Do you like combos? Do you dislike blue? Do you like old time, black-and white slapstick comedy? If so, then THIS DECK MAY BE FOR YOU!
This semi-budget (before sideboard) semi-competitive deck centers around three combos that have appeared in various places in the past. It rewards strategic thought before, between, and during games as you play and sideboard towards the appropriate winning strategy against different opponents with different starting hands.
Volcano Hellion
+
Nearheath Pilgrim
= infinite life!
Boros Reckoner +
Nearheath Pilgrim
+
Ephemeral Shields
= infinite life!
Volcano Hellion
+ Boros Reckoner = lots of damage to the opponent!
But wait, there's more! Khans gave us another fun combo card that makes a nice 1-of.
Arcbond +
Nearheath Pilgrim
= a boardwipe that gains you life!
Arcbond + Boros Reckoner +
Ephemeral Shields
= EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE DIES!
Arcbond +
Volcano Hellion
= a desperate drawing finish, or a sealed deal if you have a significant life advantage.
attacking fatty + Boros Reckoner + Arcbond + chump blocker = Clear the board and deal 8-10 to face
What's that? Your opponent has elected a highly disruptive value plan aimed at stopping your interactions? Not to fear! Between the maindeck and sideboard, there is enough aggression to slide in below and around midrange strategies. This deck aims to force the opponent to choose between stopping your combo and killing your other threats plinking away at their life total.
ON TO THE CARDS! - or for a brief summary, skip to the paragraphs with no blue links.
Starring Larry as
Nearheath Pilgrim
! Larry just wants to get along with everyone, he'll trade when he needs to, but is awful sorry on his own.
Also starring Moe as Boros Reckoner! When you hit Moe, he hits back! The harder you hit him, the harder his revenge!
Finally starring Curly as
Volcano Hellion
! Like Larry, Curly is pretty sorry on his own unless you are in the most desperate of straits. He and Larry are best friends, and will warm every heart. Pair him with Moe for the ultimate slapstick experience. When times are desperate, he eats Siege Rhinos for lunch.
The supporting cast:
Grim Lavamancer: This card provides card advantage, late game reach, utilizes our under-utilized graveyard, lets our burn reach to 5, AND gives our opponent the stink eye! WHAT A DEAL!
Figure of Destiny: When you need a good coming-of-age story, the figure here is always ready to come in under countermagic and grow to reasonable proportions.
Lightning Bolt: Every old comedy has a scene where someone gets electrocuted. This deck is no exception. Run 4.
Magma Jet: Removal AND card selcetion? Gets you combo pieces, skips over lands, kills stuff. Makes a good cliffhanger to set up the next scene.
Lightning Helix: Keeps your life total high, keeping the viability of Moe and Curly doing their thing. More fire for the sketch. I think there is a theme here. Admittedly, this is one of the weaker cards in the deck.
Soulfire Grand Master: As a potential aggressive 2 drop that serves as a midgame lifeboat and a late game mana sink, this makes the perfect "old teacher gives the hero awesome training yadayadayada". Whether or not he dies midway through as inspiration, or helps the main characters by going beast mode at the end, he is always a great addition to your film.
Ephemeral Shields
: The limburger cheese of the deck. Having it gives us options, and serves as a handy counter to Abrupt Decay, or lets Moe hit again! (make sure they are tapped out before trying the latter!) This card is horrible in multiples, so we run just 3.
Arcbond: Gives the deck reach. Gives the combos more consistency. Having two in hand is practically an autoloss, so we run 1. If you want to run 2, you have been warned. Audiences will only put up with so many special effects.
Young Pyromancer: Your recruiter for extras and crowd scenes.
SIDEBOARD: What was originally a semi-budget deck spiked after I sunk $30 for two blood moons, watched them climb to $50 a piece, and opened a Fulminator Mage in MM2. The important thing when sideboarding is simply to ask "will I kill my opponent by controlling and comboing (most aggressive decks), rushing them hard (non-interactive decks), or getting them into burn range (midrange decks). Whatever you ultimately decide to put in, make sure your sideboard choices support your post-board strategy.
Deflecting Palm: When you want a martial-arts story-arc in your film. This deck can keep a step ahead of the opponent, but has a hard time closing the game quickly against certain types of decks. Why try to race against a 12/12 doublestriking Primeval Titan when you can let your opponent do half the work for you? Also good against infect. Lightning helix 5 and 6 against decks you want to burn out.
Volcanic Fallout
: More sweepers? sounds good. Hits players, too. this thing and a reckoner let you hit four damage to target creature.
Stoke the Flames: More burn. You normally won't be paying the full 4 mana. Kills Spellskite. I have been surprisingly happy with this card.
Char
is also an option.
Wear / Tear: Flexible, kills spellskite. That critic just cannot be pleased.
Rest in Peace: The best graveyard hate bar none. Necessary for funeral scenes.
Blood Moon: Extreme suspense for the audience. Our manabase can take it. Others cannot.
Stony Silence: Blanks a lot of threats. Worth it.
Pithing Needle: Planeswalkers can be a problem. So can Deceiver Exarch.
Fulminator Mage: Sometimes, ya gotta give homage to the classics.
Matchups: In general, the more aggressive the opponent, the more favored you are. Opponents must respect your ability to drop a hellion to good effect. Against aggressive decks, you have more than enough burn to keep healthy and let your reckoners rule the battlefield. 4 maindeck helices don't hurt either. Your worst matchups are grindy decks that don't abuse their own life totals, such as azban or B/W tokens, where your creatures aren't value enough and you can't hope to burn them out. In these matchups, you are often forced to play out your creatures and hope to topdeck the correct combo piece.
Consistency: You almost never have to mulligan for want of mana. Unfortunately, you will occasionally draw too much 'spice' in your opener. Hands like 3 lands, hellion, shields, helix, and arcbond are rare, but should be mulliganed. Although mulligans are rare, as a r/w deck, you really feel when you are playing a card behind.
A quick number of 'why not' cards:
Path to Exile: So, grindy midrange decks are our worst matchups. These are not the types of decks that you want to be accelerating, and path doesn't go to the face to help close out on an empty board in the grindy matchups, or a full board in the aggro matchups.
Goblin Guide: See Path to Exile.
Boros Charm: The doublestrike is not particularly enticing for this deck, the burn can't hit creatures, and 2 mana is an awful lot of mana for indestructibility when we can get it for free.
Anger of the Gods or
Pyroclasm
: We have a lot of burn, but not enough to consistently close games with it. Volcanic Fallout puts us towards the positive end of that spectrum.
Colorless utility lands: Between our kithkin, helix, and reckoner, our color requirements are pretty tight. This deck does not want to fall behind, and you might do that with colorless lands.
"Aren't sweepers a nonbo with young pyromancer?" If you have tons of tokens on the board, why are you complaining about a temporarily dead card that could become live later?
Any feedback is appreciated!
