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Edited: New name, The Hellfire Club

What I'm sleeving up in new standard. I've gotten to test it against the top 8 Esper list, some white weenies, and a great jund Cerberus list. My current list is an edit from a Craig Wescoe brew. So the basic idea is, we burn everything they play, then we burn/aggro them out.

VS control just hold your counter magic for their reload. Basically nothing they cast will be more likely to lose you the game or can't be dealt with with your burn suite. You've got a ton of resilient threats and if all else fails, just burn them to the face. From the side we bring in D sphere, Hammer number 3, and negates. 5 counters for their draw spells effectively. From my experience thus far, this is a pretty good match up. Sac removal is just bad vs young pyro and as long as you play smart to not over commit, they're often going to sweep only 1 or 2 creatures and we've got a density of threats for them to deal with. Hammer is a shinning star here.

VS aggro we've got good ground guys that can keep the blocks on until we can mizzium sweep them. We've also got some planeswalker support that can just take the game away. In this match up purphoros is slow/weak. Every time I got him I just wanted him to be a removal spell or draw spell. The lesson for me was, we've got to control them with the burn everything they play plan. We'll resolve threats later. To this end our hammer is weaker too. We don't really need to out aggro them. So, in comes mortars, Ral, and Staticaster. I didn't play against RDW yet but I'm guessing we have to keep some counter magic or D spheres in the deck to hold for burning earth. I'm not going to lie, this isn't a great match-up for the deck given all our tapped/shock lands.

Reasons for the "debatable" theros cards of Steam Augury and Swan Song. Alright, augury isn't super crazy amazing. I dropped it from four to two because of that. However, it's instant. It's 4 mana. And when played "well" it's better than our alternatives, especially early. Typically I've found it's an instant speed divination that lets me choose what I "divine" from the top 5 cards. I say lets me choose because usually your card quality in the first 4-6 turns of the game is such that they almost never want to give you 3 over 2 cards. But four of augury was too much. Drawing into more steam augury was kinda terrible and just filtered away good cards. I tried opportunity 2 of but every time I got it I never had mana comfortable enough to play it, it was too slow maybe? I mean we're aggro right!? Taking 2 of out for 2 Jace I think will be big gains. Our aggro match up needs help and -2 for "baby fact or fiction" seems great comparatively. I'm not super sold on Augury myself still but at 2 of I think it will be better than the other options for the slot. Maybe we want 2 Sphinx's and 2 Jace even though Sphinx's is a boat load slower. Regardless I like the 2 Jace a lot, we'll see how they pan out in the future.

Swan song is pretty simple actually. For now, basically no one expects it the first time you play it. So it almost always gets something good. Giving them a bird has been completely inconsequential in every game I played it in. Which was basically every game but the aggro match up. We have a billion burn spells if it's in our way, and really we want any reason to cast Magma Jet I've found. 2-for-1 yea yea, I'm just saying I haven't regretted it once out of the 10-15 times I've gotten it out. Most games it just blocked a dude. Which all our dudes, minus pyro, deal with handily. Most of the time it only saved them 1 life because they end up blocking a reckoner. Also, you can get tricky with it and use it to counter your own spell for a bonus dude and purphoros damage. I understand the latter isn't going to happen most games but tricky plays are fun!

So there we go, burn is control...right?

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FNM 10/4/13

Round One: VS Junk Hexproof- To get an idea of what I was up against, Gladecover Scout, Fiendslayer Paladin, Witchstalker, Reaper of the Wilds, and the slew of enchantments that go with it.

Game one: Won the die roll, played first. I got to go T2 Ash Zealot, into T3 Hammer of Purphoros, into T4 [purphoros, god of the forge]] and got him down to 10. T5 became a stalemate where he couldn't attack into my indestructible 6/5 with his 6/6 witchstalker. I continued to leave mana up for pumps on my guys from purphoros until I got to lay a Young Pyromancer and with him pumping out elementals that pinged for 2 I just burned him out the rest of the way casting Magma Jet's and Lightning Strike's to the face.

Side Board: -3 Lightning Strike, -1 Hammer of Purphoros, -1 Purphoros, God of the Forge, -4 Magma Jet, +3 Mizzium Mortars, +3 Negate, +3 Detention Sphere

Game Two: Played second. Surprisingly I went the same T2-T4, even down a hammer and purphoros. He stumbled on having any enchantments and only had 1 Ethereal Armor, two Fiendslayer Paladin's, and a single Gladecover Scout by turn 6. I overloaded Mizzium Mortars and finished the game out.

Round Two: VS Junk Whip- What I saw Obzedat, Ghost Council, Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Loxodon Smiter, Whip of Erebos, Advent of the Wurm, Selesnya Charm, Sylvan Caryatid, and Elvish Mystic.

