Ruby Storm

heyo!

http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD07891K/

lady edith? anyone?

https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...gue-2018-02-17

congrats! happy to see some of the old cards in there like ssg and reforge.

would love to hear what matchups, and if you're happy with your 4x blood moon plan. i gave up on that one a while ago. (after ssg was dropped it wasn't a reliable turn 1, but you've kept 2 so maybe it's fair). it can be awkward with guide off of act on impulse.

any other choices? i know the hazoret's is more or less just a dice roll to see if you win or lose, still might prefer a 3rd PiF or a guttersnipe. even an empty seems like a better hail mary most of the time. anyway it's great to get on the map again.


2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Act on Impulse
4 Burning Wish
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Hazoret's Undying Fury
2 Past in Flames
3 Reforge the Soul
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
2 Helm of Awakening
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Ancient Tomb
10 Mountain


1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
4 Blood Moon
1 By Force
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Grapeshot
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

yea i think the dragonstorm deck is worth sleeving up. it's definitely the best way to abuse mizzix's mastery. the dragon backup plan is honestly fine too, which is a bit odd for 2018 legacy.

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Thundermaw Hellkite FTW.

after looking over the last 5-0 list, i wanted to rethink how i approach the deck.

i think if not going with the guttersnipe plan, the best plan is to overload in a single turn.

been goldfishing with the following:


4 act on impulse
4 manamorphose
4 gitaxian probe
4 seething song
4 rite of flame
4 burning wish
3 hazoret's undying fury
3 past in flames
4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal
4 ruby medallion
2 helm of awakening
2 lightning bolt
2 ancient tomb
12 mountain


i gave up on hazoret's as i never really tried it with LED extensively. i also always paired hazoret's with reforge the soul, which is great when it happens, but i think it's a bit of a trap.

i haven't spent too much time on the sb. the major difference i've been testing with is always choosing to play 2nd (on the draw). the extra card allows for better mulligans and you should optimally aim for a turn 3 kill (unless if opponent is non-blue, then you can always choose to play first).

the only exception being show and tell since they are blue and can win fast, it may be an issue by drawing first.

pretty satisfied with the hazoret's list overall, but also am proposing another list.

i have also spent some time goldfishing with ANT (i never really played the deck much as I was a doomsday player exclusively until I couldn't find time to play it....then i wasn't quick enough to make all the piles and felt bad always going to time), and realized that this deck is just extremely consistent compared to the ruby deck.

the issue here is that the ruby deck is still pretty consistent, but in a lot of ways it's just doing what ANT does worse.

the approach i'm taking here is very close to the hazoret's list, but asking myself what can this deck do that ANT would love to do, but can't due to maximizing efficiency (or b/c of ad nauseam).

ANT would love to play bolts and more empty.

so for the latest build i'll test:


4 act on impulse
4 manamorphose
4 gitaxian probe
4 seething song
4 rite of flame
4 burning wish
3 empty the warrens
3 past in flames
4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal
4 ruby medallion
4 lightning bolt
2 ancient tomb
12 mountain


i know there's a bunch of people that have pushed the warrens build, but not so many that have pushed it as much with LED and haven't really seen it tested with the 4 bolt approach. usually 6 goblins won't be enough in most legacy matches, but maybe with 4 bolts it's going to be able to do something that a light empty normally would fail to do. because it's just the 3 empty, the deck is still quite capable of doing all the crazy storm stuff, including tendrils for lethal quite easily.

the only major design drawback i see here is that it might be harder to beat the miracles deck, and it will have a more difficult lands matchup than the guttersnipe builds.

anyway, still need to test.

I think the synergy that Lightning Bolt has with Ruby Storm is enough to include it, even though most other storm lists won't want it. It's adds 5 damage to a Tendrils chain, 4 damage to a Grapeshot chain, and "3 goblins" to an Empty chain. Looking back at Modern's earlier attempts at Storm variants with Pyromancer Ascension, some lists didn't even use Grapeshot but instead just used Lightning Bolt along with Past in Flames. Ascension doubled the Bolts and PiF recast them (sometimes doubled again.) This brings up the unique protection angle that this storm list has that others don't: targeted removal in the maindeck instead of discard. The way this version of storm is built it relies on a critical mass of redundancy rather than filtering spells like Brainstorm, raw draw power instead of cheap filtering. Lightning Bolt does exactly what the deck needs, whereas in TES/ANT it would be critical slots sacrificed for little gain. (I'm curious why you think ANT would love Bolts? I would think they don't really want them at all...)

