I don't think lowering the curve is the solution for this deck. We're not an aggro deck and we don't have the resources to play a grindy midrange battle.
We're essentially a Prison-style deck that uses Stone Rain/Molten Rain/Blood Moon to stall our opponents out and crush them with big threats. As I mentioned in my previous post, BBE has a roughly 40% of hitting a dud card with 10 ramp cards vs. 18 or so non-ramp cards with 3 CMC or less (the actual percentage is going to fluctuate based on your list/what you've already drawn, obviously). I can't help but think that slot could be better filled by something else, even if we haven't figured out what it is yet.
I like new versions playing around 4 bolts , i have been really liking the card.
Right now im looking to get some scoozes mainboard,lowering the curve may be a good idea...
Similarly, I'm considering Tarmogoyf MB to lower the curve. Easily a 4/5 at least for 2 CMC. Possibly remove BBE, as I don't think she's really that good in our deck...cascading into a mana dork or Utopia Sprawl feels bad and they make up ~40-50% of the possible targets she can hit. That's a pretty high degree of variance.
I'd definitely keep the big hitters though. It's why we run 10 dedicated ramp sources in the deck. A resolved Inferno Titan has to be answered before you untap, as it can spiral very quickly out of hand.
You could not pay me to remove Kambal from my 75. I used to be a skeptic, then had a night where I boarded it in for every match (Burn x2, Lantern, Mardu). I'm a believer.
There were some lists that were going heavier toward Dragons/dragon synergies like the M19 Sarkhan. The ones that've been succeeding lately more so are playing bombs that are individually good like Inferno Titan and Stormbreath dragon.
There was 1st Place finish from a Ponza list in the SCG Charlotte Open! Wahoo! REALLY tempting me to resleeve this bad boy after that and seeing a guy from my LGS get 10th @ at SCG Dallas. :-D
There are a couple of effects to pitch Leylines or other junk. Neither is looting but Collective Brutality benefits from Escalation. Lili doesn't care if you have a card or not, but if you have more than one and one happens to be a superfluous Leyline, there's a little benefit there.
Fair enough. After mulling on it a bit and browsing some Abzan lists, a more effective approach than my original idea may be some combination of Surgical/Spellbomb in the board and possibly Kalitas and Anafenza main deck. I've seen a few people mention the latter, and I imagine it has the potential to be impactful in multiple match-ups (Dredge, Hollow One, etc.)
I've been considering Abzan (or more like GB splashing white than true Abzan) to get access to RIP for this match-up. Creeping Chill has to hit the GY to trigger, so why not prevent it from getting there in the first place?
The obvious downside though is that it is a NOBO with Goyf/Lingering Souls. Perhaps take those out in this match-up and replace with something less GY reliant? Possibly a terrible idea as I am still new to this archetype. I am not sure I want Leyline of the Void though as this deck doesn't have access to looting effects to pitch it when top-decked mid/late game.
I agree RE: Hazoret's monument. For card filtering, I prefer Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Chandra, Flamecaller. The latter is speculation - I've not been able to play with her yet but she seems to solve one of my biggest problems with this deck: being stuck with a hand full of dorks/ramp late game.
Something else worth considering may be Experimental Frenzy. We tend to have plenty of mana to play with and can get to the point where we're top decking anyway pretty fast especially if you consider that we're close to heckbent by turn 3 with an ideal hand (T1: Land + Dork, T2: Land, Sprawl,Land D/BloodMoon, T3: Land + Threat). Dropping Frenzy on T3/T4 could give us a bit more acceleration.
My two cents... Typically, I personally view the discard as a turn 1-2 play in this deck. You're either stalling their game plan or hitting their removal to protect your threats. Later in the game, usually the only discard I want to see if Thoughtseize since it's better than Inquisition at that point. That leaves you more likely to have your hand full of 2 drops (peezy, brutality) or 3 drops (k command, souls). Manamorphose doesn't really impress me all that much - sure there's the chance you'll draw into another manamorphose but it ends up being really bad if you're hell/heckbent and you draw into a land. Also, drawing into a Reveler or Pyromancer doesn't help you with Phoenix.
