I guess I might be the last person to get the memo about how cool this deck is, but I'm enjoying it immensely. Just got the last pieces to build it today, and I've already got a question.Originally Posted by Kanti
Under what conditions is Pyromancer Ascension better than Dack Fayden? It appears that these are the two branches available to the deck, apart from the configuration of the creature suite. Is there a relationship between the creature suite and the choice of planeswalker vs. ascension?
jyzz list is really good. report is a great idea
If Big Green Dudes is an actual problem, in general, how do people feel about Perish then?
They get to Boil our(Your) lands and Choke the leftovers, it only feels like fairness all their dudes are belonging to the GY then.
IMO, all of them. And this coming from someone that took longer than most to get off the Dack train. Everything I liked about Dack when I played it (except for the occasionally relevant artifact theft) was better accomplished by running 4 preordain. You get to filter through your library just as effectively (if not more so) without the card disadvantage that comes with dropping him on board and vulnerability of often being without creatures to protect him. Ascension flows naturally from that style of build, but even if you don't run PA I'm still solidly convinced that 4 preordain is the right way to go.
Focusing in on PA, I've found it does two things that Dack never could. 1.) gives you another source of actual card advantage. one you can bury your opponent under. 2.) like YP if gives you an explosive, scalable way to close out the game. unlike YP and most of the deck's other options, this is a choice that doesn't get hammered by -1/-1 effects.
Obviously how good it ends up being varies, but I do want to share one story to illustrate. I'm playing G3 against Miracles. On turn 0 of turns I play YP and make 5-6 elemental tokens. On turn 1 he hard casts terminus. Turn 2 I cast PA, cast cantrips to get it active, then cast 2 DTT to dig a total of 28 cards deep looking for my outs. I find 3 bolt, FoW, blue card, cabal therapy, and TBH i don't remember what else but I had to discard to hand size at EOT. I FoW his clique on turn 3. turn 4 i therapy him to ensure the coast is clear, then triple bolt him for 18. Obviously Christmas came that day, but that type of scenario isn't too far-fetched. I don't think I've lost a game where PA has gotten active and gone unanswered. At the very least, if you have a cantrip in hand and an active PA the game feels almost impossible to lose. everything that is strong about the deck suddenly starts to feel broken.
Running PA does influence some other maindeck choices. For instance, I run no creatures beside Young Peazy and only 3 DTT. I'm still trying to sort out my flex slots, which are a mix of counterspell, pyroblast, and forked bolt (for extra ability to win with PA & burn). I've also considered spell snare in counterspell's slot, since it hits RiP and Counterbalance on the draw. Having PA in deck also forces you to be very thoughtful about your sideboarding. You need to ask yourself whether it is better to bring in one more card, and if so which 4-of to shave. As always, it rewards coming into a tournament with a board plan for each match-up.
I hadn't realized that less than 4 Preordain was even an option. I've come to this deck with the strong desire to run all 4 Dig Through Time, so the extra cantrip slot seems like almost an auto-include. I need to fill the graveyard even faster than usual and control the draws as much as possible.
Dack is a cool card, but he hasn't worked out as well as I'd hoped so far. Is he a relic of the Treasure Cruise days that now imposes awkward design restrictions? I tried him with a number of defensive creatures (Baleful Strix) and he seemed to be at his best in that situation. Generally, I agree with you, it's not so easy to defend him... and if he dies quickly, he's a 3 mana Faithless Looting plus Fog.
I guess my initial problem with Ascension was the difficulty of classifying the card. It doesn't look like a win condition at first. Having activated it a few times now, I've changed my mind. Just doubling cantrips is fierce, and this soon turns into doubled counterspells, DTTs, and finally Lightning Bolts. It's unfortunate that Golgari Charm actually does deal with Ascension, but it's easier to play around this effect than Young Pyro vs. -1/-1. Even one turn of Ascension is probably enough to throw a copied Force of Will at that Golgari Charm.
The interaction of the mostly 4-of MD that fires Ascension and the singleton sideboard is interesting, as you've noted. I wonder if the best thing might be to just not worry about it, PA will always be pretty easy to turn on via the cantrips alone.
does this deck exist with drs or baby jace?
