I agree with you, but in my experience with the deck, I like the tron matchup. The only card that its a gg is Ulamog, the rest are our main target for remand. And running remand doesnt make our deck a control deck. This card is mainly used for winning time and on the draw is the card that you want to have always in turn 2 and pass.
Sure, but if you're holding the Remand Turn 2 and then remand a Tron Wincon on Turn 3, you most likely don't have a Wincon yourself. And the Tron Player is very likely playing more Wincons after that, so the time window for us to stick a threat is quite small. Of Course, untapping with a Thing or Ascension AND a Remand in Hand to react to Trons next Play is awesome, but even at this Point I actually prefer a proactive spell to activate our Threat. I actually Play Izzet Charm as a 2-of in the Slot of Remand.
But I might be missing something here, could you Sketch a matchplan how you beat Tron? Also I would really like to see your Iteration of the Deck.
Regarding the different versions of the deck, The one above is definitely my favorite, since some of the others are simply different decks. UR Pyromancer is a real Control deck to me, and the Jeskai Ascendancy Version seems not really appealing, cause it is just mashing up two decks. Actually I would be more interested in a combination of Ascendancy and Pyromancer, the pump on all the Tokens seems neat.
The Wagner Version seems dangerous to me without Gitaxian Probe - I have to admit I looked at an older list, where this was still legal. To be clear, is this a Version with only Pyro Ascension?
What I recently discovered is the mainly discussed Version with Ascension and Thing, but in straight UR, switching Helix for Burst Lightning: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20533&d=334997&f=MO
What do we think about that?
In my experience, we are heavily favored against any type of creature-based decks. Thing is maindeck mass-removal, and most decks have a hard time interacting with Pyro Ascension. My last FNMs, I beat several Sprits and Token decks, flipping Thing on turn 3 consistently.
The Burn matchup in my experience is really a matter of us drawing Helix and them drawing Eidolon.
The BGx matchup is indeed one of the hardest I have experienced. They simply can interact with anything we put on the table. The Death Shadow matchup is slightly better, sometimes we can burn them out by surprise.
The Tron Matchup is a straight up race, and I would guess we are NOT favored. It Kind of depends on the win condition they put on the table, Karn is hard, O-Stone still leaves us a turn, Wurmcoil is not that big of a problem, while Ugin and Ulamog are basically game over.
So far I am not a fan of Remand in the deck, since I do not think we can afford to take the Control role from the maindeck. In my experience, the deck performs a lot better being proactive, and Remand is simply not a proactive Card.
Role assessment seems crucial for this deck, and I am still not sure when there is the correct time to be Controlling and when not to. But in a few instances I had the Feeling that you can definitely "over-sideboard" the deck into a bad Control-Deck.
I would really like to know how you guys feel about this issues!
Pretty straight Forward, 11 Fetches, no removal maindeck, and the full 12 one-drops, but no Pelt Collector. And the whole Sideboard-hate Collection in White. The Firespout Looks reallys neat! But again, no lifegain in the SB.
Actually managed to finish 4-0 on Friday.
But to be fair, the matchups were 2x Bant Spirits, UW Spirits and BW Tokens, so all creature-based decks which really care about Thing in the Ice AND are struggling to handle Pyro Ascension.
I have to admit this finish gives me additional motivation to invest more effort into the deck. Because my last attempts were not that successful - as Rodebo pointed out before, the BGx matchup is horrible (or at least I do not see that many tools for it).
In the latest YouTube uploads by Jeff Hoogland there is a stream with Firemind's Research included. How are we feeling about this one?
My recent testing was actually not really good, the deck seems to have a high entry Level, especially if you're coming from fast Aggro Shells. I am still not really sure if I am doing the right Things while playing. And the BGx matchups are indeed really hard.
Regarding this, I already considered playing Silence or Spell Pierce in the Mainboard.
At today's FNM I will test a Version with 2 Drakes, Revelers in the SB, the Visions/Opt/Sleight/Morphose package, and 2 Lootings, 2 Izzet Charms and 1 Peek.
As far as I tested Experiment One seems to please players who prefer resiliency over power, and Pelt Collector pleases players who prefer power over resiliency.
I vote that this is a vines/blossoming situation.
Sounds like the perfect Explanation to me. Pelt Collector should definitely be added to the primer, but maybe not to the Basic list, but as an alternative (maybe 4.5 stars?). In my opinion it is a absolutely valid alternative.
