I'm really, really excited about the deck right now. I was bummed because Guilds and Allegiance had nothing for the deck, but WAR and Modern Horizons have tons of new toys for the deck.
Right now I'm playing this list. I dropped Blood Moon, since red is really strong right now, and everyone fetches basics against the deck anyways, and started running Field of Ruin + Path to Exile. The fact that I'm not running Liliana or Nahiri mainboard means I have way less color requirements, and all the deck truly needs to start functioning is Black mana at turn 1 and RR from turn 3 onwards for Pyromancer. Also in the Blood Moon slot I started using Surgical Extraction. It's really synergistic with the rest of the deck, and is a good answer to many things running around.
At 61 cards because I really don't know what to drop. The deck really shines against UW and Jund in their current iterations. Seasoned Pyromancer is a beast. I kind of miss topdecking Bedlam Reveler but in every other situation Big Peezy is a better card. Army in a can, can be cast turn 3 without having to discard your whole hand, good topdeck, useful effect from the grave, Unearthable, more resillient to grave hate.
Also managing to stick Dreadhorde Arcanist is brutal. Even casting a Looting for free from the grave feels amazing and the card really punishes anything relying on the board(Bolt and Path) or hand(Inquisition and Thoughtseize), or even the grave sometimes(Surgical), aka most strategies. He's really, really, really good, and if he eats removal, then YP does his thing with impunity.
As a sidenote, casting Smiting Helix twice in the same turn, with the lands I have now, is really easy. It's the equivalent of Helix, Snap, Helix with the same overall mana cost and way less color requirements. Another reason I'm keeping Bolts instead of Push is for the slow, steady burn into that danger zone.
I want to get some Plague Engineers, and also toy around a bit with maybe Intangible Virtue, since Big Peezy really increases the ammount of tokens the deck produces. There's much testing to be done right now.
Pitching Lingering Souls and an useless Blood Moon, for example, to cast this, then later cast it again at instant speed seems pretty good. We can even pitch it early if we need to, and still later use the "Flashback" effect
The rise of Humans, Karn MKIII, Blast Zone, etc, has made me think that the deck needs to step off the ultra-aggressive turbo Gurmag/DS plan with a back up counter, and go back to a more midrange and reactive focused approach.
Abrade and Kolaghan's Command are two cards that deal well with what the new meta is presenting to GDS. Removal+Artifact hate on one card, on top of being able to grind better and recover Shadows lost to Blast Zone. I think maindecking these right now could be pretty legit, considering the ammount of usefulness they bring to the table.
It probably slows down the Tron matchup a bit, but honestly the rest of the field deserves it at the moment. The only matchup I think worsens would be Izzet Phoenix, but answers such as Vapor Snag or Echoing Truth could do well there instead of Abrade.
The increase in overall mana cost means an increase in the land count of the deck, which could also mean that we could get to play more expenisve cards in the sideboard, such as Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet or Damnation, which can win some matchups on their own
I don't have the last Snapcaster so I've been using a KCommand main instead, due to a similar overall manacost and versatility, and it's been working well.
I have many questions, like how to approach certain hard matchups like Dredge, Burn or Grixis Whir. I also want to be leaning more on spells rather than artifacts or enchantments post sideboard considering how well Jace, Vryn's Prodigy synergizes with them. Also the sideboard has many 1ofs since I'm still testing on what works and what doesn't, but it's been solid so far. I'm probably going up to 2 Anger of the Gods since that card is as good against creature decks as Collective Brutality is against Burn.
I have been looking for resources and guides, but study material, tips, and feedback about the list would be very appreciated
Yeah I admit my manabase isn't good. Enemy fetches are expensive and haven't been able to add them. They improve the consistency of having all colors even under Blood Moon by a lot
Going to try Kalitas soon. I think it may be worth it. Probably instead of Hazoret or Liliana
Nahiri, the Harbinger feels very good, Selfeisek was right. Smoothes the draws, exiles creatures, enchantments and artifacts(really important right now) and has a "get a Reveler NOW" button if you need gas. Liliana of the Veil feels really good too in a meta with Phoenix and GDS. Now that go-wide creature decks are being hunted by UR Phoenix, I feel she has a place in the mainboard again. She's as deadly against combo and decks with few threats as ever. And Hazoret the Fervent is almost imposible to remove if you don't have exile options. I haven't regretted replacing one 1 mana discard for a threat at all.
