So, I'm writing a constructed tournament report. I really never thought such a day would come. I'm sure there's a bit of TL;DR, but that's fine. I'm putting this down for me, and I hope to share it with anyone interested. I really feel like I need to process the whole development, both of this deck, and my experience with constructed in general. This is part 1, the Preface, so to speak.
Anyone who knows even the smallest bit about me and Magic, knows I play about 90% limited. I dabble with standard when I think there's a combo deck that will be fun to play, or the occasional rogue deck I brew up. The first 'real' standard deck I played was Grixis control, (post Lorwyn rotation). Standard bored me, and I kept it built until it rotated, in case the need for a deck arose. Then was the printing of Zendikar. This moved me to Standard for a couple reasons. 1) I had finally owned a full "standard" collection (started drafting in Conflux). 2) I hated the limited format. (2-drop, beat you, go) 3) Pyromancer Ascension came into existence.
Short introspective on my short Standard career (feel free to skip):
My friend built a 4-color Pyromancer deck, and I'd watch him play it between rounds of my drafts. He explained to me how it worked briefly, but I didn't really follow it (and wasn't that interested at the time). Then, I saw it played. I walked up, and I had assumed the game had ended. He was grabbing 4 cards off the top of his library, taking one out, then did that 2 more times. I figured he had scooped, and was sideboarding the next match, or maybe just looking at the top of his library in frustration. In actuality, he had cast a Worldly Counsel copied twice. I was immediately hooked to watch how this game played out. Later that game, he took the rest of the turns, and won via Banefire (other weeks, it would be different kill cards to dodge haters that ran Thought Hemmorage). He helped me learn how to play the deck, and I did. For a long time. When ROE came out, i played Brilliant Ultimatum for a little while, but went back to Pyromancer when I saw Mike Flores first version of the Archive Trap version. Since then I'd abandoned the deck, as I really liked ROE & M11 Limited, but Scars has been a bit underwhelming for me. When Flores "revisited" his Archive Trap version, I dusted mine off, and wow, he only changed a few cards. So I ran it. It did poorly, but I played poorly, and I started tweaking with it over the last 2 months. My goal was to fine tune the deck for the Star City Games open...
The Deck:
Most of you have probably heard me talking about my deck for quite some time. I've posted various iterations of the deck, and I've never played the same 75 in any given tournament. It started with the stock Flores Archive Trap version, and after getting hammered by aggro decks, I came up with a Shape Anew->Blightsteel Colossus plan that seemed cute, and I wanted to try it. It turned out to be amazing. Then I realized the power of the transformational sideboard, and decided to put the Traps into the board also, so I could begin the game as Counter/Burn, and side into traps for control, and Shape Anew for aggro. This was successful, but left me very narrow sideboarding options as the trap package took 7 cards and the Shape Anew package took 8. Ultimately, I cut the traps from the board, in favor of a package that was good against Caw-Blade, but also had other applications. Initially, it was 3 Combust, 4 Spreading Seas, but at the Final FNM before the SCG, I didn't side them in once. I also, was losing with Mana Leak in my hand, and having repeated issues beating a Gideon or a Collonade (Combust helps this alot***). I decided I'd up the spell pierce count to 4, and cut Mana Leak all together. I was debating putting the Leaks in the board over the Seas, but at about 1am me and my friend who first introduced me to Pyromancer Ascension settled on Negate instead. I'm pretty sure this decision cost me 2 of my 3 losses.
Here is the deck I registered:
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Preordain
4 See Beyond
4 Arc Trail
3 Treasure Hunt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
4 Spell Pierce
4 Into the Roil
2 Jace's Ingenuity
4 Halimar Depths
4 Scalding Tarn
8 Island
7 Mountains
Sideboard:
3 Shape Anew
3 Trinket Mage
1 Darksteel Axe
1 Blightsteel Colossus
3 Combust
4 Negate
One of the card choices of interest are Jace's Ingenuity, over Foresee. I read an old article about Fact or Fiction recently, by Mike Flores, about how casting it at the end of the opponents turn, would simply win the game. When my friend and I were brewing, he joked about Mana Short, and my mind exploded. Casting an end-step Jace's Ingenuity simply wins the game. If your Ascension(s) is online, then you should just untap and win. Even if its not, you're perfectly positioned to win within 2-3 turns. If your opponent counters it, then you get to untap and have an uninhibited turn-a la Mana Short. If they don't you're fully reloaded, which is just as amazing. The other reason I like the card over Foresee, is because burn spells don't cantrip. Against aggro sometimes you just run out of cards, I do normally board this out against aggro, in favor of the Shape Anew, however.
Shape Anew package is another interesting feature, the deck has. It provides a lot of resilience for Aggro decks. If they are fast enough, the matchup is rough, the Trinket Mage supplies a blocker (and tutor) and their sideboard for my deck is already narrow, and I love blanking people's Memoricide (vamps).
The superstar of the deck is Into the Roil, it does what you need it to do against every deck. It took me a while to be willing to simply cast it unkicked, as I always wanted value out of it, but once I was able to figure out when I need to be kicking it, versus simply bouncing a permanent that NEEDED to be dealt with, I realized this card has to be x4 in this deck.
That's the deck, I'm going to post more about my tournament experience in a separate post, to try and break this up a bit. In short, if Caw-Blade continues to be the "best deck", I'm 100% confident that my deck runs all over it, and has favorable matchups against most of the top decks. Decks with black potentially pose a threat if they are able to board into both 4xDuress and 4xInquisition. Memoricide isn't too bad, since it costs 4, and you can usually find a counterspell by then. Aggro decks are tough, Game 1, while with the right draw of removal, are certainly winnable. Game 2 is almost an auto-win, barring an awful set of mulligans, which leaves game 3 up to how you decide to board for the final match. Sometimes going back to the maindeck is the right call. I make this decision on a matchup by matchup basis.
If you want to find out more about the matches I played at SCGLA, and my experience, stay tuned for the next part tomorrow. :)
Thanks for reading!
Part 2 is up here, with a break down of each match.
***FYI: If you Combust a Gideon while it's a creature, not only is damage marked on it (because it's a creature), but it also loses Loyalty counters (because its still a planeswalker). What this normally means is:
Opponent, casts gideon, and +2's to 8. Their next turn they activate to creature, you respond with bolt it to 5. They usually pause here, but almost always allow it, knowing they can still attack. After they attack, you can Combust the Gideon, it loses its remaining Loyalty, and when SBA are checked, it goes to Graveyard.***
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