Hey everyone, a couple things I wanna post here regarding a few things. Number one, I broke 600 followers, and to me that means a bunch. Thank you to everyone that likes and reblogs my posts, I appreciate and read every comment, even a good chuck of tags, you sneaky blue mages. :) Secondly, this weekend I'm going to be helping judge Grand Prix Detroit! Don't worry, there'll still be posts, that's what scheduling is for. As a L1 judge I'll be working side events Friday as well as Saturday, as the main event is primarily reserved for L2 judges and higher. Either way I'm excited to run drafts, win a boxes as well as any scheduled events they let me help at. To any of my followers going, best of luck to you! I hope you have a good event, and get some good pulls in your sealed pool!
Early tomorrow morning, I'll be getting on the road to head down to Detroit for the Grand Prix.
I'll be playing (not judging) this one, and I'm super excited! I'm not going to spoil what I'm playing, but I promise to have a full event report when I come back.
If any of you happen to be there, feel free to find me and say hello. I'll have a lot more free time this weekend than I will at most GPs. I splurged for the VIP package, so that might make me easier to find, maybe.
Needless to say, I won't be very active here on the tumblr, if at all, until Monday.
Deckbuilder's Journey: The Story of How a Home-Brew Came to Be
By K.M. Watson
I'm sitting outside of work enjoying a coffee and relaxing before I start my shift. I can't stop thinking about my home-brew, mono-red Modern deck. I play-tested the hell out of it for a week; gold-fishing and making tweaks I found necessary to move it along as it began to progress faster and faster.
I had finally settled on what I thought was going to be a format-changing deck. A deck I was sure would lead to banned cards in the Modern format due to their power-level in my deck, my name on a World Championship Magic trophy and a trip to the R&D department to get a two-drop magic card with my face on it.
The rarely seen "Turbo Magic Win Trifecta" outside Wizards of the Coast R&D department.
However, my dreams were shattered when my deck shitted all over me while play testing against my friends.
The deck never really came together the way it did when I was playing alone. Now I know that sounds funny, but when you see things happening by turn two or three while fiddling around, you expect to see that very same thing happen at least once in real time. Sometimes it doesn't. I'm actually quite glad that my deck took a dump because it lead me to the next version… which lead to the current version of mono-red… which by now is no longer mono-anything but a classic RUG deck… kinda.
In this deck I'm taking the classic Storm concept of playing as many spells as possible and I'm putting a twist on it; as in: "I'm not storming, I'm playing multiple cheap spells in a turn to tick up my Pyromancer's Ascension." I'm hoping that multiple turns in a row (via Temporal Mastery) and disgusting amounts of damage for free (via Pyromancer's Ascension) will deter my opponents from playing (or winning). My idea behind the deck is to tick the Ascension up fast (preferably by turn 2 or 3) and be ready to miracle one free turn after another with Noxious Revival+Temporal Mastery; all this is supplemented by the multiple scry cards I have at my disposal.
My favorite thing about this deck and the whole process is that it's versatile; meaning that everything can and will be used whether in my hand or from the 'yard. The evolution of my deck from its original design shows much variance but, with the same gameplay concept in mind, it's now ripping and running.
Sometimes Google Image Search really comes through.
I like that a person can start with an idea in-mind, completely veer off course and end up with a wildly different concept in hand. This deck's journey proves just that.
Let's go back even further.
This all started by building a deck around abusing Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded by using Madness, Hellbent, other discarding effects, as well as graveyard recursion through cards such as Demigod and Chandra's Phoenix. Here's my original build:
Creatures:16
4 Demigod of Revenge
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Hell's Thunder
Spells:20
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Axe
4 Devil's Play
4 Browbeat
4 Fiery Temper
Planeswalker:4
Tibalt, The Useless
Lands:20
4 Arid Mesa
8 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
2 Keldon Megaliths
Sideboard:15
2 Wheel of Fate
3 Gut Shot
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Leyline of Punishment
The first version was pretty fast and was very efficient with its damage. Almost nothing went to waste; although most copies of browbeat were tossed with Tibalt and pitched to emergency Lightning Axes. Unfortunately, guarding Tibalt became a chore with most of my creatures having to be sacrificed at end of turn. With some changes to this deck it could be a lot of fun to play and perhaps I will return to work on this version one day. I really want to use Tibalt. My suggestion for anyone wanting to run a Tibalt build is to add Reckless Wurm for its cheap madness and for the fact that you won't have to sacrifice it.
