[Primer] PyroRed

[zemanjaski]

^ I agree, not a huge fan of BTE without more targets. Ash Zealot should be better; I like BTE in mine be ause it's prone to clunky hands.

@ Pie ~ can't win 'em all redbro

[F.I.A]

I don't have the luxury to give it a try just yet, but I think BTE can do as great as Ashley. There were games where I wanted both board presence and Magma Jet on turn 2, so she seems to fit the bill right while Ashley can only allow you to do only one thing.

As for a lack of haste, she also benefits from Hammer of Purphoros.

[RaidaTheBlade]

The thought behind bte was sorta what I've seen you discuss on how it messes up 1-for-1 removal. I also helps speed the deck up since I'm running reckoner and only 4 1-drops. I'm also not above going turn three bte into phoenix, so I include that when I consider targets for it.

Anyway, if I dropped bte, what would you recommend in it's place? The first things I think of are frostburn weird cause of its flexibility, or slowing down even more and putting in a few fanatics. (Maybe not all 4 fanatics, but 3 and a hammer? Dunno.)
What do y'all think?

[DocLawless]

Some have had success with Firefist Striker. I haven't tried it myself, but FFS has come up on other people's lists commonly enough. I can't argue with his ability to deny a blocker. Two denied blockers per turn, if you have Chandra in play too, is nothing to cough at. I guess it depends on how aggro your meta will let you play.

[RaidaTheBlade]

I don't own any ffs, lol. It's actually been the card I've had the most trouble getting (don't have plans to use it atm, but I like have a playset of each potential card for testing). Even several stores in the area are sold out. Same for getting more then the 2 skullcracks I currently have e.e

If I ran ffs, it'd be with BTE and YP$, most likely, but I'm attached to Ashley, shes a baws

[DocLawless]

Agreed. I could never dump Ashley. I'll put up with her shit until she rotates out, and then I will be sad.

Strangely, I have the same problem with finding FFS. Three of us each bought a box of Gatecrash boosters and we collectively came up with one copy. Rarest uncommon ever.


EDIT: I have 9 Skullcracks. I'll send you two of them if you want them. No strings attached.

[Jack]

Next to Magma Jet.

[windstrider]

Raida — You should test out Goblin Shortcutter (falter), Rakdos Shred-freak (haste), or Gore-house Chainwalker (power) over BTE in your build.

[Jack]

I've seen two boxes opened with only one copy between them, and it was a foil.

[RaidaTheBlade]

Nah man, I appreciate the offer, but shipping stuff would cost you more money then the cards are worth. I'll dig some up eventually. But thank you anyway.

Anyway, I digress, if I dropped bte, what do you think would work better? Weird or fanatic? Or some combo thereof? Or somehow fitting in a hammer? E.e

Windstrider, i've tried all of those but shortcutter(which i only have 2 of I believe), and I'd honestly rather have weird. It's super flexible and has done so much work for me e.e it's a beat stick for control and a wall for aggro.

Z, halp too please. You are the smart, and I am the dumb. Please de-dumb me

[zemanjaski]

Magma Jet is sooooooo good. Last night I was on the 'burn or nothing plan' needing running topdecks to kill my opponent. Went Jet find Jet (scry 1, keep 1; this gave me Lightning Strike or Act as outs with three looks) find Act of Treason (bottom 2 so blind hit) to win. Opponent even GG'd me. Good sport.

[zemanjaski]

GHC if you're expecting control, Weird if you're expecting aggro.

[DocLawless]

If it's one or the other, either Weird or Fanatic, I'd pick Weird. Walls early, beats late and fills the same slot in your curve.

But GHC and Shred Freak are viable options as well.

[RaidaTheBlade]

I'm sorta expecting aggro, but it's about even I think. i store-hop, so not ever really sure.

As far as a good catch-all, i'm leaning towards weird. Especially since control's usually a fairly easy matchup, whereas aggro can hurt if its quick enough...

Also gotta figure out what to do about mono-u, since theres one asshole who doesnt like the deck, but bought and plays it just to win. Nobody likes that guy, btw.

Using weird frees up 2 sodeboard slots... Maybe some anti-u ideas? Aka 2 electrickeries and lots of praying?

[F.I.A]

Magma Jet is sooooooo good. Last night I was on the 'burn or nothing plan' needing running topdecks to kill my opponent. Went Jet find Jet (scry 1, keep 1; this gave me Lightning Strike or Act as outs with three looks) find Act of Treason (bottom 2 so blind hit) to win. Opponent even GG'd me. Good sport.

This. Drawing Magma Jet into more gases (And better, Magma Jet) is what making me consider cutting Lightning Strike if I were to choose only one of them. Add in Phoenix in GY, and you got yourself a great deal.

