The basic game plan is to use vortex activations early on to keep the board clear, until we can start chaining day's undoings and treasure cruises and hopefully dealing 8-10 damage a turn to the opponent. What I've noticed goldfishing the deck is that it can reach 20 damage by around turn seven, and then another 20 damage by turn nine or ten. At that point you typically run out of gas, so I'd avoid drawing out the game too long.
The ideal opening hand is
Molten Vortex
,
Day's Undoing
, a blue source, and as many mountains as possible. Hands like these are often capable of a turn six kill. A more realistic expectation is to mulligan until finding a
Molten Vortex
, or a
Day's Undoing
, although hands with
Day's Undoing
and no blue source are often a mulligan as well. If starting with
Day's Undoing
it's probably correct to cast it turn 3 in order to find a molten vortex ASAP.
CARD CHOICES:
Molten Vortex
:
The most important card in the deck. It's our only win condition, so most of the deck is focused on finding it. It constrains our manabase somewhat, as we need almost every land to be able to tap for red. The most important thing to remember about the card is that it is not only a win condition, but also a board control engine. With it in play, every land in our deck is effectively a
Shock
. It's also resistant to removal, as most standard removal is focused on creatures. The two big spells to watch out for are
Dromoka's Command
and
Utter End
. While in game one extra copies can be pitched to Tormenting Voice, postboard it's advisable to have at least two in play at any point.
Day's Undoing
:
Certainly the strongest card in the deck, although it can be a little ambiguous whether it's helping us or our opponents more. It's the best tool we have for finding
Molten Vortex
, as seeing seven new cards for three mana is far more efficient than anything else in the deck. Technically, three fully delved
Treasure Cruise
s would see nine cards for three mana, but unfortunately getting twenty one cards into our graveyard isn't quite that easy. It's also excellent at restocking our hand. Notably, the end the turn clause is almost nonexistent if we have a molten vortex in play, since all we'll be doing is unloading lands at instant speed anyways. The major downside to the card is of course that our opponent also draws a new hand. In games two and three this means our opponents almost certainly will draw their sideboard cards, so we have to be prepared for that. One last thing to remember about the card is that our opponents will eventually begin to draw lands that they don't need, and we never will, so that combined with our ability to quickly dump our hand can make the card less symmetrical.
MORE TO COME
(In short, the rest of the cards are all cheap cantrip type effects that dig for molten vortex/day's undoing as well as filling the graveyard. In the sideboard are answers to aggro, some counterspells, and a few miscellaneous cards. I wouldn't suggest boarding out more than ~7 lands in most circumstances)
