[Primer] PyroRed

[zemanjaski]

@ JS. I'd have kept those hands. Can't win them all.

@ Raida. Sadly I'm 99% sure the issue is player skill. I was ~50% with straight mono red with no maindeck hate; so if you're having issues with that much dedicated technology the issue is with you, not the deck. As the others have said, try to pair up with one of the experienced players for some mentoring.

@ Everyone. In general, look for improvements in skill before your deck. If nothing is obviously wrong with the deck, then it's youvthatvneeds to change, not it.

[magicdownunder]

I guess, I'm just looking for, do you think it was correct to keep those hands, or should I have mulliganed?

I posted your report on the primer, thanks for the write up.

I believe your hands were good for the finals, I would have kept them (one shock and YP$? of course) your not going to try and aggro him out since you already know what he is playing so that was a strong grind hand.

I wouldn't go on the draw with RW since I dislike our fumbling opens.

EDIT: Helios were running out of space to type reports, your going to need to take over again soon or open up another post.

[Lightning_Dolt]

I guess, I'm just looking for, do you think it was correct to keep those hands, or should I have mulliganed?

I posted your report on the primer, thanks for the write up.

I believe your hands were good for the finals, I would have kept them (one shock and YP$? of course) your not going to try and aggro him out since you already know what he is playing so that was a strong grind hand.

I wouldn't go on the draw with RW since I dislike our fumbling opens.

I sided out the one drops and was playing control, so I figured the extra card was better.
I get the impression everyone else disagrees? I've been doing that (and winning) since Zem's theory article.

[Helios]

MDU- I defend my thesis in 3 days, then I can take back over. We will be adding Z's post about the lack of mulligan rules to the primer and switching ownership of that post as well as my post below it to the primer as well.

JS - Um, I said Mono Black. Abrupt Decay and Gaze aren't in those decks. GB is a different deck (which, honestly, I still wouldn't bring in Charm against).

[zemanjaski]

I would have drawn. The article is how I play, I think there is room for disagreement.

[Lightning_Dolt]

@ Zem: Being friends with you has helped me a lot. As always I am grateful.

@ Helios: In my area, mono-black is now splashing green about half the time. Either way, I believe boros charm is correct. I think MDU is running it too. It's a lot of reach, in a match up where reach really matters. It also hoses control pretty well. I like it.

[Helios]

There's a discussion on SB'ing for black within the last two pages. I don't even have Charm in my SB, there's just no need for it. If you still think it's worth it, by all means.

[magicdownunder]

There's a discussion on SB'ing for black within the last two pages. I don't even have Charm in my SB, there's just no need for it. If you still think it's worth it, by all means.

In the early RW list charm is worthless, its with these Dragon builds where we have more trashy cards against Bx Devotion where generally anything is better is why were considering running charm.

PLUS: protecting Chains from Decay or charm is a huge win (when gary or nightveil is under it).

[Jack]

I'm still unsure on whether or not to bring in answers for Gary, since the playerbase (or at least our perceptions of it) seems split as to whether or not to keep Gray Merchant in for game 2 against us.

[Jack]

Then again, most of what I know about that deck comes from less than 4 hours of testing and reading Owen's GP reports.

[Pedros]

As someone had dound up I finished 40, ID the last round to put both of me and my opp in cash 100%. I had really bad tiebreakers - 1 bye, lost round 5 and rounds 10 & 11, owever then bounced back to finish day 2 to 11-3-1 finish. I didnt want to risk it...

It was my first gp ever so I am realy happy, another thing is out of 10 people playing from our party 4 made day 2 (2 in cash), while the other made sunday 10000 euro grinder 7-2 and was 9th out of 1k+ people.... bad luck for him ;(

Also we (as a country) won this GP! At top tables there were more Poles than the other nationaloty and there were Poles everywhere. Warsaw is in Vienna

As for games I faced very diversified meta by myself, however there was shit load of mono blue everywhere.

Will post a report later, will just say I lost to GW agro day 1 and BG devotion and Rw
pyroagro day 2. My ID opppnent revealed he was playing esper.

Played 4 reckoners md and 4 satyrs sb version, and was extremely happy with this decision.