Not to mention "Upkeep. Magma Jet to fix my draw".

[DocLawless]

SB more praying. Mono-U is just a bad day. Mortars and fliers are your best bets.

Annihilating Fire, or Flames of the Firebrand. AF is great for nuking Voice without him shitting out an elemental, and for Phoenixes in the mirror.

[Helios]

If you're expecting a significant amount of mono u, electrickery is probably your best bet for MoW. It just feels sooooo bad against all of their other cards.

[F.I.A]

Generally, when dealing with Mono-U, you want to prevent him from getting his devotion. Which means by taking down relevant creatures like Specter, Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage, so board in more burns like Mizzium Mortars and Flames of the Firebrand. Most opponents I have faced want more value out of their MoW, thus blowing up their present board is a good way to deter them from dropping it.

Against MoW, keep in mind that Mutavault is colorless and therefore can block and kill him if the situation calls for it unless the opponent has Thassa (There's a replay where Adrian Sullivan did just that to kill off MoW and his elementals). Electrickery might work against the first batch of elementals, but I've played games where they managed to make 3/2 elementals. From my experience, [card]Hammer of Purphoros[/card:
3duvdxc5] is actually decent for producing the needed colorless blockers as well.

[zemanjaski]

I focus on killing everything else honestly. Your YP tokens then trade with his master tokens and you each have a 2/1.

[RaidaTheBlade]

I'd like to split the slots left oer from bte into 3 weirds and 2 fanatics, but then ai'd have to drop somethng else, and bugger knows what.

As far as mono-u, I'm thinking keeping the hammer in my sb, and then adding in 2 fotf. Then trying to get all that and the 4 mizzium into the deck. Dunno what in the heck i'd take out, but yeah.

-sigh- all of this is making me consider just dropping the yp, much as i love the idea, and scurrying back to a slightly modded version of my devotion red gameday deck e.e at least in devo red I was comfortable with my cad choices e.e With this it seems I'm stuck between a mountain and a hard place.

I'm gonan take a step back and think about each card some.
Fanatic is a bomb on a stalled board state. It did a lot of work on gameday, and I'm loathe to leave him behind, cause he was crucial to my 'late game' in alot of ways.
Weird is a tank, beatstick, and mana sink all in one.
I've held off faster aggro, and beat control about the head with him.
YP$ makes all my burn more relevant, and just kicks butt.
Hammer is a great end game option, and actually helps with MoW some, since the tokens ar colorless. It also is control's nightmare.

Z's testing seems to show that hammer is better sideboard then main, corect? And only 1? (From looking at previus deck lists). I know 2 fanatic can work, since that was partof the sideoard plan vs esper during gameday. I could have 2 weird, but splitting makes it feel weird (no pun intended), cause it messes with some of the consistency. e.e

Oh hello there square one. I'm back.

Should I sacrifice a control player in your name Z, and beg you to mod my list a bit and make it decent? (I really feel bad bugging you so much, but you ARE kinda the premier red mage imo...)

Or anybody really, I'm driving myself batty by thinking about this too much e.e

[DocLawless]

Or anybody really, I'm driving myself batty by thinking about this too much e.e

Over-thinking is a thing. Sleep on it, but it sounds like you're actually trying to choose between PyroRed and Devotion Red. If Devotion jives for you more than PyroRed does, play Devotion. You're better off doing what comfortably fits how you play. But I wouldn't run Fanatic in a Pyro shell, nor YP in a Devotion shell. Neither really runs optimally in that case.

[zemanjaski]

^ that.

Best advice I can give is to play with cards you like and a strategy that suits your style; they correct plays will be more intuitive and more obvious.

[RaidaTheBlade]

Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there e.e
I wanted to try and use yp, cause it helps against DD, while pyro-red seems to work better against other aggros and mono-u, which were pretty much my only weaknesses on gameday.

So in my quest to fix those issues, things got muddled up e.e Though the idea of yp in a devotion shell with the 12 burn mainboard still amuses/interests me. Le sigh.

[zemanjaski]

Devotion = play permanents
YP = play spells

They're destined to be far apart I'm afraid.

[Solemn10]

Feel free to smack what's about to come out of my mouth down, but what about playing nivmagus elemental? I find that I'm shocking or burning an x/2 on turn 2, but maybe instead of burning the creature after attack step, block and exile a burn spell to make it a 3/4 with the added bonus of a token if YP is in play...

[F.I.A]

An exiled burn won't bring back some phoenixes, though.

While it's great to beat GW in their own game by making a ridiculously big elemental, most of the time it will just be piling eggs in a basket with most colors having solid removals (Black with Doom Blade, White with exile and Celestial Flare, and Blue spots some Claustrophobia).

