Dies to Removal

I can't believe Chandra is so good in a deck packing tons of burns and removal, massive shock.

Ermm... ok enough sarcasm, I think his SB plans are spot on esp. with the Dragons and Extra lands on the side.

I can't believe Chandra is so good in a deck packing tons of burns and removal, massive shock.

Ermm... ok enough sarcasm, I think his SB plans are spot on esp. with the Dragons and Extra lands on the side.

"Massive shock" . . . nice . . .

Dragons are simply out of my budget range so that's a no-no for me

Can't keep borrowing them... But I will, for this FNM just because MDU's usually right about these sorts of things.

(Well I might be able to trade my mutavaults for them but ehh)

so MDU, y/n?

[deck]Land (21)
9 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph

Monsters (8)
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer

Spells (29)
4 Boros Charm
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Toil // Trouble

Thighs (2)
2 Chandra, Best Card in Standard

Sideboard (15)
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Anger of The Gods
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Spark Trooper
2 Toil // Trouble
2 Mouthbreather Dragon[/deck]

I can't believe Chandra is so good in a deck packing tons of burns and removal, massive shock.

Ermm... ok enough sarcasm, I think his SB plans are spot on esp. with the Dragons and Extra lands on the side.

The problem is that these original builds floated around weren't running enough removal/protection because they tried to cram in the one drops and other things. The Darin build makes room for 4-6 cards to give her a chance. I'm still shaky on if it's enough but it's definitely testable.

Her dying to dreadbore/dsphere/downfall, etc isn't a big deal becuase at least it was 1 for 1. Her dying to a creature strike was god fucking awful and the deck ideas were refusing to address it.

I gather from previous comments you've made on
the other builds that you don't feel this was an issue? I'd really like to get your view on this.

From my testing it seems that the only real threat for her in my meta are green decks (trample) and Hero's Downfall/Dreadbore. I will be reserving spots for her MB.

With this latest build or the old one?

You don't want them to 1-for-1 with your Chandra. Just run burn in her stead and now you've got a 0-for-1 because their Dreadbore/HD is a blank.

Not entirely blank because you still have YP. The order is definitely that you let phoenix take initial hits (if they're dumb), then YP when you have mana for spells to cast right away, and sandbag Chandra until you are guaranteed to kill something or draw a card and for that, i want 2 untapped mana minimum and preferably a scry mechanic to dig up a playable card.

You don't want them to 1-1 Chandra but you REALLY don't want them to 0-1 Chandra. This deck doesn't want fog.

If you get your pyro engine running they will rarely have the luxury to save up their dreadbore/downfall for her (this is just my experience, maybe my test partners are just stupid I don't know ).

With this latest build or the old one?

New one. I might need to put in a 10th mountain though, the deck really needs to hit 4 mana fast enough.

With 5 4 CMC, yes, you need more than 21 lands.

Well then I'm fucked cuz I can't take anything out

daaaamn

Oh yes you can. Dropping all 4 troubles to your SB is a start.

You're basically saying: 'get rid of those angers' but in a slightly more concealed way, right?

Yeppers.

I'm assuming you want the three as an out to BTE draws? I don't see needing it for anything else early game with 12 cheap removal spells mainboard.

Yes

Last week I played against three (!) devotion decks and I lost a grand total of 4 games (and all 3 matches ) because of BTE nut draws that I didn't have an answer for. Ouch. Bad luck I guess but still, I hate having so many options for the SB and with the dragons becoming a mandatory pick apparently (?), I am torn.

Fair enough, if you have that much in your local meta, then go for it. I faced a few devotion decks but only one game did 4 creatures hit the field and even then i stabilized quickly.

For reference, this was my meta last saturday:
G/x Devotion: 4
R/x Devotion: 3
B/x Devotion: 5
U/x Devotion: 2
Boros Burn: 3 (no surprise, both of these guys got smashed by the UWx players)
Red Aggro: 2
W/R heroic: 2
White Weenie: 1
B/R aggro: 2
Esper: 2
UWx control: 3

Kinda hard to predict what I'll be facing, annoying to say the least

I kinda feel that Assemble might be a better meta call here than dragons though, what do you think? I put my spare Temple of Abandon in the main board, I'll see how it runs.

I haven't done enough testing with it. My instinct wants to say it'll be good because it stabilizes with blockers for a couple turns before it turns into a stomp fest. It's a turn slow on stabilizing though.

I fear it might be win more but we'll see

might borrow dragons for saturday if Assemble isn't working out (I hope it does because getting those dragons for real is gonna break the bank )

I think dragons just turns on removal. I wouldn't like spark trooper if it didn't help stabilize.

With 5 4 CMC, yes, you need more than 21 lands.

Have to agree with Elricity here, 21 lands with so many four drops + SBD on the side seems greedy.

In regards to Chandra, I never had issues with her dying from the creatures with the burn list mainly because the Opp. were too concerned about the swing back from Vaults and Friends (though the top8 burn lists suggest vaults was a bad idea) Young Pyromancer and [card]Chandra's Phoenix[/card] should be able to cover her (I think...).

I think dragons just turns on removal. I wouldn't like spark trooper if it didn't help stabilize.

Well, Dragons were bad for me last time but since it's MDU suggesting it...

Test it because I could very well be wrong.

MDU, the full playset of YP mainboard definitely helps. The extra land and extra helix though are very likely to help for keeping her up too. 4 mana is generally the turning point.

