That's it, end of article.
Just joking!
Pyromancer Tide
Mana (20)13 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
Engine (8)
4 High Tide
4 Pyromancer Ascension
Cantrips (8)
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
Draw (9)
4 Ideas Unbound
3 Meditate
2 Time Spiral
Delay (11)
3 Repeal
4 Remand
4 Force of Will
Untap (4)
4 Turnabout
Win (1)
1 Grapeshot
There now must be at least a dozen of you who are saying that you've thought of this. To that, I say: “Of course you have!”. What else do I expect out of smart legacy players? However, I've failed to find a decklist with Pyromancer Ascension, High Tide, and Time Spiral all in 1 place. This is my humble attempt at it.
Disclaimer: Note that this is just a brainstorming activity and I've yet to sleeve the deck up, much less play with it. I'll be tinkering with it though, so help me improve this with your brilliant input!
Now that the small print is done, let's take a look at the various components.
The Engines
High Tide doubles your mana while Pyromancer Ascension doubles your spells. Both effectively allow you to get twice the effect of cards you play for the same mana cost. In addition, both engines want you to play cards that draw cards. The fact that they fit seamlessly into each other's gameplan amazes me the moment I first thought of it.The Cantrips
With 8 engine pieces, there's less of a need to max out on 12 cantrips just to find them. Although it's a close call, I prefer Preordain over Ponder. Even though Ponder can let you see a 4th card (big in combo), this deck plays a controlish role before exploding and Preordain reduces the chances of you being stuck with cards you don't want to draw with the follow up Ideas Unbound or Meditate.What do you think? Will Ponder be a better choice? Let me know by commenting below.
The Draw
We're not playing Vintage so we don't have Ancestral Recall. What we do have are the more costly Ideas Unbound and Meditate. Predict is simply too underpowered and Accumulated Knowledge works only in the late game, barring some Intuition tricks.The drawback on Ideas Unbound can actually help you Ascend pre-Ascension and nets you 2 extra cards over See Beyond post-Ascension, thus its inclusion here. Meditate just feels like you're cheating when you're facing a board without a fast kill. Post-Ascension 8 cards for 2u and 2 future turns? Like how can you lose when you draw 8 cards?
I don't think I have to explain Time Spiral when it untaps your lands, draws you 7 and shuffles your kill con you discarded from Ideas Unbound. A Time Spiral post-Ascension might not really matter considering the low number of instants you can play between the copies, though you might not really need them anyway.
The Untap
In an ideal world, noone will play removals on Cloud of Faeries when you play Snap on it. Since we're not living in dreamland, Turnabout is the best we have. To Wizards: Great job for unbanning the safer card instead of Frantic Search. You impress me!If you've yet to realize how Turnabout works with Pyromancer Ascension, each active Ascension acts like a High Tide as you can tap the lands for mana in between Turnabout copies.
I'd like to fit 1 or 2 Mind Over Matter in this deck though I'm hesitant what to take out. It's hard to go out of mana with a MoM on the board. An Island? A Meditate? An Ideas Unbound? Any other bright ideas?
The Delay
In case you haven't noticed, this deck doesn't seek to combo off earliest possible. With Repeal, Remand and 20 lands, it aims to delay the opponent after 4 or 5 lands are in play and fizzling becomes a non-issue. This strategy also works better with 4cc Turnabout and 6cc Time Spiral being the only untap spells in the deck.The Win
With Emrakul floating around, Brain Freeze isn't really the card you want without Cunning Wish or Stroke of Genius maindeck. That plus the off chance of killing some creatures to somewhat stall the opponent makes it the choice over the blue instant.What do you think about this deck idea? Do you think the control-combo strategy works better in a field of Counter-top and Merfolk? I'll be bringing this deck for my weekly casual games and see where it goes. Help me improve this idea and look out for my updates!
Further reading
Gerry Thompson's Legacy Pyromancer AscensionThe Source Solidarity Thread
Update!!!! Pyromancer Tide 2 Tweet this!
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