Personally I like giving green some generous fixing, but I also run only comes in tapped fixing.
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I cut all one mana accelerants in green, all two mana mana rocks in the artifact section, and all four mana wraths. The two mana ramp cards in green are played, the three mana mana rocks are played, and the five mana wraths are effective as well. I haven't looked back ever since I found out those cards are all still desirable at those mana costs in the absence of cheaper options!
I have some two mana artifact ramp but its mostly stuff that doesn't also color fix like Star Compass, Guardian Idol, Mind Stone. My favorite green ramp is stuff like Utopia Tree, Search for Tomorrow, Sakura Tribe-Elder, Wall of Roots. I've been trying to cut back on fixing because I feel like it can really hurt deck diversity at a point. I'm still not really sure how I feel about 1cmc ramp either.
So I think BoP might be too good for my cube but it seems pretty ubiquitous around here so I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts about efficient ramp/color fixing in green. What archetypes does BoP actually help support? Besides like giving Gx midrange a way to have explosive draws sometimes and to let them splash more colors. People with similar cubes to mine seem to run it so maybe I'm just being paranoid about fast mana.
I'm a fan of efficient ramp/fixing in Green, but I don't want it to be unlimited 5-colour fixing. To this end, I don't run BoP, and instead run a handful of cards chosen to not work perfectly together (at 450). At CMC 1:
And then a few more in Green at 1G:
I think BoP "does it all" for no cost. I've had drafts where I pass, say, a Hierarch or Deathrite where I would've snapped up BoP as the correct pick, so I feel like even though I've got some great strong options here, they're filtered through the draft process. The Jund drafter might not be interested in a pack 3 Hierarch at all, if there's competition! To me this is good.
I thought lumberjack waswn't playable outside of all in decks like storm
Isn't aggro super good in your meta now? You have a stronger aggro suite than me I'd say and I run a few green 1-mana accelarators and 2-mana mana rocks including als sihgnets, also some wrath's that can be cast for 4, and aggro is still winning a lot of matches
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Interestingly, it does put up good results, but slower decks are still very viable. The last few winning decks were UBw Artifacts, Naya Beats, R/G Wildfire Aggro, B/W Control, Esper Control, and Grixis Spells.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
| Ones (9) 1 Greenbelt Rampager 1 Grim Lavamancer 1 Kird Ape 1 Narnam Renegade 1 Blossoming Defense 1 Bonesplitter 1 Burst Lightning 1 Firebolt 1 Rancor Twos (6) 1 Earthshaker Khenra 1 Longtusk Cub 1 Perilous Myr 1 Scrapheap Scrounger 1 Vinelasher Kudzu 1 Sylvan Library Three (4) 1 Courser of Kruphix 1 Magus of the Wheel 1 Ramunap Excavator 1 Stormbind Fours (1) 1 Ripjaw Raptor Fives (1) 1 Genesis Sixes+ (2) 1 Primeval Titan 1 Wildfire |
Don't laugh. It worked! It put people under a lot of pressure in the early game, and the Wildfire was always a complete wrecking ball, because guess which deck recovers the fastest when every player's has to "restart" the game? That's right, the aggro deck
Besides that he had a few sticky threats and synergies that made the Wildfire feel really one sided whenever it happened. It wa amazing to see it in action, honestly, because it sounds like such a weird combination, but like I said, it worked!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Devastating Dreams is the aggro-Wildfire y'all are looking for #sponsored
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I don't know, but that card looks highly suspect to me. I could never see myself pitching four cards to that, only to run out of steam.
@Onderzebots deck post: Well, I believe you it worked, but it looks to me like it shouldn't somehow. I bet it got some wins by casting Raptor or getting a Vinelasher big enough or even casting the non-aggro bomb PrimeTime before the wildfire?
In a regular aggo deck, you're pretty likely commiting more to the board, so you're pretty likely losing more to your own spell than a control deck with almost no creatures or a midrange deck with maybe only few big threats.
Sure, there are aggro cards that would work in some way or another with wildfire, but a true aggro deck doesn't even (want to) reach 6 mana regularly or at least not fast enough. I'd rather play an aggro deck with 15-16 lands and win before i get my sixth landdrop.
In a regular aggo deck, you're pretty likely commiting more to the board, so you're pretty likely losing more to your own spell than a control deck with almost no creatures or a midrange deck with maybe only few big threats.
Sure, there are aggro cards that would work in some way or another with wildfire, but a true aggro deck doesn't even (want to) reach 6 mana regularly or at least not fast enough. I'd rather play an aggro deck with 15-16 lands and win before i get my sixth landdrop.
I support a Wildfire Madness archetype. Key pieces:
Black and White both bring a lot to the table as well. I love the interaction of the discard with flamewake phoenix and the wurms. Lupine Prototype is rad with Devastating Dreams. There's a lot of nuance and intricate lines of play. One of my favorite decks in my cube.
Black and White both bring a lot to the table as well. I love the interaction of the discard with flamewake phoenix and the wurms. Lupine Prototype is rad with Devastating Dreams. There's a lot of nuance and intricate lines of play. One of my favorite decks in my cube.
Do you prefer flamewake phoenix over Chandra's phoenix?
I do, because I think Flamewake is the easiest to trigger when it matters.
Definitely. I'm not a fan of Chandra's Phoenix. It returns to hand instead of the battlefield making it much more mana intensive. The trigger isn't very easy to hit....if it said non-combat damage then I'd be very intrigued alongside Hazoret the Fervent and Stormbind. It also promotes a tempo style "spells matter" deck that I don't support. Flamewake lends itself more towards Madness....the wurms, Vengevine (ferocious trigger), pitching to an early Wild Mongrel, etc...which is perfect for my cube. The decision was more between Flamewake Phoenix and Stromkirk Occultist tbh. I went with the phoenix as the sequences were much more interesting to me and it gave some unique signals into fringe archetypes. EDIT: Thanks to Dom for tipping me off on it.
I'm tempted to switch from occultist to phoenix now!
Flamewake Phoenix is pretty nice with wildfire when you pair it with something big like Hazoret, the Fervent, Neheb, the Eternal, Ripjaw Raptor, etc. since you can wildfire and then trigger it either immediately or during your next turn.
The enrage creatures + Brindle Shoat always intrigued me because you could play a normal-ish game and get a huge bonus when you wildfire.
The enrage creatures + Brindle Shoat always intrigued me because you could play a normal-ish game and get a huge bonus when you wildfire.
I like this as a brindle shoat style creature as well.
How much self mill do I want before I run this card? Keeping in mind a soft UB zombie theme in general.
I support a Wildfire Madness archetype. Key pieces:
Might I ask what this one is doing in a Wildfire deck? I can see it has 5 toughness but will it ever attack before you Wildfire (when you still have it in hand?) or after a Wildfire when people cannot cast the spells they draw?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
The issue with Wildfire in aggro is that a. getting to 6 mana in any deck with a low-enough curve to be called 'aggro' is necessarily tough unless you have a ton of mana sinks (I try to craft my format so that 'even' the aggro decks can happily play 18+ lands but that isn't/shouldn't be a universal goal) and b. by that time, the decks you want to play it against can usually land threats that live through Wildfire. Devastating Dreams gets around all of that because you can get on the board with creatures with good stats and use Dreams to sweep Villain's legs
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
So, are you casting DD for X = 2 then? You're never casting it for X = 4, I presume, because I don't see how you're coming back from that huge card disadvantage.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
If you're casting it for 4 or more, neither player is casting a spell again. You're not trying to prolong the game to the point where that card disadvantage matters, you're trying to lock it up immediately