Add to that the Guttersnipe plan (sideboard for me) and it all of a sudden becomes an agro/combo deck that can clear blockers/hatebears, attack with Snipe or Gobbo tokens, and has reach with Grapeshot/Bolt.

On Tuesday I'll try 3 bolt, 2 haz, 1 helm, 2 empty the warrens, 2 pif rest is 4s.

feeling pretty good about this list. not running any shenanigans sb stuff.

(also worth mentioning that i still want to test this last 5-0 list. it's been a while since i had a dedicated list with reforge. not sure how well the blood moon plan worked out. too bad no feedback from the player on their matchups)

Game 1: on the draw (lost dice roll)
opponent plays verdant
I start w/ mountain, rof, manamorphose, led, led, bw, empty

Game 2:
Opponent boards a lot of cards, I board out helm and hazoret's for abrade and reforge.
He has turn 0 leyline
Collective brutality on my burning wish
I cast ruby and pass
He plays dark confidant
I follow up with manamorphose, petal #2, reforge into #3 mountain -> Rof, cast ruby#2. Sac petal for Red, cast AoI for R.

Flip AoI, probe, manamorphose. Play LED, LED, cast AoI and eventually chain into an empty for 30+ goblins.

Pass turn and I lucked out b/c he had in his deck 2 golgari charm and a toxic deluge. He didn't hit any in the top 9. (I didn't bother checking what I had next in the event that he did wipe my board).

R2: 4c leovold (lost dice roll)
G1: I tendrils him on turn 3
G2: I almost power through leovold, deathrite, force, fluster, 2 hydroblast, surgical (on burning wish) and 2 hymn.
G3: Similar to game 2 except he FoW'd a defense grid.

R3: UB reanimator (lost dice roll)
G1: I kept a risky 6 with no lands but a lotus petal, and scry'd a nonland to the bottom. Never drew a mountain.
G2: I had a turn 2 kill. After probing it looked safe enough to wait. He drew lotus petal and turn 1 iona.

R4: ANT (lost dice roll)
G1: I was able to turn 1 with a lucky 6 (bw on top). Probe, RoF, RoF, Ruby, Song, AoI -> into a few cards to kill with tendrils
G2: had a few spells to get there, but not enough business spells and just sort of durdled a bit.
G3: had a turn 1 rof petal 2 led bw into reforge, but with R floating and no land drop was only able to draw a land. No other accelerants. Drew 4 probes. He discarded some gas (BW I think) on my part and I was unable to draw another business spell fast enough.

Overall the deck ran fine. I expected to lose vs UB reanimator and ANT is a bit of a coin flip.

The maindeck was good, the only game 1 where I lost was vs reanimator. The bolts did pretty good overall.

Out of the sb, I will cut Goblin War Strike and the Cave-In, which is worse with maindeck bolts.

Still haven't figured out what the other 2 cards will be, but am leaning towards a 3rd grid and something else.

Can also consider cutting 2 tormod's crypts and the 2 berserkers, but will need to evaluate options again.

will update tomorrow w/ sb. (I'll try 3 bolt, 2 haz, 1 helm, 2 empty the warrens, 2 pif rest is 4s.)

never got to resolve hazoret's (was countered both times, and both times i really didn't invest much mana prior, had a ruby and 4 lands in play for first one, 5 lands in play for the 2nd one)

TL:DR
goblins is probably good enough.
better sb options could have improved the 4c pile.
reanimator is normally favored vs storm, so that's an acceptable loss
ANT is a coinflip, and whiffed on a reforge when it counted in game 3.

afterthoughts:
it's possible that the build with the 3 reforge and blood moon sb is good vs a 4c metagame, so will have to test it. the guides and 4 tombs also make the deck probably a full turn faster than 0 guides and 2 tomb.

i like the maindeck in the current build as well, so i will test grids & blood moons (one or the other) and test vs grixis delver and 4c pile. the combo decks are a bit of a race/sideboarding and not as relevant for testing purposes. it's quite clear what the goal is in each case.

I would think the Bolts would go a long ways with dealing with DRS, which is a linchpin in 4c. Blood Moon is good, but killing Deathrite is a priority for sure. I see very little 4c in my metagame so I dropped the Moons from my sideboard a month ago and replaced it with another 2 Guttersnipes. The other thing I've been doing is trying (hard!) to just leave it alone and get a bunch of games in to see which lines can be taken. Some games are non-games where I just spin my wheels, but that's the nature of any storm deck really. I've been more aggressive in mulligans, especially on the draw.

