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Your Pyromancer And You: The Long-Awaited Sequel

Larry Swasey revisits the Pyromancer Ascension deck in Modern that he wrote an article about pre-Pro Tour Philadelphia. Learn all the ins-and-outs of the deck so you can successfully play it at your next Modern PTQ.

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(Part 1 was about Modern pre-Pro Tour Philadelphia that can be found here.)

After a lot of brainstorming and brewing, I’ve finally come up with a combo deck I’m happy with. Partly because it’s an infinite combo with multiple win conditions, but mainly because it’s a Pyromancer Ascension deck. Pyromancer, my love for thee knows no bounds. Since the deck is pretty complicated, I’m going to give the list and then explain how it works and how I arrived at the card choices.

Pyromancer Ascension
Larry Swasey
Test deck on 03-25-2012
Modern
Magic Arena

Lands (18)

Spells (42)

Sideboard

Magic Card Back


So what’s the basic plan? The basic plan is to play a Pyromancer Ascension and get it active. Once it’s active, there’s a few different ways to win. The best and most consistent way to win is to use an infinite loop with Manamorphose and Noxious Revival. Eventually you replace Manamorphose with Thought Scour (after generating an arbitrarily large amount of mana of course) to mill your opponent out. The other option is to generate infinite mana and storm (pseudo-infinite, you do have to pick a number) and Grapeshot your opponent. Now that I’ve teased you with the win, how do you go about performing this loop? Well, you’ll need four cards and an active Pyromancer Ascension. Don’t worry though; it’s all easier than it sounds. Especially given the fact that you’ll be digging very deep with doubled up cantrips and Peers.

Step one is activating your Pyromancer. If your life total is relatively high and your opponent doesn’t have a lot of reach then you can make use of the Phyrexian mana spells to make this task very easy. A common line of play is (after playing your Ascension) Gitaxian Probe for two life, Gitaxian Probe again, triggering Ascension, and then with the trigger on the stack you Noxious Revival targeting the Gitaxian Probe in the graveyard. Since the Probe goes on top of your deck, you’ll be able to draw it with the Probe that is on the stack. After you draw it, you get to play this original Probe for two life and get a second counter. This means you have an active Ascension all with no additional mana cost, just a lot of life. If your opponent has some pressure or reach obviously this isn’t the best course of action and you should pay some mana for these spells, but otherwise it’s a very cost efficient way of activating your Pyromancer and ascending. Untapping with an active Pyromancer Ascension is almost always game.

Now that we’ve untapped and all of our spells are twice as nice, what’s this loop I’ve been talking about?

Well, it requires four cards: two Manamorphose and two Noxious Revival. Technically all but one Noxious can be in your graveyard, but then you need some other draw spell and some life or extra mana to work with. The basic idea is that you cast Manamorphose generating two green, one red, and one blue. Then you cast the Noxious Revival using a green mana to get back a Noxious Revival and a Manamorphose. With both of these on top of the deck, you cast the second Manamorphose using one green and one red. This will draw you the Noxious Revival and Manamorphose. It also generates four more mana. Now you can repeat the above to your heart’s content. If you’ve been keeping track (which you should be if you’re new to this deck) that means you now have five mana floating.

Hey, wait a second…didn’t we only have four mana floating last time? Ding! So each cycle generates one mana of any color? Yes indeed. What can we do with this vast amount of mana? Well, we can win the game for one. But how do we win once we have a lot of storm and mana? There are a couple of different routes to victory. If there is a Serum Visions in the graveyard or in hand, it can be substituted in for a Manamorphose to scry three every cycle.

When you cast the Serum Visions, the copy resolves first, drawing you one of the two known cards on top and letting you see the known top card and an unknown second card. That’s scry one so far. When the original resolves you draw the known card (either Manamorphose or Noxious Revival) and get to see two unknown cards. You can continue doing this until you see Grapeshot or Thought Scour, and then you can draw the chosen card to win the game.