I've been considering Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as an extra threat that's hard to remove for red, and that hoses graveyard strategies while being good at stabilizing our life total. I feel sometimes that the deck lacks a way to gain life reliably. Maybe Timely Reinforcements or even Baneslayer Angel could work as they're pretty good against heavy aggro metas. UW uses these, and while they're way slower, the plan of stripping away their resources and slowing the game to a crawl should synergize with these cards too.
Maybe it's just me, but I really didn't feel the Swiftspear one with many cantrips. I know it's the one that won that SCG tournament and maybe I played it wrong, but I really liked the lategame/grind edge 1x Reveler and 1x Peezy gave me instead. Maybe it's meta dependant, because for me, it was always either too slow, or ate a removal spell ASAP.
This is the list I ran yesterday. Pretty happy about it. Still not convinced by Opt/Thought Scour that much.
The Young Pyromancer is gas against certain grindy decks, or certain decks that you'll need the chump blockers against, like Humans, Jeskai or Death's Shadow, and I'm happy with the 1x copy I've been running.
Also ran this exact list on Tuesday. Also won the 3 matches, 2-0 against Soul Sisters, 2-1 against Esper Mill, and 2-1 against Mono Green Tron.
Soul Sisters was just about bolting stuff, slamming Pyromancer and Ral, since they managed to deal well with Thing and Drake thanks to Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring, but they struggled a lot with the tokens and the Planeswalker
Mill was weird, because since our deck goes through a lot of cards by itself, it's easy to just go overboard and lose to the milling. I was lucky because I saw how he milled his own Crypt Incursion and Extirpate with his Mesmeric Orb, or things could have gone way differently. He enables my plan and I enable his.
Mono Green Tron was hard.
Lost game 1 to Turn 3 Karn into Turn 4 Ugin EVEN while countering a Stirrings with Izzet Charm.
Won game 2 off of an explosive start.
Game 3 was pretty intense, since I kept a no-lander with Alpine Moon and Disdainful Stroke, while he had a turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage but no Tron. I managed to win in the end in a pretty close way thanks to Alpine Moon slowing them down enough, all the burn since I hit him with 2 Bolts, a Temper and a Gut Shot plus the creatures, and Abrade blowing up the cage to free Arclight Phoenix. Feels good man.
Yesterday won against Bant Spirits 2-1, UR Wizards 2-0 and Humans 2-1
Spirits can't deal well with Thing in the Ice. Can't let them get on board with the lords or their creatures become un-boltable. He played 2 Rest in Peace one game against me and I just ended Thinging him.
Against Wizards my opponent had really bad luck. I had pretty good draws too and the deck raced well.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy was a control finisher against Humans and won through him both times. Bolted and Angered everything, then slammed Ral. It was the most solid plan I could think of against a deck that does well against our main plan. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is a pain in the ass and the deck can't deal with her well at all if you have to dig for the removal. The game he won I was stuck on cantrips and Manamorphoses.
Don't bolt the Hierarch in this matchup, there's far more important stuff to remove than a dork.
This was the hardest matchup of the night. Played real sloppy but the deck is kind of made to fight small creatures with ease if you want to. Wait for him to Liutentant first so you can Bolt the 3 toughness creatures.
Why everytime I suggest people to not put Rest in Peace against the Crackling Drake version they aren't convinced about how little I care about that card? They're convinced it's good but it isn't at all. A Damping Sphere would be way more effective, for example.
Hello. I've been greatly enjoying the deck since Thing in the Ice was always my boy
One thing I've noticed is that the latest Ross version is way more susceptible to removal than the one with Fiery Temper. Maybe they were outlier games, but with the latest Ross version I often found myself cantripping into more cantrips while getting my threat killed, and getting killed in the end.
With Fiery Temper, you would turn discards into bolts, which I really liked, and the 8 bolts + Gut Shot + Lightning Axe, in the end gave the deck unparalleled removal against Humans/Spirits while having more Burn potential. Also found it easier to chain spells out of Faithless Looting, Lightning Axe, or even Tormenting Voice or Cathartic Reunion thanks to Madness.
