Community

Awesome!

I took a break from Magic around the time Alara Reborn came out, and I'm just now getting back into it. As I was looking through the cards I had missed Pyromancer Ascension jumped out of me instantly. I tried to put together a standard deck, but it focused more on burn than card draw. Silly me.. I thought M10 was out of standard already!

Ponder ? I thought you were gone already, welcome back old friend!! Time Warp ? Yes!

I had tried my deck out at a standard tournament last night.. and my 0-4 record wasn't looking too good. Basically all I faced were 3 Jund decks and an Esper deck, they killed me way to fast for me to get my "combo" off. But I had been relying on 2 or 3 double or triple Lightning Bolt s to win, no infinite turn combo. I shall have to try this again..

Umm...I'm just throwing out ideas here, but if you want to make this budget...replace Time Warp with Archive Trap and throw in oh, I don't know...Roiling Terrain.  Get a budget way to punish people for using thirty-euro manabases. 

If nothing else, you could swap out Time Warp for Reality Spasm.  Not anywhere near as good, but with a little tweaking it can get the same result.  Play Spasm for X, the copy gives you an untap effect, you add mana, then the regular spell gives you mana.  You could get an arbitrarily large turn that way, if you have enough mana open.  At the very least, you can tap critical mana early on. 

And honestly, all this debate on budget...Van Lunen is not required to give you dirt-cheap ways to beat the Magic-hardliners.  There is still the slight detail of building your own deck, at least trying to be original.  You could argue that his decks are too expensive, or you could spend that time and energy trying to get a better, cheap version of the thing.  Learn from it, maybe. 

What is good about this deck? It's consistent, it's powerful, and personally I just love Pyromancer decks.  Besides that, a big chunk of this deck can be acquired through a magic 2011 boosterbox.  If I knew a noob who was about to throw money at this hobby, this is the deck I'd recommend. 
(Assuming I want a noob who won't simply roll over and die at my table, funny though it may be)

What's bad about this deck?

-It relies on the graveyard to power up its key card, which admittedly is a weakness...with Leylines and Relics of Progenitus.  This can be mended with Into the Roil, as mentioned, or Manic Vandal. 

-Some of the key cards will rotate out soon.  Honestly, I can see why this is a concern.  Never played a Constructed tourney myself (casual and multiplayer, this is just a great source for inspiration) but I can see that those who do want some long-term success.  Again, how can you fix this problem? By looking at similar cards that won't rotate out as quickly.  The lack of Ponder does not mean that Treasure Hunt is suddenly useless.  With an Ascension active, Treasure Hunt allows you to sift through a land glut just like Ponder can.  Without one active, it can actually net more cards than Ponder.  And in case the occasional one-one tradeoff doesn't seem all that good, there is also See Beyond. 

-The budget.  This is always going to be debatable.  Fact of the matter is, our hobby is feeding an industry.  We can't get around that.  Be glad that there are viable cards and strategies that don't cost an arm and a leg.  If you cannot afford one way to victory, find one that you can.  Archive Trap is a decent replacement for Time Warp, especially with all the expensive fetch-lands around.  You don't get infinite turns, and against Bloodghast you're risking a lot without Pyroclasms, but it is a viable route to winning, can randomly remove bigger threats (like enchantment removal) and it's at instant speed.  And if you happened to be the aforementioned noob with an M2011 box, Traumatize will work the same way, but less effectively if you want to follow up with Roiling Terrain.  Sphinx-Bone Wand...might work with more mana-acceleration, but it's doubtful at best.  Roiling Terrain on its own might do the job, recurred often enough, but there's the problem of stabilising the board first.  It kinda relies on going off even if there's an army on the other side.  More mass removal for that recipe, and possibly Staggershocks. 

Really though, taking extra turns and burning to death is one way of going about it.  While others may not be as good, there are others.  You could go three-colours and try a Silence lock, if you can afford it. 

My two eurocents. 

Budget or not, this deck is pretty sick. It also further proves that Spreading Seas is the most powerful card in standard right now (take that, mythic rares).

As far as the budget issue goes, I agree with a previous poster who said that it's very hard to make a reliable, fun deck in this format on the cheap. That said, it's not impossible I'm sure, and I don't really remember sticking to standard format being a requirement, but it does make sense.                             Why would MtG write articles showcasing decks that use old dusty cards? they just printed a bunch of new shinies they want you to (buy) play with!

This deck is far closer to being a budget deck than some of the past decks. I am really happy with this article it takes me back to when BoaB actually talked about budget decks and in spite of the fact that this deck has "been done before" he was able to pick out a under rated, undervalued decklist that not just anyone would have thought up. Plus in my mind he did a pretty good job keeping it cheaper than some of the decklists he's worked on. I think using a strategy that is rotating so soon is the biggest problem. time warp is essential for this deck to survive and continue to be competitive. So let's get a bunch of "budget" players to go get a $30 playset of a card that they'll never be able to use again. Granted since he did this decklist (pre M11) before you may already have the cards to upgrade with however, that deck wasn't very good so I'm not sure how many people actually played it. The good news is that this deck is a HUGE upgrade to that deck which was 4 colors and at least a turn slower but probably closer to 2 turns slower.

I mentioned ealier in a post (which it would appear a mod has deleted) that you could also put a polymorph combo into this deck.  In another (now deleted) post, fractal suggested moving it maindeck, resulting in a hybrid deck that can put the cheap cantrips to use.  I am not sure whether to do that or just side in creatures.