Worth noting : Pure pyro Rb tymareth pyro chandra phoenix and pyromaster made day 2 at 8-1 as I sat near it, dont know how he finished, but interaction with all of thpse cards was amazing. He destroyed mono black there with all the recursion.

[magicdownunder]

So you didn't decide to go with the opening list we discussed, but with the MD Reck version with 18 creatures.

Good end result, I look forward to the full report (I just hope it'll fit in the primer) .

@freedom, if Bx Devotion isn't running gary against small aggro then they're doing it wrong, to date I've yet to face a single grinder who would board out gary against us.

[Purp]

So you didn't decide to go with the opening list we discussed, but with the MD Reck version with 18 creatures.

Good end result, I look forward to the full report (I just hope it'll fit in the primer) .

@freedom, if Bx Devotion isn't running gary against small aggro then they're doing it wrong, to date I've yet to face a single grinder who would board out gary against us.

Great JOb Pedros!

I think it would be okay if we start deleting older FNM reports.

[magicdownunder]

I think it would be okay if we start deleting older FNM reports.

If it doesn't fit, I'll right up the report and send it to Helios so he can just copy paste it with ease when he regain the helm in 3 days (though I'm very much in favor of deleting old FNM, TNM and DEs).

[deck=MDU's PyroDragon]Lands 23
11 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph

Creatures 20
2 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer
2 StormBreath Dragon

Instants 10
4 Lightning Strike
3 Magma Jet
3 Shock

Others 7
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Flames of the Firebrand

Sideboard 15
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Skullcrack
2 Boros Charm
2 Fanatic of Mogis
2 Last
breath
1 Chained to the Rocks[/deck]

I will be making changes both to the MD and SB as a response to the data collected on the meta change, except something slightly diff. tomorrow with explanation.

PyroDragon Experiment (2-Man) + Commentary: G7 vs Rg Devotion
PyroDragon Experiment (2-Man) + Commentary: G8 vs RBW Dega

Just pre-warning to MTGO'er make sure you can deal with Ux, Dragons, Land Destroy and Reck for the next few days/weeks till another large event comes around.

[vundo]

Kinda random but I realized that I blew off pyro red at the start of the Theros season when I saw these decklists
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=59592
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=59629

I'm going to be playtesting a ton with my playgroup these next 2 weeks but for the SCG Invitational, I'm leaning toward no ash zealot and either more burn or pedros' approach of Reckoner mb. I hate having to put satyrs in my sideboard though :\

[Helios]

Excellent work Pedros! Glad to see such a stellar finish.

I truly appreciate all the work you all have been putting into this deck while I've been away from the game. Really solid job redbros.

Re: old reports- I'm thinking of creating an archive thread filled entirely with reports. Those reports represent a lot of work on the part of their authors, so I'd like to save all of them - even if they aren't necessarily primer material. New reports could also be posted there and linked to, if folks wanted to save me the effort; however, I have no issue with them being posted in this thread as well.

Re: charm- That makes more sense, thank you for the explanation.

[RaidaTheBlade]

So, my musings from yesterday are still a thing...

I really wanna hear how those reckoners mb worked out for you... I can imagine it helped a good deal vs monoblue, but I wanna know how it worked against everything else too o.o

Really looking forward to the report
Great job!

[MattT]

As someone had dound up I finished 40, ID the last round to put both of me and my opp in cash 100%. I had really bad tiebreakers - 1 bye, lost round 5 and rounds 10 & 11, owever then bounced back to finish day 2 to 11-3-1 finish. I didnt want to risk it...

It was my first gp ever so I am realy happy, another thing is out of 10 people playing from our party 4 made day 2 (2 in cash), while the other made sunday 10000 euro grinder 7-2 and was 9th out of 1k+ people.... bad luck for him ;(

Also we (as a country) won this GP! At top tables there were more Poles than the other nationaloty and there were Poles everywhere. Warsaw is in Vienna

As for games I faced very diversified
meta by myself, however there was shit load of mono blue everywhere.

Will post a report later, will just say I lost to GW agro day 1 and BG devotion and Rw pyroagro day 2. My ID opppnent revealed he was playing esper.

