4x:
Preordain is non-cuttable. It is pretty much the best spell you can cast after Ascending (because it costs the least mana, and draws you the best 2 cards in your top 6 - aka Foresee), and also the best spell you can cast to draw and play Ascension. Also, keeping both and drawing the non-Ascension on turn 1 against discard is pretty phenomenal.
The proliferate effects are pretty amazing. Volt Charge and Tezzeret's Gambit are very nice cards on their own. It's unfortunate that VC can't kill the 4-toughness threats out of Splinter-Twin, but it doubles with Bolt to kill a Titan/C-Sphynx, and eats pretty big chunks out of their life total at an easy to cast three mana instant. Tezzeret's Gambit is simply amazing. (3)-Draw 2 cards would be pretty good, but this is so much more. Super easy to cast, super good pre or post Ascension. But the proliferate effects offer you pretty amazing ways to one-card charge the Ascension.
The rebound spells can full-one-card charge the spell (at the cost of waiting a turn) if you have another copy in your graveyard, but the proliferate spells also do that. The proliferate spells have the additional charge scenario where you already have one counter, but no copy of the proliferate spell in your graveyard.
Staggershock is definitely the best rebound spell, because it is the cheapest one, you can cast. It is very often card advantage, and random aggro destroying. It is a huge 8-point life chunk post-Ascending, though it can be problematic that you have to wait for a turn to get the second 4. There are also some scenarios you can get into, where you plan to use the second half, to combine with another spell to kill larger creatures (like Leatherback Baloth), or combo with a spell like Arc Trail to get a 3-for-2.
Scalding Tarn is the only "dual land" that exists in standard these days for enemy colors. Sure, you could use Terramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds, but you can only use so many tap-lands, because you really need to be spending all your mana each turn. You do have some gaps in the curve, like 4, and 5, where you can't cast two three mana spells, so perhaps including some of the "bad" fetches is a good idea. One thing people will do wrong with the deck is cracking the Tarns for no real purpose. The advantage you get for saving them for a Halimar Depths, or to fix your mana on a critical turn is quite good. Often you can run into situations on your last turn where you need to have RR or UU, and if you fetch too early, you can be "stuck" on only being able to cast one burn spell, or one draw spell.
PA is fairly obvious. It is very hard for decks to remove game 1, so even if I wanted to play Koth, I'd sideboard it.
And of course, playing 4x of all of these is near-mandatory, because of the way PA works. You want to be casting spells that are the same as spells you have cast already, and rebound and proliferate get exponentially better in these scenarios.
That is 8 land slots, and 28 spell slots that are taken.
What about the rest? Lands...
However, there are some downsides. Since our mana-fixing is pretty terrible, being able to go UURR2 on turn 6, to cast two draw spells and two burn spells is sometimes hard.
Also, if we consider cards we might put in, they tend to be more mana-intensive. Searing Blaze (RR), Jace Beleren (1UU), Into the Roil (1U/2UU), Koth the Hammer (2RR), or even the older versions of Deprive (UU) and Mindbreak Trap (2UU) are more mana-intensive. And Koth definately wants Mountains, due to the ease at which we can ultimate it.
Island-Mountain balance: It really depends on the other cards that are taken below, so this will be a dynamic solution based on the answer chosen for the Non-Land question. Currently there are 8 blue + 4 phyrexian blue mana symbols, and 16 red mana symbols. (+28 colorless mana symbols)
This would indicate a skew towards red, but not an extreme one, without knowing our answer to other non-land cards.
Overall, we're going to be playing 22 land at an absolute minimum, with 24 being the likely target.
What about the rest? Non-Lands...
Card Draw:
Gitaxian Probe is pretty good. It can be free, which is often relevant. It lets you know whether they can counter your turn 2 PA, while still being able to cast your PA. It can give you your first counter for free, to cast a proliferate spell. It doesn't require anything else in play to be cast (no creatures in play, etc). Really, the way the deck plays out (without counters), there aren't a lot of decision points where this information will change what you do, so it may be a trap. But being able to cast it for (0), especially against control decks, is a great way to charge up your Ascension, draw cards when you are Ascended, and burn your opponent out.
Twisted Image is okay. It kills a few cards. Notably:
Spellskite (pretty good against your 3 damage burn spells)
Overgrown Battlement (Valakut, Turboland)
Signal Pest (hyper-aggro)
Ornithopter (Tempered Steel, Vengevine)
Birds of Paradise (Green aggro)
Hedron Crab (Rogue.dec)
Some Allies (including some good ones, but allies aren't exactly popular)
Steppe Lynx (Boros is mostly dead though)
and draws a card, of course. It is a draw-3 against Precursor Golem, which is something. (it doesn't deal with it at all, but...)
