Dies to Removal

It's nice how the list that took down the last GP is such an easy matchup for us.

G2 vs. naya control, do you keep this hand?

temple of triumph
mountain x2
boros charm x2
lightning strike
magma jet?

Probably not, though I wouldn't board into that vs. Naya.

I haven't seen the list in a while, but I believe naya control doesn't run lifegain so I figured the boros charms would be good and I'm like "I'm on the draw, he might shock himself, and I have 13 damage in hand. Yolo." He missed a land drop, I drew a burning tree and mutavault.

G2 vs. naya control, do you keep this hand?

temple of triumph
mountain x2
boros charm x2
lightning strike
magma jet?

I know this is wrong, but my decision would probably be swayed by how badly I've been fucked over by mulligans earlier that day/week. Right now, I'm saying "keep" because you have two pieces of scry and I'd be scared as fuck of seeing a landless 6 cards based upon my games earlier today. It's definitely not the stuff that you want to see against Naya, though.

i'd probably keep it because of the scry, chances of ripping a 1-drop, etc.

I think the hand is reasonable. When you factor in shocks and the fact that naya plays maybe 12 threats, of which 8 cost 5 or more mana(realistically, the board out xenagos) I figured it wouldn't be hard to find 7 damage between 22 creatures the rest of the burn in my deck, and them possibly shocking themselves.

Won rather easily, though again, he missed his third land drop, then shocked for a smiter.

who the hell boarsd out xenagos?

bitches

Card is generally terrible against agro.

LP, thanks for sharing that. You taught me a very important lesson. I was looking at the hand as creatureless and therefore ineffective, but you saw 13 points of burn. You realized a plan b that I never would have considered with this deck. My hat's off to you, sir.

I have demonstrated an ability to count to 10 in multiple formats.

I hope you mean 20...

Anyway, with no MODO atm, heading to my lgs' Wednesday Night Magic:

[deck]
Creatures
4 Burning Tree Emissary
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Firefist Striker
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Young Pyromancer

Planeswalkers
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Burn
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock

Lands
18 Mountain
4 Mutavault

Sideboard
2 Act of Treason
2 Burning Earth
2 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Frostburn Weird
3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Skullcrack
[/deck]

Store meta is expected to be 60%+ MBC and Esper with a splattering of 3-colour (Naya, Junk, Dega) and maybe the BR list from GP Santiago.

Notes:
- found hammer a bit anemic on 22 land, especially with the dec being so mana hungry I often can't make guys until I'm at 5-6 land; whereas Burning Earth has
been very good and looks to be well positioned against the expected field;
- skullcrack has similarly being great; and
- I've cut a lot of pure anti-aggro on account of the expected field.

Matchup expectations:
- MBC: bye
- Esper: bye
- RB Aggro: strongly favourable
- 3-colour midrange: even

Yarpus: Good post. Thanks for the insight!

Z: I'd wish you good luck, but we all know you don't need it Go get em!

Helix v. Control: No. a) That is just fundamentally wrong. Someone use logic and demonstrate that Helix is more efficient than any other card in the deck (hint: it isn't). b) For the last time, the control matchup is GOOD. 3 Skullcracks + Hammer/Burning Earth has proven to work just fine. Stop trying to fix what isn't broken.

As is my tendancy, I've begun to work on my fnm list a bit early. This is the build I'm tossing around in my brain atm:

[deck]PyrœRed[/deck]
Creatures
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Ash Zealot
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix
2 Pyrewild Shaman

Thighs
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Burn
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
2 Mizzium Mortars

Land
21 Mountain
1 Mutavault

Sideboard
2 Act of Treason
2 Frostburn Weird
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Skullcrack
2 Burning Earth (If I can buy some pre-tourney. If not, then +1AoT, +1Hammer, or +2FoTF... Not sure yet.)

[/deck]

Haven't gotten around to sideboard plans yet, which I've heard are made a bit weirder with Pyrewild in there, so I'd like a bit of advice on that probably.
Beyond that though, I think
this covers a lot of my bases in terms of the meta I'm expecting. Aka: good bit of aggro, good bit of 3-color-control, some mbc.

Thoughts?

What's your expected meta?

Beyond that though, I think this covers a lot of my bases in terms of the meta I'm expecting. Aka: good bit of aggro, good bit of 3-color-control, some mbc.

Somebody didn't read to the end
But yeah, that's the expected, based on what I've seen the last few weeks.

Oh, and there was one really annoying maze's end deck last week, that placed pretty high I think. From what I heard it was running typical turbofog, but also some boardwipes. Not too worried about it, between skullcrack and general power of the deck...

Why in the world would you play Helix vs control? That's the last matchup you want the card for.

High impact burn spells are good against control. While lifegain is not that highly relevant, it can usually mean one additional swing of aetherling if they can't afford pumping it.

But it's not a high impact spell...

I was thinking Helix for aggro matchups in place of FoM.

I was thinking Helix for aggro matchups in place of FoM.

Those slots are kind of flex slots. Why do you think you need helix? What match ups do you really need it in?

