Considering fitting in Mizzium Mortars either along side Pillar of Flame or in it's place. Also, I'm alittle worried about removal on my guys, so wanted to squeeze in Rootborn Defenses or something like it.
No testing yet, throwing it together tonight. Wanted to get some last minute advice before sleeveing it up. Thanks guys!
but to be honest i find this deck deck pretty bad at doing something. i really had the feeling all games that i was running beside luck of drawing the cards needed because i could do MANY things to do nothing at the end.
You really need to post deck lists. Also if you're giving game reports at least mention what kind of deck they were running, other wise it doesn't really help much.
Firstly I think we can agree that this looks like the core of the deck
This plus lands gives us about 16 cards to play with. It feels like the deck from the base splits based on secondary win conditions: Creatures or Flashback. Since both of these are used for our primary win condition, Burn at The Stake, card decision from here is based on preference. Let's take a look at some examples.
Reforge The Soul vs. Past in Flames - Combo Piece
I believe both of these cards are important in the deck and your strategy will change based on which one you want to lean on more (2-3 and 3-4). Past in Flames plays MUCH better with Dangerous Wager, since dumping your hand may not really hurt you if you are playing PiF. The inverse is also true, since Faithless Looting becomes much better when you have a larger hand, which Reforge The Soul helps you with.
Faithless Looting vs. Dangerous Wager - Draw Piece
I kinda covered this above, but both of these cards are really close in functionality. All depends on what other pieces you want to play with them.
Signal Pest vs. Myr Sire - Utility Creature
SP is much more focused on attacking, where MS is more used as a rebirth target, or chump blocking, while still providing a back-up creature, to combo off of Battle Hymn.
Hellrider vs. Chancellor of the Forge - Overkill
Playing CotF immediately puts X new creatures into play, just ripe for comboing off of another battle hymn. However Hellrider's role is to finish off the opp from the 12-15 dmg Stake.
Splitting these up yields two styles of this deck:
Two things you may notice are other cards? There are still some cards I think we need to test more, so I listed the best options below. And 2) What's this junk about 16 land + Gitixian Probe? Great question!
After doing some serious stats analysis, I personally believe we can simulate roughly the same statistical advantage as 20 lands with 16+probes, while still gaining the information advantage of the probe. Math below!
My usual benchmarks for comfortable things in Magic fall into two categories: The likeliness I'm going to get something in time, and the estimated number of games before I'll see an empirical difference between two decks. For the former I'm comfortable with a lower bound of 75%, and for the latter, 10 games.
For this comparison I'm just going to cover the first three turns. So the likeliness that I'll draw a land on each turn for 20 lands is 95.1% for turn 1, 82.4% for turn 2 and 63.7% for turn three. For 16 lands: 90.1%, 69.1% and 44.9%. To modify this to use Gitaxian Probes, for each turn we calculate if we drew one or not, and how it changes our chances, eg. (chance of no probe) * (Chance of land) + (chance of GP) * (Chance of Land + one extra card from probe). This yields 91.22%, 72.21%, and 51.22, so just a bit better then without.
If we compare the percentage change from 20 lands, we get: 3.8%, 10.19% and 12.48%, converting that to the expected number of games: 26.3, 9.8 and 8 games.
So this means we'll have to play on average 26 games before we'll see an actual difference from running 20 land versus 16+probe on the first turn. Now the second and third turn are a little under my comfort zone, but the added benefit of the opp's hand, plus the ability to flash it back later wins me over.
TL;DR There is very little statistical difference in playing land between running 20 land versus 16 land + 4 Gitaxian probe for the first three turns of the game
Other Cards Increasing Vengeance - Really cool card, but I think it'll be overkill more so than helping Forge Devil - This guy is an excellent suggestion. Definitely Sb tech for the utility creature slot. Ichor Wellspring - Compared to Reforge it seems really bad, but it is a Rebirth target. Mox opal - I'm cheap so I probably won't pick them up to test.
already a thread for this. called the [OFFIAL][DEVELOPING] U/G Infect.
Its actually really good and no one seems to play it. VERY few meta's have real answers to the deck. Things loaded with kill spells and board wipes maybe but for the most part the only infect deck people even think they will see is mono B infect. (which I actually find is inferior to U/G infect)
It's inkmoth nexus. It's weird that two people back to back got this wrong. Also Groundswell is not legal anymore. You autolinked to it, it's pretty easy to check:P
It's running at 64 right now, and I have no idea what to cut yet. I need to do some more testing to see if I have enough artifact targets for the rebirth, and if I'm running too many rituals (I have a feeling I am).
I threw in the Pillar of Flame to have a little bit of interaction with the opponent and to gets us there if we need to squeeze a bit more damage through.