[deck]Land (22)
9 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph
1 Temple of Abandon

Monsters (8)
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Young Pyromancer

Spells (28)
4 Boros Charm
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
4 Skullcrack
4 Warleader's Helix

Thighs (2)
2 Chandra, Best Card in Standard

Sideboard (15)
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Anger of The Gods
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Spark Trooper
4 Toil // Trouble
2 Mouthbreather Dragon[/deck]

Tomorrow I will be running this at FNM, provided I can borrow the dragons from someone, if not: Assemble the Legion it is.

If you keep notes, let me know know how often you would have liked to have seen anger and how much life/cards it would have saved.

Looks good Tyreal, purp posted this earlier but this was the article I was talking about when I said I like the land and dragons on the side: link.

Looks good Tyreal, purp posted this earlier but this was the article I was talking about when I said I like the land and dragons on the side: link.

I know scry is powerful, but is it so powerful that the author of that article would rather have Temple of Abandon in the SB instead of a land in the colors he is playing? Say Godless Shrine?

Yes.

Fair enough.

Guys, scrylands are unplayable.

But seriously, I'd rather play spark trooper in the board. It's SUPER narrow, but excellent when it's good. Dragon is expensive and forces you to keep more lands then you want. I'm also similarly unsure about how I feel about YP in the main. I haven't tried it but wouldn't be suprised if he actually was amazing.

LP, YP$ is an allstar here, believe me. Cutting it out last time was the biggest mistake I could have made. I'm pissed off at the guy who wrote that article because he's just throwing around decklists without testing them which is extremely unprofessional imo. And yes, Spark Trooper is godlike when it works.

Dragon is indeed expensive but the main reason to bring it in is to make the U/W matchup bearable which is where I also expect it to shine.

I feel like 22 land might be too narrow, if I get mana screwed too much I might just run another extra temple because holy fuck scry is AMAZING in this deck.

Would you not rather have some number of Mutavault in the deck instead of all those scrylands? Or are the Mutavaults just not necessary in any matchup?

Mutavaults suffer from the same problems that Rakdos Cacklers do in the matchups where you need them the most. Getting your mutavault Azorius Charmed or Celestial Flared is a huge setback vs U/W and vs black they usually die instantly (I could see Rakdos Cackler being good in a meta where mono B is rampant though). This isn't really a kind of deck where you can afford to basically 'sac' your lands, unfortunately.

Trust me, I've tried running them for a few weeks because I really wanted them to work but I don't think they are worth it, not to mention that keeping mana up for burn will be hard if you're already tapping 2 per turn to deal them 2 damage. I'm not saying they are bad but I don't feel like this deck has any room for them.

Oh and you can be sure I'll be trying to find a way to incorporate temple of malice into this deck once it comes out, god I love scry.

Put another way:

Creature agro decks are good because the threats are redundant and you'll kill them with something, you don't care what. One drops are great because if they kill them, you have your 2 drop ready to beat face or vice versa. They verdict? Whatever, have some mutavaults.

However, when your deck runs so few creatures, dies to removal becomes a very, VERY important thing. Chandra's Phoenix is hard to kill permanently. YP can produce value before he goes. Rakdos cackler and mutavault can only die and then there is nothing left to back them up. They're generally -1 card.

^ This so hard

which is exactly why I fear the dragons might turn out to be a fluke against anything but U/W and they are running Celestial Flare atm so I don't know...

If you keep notes, let me know know how often you would have liked to have seen anger and how much life/cards it would have saved.

Sure, I'll take some notes as I'm curious about it as well.

Hey all, been lurking for awhile and I'm incredibly interested in this deck. Have a few questions.

I playtested this deck a good 15-16 times against my friend who runs R/G Superfriends and constantly got destroyed. He'd ramp up way too quickly and it made me really disenchanted with Young Pyromancer. Right now I'm running Stormbreath instead, but should I put the YP's back in and sideboard the dragons?

Also, what is the general sideboard plan? I'm running the same list Darin did for now.

Lastly, what are all of your thoughts on [card]Aurelia's Fury[/card]?

Some quick notes about the FNM yesterday cuz I'm leaving for the tourney today:

- Assemble the legion stinks. I never managed to draw out games long enough for it to be even remotely useful (games ended one way or another before it was able to supercharge into killing mode). It might be good vs. U/W but the Dragons were better in that matchup as far as I was able to tell from plating a few test matches against our only U/W player.
- White Weenie is seeing a resurgence in my meta so I will be bringing back Anger to the sideboard, I counted 4 (!) instances yesterday where having an anger would have saved my ass.
- I love the dragons even though I only got to cast them twice, in both instances they won me the game so yeah I'm officially on the dragon plan!
- Mana base seems exactly where I'd want it to be, never got really flooded or screwed.
- Chandra was extremely useless as it seemed that opponents always had a
Downfall ready for her whenever she dropped, bummer.

G/U ramp: 2-1
Orzhov midrange : 1-2
G/W/B midrange: 1-2
Selesnya aggro: 2-0

edit: Saturday wasn't much better, I played like an idiot. Sigh. I also managed to keep Chandra on the board a couple of times now, so there's that. As predicted, I hosed WW with Anger.

White Weenie: 2-0
R/U aggro: 2-0
Devotion to Gruul: 1-2
Devotion to Boros: 2-1
Devotion to Simic: 0-2

No idea how you guys are beating G/x Devotion but I keep getting stomped by them for some reason.

TL;DR this deck is fantastic, I just need to learn to sequence my burn/chandra activations properly.

Also, I'm confident Anger of The Gods is an auto-include in the SB as it turns the white weenie matchup into a bye (basically) and it's getting very popular in my meta. I feel like the dragons are very good, I just need to figure out how to configure my SB as it's very crowded atm.

0-4 again yesterday

bleh