Game One: Lost the die roll, played second. He had a fast start with T1 Mystic into T2 Smiter. I stopped the beats with T3 Boros Reckoner. He played Whip T4 and I played a tapped land, Ash Zealot, and left up blue for Swan Song. T5 he plays land and passes. T5 I play a tapped land and Purphoros, he Selesnya Charms in response to exile Purphoros. T6 he plays l and and passes. I play Reckoner number two and pass, he Advents EOT. I chose not to Swan Song and leave up double red for first strikes. It worked out eventually that I got to first strike down a wurm. He played baron, which I Turn/Burned. I got a second Purphoros down and was able to close out by swinging in with a reckoner leaving mana up to pump and first stike if he blocked and leaving the other back for his smiter. When I got him low enough I swung all in and pumped twice.

Side Board: -2 Swan Song, -3 Lightning Strike, -2 Magma Jet, -2 Purphoros, -2 Hammer, +3 Mizzium Mortars, +3 Detention Sphere, +3 Negate, +2 Ral Zarek.

Game Two: Played second. Had to mull to 6 but so did he. He got the same T2 Smiter play out. I stumbled a bit with a land drop and started getting blown out by Baron, because Reckoner can't block Baron ugh. I got to turn and burn the Baron again and had some stability via the reckoner and Jace. Then he got to whip in Baron again when I was at 6 and I couldn't block his flying. I had completely forgotten about Baron being a 10/10 flier if he got whipped back in, mega oversight on my part.

Side Board left the same. He apparently side boarded in Banisher Priest

Game Three: Played first. He did not get to T2 smiter because I got to magma jet his mystic and scry out some land since my hand was land heavy. He played Caryatid into Caryatid in Advent over the next few turns where the Advent got negated. I finally got out more than just a pair of zealots and started to get in. Eventually the board state got to something like Purphorose, Elspeth, Jace, and a Pyromancer vs his 2 Caryatids, Whip, Smiter, Mystic, and Banisher Preist. I just held on to all my burn and removal for whenever he was going to drop baron and blew him out with Purphorose/Elspeth. Him whipping in preists to exile tokens then gain two life was definitely good for him. Him getting flooded the last few turns didn't help though.

Round 3: VS RDW variant that played both lightning strikes and magma jets. For the most part it looked like a typical RDW list other than it seemed to be burn heavy.

Game 1:Won the die roll, played first. He had a slow start with a turn two Cackler into turn three Reckoner. I had won the die roll so I had Zealot and my own Reckoner out and suffered no beats in the first four turns. The game was basically a war of attrition until I got Purphoros online with Jace support. They ended up overpowering the board state with card advantage and supreme disadvantage to his attacks.

Side Board: -2 Swan Song, -2 Hammer, -3 Purphoros. -1 Augury, +3 Mizzium Mortars, +2 Ral, +3 Staticaster

Game 2: Played second. He had a faster start game two with Cackler into Zealot into Reckoner. I ended up responding with lightning strike, magma jet, and helix. After I burned everything he played to the point he was top decking he got a hammer down. Then he started making man lands that I would burn in response. Right when I ran out of burn I got Elspeth online for effectively infinite blockers. Eventually I had Jace and Ral in there too and together they super friends him out.

What I learned, Jace was fantastic. He saved me vs a lot of beats. I'm still not sold on the Staticaster in the side. Before he filled a nice spot against the token/Aristocrat decks being able to ping out all the 1/1s. But I'm not sure what deck is going to be playing slews of 1 toughness guys now. On the side though he is still a 3 toughness blocker which is still pretty great vs aggro. I'm not sure what I'd replace him with. Anger of the god's is what I want, but that has just as much potential to blow me out in my current deck setup. Same for Verdict. A fourth Mortars seems good since it gets Baron and Stormbreath. Maybe a 4th D Sphere. But I'm not sure what that last card would be, Jace #3? Or maybe +1 Mortars and +2 Anger of the gods. Right now I'm leaving it as is. I lucked out and didn't have to play the white weenies deck that blew out most of his opponents turn4-5. But that is the match up I'm going to need a sweeper, though brave the elements is a hell of a card =/. Any thoughts on whether Anger/Verdict would be better or maybe another Jace even with how the rest of the deck is set up?

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Date added 11 years
Last updated 10 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.

Rarity (main - side)

6 - 2 Mythic Rares

28 - 7 Rares

14 - 3 Uncommons

7 - 3 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 3.09
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Elemental 1/1 R, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Enchantment Golem 3/3 C, Soldier 1/1 W
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