I've also been watching some Belcher videos lately too, which shows how much of a glass cannon that deck is compared to Ruby Storm. I have gone off with only 2 cards in hand before, just making land drops and ripping a Past in Flames/Shreds of Sanity. Rebuilding a storm chain is completely reasonable. One thing that I did take away from Belcher is that Desperate Ritual speeds the deck up significantly, especially in the absence of a Medallion/Helm. Getting to 3 mana for Seething Song, or just an Act on Impulse>pass the turn is very important. I couldn't reliably do that with Simian Spirit Guide. LED would be effectively useless for this particular angle because I would be looking to draw into more action, not play BW>crack LED in response> PiF/EtW/RtS/etc.

yep, but i'm already running bolts. the creatures weren't the issue when i lost.

he had multiple FoW, fluster, surgical, hymn, blue blast?, thoughtseize. the bolts were effective at killing his guys (deathrites and leovolds), but in the end there was too much to power through.

but if you haven't had much luck with blood moons i'll stick with the defense grids for now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mistercakes

yep, but i'm already running bolts. the creatures weren't the issue when i lost.

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Yeah, the curve is so low, and if they have 2-3 fetchlands without fear of Wasteland then Deathrite Shaman isn't really needed. I know people say 4c has a fragile mana-base, but I think that sentiment is exaggerated. They have pretty good mana stability, even at 4 colors. Deathrite is key, but not crucial.

Quote:

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he had multiple FoW, fluster, surgical, hymn, blue blast?, thoughtseize. the bolts were effective at killing his guys (deathrites and leovolds), but in the end there was too much to power through.

but if you haven't had much luck with blood moons i'll stick with the defense grids for now.

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It really has to be turn 1, and that means it probably needs to be x4. I never had enough room to get 4 in the board. It could bait out a Force of Will, which is great, but if they spell pierce it because you can't get it t1, chances are good you'll still have to see Force later on. My take on grindy control decks like 4c and Miracles has been to just go for it...it's only going to get worse, so you just have to make them have the answers. If they do, but no threat, then I have usually been able to rebuild and try again. I'm not saying I win a lot, but at least it isn't a non-game after 1-2 pieces of interaction. I also play maindeck Overmaster, which can occasionally protect a key spell, but I dropped to 2 of them to get Bolts in there. My metagame has only a few blue decks, and the ones I see aren't really bothered by Overmaster, but Bolt does some real damage.

Hymn to Tourach, paired with free Forces, is probably about as bad as it gets for ANY combo deck honestly, besides dredge.

it's far from unwinnable, and i believe the matchup is actually favorable game 1. winning 1 of the 2 following games is reasonable, but the sb needs to be pretty tight.

i won't play the blood moon plan unless if i'm on 4 tomb + guides, as it's the easiest way to maintain consistency if you have it in opening hand.

grid, and to a lesser extent red blast seem to be the better cards here. at least with red blast you can take out a leovold, delver, ponder/brainstorm/probe, snapcaster, jace etc. if you play pyroblast it can up your storm count even if there's no blue spell/permanent.

anywho, i think my current board will look like this:


1 empty the warrens
1 past in flames
1 tendrils of agony
1 grapeshot
1 by force
1 reforge the soul
1 hazoret's undying fury
2 scab-clan berserker
2 silent gravestone
4 defense grid


the only slot i'm questioning a bit more now is the reforge the soul. it's pretty good if you are against non-blue decks and have more than 1 mana floating (or R floating with a ruby in play). this doesn't come up often enough, and for one more mana you can roll the dice with hazoret's instead. if you want a more deterministic kill, then right now it only looks like empty is the best choice if you can't storm 10.

i'll go through gatherer and look for some other potential options.

the only things i'm thinking of now are possible strong enchantments (like 4-6 mana ones that generate a lot of advantage or can end the game), considering running a silence or two (then i would need to find room for possibly for white mana although risking it with manamorphose/petal might be okay too), or some other big sorcery that could be effective vs the 4 color decks (possibly the destroy all lands and their owners find basics for each, or just ruination.)

not sure though.

only cards i can see worth testing that haven't really been named yet


Chandra Ablaze
Possibility Storm
Mana Cache

Looks like we might get a new toy in Dominaria...


