This is a red/white control-ish deck, whose main win cons are Stoneforge Mystic, a bunch of burn spells (which also act as creature removal/fodder for Young Pyromancer), Young Pyromancer tokens, and Blood Moon-effects all as finishers. The main ways to control are through creature removal and Silence to stall the opponent while you finish them off. Wasteland/Ancient Tomb (and even Ajani Vengeant) can also be used on land light/dual-focused decks as another way to stall your opponent. This deck does not play like a typical Boros deck at all, as it focuses more on control as opposed to a rushing attack.
Key cards
Mother of Runes
Mother of Runes is like a Swiss army knife wrapped in a 1-drop. She’s great for defense, creature protection, offense, and as a lightning rod for removal. She can protect Stoneforge Mystic and Young Pyromancer while they do their thing.
Lightning Bolt/Lightning Helix/Chain Lightning
All three are awesome and versatile cards. Creature removal or just hitting the opponent for 3. Great cards.
Stoneforge Mystic
Stoneforge Mystic is one of the main win conditions for this deck. It can be used to tutor/cheat in the equipment in the deck. Also has some synergy with Legion’s Initiative if you decide to include it. Not much to be said for this card, as everyone knows how great it is.
Young Pyromancer
The new 2-drop for red. This card works wonderfully in a deck with playsets of Bolt/Helix/Swords, etc., along with a bunch of ways to protect it (Mother of Runes, Boros Charm… which also nets you a token!). This card also gives you a bunch of equipment wielders. A couple of these on the board can really net a lot of virtual card advantage as well.
Magus of the Moon/Blood Moon
Because the deck only runs two colours, you can easily get away with playing either of these to control your opponent. Casting Silence first can help ensure one of these lands, and even just win the game for you.
Silence
Silence is a great card, both offensively and defensively. Use it to stall the opponent for a turn, while you create a better board position. This is also the deck’s best bet against combo decks.
Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile
This one is entirely up to the player. Normally, Swords is considered the better of the two spells, but in a deck with a bunch of burn-type spells, one might choose Path. This deck often uses burn as great early removal, and so Path might be the better choice as they can be saved for later when mana’s less important. Swords is probably the better choice anyway, as this deck’s main use for burn is not to take out your opponent.
Boros Charm
Boros Charm has a lot of versatility. The mass protection for the tokens/creatures and double-strike with batterskull or Jitte is relevant enough that the card is more than just 4 to the dome. Creature protection and extra damage is exactly what this deck wants, not to mention more spells for Young Pyromancer. Awesome card.
Equipment
3 pieces of equipment are recommended, as this deck wants to use Stoneforge Mystics a lot. The choices of Batterskull and Umezawa’s Jitte are pretty standard. A Sword of Fire and Ice is probably the best choice for the final spot, but is also the most replaceable.
Cards to consider
This section is a work in progress.
Legion’s Initiative
This can be a sort of extra win condition for the deck, combined with Young Pyromancer. There should only be 1-2 of it in the deck, as a player should only be wanting to play it once a small army of tokens is on the board. Sensei’s Divining Top can help filter for these as well. It's the biggest maybe in the deck, and would probably be the first card to replace. However, you get 2 Pyromancers in play making tokens, and a sudden army of 2/1s can win a game just like that.
Sample Deck
Land
4 Arid Mesa
4 Plateau
3 Plains
4 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb/Wasteland
1 Karakas
Creatures
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Young Pyromancer
2-3 Magus of the Moon
Spells
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Boros Charm
1-2 Blood Moon
0-1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Silence
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
Last edited by Teluin; 07-13-2013 at 02:00 PM.
A pretty sexy deck I would say. Why silence instead of chant? Why so many charms? Also legions initiative is bad sauce... That is 5 spots in the deck I would change. I would consider heavily running magus of the moon... imo one of the top 3 reasons to play red (other cards being bolt and young pyromancer). The card just plain wins games and beats for 2. What's to hate? I think the list I am running is something like....Originally Posted by Teluin
4x Pyromancer
4x SFM
3x Magus of the moon
4x Mother of runes
2x Grim
4x Bolt
4x Swords
3x Helix
4x Chant
2x Ajanie Vengeant
1x Jitte
1x Sword of Feast
1x Batterskull
21 lands
S/b
4x RIP (Most of the format)
4x Leyline of Sanctity (Storm/monoblack)
4x O-ring (Show and tell/ psuedo disenchant)
3x Ethersworn Canonist (Storm)
Already has a pretty good m/d against aggro.