3-4 Crackling Drake are the way to go. It's usually an answer it or die threat, while also drawing for itself. The card is fantastic. 1-2 Bedlam Reveler have been good for me in the 75 though, since people have realized that other than Surgical Extraction, most Graveyard hate is pretty mediocre against us, therefore siding it out against us, and therefore making Reveler good again by completeing the cycle.
1 Noxious Revival has also been working wonders for me. If you really need a cantrip, a land, a bolt or whatever, that card does wonders. Also being able to cast it on your own upkeep means another spell to easily Chain 3 for Phoenix, and also manipulating the top to easily get another spell for it. Try it lads, I swear it's good.
Am I doing something wrong with the latest version? Should I play it slower, or just slam a threat, cantrip for value, and hope it doesn't dies?
Hazoret the Fervent has been amazing for me. It's always either in my mainboard or sideboard. It's the clock you need sometimes against decks with inevitability. Absolutely impossible to get rid of as BG/Jund
On my flex slots I usually run Hazoret, a flavor of Liliana (Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last hope) and 2 Blood Moon. Despite not being "good" right now, I feel like they always help making greedy manabases(Spirits, Humans, Tron, GDS, Jeskai) close to unusable
I have been thinking about Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as an answer to Dredge lately, maybe as a 1 of in the sideboard. Jund and BG use it and I feel the lifelink and exile parts of the card to be extremely useful in a Dredge meta, and way harder for them to deal with without AssTrophy or Conflagrate, and since they usually expect Leyline of the Void or Nihil Spellbomb from us, their Nature's Claim would be useless
Right now I'm playing this list. I dropped Blood Moon, since red is really strong right now, and everyone fetches basics against the deck anyways, and started running Field of Ruin + Path to Exile. The fact that I'm not running Liliana or Nahiri mainboard means I have way less color requirements, and all the deck truly needs to start functioning is Black mana at turn 1 and RR from turn 3 onwards for Pyromancer. Also in the Blood Moon slot I started using Surgical Extraction. It's really synergistic with the rest of the deck, and is a good answer to many things running around.
At 61 cards because I really don't know what to drop. The deck really shines against UW and Jund in their current iterations. Seasoned Pyromancer is a beast. I kind of miss topdecking Bedlam Reveler but in every other situation Big Peezy is a better card. Army in a can, can be cast turn 3 without having to discard your whole hand, good topdeck, useful effect from the grave, Unearthable, more resillient to grave hate.
Also managing to stick Dreadhorde Arcanist is brutal. Even casting a Looting for free from the grave feels amazing and the card really punishes anything relying on the board(Bolt and Path) or hand(Inquisition and Thoughtseize), or even the grave sometimes(Surgical), aka most strategies. He's really, really, really good, and if he eats removal, then YP does his thing with impunity.
As a sidenote, casting Smiting Helix twice in the same turn, with the lands I have now, is really easy. It's the equivalent of Helix, Snap, Helix with the same overall mana cost and way less color requirements. Another reason I'm keeping Bolts instead of Push is for the slow, steady burn into that danger zone.
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Seasoned Pyromancer
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
Spells (28)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
3 Smiting Helix
3 Lingering Souls
2 Unearth
2 Collective Brutality
1 Dreadbore
2 Blood Crypt
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Mountain
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Silent Clearing
2 Field of Ruin
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Wear // Tear
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
I want to get some Plague Engineers, and also toy around a bit with maybe Intangible Virtue, since Big Peezy really increases the ammount of tokens the deck produces. There's much testing to be done right now.
Pitching Lingering Souls and an useless Blood Moon, for example, to cast this, then later cast it again at instant speed seems pretty good. We can even pitch it early if we need to, and still later use the "Flashback" effect
The rise of Humans, Karn MKIII, Blast Zone, etc, has made me think that the deck needs to step off the ultra-aggressive turbo Gurmag/DS plan with a back up counter, and go back to a more midrange and reactive focused approach.