[chlb]

Cut magma jet or shock vs mono B; they don't kill anything anyway.

I was already going -4 shock, but I will try -2 jet to get in the 2 dreadbores in addition to the hammer/act package. Probably cutting 3rd jet then for Erebos against BW to blank lifegain from whip, paladin, and Obzedat.

While walking to work this morning I figured jester and Tymaret are actually good against Bx, since they can't kill them with blade/price. Turn 2 jester feels so much better compared to Ashley when they are holding doom blade mana up.

Feel free to smack what's about to come out of my mouth down, but what about playing nivmagus elemental?

Nivmagus is awesome with flusterstorm, but in standard it might be
putting too many eggs in one basket considering so many decks are running with doom blades. Against red or green aggro it might be fine, seeing it can get big enough to survive their burn. Still, I'd rather just burn their attackers away than making a big dude to block with. EDIT: Seems F.I.A said it already, that's what I get for typing so slowly.

[F.I.A]

That said, this discussion did shed some light on cards to consider. The problems I have with Frostburn Weird is that it can only trade with */4 at most, and it is easily dwarfed by everything else. With Nivmagus and a single burn, you have a 3/4 that can handle 3/3s with ease. Going 5/6 might be a little too much, though, as a Selesnya Charm will 3-1 you.

I think I will give it a try in the board in the weirds' slot the next time I got on modo.

[Pedros]

Hello there, It is my first post on this forum.

I played Zeman's list because I wanted something refreahing and easy after hard week at school, and I failed dramaticly. However I really liked how the deck played out and I noticed I made really bad choices in both play and sb. This deck was something different for me, as I/only played AIR in block, gwx based midrange in block/past standard and uwx based control. Then I noticed link to this forum in mtg salvation rdw thread. I read everything here, but still didnt want to crewte account as non-experienced red mage. I was the one that pointed wrecking ogre could be one .off blowout finisher when you were searching for it and chatted with Zeman on mtgo - he was really nice to explain me some stuff about this deck.

I am preparing for GP Vienna in december, and I think I/like this deck enough and feel good with it to prepare testing. I played 7 more events with it, finished
6 times in money on mtgo, both walter white veraion and mono red, however I want to improve even more.

I really like the idea of bte and ffs, howevfer I loved white splash as chained to the rocks and aingleton sb assemble the legion are so good in longr events whenyou have to play with diverse metagame. Right now on mtgo black and blue is a force, however you can stillvbe paired vs gw or rg, and white gives you and edge vs those deck while not destroying other matchups.

Is it woth to combine bte, ffs into walter white and not play mb white cards, and splash only for sb assemble and chained? Or is it not worth it?

I know you are not supposed to talk about other decks here, however do you think nayq control deck that won premier event played by reynad might be really good contender? It plays sikmilar to big boros, with exceptional romoval, road blockers and pllaneswalkers from green.

Sorry for my english as I am not native speaker and Iamam writing from tablet.

[Solemn10]

My thought was instead of burning a creature, you can kill it with the elemental early game. My theory is that if you kill something you'd have burned with the spell it's no longer a 2 for 1 as you did what it was meant to with the upside of having a 3/4 they have to deal with. Obviously you'd have to watch out for the response burn. Although the idea of a massive dude is cool, like you guys said about eggs and baskets it dies to a doom blade.

[Solemn10]

Maybe I'm just thinking too much about the aggro mirror... Someone please tell me when I've gone full retard.

[magicdownunder]

I ran a few games with Z's decklist in the Daily Events:

[deck=Zemanjaski’s Aussie BBQ]Lands 22
18x Mountain
04x Mutavault

Creatures 24
04x Firedrinker Satyr
04x Rakdos Cackler
04x Firefist Striker
04x Burning-Tree Emissary
04x Young Pyromancer
04x Chandra's Phoenix
Planeswalkers 02
02x Chandra, Pyromaster

Instants 12
04x Shock
04x Lightning Strike
04x Magma Jet

Sideboard 15
04x Mizzium Mortars
03x Skullcrack
03x Act of Treason
02x Flames of the Firebrand
02x Frostburn Weird
01x Hammer of Purphoros[/deck]

Standard Daily Event 6118401 (4-0)

G1: MonoBlack Devotion
G2: Black Green Rock (piloted by xMiMx)
G3: WRG Monsters (piloted by Winspear)
nG4: MonoBlack Devotion

Standard Daily Event 6118432 (3-1)

G1: MonoBlack Devotion
G2: Black(g) Devotion
G3: Esper Control
G4: MonoBlack Devotion

Standard Daily Event 6162693 (4-0)

G1: Dega Midrange (WBR)
G2: GR Aggro (I mistook it as GR Colossal Gruul and lost G2 very badly)
G3: MonoBlack Devotion
G4: Split for the win

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'm really worried about the Colossal Gruul MU - they pack plenty of removal, have cheap walls and can prevent the air assault very quickly.