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Here's a brief tournament report of the GPT I attended this past Sunday.
The List:
Jizz's 75
-1 hydroblast (sb)
-1 thoughtseize (sb)
+1 kolaghan's command (sb)
+1 Tsabo's Web (sb)
Round 1: (The Gate)
G1
I win the die roll and begin to hope my opponent isn't on Miracles as I have to ask him to please speed up his decision making twice while he's deciding on mulligans before the start of game 1. Ultimately he keeps 6 while I'm on a full 7. I start with a preordain which has the potential for a turn 2 ascension with force backup and a gitaxian probe to check to make sure I can resolve the ascension. I hold the probe so I can check my opponents hand on turn 2. My opponent leads with swamp, dark ritual. To me this is strongly signaling duress into either a storm kill or turn 1 griselbrand, so I reluctantly force it. I untap and cast probe to see a hand of go for the throat, gatekeeper of malakir, swamp, bitterblossom, urborg, and phyrexian arena. Eventually I get an active ascension and my opponent scoops as I Fork a dig through time.
G2
I didn't take any notes on this game, but what I do remember is at one point on my opponent's end step, I cast a lightning bolt on a faerie token, responded with force on my own bolt, and then I responded with flusterstorm on force all to activate my ascension. At this time, my opponent had 4 remaining faerie tokens in play an 7 cards in hand. I untapped, forked a dig, cast a young pyromancer, forked a forked bolt to wrath his board and then cast a single cabal therapy and flashed it back to mindtwist my opponent.
Round 2: (Kael on Miracles)
G1
I win the die role again and get a concession after I get an ascension active and counter his only council's judgment.
G2
I probe my opponent on turn 2 to see force, rest in peace, 2 terminus, counterbalance, plains, scalding tarn. On turn his 5th turn he casts RIP, I respond with spell snare, he responds with force pitching a freshly drawn ponder, and I respond with my own force which resolves. He then sticks a blind counterbalance. I untap and cast young pyromancer to which counterbalance reveals counterbalance. I follow up with ponder which after a cracked fetch, is countered by counterbalance revealing top. I then cast ascension, which with no additional way to manipulate his library, my opponent lets resolve. He concedes later in the game after I fork a pyroblast to destroy a jace and a counterbalance.
Round 3: (Omnitell)
G1
I cast three cabal therapies, one of which hits an emrakul to shut off dig as a way back in the game. Young pyromacer quickly cleans up.
G2
After another battery of early cabal therapies, my opponent casts a show and tell with a single card in hand which I know to be an omniscience. I let it resolve and put in a young pyromancer and then pyroblast the enchanment on endstep. My opponent proceeds to scoop.
Round 4: (Grixis Delver)
Before the start of the game, my opponent asks me for a draw which I kindly decline as there is still an additional round of swiss. If I win this round, I can ID my next round and be the #1 seed in the top 4. My opponent then bemoans the fact that he hasn't won a die roll all day. I smile and tell him I'll do my best not to break his streak. To his disgust, he loses the die roll.
G1
We both begin the game by cantriping. On turn 2, he slams a young pyromancer which I untap and bolt, easily playing around daze. Eventually, I bolt another 2 young pyromancers and a deathrite shaman and follow up with cabal therapy for his 2 lightning bolts in hand while he's tapped out. I cast a young pyromancer and he concedes. He complains that I cast 4 bolts to which I respond, "that's what happens when you let 3 digs resolve."
G2
My opponent keeps a 7 card hand, casts 2 gitaxian probes, misses his land drop and passes the turn. When my opponent finds his first land on turn 3, he attempts to resolve a ponder which I pyroblast only to get a monologue about how poor of a play that was. I can't help but think that I wasn't the one who kept a no-lander with double probe. I easily win this game.
Round 5: (Elves)
He agrees to a draw after I show him that he is guaranteed to be in the top 4 as either the 3rd or 4th seed.
Semi Finals: (Elves)
Unfortunately my last round opponent is the 4th seed and I don't feel that my elves matchup is particularly strong.
G1:
An early natural order checks for a force which I do not have. My teeth are promptly kicked in by hoof and company.