Spoiler















***********SPOILER ALERT**************
Jaya Ballard
2RRR
Legendary Planeswalker — Jaya
5
+1: Add RRR. Spend this mana only to cast instant or sorcery spells.
+1: Discard up to three cards, then draw that many cards.
−8: You get an emblem with "You may cast instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard. If a card cast this way would be put into your graveyard, exile it instead."

• Mana produced by Jaya's first ability can be spent among any number of instant and/or sorcery spells.
• You choose how many cards to discard while Jaya's second ability is resolving. You can choose to discard zero cards this way (and then draw zero cards) if you wish.
• Jaya's emblem doesn't grant you permission to do anything with instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard except cast them. For example, you can't cycle instant or sorcery cards with cycling from your graveyard.

i already tried it last night on cockatrice.

5 mana is a lot without ruby, 4 is playable. it can't protect itself like chandra (who is capable of making RR for anything, or drawing a single card).

jaya draw ability doesn't play well with LED.

i think if the deck is going to run planeswalker options, torch of defiance is better at 4, and the 6 mana chandras are better if you're willing to go for it. worldwake seems much better for 1 more mana, and the other one that makes two 3/1's. (the 2nd ability is the reason why).

been testing a bit more and wondering how i can improve the blue matchups without totally devoting the sb slots.

usual 52 cards + 4 bolt + 4 pyromancer ascension.

it was originally in the build when i first created the thread, but i was so hellbent on using it with hazoret's that i didn't realize how broken it already is with probe/manamorphose/act on impulse.

the alternate build i'm running, which is more all in is running -4 pyromancer ascension and running 3 empty + 1 past in flames (although that pif can be a helm of awakening).

i'll need to test the ascensions, but it seems pretty good for any games that need to go longer than 3 turns. i'll also test out 2 faithless looting and 2 ascensions, to help better round out the deck if the ascensions are clunky.

Super excited to give Jaya a whirl. This was the first deck I thought of when it came to her. Likely desperate ritual over led but could be am engine simply pitching cards each turn.

cool, hopefully it will surprise me. i wasn't very thrilled with it in goldfishing.

i'm pretty happy with pyromancer ascension overall. there's a little variance in not drawing duplicates, but overall there's enough power and it helps vs all the discard decks as well.

i did cut 1 to play a maindeck empty. i also have a dark petition in the sb now, so that way it can add another storm if for some reason i need to go for goblins and have 6 mana available instead.

what i'll keep until i can jam some games:


4 ruby medallion
3 pyromancer ascension

4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal

4 rite of flame
4 seething song
4 manamorphose

4 gitaxian probe
4 act on impulse
2 past in flames

4 lightning bolt
4 burning wish
1 empty the warrens

12 mountain
2 ancient tomb


sideboard

2 grapeshot
3 empty the warrens
1 tendrils of agony
1 past in flames
1 by force
1 dark petition
1 gamble
1 reforge the soul
2 abrade
2 silent gravestone


to help sell you guys on dark petition:

turn 1: tomb + Ruby

turn 2:

tap tomb + mtn, rof, seething, led, wish-> DP
you finish that with RRRRBBB and get PiF from maindeck
cast PiF for RRB then you have leftoer BBRR
cast song -> then Dark Petition
RRRRRBB before petition, RRBBB after petition
get Wish, cast RoF so you hav RRRBBB, cast wish tendrils
RoF, seething, led, wish, dp, pif, song, petition, rof, wish, tendrils (for 22)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

to help sell you guys on dark petition:

turn 1: tomb + Ruby

turn 2:

tap tomb + mtn, rof, seething, led, wish-> DP
you finish that with RRRRBBB and get PiF from maindeck
cast PiF for RRB then you have leftoer BBRR
cast song -> then Dark Petition
RRRRRBB before petition, RRBBB after petition
get Wish, cast RoF so you hav RRRBBB, cast wish tendrils
RoF, seething, led, wish, dp, pif, song, petition, rof, wish, tendrils (for 22)

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I think you wind up with an additional mana during the turn so at some point you can even pay for daze. Nice!

I've been lurking on this for a little bit and am a huge fan of the deck. I'm still working on saving up for LEDs, what's the latest on replacement tech until then?
I saw that someone mentioned adding 3 desperate rituals and a mountain, is that still the way to go? Are there other considerations?

Thanks in advance!

