What is the correct number of Bonfire of the Damned? I never seem to get them when I need them, and I always seem to have them in my opening hand, which is pointless. I thought 4x is a must, but now I'm not so sure...
I thought so too but I'm only using 2 right now. 2 or 3 is probably correct when paired with other removal like FtK.Originally Posted by jin
Yeah, I noticed you moved to 2x Bonfire (according to your list several pages back), but I'm not so sure about Flametongue Kavu. He doesn't always seem awesome and sometimes you have to drop him to get hellbent, but then you have to shoot a creature that you don't want to shoot. It just seems not so great with the plan.
I actually like the equipment plan, because I feel that all of the weenies don't do anything unless they have equipment. I like someone's suggestion of running 4-5 equipment because without library maniuplation, it's really hard to get to them. I used to run 3, but I might try to 4-5 equipment build (2 of them being Batterskull). The thing about equipment, is that it's very slow. So slow, in fact, that the time you bought with your initial lock might be not enough for Dragon Stompy to win. I've been having lots of equipment stuck in my hand with the 5x equipment build. I might try cutting one and moving down to 4. I do like how Batterskull is both a creature and armour for your weenies...
Hi All,
I've just built this deck, and am wondering about some peoples sideboard choices - specifically Ensnaring Bridge.
I'm a bit of a noob, but assume it's for sneak and show? My question is this, who do you board it in against, and how do you sculpt your game around it?
You play it vs show and tell decks. Keep enough cards in your hand so you can attack with your swarm of dudes. You can also bring it in vs merfolk. They autolose to it.
About Bonfire, I would probably rub 3 or 4. There's almost never a time that it's bad, right?
I attended SCG DC this past weekend.
11 Mountains
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Blood Moon
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Trinisphere
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
4 Gathan Raiders
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Serum Powder
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Fortune Thief
SIDEBOARD
2 Spellskite
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Pyroclasm
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Trinisphere
3 Ingot Chewer
Went 3-3 drop.
Round 1 - Ian on Pox 1-2
G1 he mulls and I start with CotV @1. Turn 2 I play a moon effect. Gathan Raiders gets there. All I see of him is Bloodghast, Sinkhole, Urborg, and Swamp. I put him on Zombardment. Took out Serum Powders and 3spheres for Revokers and Spellskites.
G2 I mull to 5 and he starts with Thoughtseize followed turn 2 with Hymn (taking Raiders and a City). I played a Magus which he made me sac after he played Liliana. I play a Revoker on Lili but he follows his turn with Smallpox. Liliana locked me out as he swings with a vampire and factory.
G3 I mull to 6 and start with nothing impressive. He Hymns me taking Thundermaw Hellkite and a Bonfire leaving me with 2 sol lands.... Liliana locks my hand and Crucible/Waste locks out my mana.
Round 2 - Curtis on 4-Color DRS 2-0
G1 Serum Powder, Serum Powder, playable 7. He mulls to 6 and starts with Deathrite Shaman. He dazes my CotV @1. I land a Blood Moon and he can't play anymore. I board in Cavern and take out City.
G2 I Serum Powder then mull to 6. He starts with Tundra, Delver. I go all in on a Trinisphere after playing a Mountain and two Chrome Moxes removing my remaining cards. He Forces it... He shows Decay off Delver and attacks after playing a second Tundra. I draw and play a Cavern on Human then a Cavern on Dragon. He keeps attacking and missing lands. FtK kills Delver and I win.
Round 3 - Dan on RUG Delver 2-0
I get a free 7 from Serum Powder and he mulls to 6. I play Magus turn 1 and he follows with Bolt. It gets to be me at 11 with a 5/5 Raiders and him at 7 with a 5/6 Goyf. Neither of us have a hand. I draw and play CotV @1. Next turn I play Magus. From there I build my board until I overwhelm and win. I take out Cities and Fortune Thief putting in Caverns and a Spellskite.
G2 he starts with a cantrip and Forces my Magus. I try a Blood Moon and it meets another Force. Pit Dragon meets Bolt. I land a Blood Moon, eventually a threat and win.
Round 4 - Joey on Miracles 1-2
I know Joey from Redcap's Corner. I know he's on Miracles which I feel is a bad matchup and have been testing against.