Looks like a solid start. But I think you need to cut the curve eben more, Coat, Arena and Masterwork seem to slow here. I would think you want to grind the game to Top-Deck mode and then beat down with cheap creatures, which pump each other. And as you already noticed, Plague of Vermin is not really playable, especially in a Deck with Smallpox.
At this point the trickiest thing for me is knowing what to take OUT in which matchups, so if anyone has any tips on that let me know!
Welcome to the Stompy Community
Your start looks really solid, as the other users pointed out, Narnam Renegade only works with Fetchlands (at least 4). And you might want to consider cutting a land, 21 is a good number. But you are definitely on the right way here.
Regarding Sideboarding: My experience is, that you mainly work on the non-creature side, while the beaters stay the same (because they are your way to win the game).
So you want to ask yourself, which spells don't fit the opponents deck. For example, Dismember Comes out against fast Aggro strategies, to save your life total. Creature removal in General Comes out against non-creature Combo Decks. Aspect and Rancor are cutting candidates whenever you face Control or Midrange Decks with lots of removal. And Scavenging ooze tends to be too slow, when you have to be as fast as possible and graveyard strategies are not a concern (for example Ad Nauseam).
These are basically my experiences on which Cards to board out.
Does anybody have an idea how much Players attended the SCG Classic in Dallas? That would really help to get behind this result, because in my opinion this list looks quite unusual.
No removal mainboard, in the Sideboard no lifegain against Burn or Valakut, no cheap artifact removal, no Damping Sphere? And the 3 Meliras looks to me like a waste of Sideboard Slots, because I would expect you can handle the Infect matchup via removal and Vines, and also Infect is not that popular.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see our favorite deck in the Top 16 at SCG, but how is this possible? Maybe a statistical outlier?
Besides the Splash-discussion, I would like to share my thoughts on Pelt Collector. I tested two of them in Addition to the 4 Experiments plus 2 Dryads and Renegades.
My first Impression actually is not really good. So far, the Collector feels to me like a worse Experiment, mostly because the Regeneration seems more relevant to me than Trample. Also, the 2 Counters on Experiment are more easily done than three on Collector - regardless, both of them often get removed before reaching the second Counter, so Experiment regenerates more often than Collector tramples. The "Die-Evolve" on Collector feels more narrow than Toughness-Evolve on Experiment, which happened much more often.
Of Course this is just the first Impression, maybe it's also matchup-biased (I did not keep track of my opponents decks). What do you think so far?
Regarding grinding in the Black splash discussion, I can really recommend Lead the Stampede. I Play 2 out of the Sideboard, and they can be absurd against Control and Midrange.
Might not be as potent as against Standard Affinity, cause the Scales Deck looks more resilient to me. But I haven't played the matchup myself so far.
I actually thought about including Hex Parasite.
I am very curious how this list will work. Please give us some updates as soon as you have first results!
The interaction between Pelt Collector and Groundbreaker seems interesting. For me Groundbreaker was always kind of unimpressive, because it provides no lasting board Advantage. It basically has to win the game, or it is not more than a Burn Spell.
With 8 Evolvers and the "Die"-clause on Pelt Collector that might make him worth the effort. Looking forward to your experinces.
By the way: Does anyone know wht's up with the Price of Gaddock Teeg?! I was just thinking of him cause of the discussion on Terminus - which I think our deck has no real answer to (besides Gaddock). I generally try to play around any kind of massremoval by not playing too many creatures while still applying enough pressure.
Thinking of it, that's actually a spot where Groundbreaker is useful.
I do NOT agree with all the Card Evaluations by the author, especially the Sideboard choices. But the gameplay introductions regarding the sequencing are quite helpful, if you didn't think of that so far. Definitely helped me improving my gameplay with the deck.
Also note that the article is from June 2016, so Narnam Renegade and Steel Leaf Champion did not exist back then.
I tested a Version yesterday with 2 Mission Briefing instead of Remand and Thought Scour instead of Looting, and it feels good. I also ran 19 lands (cause of the 4 Izzet Charms) and only a single Reveler.
What is especially nice about Briefing is the Surveil as an extra "Scry", which helps to find Win conditions. And the ton of flexibility, since you will almost always have a full graveyard. That's completely new to me, because I actually never played Snapcaster before - and it feels good.
I am still not sure about Bedlam Reveler. Once it's in your Hand, you are Kind of obligated to empty your Hand, which can be pretty annoying. In more grindy matchups, or as a late game Card it is actually really useful. How do we feel about moving it to the Sideboard and adding a more Fitting Win Con to the Maindeck? I was thinking something like Thermo-Alchemist could be worth a try, mainly because I would think we still Need a Minimum of 9 WinCons maindeck.