There aren't a ton of ways to get value out of it by switching a creature's power and toughness, since there aren't many Ball Lightnings in the format, most things are relatively even in power and toughness. So maybe TI is a sideboard card, against Wall-Valakut, or Spellskite-Splinter-Twin (though it does nothing to answer the combo, boo)
Into the Roil is pretty solid. It has way more uses than people realize, and people are rarely playing around it. As an instant, it can be cast in combat, or at end of turn. It is a card draw spell late, and is pretty awesome against several hate cards, or in response to removal on your PA, which makes it a sort of counterspell as well. It is the heaviest blue spell that is being strongly considered, and it is fairly hard to cast UU spells with so much of your blue mana coming from Halimar Depths. It is pretty much the only answer to Leyline of Sanctity, Kor Firewalker, and Ratchet Bomb, Splinter Twin and Nature's Claim. It really doesn't answer some other problems that the deck has though, like Thrun, Calcite Snapper, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Gaea's Revenge, or Titans, which are somewhat more prevalent problems.
The problem I have with ITR now is that it is the most reactive card in the deck. It doesn't kill them, it is a very expensive card draw spell, and I don't have the countermagic to back it up. I'd much rather just kill my opponent these days, and ITR really doesn't help with that. Koth is a pretty good answer to most of the answers to PA (as is Kiln Fiend), so you're not "dead" to Leyline, or Kor Firewalker or some shroud-creature, if you just kill them.
See Beyond is an okay draw spell. It is better than a lot of other options, and it is a 2 mana spell, which gives some good options on turn 5. If you discarded the card instead of shuffling it back in, I'd be 100% behind this card. Treasure Hunt definitely stocks you up with land, so shuffling one away to See Beyond could be a pretty nice combo.
Call to Mind was a one-card charge spell that I cut in favor of Surreal Memoir. Surreal Memoir is actual card advantage, and pretty insane at killing people (with bolts). It is also a one-card charge, if you have cast another Surreal Memoir (or discarded it, SM is a prime card to discard) CTM is somewhat better at burning people out, but both are pretty slow.
Steady Progress is a proliferate card, which I've been talking up left and right. It is also an INSTANT SPEED card draw spell, which is not to be underestimated. Unfortunately, it is also a 3 mana spell, which you have near-infinite of in this deck. It is hard to play two spells in a turn until turn 6, and once you are ascended, it is a Gitaxian Probe that costs 3 mana instead of maybe 0. That's pretty rough.
Jace Beleren is a card I don't think I have ever cast in a real game. It doesn't do anything to charge up PA, or really to help you win the game at all, but it is a planeswalker, and you could in theory kill a control deck with it, via milling, or preventing other Jaces. The problem is that the "control" deck plays a ton of creatures to bash down your Jace, so it's not exactly safe, like it might be against a UW planewalker do-nothing deck.
Surreal Memoir I've talked about a bit above. Rebound spells are pretty strong with PA, both before and after charging it up. It costs four, and probably gives you a three casting cost spell back, so it often is not amazing for using your mana. Three of these is about as many as you'd want, so it's pretty rare to cast to charge up PA. You'd better win the game if you cast this post-Ascending. (You can cast bolts in your upkeep before the rebound copy resolves, which is a great way to optimize your mana spent)
The options I like the most here are:
Gitaxian Probe, because it can be cast for free.
See Beyond, because it costs two.
Into the Roil, because it is so versatile.
Call to Mind, because of the raw utility.
Surreal Memoir, as a finisher.
Blue Non-Card Draw: Aka counterspells
Turn Aside is a one-mana counterspell for anything that targets perminants (aka Koth, PA, Kiln)
Mana Leak is general goodness.
Deprive is the "best" general purpose hard counter. (And combos okay with Halimar Depths)
Flashfreeze is good against G/R (Valakut, Rug)
Dispel/Spell Pierce/Negate are good in counter-wars
Fuel for the Cause is a proliferate counterspell, but it costs 4, with double-blue(ug - what the heck are they casting that you need to pay 4 to counter it?)
The problem with ALL of these is that they don't do anything proactive towards winning the game. They also don't do much against Valakut (aka lands + summoning trap), or Grixis Twin (discard + tapping lands), or Stoneforge/Squadron Hawk. (+ Spell Pierce)
An advantage to them, is that they do give you something to do with mana you leave open to cast your instant-speed burn. If this was not a PA deck, I'd play like 1x Spell Pierce, 1x Mana Leak, in order to screw with my opponent to the max, but because singletons, and counters, are so bad at charging PA, I don't think that's a great plan.
Red Burn:
Burst Lightning is good because it costs R, or R4, which are both pretty easy to cast. It is an instant, so you can use your mana well each turn. It is also a pretty good spell for killing players. Four damage is a pretty good number for killing Deceiver Exarchs, Spellskites, Overgrown Battlements (not really), and maybe some other stuff. Two damage (for R) is pretty good at killing Goblin Guide, Stoneforge Mystic, Fauna Shaman, Lotus Cobra, and a bunch of other stuff.