Abrade and Kolaghan's Command are two cards that deal well with what the new meta is presenting to GDS. Removal+Artifact hate on one card, on top of being able to grind better and recover Shadows lost to Blast Zone. I think maindecking these right now could be pretty legit, considering the ammount of usefulness they bring to the table.
It probably slows down the Tron matchup a bit, but honestly the rest of the field deserves it at the moment. The only matchup I think worsens would be Izzet Phoenix, but answers such as Vapor Snag or Echoing Truth could do well there instead of Abrade.
The increase in overall mana cost means an increase in the land count of the deck, which could also mean that we could get to play more expenisve cards in the sideboard, such as Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet or Damnation, which can win some matchups on their own
I've recently managed to build the deck and I'm loving it so far. Been playing with this list
4 Death's Shadow
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Street Wraith
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Snapcaster Mage
Spells:
1 Faithless Looting
4 Thought Scour
4 Stubborn Denial
3 Mishra's Bauble
4 Fatal Push
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
2 Temur Battle Rage
2 Dismember
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
2 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Mountain
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Abrade
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Collective Brutality
I don't have the last Snapcaster so I've been using a KCommand main instead, due to a similar overall manacost and versatility, and it's been working well.
I have many questions, like how to approach certain hard matchups like Dredge, Burn or Grixis Whir. I also want to be leaning more on spells rather than artifacts or enchantments post sideboard considering how well Jace, Vryn's Prodigy synergizes with them. Also the sideboard has many 1ofs since I'm still testing on what works and what doesn't, but it's been solid so far. I'm probably going up to 2 Anger of the Gods since that card is as good against creature decks as Collective Brutality is against Burn.
I have been looking for resources and guides, but study material, tips, and feedback about the list would be very appreciated
Going to try Kalitas soon. I think it may be worth it. Probably instead of Hazoret or Liliana
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Bedlam Reveler
1 Hazoret the Fervent
Spells:
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
2 Collective Brutality
1 Terminate
1 Dreadbore
2 Blood Moon
Planeswalkers:
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Lands:
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
2 Blood Crypt
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Dragonskull Summit
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2 Wear // Tear
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Collective Brutality
Nahiri, the Harbinger feels very good, Selfeisek was right. Smoothes the draws, exiles creatures, enchantments and artifacts(really important right now) and has a "get a Reveler NOW" button if you need gas. Liliana of the Veil feels really good too in a meta with Phoenix and GDS. Now that go-wide creature decks are being hunted by UR Phoenix, I feel she has a place in the mainboard again. She's as deadly against combo and decks with few threats as ever. And Hazoret the Fervent is almost imposible to remove if you don't have exile options. I haven't regretted replacing one 1 mana discard for a threat at all.
I've been considering Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as an extra threat that's hard to remove for red, and that hoses graveyard strategies while being good at stabilizing our life total. I feel sometimes that the deck lacks a way to gain life reliably. Maybe Timely Reinforcements or even Baneslayer Angel could work as they're pretty good against heavy aggro metas. UW uses these, and while they're way slower, the plan of stripping away their resources and slowing the game to a crawl should synergize with these cards too.
The Young Pyromancer is gas against certain grindy decks, or certain decks that you'll need the chump blockers against, like Humans, Jeskai or Death's Shadow, and I'm happy with the 1x copy I've been running.
4x Spirebluff Canal
3x Island
3x Mountain
2x Steam Vents
2x Flooded Strand
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
Creatures: 13
4x Arclight Phoenix
4x Thing in the Ice
3x Crackling Drake
1x Young Pyromancer
1x Bedlam Reveler
2x Gut Shot
1x Noxious Revival
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Lightning Axe
2x Fiery Temper
1x Forked Bolt
4x Manamorphose
4x Faithless Looting
4x Serum Visions
2x Opt
1x Izzet Charm
1x Chart a Course
1x Thought Scour
2x Abrade
2x Alpine Moon
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Dispel
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Ral, Izzet Viceroy
1x By Force
1x Disdainful Stroke
Also ran this exact list on Tuesday. Also won the 3 matches, 2-0 against Soul Sisters, 2-1 against Esper Mill, and 2-1 against Mono Green Tron.
