The number of lands seems fine, but there are a few cards that can be easily cut. Nivix Cyclops seems not that great, as most of your instants and sorceries would be played during your opponent's turn. Dynacharge and Mugging can also be taken out, since you're not an aggro deck so those wouldn't be that useful. Massive Raid can probably also be taken out, since you probably won't have very many creatures out most of the time.

One of the most important things in a control deck is card advantage, so I think it'd be worthwhile to add 4x Steam Augury , and you might even want to consider splashing white for Sphinx's Revelation and Azorius Charm . Supreme Verdict is also a great card if you decide to go the UWR route.

Also, you need some kind of win condition, as burning them to death usually isn't a viable option since you'd rather be killing their creatures with your Lightning Strike s and such. Spellheart Chimera seems like a powerful card, but you might want to consider adding AEtherling as well.

Scrying is also really powerful for control decks, so you might want to consider adding cards like Omenspeaker , Voyage's End and Dissolve

Hey DarkDucky, thanks very much for your advise - Really is appreciated and I'm really glad for a constructive response!

Just a few questions which perhaps you can help me with?

Do you think there could be value to save instant / creature damage spells to buff up Nivix as a 4/4 blocker?

Mugging I think your totally right, It was intended to synergise with Nivix but I think that's too situational perhaps.

Dynacharge and Massive Raid I'd intended to play after building enough tokens from young pyromancer, do you think that would make these choices viable or do you think the token gen would be too slow paced in order to make this a victory condition?

I had steam Augury in with my initial prototype, seems to work well with Spellheart Chimera and would the two would definately tie in with the theme of this deck.

I'd thought about AEtherling too, I quite like the card and could make a very good change for Nivix potentially?

Voyage's End and Dissolve seem good, they're both spells and so Tie in well with Young Pyomancer and Gutter.

Should I bring gutters up to 4x? Cheers once again and I appreciate all your help and advise!

I don't think it's worth it to keep Nivix Cyclops at all. Ideally you'd be countering/killing all their creatures so you wouldn't really be getting attacked that much. If you do, Young Pyromancer 's main purpose would be to generate chump blockers.

I don't think it's really worth it to keep Dynacharge and Massive Raid either. From what I've seen, most of the time Young Pyromancer only lives long enough to make 1 or 2 tokens per game.

AEtherling is good, but I don't think you need 4 of them. It's a late game card that you don't really need more than 1 of at any time, so probably having 2 of them in the deck would be fine.

Guttersnipe seems fine as a 2 of, since it's not a card that you actually need. You're probably better off having 2 more counter or removal spells instead of an extra 2 gutters. Guttersnipe is just like icing on the cake.

Thanks once again, I think your totally right on many different points. Perhaps I expected far too much from Young Pyromancer. How does the deck look now?

It looks a lot better, I like it. Once you test it out in some actual games, you can fine tune it so it runs more smoothly. I was actually thinking of making a blue/red scry/control deck myself for Theros, so this will probably be a good starting place for me too haha. I'll give it a +1 :)

Actually, one thing I would change is to take out 3x Izzet Charm for full playsets of Magma Jet and Lightning Strike . Lightning Strike is the best creature removal you have, and the Scry 2 ability of Magma Jet is really powerful. You can maybe put the other 3 Izzet Charm in the sideboard in case your opponent runs a lot of non-creature spells.

Brilliant, thanks very much for all your help DarkDucky! I'm very happy with the results indeed! Looks nicely balenced, a good mana curve and plenty of different spells to make full use of scry to dig for answers.

Updated with those suggested changes.

DarkDucky what's your thoughts on Meletis Charlatan would this be a better choice then guttersnipe x2?

Hmm, it seems like a pretty good card, but it's hard to say which one would be better. That would really come down to playtesting them both and figuring out which one works better in your metagame. If you want to go for copying spells though, I would probably pick Nivix Guildmage over Meletis Charlatan . His copy ability costs 1 more to activate, but he's more versatile than Meletis Charlatan and also allows you to copy more than one spell per turn

That's true and the draw card/discard card works fantastically with Spellheart Chimera

Yeah, that is also true. It'd be a lot nicer if Snapcaster Mage was still in standard, but it still seems really useful

Personally. I prefer using Mercurial Chemister over Nivix Guildmage yeah he is there more cmc but for what he does, he is so much stronger. For one, not having to discard is a big thing, two is drawing two cards for one mana?? what? It is amazingly strong. His second ability has killed me so many times it isn't even funny. Say you don't have enough mana to get out a 6 drop? Tap one red mana and kill any creature I own.

