But...but...what about Chandra's Ignition??


Edit...the one time you don't quote the post and you start the new page...

Chandra's is just too painful when it doesn't work out. One might be worth it, but having two in hand when you don't have a creature is painfully terrible. It also lets you get blown out occasionally. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but in the 10 games I played with it, it won me one game, and lost me four of them. I'm all for replacing Fall of the Titans and maybe Twin Bolt, but I don't think Ignition is the right choice.

Ok I hear you. I've been running two and there have been a couple times that I didn't have a target.

Now onto Omnath. Obviously he's a game changer if he sticks. And as long as you play him with a land, you're getting 2 for 1 and sometimes you have enough mana to ramp as well and get a 3-4 for 1. But don't you get that same advantage with Ulamog? Plus almost any removal that could kill Ulamog will def kill Omnath. What's going to be more board stabilizing? Killing two PWs or troublesome creatures/enchantments or 3 5/5s (at best) that can't survive a Planar? Plus 2 attracts will usually mill them! If you have Arlinn on the board, all the better.

I'm actually running 25 land, so I may add him in place of the Ignition.

The main value of Omnath is that it still blocks against Tap/Bounce enchantments and creatures. There have been a lot of board states where the third blocker mattered, and Ulamog wouldn't have been good enough. That said, Ulamog is probably also worth running, since we do hit 10 mana.

Major advantage of Ulamog in my mind is that it "blocks" fliers, which Omnath doesn't. Hitting planeswalkers (a theme of this deck) is also nice.

Planar Outburst? Did you say 12 damage fireball for 7 mana? Sure, I'll take that.

Edit:

Trying the following modification from base list:

+3 Lambholt Pacifist, +1 Ulvenwald Hydra, +1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, +1 Rogue's Passage
-2 Twin Bolt, -2 Fall of the Titans, -1 Greenwarden of Murasa, -1 Forest

Reasoning: Twin Bolt and Fall of the Titans were two of the cards I least enjoyed seeing, and Lambholt Pacifist is a more proactive early-game plan. It also goes very well with Retreat to Kazandu and all our creatures being able to get to four power. I mentioned Greenwarden as reliably underperforming, and its best use being to grab a bonus land - Ulvenwald Hydra does the same thing, but comes with reach and +5/+6 stats. It's also part of the Forest to Rogue's Passage change - as noted in the original post, we have room to spare in our mana base for some value, and Hydra can tutor it up. Then the next turn, attack with an unblockable Hydra! Ulamog is just another good threat, and I agree with the feedback that we should be playing it. Unfortunate side-effect is that our fourth Nissa's Pilgrimage is almost certainly a dead card when we draw it - but our fourth Explosive Vegetation would often be dead as well, and Nissa's is so much more powerful an effect if we don't care about only getting Forests. There's also an argument for just playing all the ramp spells, but shaving one feels about right.

Bonus points for anybody who makes the cute 12 mana play of Ulvenwald Hydra > Tutor Rogue's Passage Tapped > Bounce Rogue's Passage with Mina and Denn, Wildborn > replay Rogue's Passage > make something unblockable and swing for lethal past a stalled board. Half points awarded for using Mina and Denn, Wildborn to give multiple creatures unblockable in a single turn.


Played seven games with the new setup so far:

Win vs. ? Control - They kept a 2-lander and never drew a third, Lambholt beatdowns are go.

Win vs. Ramp - A close game, again due to Thought-Knot Seer eating my only payoff (Omnath) a turn before I could play him. With a ton of lands, a Retreat, and more lands / ramp in hand, I drew Ulvenwald Hydra, tutored for Rogue's Passage, and put a counter on Hydra. Nissa's Pilgrimage, more counters. Pass turn, passed back. Fetch land. Explosive Vegetation. Swing for 22 Unblockable? It was 4 life short of lethal on its own, but opponent could only crack back for 17 and conceded.

Win vs. Mill - Matchup looks horrendous for mill. Stalled on my third land twice, still won with 25 cards in deck and fireballs in hand. Lambholt Pacifist got in for 7 damage. Poor guy cast Talent of the Telepath - choice between searching his library for Forests and hitting me with fireballs on X = 0? :trollface:

Win vs. Vampires - Was stalling on only one red source when opponent dumped his entire hand in response to my Explosive Vegetation. Hit me for a lot of damage, but got wrecked by the Chandra -4 to sweep the board. Stabilized, but drew nothing of note for six or seven straight turns until a Rolling Thunder for 19 closed out the game.