G2:
I bolt a turn 1 symbiote and cast surgical extraction on his draw step to hit one in his hand and remove the remaining 2 from his library. This game comes to a grind but grim lavamancer does his favorite thing--burning little green guys.
G3:
My opponent takes a mulligan to 5 and leads with a dryad arbor and passes. I promptly bolt it and win the game while my opponent struggles to find lands.
Finals: (Aggro Loam)
G1:
My opponent mulligans to 6 and I keep 7. I probe to see 2 mox diamond, gaddock teeg, barren moor, and 2 irrelevant cards. I therapy diamonds. He plays barren moor and passes. I play young pyromancer and pass. he plays a fetchland and passes. I cast a ponder, make a token, flashback therapy to snag teeg, and then my opponent scoops.
G2:
Chalice of the void sucks. Life from the loam + exploration + ghost quarter sucks. Knight of the reliquary sucks.
G3:
He begins with a leyline of the void in play...super. Fun fact, golgari charm kills young pyromancer, ascension, and my dreams of winning the tournament.
Sorry that the details for the report are sparse, I was only occasionally taking notes and I have a bad habit of scribbling out half of what I write. I will most likely be taking this deck to another GPT this coming Saturday with potential changes to the sideboard. Currently, I am very interesting in trying out some number of darkblasts.
Hello fellow Grixis players,
Some number of you asked me about sidetables, so I'll give here my take on them :
Delver wasteland strategies
The idea is to switch ascension for grim, Jace for Mountain and remove counterspells/discard for removals. Keep some number of Force/Cabal (Keep more Forces if you expect bolt/Goyf, more therapies if you expect Decay/Forked Bolt/Rough - More Forces on the draw, more Therapies on the play).
Example : RUG OTD, cf JosephK post. For BUG, you may want to keep Jace, especially OTP.
Miracle
This MU is getting trickier and trickier with the new 4 Mentor version and the 2 cavern Losset version. But generally you want out of the sb (with the GP List) :
+1 Reb +1 Rod +1 Sulfur
and you want to remove :
-2 Bolt -1 Yp
After that, you'll have to decide wether you want to remove more bolts, jace, and even 1 more YP for venser, flusterstorm. The list is built to ignore CB (that's why I don't play dread of night btw), but uncounterable Mentor is still a pain.
Midrange (Stoneblade/Shardless)
I actually never played vs these decks with ascension. So it's just speculation from now. I figured out to keep Ascension OTP and to remove it OTD. The plan is then to remove Forces for targeted answers - but you never want to remove all forces vs a Midrange Dig Deck.
Example : Shardless
-4 Force -1/0 Fire -0/2 Ascension
+2 Pyroblast + 1 Venser +1 Perish +0/1 Mountain +1 Command
Combo MUs are usually easier to grasp : switch Ascension for Flusterstorm, Bolt for Reb etc...
By the way, for those bringing this to GP Seattle, I'd suggest to try this :
MD -1 Pyroblast +1 Fire/ice
SB -1 Forked -1 Thoughtseize -1 Meakstone +1 Perish +1 Pyrob +1 Rakdos charm
We had only 2 days to build the sb before GP Lille and we expected a reasonable amount of Day 2 Merfolks. With this sb, the plan vs uncounterable Tnn is to race it.
With the MD Fire Ice which is good post sb vs Omnishow, we can get rid of Thoughtseize and have one more slot. I chose Rakdos Charm ; it's there for Chalice.decks that are more popular theses days. It fits well because we also need a sb card for storm. A second Gravehate is also good to have (the card is quite good vs Aggro.Loam).
But Blood Moon or a second Sulfur Elemental are good options too I guess.
--------
Great Finish Degausser :). Aggro Loam is a bad MU. I would side against these annoying guys :
+1 Venser +1 Sulfur +1 Command +1 Charm +1 Perish +1 Mountain +1 Surgical
-1 Pyroblast -2 Ascension -4 Preordain
Gl for your next Trial
-------
Great analysis LordofMJ. I was also playing dack as a late game draw filter (otherwise you end up drawing lots of lands from Turn 6-7 on -the ones that you put back with preordain/bs) but it's inferior to Ascension, in every way, as you proved it.
Nice report, thanks for sharing!
