A while back, I made Top 8 of a Midwest Masters Series (MMS), which qualified me for a $10k at GenCon. I wasn’t planning on attending GenCon, seeing as how there are no pro points involved, but it coincided nicely with Grand Prix: Columbus. I have a lot of good friends in Indy that I don’t see very often. I even had GenCon credit left over from last year!
At GP: Columbus, I was pretty sure that I was going to end up playing Time Sieve in Standard. While it may look like I keep trying to Make Fetch Happen (as I tend to do), this didn’t seem to be the case. UGR Destructive Force, and UW Control decks were all the rage, and a combo deck will be hard-pressed to lose to strategies like those.
I gave what little I had of the deck to Matt Boccio, and also shipped the list to Orrin Beasley for the Sunday PTQ. Both of them bombed the PTQ, but they didn’t really speak ill of the deck at all. I had a few days before the MMS, and I was going to be staying with Gabe Walls, so I could do extensive Magic Online testing.
Naturally, that testing got sidetracked. When I saw the French Nationals results (which were a breath of fresh air, by the way), I knew that at some point I would play the crazy French Ascension deck on Magic Online. It looked pretty sweet, and I figured it would be a good way to kill time while waiting for Temple Bells and Leylines of Sanctity to drop in price.
I played a couple of eight-man queues, and had a lot of fun. Mostly because I never lost. Mythic, RDW, UW, Turboland, and hell, even the mirror were easy matchups. Ascension was right in my wheelhouse, and I was playing it well right from the get go. I also understood how the deck functioned, and what I needed to win in each matchup.
This wouldn’t have been possible had I not been able to imagine the matchup from the other side of the table. From playing RDW, I knew that if they killed or countered my first two or three creatures, it was going to be hard to win. From playing Mythic and Naya, I knew that if my opponent killed all of my mana guys that it would be hard to win. From a UW player’s perspective, I knew that I only had Celestial Purge and Oblivion Ring to answer enchantments. Without all that knowledge, I wouldn’t have been able to build a good sideboard.
Ascension just seemed like the better combo deck.
Cedric called me on Wednesday night and asked what I was playing in the GenCon PT. I told him Ascension, but asked him to not give the list out, because he was rooming with some of my competition for the PT. I would have prefer it if he didn’t even mention the card Pyromancer Ascension, since no one seemed to be taking it seriously. He said he wouldn’t, of course.
Naturally, the next day, I show up at GenCon ready to play the Block Championship, and there Cedric is, grinding eight-mans with Ascension. Grr…
I lost playing for Top 8 in the block tournament, so I spent the rest of the night getting the rest of the cards I needed for my Ascension deck. Seeing as how Cedric had played in roughly ten eight-mans, everyone knew he was playing Ascension. People were coming up to me and asking, “Why is Cedric playing Pyromancer Ascension?” or “Is Cedric’s Ascension deck any good?”
I figured that Friday (and possibly Saturday morning) would be spent best grinding eight-mans as well. There weren’t any other great tournaments going on, I probably needed some practice, and the deck was already a known quantity, so mise.
I lost in round 2 of the first box tournament, but won the next two, and split the third with Brad Nelson. So far, so good. I got a little greedy Saturday morning, and joined an eight-man an hour before the MMS started. I got about halfway through round 1 before I knew I wasn’t going to finish.
As we headed to game t3, I told my opponent that I was going to concede to him whether I won or lost, but that I wanted to play out game 3. He was playing Jund, a deck that I didn’t get to play against much, kept a sketchy hand, and promptly got destroyed.
This is what I registered:
Lands (22)
Spells (38)
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Time Warp
- 4 Mana Leak
- 4 Ponder
- 3 Into the Roil
- 4 Pyromancer Ascension
- 4 Treasure Hunt
- 4 See Beyond
- 4 Preordain
- 3 Call to Mind
Sideboard
At various points, I tried:
Foresee over Treasure Hunt: Foresee was slow, but after playing in the MMS, I realized the deck needed a hard card drawer maindeck instead of just cantrips. Post board, the games are based more on attrition. Against UW and other control decks, you’re trading counterspells, and if you don’t have card draw, eventually you’ll fall behind.
Against decks like Naya and Mythic, you turn into a Control deck that is just planning on killing most of their dudes and refilling.
Against Jund, you need card draw to beat Bloodbraid Elf and Blightning.
Burst Lightning: While having a bunch of Shocks is nice versus stuff like RDW, against Naya and Mythic you’d rather have Pyroclasm. You really want to kill all of their mana guys, Fauna Shaman, etc, and Burst just doesn’t do that on its own.
I feel like two Burst Lightnings is probably the right number, but you really want multiple copies of stuff to trigger Ascension. Multiple Into the Roils, while worse against stuff like RDW (although still solid), is probably better than Bursts at this point.