Soul Sisters was just about bolting stuff, slamming Pyromancer and Ral, since they managed to deal well with Thing and Drake thanks to Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring, but they struggled a lot with the tokens and the Planeswalker
Mill was weird, because since our deck goes through a lot of cards by itself, it's easy to just go overboard and lose to the milling. I was lucky because I saw how he milled his own Crypt Incursion and Extirpate with his Mesmeric Orb, or things could have gone way differently. He enables my plan and I enable his.
Mono Green Tron was hard.
Lost game 1 to Turn 3 Karn into Turn 4 Ugin EVEN while countering a Stirrings with Izzet Charm.
Won game 2 off of an explosive start.
Game 3 was pretty intense, since I kept a no-lander with Alpine Moon and Disdainful Stroke, while he had a turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage but no Tron. I managed to win in the end in a pretty close way thanks to Alpine Moon slowing them down enough, all the burn since I hit him with 2 Bolts, a Temper and a Gut Shot plus the creatures, and Abrade blowing up the cage to free Arclight Phoenix. Feels good man.
Spirits can't deal well with Thing in the Ice. Can't let them get on board with the lords or their creatures become un-boltable. He played 2 Rest in Peace one game against me and I just ended Thinging him.
Against Wizards my opponent had really bad luck. I had pretty good draws too and the deck raced well.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy was a control finisher against Humans and won through him both times. Bolted and Angered everything, then slammed Ral. It was the most solid plan I could think of against a deck that does well against our main plan.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is a pain in the ass and the deck can't deal with her well at all if you have to dig for the removal. The game he won I was stuck on cantrips and Manamorphoses.
Don't bolt the Hierarch in this matchup, there's far more important stuff to remove than a dork.
This was the hardest matchup of the night. Played real sloppy but the deck is kind of made to fight small creatures with ease if you want to. Wait for him to Liutentant first so you can Bolt the 3 toughness creatures.
Why everytime I suggest people to not put Rest in Peace against the Crackling Drake version they aren't convinced about how little I care about that card? They're convinced it's good but it isn't at all. A Damping Sphere would be way more effective, for example.
One thing I've noticed is that the latest Ross version is way more susceptible to removal than the one with Fiery Temper. Maybe they were outlier games, but with the latest Ross version I often found myself cantripping into more cantrips while getting my threat killed, and getting killed in the end.
With Fiery Temper, you would turn discards into bolts, which I really liked, and the 8 bolts + Gut Shot + Lightning Axe, in the end gave the deck unparalleled removal against Humans/Spirits while having more Burn potential. Also found it easier to chain spells out of Faithless Looting, Lightning Axe, or even Tormenting Voice or Cathartic Reunion thanks to Madness.
3-4 Crackling Drake are the way to go. It's usually an answer it or die threat, while also drawing for itself. The card is fantastic. 1-2 Bedlam Reveler have been good for me in the 75 though, since people have realized that other than Surgical Extraction, most Graveyard hate is pretty mediocre against us, therefore siding it out against us, and therefore making Reveler good again by completeing the cycle.
1 Noxious Revival has also been working wonders for me. If you really need a cantrip, a land, a bolt or whatever, that card does wonders. Also being able to cast it on your own upkeep means another spell to easily Chain 3 for Phoenix, and also manipulating the top to easily get another spell for it. Try it lads, I swear it's good.
Am I doing something wrong with the latest version? Should I play it slower, or just slam a threat, cantrip for value, and hope it doesn't dies?
Hazoret the Fervent has been amazing for me. It's always either in my mainboard or sideboard. It's the clock you need sometimes against decks with inevitability. Absolutely impossible to get rid of as BG/Jund
On my flex slots I usually run Hazoret, a flavor of Liliana (Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last hope) and 2 Blood Moon. Despite not being "good" right now, I feel like they always help making greedy manabases(Spirits, Humans, Tron, GDS, Jeskai) close to unusable
I have been thinking about Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as an answer to Dredge lately, maybe as a 1 of in the sideboard. Jund and BG use it and I feel the lifelink and exile parts of the card to be extremely useful in a Dredge meta, and way harder for them to deal with without AssTrophy or Conflagrate, and since they usually expect Leyline of the Void or Nihil Spellbomb from us, their Nature's Claim would be useless