tmw30

While the power level of the card is ridiculous, I'm afraid of a three drop in a fast build like this. While something like a sideboarded Geist of Saint Taft is pretty interesting due to its resilience to removal, a three-drop variant of young Pyro seems a bit... vulnerable. Regardless of how stupid strong 3-swiftspear esque threats are, it seems too inconsistent for my tastes. Notably, it curves well into a control deck's Damnation if you tried poking some probes through. I just feel that Pyro will be the better of the two on the merit of efficiency alone, not power.

Soo... it's like almost Zoo, but instead of red/green being dominant, it's white/green... No Kird Apes or Loam Lions in sight. Very interesting. The only critique I feel I am eligible to make, due to my inexperience with this sort of deck, is the lack-luster nature of Sarkhan. While he is a five-drop dragon, he's a five drop dragon that can be destroyed on the counterswing, and being a non-creature spell is alarmingly annoying in modern these days. I would recommend, if you were looking for a fatty five-drop hastey, Thundermaw Hellkite. He's waaaaaay too fun and hits for a surprisingly relevant point more than Sarkhan. If you're afraid of your beasty being brought low by removal, Stormbreath Dragon is always a pro-white option (Get around path, pretty much).

So, yeah, my only complaint is the Sarkhan. Other than that, it is almost like pod and zoo had a weird baby, I like it.

I don't really think your opponent is optimizing their maelstrom pulses and d-sphere's if they are removing vanilla 1/1 tokens you got as a byproduct form your spells... Seems more like value to me. That's less removal for your big threats, and the fact that your opponent is almost always forced to use two removal spells seems pretty okay to me. Of course, if the Goyf builds are giving you difficulty, I could see the paranoia and paths as being rational. I suppose it's your call, I would just suggest them out of the results of my own testing. Another interesting one, if you do include them, is Gitaxian probe. A free spell that triggers a peek effect and can generate the triggers on pyro and swiftspear? I'd bite.

As an aside, I completely forgot this site actually has a "like" button. I just want to give constructive critiques, as to maybe provide insight to these sorts of fringe archetypes that are still growing and evolving. That said, the use of said like button seems hazardous, as the mainstream community on this site is afraid of spending money. This deck would get very... weird attention on the front page, and I would rather people who are actually interested in this sort of deck find it with their own searching abilities. The spam and useless suggestions by people who don't even play modern would not be useful to the deck builder.

The only problem is, when favoring damage over cruises, you technically weaken too many of your "iffy" match-ups to the point where the deck actually isn't as versatile as it should be. I play a lot of control, and if Delver can't resolve a cruise against me, it has lost. Four is the right number here, so the "what he should cut" variant if he were to cut anything for Pyromancers would have to be from his number of Path to Exiles. While they are efficient removal, too many is not a good thing. If it was something like Swords to Plowshares, I'd say run 8, but I'm the kind of guy who only likes 2 paths. They don't damage, and they are a reactive play in a deck that should strive to play proactively. When you have your resources aimed at control, you wind up being outpaced by decks that just put out threats, like tron.

As a post-script, @Zaklax; Four Boggles players, Four Twins??? My god, I want in on your meta, that sounds like food for my decks! Mine's all Delver and Tron with some Bloom Titan, decks Control is actually at a loss with without a turn one Thoughtseize.

Hello sir!

As a person who gets wrecked by this sort of build and fights them constantly, and metas for them constantly, I can say quite confidently that main-board Spellkites is a bit more "metagamey" than is necessary. With 4x Delver of Secrets and 4x Monastery Swiftspears, game one should be an attempt at either speed itself, or sometimes a grindy match-ups. The goal should be, then, to increase you spell density so as to increase, however slightly, the likelyhood of Delver flips and Swiftspear triggers. With that in mind, I would recommend cutting the Spellkites, soley on the mainboard. In their place, I would recommend a highly underrated piece of removal, "Forked Bolt". This seemingly worse Electrolyze is brutal in the mirror match against delver and simply passable every where else. Whenever Young Pyromancers, unflipped Delvers and Snapcasters have the possibility of existing on the same field, the bolt is there to do work. The kites should be switched to the side board, in the places of Bribery and either a D-Sphere or an Obedience. While Bribery is cute against the likes of Tron, it's too slow and too unreliable on a 20-land base. The other is simply a release slot, I'd suggest the D-Sphere as the primary removal, because three is a bit... excessive for such an endeavor.

The only other suggestion I'd propose is Young Pyromancer, because that bitch is awesome.

That's just my two cents of course, take it to whatever degree you choose. Have fun with it, the decks pretty sweet.

You're in Sultai colors... you have sufficient to above average levels of self mill... And yet you run zero delve? At least Murderous Cut, mate, it's a 1-drop murder. XD

I would suggest more Sylvan Carayatids and Courser of Kruphix, but this deck seems more on the budget side. Instead, I'll leave my suggestions as just adding some delve, either in the form of Murderous Cut or Treasure Cruise. Dig through Time would be your best option, though. I like the deck, it's fun!

I like the deck, don't get me wrong, but I do think that the versatility allowed by WUR Control, such as it's burn and enhanced win-cons, makes it slightly more efficient, and therefore stronger (it's modern). It's a viable deck, sure, but it seems just slightly less viable than the three-color variant. I don't mean to be a downer, just a biased critic. XD

I see what you did in the deck name. How Demiurgic of you, friend. I demand more phonetics jokes based around the colors of the decks be implemented into our deck titles!