If there’s a Thought Scour in your graveyard you can substitute that in for a Manamorphose and target your opponent to mill them out. An important fact to note is that you can’t target yourself because you’ll mill the top two cards of your library, both of which you want to continue the combo. At first glance you probably thought, “It’s genius! I can mill myself to find my Grapeshot and then rebuy it with Noxious Revival!” Well, you can’t. Sorry. I should know because believe me, I’ve tried. Once. It got slightly awkward. Thankfully I was still holding a lot of business so I won anyways, but the big takeaway is don’t mill yourself!

If there is a Sleight of Hand in your graveyard you’re out of luck because that card is garbage. If you try to substitute in Sleight for a Manamorphose then you’ll have to choose between the top two cards, both of which you want. Sorry for all you Sleight of Hand fans (all zero of you), but this card just isn’t quite good enough to replace Manamorphose.

If there is a Peer Through Depths in your graveyard things can get quite interesting. You can’t replace a Manamorphose with a Peer, but you can end your combo by getting a Peer back and then casting it. If you don’t see anything you like in the top five cards, you can respond the original Peer that’s still on the stack with a Noxious Revival guaranteeing you’ll at least draw one card you want. Or you can always just hit a draw spell in the top ten cards and continue the loop using that draw spell. If you hit a draw spell in the top ten cards you can continue to replace a draw spell with Peer every cycle. Because Peer replaces itself with a draw spell (Serum Visions, Gitaxian Probe, Manamorphose) it doesn’t stop the loop. And because you have an incredibly large amount of mana, it doesn’t hurt your mana reserves.

Regardless of how you find your win condition, the basic idea is to either Grapeshot your opponent for a huge amount of storm or to mill them out with Thought Scour. Thought Scour is a good plan B because it fits naturally into the combo and because early game casting it on yourself will make your Noxious Revivals and Pyromancer Ascensions a lot better. If you ever mill Ascension and you have Noxious Revival in your hand, it saves a lot of time digging for one. Thought Scour is almost the same as drawing three cards since Noxious Revival is in the deck. Don’t forget, Thought Scour can win through Worship and the Melira combo. Not that winning through the Melira combo is particularly hard because of Lightning Bolt being a way to stop their shenanigans, but it’s nice to have options.

Speaking of Lightning Bolt, it’s perfectly viable to just double up on Bolts and blast your opponents away. It’s not the coolest way to win, but it’s there and it’s viable. When combined with Grapeshot, you can be dealing a lot of damage from nowhere.

The Core

At its core, this deck is 100% combo oriented. There are no flashy Rituals in here to give some vain hope of storming out opponents. No, instead of being an all-in what you see is what you get deck like the Past in Flames deck, we are a complicated killing machine that is purely devoted to finding Pyromancer Ascension and then abusing it. Sure, we have Lightning Bolt, but that’s just another easy way to trigger Ascension for one red mana. It’s also sometimes a convenient way to win a game dealing six damage at a time.

The card drawing and filtering is there to find Pyromancer Ascension and then activate it. Once it’s active they all do double duty trying to find the infinite combo. However, it’s very possible to just naturally storm someone out in combination with a few Lightning Bolts. In fact, that’s my recommendation if you play this deck on Magic Online since going infinite isn’t very viable. Just a quick note, the reason I have Sleight of Hand over something like Faithless Looting is because I’ll never flash back Faithless Looting and because I never want to be down on cards. Every card matters in this deck, and being down on cards is the worst.

There’s one Echoing Truth in the maindeck to stop Iona, Shield of Emeria naming red. Due to the one Echoing Truth, Iona can’t actually safely name any color. If she names blue then the combo can take off and Lightning Bolt can finish her off. If she names red then we can just dig until we hit the Echoing Truth and bounce her. It also hits Worship, not that it’s very relevant with the Thought Scour win condition, but if a deck ever pops up with Eldrazi and Worship it’s nice to be prepared.

The card that deserves the most explanation is Noxious Revival. In building this deck, I wanted to make a deck that guaranteed a win when it was comboing off. I didn’t want a deck that made twelve goblins and dealt thirteen damage with Grapeshot only to get eaten by Emrakul, the Aeons Torn the next turn. Noxious Revival lets this deck go infinite, and it also helps against some of the common cards that interact with us: namely Surgical Extraction. It also interacts very nicely with Thought Scour, letting Scour become a card that is a virtual draw three. Another cool part about Noxious Revival is that it gets back any destroyed Ascensions. Oh, and did I mention you can target opponent’s cards too? During a PTQ my opponent cast Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites and Iona, Shield of Emeria. Of course in response to his Unburial Rites, I cast Noxious Revival targeting his Iona. The icing on the cake is that this activated my Ascension.