Win vs. Midrange - Early Sylvan Advocate gets stonewalled by Gideon, Ally of Zendikar's Knight Ally tokens as I flood on lands. Reclamation Sage is very dead in hand and eventually trades in combat with a Fleshbag Marauder after it eats my Sylvan Advocate. I Ravaging Blaze Mindwrack Demon and his face, ignoring Gideon and hoping to topdeck another fireball since he doesn't seem to have any lifegain. Rolling Thunder for 11 off the top bails me out of a bad board state by winning the game.

Win vs. Enchantment Midrange - Very cool aggressive deck! Saw Retreat to Valakut, Retreat to Emeria, Oath of Gideon, and double Oath of Chandra. I kept a very greedy seven of Land, Land, Tireless Tracker, Rolling Thunder, Rolling Thunder, Nissa's Pilgrimage, Nissa's Pilgrimage, and missed my third land drop drawing my third copy of Rolling Thunder into an Akoum Firebird. Stayed greedy and ramped in the face of Akoum Firebird and Retreat to Valakut. First Rolling Thunder ate Firebird and Deathcap Cultivator. Retreat to Emeria was threatening a boatload of damage and I was forced to Woodland Bellower for Reclamation Sage, redeeming itself for the last game by saving me from the Retreat and taking an Oath of Chandra on the chin as well. Retreat to Kazandu quietly gained me 10 life, and I got as low as 6, so that was definitely relevant. Second Rolling Thunder cleaned up the tokens from Oath of Gideon, and third sealed the game.

Win vs. A colored deckbox? - Opening hand of Forest, Mountain, Rogue's Passage, Mina and Denn, Rolling Thunder, Nissa's Pilgrimage, Explosive Vegetation. Fastest snap keep in the west. Feeling confident, play a Forest, go to pass turn... the game pauses for a few seconds, then ends with a "Victory!" tune and awards me 30 coins. Huh.


Notes: Thought-Knot Seer is a beating against us, but we've got more than the usual number of threats and removal, so... I guess we just accept that as a price of playing ramp spells. Also, Ulvenwald Hydra into Rogue's Passage does another nice Fireball impersonation.

Hi, good build again, I do feel you should run more games vs humans (monowhite and greenwhite, bluewhite seems less of a problem vs this deck on average, it 's a bit slower) since I think the lack of radiant flames really puts this deck in a disadvantage, especially on the draw. Yes the humans can get under radiant flames on a nut draw, but that card will still save you in alot of games.
Going -1 Retreat to Kazandu -1 Nissa's Pilgrimage, sub in a mountain for a plains +2 Radiant flames might be a possibility maybe?

Looks good to me. It still freaks me out not having any sweepers. Though Rolling Thunder can be an expensive one if needed. With the other wincons, that shouldn't be a as much of a problem. I just wish we could fit radiant flames in the list for the aggro match ups.

What about -1 Ravaging Blaze -1 Nissa's Pilgramage? Also, should you sub in Natural Connection for a Pilgramge? You only have 4 Wilds to fetch for a plain early game. Which means a t5 3 damage Radiant Flames is the best you can do if you don't draw a Wilds.

Also can we fit Nissa, Voice of Zendikar? She's anti-aggro with those plant tokens. Buffs our creatures like Kazandu and most importantly redirects damage against us toward her that can enable us to get to our late game? -1 Reclamation Sage??

yes that's an option too for further tweaking. I first had -1 Blaze in mind as well, since you'd still have 5 burn wincons left which should be enough. I think I went with cutting a retreat since .... well it is such a bad draw if the game goes long; radiant flames can at least clear the board partially often.
You could also up the plains count by including Canopy Vista, if you are going to use natural connection over pilgrimage, although pilgrimage is the superior pure ramp spell and synergizes heavily with other cards in the deck. The extra thinning of pilgrimage is also very relevant, so ultimately you are weakening the cohesion of the deck a siginificant bit to get access to radiant flames, but it might be worth it, since the card is like your only out on the draw versus some of the better human hands. Also of note is that Connection works well with Lambholt Pacifist and can also surprise people with an unexpected 4/5 advocate mid-combat.