Sideboard Arc Trail - To side out the pillars when I don't have to worry about flashback or undying Devil's Play - Sides out the Hellriders against decks with a lot of board sweepers. Allows us to use those rituals to get some damage through. Shrine of Burning Rage - Also handy against control decks.
The goal of this goal is to lock down the opponent's threats using surgical extraction, nevermore, and memorcide. It uses a fair amount of removal, with effective creatures to clog up the ground.
I'm thinking about squeezing in some titan's, maybe replacing the bloodgifts. I'm also unsure if I'm running too few extraction. They swing between being completely bonkers to being ineffective during games.
Anyways, please help me tweak this deck to run just a tad more consistent. Thanks!
I've reviewed the last 10 pages of this thread and built a general recipe for this deck. I find it's really helpful to boil down a deck into this manner, seeing as it becomes easier to debate placements of cards and it provides a great base for building new variations of the deck.
How This Works
I broke down the deck into it's major card groups: Draw, Disrupt, Burn, Creatures, and Lands. Then found out the average range of the amount of cards in each. After that, list all the common cards in each and rank them as High, Med, or Low.
High: Cards you want to see every game. These card were usually played in nearly every deck at 4 slots, sometimes 3. Med: Cards you want to see most games. Usually played 1-3 slots. Low: Cards you want to see late game or are situational. Usually 0-2 slots.
A player simply chooses the ranges that make sense to them, then choose cards in each group by rank. We then debate how accurate this recipe is (eg. should Vapor Snag be ranked as high or med?). This is useful seeing as there's no one perfect version of the deck and allows for acceptable variations in the meta.
After reviewing a couple dozen decks, ~90% of them tend to follow this recipe
I personally like the 443 setup of Delver, snappy, and Phoenix, so 11 creatures. I want about 10 burn, and I really like Arc Trail, so 442 of incinerate, gut shot and Arc trail. I have a very fast meta, so I'll go on the upper end of the disrupt and go with 10, 442 on mana leak, vapor snag, and negate. This leaves 8 slots for Draw, I really want to test g-probe, so I'll run a 422 on ponder, DR, and GP. Let's see the list.
Just came to say, I really like this build. I strongly suggest the OP give this a shot. I like Thrun for a mid game win if your test subject doesn't come online, but he could be replaced for cheaper alternatives if the wallets calls for it.
Well done, although Think Twice is 2 to cast and 3 to flashback, just like DR, so cost efficiency is irrelevant. Now you COULD make an argument for color base, and that some of the blue-heavy builds would get more stability from TT over DR, but that's a different argument entirely and really irrelevant except for the most unstable of builds.
Wow, completely slipped my mind that the flashback on Think Twice is 3. I'll update my post then. The color difference I believe would be so statisically minimal and not to mention rather difficult to accurately calculate.
However, to play devil's advocate with your assumptions, we aren't always looking for just one card. Card advantage is card advantage, and so the question of consistency is what the DR naysayers are looking at. And to that, I simply say what has been said a thousand times: if you cast DR smartly, then DR is better. If you want to blindly dump mana into something, then TT is your go-to, but when used properly, DR goes deeper and gives you more advantage both in the yard and in the hand.
Well strictly speaking both cards give you equal card advantage (+1 card). DR gives greater breadth of cards, while TT gives consistently. So yes I agree completely with you, DR is better when played smartly.
3 Guttersnipe
2 Hellrider
//Tokens 13
4 Krenko's Command
4 Gather the Townsfolk
3 Midnight Haunting
2 Goblin Rally
3 Burn at the Stake
3 Battle Hymn
2 Past in Flames
2 Reforge the Soul
3 Intangible Virtue
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Oblivion Ring
14 Mountain
5 Plains
4 RW Duals
Some shenanigans can ensue by chaining Past in Flames with Battle Hymn, allowing you to recur the token spells and refilling your hand with Reforge The Soul.
Considering fitting in Mizzium Mortars either along side Pillar of Flame or in it's place. Also, I'm alittle worried about removal on my guys, so wanted to squeeze in Rootborn Defenses or something like it.
No testing yet, throwing it together tonight. Wanted to get some last minute advice before sleeveing it up. Thanks guys!
4 Memnite
//Spells
4 Battle Hymn
2 Burning Vengeance
4 Dangerous Wager
4 Faithless Looting
4 Flayer Husk
4 Infernal Plunge
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Mox Opal
3 Past in Flames
4 Reforge the Soul
19 Mountain
I tried a few sample hands, and I don't think I'm digging having 4ofs of both Faithless Looting and Dangerous Wager.
I'll run some stats on it later, but I'm curious on your feelings.
You really need to post deck lists. Also if you're giving game reports at least mention what kind of deck they were running, other wise it doesn't really help much.