Played 4 reckoners md and 4 satyrs sb version, and was extremely happy with this decision.

Worth noting : Pure pyro Rb tymareth pyro chandra phoenix and pyromaster made day 2 at 8-1 as I sat near it, dont know how he finished, but interaction with all of thpse cards was amazing. He destroyed mono black there with all the recursion.

Great job Pedros! Congratz from your northern neighbours

And whaddaya know, PyroBlack doing well. I´d like some more info on that decks final place.

[hoeiberg]

I´d like some more info on that decks final place.

Second that, and the full deck list. Where would one look for something like that?

[magicdownunder]

Second that, and the full deck list. Where would one look for something like that?

They don't publish any list which didn't make top16 so your out of luck I'm afraid.

[hoeiberg]

Too bad. Would have been interesting, oh well, I guess i will just keep trying to refine MattT's various lists and wait for more people to hopefully swich to black come Born of the Gods.

[LaZerBurn]

Once Temple Of Malice (the RB Scryland) is out I will be testing RB

[Valdarith]

I playtested my list tonight in the practice room to get used to the playstyle. Deck is hard to play. Got nutdrawn on a lot by back-to-back-to-back Stormbreath Dragons on turns three, four, and five. I guess Jund is a thing. Also saw a lot of Sylvan Caryatid. If those become more prevalent we're going to have to find an answer to it. I know not to take much stock from the practice room though. I like this deck's chances against the devotion decks. If piloted properly it seems the matchups are favorable.

One particular deck I played had a lot of removal into a big wincon like Assemble the Legion. It made me strongly consider taking out my creatures just to counter the strategy as I talked about before. I think this is a legitimate thing to do that can catch a lot of people off guard.

Also, Young Pyromancer has been less amazing than I expected, but still good. I kind of want something like I had in my RB deck where all
but my one drops had haste, making them all pseudo burn spells. Unfortunately white doesn't have nearly as much to offer as black does. Only Viashino Firstblade and Skyknight Legionnaire fit the bill. Spark Trooper hits hard but doesn't stick around. Then again, maybe the deck could top out with him? This has my gears turning...

[vundo]

I'm really interested to see Pedros' list and possibly a list of all the decks he faced. I've been playtesting versus mono U with a friend and I'm stuck around a 50% winrate with PyroDragon. Normally I'd be comfortable with this but for the vegas invitational, I have a feeling that I really need to up my %.
I think I'm definitely going to have 1 Rod of Ruin and 2 Last Breath in the sideboard. In 8 rounds of standard, I expect to see:
3 Mono U
2 Mono Black
1 Esper
1 Red Devotion
1 G/r Devotion

I'm not sure if that's a fair estimate or if I'm just overanxious.

[Pedros]

Ok I had to finish my project for school yesterday so no time to write a report yet, will probably finish it today at some point.

I am very happy for black red scry land, hopefully rb pyro tymaret chandra shell would be good.

Have ptq in 2 weeks,/have to decide between pyrodragons or some kind of devotion (seen really nice naya based red devo that splashed for domri and chains in the main. Looked awsome in the first glance.)

[LP, of the Fires]

For something like the SCG invitational, you have to think of the players that are gonna be there and what type of decks those players prefer. I'd expect Esper, UW, monoblack, R/w Nykthos, and Mono Blue to be the major players and to play no more then 2 of anything(probably black).

[RaidaTheBlade]

Honestly, I'm really interested in Pedros's idea of mb reckoners... I think that with mono-u seeing such a huge spike, it's a change for the better atm.

And with all out enter tapped lands and shock lands, we don't always have a turn one play anyway, so having less satyrs isn't such a huge hit compared to if we were running monored.

Also, i think y'all are right about my issues with mono-u being my skill. I'm onna get in contact with the dude at my lgs who plays mono-u and get him to grind train me for several hours before fnm.