I've been playing with PA too, when it gets active it's disgusting (as your games show quite clearly!). RiP has been a bit of a problem for the deck, I currently don't have a Snare in the deck, something to find room for. Possibly even two as it gets Chalice, Goyf, Golgari Charm among others.
How have the counterspells been for people? And in the same vein, reactive cards? YP and PA reward proactive plays, I've felt a little tension between the two strategies.
Rip is a problem when it comes early. Rip does nothing once ascension is active and can be considered as pure CD if we already resolved 1 dig. Ascension versions play only 5 grave dependant cards actually while others generally play 4 digs + 2 snap. It's easy to put them back into library or just pitch dig to force.
You're right about proactivity. I think it's only a matter of order : first you play a proactive game, establishing either Ascension or Yp+Cabal, then you switch to a reactive one, keeping mana for Cspells/Dig. Preordain, in that consideration, is a bit weak. But as we tend to have more mana when we switch to the reactive mode, it's just a matter of findind cspells with them during our turn. Some choose to play 4 thought scour to allow a faster reactive game. But Thought scour is so bad in my opinion (no card selection, pure chance), I would almost play Opt instead.
Jemand musste Joseph K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne dass er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.
Do you guys think that PA is actually worth it?
just curious, how is fire/ice good vs omnishow? it can't stop any of their spells and it can't tap down emrukual
Hi, it's mainly there for their post sb Young Pyromancer plan. Unlike forked bolt, you can pitch it to force, or use it to tap boseiju during their upkeep/(tap one of their land so that they are tapped out during your turn)/(cantrip).
Hey guys. In running something very similar to the jyzz list on pg 11. What do you think of spellsnare over pierce? It doesn't seem as much of a powerhouse in lgcy as it is in modern. Also, seeing as i got paired against lands 3 times in DC (thankfully i was on DnT at the time) how does this deck beat lands/aggro loam/BG pox? Is it simply pray you see a SE in your hand G2/3?
GerryT just finished 6th with an interesting take on this deck. Check it out here.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=90055
What do you guys think?
Legacy
Grixis Delver
Vintage
Mono Mentor
Team Leovold
I really like new Jace and the additional MD removal. I'm still somewhat skeptical of Kolaghan's Command in a world with a bunch of Dazes, but the deck is very good at hitting its land drops. I don't love Strix and am sort of ambivalent about Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Ascension is probably too good not to run over at least one of those cards.
Kolaghan's Command seems poor against Tempo match ups due to Daze/Spell Pierce. Getting to kill a delver and either buyback a Strix/Jace or force them to discard, seems very strong. There appear to be live modes in basically every type of match up, although some (like discussed above) might be a bit awkward. I find Baleful Strix hard to figure out at the moment. It is good against the aggro and tempo decks, but poor versus the combo and control decks. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is kind of in the same kind of boat. It can be hard to resolve against tempo decks but can just run away with the game. It has the added awkwardness of matching up poorly against TNN. Based on my reading and playtesting (admittedly little) Pyromancer Ascension seems to deserve a slot. As to how to exactly tune the list, probably depends on the meta you expect to fight through. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy really is interesting though.
Legacy
Vintage
Rich Shay's list had at least 2 TNN and a Jitte I think main deck?
Have people stopped playing snapcaster for any reason besides DTT? It used to be a solid 2 of in most decks alongside Tnn who has also fallen out of favor.
In my experience, Snapcaster Mage got cut when I transitioned to including Pyromancer Ascension. There were a combination of factors that all played into that decision (with varying weight of influence):
1. Flashing back cards with SCM makes it more difficult to get PA active.
2. I wanted to reduce the number of cards that got shut off / neutered by gravehate (DTT and PA are much higher impact, so my preference was to cut SCM in favor of those)
3. Running fewer creatures makes activating PA easier.
Speaking broadly, I've found PA is a strong enough card in the deck that streamlining the deck around that gameplan has justified my thought process behind #'s 1 and 3. #2 is a concession to the reality of legacy. With PA, DTT, and CT in deck, RiP already shuts off some of our strongest lines. If that is going to happen, I'd prefer my lower impact cards at least continue to function as intended. That being said, I still consider running it as a one-of when I tweak my flex spots for a tournament, but I think countermagic is probably higher impact in those slots.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote