Punishing Pyromancer

[HPB_Eggo]

As of the moment, my testing has shown the LftL variant to be the strongest for Punishing Pyromancer. The absolute core looks like this...

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer

4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Punishing Fire
2 Life from the Loam
2 Raven's Crime

3 Mox Diamond

23 Lands


Followed up with a bunch of other things, numbers and whatnot of which are in flux. Definitely needs a little beef and a 'walker or two in it, usually in conjunction with Dark Confidant. Burning Wish is something I'm still meaning to test here, and the numbers of Crime/LftL/Decay are all potentially off by a small amount. Will have to see how things continue to go.

[TraxDaMax]

I'll post my first attempt when I get home.

[KazinMtg]

Since the list I put up in the other thread fits much better here, I'll toss it in this thread instead. I'm not sure if it's better than just playing jund, but I'm willing to give it a shot.


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Young Pyromancer

1 Sylvan Library

2 Innocent Blood
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtsieze
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Punishing Fire
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Hymn to Tourach

4 Liliana of the Veil

1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Badlands
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

[HPB_Eggo]

After a lot of testing I have, unfortunately, reduced the number of cards I would currently consider core, rather than increasing it.

Faithless Looting and Innocent Blood are both great, but Looting has only been great in some specific iterations and Innocent Blood is only better than, say, Diabolic Edict when you have Young Pyromancer out. As this isn't a tempo-oriented deck that difference in one cost isn't huge, and I probably wouldn't run Edict here. Have to decide, then, if it's worth running just for the interaction with Pyromancer, a question I think puts it outside of core for the moment.

As such, current core has reverted to this for my own testing purposes...

4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman

4 Cabal Therapy
3-4 Punishing Fire

3-4 Grove of the Burnwillows


Only thing I can say 100% for certain is that simply slotting Pyromancer into Jund over some number of other creatures does not make Jund a better deck. More tweaks are needed than just that, but as of this moment I can't say which possibilities are better than others.

[alderon666]

Needs moar Gitaxian Probe! It gets you a token if Pyromancer resolves on turn 2 and is awesome with Cabal Therapy... do I really need to say anything else?

Oh and Shaman can give you the blue mana if you need to cast it without paying life.

[P-E]

Raven's crime (+loam) and pyromancer could be great making him discard and applying board pressure

[evanmartyr]

I can't see any reason not to run Gitaxian Probe here, other than potentially making Mulligans harder. It synergizes well with most of the core cards (very well with some) and is free 99% of the time.

Also, any sort of cheap spell with both an immediate effect and a flashback/buyback/severely reduced base cost would be worth considering here. Unmask if you run enough black, Lava Dart if you run enough red, etc. Basically anything that is mediocre but marginally effective and becomes degenerate or very good within the context of the "core" cards.

[catmint]

Why don't you just post this in the jund thread?
In the grixis delver thread pyromancer was also discussed.

Reducing the number of overall threads but increasing the quality of the existing/established threads contributes to the forums quality.

[HPB_Eggo]

Why don't you just post this in the jund thread?
In the grixis delver thread pyromancer was also discussed.

Reducing the number of overall threads but increasing the quality of the existing/established threads contributes to the forums quality.

Because I tested simply tossing Young Pyromancer into a current Jund shell with minimal changes and the card did not perform well? Simply because it is in the same colors does not mean that it should be in the same thread.

From suggestions on the thread I'm going to be testing decks with this shell today to see how it goes. Will let everyone know.

4 DRS
4 Pyromancer

4 P. Fire
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
2-4 LftL
2-4 Raven's Crime

3 Grove of the Burnwillows


Will try slotting in Gitaxian to see how it goes, as well, since people seem pretty in favor of that one, too.

[zulander]

I don't like Probe in this deck, I think it seems appealing but falls under the "danger of cute things" category. The card replaces itself, and if it happens you have YP on the board it puts a 1/1 into play. Is that really good? No. That actually sucks. I guess it's good if you have 2 YP out, then for two life you replace a card and get two 1/1's, that's pretty much the best case scenario I see it having. Otherwise I think it would just flat out suck. I'm also not a huge fan of Therapy, but it could be okay. I think the best way to play YP is to play it along with a lot of value cards so that you don't get hosed by playing "bad 1cc.dec". Cards like Hymn come to mind immediately (nice 3 for 1) when thinking of the deck construction.

[HPB_Eggo]

I don't like Probe in this deck, I think it seems appealing but falls under the "danger of cute things" category.

Honestly? I agree completely, but if people are suggesting it they must not. At the very least I'm going to test it in a handful of games and see what happens.

I'm also not a huge fan of Therapy, but it could be okay.

Therapy is arguably the best discard in all of Legacy and plays well with Pyromancer, so I'm going to disagree with you here.

A fairly common line of play goes like this...

Turn 1: Fetch, Crack, Deathrite Shaman
Turn 2: Fetch, Crack, Pyromancer, Therapy, Therapy

That sort of play completely dismantles some decks, and could be run in somewhere around 1/4 of the games I play. Not that you should blindly open every game like this, as, for instance, on the draw against Canadian you will get wrecked following this plan.

I think the best way to play YP is to play it along with a lot of value cards so that you don't get hosed by playing "bad 1cc.dec".

Again, I agree. Any deck playing with Young Pyromancer is either going to be incredibly tempo-oriented or incredibly grindy to get full value from him. Since this would be a grindy variant, we need as much value from every play as we can possibly get.

Cards like Hymn come to mind immediately (nice 3 for 1) when thinking of the deck construction.

And here's where you're wrong. While Hymn isn't bad - it is a 3 for 1 with Pyromancer and can still be dumped as a 2 for 1 without him - it doesn't recur and is an even worse thing to draw later in the game that other discard effects - a point that we will almost always be reaching if we are going to grind out a victory.

It's real problem, though, is the 2CC. You can't run out this and Young Pyromancer turn two, and turns 1-2 are where a card like Hymn to Tourach is most effective.

So, yeah. Not terrible, but I would be running Therapy, Raven's Crime, and Thoughtseize over him. Possibly even Liliana, whom I have not tested nearly enough to be comfortable calling good or bad here.

[thefreakaccident]

If you guys are going for the raven's crime route, I would run out 1-2 worm harvests. Yeah it's expensive, but it is pretty potent once your opponent runs out of cards.

[HPB_Eggo]

If you guys are going for the raven's crime route, I would run out 1-2 worm harvests. Yeah it's expensive, but it is pretty potent once your opponent runs out of cards.

Some of my testing is actually on a pretty much straight port of certain Loam decks with Pyromancer and solid recursion of sorceries. It's actually turning out fairly well, but I have yet to see if it is better than alternatives yet.

Still, being able to go Mox Diamond + DRS turn one into Pyromancer, Therapy, Therapy, Therapy, Therapy turn two is just silly. I did that against one of my friends on Omnitell and he scooped.

EDIT: To be entirely clear, this line of play is incredibly uncommon. It just so happens that a big play like that is possible. I don't really consider it when it comes to whether or not the deck is going in the right direction or no.

[HPB_Eggo]

All right. After spending the weekend testing, I believe I have a fair example of what a LftL version of PP would look like. Still not positive this is the best way to go with the deck, but I'll discuss some of what it can do.

First, though, here's the list:

13 Creatures:
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Dark Confidant
2 Terravore

19 Instants/Sorceries:
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Punishing Fire
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Life from the Loam
2 Raven's Crime
1 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Artifacts:
3 Mox Diamond

2 Planeswalkers:
2 Liliana of the Veil

23 Lands:
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Barren Moor
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
3 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Swamp


Anyways. Some reasons to play this deck over, say, Jund...

You can lead any game with acceleration into crippling discard. Four Therapies on turn two is possible as shown in my last post, but it's not very likely. You can, however, have double Therapy turn two fairly consistently, and can follow that up with Liliana and/or Raven's Crime recursion. Add in Pyromancer to ensure that all your discard is also providing more board presence and you can often lock down entire games simply by doing this.

Against aggressive decks you have the ability to make tons of chump blockers with Pyromancer, have recurring removal with P. Fire, and can just generally out-grind them

Against combo you again have strong early discard and strong recurring discard. Terravore allows you to close games out suddenly, as well, if you happen to draw him early on. Acceleration helps here a ton, and is part of what makes combo not as bad as it is for, say, Jund.

Against straight control you, yet again, have amazing discard. Every permanent you land needs to be answered immediately or they risk losing, with the exception of Pyromancer if they happen to have EE out or instant-speed Terminus at the ready. Recurring Wasteland is also excellent here.

Against other grindy decks, you have a handful of advantages: you start slightly faster because of acceleration and you have, essentially, zero dead cards. You are, after all, very close to Jund with some acceleration and more CA/CQ in exchange for not having Tarmogoyf or Bloodbraid Elf.

Your biggest problems are beefy creatures when you can't remove them and combo decks that come down faster than your discard can keep them off winning. While you can generate infinity blockers with Pyromancer while searching for removal and/or Terravore, a lot of the decks where you're going to have these problems aren't going to let you keep Pyromancer on the table. Not much to be done MD against super-fast combo, though. Can still blow them out with turn two discard, but sometimes you will just lose before you can do much of anything. SB should be tuned for helping against decks like Maverick and for shoring up the still-not-great combo game. I'd be thinking Innocent Blood, some more discard, a Jitte or two, and maybe some other things.