Firstly I think we can agree that this looks like the core of the deck
4 Priest of Urabrask
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Infernal Plunge
4 Battle Hymn
4 Burn at the Stake
This plus lands gives us about 16 cards to play with. It feels like the deck from the base splits based on secondary win conditions: Creatures or Flashback. Since both of these are used for our primary win condition, Burn at The Stake, card decision from here is based on preference. Let's take a look at some examples.
Reforge The Soul vs. Past in Flames - Combo Piece
I believe both of these cards are important in the deck and your strategy will change based on which one you want to lean on more (2-3 and 3-4). Past in Flames plays MUCH better with Dangerous Wager, since dumping your hand may not really hurt you if you are playing PiF. The inverse is also true, since Faithless Looting becomes much better when you have a larger hand, which Reforge The Soul helps you with.
Faithless Looting vs. Dangerous Wager - Draw Piece
I kinda covered this above, but both of these cards are really close in functionality. All depends on what other pieces you want to play with them.
Signal Pest vs. Myr Sire - Utility Creature
SP is much more focused on attacking, where MS is more used as a rebirth target, or chump blocking, while still providing a back-up creature, to combo off of Battle Hymn.
Hellrider vs. Chancellor of the Forge - Overkill
Playing CotF immediately puts X new creatures into play, just ripe for comboing off of another battle hymn. However Hellrider's role is to finish off the opp from the 12-15 dmg Stake.
Splitting these up yields two styles of this deck:
4 Memnite
4 Priest of Urabrask
4 Signal Pest
//Ritual
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Infernal Plunge
4 Battle Hymn
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Reforge The Soul
2 Past in Flames
3 Faithless Looting
4 Burn at the Stake
3 Hellrider
//Lands
16 Mountains
4 Memnite
4 Priest of Urabrask
4 Myr Sire
//Ritual
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Infernal Plunge
4 Battle Hymn
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Reforge The Soul
4 Past in Flames
3 Dangerous Wager
4 Burn at the Stake
3 Chancellor of The Forge
//Lands
16 Mountains
Two things you may notice are other cards? There are still some cards I think we need to test more, so I listed the best options below. And 2) What's this junk about 16 land + Gitixian Probe? Great question!
After doing some serious stats analysis, I personally believe we can simulate roughly the same statistical advantage as 20 lands with 16+probes, while still gaining the information advantage of the probe. Math below!
My usual benchmarks for comfortable things in Magic fall into two categories: The likeliness I'm going to get something in time, and the estimated number of games before I'll see an empirical difference between two decks. For the former I'm comfortable with a lower bound of 75%, and for the latter, 10 games.
For this comparison I'm just going to cover the first three turns. So the likeliness that I'll draw a land on each turn for 20 lands is 95.1% for turn 1, 82.4% for turn 2 and 63.7% for turn three. For 16 lands: 90.1%, 69.1% and 44.9%. To modify this to use Gitaxian Probes, for each turn we calculate if we drew one or not, and how it changes our chances, eg. (chance of no probe) * (Chance of land) + (chance of GP) * (Chance of Land + one extra card from probe). This yields 91.22%, 72.21%, and 51.22, so just a bit better then without.
If we compare the percentage change from 20 lands, we get: 3.8%, 10.19% and 12.48%, converting that to the expected number of games: 26.3, 9.8 and 8 games.
So this means we'll have to play on average 26 games before we'll see an actual difference from running 20 land versus 16+probe on the first turn. Now the second and third turn are a little under my comfort zone, but the added benefit of the opp's hand, plus the ability to flash it back later wins me over.
TL;DR There is very little statistical difference in playing land between running 20 land versus 16 land + 4 Gitaxian probe for the first three turns of the game
Other Cards
Increasing Vengeance - Really cool card, but I think it'll be overkill more so than helping
Forge Devil - This guy is an excellent suggestion. Definitely Sb tech for the utility creature slot.
Ichor Wellspring - Compared to Reforge it seems really bad, but it is a Rebirth target.
Mox opal - I'm cheap so I probably won't pick them up to test.
Long post is long.
I believe this is the one you are talking about.
Blessings of Nature + Noxious Revival package might be pretty neat for the deck. I also agree with livewire lash over pike. I think Ranger's Guile really has a place in this deck, it acts as both a pump and a counterspell to spot removal.
4 Memnite
4 Myr Sire
4 Priest of Urabrask
//Token-gen 7
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
3 Thatcher Revolt
4 Infernal Plunge
4 Battle Hymn
//Support 8
3 Faithless looting
2 Reforge the Soul
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Ichor Wellspring
//Kill 6
3 Burn at the Stake
3 Hellrider
//Land
20 Mountain
It's running at 64 right now, and I have no idea what to cut yet. I need to do some more testing to see if I have enough artifact targets for the rebirth, and if I'm running too many rituals (I have a feeling I am).