I see it that way: Since all of our creatures are at least one green mana, Might of the Masses will almost always be worse than Aspect of Hydra. Or the other way around, this deck plays no tokens, so only activating Treetop Village could potentially produce a scenario where Might is better than Aspect.
And because most iterations of the deck want a maximum of 4 Aspect, playing Might as a 5th copy is also no consideration. So in my opinion, no, I think Might of the Masses is not worth a try.
Sure, but if you're holding the Remand Turn 2 and then remand a Tron Wincon on Turn 3, you most likely don't have a Wincon yourself. And the Tron Player is very likely playing more Wincons after that, so the time window for us to stick a threat is quite small. Of Course, untapping with a Thing or Ascension AND a Remand in Hand to react to Trons next Play is awesome, but even at this Point I actually prefer a proactive spell to activate our Threat. I actually Play Izzet Charm as a 2-of in the Slot of Remand.
But I might be missing something here, could you Sketch a matchplan how you beat Tron? Also I would really like to see your Iteration of the Deck.
Here's mine:
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Spirebluff Canal
1 Inspiring Vantage
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Pyromancer's Ascension
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Crackling Drake
4 Opt
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Manamorphose
2 Izzet Charm
2 Path to Exile
1 Mission Briefing
2 Alpine Moon
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Sweltering Suns
1 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
2 Negate
3 Wear // Tear
1 Firemind's Research
2 Young Pyromancer
1 Bedlam Reveler
Regarding the different versions of the deck, The one above is definitely my favorite, since some of the others are simply different decks. UR Pyromancer is a real Control deck to me, and the Jeskai Ascendancy Version seems not really appealing, cause it is just mashing up two decks. Actually I would be more interested in a combination of Ascendancy and Pyromancer, the pump on all the Tokens seems neat.
The Wagner Version seems dangerous to me without Gitaxian Probe - I have to admit I looked at an older list, where this was still legal. To be clear, is this a Version with only Pyro Ascension?
What I recently discovered is the mainly discussed Version with Ascension and Thing, but in straight UR, switching Helix for Burst Lightning:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20533&d=334997&f=MO
What do we think about that?
The Burn matchup in my experience is really a matter of us drawing Helix and them drawing Eidolon.
The BGx matchup is indeed one of the hardest I have experienced. They simply can interact with anything we put on the table. The Death Shadow matchup is slightly better, sometimes we can burn them out by surprise.
The Tron Matchup is a straight up race, and I would guess we are NOT favored. It Kind of depends on the win condition they put on the table, Karn is hard, O-Stone still leaves us a turn, Wurmcoil is not that big of a problem, while Ugin and Ulamog are basically game over.
So far I am not a fan of Remand in the deck, since I do not think we can afford to take the Control role from the maindeck. In my experience, the deck performs a lot better being proactive, and Remand is simply not a proactive Card.
Role assessment seems crucial for this deck, and I am still not sure when there is the correct time to be Controlling and when not to. But in a few instances I had the Feeling that you can definitely "over-sideboard" the deck into a bad Control-Deck.
I would really like to know how you guys feel about this issues!
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1462374#paper
Pretty straight Forward, 11 Fetches, no removal maindeck, and the full 12 one-drops, but no Pelt Collector. And the whole Sideboard-hate Collection in White. The Firespout Looks reallys neat! But again, no lifegain in the SB.
What do you think?
But to be fair, the matchups were 2x Bant Spirits, UW Spirits and BW Tokens, so all creature-based decks which really care about Thing in the Ice AND are struggling to handle Pyro Ascension.
I have to admit this finish gives me additional motivation to invest more effort into the deck. Because my last attempts were not that successful - as Rodebo pointed out before, the BGx matchup is horrible (or at least I do not see that many tools for it).
In the latest YouTube uploads by Jeff Hoogland there is a stream with Firemind's Research included. How are we feeling about this one?
My recent testing was actually not really good, the deck seems to have a high entry Level, especially if you're coming from fast Aggro Shells. I am still not really sure if I am doing the right Things while playing. And the BGx matchups are indeed really hard.
Regarding this, I already considered playing Silence or Spell Pierce in the Mainboard.
At today's FNM I will test a Version with 2 Drakes, Revelers in the SB, the Visions/Opt/Sleight/Morphose package, and 2 Lootings, 2 Izzet Charms and 1 Peek.