Yep, and consider playing additional copies of Ruby Medallion (Helm of Awakening) which makes Desperate Ritual into Dark Ritual.

i've noticed that if you have an active ascension out and cast a seething song (for 3 mana producing 10) that you can win if your other card is a burning wish. it requires that we cut the goblin war strike (easiest cut imho) and run a gamble in the sb.

example:
seething song (10 red)
burning wish with (8 red).
fetching gamble and past in flames.
cast gamble getting manamorphose and burning wish. (discarding both). (7 remaining)
cast past in flames (3)
flashback seething song (10 remaining)
cast manamorphose 8 red and 4 black.
cast burning wish. 6 red and 4 black.
get dark petition and tendrils.

situation B) keeping manamorphose
example:
seething song (10 red)
burning wish with (8 red).
fetching gamble and past in flames.
cast gamble getting manamorphose and burning wish. (discard PiF and wish). (7 remaining)
cast manamorphose (9 remaining)
flashback PiF (4 remaining)
cast seething song (11 remaining)
cast manamorphose (13 remaining)
cast gamble (for any 2 cards)
cast wish for tendrils


situation C) keeping burning wish

example:
seething song (10 red)
burning wish with (8 red).
fetching gamble and past in flames.
cast gamble getting manamorphose and burning wish. (PiF and manamorphose). (7 remaining)
flashback PiF (2 remaining)
flashback manamorphose (4 remaining)
flashback seething song (11 remaining)
flashback gamble for manamorphose and past in flames (discarding both) (10 remaining)
flashback past in flames (5 remaining)
flashback manamorphose (7 remaining)
cast burning wish for dark petition and tendrils.

lines get much easier if you have a ruby in play as well.
happy storming!

if you want to be really crazy you can go for this.

example:
seething song (10 red)
burning wish with (8 red).
fetching gamble and past in flames.
cast gamble getting act on impulse and act on impulse. (discarding both). (7 remaining)
cast past in flames (3)
flashback seething song (10 remaining)
cast act on impulse and act on impulse (flip 12 cards). (every probe and manamorphose is a draw 2, you can potentially start casting everything in your deck at this point).

the only downside here is that if you discard the past in flames, you have to hit off of your first 6 cards. (but you only need mana, or more draw spells)

Time to buy more cards...

@mistercakes- why the 3 EtW''s in sb? Seems excessive, or are there time you board those in and the enchantments out?

hahaha :)

i'm basing this off of the success of TES in recent months. they load up on empty after sb for the grixis delver matchup. it could also be useful for the czech pile, but they can still luck you out with one of their 3+ sweepers.

against grixis delver you can leave a lot of it still in, but vs czech pile i'd consider bringing in a bunch of stuff. i will need to test both matchups though.

vs miracles i'm not sure what to do yet! depends on if they run rest in peace or not.

was thinking i might want to run a shreds of sanity over the 2nd grapeshot. will have to test as well. can do some weird things with that.

edit: didn't come up enough. either run a 2nd grapeshot, or if you are in a meta full of ANT, you can run sadistic sacrament. worth noting that if you have an active ascension, sacrament can potentially kill TES (as long as they aren't holding the win cons in their hand, same goes for ant). copy also will copy the kicker. so if for some reason you can generate 7BBB you can exile 30 cards. that's cool and useless. i like it.

Also testing 2 pyromancer and a maindeck gamble instead of 3 pyromancer.

was goldfishing a bit more and i think it's safer to just play the 13th land over the 8th card here.

dropping bolts down to 2 (dunno if that's wise or not yet), but want to run 4 pyromancer as it's just a bit too good as an engine. still keeping the 1 maindeck empty as i'm running a dark petition in the sb and it's a useful tutor target.

I purchased the remaining cards for a Dragonstorm variant, spoiler, it's not very good lol. I'm currently going old extended tech with Lotus Blooms, which are abysmally slow by legacy standards (turn 4 combo.) Getting to 9 mana however is quite difficult, and when you consider Burning Wish as well it's at least 10 mana. That means we still need Ruby's and Past in Flames to get to a high enough mana count...and at that point you can win with Tendrils, EtW, or Grapeshot. So I'm playing 4 maindeck Blood Moons as plan #1, which should buy time to get to turn 4.

Here is my testing list, it's quite awkward, but it does what its supposed to do by turn 4.