I'm really curious on the thread's thoughts on Faithless Looting vs. Dangerous Wager.
I threw in the Pillar of Flame to have a little bit of interaction with the opponent and to gets us there if we need to squeeze a bit more damage through.
Sideboard
Arc Trail - To side out the pillars when I don't have to worry about flashback or undying
Devil's Play - Sides out the Hellriders against decks with a lot of board sweepers. Allows us to use those rituals to get some damage through.
Shrine of Burning Rage - Also handy against control decks.
The suggestion for a transformative sideboard is interesting. Probably something like Hero of the bladehold + Gather the townsfolk + maybe Mentor of the Meek + duals and plains. That sideboard alone would be worth twice the main deck:P
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Doom Blade
3 Go for the Throat
2 Day of Judgment
//Hand Control
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Memoricide
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Nevermore
2 Curse of Death's Hold
//Creatures
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Blade Splicer
4 Typhoid Rats
3 Cathedral Membrane
2 Bloodgift Demon
9 Swamp
10 Plains
4 Isolated Chapel
I'm thinking about squeezing in some titan's, maybe replacing the bloodgifts. I'm also unsure if I'm running too few extraction. They swing between being completely bonkers to being ineffective during games.
Anyways, please help me tweak this deck to run just a tad more consistent. Thanks!
How This Works
I broke down the deck into it's major card groups: Draw, Disrupt, Burn, Creatures, and Lands. Then found out the average range of the amount of cards in each. After that, list all the common cards in each and rank them as High, Med, or Low.
High: Cards you want to see every game. These card were usually played in nearly every deck at 4 slots, sometimes 3.
Med: Cards you want to see most games. Usually played 1-3 slots.
Low: Cards you want to see late game or are situational. Usually 0-2 slots.
A player simply chooses the ranges that make sense to them, then choose cards in each group by rank. We then debate how accurate this recipe is (eg. should Vapor Snag be ranked as high or med?). This is useful seeing as there's no one perfect version of the deck and allows for acceptable variations in the meta.
After reviewing a couple dozen decks, ~90% of them tend to follow this recipe
UR Tempo Recipe
Draw: 8 - 10 slots
H Ponder
M Desperate Ravings
M Think Twice
L Gitaxian Probe
Burn: 9 - 11 slots
H Incinerate
H Gut Shot
M Shock
L Arc Trail
L Brimstone Volley
Disrupt: 6 - 10 slots
H Mana Leak
M Vapor Snag
L Negate
L Turn Aside
Creature: 10 - 14 slots
H Delver of Secrets
H Snapcaster Mage
M Chandra's Phoenix
M Grim Lavamancer
L Inferno Titan
Lands: 19 - 22 slots
4 Sulfer Falls
50% Islands
50% Mountains
Let's Try It
I personally like the 443 setup of Delver, snappy, and Phoenix, so 11 creatures. I want about 10 burn, and I really like Arc Trail, so 442 of incinerate, gut shot and Arc trail. I have a very fast meta, so I'll go on the upper end of the disrupt and go with 10, 442 on mana leak, vapor snag, and negate. This leaves 8 slots for Draw, I really want to test g-probe, so I'll run a 422 on ponder, DR, and GP. Let's see the list.
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Chandra's Phoenix
//Burn: 10
4 Incinerate
4 Gut Shot
2 Arc Trail
4 Mana Leak
4 Vapor Snag
2 Negate
//Draw: 8
4 Ponder
2 Desperate Ravings
2 Gitixian Probe
4 Sulfur Falls
9 Mountains
8 Islands
We'll need to work on a general sideboard for certain metas, but I think this is a good step forward for this deck.
Just came to say, I really like this build. I strongly suggest the OP give this a shot. I like Thrun for a mid game win if your test subject doesn't come online, but he could be replaced for cheaper alternatives if the wallets calls for it.
The deck I listed above comes in at around $50 if you buy it straight out.
3 Test Subject
4 ThrummingBird
4 Stromkirk Noble
3 StormBlood Berserker
2 Chimeric Mass
4 Volt Charge
3 Turn Aside
4 Steady Progress
4 Mana Leak
4 Gut Shot
3 Shrine of Burning Rage
2 Chandra, the Firebrand
It's a decent start. Play around with the numbers. I would also try Curse of Stalked prey.
Wow, completely slipped my mind that the flashback on Think Twice is 3. I'll update my post then. The color difference I believe would be so statisically minimal and not to mention rather difficult to accurately calculate.
Well strictly speaking both cards give you equal card advantage (+1 card). DR gives greater breadth of cards, while TT gives consistently. So yes I agree completely with you, DR is better when played smartly.