Silence over chant because I find not 'targeting an opponent' to be much more relevant than the 'creatures can't attack' which I rarely need to use due to so much removal anyway. Silence stops misdirection etc, and leyline of sanctity.
I put 4 charms because they're so versatile. The mass protection for the tokens/creatures and double-strike with batterskull or Jitte is relevant enough that the card is more than just 4 to the dome. Creature protection and extra damage is exactly what this deck wants, not to mention more spells for Young Pyromancer.
Legion's Initiative is just a 1-of because it can boost the tokens and bounce Stoneforge Mystic. It's the biggest maybe in the deck, and would probably be the first card to replace. However, you get 2 Pyromancers in play making tokens, and a sudden army of 2/1s can win a game just like that.
Magus is a good idea actually. Might look into working it in.
Magus/Moon effects work pretty great.
Here's the new list
Land
4 Arid Mesa
4 Plateau
3 Plains
4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
Creatures
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Young Pyromancer
2-3 Magus of the Moon
Spells
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Boros Charm
1-2 Blood Moon
0-1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Silence
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
I fail to see the sense of Silence in this deck. What does it do, aside from occasionally nab a careless Storm player? Nothing. It'd better be other 4 slots that carry on your plan. If you really want combo-hate in the maindeck, you could run 4 Canonists, that help the beat and also have other effects (GG against Storm as soon as it resolves, slowing down Elves while as a permanent effect, same for Omnitell, disabling Snapcaster flashback, can be protected by MoR).
Anyways, those slots are definitely not coherent with the proclaimed purpose of the deck.
I'd rather play Lava Dart to ping critters and get added advantage off YP, lol. Which tells it all.
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Deck is a work in progress. So far, it hasn't even been used for combo (although obviously it can be). Silence's main strengths seem to be ensuring a Blood Moon/Magus lands, or just to gain an 'extra turn' to establish board control (although this has mostly been in relation to Blood Moon/Magus - which have become pretty good win conditions of their own). Anything you'd like to contribute would be great.
Why not use Sunforger and just go nuts with RW -> draw 4 -> make 4 dudes?
I am going to add the punishing fire + grove combo to this deck. I think recurring punishing fire is sick with young pyromancer.
Sunforger's pretty mana intensive - especially for a deck whose cards have a pretty low mana curve, I'm not sure the 5 mana would be worth it. Tutoring's nice but I think I'd rather use different equipment over it. There's always a good chance I'm wrong though so is worth testing at least.
As for P. Fire, it could be sweet but then you're dropping 4 lands, which could hurt the Blood Moon effects. This deck has a few ways to win though, so adding/exchanging one could be cool. Let us know how it goes?
While AD is huge, why not throw in 1-2 copies of Isochron Scepter? With tons of instants, it could be worth the trade and the played copies still trigger Pyromancer. Boros Charm + Scepter is also a strong clock and versatile to boot.
AD?
Alright, after playing the deck this weekend I finished with this:
2-0 G Infect
1-2 Enchantress
2-1 Jund
1-2 Storm g3 was close
0-2 Aluren g1 I should've won, but I didn't cast Blood Moon on turn 2. I was playing around a counterspell he didn't have, and didn't know what he was playing.
2-0 Reanimator
2-0 Dragon Stompy (without dragons, as he called it)
2-1 RDW
I also lost g1 to a D&T deck, but he left before we could finish the match.
Overall, the deck seems pretty good so far. Boros Charm's good, but I've only used it for 4 to the dome/for a token so I might look to cut it to a 1-of and think of alternative spells for Young Pyromancer - the 4 HAS been relevant though, so the card replacing it would need to be very relevant. I took out Silence, but kinda wish I hadn't vs. Storm, so could be a sideboard card.
My main issue was dealing with enchantments/artifacts. Considering some Disenchants in the sideboard over the Oblivion Rings I had, since we have a ton of creature removal anyway.
Last edited by Teluin; 07-21-2013 at 01:44 PM.
The only neutral cards that would be worth playing are Disenchant and Abolish. Possibly also Return to Dust, but that might be too costly.
There's always Wear // Tear.
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