Sunday, December 5, 2010

Current Decklist - 12-5-2010

I've been running a fairly consistant maindeck on MTGO for 150 or so matches now, and it looks something like this:

Combo:
4x Pyromancer Ascension

Removal:
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Burst Lightning
2x Pyroclasm

Counter:
4x Mana Leak
2x Spell Pierce

Draw:
4x Preordain
4x See Beyond
3x Foresee

Utillity:
4x Into the Roil
2x Call to Mind

Land:
9x Island
7x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Halimar Depths

Sideboard: (Source of perpetual thought)
4x Kiln Fiend
2x Pyroclasm
2x Spell Pierce
4x Spreading Seas
2x Negate
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle.

Comments about maindeck cards:

I'm main-decking 2x Pyroclasm against the 50%+ "metagame" of the MtGO tournament practice room.  This probably greatly overrepresents the amount of aggro present in a real tournament.  My most common sideboard is swapping these out for spell pierce, or vice versa.

I'm also main-decking 2x Spell Pierce against the scary control or ramp decks.  It works great against planeswalkers, early PA hate (T2 Ratchet Bomb, Luminarch Asc), or even things like WWQuest on the play.  It is rarely dead, and it takes a lot of people by surprise, so it seems reasonable to have it.  It loses alot of its luster turn 8 or so, but it earns its keep early.

Into the Roil is a all-star.  It does an incredible amount of work digging me out of holes in nearly every matchup.  I wish I could play 6 or so of them, because it is often my only out.  However, the alternatives are pretty bad (Disperse, as ITR without the option of kicker?  Unsummon, not targetting non-creatures?).  It is the answer to Ratchet Bomb, Luminarch, Leylines, Wurmcoil Engine, Kor Firewalker, Ultra-pumped or temporary men.  The only things it doesn't answer very well are planeswalkers, and CIP-creatures.  It can also bounce my Ascension against removal.  After ascending, it's often my best non-draw spell to draw, and can provide huge swings in board position.  It doesn't handle the preeminent threat of our time (Titans) amazingly well, but if you're in a position to win, it can buy you a turn or so to pull it off.

3x Foresee.  I often see other decklists running 4x.  While it is the best topdeck you can have at 8 mana and no cards in hand, often preordain is a superior option before that point.  I almost always shuffle them away with early See Beyonds, just because I either don't have the mana to cast it, or it won't solve my problem.  It feels quite a bit like Demonic Tutor.  You get the card you want (maybe, in Foresees case), but it costs you your turn, or you die, or your counter-shields are down, or whatever.  I can't imagine being able to use 4 maindeck, and I often side one out to fit in removal to let me live to cast the one I will eventually draw.

See Beyond has lost me a few games though my own incompetence.  When it draws you the one card you need to win, and you're excited, what's the first thing you do?  Click on the card, of course.  Well, that shuffles the card back into your library, which is often not what was desired at the time.  You definitely have to play calmly with See Beyond, especially when it is doubled or tripled.  See Beyond also shuffles your library, which I do not consider to be an advantage.  It can easily undo 6 or so cards worth of scrying-land-to-the-bottom, and I'm not really a fan of having completely random draws again.  Of all the cards in the maindeck, See Beyond is the one I like the least.  I'm considering some other options, like Treasure Hunt, to supplement it, or replace it entirely.  I'm just not sure that Treasure Hunt is what I need, especially in a deck packing Mana Leak and Spell Pierce.  I guess revealing the top card of your library doesn't hurt RUG decks that much, maybe I should just suck it up and make the swap.

2x Call to Mind.  Often, an easy way to charge up a Ascension, is to just cycle Call to Minds.  I'd like to have 3 of these, just so I wouldn't be forced into saving the second one, or so I could double the second one into not-call-to-mind, if I wanted.

I am not happy with 11 of the sideboard cards, They are a work in progress.  Kiln Fiend seems good, but Red and Black tend to have passive ways to remove them that they just leave in because they have no better card against me.  Green tends to have 2-power blockers (Oracle, Cobra, Nest Invader) that are hard to attack into.  Blue has Trinket Mages and White has Kor Firewalkers.  So the window for Kiln Fiend to work its magic is slim.  When it does work, it is a beauty to behold.  But when it doesn't, you are swinging with a 1/2, while holding 4 counterspells.  Or drawing two Kiln Fiends, two Pyromancer Ascensions.  It has been a 50-50 card for me thusfar, and more testing will be requires before I can say it's definitely worth the slots.

I'll talk more about sideboard cards in another post, but for this one, decklist presented, mission accomplished.

No comments:

Post a Comment