Also, with the Dredge menance getting more and more popular, I don't think it's wise for us to be over-reliant on the GY. Bedlam Reveler becomes a brick if they hit Spellbomb/Leyline/RIP. Lingering Souls + Looting get exiled away. Arclight is another one that falls into this rut.
I do think Arclight has potential to be good in burn oriented decks. Gutshot/Spike/Bolt/Looting/Fiery Temper (off of looting) all can accelerate it out better and use it to close the game faster than a midrange shell can.
If you remove discard and add arclight, you might as well change the entire deck to be like the Runaway Red lists that have popped up lately.
The discard suite is a large part of what makes Mardu Pyro what it is - the grindiest of the Black midrange decks. Without that, our disruptive strategy goes away so you need to retool the overall deck.
Reveler seems interesting. I've also been considering a number of Faithless Lootings though I'm not sure how many. likely replacing Courser all together
I hope we get something new. What I'd love to see is some sort of modal/flexible options in a similar vein as Knight of Autumn (multiple relevant modes) or Assassin's Trophy (flexibility). Perhaps a spell or creature that sacrifices to destroy a land, ramp, or deal damage to all creatures. I don't know if we'd get something that strong at a low CMC though. Wizards has been opposed to printing Stone Rains into standard for a while now.
RE: Pia and Kiran - at worst, it's a lingering souls effect attached to a 2/2. But where it really shines is with Tireless Tracker. You can sacrifice clues to P&Ks ability, which mitigates the effects of flooding out.
A Ponza list top 16'd the SCG Dallas Open this past weekend, so it's an example of how the deck is still relevant. It's just doesnt have new toys and ia not as sexy as something like Dredge or GBx/Jund right now.
The list itself is pretty close to stock. None of the newer Dragon tech.
Abrade is a great choice for a deck like this IMO. It gives us flexible options, which is a large part of what this deck is missing compared to other mid-range decks.
Take Mardu or GBx for an example - K Command, collective brutality,etc. all offer a variety of situational uses.
I've seen some lists for Naya Ponza go around that I think solve this to some extent, though I've not had the chance to test it personally
Still viable yes. Top 8 at SCG Modern IQ Danbury on 10/7/18 and before that first place at the SCG Modern IQ Findlay in September.
While still viable, the deck is not without it's challenges. Blood Moon is a little bit less effective than it used to be, with decks packing more basics due to Field of Ruin, GQ, and now Assassin's Trophy. But, it can still act as a bit of a tempo play, since they have to take a turn to deal with it, which can be especially effective when backed with land destruction.
It can have a bit of a hard time with Humans, since MB removal is quite limited, and it is susceptible to disruption (targeted discard and/or removal against the mana dorks). When it executes its plan it works REALLY well... but when we get to the top deck war, its harder b/c other decks are better at this then us.
Probably not enough more basics to matter to us, but more and more Blood Moon is less of a freebie than it used to be.
UW control can/does fetch basics pretty aggressively, so it mostly shuts down Colonnade until they land Teferi or Cryptic bounce it (plus, if they run EE it gives them a 3rd color to pop BM with). Burn doesn't really care that much about it - an experienced Burn pilot will dump their RW spells first and save their R/RR spells if they suspect Blood Moon. It slows down Tron, but slowing Tron down isn't enough without board pressure. Spirits and Humans have Hierarch/Vial, so it really hasn't helped me much in those match ups either.
The match-ups I've personally seen Blood Moon still shine are GDS for the greedy mana base and Affinity for the man lands, but I've encountered fewer of these (paper) over the last few months.
We're essentially a Prison-style deck that uses Stone Rain/Molten Rain/Blood Moon to stall our opponents out and crush them with big threats. As I mentioned in my previous post, BBE has a roughly 40% of hitting a dud card with 10 ramp cards vs. 18 or so non-ramp cards with 3 CMC or less (the actual percentage is going to fluctuate based on your list/what you've already drawn, obviously). I can't help but think that slot could be better filled by something else, even if we haven't figured out what it is yet.