I brought up Helix earlier for aggro matches as it IS a high impact spell in those matchups. I prefer to play control vs red in games two and three and there's no denying the power of Helix there. But I would never bring in Helix vs control. The life gain is irrelevant against them and four mana is far too high a cost for four damage on a noncreature spell.

Looks good Raida.

The issue with Helix v. Aggro is that it happens turn 4. Since most lists don't have 4 Mortars, you can just increase your mortars count if you need more anti-aggro for your meta (and if you have 4 Mortars and still can't beat aggro...we need to talk).

I was thinking Helix for aggro matchups in place of FoM.

Those slots are kind of flex slots. Why do you think you need helix? What match ups do you really need it in?

G/W aggro, Bant / Junk Auras. T4 or T5 is where I'm needing to hit them for 4 to close out or kill a creature and buy a little more time with the lifegain.

How are you boarding for those matchups?

How are you boarding for those matchups?

This is really a discussion for the Big Boros thread as that's what I'm running, but the deck config is really similar to the Zealot-based Walter White except -4 YP/+2 Dragonbreath/+1 Mutavault/+1 Mountain.

For SB:
-4 FDS, -4 Cackler, -3 Boros Charm, -1 Mutavault
+2 CttR, +2 Mortars, +2 Skullcrack, +2 Boros Reckoner, +2 Helix

Wait. Then yea, you're playing a totally different deck where Helix might be ok.

It's not necessary in Walter White.

Wait. Then yea, you're playing a totally different deck where Helix might be ok.

It's not necessary in Walter White.

I guess in WW the curve and land count are slightly lower, so yeah, spell efficiency would weigh more.

Went 4-0 and split Top 4. Not much to report other than I'm still the king of aggro mirrors.

Dat zemanjaski....king of the aggro mirrors. I know from experience, dude.

If they had read my article, I might have been in trouble.

[deck=MDU's PyroWhite]Lands 22
12x Mountain
04x Sacred Foundry
04x Temple of Triumph
02x Mutavault

Creatures 21
04x Ash Zealot
04x Chandra's Phoenix
04x Firedrinker Satyr
04x Rakdos Cackler
03x Young Pyromancer
02x Pyrewild Shaman

Planeswalkers 02
02x Chandra, Pyromaster

Enchantments 02
02x Chained to the Rocks

Instants 12
04x Lightning Strike
04x Magma Jet
04x Shock

Sorceries 01
01x Flame of the Firebrand

Sideboard 15
04x Boros Reckoner
02x Skullcrack
02x Chained to the Rocks
02x Mizzium Mortars
02x Fanatic of Mogis
01x Flame of the Firebrand
01x Mutavault
01x Assemble the Legion[/deck]

I look at Pyrewild Shaman like [card]Chandra's Phoenix[/card] v0.2 except he
can be relevant without over-committing the board (which is huge in a AoG meta).

The extra burn MD over Young Pyromancer is my nod to MonoU and the lack of B/x/x as of late, the SB are meta tuned so it may or may not make sense.

I didn't find time to upload the set yesterday, so I'll upload two sets today running the list above.

Music for this set is done by Morusque, its quite different to what I've been using for other sets but it has its own charm.

Video report set 1/2: Standard Daily Event 6210803 (3-1)

G1: GWB Junk
G2: Esper Control
G3: GU Devotion
G4: MonoBlack Devotion

I'm still refining the list, so any explanation or SB plans I
may have used here is most likely different now. I like how the RW variant has the ability to stand toe-to-toe with Red's worst MU (though these replays may not be the best example of that).

What about Annihilating Fire over Flames? Didn't seen a game when Flames could show their power - while on the other hand, Fire could do a huge differnce.

I just wanted to note that Wood's Junk deck is nasty and its gaining popularity. I've encountered it three times now during the DEs winning two sets and losing one.

What about Annihilating Fire over Flames? Didn't seen a game when Flames could show their power - while on the other hand, Fire could do a huge differnce.

Fotfb was terrible on those games, but it saved me countless times against MonoBlue.

Annihilating Fire while being great in the mirror - doesn't help me against my hard MUs so imo flames > AF.

Uh. Silly question, what about Anger of the Gods then?
I know, in theory it's terrible in aggro decks. But the card holds so much power that at least I believe that theoretically a good player could make it work.

No it's just terrible. If you're going to play around hurting yourself that much the deck gets too many unkeepable hands imo.

I mean if it did work it would be awesome, but these decks are too creature dense IMO.

It's kind of greedy card I'd maybe not consider for Modo but for tournaments.
You might get screwed by fact that you're drawing them and being forced to play creatures.
But if everything goes fine, you're gonna win.
Just like 21-lands Thundermaw decks.

If it was Pyroclasm, I'd consider a few in the board. You don't really want to smoke your phoenix along with everything else.

I had the expectation that going back to Ashley from Emmy will make match-ups against MBC and control slightly unfavorable, but it turns out that all the satyr/cackler/muta is more than enough to drive them nuts. As Yarpus said before, Pyrewild Shaman lends to some fast damage without overextending on the board.

Ashely also has haste, which is huge against them.