I think cutting reclamation mage is defendable in a burn deck. Your goal should be to survive and burn em out; most enchantments are slow to get going, but Always Watching; an opposing retreat to kazandu, or an early nimbus wings could really screw you over.
Pacifist into Nissa is quite the beatdowns though.

Some responses:

Our best answer against mono-white aggro, rather than a sweeper, is literally outhealing them. We drop an average of two lands a turn, with a Retreat that's healing for 4/turn. Mono-white is scarily fast at dealing 20 damage, it's a lot worse at dealing 40. They can't finish before turn 5 without a perfect hand, which should give us time to get an engine going with our five 2-drop blockers. Also handily avoids the problem of getting blown out by a combat trick to counter the sweeper - they aren't running anything to counter life gain.

Subbing out a Retreat to Kazandu: Don't. That card is insane. It's good the entire game long if you've got Mina and Denn, Wildborn.

Subbing out a Nissa's Pilgrimage for Radiant Flames: probably reasonable if you're dropping to 8 Forests, though I'm not in love with the change. The less ramp you have, the more control decks can set up shop and bully you out of the game. Radiant Flames is a good spell against aggro - but dead in other match-ups. I think the best strategy with a burn deck is proactive rather than reactive. Still, this is at least a reasonable change; feel free to test it out.

Natural Connection over Pilgrimage: terrible idea. The reason Pilgrimage is better than Explosive Vegetation is the same reason natural connection is terrible: we aren't really a ramp deck. Oh, I know we're playing a ton of ramp spells and all, and I literally called the deck type ramp... okay, we are a ramp deck. But getting to some magical amount of mana early and then stopping isn't the point. We don't want to hit 7 lands fast, drop a threat, and call it a day - we want to be dropping lands, on curve, for the entire game. Especially with Mina and Denn, Nissa's Pilgrimage reads "put 3 lands into play". That's a much much better card than "put 1 land into play". I think Natural Connection is basically unplayable outside of 4+ color decks littered with instant speed removal/counters.

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar - probably can't fit her. We're one forest short of casting her reliably on curve (though we could add some taplands to fix that) but more importantly, she doesn't do anything we care about. Our two drops are better blockers, she's competing with our crucial turn 3 plays (Nissa's Pilgrimage / Retreat to Kazandu), Her -2 isn't very impactful on boards with one or two creatures, her ultimate won't win the game if she even gets there, and she is - again - reactive rather than proactive. If you want a planeswalker, Arlinn Kord has much more to recommend her, with every ability being relevant and proactive.

Reclamation Sage - could be cut; I'm not married to her. I think it's strongly worth considering the extra value she adds to Woodland Bellower, however - he's the entire reason that's a sage rather than a Conclave Naturalists that plays better with our ramp curve. For a single card, we get two shots at an out to all the cards that can't be removed with burn (and it's the only out in our deck unless you're adding Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, who could affectionately be termed "slow"). It is still reactive, though, so there might be something better. Of note, the main targets are Retreat to Kazandu, From Beyond, Sphinx's Tutelage, and anything out of mono-white.

After seven straight wins, I'm feeling enough better about the changes I made to post them as an updated version of my original list. Still room for improvement, obviously.

Fireball - You! (v. 2.0) ()
(Ramp)

Threats

2x Sylvan Advocate
3x Lambholt Pacifist/Lambholt Butcher
1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer/Nissa, Sage Animist
2x Tireless Tracker
1x Reclamation Sage
2x Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1x Woodland Bellower
1x Ulvenwald Hydra
1x Chandra, Flamecaller
1x Omnath, Locus of Rage
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Ramp/Healing

3x Retreat to Kazandu
4x Nissa's Pilgrimage
3x Explosive Vegetation
2x Nissa's Renewal

Fireballs

3x Ravaging Blaze
3x Rolling Thunder

Lands (26)

8x Mountain
9x Forest
2x Rootbound Crag
2x Cinder Glade
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Rogue's Passage

Strategy is the same as my first post, and explanations for the changes and descriptions of my matches since can be found here.


