Ruby Storm

[solnox]

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

1 By Force
1 Cave-In
4 Defense Grid
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
2 Rending Volley
2 Scab-Clan Berserker
1 Tendrils of Agony

I don't own chandras online and they're 40 each :( not worth it atm. I dont have Cities eitehr as this was mostly for fun.

[mistercakes]

thanks for posting. i didn't realize chandra was so expensive, that's annoying.

few short questions as it's useful data:

how were the crystal veins? would 4 tomb/1 vein have been better?

how were the hazoret's?

would running 4 probes and 1 hazoret's been better?

also did defense grids do anything for you in the blue matchups? i struggle with wanting to commit so many cards in the board to blue, but not sure if there's any other way.

how would magma jets have been in the deathblade match? i know they are a bit weak vs the other decks you mentioned, ANT/Tes/Lands.

[solnox]

Didn't really feel the difference on Crystal Veins

Hazorets was literally Praise Be To RNJesus. It was either the best card in your deck or worst card.

I think you want 2 Hazorets as you still need some payoff cards.

Defense Grid is key in beating blue decks I think. A resolved Defense Grid is lights out the turn you combo.

I dont think Magma Jet would've helped. It was just some bad draws and misplays that really cost me.

I just ran another 3-2 through a league.

Beat Red Stompy, UB Delver, Jund, Lose to Red stompy, Eldrazi

In my win vs Red Stompy, I T1'd Belcher handed him with burning wish 20 goblins. G2 I fizzled but ripped a Reforge off the top and comboed off easily as I had 3x Medallion effects.

In the Loss, T1 Chandra, I probe, he has 3 ball and I'm short 1 mana to win. G2 Hazorets flipped 3x Probe, Medallion when he had a chalice for 1. I didn't rip a reforge or Past in Flames.

UB Delver- Defense Grid on T1 and T2 won the game. Let me combo off unopposed and he showed me a hand full of flusterstorms. piece

Eldrazi- Leyline+2 Thorn and Lodestone was too much. Mull to 4 g3. meh

Jund- T1 I Medallion, he seizes my burning wish. I sack into another ritual and Reforge with mana floating and easily combo. G2, T1 he seizes again but I manage to ritual into wish for 12 gobbos.

[mistercakes]

Ok I'll keep a misers hazoret's in my build. Being able to not flip a 2nd I think is a safer play.

There's still some room for play with the 75.

Abrade could see some play over the rending volleys. I'd give that a shot. You still would like 3 b damage vs Leovold, but being able to kill trinisphere and chalice / thorn would be better than having only by force.

What makes me happy about this deck is that while ANT and TES aren't really going to be changing many cards with future sets, this deck can get a huge benefit from cards with the exile until eot effect.

A functional reprint of act on impulse could even make this deck a real menace to the metagame.

[mistercakes]

I watched your replay of your match vs TES in the first league.

Game 3 when you burning wished for pif and then cast into a whiffed hazoret's likely should have been

Song into wish into wheel, wheel with 0 mana open, but you hadn't played a land. I think seeing 7 cards here could have set you up. Did you also being in the red guy? I saw that guy brought in his echoing truths so there's no guarantee there, but that guy on turn 1 is really difficult to deal with.

My reasoning behind not casting hazoret's here is that you are using all your mana hoping to flip a wheel and some mana. I think bc you didn't play a land yet a guaranteed wheel + 7 cards is giving you better outs here.

[solnox]

How do you see other people's replays?

[mistercakes]

i'm on the TES facebook group, and the guy posted the replay there. :)

[solnox]

Fair point where I should believe more in Reforge.

Do we have outs to Iona?

[mistercakes]

Fair point where I should believe more in Reforge.

Do we have outs to Iona?

nope! i suppose if you need an out, you can always run karakas in the sb....or just run some more graveyard hate, as this is the main reason iona ever shows up on the board.

[mistercakes]

over the chandra slots (which you're playing hazoret's) you can also try running 2 empty the warrens there. see how many wins you can steal. likewise if you want you can try blood moon. only as a 2 of, but could steal some games as well.

[Mr. Safety]

Fair point where I should believe more in Reforge.

Do we have outs to Iona?

Surgical Extraction in the board, if you face a bunch of reanimator.

Regarding Hazoret's: I've been on 2 since the beginning and I haven't hit the 2nd one once in roughly 40 games. I've whiffed plenty of times, lol, but haven't hit unplayable cards because of cost.