Yeah that's true, 1 blue to draw 2 cards is pretty insane. I've definately been debaiting that creature slot and it's been between running 2 guttersnipes vs Nivix Guildmage vs Chemister. I think my curve would look a little less skewed towards 2 drops and would even out much nicer with the addition of a good 5 drop.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/redblue-aggro-burn/ Idk if you are still using this deck but i have one similar

Hi Devin95. Thanks for posting your list, I took a look and It looks like a fun and interesting deck. I've been fairly in-active in magic for a little while now, lots of other issues I've had to tend to first.

Yesterday however I played in my local standard tournament at Groovy Frog Ramsgate and placed in Top 6.After putting this deck through It's paces what I've come to realize is that actually - The spellheart chimera's are actually very lack luster. They're a lot of fun but they just don't achieve anything, I rarely seal the game with them and more often then not they're either a 3/3 to a 5/3 and most low budget removal will deal with them very easily.If I was to run a creature in It's place it would likely be frostburn weirds but I'm toying with the idea of using a stormbreath dragon or two. The new god is fantastic with this deck. I tried it out yesterday and It was doing some serious work for me.I've also started to build upon cyclonic rift's.

My current Deck and ideal deck is significantly different to this now. I'll update the deck soon

After making small changes and thinking of additional changes I'm pretty sure I've improved the competitive quality of my deck considerably. I'm confident when I get all of my cards I could reliably top 8 at my local store most of the time.

I've also found that perhaps Steam Augury is a little lack luster in draw. Sometimes having your opponent choose your cards isn't really much benefit.

Anyone else who play this kind of deck able to share experiences so we can sculpt a competitive deck between us all?

I like Guttersnipe and Spellheart Chimera in these decks, they give you a way to win while just playing a control game. See my similar deck U R Double teamed

Thanks for the suggestions, most appreciated. I have to confess, I had literally just removed Spellheart Chimera from this deck and had tried guttersnipe previously too.

I felt that at best spellheart chimera often was rarely greater then 5 power and the majority of games he would be 3 power or lower.

With the amount of 3 damage removal in standard, I felt although at best the card was simply a 1 for 1 card advantage trade and that I didn't gain a great deal of value from having it in the deck.It was at this point I brought in etherling as a win condition.

I feel that for the most part, frostburn weird's offered much more versatility compared to spellheart chimera, coming down early as turn 2 and by turn 3 able to deal immediately with early game threats by pumping on demand just on It's own. Pyromancer in this deck pretty much offers a steady flow of chump blockers until I can play a board wipe or a win Condition by turns 6 or 7.

I noticed you don't run a turn/burn in your deck. I would highly suggest this as an option. I've had this spell do so much work in tournament play and it paves the way for many interesting combat tricks.

Suddenly swinging in with a pyromancer and a guttersnipe which are otherwise difficult to deal with, many players tend to get gready and go for very obvious blocks. Once blockers are declared, you can really tidy up the field by turning they're largest creature into a 0/1 weird, then dealing damage with any of your creatures, then infusing the spell to deal a swift 2 damage to another creature. You can gain so much value from this spell by being clever with the amount of creatures you attack with, what you block with and how you assign each half of turn burn as each side can be targeted separately.

Your deck looks very much like how my old deck worked, I did find however that upon evolving my deck that in my local stores Meta game - An etherling win condition and board wipes were much more effective.

Nice to see someone else playing a Blue Red deck though, perhaps not the strongest combination in the current standard but It has the flavor I enjoy whilst playing!

Interestingly enough, I didn't mention that the turn part of Turn/Burn causes the creature to lose all abilities. This causes flyers to no longer be flying and at the mercy of your low power creatures :P It's fantastic against desecration demon, the expression on a mono black players face as you shrink they're beefy flyer into a mini 0/1 weird and block with a 1/1 pyromancer token is absolutely priceless.

Keranos the new God FYI - He'll rock pretty hard in your deck too I should think.

I wonder whether Blistercoil Weird would be better than Frostburn Weird , it will get buffed as you cast your burn/counters, although it is weaker late game.

I usually hold on to my chimeras until I can get thim in at 8/3 or so, then my opponent has to either counter or remove them, or get hit in the face. if they have a single flyer than I can use Chandra, Pyromaster to stop it blocking.

I do agree about the colour combination though, its not the most powerful or most popular, but I enjoy playing it, and its not commonly seen, which gives it a surprise advantage sometimes.

I think if you were to run a Blistercoil weird, you'd likely much prefer to use a Nivix Cyclops insted. Frostburn weird is serving a slightly different purpose for my deck I guess, he's there more as a versatile blocker. Where as your running creaturs to gain more value from your spells.

I like Guttersnipe , Spellheart Chimera , and Goblin Electromancer as creatures in this sort of deck also Steam Augury can be helpful especially if you put in a spellheart. I also play a a red blue control Controlling izzet and any help is welcome especially with sideboard also a good sideboard card against most other controls is Mindsparker