Another gem of a card is Gemstone Caverns. That card is bonkers. Have you ever cast a turn 1 Dark Confidant? Let me tell you something about casting a turn 1 Bob: your opponent’s jaw will drop. Trust me, I’ve witnessed it happen. Let’s just say that game was not very close, especially since his hand was a bunch of Rule of Law and Disenchant type effects. Now, you can also cast Pyromancer Ascension on turn 1. This speeds up your win by a full turn. This means you can now race pretty much every deck in the format. However, be aware that on the play you’re most likely boarding this out and going down to seventeen lands. It’s not that the land being colorless is a liability; it’s just that the upside of having it on the draw merits having one in the maindeck and the extra in the board.

Speaking of the sideboard…

Yet Another Super-Secret Sideboard

Dark Confidants are incredible. I realize people will be boarding in Celestial Purges and Oblivion Rings, both of which get rid of Bob, but there is also the fact that they have to combat both Bob and Pyromancer Ascension. Bob is used against decks that have no natural removal (burn spells) or reach (burn spells or an incredibly fast clock). He’s also really good on turn 1. Like busted insane-o good on turn 1.

Gemstone Caverns always comes in on the draw. On the play you board the first one out. Being on the draw (which often happens game 2), you want to get the jump on opponents by playing a turn 1 Ascension, speeding up the clock by at least a full turn. This also gets it down before Remand and Mana Leak are factors.

Pyroclasm is for all of the decks with little guys. Green/White Trap, any flavor of Delver of Secrets, Affinity, and Boros all come to mind right away.

Inquisition of Kozilek is for the decks that you’re not quite sure what they have up their sleeve. I’ve been bringing it in against all sorts of combo decks and Jund colored decks. I bring it in against Jund because it hits literally all of their hate cards along with Bob, Tarmogoyf, and their discard spells.

The additional Echoing Truths are usually brought in on the play if it goes to a game 3 over the lands that were brought in game 2. They’re randomly useful versus some of the hate cards like Leyline of the Void and Thorn of Amethyst.

So now that I’ve done a run-down on how the deck works and the card choices, what happens if things don’t go according to plan?

When Things Go Bad

When I was testing this deck on Magic Online (I wouldn’t recommend this deck for Magic Online, you can’t win via Thought Scour and the infinite combo is usually only done a few times to get a boost in mana), I ran into a few situations where things went wrong. By things going wrong I mean my opponents had sideboarded some hate cards. Against Drew Levin (who writes for this very site), we were in game 2 when he landed a Relic of Progenitus and exiled three of my Noxious Revivals. Granted, he was able to do this because I activated my Ascension in response to the Relic, but this means I was without my infinite combo. Or was I? Truthfully, yes, there was no more infinite combo. However, there is always the old-school loop that is harder to get without Rituals.

The old-school loop is acquiring two active Ascensions, a Manamorphose, and a Remand. You cast the Manamorphose and copy it twice. This generates four mana. With the original on the stack you Remand it. The Remand copies twice, countering itself and the Manamorphose. Now you have two mana floating which is conveniently how much Manamorphose costs. You can continue this loop generating two storm and drawing four cards each cycle. I usually go until I hit Grapeshot or a few Bolts. Then you just let all of Manamorphose and its copies resolve to generate some mana, cast your win condition, and Remand it if it’s not enough. Remanding it lets you cast both the win condition and the Remand again, ensuring you’ll win after you double up on storm.

In another game my opponent played the card that I fear the most: a turn 0 Leyline of the Void. Now, some of you not-so diehard fans of Pyromancer would scream out in fright, but not me. No, instead you have to realize that if you can get any cards into the graveyard a Leyline is not so scary. In order to beat a Leyline you have to sculpt your plan around casting Echoing Truth on their Leyline and then dumping some cards into the graveyard. Once the cards are there you can trigger your Ascension. Leyline may stop the infinite loop of Noxious Revival, but it doesn’t stop the Remand and Manamorphose loop. You can also just try to win like the Past in Flames deck but with the added bonus of having a card that essentially increases your storm count by seven (Lightning Bolt, since it deals six damage and adds one storm).