[zemanjaski]

[quote="[url=viewtopic.php?p=155488#p155488:19b4hbw8]Valdarith » Tue Dec 03, 2013 3:11 pm[/url:19b4hbw8]":19b4hbw8]I playtested my list tonight in the practice room to get used to the playstyle. Deck is hard to play. Got nutdrawn on a lot by back-to-back-to-back Stormbreath Dragons on turns three, four, and five. I guess Jund is a thing. Also saw a lot of Sylvan Caryatid. If those become more prevalent we're going to have to find an answer to it. I know not to take much stock from the practice room though. I like this deck's chances against the devotion decks. If piloted properly it seems the matchups are favorable.

One particular deck I played had a lot of removal into a big wincon like Assemble the Legion. It made me strongly consider taking out my creatures just to counter the strategy as I talked about before. I think this is a legitimate thing to do that can catch a lot
of people off guard.

Also, Young Pyromancer has been less amazing than I expected, but still good. I kind of want something like I had in my RB deck where all but my one drops had haste, making them all pseudo burn spells. Unfortunately white doesn't have nearly as much to offer as black does. Only [card:19b4hbw8]Viashino Firstblade[/card:19b4hbw8] and [card:19b4hbw8]Skyknight Legionnaire[/card:19b4hbw8] fit the bill. Spark Trooper hits hard but doesn't stick around. Then again, maybe the deck could top out with him? This has my gears turning...[/quote:19b4hbw8]

Malthrin on reddit runs something like this:

[deck]
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler

4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker

4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Viashino Firstblade

4 Boros Charm
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
2 Shock

10 Mountain
2 Mutavault
2 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Sacred Foundry
[/deck]

Might be worth exploring that avenue.

[MattT]

Once Temple Of Malice (the RB Scryland) is out I will be testing RB

4 chances of Scry isn´t worth waiting for to test Blacks md & sb options (see my earlier comments) gives a number of different answers to both MonU and B. I feel I´m rather at the infamous skill divider with the deck, not having trouble with the build as Zems shell is very robust. The big question is what, if any, splash to add.

[magicdownunder]

I don't think reckoners are good against Ux, esp. now since they're running Domestication 2+ for the mirror...

[zemanjaski]

I like Black a lot.

RB has simikar strengths as RW in that it has hard removal and fights control well. However, Dreadbore is particularly exciting, as is Rakdos's Return. Tymaret is very good too. The black spells also all work with YP.

Black seems better vs Mono U too; so all signs are promising.

[vundo]

against mono U, im currently testing reckoners MB and siding them out g2+3 for more burn to fold to domestication

RB has really piqued my interests, gonna try testing some RB for the invi as well

[RaidaTheBlade]

Hmm, I like vundo's idea. They really only run domestication sideboard, so switchng it out would render that trick tougher...

Rb seems interesting, but I just got my r/w manabase ;-; Why you do this to me?

[zemanjaski]

I don't pay for cards sorry!

[Pedros]

Some decks at gp run simic manipulator over domestication in sb (3 guys registering next to me had it as a 4 off in sb).

Dreadbore is xtremely good, however doesnt kill master, while doomblade and ltimate price doesnt kill specter. Those are 2 most important targets right now.

Didnt have time to test legions initiative, however in one game i lost i had 2 phoenixes and op had 2 specters and i couldnt pass it. Anyone had some success with it?

What removal we are looking for in black splash?

[LP, of the Fires]

2 dreadbore, 1 doom blade, 2 ultimate price would likely be my starting point maindeck to compliment all the burn.

[zemanjaski]

Id go 2 Dreadbore, 1 Ultimate Price; I don't like to include too many terrors.

I'd be pretty tempted by 2 Read the Bones though.

[LP, of the Fires]

Read's an excellent suggestion. Gives you another GOOD turn 3 play and puts the game away when drawn late ensuring you have the cards you need to win.

[LP, of the Fires]

4 satyr
4 cackler
4 YP
3 Tymerat, the Burger King
4 Chandra's Phoenix

2 Dreadbore
1 Ultimate Price

2 Chandra
2 Read the Bones

4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
3 Shock

23 land? That's 16 spells. You probably want a stormbreath dragon in there and I wouldn't go below 23 lands in my tymerat/Chandra/YP deck.

[Pedros]

Dunno about read the bones, however black gives a lot value creatures.

One is new Rakdos guildmage which is good vs specter and resonable mana sink.