It should be noted that against UW, I want to side down to one win condition, and that I’d rather have a Burst there instead of Lightning Bolt because it kills Celestial Colonnade. It’s possible that I could play Bursts instead of Bolts, but being able to kill 3/3 Knights on the spot as opposed to maybe having to kick a Burst later, and killing a Ravine for one mana, probably puts Lightning Bolt over the top.
Temple Bell/Jace maindeck: Shuhei has been seen 3-1ing some Daily Events with a couple Temple Bells maindeck, but Foresee or even Jace seems better. Jace is fairly miserable against decks with Bloodbraid Elf, so I’d probably prefer to just have any spell.
Spell Pierce maindeck: In theory, it’s good against Jund’s Blightnings and Maelstrom Pulses, while also solidifying your already great matchup against other control decks.
Some sort of animal in the sideboard: Matignon ran Kiln Fiend, but all of my opponents have Purges, Kor Firewalkers, Oblivion Rings, and the like, so that guy seems pretty miserable. Olivier mentioned Coralhelm Commander, and that guy is alright, but I still don’t think you need a creature in your board if you play a decent number of Dispels.
One mana counters are so much better than Negate. You will get into heavy counter-wars in the post board games, and being able to win those is vital to your success.
Anyway, I also tried Calcite Snapper for RDW, the mirror, and Jund, but was underwhelmed. Getting around Thought Hemorrhage is pretty nice, but that probably shouldn’t resolve against you anyway. Telemin Performance is the other issue, but unless Phage was legal, I probably wouldn’t bother trying to fight that one.
For those of you who haven’t played a game with the deck, you should know a few things.
First of all, the deck isn’t kold to Pridemage, Celestial Purge, Oblivion Ring, or any of that jazz, assuming you play correctly. Instead of running Ascension out there on turn 2, you have plenty of time to wait until you can protect it. In that time, those answers they brought in will rot in their hand.
Sometimes they’ll have pressure and you need to get Ascension active to beat them, at which point you lose to a Purge or what have you, but that isn’t typically the case.
Second, don’t concede against Ascension when they copy a single Time Warp or single Call to Mind. It’s not exactly likely, but it’s possible for them to just draw four blanks in a row. Once there’s a Call to Mind returning another Call to Mind and a Time Warp every turn, then you can concede once they show you a burn spell.
I’ve had opponents concede prematurely, and those that refuse to concede even though I have the loop going.
Onto the tournament!
There were 64 players (out of a possible 95 or so that qualified), which meant six rounds. 4-0-2 was the goal, as none of the 4-1s would be able to draw in. Pre tournament, I made 5% splits with Brad Nelson, Justin Meyer, and Julian Booher. I figured that it was a large enough tournament that hedging would be a good idea.
Round 1: WR Runeflare Trap
Poszgay made back to back PTQ Top 8s with this deck, but all of the other combo decks are good matchups. You have plenty of counterspells after sideboarding, so it’s very difficult for them to fight through your wall, and this was no different. I won the match despite mulliganing to five game 1.
Round 2: Tyler Mantey with UGRw Destructive Force
He spent the first game discarding while I did my thing. Game 2 he played turn 2 Rampant Growth while I Halimared on turn 1, Pondered on turn 2, played an Island and passed. He ran Cultivate into my Spell Pierce, and I played Jace.
At that point, I had two Flashfreezes, plenty of land, and some more card drawing, so I thought I was in the driver’s seat.
Then I got Telemin Performanced.
Second game I kept a hand with Island, Mountain, and spells. Despite a couple See Beyonds, I couldn’t find a second source of Blue. The deck typically wants one or two Mountains to function, but everything else needs to be Blue. This is why I cut a Mountain, but it didn’t matter in this match. He was able to force through some spells without much resistance from me.
Round 3: UW Control
Neither of these games were close. I did my thing, protected my Ascensions, and Into the Roiled his Leylines of Sanctity before Bolting him out game 2.
Round 4 and 5: Mythic
Close games, but the Bolts and Pyroclasms were too good. Unless the GW decks have Vengevine, there isn’t really much out of their deck that I’m scared of. Being on the play helps immensely.
Round 6: Kurtis Droge with weird Turboland
His deck had Birds of Paradise, Lotus Cobra, Mana Leak, and lots of Frost Titans. He was still packing Time Warps, but didn’t seem to have the usual Explore/Cultivate/Oracle of Mul Daya package, although I did see Oracle in a post boarded game. I knew for a fact that he didn’t have Avenger.
He mulliganed to five in the first game and still put up a fight with Frost Titan, but by that point, I had all that I needed to go off.
