerous Wager any thought? Sure, early-game it's not going to help things, but we're usually close to hellbent on turn 3 or 4 anyway, and if it's your only card in hand you can cast it at instant speed and draw 2 for 2 mana.. that's the most efficient draw spell in modern... someone should test this!
(((Quick sidenote to Paleglove: definitely look back at our April discussions and testings of Mishra's Bauble - we may have missed something. http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/663335-pyro-prison-goblin-mono-red-control-the-sideboard?comment=284 )))
Question: Do any of us really want to cast any of the cards listed above? No. Even the most impactful option, Magma Jet, is generally better optioned out for a 3-cmc sweeper play. I mean, if you're trying to kill a 2 toughness creature of an opponents, it's pretty likely that it's got friends named swarmy. So, I'm sticking with my Behemoth Crimson build: Just 1 filter card - a single tormenting voice. It's bold. But, like a rock and roll legend once said, "Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead."
And, remember that a single mulligan gives you 2 chances at a workable hand. I mean, are (3) Magma Jet - a card that'll occur 1-in-20 cards in your deck - reeeeaalllly going to tie the room together, dude. It's more likely that we're trading down on card efficiency. Think about how much better the (75) shapes up for games 2-3 when you don't have multiple 2-cmc Shocks clogging up the machine. I mean, without them, we're talking about having that extra Eidolon (agree with Caligula!), Relic of Progenitus, or a squeezed in singleton Shattering Spree. I'm just generally speaking here on card selections, but we are a Sideboard Deck with a whole other Sideboard. Let's really beef up the 'answer' card quotient!
Faithless Looting vs. Tormenting Voice
I agree with Proxxy. That's probably where our debate should land. And, my thoughts are echoing much of what's been written by others here...
A.)
Faithless Looting: With (4) Chalice of the Void in the deck, you're more than likely to have one out when you draw a Looting outside of your starting (7) cards. On the flipside, if you ideally have one in your starting hand, then you're forced to choose a discard of 2 cards with little to no information about your opponent. And, we have 0 graveyard mechanics in our deck! None of this sounds good.
It's funny, because after I read Caligula's write-up, I tossed 1 in the main and got to testing......and, then I was like, "What the F*** am I doing?!" Charmed by this worthless siren again!! It sounds good again and again, but I refuse to believe in Faithless Looting in Pyro Prison.
B.)
Tormenting Voice: Card equity. Much Better. And, I'll make this much simpler. Here's the setting: It's mid-game. The board is reasonably stalled. You have 5 land in play and a single card, desperate ritual , in your hand. It's the draw step, and you reach for the top of your deck. Question: What is the best card you can expect to draw? Answer: 2 cards. A top-decked Tormenting Voice = 2 cards. Can you imagine if you had out a Chalice of the Void on 1, and you top decked a Faithless Looting?