Which cuts all our outs:

1) Threaten won't work because they don't have trample and they have plenty of chump blocks
2) All in fails due to effective walls
3) Devotion plan b) is hit by removal
4) Burn over top is our best bet but they have Devotion based lifegain and Time to Feed.

Starting to think splashing White or Black is our best answer.

[zemanjaski]

I'm really glad you're finding success with the deck. Also glad I didn't cause you to lose money by recommending it!

[LaZerBurn]

@ magicdownunder - thanks for posting the vids here (I don't check MTGS anymore) and while I'm about it thanks for the Modern ones on MTGS too

[windstrider]

Pedros – Welcome aboard!

I would say no to adding BTE and FFS and sideboarding Chained in the Walter White version. Against a relatively unknown field, Chained is a powerful option in the mainboard. Personally, I like having the reassurance that I can easily remove big monsters. I know you'd be keeping it available in the side, but would it be worth having to remove other options to fit it in?

[Keftenk]

So, maybe this is a dumb question or thing to bring up, but I run the PyroBoros list right now and sometimes I can't get YP up and running for Desecration Demon, sometimes I can't even find a Chained to the Rocks for it, and it hurts needing to burn 2 Lightning Strikes to kill it. Are these situations where I just fold and go onto game 2/3? I used to run Traitorous Instinct, but if I still can't draw the answer the next turn then I'm forced to start sacing my board presence which isn't really helping my cause. More often then not, the 8 damage + what I'm swinging isn't enough (most of everything is usually sniped prior via Doom Blade and Hero's Downfall). Against Devo Black, I find the demon and Underworld Connections to be the main problems of the deck. I do SB Wear//Tear, but I try and save it for that damn whip. If that thing gets going, I'm done for.

I was thinking though for the demon, does [card]
Vial of Poison[/card] have any place?

[Helios]

Sometimes demon kills you. Not worth bringing in bad cards.

[windstrider]

Keftenk – Sometimes fate entices you with her presence, and other times she flips you the finger. You have ways to deal with the Demon already, and I'm not much a fan of one-shot answers. Don't let a few bad experiences make you look for bad answers.

[RaidaTheBlade]

Alright, my fnm list is down to two choices

[deck]
Creatures:
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Ash Zealot
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix

Burn:
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Shock

Thighs:
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Land:
21 Mountain
1 Mutavault


Sideboard:
3 Peak Eruption
3 Act of Treason
2 Skullcrack
2 Electrickery
1 Hammer of Purphoros
4 Mizzium Mortars
[/deck]

Or:

[deck]
Creatures:
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Fanatic of Mogis

Burn:
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
3 Shock

Thighs and Friends:
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Hammer of Purphoros

Land:
21 Mountain
1 Mutavault


Sideboard:
3 Peak Eruption
3 Act of Treason
2 Skullcrack
2 Electrickery
1 Hammer of Purphoros
4 Mizzium Mortars
[/deck]


Going into a mostly unknown meta,what do y'all think would be better? The
pyro list with only 1 muta(i only have 1), or the devotion list?

[Keftenk]

Keftenk – Sometimes fate entices you with her presence, and other times she flips you the finger. You have ways to deal with the Demon already, and I'm not much a fan of one-shot answers. Don't let a few bad experiences make you look for bad answers.

Alright, good lol. I felt really uneasy even bringing it up. I know how critical you guys can be, which is the great thing about the community. I have beat Devo. Black, sometimes just completely dominating with YP. I have full confidence in it and even Chained to the Rocks, but even in the Junk match up it can be such a frustration to deal with. Might I ask another question? Skullcrack worth it vs Devo Black? Synergy with YP which is always great for DD, also doesn't allow Gray
Merchant to drop for a ton of life. I just don't see the lethal push I need from Traitorous Instinct that I'd like...so I'm looking for options that I can play better with ;\

Sorry ;;

EDIT: Maybe I should just post my deck list. The SB has 2 flex spots atm...I've considered also just adding more Boros Charm's and just go straight to the face... my game plan for any of these devotion decks was to just snipe their devotion, but DD is the biggest problem of them all. UC attaching itself to a land is an issue too...

[deck]
Creatures
4 Ash Zealot
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Young Pyromancer

Planeswalkers
3 Chandra, Pyromaster

Other Spells
2 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock

Lands
2 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
12 Mountain
1 Plains

Sideboard
1 Assemble the Legion
4 Boros
Reckoner
2 Boros Charm
2 Chained to the Rocks
1 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Wear // Tear
[/deck]