Second and third game were heartbreakers. Kurtis played around my Mana Leaks, I didn’t draw much gas, and Frost Titan wasn’t Flashfreeze-able. [For the lowdown on this deck, read Chris Jobin article here – Craig]
4-2, good for 16th place and half a box. At least Julian and Justin made Top 8!
The next day I played in a couple more box tournaments so that the trip wasn’t a complete waste. I also got to play a couple games against Patrick Chapin, who played turn 1 Relic of Progenitus. That was a lot of fun.
I haven’t decided exactly where I want to go with the deck as of yet, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find me in the Magic Online queues. I know the deck needs some sort of hard card drawing maindeck like Foresee, Jace, or even Jace’s Ingenuity. Either Treasure Hunt or See Beyond are probably going to get the axe, but I’m not sure which one.
With more card drawing, it’s easier to just run two Call to Minds, since you should be able to find the second relatively easy. A third basically makes you bulletproof versus stuff like Duress or for when you naturally draw two and need to cast them, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
A third Dispel will probably make its way into the sideboard.
Against Jund, I’m not exactly sure how to sideboard. On the play, maybe I want more counterspells and fewer Bolts, whereas on the draw Mana Leak is pretty flimsy. I typically keep in Treasure Hunt versus Jund and UW and side out See Beyond, but against everyone else I do the opposite. Making your land drops in the control matchups is very important, as is having the ability to draw multiple cards to pad your hand from Blightning.
Versus UW, you side down to one Bolt and cut one of the two-drop card drawers for more counterspells and more card draw.
Versus Valakut, I like going down to one Bolt (assuming you don’t see Bloodbraid and Siege-Gang Commander), cutting the Treasure Hunts and Into the Roils for card drawing and counterspells.
If you’re a master, a player on a budget, are named Matt Nass, hate creature combat, or just want to try a little something different, I highly recommend you pick up Pyromancer’s Ascension. M11 not only made the deck viable, but pushed it into Tier 1 status. I’m looking to play the deck at Nationals in a couple of weeks, but hopefully this article doesn’t create some sort of backlash.
GerryT
Bonus!
I was playing some RDW a few weeks ago, mostly out of boredom, and came across a few very interesting situations. Even now, I’m not exactly sure of the best plays.
I was up a game against Jund and drew the following opening hand :
Mountain
Mountain
Scalding Tarn
Scalding Tarn
Arid Mesa
Earthquake
Ball Lightning
Easy mulligan, this time into:
Goblin Guide
Earthquake
Hell’s Thunder
Manabarbs
Smoldering Spires
Mountain
Easy keep, although that Manabarbs probably looks suspect. It seemed like it could be good in the matchup since they have no real answer to it. Still, it’s bad in multiples and could be slow, so I decided on bringing in one on the draw and two on the play.
He mulliganed to five and led with Mountain. I draw a Mountain, cast Goblin Guide, and considered not attacking for fear of undoing his mulligan. Especially with the Manabarbs in my hand, allowing him to catch up seems risky. Katsuhiro Mori probably wouldn’t attack there, and yet I did, revealing a Ravine. He played the Ravine and passed.
I drew a Goblin Guide and played it. I considered not playing my Spires so that I could get through a Thrinax on the next turn, but decided that I wanted to cast Manabarbs as soon as possible, and also be able to play Hell’s Thunder next turn. Honestly, not much of that mattered, and I should have held the Spires and played Mountain instead.
I attack, revealing Swamp and Duress, while he plays the dreaded Thrinax. Quenchable Fire is my next draw step, so I play Mountain and attack with everyone, allowing him to put Verdant Catacombs and Forest into his hand. He Bloodbraids into Terminate, attacks with both. I draw a Hellspark, Earthquake for two, get my Quench Duressed, and die.
Third game, I mulligan a one-lander into:
Earthquake
Staggershock
Goblin Guide
Hellspark Elemental
Smoldering Spires
Scalding Tarn
I play Guide, revealing Malakir Bloodwitch, while he only has a Raging Ravine. A second Goblin Guide comes off the top, and I attack with both revealing another five drop, this time Bituminous Blast. Again, I incorrectly play the Spires here, and get punished when he plays a Putrid Leech. I draw a Quenchable Fire, play Hellspark, and attack with everyone, putting him at seven life.
My Staggershock gets Duressed, I draw a Hell’s Thunder, unearth Hellspark, and attack with both my dudes, putting him at four and leaving both of us with clear boards. He makes up for that by playing a Bloodbraid into Thrinax.
I draw Teetering Peaks, and could:
Earthquake for one, not playing around Blightning, hoping to Quench or Thunder him out next turn.
Or…
Pass, hoping that he draws a spell and not a land for his Malakir Bloodwitch.
Hopefully, this has been enlightening.