G1 I start after mulling to 6. I get turn 1 Blood Moon. He plays Top. Turn 2 I draw and play CotV @1. He plays Counterbalance, then Helm of Obedience, then Energy Field which stops my clocks after getting him to 4. As I wonder if I can deal with Energy Field, he plays Rest in Peace and it's over. I take out a 3sphere, 3 Cities, and 2 Kavus for 3 Revokers and 3 Caverns.
G2 I start with CotV @1. Turn 2 Koth followed by turn 3 Pit Dragon. Game over. I board out the Bonfires and a Fortune Thief for 3 Ingot Chewers.
G3 I resolve Magus. He gets a Counterbalance. Then a Helm. I play a Pit Dragon and Koth. He plays Energy Field after I get him to 6. Koth makes an emblem and I have 6 lands that are Mountains under Magus. I have 2 threats and 2 Spirit Guides in my hand. I draw Ingot Chewer! I tap a Mountain to evoke him. Chewer breaks the Energy Field and I attack. He miracles Entreat the Angels for some ridiculous number. Had I just used a Spirit Guide to evoke the Chewer I could have pinged him with my Mountains for the win... Oh well.
Round 5 - Broc on High Tide 2-0
He mulls to 6 and plays Misty Rainforest. He's salty about a prior loss and doesn't pay attention to my Magus. I ask if it resolves and he says it does. I pass the turn and he has a Mountain. He plays another Mountain and scoops as I beat with Magus.
G2 he cantrips before I play CotV@1. I establish a clock as he Cunning Wishes for Wipe Away then again for Intuition. He is forced to attempt to combo off turn 6 but only has 2 untapped Islands after playing High Tide. He Ponders then concedes.
Round 6 - Seth on Painter's Servant 0-2
He starts with a Mountain and I put him on Goblins. I play CotV @1. He plays Painter's Servant naming Blue. I play Blood Moon turn 2. He plays Imperial Recruiter for Jaya Ballard, Task Mage and it all goes downhill. I board in everything but Caverns and remove my Moon effects.
G2 we trade blows and Ingot Chewer made a big impression on me. When we are at 12 and 11 life, he combo's off. Oh well...
At this point the 3 hour head start on getting home sounded better than 3 more rounds of Magic.
The decks I expected to beat, I did. The rogue decks I have no experience against, I lost. And a bad matchup I threw away to a play mistake.Oh well. It was the largest event I've been to at 268 players. I almost geeked out when I sat next to Jim Davis at the players meeting. As a Goblins enthusiast I had to shake his hand.
Ingot Chewer was a champ. I would play 4 next time. Fortune Thief didn't come up... I played it as a morph once. Serum Visions... helped? This deck can really shit on itself hard from mulligans. I was happy to look at the free hands the times I mentioned above. Bonfire for 2 damage was always awesome against creature decks. Even for 5 mana.
It's always comedy gold when this happens.
Also, kudos to you having the balls taking this to a big tournament! :)
My roommate and I have been tuning this list for a few months now, and it's been amazing.
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
3 Blood Moon
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Hound of Griselbrand
4 Goblin Guide
4 Rakdos Pit Dragon
1 Moltensteel Dragon
2 Koth of the Hammer
2 Avalanche Riders
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Mountain
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
SB: 4 Angel of Despair
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Silent Arbiter
SB: 4 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
The sideboard is rough, and the avalanche riders probably aren't the best card (could be a flametongue kavu or something) but that's where we're at right now.
I know playing Goblin Guide in chalice.dec seems silly, but I can't can't the amount of times I've dropped a guide followed by chalice turn one and proceeded to win on it. Guide also draws spot removal if we can't blank it, and can win on his own with a jitte. Yes, drawing one after you've set a chalice on 1 kinda sucks, but he still can be put under a chrome mox, and I've found that the pros he brings greatly outweigh the cons.
Let me know what you guys think.
Goblin Guide does seem really... weird...
Why not run something like Phyrexian Revoker that can be played off of your Sol Lands and disrupts your opponent?
Yea I know it seems really strange, but the deck feels a lot more powerful to me with the guides. I tried Revokers in the main, and I didn't really like them, but I definitely understand how powerful they are. I don't think I can convince anyone with words that Goblin Guide is a good choice, so I'll just suggest that you give them a try and let me know what you think.
Interesting idea with the Guides. I'll have to try that out. I do think that both Koth and Avalanche Riders could be swapped for something else, like maybe Flametongue Kavu, Lodestone Golem, or Lord of Shatterskull Pass. Maybe even try moving some of the Phyrexian Revokers to the main alongside the Guides for some even more aggressive beatdown.