[mistercakes]

fair enough! i'm pretty happy w/ chandra in those 2 slots, but will test empty the warrens and magma jet to see if they improve some %'s in matchups where chandra hasn't really done enough. (usually it's countered, where forcing a magma jet is fantastic for us, and forcing an empty just doesn't make sense.


in non-modo environments i would probably run 3 jet and 2 probe, but on modo there's enough combo to keep the 3 probes. as much as i want to run hazoret's, i think that the deck is probably fine without it. if i am feeling lucky i will run it though, b/c it's quite fun to flip cards over!

with the 5 leftover slots i think here's some combinations that can be tested:

could run
3 probes, 2 hazoret's.
3 probes 2 chandra,
3 probes 2 empty,
3 probes 2 magma jet
3 probes 2 abrade,
3 probes 2 commune with lava,
3 probes 2 blood moon

any of these could also go with 2 probes and 3 of the other card. i think as long as minimum 2 probes you can play with any of those numbers.

for reference the rest of the cards

4 seething song
4 rite of flame
4 manamorphose
2 desperate ritual
2 simian spirit guide
4 lotus petal
4 ruby medallion
2 helm of awakening
4 burning wish
3 past in flames
3 reforge the wheel
4 act on impulse
10 mountain
3 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors

[Mr. Safety]

I've been thinking of cutting down to 3 Probes as well...the deck is incredibly tight to work in even 1-2 slots worth of cards. I'm still on Inferno Titan x2 maindeck, which hasn't come up very often, and 2 copies of EtW (putting in a 2nd PiF in place of 3rd Warrens.) The way I look at it, the deck is basically: mana, engine, threats. I want to have around 11 big payoff cards in the deck (some are literal threats, some are engine pieces that should lead to threats, so 'virtual' threats, so to speak.) I currently have 12.

2x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish
2x Past in Flames
2x Inferno Titan
2x Hazoret's Undying Fury

I don't rely on Reforge the Soul as one of those cards because it sometimes just refills my hand to give me better odds at a combo the next turn. With that said, rituals into Reforge t1 is a very strong play, especially if there is a Past in Flames in the mix. I'm starting to really map out games, which is very helpful for knowing when to go off (sometimes I just have to go for it) and when to be patient.

[Mr. Safety]

We're not the only ones noticing HUF:

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16419&d=301444

Belcher list with a miser's HUF. Belcher is obviously less resilient than mono-red storm (past in flames is a thing), but the premise is the same. No blue cantrips, just storm a bunch and hope EtW/Belcher/Burning Wish get there.

[mistercakes]

I've been thinking of cutting down to 3 Probes as well...the deck is incredibly tight to work in even 1-2 slots worth of cards. I'm still on Inferno Titan x2 maindeck, which hasn't come up very often, and 2 copies of EtW (putting in a 2nd PiF in place of 3rd Warrens.) The way I look at it, the deck is basically: mana, engine, threats. I want to have around 11 big payoff cards in the deck (some are literal threats, some are engine pieces that should lead to threats, so 'virtual' threats, so to speak.) I currently have 12.

2x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish
2x Past in Flames
2x Inferno Titan
2x Hazoret's Undying Fury

I don't rely on Reforge the Soul as one of those cards because it sometimes just refills my hand to give me better odds at a combo the next turn. With that said, rituals into Reforge t1 is a very strong play, especially if there is a Past in Flames in the mix. I'm starting to really map out games, which is very helpful for knowing when to go off (sometimes I just have to go for it) and when to be patient.

is it these 12 + reforge in your deck? just wondering how many live hits you have when you cast hazoret's. also that is pretty cool with that belcher list. if there's a deck that can hit 6 mana easily it's that one.

[Mr. Safety]

is it these 12 + reforge in your deck? just wondering how many live hits you have when you cast hazoret's. also that is pretty cool with that belcher list. if there's a deck that can hit 6 mana easily it's that one.

Yes, it's those 12 + 3x Reforge maindeck (I side for BW.) I don't see Reforge as a payoff card really, because you have to discard your hand as it resolves. If your payoff is Past in Flames its fine; if its EtW/BW/HUF then it really doesn't get you anywhere. It's a storm engine, pure and simple (just like Ad Nauseam.) The amount of games where I went all-in on Reforge without mana-floating were really disappointing. The amount of times I whiffed and didn't draw a free mana source (Petal, SSG) PLUS rituals to keep chaining were too high for my comfort. The higher land count helps tremendously, but slows the deck down to a turn 3 deck rather than turn 2. That's fine considering the resilience from Past in Flames, but sometimes just too slow. As I noted earlier, some of the more common matchups I would face (Sneak/Show, Death and Taxes) are difficult to navigate. DnT can land a lock piece like Thalia or Rishadan Port, or both isn't uncommon, and combo-ing without Medallion becomes pretty much impossible. Sneak/Show is a nightmare. I sometimes would get *one* turn after they SnT an Emmy onto the battlefield, hopefully getting a storm kill or enough goblins to whether an attack. Even then I only get one more turn with Warrens. And the countermagic, uggh, the countermagic! The version I use for testing has maindeck(!) Flusterstorm.