Matchup Thoughts

Having now played 30-ish games with this deck, I'd like to go back and see if I met my original goal - building a deck that was favored against White/x Humans, Blue/x Mill, Four-Color Walkers, B/W/x Control, and G/R Ramp. I'll rank match-ups by favorability, along with some comments on each. I've lumped similar decks together, so , , and aggro/midrange will collectively be called aggro/midrange, etc.

Overwhelming Favorite:

Mill - Any mill deck that's splashing colors to acquire more sweepers (and cutting counterspells) gets destroyed. They could know our deck list and hand-pick their opening seven; we'd probably still win.

Strong Favorite:

Aggro/Midrange - Trying to beat us down with 3 and 4-drop creatures alongside efficient removal for our (nonexistent) small threats is not an effective plan. We just go bigger, and we can do it while stabilizing without much difficulty.

Walkers - Their mana is a disaster and they try to make up for it by establishing so much recurring value that they can grind the opponent into oblivion. Unfortunately for them, they're not very aggressive, and they can't stop fireballs.

Slight Favorite:

Mill - The question is whether they can blow us out with a counterspell on a fireball. There's a lot of passing back and forth while slowly getting milled out and hoping they tap low. They can't afford to counter our ramp, though. That means we can get enough mana to cast a threat, and if it gets countered, fireball their face. This match-up gets much worse if they run zero creatures and Ravaging Blaze is a dead card.

3-Drop Creatures - All of our creatures are bigger than theirs and our payoffs are all meaningful, but their tempo plays can let them push through a lot of damage. They can also play counterspells, which we're hoping not to see.

Ramp - We have the same spells, except our payoffs all have haste. Probably within a turn either way, Retreat to Kazandu is the best card in the match-up on both sides.

Control - They have lifegain, a meaningful clock, and removal that can efficiently take out our threats. They also deal themselves a lot of damage, and often play too conservatively, expecting to win the lategame. Fireballs off the top took this match every time I played it.

Even:

Humans - High variance, so one of you is probably getting blown out, but the matchup feels very close. Play/Draw matters a lot, and having a 2-drop on turn two is crucial.

Midrange - Thought-Knot Seer is a beating and Reality Smasher is a beating. They usually remove a sweeper or two from the control version (and drop a color) while getting more aggressive, all good choices against our deck.

Slight Underdog:

Ramp - Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a beating as well. Every card they get by splashing improves the match-up for them, although it is still a 50-ish card mirror.

Humans - The extra bit of speed benefits them; beating us before we can set up shop is a good strategy. Even on the play, strong underdog on the draw. If you're adding sweepers to the deck, this is why.

Aggro/Burn - See Humans.

Strong Underdog:

Renowned - They can grow their creatures one turn faster than we can get the mana to fireball them, we can't play around Wildsize blowouts, and their removal lines up very well against us. I don't think sweepers are the answer here, but I'm not sure what is.

Prowess - The more aggressive the build of the deck, the worse it is for us. Slip Through Space is bad, Titan's Strength is worse. We can overpower Thing in the Ice and Jori En, Ruin Diver, but beating a Mage-Ring Bully and Jhessian Thief start is hard. The change to add three Lambholt Pacifists is great here.


So, out of the five Tier-1 decks I targeted: I feel like a favorite against four of them, and a slight underdog against the fifth. Not bad!


Seeds for further discussion:

I cut the five worst performing cards and added in more meat - the Lambholt Pacifists have been excellent every game, and should definitely have been here all along. Having a two drop to play on the board before you ramp is fantastic. Hydra feels like an upgrade to Greenwarden, although not significantly - both are playable. Haven't drawn Ulamog yet, but I've never had a game where I looked at the board and thought "Ulamog would be bad here," so he's probably fine (update: have now drawn Ulamog - he's earned his spot). Added in the one value land I thought we had room for, and it's looked excellent every time I saw it. We still only have Chandra as a "true" sweeper, but I've only faced mono-white humans once. Outside of a 1-drop insanely aggressive deck like white humans or Call of the Full Moon red, though, we don't need one. All the decks trying to go a little bigger and a little midrange-ier get blown out by this deck. I'm going to make the claim that this deck does not need or want another sweeper - but I encourage you to test on your own to decide that for yourself.

