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Please Halp! - Too Many Options, Not Enough Space!!

Hey, as you can guess by the title, having a bit of a hard time choosing between these five cards. Well, the options are: Careful Study, Preordain, Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, and Ponder. This is for a Classic MTGO deck that is based around Pyromancer Ascension. (Here's the link: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=181140). At first, I was like,"Well duh, Brainstorm!" But then I tested it and my lack of fetch lands (only being four) sometimes made two of my draws dead, so I turned more away from that. So then I added Ponder to have a shuffle effect, but that didn't always work. And I mean, sometimes Brainstorm was absolutely great, practically a draw three, but I was hoping for something more reliable. And personally, I just like Preordain more than Ponder; I rather not have to play Ponder just because of my lack of shuffle. Gitaxian Probe seems like the nuts, helping me get Pyromancer up better than all the others and giving me vital information, but not as good as the others in late game. But I mean, do I really need to be that greedy as I need something good AFTER my Ascension is up? I usually can win the game from there. And lastly, Careful Study. The reason why this one interests me so much is that, well...lemme give you a situation. I have three bolts, Ascension, and Careful Study in my hand; I drop the Careful Study, drawing two and ditching a bolt and a land; turn 2 Ascension; turn 3 bolt twice and already have an Ascension up. This obviously isn't the only time when it's good, but ditching multiples of a card did not seem bad at all.

Tell me what you guys think. Personally, I think I'm leaning towards Gitaxian Probe and Preordain, but I can be swayed. Thanks in advance for the help!
Posted 08 May 2011 at 18:23

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3 replies

what about Magma Jet?
Cryptic command seems bad.
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Posted 09 May 2011 at 07:00

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[QUOTE=Seth]what about Magma Jet?
Cryptic command seems bad.[/QUOTE]

Cryptic Command is very good in this deck. Sometimes you just need a bounce; or a tap all creatures; or some draw; or a counterspell. It's just a very useful card overall. And I don't have any room for Magma Jet ,but I do think it's a good card; I just think Lightning Bolt and Punishing Fire are better in that slot.
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Posted 10 May 2011 at 01:50

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Lightning Bolt is your kill, it's mandatory. Aside from that the deck should be all scry and cantrips. Spells like Magma Jet and Electrolyze serve a double purpose in this type of combo deck. They can kill your opponent, take out creatures and speed up your combo.
I'm not saying Cryptic command is a bad spell, it's just not that good in pyromancer combo, being 3 blue and a 4 mana spell. It's to slow for my taste and requires to much from the deck. If your deck is mostly instant speed spells and your mana base can handle 3 blue at any time I guess including cryptic is fine. On the other hand the more sorcery speed spells you have the less likely you will be able to keep mana open for cryptic.

I don't know how fast you intend to win with the deck when you designed it. My pyromancer casual deck won by turn 5 on average. Some differences with your deck where that I played 4xTime Warp and 4xPsionic Blast.

You could also look for spells that allow you to draw, then discard. The easiest wins for me with this deck were always playing versus mill decks.
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Posted 10 May 2011 at 07:41

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