Those slots actually used to be flametongues, but I kept running into situations where there was no target for it to shoot. I love the idea of lodestone, I don't know why I haven't tried it yet, I'm definitely gonna test him out. Thanks for the suggestions.
Regarding Goblin Guide, do you think the power comes from the intel you gain or is it from the damage race? I've always felt that Dragon Stompy has been lacking in the early damage department. The Goblin Guides might help with that...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have a question. What did you take out for the Serum Powders and which hands did you use the Powder? I ask this because I'm curious to know if you didn't take out those cards, would those hands have been keep-able?
What was so great about Ingot Chewer? Did you have a lot of trouble with Artifacts? For the UWx match ups, I have both Boil x2 and Anarchy x3 in my SB. It's a known fact that control decks are a bad match up and I feel those 2 are the main control colours, so that's why I'm so hateful against them. What do you guys think?
PS: I'm still unsure as to the correct number of Bonfire... I'm thinking if I only play 2 and I open with 1, I might be far less likely to miracle into the second. Maybe I should go back to 4...
The info it gives is nice, but I think a lot of the power of the card comes from the early game damage + the ability to hold Jitte. Another very powerful function of the card is drawing removal. I've had plenty of games where my goblin guide gets forced or draws my opponents only spot removal which lets me force through the bigger threats.
If it's just the damage, then I think there are other more synergetic ways to deal damage. I've been recently play testing Kargan, it led me to come to a realization. The reason why all of these Dragons are so good isn't because of their Fire breathing abilities or their double strike. What makes them good is because of their evasion. So now, I'm trying to build a deck around not massive red creatures, but red creatures with flight damage.
I think Gathan Raider is really good value, but the fact that we have to keep up Hellbent and the fact that it can be chump-ed by a 0/1 just annoys me. I'm trying to find a replacement for him, and decided that Big Red creatures like Lord of Shatterskull Pass (my old favourite in this deck) just can't deal damage well enough because of chump blockers. I ran into this thing called Firewing Phoenix and wanted to get the opinion of the people on the board. It's got flight damage. With moon effects, it comes back. It doesn't seem that bad. I wonder if anyone has tried it before?
What about Pardic Dragon?
Firewing phoenix actually sounds good, I'm gonna try that one out in the spot of avalanche riders. As for Kargan and Pardic dragon, I think being able to put the guide out and swing turn one is incredibly valuable. Additionally, it's kind of tough sometimes to get RR turn one.
I think I misspoke when I suggested that the damage Guide gives is the reason for playing it. I play them for the damage along with the info (not the strongest part), as well for the fact that they draw removal or counters. It's amazing when your guide gets forced and you can drop a magus or hound of griselbrand turn 2.Another thing Guide brings to the table is making your opponent think you are on burn. It isn't gamebreaking, but it makes your opponent play differently which is valuable.
I should mention, [upon the advice of members on this board [boy, that sounds cools]) I'm running 8 moon effects, so double red isn't really hard to land.
I took a FtK and a Bonfire out for the Powders. I made up for it with 3 Pyroclasm in the board (which I don't believe I used at all). The hands I Powdered away were either not keepable or at least not as good as the opportunity to look at 7 new cards. Most times it was a 1 land hand. One of the Powders I used just because I didn't have something unfair to play turn 1. I was surprised how much I actually liked them. I believe 2 is correct. I will continue to test the card and report back how good/bad/indifferent they are.
Chewer was great for me by destroying Helm against Miracles which broke his Energy Field and it took a couple relevant artifacts against Imperial Painter. I like the evoke cost of, the actual CMC of 5, and that he's a creature. All of these help make sure he can be cast and resolve in a number of circumstances.
I found that hardcasting Bonfire for 5 (getting it to 2 damage) is still a great option against the creatures seeing lots of play. I'm down to 2 copies because I find myself hoping to draw a land a lot (to play out my hand, get hellbent, and swing for lots) and drawing Bonfire instead. In those situations it basically slows me down a turn for 2 or 3 damage.
I'm really enjoying this deck and like the Hellbent version. I don't believe I have the sideboard right yet but I'll get there. It is really easy to hand your opponent back a game you had won. I have another tournament in April and as long as the meta looks like it does I'm bringing this deck.
Serum Powder as a 2 of, what happens if you draw it? Do you play it? It doesn't pitch to Chrome Mox, so I'm hesitant to add in more colourless cards. I hate when Chrome Mox is dead and you need to pitch for some mana.
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