Similarly, I'm considering Tarmogoyf MB to lower the curve. Easily a 4/5 at least for 2 CMC. Possibly remove BBE, as I don't think she's really that good in our deck...cascading into a mana dork or Utopia Sprawl feels bad and they make up ~40-50% of the possible targets she can hit. That's a pretty high degree of variance.
I'd definitely keep the big hitters though. It's why we run 10 dedicated ramp sources in the deck. A resolved Inferno Titan has to be answered before you untap, as it can spiral very quickly out of hand.
#KambalForPresident #MakeOrzhovGreatAgain
There was 1st Place finish from a Ponza list in the SCG Charlotte Open! Wahoo! REALLY tempting me to resleeve this bad boy after that and seeing a guy from my LGS get 10th @ at SCG Dallas. :-D
Fair enough. After mulling on it a bit and browsing some Abzan lists, a more effective approach than my original idea may be some combination of Surgical/Spellbomb in the board and possibly Kalitas and Anafenza main deck. I've seen a few people mention the latter, and I imagine it has the potential to be impactful in multiple match-ups (Dredge, Hollow One, etc.)
The obvious downside though is that it is a NOBO with Goyf/Lingering Souls. Perhaps take those out in this match-up and replace with something less GY reliant? Possibly a terrible idea as I am still new to this archetype. I am not sure I want Leyline of the Void though as this deck doesn't have access to looting effects to pitch it when top-decked mid/late game.
Something else worth considering may be Experimental Frenzy. We tend to have plenty of mana to play with and can get to the point where we're top decking anyway pretty fast especially if you consider that we're close to heckbent by turn 3 with an ideal hand (T1: Land + Dork, T2: Land, Sprawl,Land D/BloodMoon, T3: Land + Threat). Dropping Frenzy on T3/T4 could give us a bit more acceleration.
Also, with the Dredge menance getting more and more popular, I don't think it's wise for us to be over-reliant on the GY. Bedlam Reveler becomes a brick if they hit Spellbomb/Leyline/RIP. Lingering Souls + Looting get exiled away. Arclight is another one that falls into this rut.
I do think Arclight has potential to be good in burn oriented decks. Gutshot/Spike/Bolt/Looting/Fiery Temper (off of looting) all can accelerate it out better and use it to close the game faster than a midrange shell can.
The discard suite is a large part of what makes Mardu Pyro what it is - the grindiest of the Black midrange decks. Without that, our disruptive strategy goes away so you need to retool the overall deck.
RE: Pia and Kiran - at worst, it's a lingering souls effect attached to a 2/2. But where it really shines is with Tireless Tracker. You can sacrifice clues to P&Ks ability, which mitigates the effects of flooding out.
The list itself is pretty close to stock. None of the newer Dragon tech.
Take Mardu or GBx for an example - K Command, collective brutality,etc. all offer a variety of situational uses.
I've seen some lists for Naya Ponza go around that I think solve this to some extent, though I've not had the chance to test it personally
While still viable, the deck is not without it's challenges. Blood Moon is a little bit less effective than it used to be, with decks packing more basics due to Field of Ruin, GQ, and now Assassin's Trophy. But, it can still act as a bit of a tempo play, since they have to take a turn to deal with it, which can be especially effective when backed with land destruction.
It can have a bit of a hard time with Humans, since MB removal is quite limited, and it is susceptible to disruption (targeted discard and/or removal against the mana dorks). When it executes its plan it works REALLY well... but when we get to the top deck war, its harder b/c other decks are better at this then us.
Hope this helps!
UW control can/does fetch basics pretty aggressively, so it mostly shuts down Colonnade until they land Teferi or Cryptic bounce it (plus, if they run EE it gives them a 3rd color to pop BM with). Burn doesn't really care that much about it - an experienced Burn pilot will dump their RW spells first and save their R/RR spells if they suspect Blood Moon. It slows down Tron, but slowing Tron down isn't enough without board pressure. Spirits and Humans have Hierarch/Vial, so it really hasn't helped me much in those match ups either.
The match-ups I've personally seen Blood Moon still shine are GDS for the greedy mana base and Affinity for the man lands, but I've encountered fewer of these (paper) over the last few months.