Sounds like the perfect Explanation to me. Pelt Collector should definitely be added to the primer, but maybe not to the Basic list, but as an alternative (maybe 4.5 stars?). In my opinion it is a absolutely valid alternative.
For inspiration, this is my list:
https://deckstats.net/decks/57208/1003991-mono-black-rats/de
And by the way, I think Chainer's Edict and Rats' Feast are not modern-legal.
Welcome to the Stompy Community
Your start looks really solid, as the other users pointed out, Narnam Renegade only works with Fetchlands (at least 4). And you might want to consider cutting a land, 21 is a good number. But you are definitely on the right way here.
Regarding Sideboarding: My experience is, that you mainly work on the non-creature side, while the beaters stay the same (because they are your way to win the game).
So you want to ask yourself, which spells don't fit the opponents deck. For example, Dismember Comes out against fast Aggro strategies, to save your life total. Creature removal in General Comes out against non-creature Combo Decks. Aspect and Rancor are cutting candidates whenever you face Control or Midrange Decks with lots of removal. And Scavenging ooze tends to be too slow, when you have to be as fast as possible and graveyard strategies are not a concern (for example Ad Nauseam).
These are basically my experiences on which Cards to board out.
No removal mainboard, in the Sideboard no lifegain against Burn or Valakut, no cheap artifact removal, no Damping Sphere? And the 3 Meliras looks to me like a waste of Sideboard Slots, because I would expect you can handle the Infect matchup via removal and Vines, and also Infect is not that popular.
Don't get me wrong, I love to see our favorite deck in the Top 16 at SCG, but how is this possible? Maybe a statistical outlier?
My first Impression actually is not really good. So far, the Collector feels to me like a worse Experiment, mostly because the Regeneration seems more relevant to me than Trample. Also, the 2 Counters on Experiment are more easily done than three on Collector - regardless, both of them often get removed before reaching the second Counter, so Experiment regenerates more often than Collector tramples. The "Die-Evolve" on Collector feels more narrow than Toughness-Evolve on Experiment, which happened much more often.
Of Course this is just the first Impression, maybe it's also matchup-biased (I did not keep track of my opponents decks). What do you think so far?
Regarding grinding in the Black splash discussion, I can really recommend Lead the Stampede. I Play 2 out of the Sideboard, and they can be absurd against Control and Midrange.
I run the Standard Anti-Artifact/-Enchantment Package Natural State and Unravel the Aether. Also tried Reclamation Sage which was neat, since it's an additional beater.
Might not be as potent as against Standard Affinity, cause the Scales Deck looks more resilient to me. But I haven't played the matchup myself so far.
I actually thought about including Hex Parasite.
The interaction between Pelt Collector and Groundbreaker seems interesting. For me Groundbreaker was always kind of unimpressive, because it provides no lasting board Advantage. It basically has to win the game, or it is not more than a Burn Spell.
With 8 Evolvers and the "Die"-clause on Pelt Collector that might make him worth the effort. Looking forward to your experinces.
By the way: Does anyone know wht's up with the Price of Gaddock Teeg?! I was just thinking of him cause of the discussion on Terminus - which I think our deck has no real answer to (besides Gaddock). I generally try to play around any kind of massremoval by not playing too many creatures while still applying enough pressure.
Thinking of it, that's actually a spot where Groundbreaker is useful.
https://www.5colorcombo.com/posts/sTZe7P5D8p
I do NOT agree with all the Card Evaluations by the author, especially the Sideboard choices. But the gameplay introductions regarding the sequencing are quite helpful, if you didn't think of that so far. Definitely helped me improving my gameplay with the deck.
Also note that the article is from June 2016, so Narnam Renegade and Steel Leaf Champion did not exist back then.
What is especially nice about Briefing is the Surveil as an extra "Scry", which helps to find Win conditions. And the ton of flexibility, since you will almost always have a full graveyard. That's completely new to me, because I actually never played Snapcaster before - and it feels good.
I am still not sure about Bedlam Reveler. Once it's in your Hand, you are Kind of obligated to empty your Hand, which can be pretty annoying. In more grindy matchups, or as a late game Card it is actually really useful. How do we feel about moving it to the Sideboard and adding a more Fitting Win Con to the Maindeck? I was thinking something like Thermo-Alchemist could be worth a try, mainly because I would think we still Need a Minimum of 9 WinCons maindeck.
And because most iterations of the deck want a maximum of 4 Aspect, playing Might as a 5th copy is also no consideration. So in my opinion, no, I think Might of the Masses is not worth a try.