As far as chaff remaining in the list, Reclamation Sage and Nissa, Vastwood Seer are the most reasonable cuts. Not sure what you'd add, but for those wishing to put in some Radiant Flames, I'd suggest them as the swap. You'll gain percentage against aggro, but lose it against midrange and control. It might take the UR Prowess match-up from atrocious to merely bad, although that's still an uncommon deck.




Update: Just hit Rank 40 for the first time this season with this deck! Yay! Also, Lambholt Pacifist is single-handedly winning games, thanks to @Immortal Reborn for the suggestion!

I'm really liking this deck, but clues have a tendency to crash my game a majority of the time I try to sacrifice them so I tried replacing Tireless Tracker with Zendikar's Roil. Deck doesn't seem to suffer from it too much, and I like having a steadily-growing board presence even though it can be vulnerable to sweeps. The best part about it is if my tokens get swept, I usually have extra ramp in hand to build more tokens right back up anyway.

Synergizes well with Evolving Wilds, Omnath, and Mina & Denn, too.

Seeing how your early-game is mostly green and you're running the playset of Nissa's Pilgrimage, I would consider skewing the manabase more towards Forests; somewhere around 11-6 seems better to me than the 9-8 you're running currently. You have more than enough ways to find your Mountains (probably even without Evolving Wilds, though they work well with your Landfall creatures).

I kinda like that idea. Might try it out. You're not playing Tracker until t4 anyway. But the loss in draw might hurt in the end. What about taking out Nissa? I'm actually running both in my list.

@ Modulo per Mana Base:

If we want to be able to cast Rolling Thunder/Ravaging Blaze on turn 5 against aggro reliably, we need that many mountains - at most you could drop 1 for a Forest. See my original post for mana explanations and math. I've never found myself running out of Forests before Mountains; just make sure every Evolving Wilds / Explosive Vegetation / Nissa's Renewal only gets Mountains.

Tireless Tracker can be a (bad) turn 3 play as well against aggro, which comes up - but more importantly, he's a source of card advantage you can tutor off Woodland Bellower. Keep at least one in the deck.

Zendikar's Roil is a decent idea, especially since we're already vulnerable to enchantment hate so it's not like we open up a new can of worms. I think it'll be dead a little too often (turn 5 is too late against aggro compared to Retreat and it's just as bad a top deck) but if you test it, tell me how it goes.

Taking out Nissa is reasonable; I suggest her in my list of possible cuts if you have something better. She's all around "okay", but not spectacular.

I do think you can easily drop one Mountain, as I believe that math did not include your fixing obtained via Explosive Vegetation (which, if cast on t4, enables Rolling Thunder by itself). You may be right that cutting two Mountains might be too greedy, though (or maybe my reliability standard is lower than yours ;-))

Correct; my math was based on T3 Nissa's Pilgrimage into T4 Rolling Thunder. If you only care about T5 Chandra, then one mountain could be cut. Not sure how much value you gain, though - not having two mountains loses you games, not having your 10th forest is a minor annoyance.

What do y'all think about Flameshadow Conjuring in Gruul Eldrazi ramp deck?

What do you think about Vegetative Explosion and Boulder Salvo?

That was against me haha, i was fearing a Twin Bolt (and similar) thus i was thinking quite long if i drop either Consul's Lieutenant or Hanweir Militia Captain on turn 2. But most Twin Bolt isnt as good as the patch before due the fact that most creatures in this meta have more than 1 toughness usually, so i was risking it.

I was fearing a Radiant Flame (for 3 instead of 2) in your hand too, thus i decided to play aggressive and decided to close the game as fast as possible - i didnt had a Make a Stand in the hand (running 2 in the deck), neither a Enshrouding Mist in the deck, i tried to bluff it which worked.

Though i also was fearing a burn spell (or a sweeper as mentiond above) thus i enhanced my Lieutenant to get it out of most burn ranges and trying to finish the game fast before you could stabilize - unfortunately it didnt work.

Zerris - good list. I like retreat to Kazundu. I enjoy reading your game logs, I will start preparing some as well.
It seems like you played vs. no decks with counterspells?
The surge requirement of Fall of the Titans is annoying, but since it costs only XR compared to XRR for Ravaging Blaze, if you can play a two drop beforehand it is only one more, or two more for a three drop. I think some of your worst matchups were against decks that played multiple evasive threats.

Not at all sure what cuts I would recommend here.