Interesting take on the clunky standard, by the way. I feel that white Voltron can be a legitement archetype as long as it developes an answer to burn and black removal. Good work.

For the sideboard, I'd definitely consider a 4x Bloodstained Mire, as it allows you to get a mountain for your chain to the rocks easier. I'd personally pull out two caves, a scry land, and oddly enough a mountain for them. Also, I'd go four-of thought seize over 2x and 2x Despise, because despise is a dead card in certain matchups ATM. Cool deck.

Memnite is a hero.

It's what we do.

Funeral Charm could've stopped that. :P

Mm... How about turn one memnite, 3 opals, inkmoth, and double cranial. Turn 2 activate platings, attack. Damnit, that's 15, overshot.

Orb is fantastic for Pod and Caster and certain jank comboes, so it's pretty efficient. Bomb, on the other hand, can be popped for zero second turn to cripple affinity or slowly grind out threats like fish that have a very... Particular curve.

True statements, both of which have been tested, this is just once again metagaming. Blossom is amazing against any stagnant control deck, but it just doesn't do what I want it to against decks like Jund, who is the primary build I face these days because of the sudden influx of goyfs. I run funeral charm because it's capable of popping Confidants and Lavamancers, as well as un-flipped delvers and many other 1-toughness creatures. Zoo is an odd matchup for me, because it's just a race, either to the ensnaring bridge or me chipping away at their cardless hand, and it's seemingly not as popular as it should be. I've always tried to get buried ruins to work, but it's already hard enough with one color, it's incredibly taxing to run 6 colorless sources in a deck with two colors. Those are just my preferences, of course, they are legitimate criticisms. I always consider Blossom in that slot, but I just can't get rid of my favorite charm.

It actually has pretty favorable matches, suprisingly, but requires a dedicated player to play it... The problem with this sort of deck is it requires intensive metagaming. I, for one, like that sort of thing and make it work. I have favorable matchup with my current version, which you can find on my page (GB 8-Rack), with Fish, Storm, Bloom Titan, Control, Burn, Jund, Living End, Ad Nauseam, and other decks of that nature. I go fifty-fifty with affinity, but fight uphill battles with Tron. It's very well suited for the meta as long as you can play it properly. The GB deck has, currently, a competitive win lose of 15-5, which I think justifies my position.

Depends on the pod, really. We can combat any pod, but it's really just a race against their combo. Kiki-Pod needs to get really, really fancy with their eternal witness/Quasali Pridemage to do any good with their angels. Otherwise it's just a matter of extracting their murderous redcap, pretty easy since they're so willing to stick it in a graveyard. I'd give them the favor at 65%, but we are certainly capable of racing it.

Actually, funny story about that:

'Game 2'
'*Affinity player* keeps one lander Inkmoth, 2 Memnites, Cranial Plating, springleaf drum, Mox Opal, Master of Etherium'
'I have play, use thoughseize to take his Master'
'He plays the Inkmoth, 2 Memnites, Opal, uses opal for drum, casts cranial plating'
'I play Catacombs and pass turn.'
'He plays glimmervoid, activates inkmoth uses the opal to equip cranial to a memnite, declares combat.'
'I crack fetch for overgrown and Charm, mode -1/-1/'
He scoops.

That card is awesome.

Lol, that's lovely. I just used it as the tag because everyone knows what 8-rack is, and I wanted a Monty Python reference for the Inquisition spell.

I think I'm going to build that deck, btw, it looks fun as hell. You either win first or second turn or scoop, hah.

@Drakeraenes Yeah, they are effectively the same deck, but hey, if you've played modern it's how it is. Even rouge brews look the same, haha. If you play an island first turn and play a certain spell, I can name the deck 60% of the time. The difference between that deck and this one is this one has been built for three weeks (although I've been playing 8-Rack in modern since Grand Prix Phoenix, and Pox in legacy for longer than that... and Black Discard since I was 12) and he still is assembling his build, so whose looks like whose? Plus, this deck wasn't actually really for sharing, the only reason it's public unlike my other experimental brews of this deck is because I wanted to give Ajani some ideas as to how he could deal with the arch-nemesis of this deck and their stupid leylines and stupid chalices... Tron.

@Ajani Instant speed discard and dark confidant killer? It's Anti-Jund! For one mana and still playable in other matchups? Definitely usable. And reliable. And that makes it necessary for me. Now, it's notable that I have difficulty with planeswalkers, but I will not sacrafice the nature of the curve to satisfy that, although downfall is an excellent card. It's not planeswalker problems, per say, it's just Karn, and he's in one in every 15 decks, and I can kill him the the hand. Good suggestions though, although damnation is waaaay too hard to hit on the decks I need it to hit, especially affinity. Drown in Sorrow is better there.

@Everyone else Yeah, actually, it sounds like a solid idea actually, only like 1 out of every 7 matches do I not sideboard them in in those exact slots, so I guess it makes sense to just do. I don't know why it hasn't come to my attention before, I suppose I like it though. Will test it this friday. As for the Charms, I'll go to three, but the four of sided golgari stays, I need them for Leyline of Sanctity, and I mean need.

I have actually never lost a game to living end with 8-Rack. It's just way too easy to set up on them, and ensnaring bridge is a blow out. If they can't get the evoke destroy target artifact guy down, it's game. I bring in extractions for that purpose alone.