Legacy Weapon: In Flames

[CalebD]

My latest on CFB. The Past in Flames + Brain Freeze engine is exciting, and there are a variety of ways to build around it. Just curious to see what the sourcers have to say.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-in-flames/

-CalebD

[Antonius]

i believe the official nickname for past in flames is "passed in flames." Because green, awesome things usually are.

[John Cox]

I think past in Flames has potential, I'm glad to see more work being done breaking it.

[Kagehisa]

The U/R list have 16 blue cards 4 x (Ponder + Brainstorm + Gitaxian Probe + Brainfreeze)
So the deck uses the "Brainfreeze yourself" a la Solidarity... Hmmm
Could you use the complete secret technique : 1 Flash of Insight ?

[Piceli89]

Flash of Insight for what? The #1 target for a tutor should be past in Flames, but it's more fast to Freeze yourself for a bit and mill that.
Plus, Flash of Insight is terribad in a fast combo when it's in hand. Pay 3 to draw a card? I'll pass.
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On the article: I like the different approaches revolving around Past in Flames. Among those, I think the best remains the UBR list, with the exception that you should cut the Spoils of the Vault and add 4 Duress.
-First, the tradeoff with speed remains pretty minimal, since your deck is enough high in bombs density (Past in Flames, Freeze, Burning Wish).
-Secondly, while playing around Force of Will is possible, you'll lose from hands that have Force plus Snare. A good control player will brick you on the Cabal Ritual and the Manamorphose, he won't wait for you to ramp completely the full mana. It's also worth noting that more and more control decks are adopting Spell Snare, given the growing prevalance of Snapcaster Mage.
-Thirdly, it complements Gitaxian Probe in knowing when to clear the path, of course.
- SotV is in itself a gamblish card that will reward you as many times it will actually kill you. It's quite unneeded to go all-in on luck with a single card, and the deck can be built to work efficiently even without that.


On UR lists: the lack of Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual unfortunately hurts, and playing a slightly more solid manabase isn't worth the tradeoff. Red rituals are weaker in the fact that they both produce less mana and act at sorcery speed, so they can't be used to circumvent Daze and Spell Pierce.

On protection suite: I'm trying to make a UR Gifts Ungiven+Past in Flames deck working with Force of Will plus Spell Pierce in it, but I'm coming to the conclusion that counters are not the kind of protection suitable for ritual Storm decks. FoW works in High Tide because you're aiming to basically build a 2 card combo (High Tide+ Time Spiral) most of the times, so you can comfortably pitch the rest of the cards if needed, and build a uberprotected hand to accomplish that.
In those lists, instead, you usually need at least 5 cards in hand to go off when starting the combo. Force acts just as a worse Orim's Chant since it does 2x2 (opp. Force), or worse, 2x1. You're also going to save cantrips, or Probes, or other stuff most of the times so that you can use FoW properly; this (and the way, generally, the configuration of the deck) slows you too much. Rough attempts were already made with strange lists of Fow-Doomsday in 2009, but in the end, they didn't provide any real advantage over the traditional Duress+Chant ones.
I guess "Control-Combo" is a word that doesn't stand a meaning in a Legacy perspective, if "control" implies Force of Will and "combo" killing via a Storm engine. The cardpool and the power-level is still too low to do that. Ok, there's Solidarity, but the deck is clearly underpowered.

[Mr. Safety]

This type of innovation is awe-inspiring to me, as I don't really have a good grasp of combo decks. I understand enough to see how you're making the magic, but I could never pilot it with confidence or even competence.

So in my typical noobish, and sometimes troll-ish, fashion I ask this: with the UBR version, is Lim-Dul's Vault even an option in lieu of Spoils of the Vault, or is the mana requirement too steep?

[OurSerratedDust]

Why would you want to play a Belcher-style deck that is vulnerable to graveyard hate, and usually wins on the second turn? It is an interesting concept and I think it has potential, but I think without any sort of protection, it seems playing belcher is just better.

[alastair]

I tested against a Past in Flames deck last night. Not so much on the ritual plan, but High Tide / Turnabout with Mechant Scroll (Solidarity with the Sorcery Tutors / Dig and no Reset).

It was frightningly reliable Turn 3 all day long if pressured, and was only disrupted in a few games through combination discard and counters. The vast mana generated was key to abusing Past in Flames, replaying Turnabout, Scrolls, and Wish for Brainfreeze / Grapeshot and the never to be seen extra turn of Medatate.

We did not sideboard, but playing UB it seams very weak to a timely Extraction and Crypt. Game 1, it was +3 peices of disruption to stand a chance. I'm not sure how reliable it will be once you get to grips with the mechanics of it / knowledge of what component to target.

... sorry not a lot of comment on the ritual plan.