Matchups against chalice decks are actually easier to manage than the blue decks, so far. The only cards chalice@1 stops are GitProbe and Rite of Flame. That's 8 cards out of the whole deck, lol. Storming out turn 2-3 is just fine because chalice decks typically have slow/little pressure, instead relying on the chalice for most of the work (Eldrazi being the exception, as they run Sphere of Resistence and sometimes Trinisphere.) Maindeck access to By Force is the nuts lol.

EDIT: list for reference, hasn't changed more than 1-2 cards since last post:

4x Rite of Flame
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Seething Song
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
2x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Ruby Medallion
4x Burning Wish
2x Empty the Warrens
2x Past in Flames
2x Hazore'ts Undying Fury
3x Reforge the Soul
2x Inferno Titan
3x GitProbe
12x Mountain
4x Ancient Tomb

Sideboard
1x Empty
1x Grapeshot
1x Tendrils
1x Goblin War Strike
1x By Force
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Past in Flames
1x Pyroclasm
4x Pyroblast
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Scab-Clan Berserker (new addition)

GitProbe and SSG made way for Titans. I will be testing as-is for a while to see opportunities. I still want to test Young Pyromancer sideboard...mini-Warrens sounds so good when they board out spot removal. Act on Impulse getting cut was from Vieko's advice. AoI gets a lot worse when it isn't powered by LED mana (it's more mana hungry for sure.) Might cut some number of Pyroblast for Rending Volley...I wish Volley was a sorcery! I suppose Flame Slash or Chain Lightning could work, but susceptible to counterspells.

[mistercakes]

Ok cool, lemme know how it goes.

I'm back on the AoI train :)

It is worse without led, but still one of the most powerful cards in the deck with 1 rock out.

Regarding turn 3 vs turn 2 it might be worth it to have abrade in the maindeck then. Can kill clocks and blow up any troublesome artifacts.

[Mr. Safety]

Ok cool, lemme know how it goes.

I'm back on the AoI train :)

It is worse without led, but still one of the most powerful cards in the deck with 1 rock out.

Regarding turn 3 vs turn 2 it might be worth it to have abrade in the maindeck then. Can kill clocks and blow up any troublesome artifacts.

Maybe...I'm not sold on Abrade yet.

Pros
1) It's 2 mana, so it kills Chalice@1, and it kills equipment if you time it right (but the deck is already resilient to Chalice, equips tend to be slow clocks)
2) It's flexible, kills Deathrite, Stoneforge, Delver, Snapcaster. Doesn't kill Goyf, Angler.

Cons
1) It's horribly inefficient without Medallion. I don't think Incinerate has ever been played in Legacy where Bolt is available.
2) It could be completely dead in some matchups, and we're already tight on slots. Storm, Elves, and even most creature-based mid-range decks can shrug this off or counter it. If I'm going to play something that could get countered I want it to be more powerful (Titan.)
3) It doesn't further any plan, so at best it's a sideboard card to fight hate. Contrast that with something like Lightning Bolt that could up the storm count functionally by 3 with the Grapeshot plan, and 1 extra functional storm count with Tendrils, all the while killing Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, AND the above list of threats. Coincidentally can also kill a Jace on 3 if you get lucky (do it with the Brainstorm activation on the stack!)

[mistercakes]

Very valid points. Just need to test, but I know that the other combo decks have been trying it out and it seems to be okay there.

[Mr. Safety]

Very valid points. Just need to test, but I know that the other combo decks have been trying it out and it seems to be okay there.

Well, theorizing is one thing; practical application is another. It may seem bad on the surface but instead may fill a very important role. I am thinking other combo decks are much weaker against chalice@1 (TES, ANT, even Sneak/Show can't cantrip/Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm.) They are definitely in the market for artifact hate that applies to other situations.

TL;DR - Mono-red plays a tricky game by using cost reducers (Medallion) and higher CMC spells. Other decks go with naturally efficient spells at 1 mana, making Chalice better against them.