Dragonstorm Moon

3x Dragonstorm
4x Burning Wish
4x Thundermaw Hellkite
3x Bogardan Hellkite

4x Lotus Bloom
4x Lotus Petal
4x Ruby Medallion
4x Rite of Flame
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Seething Song
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Blood Moon

4x Crystal Vein
9x Mountain

Sideboard
3x Empty the Warrens
1x Dragonstorm
1x Past in Flames
1x Grapeshot
1x Pyroclasm
2x Scab-Clan Berserker
2x Tormod's Crypt
4x Pyroblast


Hardcasting Dragons is not unreasonable, especially after Blood Moon and several turns to draw extra mana. I think for now the SSG's are necessary to really push for a t1 Moon. I think boarding in Empty the Warrens and other cards in cases where Blood Moon is bad is a decent plan, considering it would need a faster combo turn than t4.

Hello. I'm new and I've read almost all of the thread. I've never played Legacy before because it's been prohibitively expensive unless I play burn but now here's a budget-friendly combo deck. Thanks for that, this will probably be my way into the format. I can't justify the LED's until I've tried the format to see if I like it though, so I'm holding off on those for a bit and I've been testing (against AI, so goldfishing) this list:

// Main:
4 Act on Impulse
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Burning Wish
2 Desperate Ritual
2 Gamble
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Guttersnipe
2 Helm of Awakening
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
11 Mountain
3 Past in Flames
2 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Reforge the Soul
4 Rite of Flame
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Seething Song

// Sideboard:
2 Abrade
1 By Force
1 Cave-In
3 Defense Grid
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Hazoret's Undying Fury
1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
2 Scab-Clan Berserker
1 Tendrils of Agony

The sideboard will probably need graveyard hate but I haven't figured out what yet.

I agree with consensus in this thread that HUF whiffs too often on its own, but if you've got Pyromancer Ascension active it seems to win the game basically 100% of the time, so I've got one in the wishboard which comes out for those rare occasions when you have an active Ascension, enough mana to cast HUF and not enough storm count or stuff in your graveyard to want to go for a win con or PiF. This is very rare though so I might still drop it for being too cute. Definitely better than Reforge when you have the Ascension online though.

Ascension is also impressive because it fits this deck's main advantage over TES and ANT (as far as I can tell anyway) which is being able to keep pushing through disruption. This deck also seems better than others for taking a risk trying to go off earlier and if you end up missing you just need a PiF or a Wish (Gamble in a pinch) and you can just carry on.

I added two Helms because in the LED-less build you almost need one the turn before you go off. On the right draw you can win without but it's not consistent. If I was to throw in LED I'd probably drop those and the Desperate Rituals.

Gamble has been great almost every time I've cast it. Even with an empty hand, getting PiF in the yard is super valuable if the game goes grindy and early on I've used it to find that one extra ritual or cantrip to keep going, so I think I prefer two rather than one.

Guttersnipe is nuts. Games for me ideally start with an early Helm or Medallion, start going off the turn after dropping one and I'll usually hit one of the two Guttersnipes along the way and it wins the turn it's cast. I know it's soft to removal though so I don't know how keen I'd be on it if I was playing against real people. Two seems like the right number because to counteract its squishiness you usually want to pick one up during a combo chain.

One Reforge in the main, one in the wishboard. I'm really scared of using it against blue decks but I think starting with it there and being able to Gamble or Wish for it is correct. I could see trying Bedlam Reveler over it though if giving your opponent a full grip starts to look too risky. Format-dependent and I don't know the format. It's also just bad in the FoW match-up because it's the one big spell that they obviously need to counter whereas all the other spells just provide incremental advantage. Possibly an argument for Overmaster, but I wouldn't want to play many of those so hitting Overmaster and Reforge at the same time just seems too unlikely.

I'm trying three Ancient Tomb because hitting one later after playing a couple of Medallion/Helm is really bad. Also makes the deck cheaper. Slightly reduces the odds of T1 Medallion/Helm but I don't mind throwing away a Lotus Petal or Rite of Flame to get one in play. Not sure about this yet. It might also be correct to go up to 15 land anyway but I don't think I'd go higher than that.

There are my thoughts if anyone wants them. Obviously not knowing Legacy well I'm not sure how valuable this is. I hope that I can build something similar to what I've posted here then upgrade it with LED's later and it be properly competitive.

glad to hear you're on board with the deck.

some feedback:

4 Act on Impulse
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Burning Wish
2 Desperate Ritual
2 Gamble
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Guttersnipe
2 Helm of Awakening
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
11 Mountain
3 Past in Flames
2 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Reforge the Soul
4 Rite of Flame
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Seething Song

consider cutting 1 past in flames, 1 reforge for 2 lightning bolts. also there's a possibility you'll want to try cutting . 1 helm and 1 guttersnipe for 2 more bolts. it will give you a better game vs all the decks that rely on DRS/delver/Thalia/Leovold.