Outside of that, numbers are still being tweaked regularly MD. Cards I'm least sure on as of the moment are the lone Maelstrom Pulse and Terravore, as well as the numbers on Liliana, Crime, and LftL. Also will be experimenting splashing white for KotR later this week, in addition to comparing non-Loam paths to what I have here. Should have some more information by Wednesday, hopefully.

[kwis]

Isn't Terravore worse than Goyf with so much Deathrite Shaman running around? It seems like you're more likely to have different card types across the two yards than a number of lands, but I suppose the counter argument could be made. How's he do in testing?

E: forgot he had trample, makes a lot more sense now

[HPB_Eggo]

Isn't Terravore worse than Goyf with so much Deathrite Shaman running around? It seems like you're more likely to have different card types across the two yards than a number of lands, but I suppose the counter argument could be made. How's he do in testing?

Trample is important, yeah. And, usually at least, he ends up being slightly larger than Tarmogoyf. It's also a somewhat important benefit that I can eat things that increase the power of Tarmogoyf without touching the power of Terravore.

All that being said, Terravore is probably the weakest slot as of the moment. Those two spots do need to be something fat, but I should test some other things there. Tombstalker would probably be a flop. Could try to take a leaf from old Loam decks and try Crusher? Not sure how that would work out. Not sure at all...

I'll wander about and see what I can find. Suggestions would be great, as well.

[HPB_Eggo]

And with some minor off-and-on testing, I can confirm that Terravore is better than Tarmogoyf or Tombstalker in the spot he is in. Will still have to try a handful of other large creatures, including Crusher, splashing white for KotR (which would probably require a lot of changes to the deck in general, but could be the correct direction to be going in), and a handful of other larger creatures from decks such as Nic Fit.

Any ideas would be great to hear, since it's difficult to find the time to test thoroughly and to figure out everything I should be testing thoroughly.

Also, so far as I can tell, the LftL variant is the strongest across the board. It accelerates into an excellent mid-game and wins late against most decks in the format. It has problems - not major, but they're definitely less than 50-50 - against Canadian - keeps you off creatures with burn/counters, but you can still blow them out with early discard - Jund - more removal, bigger creatures - and fast combo - fast being anything that consistently wins before turn three, as you can usually start putting up enough discard to keep them down after that point, and you always get to SB for games 2-3 - but tends to be positive against the rest of the field.

[SpeedOfDark]

I don't like Probe in this deck, I think it seems appealing but falls under the "danger of cute things" category. The card replaces itself, and if it happens you have YP on the board it puts a 1/1 into play. Is that really good? No. That actually sucks. I guess it's good if you have 2 YP out, then for two life you replace a card and get two 1/1's, that's pretty much the best case scenario I see it having. Otherwise I think it would just flat out suck. I'm also not a huge fan of Therapy, but it could be okay. I think the best way to play YP is to play it along with a lot of value cards so that you don't get hosed by playing "bad 1cc.dec". Cards like Hymn come to mind immediately (nice 3 for 1) when thinking of the deck construction.

Gitaxian probe is okayish with young pyromancer, but it is amazing with cabal therapy. The idea here is that it may not be quite good enough to include if it only interacts well with 4 cards (cabal therapy), but the inclusion of young pyromancer pushes it's synergy enough to include it in the deck. Mind you, this may not be the case and it also may not be a 4-of, but I think it's definitely test worthy. Let's also not forget that despite the drawbacks (life loss, awkward mulls), probe gives useful information that a skilled player can use to optimally sequence his plays.

[HPB_Eggo]

Gitaxian probe is okayish with young pyromancer, but it is amazing with cabal therapy. The idea here is that it may not be quite good enough to include if it only interacts well with 4 cards (cabal therapy), but the inclusion of young pyromancer pushes it's synergy enough to include it in the deck. Mind you, this may not be the case and it also may not be a 4-of, but I think it's definitely test worthy. Let's also not forget that despite the drawbacks (life loss, awkward mulls), probe gives useful information that a skilled player can use to optimally sequence his plays.

I did test it. It isn't good enough to include over anything in the LftL list that I posted. We don't have enough cards that benefit from the information, and getting a 1/1 and an additional card or two off Therapy isn't worth the slots when you have to take out either removal, engine cards, key acceleration/utility pieces, or win conditions.

[uncletiggy]

going to start looking into this list and work forward from there any initial concerns I may have over looked would be welcome feedback is good whether brutal or uplifting:


2 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Nivmagus Elemental
4 Young Pyromancer

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Raven's Crime

2 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
1 Darkblast

4 Faithless Looting
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sylvan Library

3 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Grove of the Burnwillows

SB:
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Dark Confidant
1 Darkblast
1 Deathmark
1 Duress
1 Golgari Charm
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Perish
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Virtue's Ruin