In yet another sideboarded game, my opponent cast Telemin Performance on me. Thanks for the Vampiric Tutor! Luckily I had Noxious Revival and Manamorphose in my hand with a Pyromancer in play and was able to win easily on my turn. Although, truth be told, it did take me a few solid minutes to figure out how to win without decking myself. It involved casting Noxious with a Manamorphose on the stack and then comboing from there.

Why Play This Pile?

Hey! I take offense to you calling it a pile. In all seriousness, I would play this deck as my combo deck of choice because I’m sick and tired of losing to things that are out of my control. This deck has a lot of play to it, especially with Noxious Revival. Too often when I was playing Splinter Twin, I would have to blindly board in Ancient Grudges because my opponent might have Torpor Orb, Damping Matrix, or Vedalken Shackles. Even then, I would still randomly lose to all sorts of removal spells. Did you know that you can’t ever hope to beat a Seismic Assault game 1 with Twin? There goes a whole matchup right out the window. With this deck, I know the hate cards I’m going to see, and they aren’t very scary.

All of the artifact hate cards that remove your graveyard aren’t scary because the only time they are relevant is when you are going for the full combo. When you resolve a spell, you gain priority back. This gives ample opportunity to play a second copy of the spell and trigger Ascension. Additionally, this deck can always just go the Past in Flames style route and storm up for a lethal Grapeshot, avoiding the Noxious loop altogether. Speaking of Past in Flames and hate cards, this deck does not care at all about Grafdigger’s Cage despite using the graveyard as a second library. None of the spells are being cast from the graveyard; they are merely being targeted in the graveyard and put back on top.

All of the creature hate cards are easily answered with Pyroclasm and Lightning Bolt. Sure that Qasali Pridemage might get to blow up an Ascension, but is your opponent really going to slow-roll a Pridemage? Or is he more apt to play it for more damage? So what if your Ascension gets blown up? You can always find another or cast Noxious Revival to get it back. Oh, and that Ethersworn Canonist and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben? They both die to Pyroclasm as well. And Lightning Bolt. As you can see, creatures are not a problem to be taken too seriously.

As far as enchantment hate goes, Echoing Truth and Remand are the best bets. Most enchantment hate (sans turn 0 Leyline of the Void) is slow and easy to set up to beat. I have absolutely no fear if my opponent is relying on Rule of Law. I’ll still get to trigger my Ascension and once I’m digging ten cards deep with Peer Through Depths, I’m very likely to find an Echoing Truth.

The Sequel’s Credits

So there you have it, my brew, my darling, my work of art. I apologize if I didn’t answer any obvious questions but after over 3000 words on the subject I hope there’s not a lot of confusion about how the deck works. I know there will be some naysayers who want to stick with Past in Flames as their combo storm deck of choice, and that’s fine. You can stay in the past; I’ll be over here in the future with my awesome deck. (Ha! Get it? Past in Flames, stay in the past? Zing!) If there are any questions regarding lines of play that are possible, questions about any other interactions in the deck, questions on card choices, or even if you just want to say “hello” and “you look breath-taking today” feel free to comment below or contact me through Twitter, e-mail, Magic Online, or Facebook.

krazykirby4 on Magic Online

@krazykirby4 on Twitter

krazykirby AT gmail DOT com

Bonus Nostalgic Decklist

As a quick bonus to all my readers out there (hi Mom!), I figured it’d be pretty cool to throw in a decklist of a deck that I used to play. This deck was for the Extended format around the time Thopter Depths was dominating. I know the list will look awful, but it was actually testing very well. I just never got the cards together to PTQ with it because I was playing Pyromancer Ascension in that format too.

Mono-White Belcher
Larry Swasey
Test deck on 03-25-2012
Extended
Magic Arena

Lands (25)

Spells (35)

Sideboard

Magic Card Back