I'm going to start testing a 4x Blood Moon maindeck list. One thing I liked about Dragonstorm was that it forced me to play a slower game, which made Blood Moon work quite well. I think I'll drop the DStorm idea but keep the Moons, and try it out.

2x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Seething Song
2x Desperate Ritual
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
4x Ruby Medallion
4x Burning Wish
3x Past in Flames
1x Shreds of Sanity
1x Empty the Warrens
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Act on Impulse
1x Hazoret's Undying Fury
4x Blood Moon
4x Crystal Vein
10x Mountain

Sideboard
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Past in Flames
1x Grapeshot
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Pyroclasm
1x By Force
3x Pyroblast
2x Scab Clan Berserker
2x Tormod's Crypt


Depending on how much saturation DRS has in my local, which varies substantially, I would end up going back to Bolts. Moon is amazing t1, which is pretty easy in this list, but on the draw with opponent's landing a t1 Deathrite it becomes much worse. Moon makes SSG a decent option, even for beats if I land it early.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

consider cutting 1 past in flames, 1 reforge for 2 lightning bolts. also there's a possibility you'll want to try cutting . 1 helm and 1 guttersnipe for 2 more bolts. it will give you a better game vs all the decks that rely on DRS/delver/Thalia/Leovold.

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Thanks for the advice. I gave it a try and I found the deck a bit too inconsistent without the final Past In Flames. I'm on board with Bolt though, so I've dropped one Gamble and the main deck Reforge for Bolts. Seems to work well. I could also see Bolt over one Guttersnipe. I also tested dropping a Helm but this build of the deck really wants all six it seems. I might just be playing it wrong though; I almost always mulligan unless I have a Ruby/Helm and mana to cast it.

To make up for just playing two Bolts, I also put Mizzium Mortars in the side board over a Defense Grid. We'll see how that plays out; having not played against any humans yet I don't know. My plan for graveyard-based decks at the moment is to just be faster than them but I'm not sure that's realistic. I also don't know if two Defense Grids is sufficient. It might be time to remove Hazoret's Undying Fury. It's so sweet with Ascension but in the rare situation where it's amazing, Reforge is also good enough.

Maybe I'm keeping bad slow hands, but Eldrazi is just the worst. It is just miserable, how do you guys handle it?

Current decklist
// Legacy - Ruby Storm-Pyromancer Ascension


// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// 1 Creature
1 Guttersnipe

// 2 Enchantment
2 Pyromancer Ascension

// 13 Instant
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Commune with Lava

// 14 Land
11 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb

// 18 Sorcery
4 Rite of Flame
4 Act on Impulse
4 Burning Wish
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony


// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 2 Silent Gravestone

// 2 Creature
SB: 2 Scab-Clan Berserker

// 11 Sorcery
SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Reforge the Soul
SB: 2 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Mizzium Mortars
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 2 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Dark Petition
SB: 1 Gamble
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony

I haven't played the matchup much, but historically eldrazi is good Vs all of the storm decks. Tes is sometimes faster.

Being it will likely be sometime next year that I can try to pick up Leds, has a proper substitute been found? I can live with being slightly slower and acts being slightly worse till I can aquire a set.

Would you recommend 2/2 split of desperate ritual and helm of awakening? Or is spirit guide needed?
Do we have to run win cons in the main vs just burning wishing for them?

Thanks.

if i didn't have led's i might try something like this now:


// 60 Maindeck
// 8 Artifact
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Lotus Petal

// 4 Enchantment
4 Pyromancer Ascension

// 16 Instant
4 Seething Song
4 Manamorphose
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Desperate Ritual

// 14 Land
12 Mountain
2 Ancient Tomb

// 19 Sorcery
4 Rite of Flame
4 Act on Impulse
4 Burning Wish
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Past in Flames



you probably want a maindeck gamble in a deck like this though. maybe cut 1 desperate ritual or 1 act on impulse, as act becomes a lot worse without LED or a rock.