Arc Trail is a spell I really like. It is a really solid 2 mana spell. It gets some incidental damage in to players while killing creatures. It costs 2, which is way better than 3, along with all the 3's we already have. It comes down early enough to take care of the 2-casting cost creatures, and it is never dead. You can always shoot yourself for one and kill your control opponent. (Your control opponent is never going to be putting you in life-danger)
Searing Blaze gives Arc Trail a run for it's money. Three damage is a lot of damage, and you get the three damage to their head when it is doubled with Ascension, unlike some other options (Into the Roil) when they only have one creature-target. You have Scalding Tarn to turn it on sometimes, but IMO casting it as a sorcery is 80% effective. The biggest downside to this spell is it's casting cost (RR). It is pretty hard to cast a double-red spell on even 3 mana. Including Searing Blaze would be the biggest reason to cut Tectonic Edge. (Searing Blaze would kill them faster, which would make Tech Edge less necessary, so that at least is a double-advantage for dropping TE).
I like Searing Blaze.
Combust is good against cards people aren't playing (Baneslayer), and Deciever Exarch, because it will not be redirected by Spellskite, is a cheap spell, and it can't be countered, all of which are quite important. It is not amazing against BRU lists, because they make you discard it, but it is better than Into the Roil, against that deck.
Pyroclasm, and Combust, are pretty bad, because doubling them is pretty bad, and they are just another 2:1, that does not kill super-big creatures (titans), and also doesn't go to the head. When you're facing down a Jace, or a Primeval Titan, or a Collonade, and your answer is Pyroclasm, you're just dead. Lava Axe is a better spell for those purposes, and who the heck plays Lava Axe? And why the heck doesn't Lava Axe cost 4? Anyway, spells that can't possibly target players are not good, because you can end up drawing them, and that doesn't kill your opponent. So many games come down to attrition-fests.
Slagstorm is okay. It'd be a fine main-deck option, but as a sweeper, it really seems like Arc Trail is better. There are so many three-mana spells in the deck already, putting another one is is pretty meh. Staggershock and Arc Trail do a pretty good Pyroclasm/Slagstorm impersonation, so I'm not overly tempted to include more.
Red Sun's Zenith is an odd duck. It does not charge PA up very well at all, but it totally demolishes after Ascending. (or even without Ascending). It is about as good as Burst Lightning early, and is about as good late. It solves some problems, like Vengevine and Bloodghast, very well. It does a pretty good job of being a finisher to the dome. You have no trouble getting Ascended, so drawing into one of these with multiple draw spells on turn n, and then just blowing them away on turn n+1.
I see RSZ competing with Surreal Memoir, as a finisher spell. Having 1-3 of them main-deck seems like a pretty reasonable plan. You don't need 4, because they won't end up in the graveyard. And as a finisher, having just a few is a solid plan.
Lavaball Trap makes me "squee". 4-damage pyroclasm that kills off many of the shroud creatures (Turtle, Thrun), yum! It can definitely mana-screw these three-color decks, or even two-color decks that we see these days. Grixis Twin only plays two Mountains, so shutting that off could be good. It seems like it should be pretty okay against Valakut, though it may be a turn too slow, especially with no countermagic. I really want to play it, but my rational brain knows that it is terrible. It needs to cost about 3 to be reasonable, so at 8, trap cost of 5, it's just too expensive.
Conclusions:
I really like Red Sun Zenith as a 1-3 of.
Arc Trail (+ Tectonic Edge) and Searing Blaze compete for good additional anti-aggro slots.
Burst Lightning is good, but it competes with RSZ (and competes well, to be sure)
Overall Top Candidates:
There are alot of 2's here, which is no coincidence. The mana curve before these extra cards looks like this:
1: ||||||||
2: ||||||||
3: |||||||||||| (counting Tezz. Gambit)
Searing Blaze and Arc Trail compete strongly. Both may be sideboard options, because aggro is fairly under control via the omni-burn.
See Beyond and Gitaxian Probe compete strongly.
Red Sun's Zenith and Into the Roil aren't competing for anything but slots. ITR is so versitile, but maybe we don't need it main-deck, and out of the sideboard it will be just as effective dealing with sideboarded Leylines, etc.
I'll play a few games with 4x gitaxian, considering whether I'd rather they were See Beyond, 2x RSZ, 2x Into the Roil (and think about whether these should be See Beyond). I'll also play 4x tech edge, and see how hard Searing Blaze would be to cast, with 8x mountain, 4x Island, 4x Halimar, 4x Tech Edge, 4x Scalding Tarn.
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