And you can play that sweet foil that's been sitting in your binder forever.
Now, I know what you're thinking, "where's the next build that you didn't settle on? LOL." Fine then. I see its all "tappin and swingin" with this crowd, and I can dance too. I can dance if I want to...I can leave my friends behind. Ok, ok. I swear that's the last time I sing.
While searching for greater synergy and ways to beef the defenses for Tibalt, I started to add cards, toss cards, read cards and other usual deck building techniques. After adjusting my creature base with Reckless, I fixed my sights on my spells. I entered the advanced search options on Gatherer: Modern, red, instant/sorcery… awesome. I found Pyromancers Ascension… well, more like "rediscovered". This is when I came to the realization that, if I wanted my deck to progress I would just have to drop Tibalt. Tibalt was out, Ascension was in. I moved on. Just like with any relationship I promised I would stay friends and keep in touch, but I feel I may never see Tibalt again.
Build número dos:
Spells:42
4 Wheel of Fate
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Noxious Revival
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Glacial Ray
4 Magma Jet
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Surging Flame
3 Browbeat
Lands:18
4 Arid Mesa
6 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
Sideboard:15
4 Gut Shot
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Leyline of Punishment
The first version of this build ran only two Wheel of Fate, but when I burned through the cards in my hand, which happened quite fast (usually turn three) I was dead in the water; at the mercy of the dreaded Top Deck Mode. I didn't have bombs to pose any threat to my opponent other than hoping to rip a chain of Surging Flames that coupled very nicely with my ticked-up Pyro. Being able to cast, copy, and ripple 4 was pretty sweet. My best was one from hand and two from the deck, coupled with the Pyro copies gave me a whopping twelve damage for two mana. But after that it was a waiting game if I didn't nut-draw.
Remember; Nut drawing takes practice.
So in came more Wheels and that really helped. They usually popped right around the time I needed it; delivering a new hand of spells not only for me but my opponent as well. I wasn't too worried about my opponents hand unless I was playing American Control or Faeries. Copying the wheel and then responding to it with instants from my new hand before dumping it was great. It was a little intense to keep track of all the spells on the stack, but I got the hang of it.
All-in-all this version was super fun and intense to play. I really didn't want to give up on it or the idea of Pyro. (Who doesn't like free spells?) So while play-testing with my fellow teammates (whom I'm grateful for) and losing 90% of my games (I'm not entirely sure on the math) one of them floated the idea of miracles. Just dangled it out there! He knew I'd snag that up like a hungry bass lurking in the shadows, waiting for bait to drop through the watery pillars of the sun's rays. Jerk. So after some discussion and a quick rebuild I came up with version three:
Spells:40
4 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Noxious Revival
4 Serum Visions
4 Explore
4 Magma Jet
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Temporal Mastery
Lands:20
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Breeding Pool
3 Gemstone Mine
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Steam Vents
3 Stomping Ground
Sideboard:15
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Leyline of Punishment
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tel-Jilad Justice
3 Young Pyromancer
As of right now I'm having a lot of fun with this. Two extra turns for two mana is pretty dope. I have enough draw and scry to set myself up for my miracles and/or what is needed at the moment. Like any player, I'm super bummed about cards that I would like to use being banned (Mental Misstep, Preordain, Rite of Flame, Punishing Fire and maybe even Ponder) but wish in one hand and…how does the saying go? Ahh yes. Shit… shit in the other.
I took my sideboard and added a different win condition to the deck, I don't want to fall flat on my face if I can't get a Pyro on the board. Also, I really want to play a semi-aggressive build if needed. Cards I have in mind for the main and side are: Remand, Guttersnipe, V-Clique, Pyroclasm, and Reforge the Soul. I don't know what to expect, but I will certainly keep you in the loop. Plenty of play-testing will be done in the upcoming months due to GenCon and GP Detroit which is a tie-in to my next article about MGM and Grand Prix Detroit!
I hope this article will help you to see all that goes into deck-building. It involves building decks that don't work that well and turning them into ones that do. It may be frustrating at times when your initial ideas don't pay off the way you intended but that's part of the process. Remember, it's the journey not the destination.