I think this is where I'm at right now:

// Main:
2 Abrade
4 Act on Impulse
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Burning Wish
2 Desperate Ritual
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Guttersnipe
2 Helm of Awakening
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
11 Mountain
3 Past in Flames
2 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Rite of Flame
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Seething Song

// Sideboard:
1 By Force
1 Cave-In
2 Defense Grid
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Gamble
1 Grapeshot
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
2 Scab-Clan Berserker
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Tendrils of Agony

For a while I was relying solely on By Force for artifact match-ups but Trinisphere is so punishing and you know they have multiples. I couldn't find slots in the sideboard for Abrade (except for that Hazoret's Undying Fury I was talking about) so I moved Gamble into the board and dropped a Guttersnipe. Storm doesn't need many win-cons and I've seen other lists on here running just the one. I've also had plenty of situations while playing where I really wanted to just Burning Wish for a Seething Song and now I sort of can. Only just started testing this list though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ahg113

Maybe I'm keeping bad slow hands, but Eldrazi is just the worst. It is just miserable, how do you guys handle it?

---

For Eldrazi, do we just want Blood Moon? I could see Mizzium Mortars getting cut for a single Blood Moon so you could board it in and Wish-Gamble-Blood Moon. Or is that too slow? Bear in mind I haven't played against it at all yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Knighthawk

Being it will likely be sometime next year that I can try to pick up Leds, has a proper substitute been found? I can live with being slightly slower and acts being slightly worse till I can aquire a set.

Would you recommend 2/2 split of desperate ritual and helm of awakening? Or is spirit guide needed?
Do we have to run win cons in the main vs just burning wishing for them?

---

That's what I'm doing and I like it. Spirit Guide was just such a bad hit off Act on Impulse but two Helms let you play Ruby for :0: while storming off which is a nice little bonus. I like one win-con in the main and it's Guttersnipe but I've never felt the need to naturally draw into one of the storm cards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

you probably want a maindeck gamble in a deck like this though. maybe cut 1 desperate ritual or 1 act on impulse, as act becomes a lot worse without LED or a rock.

---

I'm playing LED-less and I don't think I'd go down Act. Yeah, it's not quite as good as if you have LED but I think you still need it. It still plays well with Seething Song and Pyromancer Ascension. Just my feeling on it, it's your deck and you likely know better.

I just won't play it without led anymore, so it's just a guess for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

I just won't play it without led anymore, so it's just a guess for me.

---

Makes sense. I wouldn't either if I had them.

I'm currently testing 2x Bedlam Reveler and it's impressing me in the few games I've tried with it. I've seen it mentioned a few times in the thread but nothing conclusive. So far it seems worth a couple of slots in the LED-less build but also might play well with LED.

if i didn't have LED's i would consider trying to make more of a pyromancer ascension deck that is BR with some discard. being able to resolve a dark petition with an active pyromancer ascension can do some pretty interesting lines.

even something super simple like ->

DP -> gets DP and lotus petal -> cast dark petition -> gets manamorphose and dark petition -> cast manamorphose (twice), draw some cards -> cast dark petition -> get tendrils or burning wish + some mana.

I'm not really sure where this deck would go, but i really like this kind of approach. dark petition also has synergies with helm of awakening (2 in play makes dark petition free after initial casting).

this wouldn't really fit into mono red obviously, but it does seem like an interesting approach that could protect itself with some discard.

maybe something like this:

4 probe
4 manamorphose
2 thoughtseize
3 cabal therapy
3 burning wish
4 rite of flame
4 dark ritual
4 helm of awakening
4 lotus petal
4 pyromancer ascension
3 dark petition
1 past in flames
1 tendrils of agony
1 empty the warrens
1 gamble
17 lands

If you want to go all-in, Bedlam Reveler is Act on Impulse copies 5-8. Currently trying that with Burst of Speed in the sideboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mort47

If you want to go all-in, Bedlam Reveler is Act on Impulse copies 5-8. Currently trying that with Burst of Speed in the sideboard.

---

This feels like it would need 3x maindeck Empty, for sure. I'm not sure Burst of Speed is better than Goblin War Strike. If you get a bunch of tokens early (turns 1-2) that is usually enough to get you there. If you are looking to end the game on the spot, you need 20 goblins...and you're back to Goblin War Strike being better as it avoids combat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr. Safety

This feels like it would need 3x maindeck Empty, for sure. I'm not sure Burst of Speed is better than Goblin War Strike. If you get a bunch of tokens early (turns 1-2) that is usually enough to get you there. If you are looking to end the game on the spot, you need 20 goblins...and you're back to Goblin War Strike being better as it avoids combat.

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True, but Goblin War Strike doesn't let you attack for 20 with two Bedlam Revelers on turn two. :wink:

I don't know if this is correct but it looks like it has potential, with or without LED.