So, Lava Dart was fine, but I'm moving on from this deck. A few things I don't like about it:
- I don't like Chain Lightning. It being a sorcery means it just doesn't do what I need it to do.
- I don't like playing Price of Progress over Wasteland. There are too many value lands in the format, and Waste is still good against decks that play very few whereas Price is just shitty. It's too much variance for me. The deck literally lives and dies by Price of Progress's value.
- I don't like playing Snapcaster in this deck. He's always been a dead draw for me. I've drawn them multiple times and they were either pitched to Force of Will, shuffled back in via Brainstorm, or sat in my hand and did nothing.
- I don't like Swiftspear, surprisingly. Stormchaser Mage is fine thanks to flying, but Swiftspear was just dead to me after turn 3 in almost every game I drew them. It's also nowhere near enough of a clock when it's on the table by itself.
- I don't like my only counterspells being Force of Will and I don't like Force of Will. The card disadvantage it brings is real, to the point where if you cast a Force you're probably going to lose the game four turns later after you run out of cards. Also since you're playing Chain Lightning instead of Daze you don't have enough pitch cards. Stormchaser keeps the blue count high but pitching one of your few threats really sucks.
It's possible some of this is due to my playstyle, but I've played Prowess builds before in Legacy and Modern and this one just isn't there. You'll win some games, but this deck will never be higher than tier 2 as constructed. It just doesn't play like it.
Things I would try to do to improve the deck:
-
Mizzium Skin. Countering a removal spell is fucking huge, and this one counters them all.
- Splash black for discard, perhaps. Counterspells are really bad in this deck (Skin can be played proactively so it's not the worst).
- Incorporate some sort of evasion-granting effects. I've used
Distortion Strike to great success in Modern, and it's possible it could be replicated here.
Artful Dodge and
Slip Through Space are the other options here in UR.
Aphotic Wisps is also a possibility.
- Play something with Delve. You need to take advantage of all the velocity this deck is throwing around. This likely would require a black or green splash because the legal blue Delve spells are actual trash.
- Card. Draw. Maybe Bob. Maybe Painful Truths or Skeletal Scrying or Night's Whisper. Hell, maybe Ancestral Vision. You could even try
Reforge the Soul or Abbot. You need card draw, not just cantrips. You run out of cards too fast and then you're just hoping to draw the remaining points of burn. This is why Cruise Delver was such a house: drawing three cards for one mana was amazing for this deck. Without that kind of raw card advantage, it's just not quite good enough.
It's possible there is a competitive deck here, but from my perspective I've given up a great matchup against Storm in order to lose a small percentage against the rest of the field. I'm not even sure where I picked up percentage points in terms of matchups.
FWIW, I beat the snot out of a bad Jeskai Stoneblade player, got crushed by Shardless, and got beaten by Death and Taxes. Reasons for my losses are peppered throughout the above notes.
