This deck has been the most successful for me (I'm currently just outside the top 100 in 2 player), and it varies to some extent from both of yours (+ FoolishEarthling). I have 24.3% creatures, the Pyre Charger usually does a lot of damage if I can get it out 2nd turn - burning any of their creatures (preferably Flame Slash or Searing Blaze) to let it through, and then finish them off with any combination of other burn spells. I have all the X spells and they've tended to be very effective.
I was having this discussion with a friend the other day. Pyre Charger is an odd card in that it's better the worse your deck yes (and inversely, the better your deck is, the worse this card is). In better decks, you seek to curve out. As in T2 cast 2 drop, t3 cast 3 drop, t4 cast 4 drop. You'll have noticed that when you have openings like that (and your opponent doesn't) you're in much better shape. The problem with the Pyre Charger is that if you are able to maximise your mana each turn and hence board presense, you won't have much mana left to sink into it
Well, I'll gloss over the fact you are saying I've 'constructed' a crappy deck because of a couple of Pyre Chargers. Curving out is great if you always have a great first draw and contine to draw the right cards and land proportions. The best cards are the ones that can be effective in a large number of scenarios, and have a decent mana cost. Most of the best red burn spells are 3 or less (not including X spells). Thus leaving extra mana for pumping into X spells or ... Pyre Charger - which I would argue is a solid if not spectacular card simply because it can deal X damage. I tend to win maybe 8 out of 10 games with this deck, which by your reckoning must make a lot of other players' decks, REALLY BAD, lol.
I didn't say you made a bad deck. I don't really like the chandra deck because it differs too much from what typical red decks try to do. The typically successful red decks play cheap threats like goblin guide and back that up with burn spells, instead of relying on 6 drops or higher cost higher impact cards. I still have Pyre Chargers in my chandra deck for lack of better options. I have unlocked about 15 cards in it, but I would like to cut them out, but I do not have better options to fill in the curve
There an element of truth to that, but don't forget the original Sligh deck packed things like Shivan Dragon or Orgg. Goblin Gangland has lower mana curve than Chandra - Chandra plays most like a RDW deck rather than Sligh, though. Virtually none of the decks in Duels 2013 are constructed tournament decks, and Chandra's slower less-tuned build is well suited to handling the slower less-tuned opposition. You may decide you like the firebreathers more if you choose to see them as walking X spells. You'll get often 5 damage in with Fiery Hellhound in two attacks, then trade it for a big green monster. That's all good. I've now got a fully-unlocked Goblin Gangland as well, btw, (which I'll be discussing in the article after Yeva) and it is SAVAGELY fast. There aren't many (any?) decks that can keep up with you.
I'm a huge magic fan, but I was hoping for more of an adventure game, like the reaaaaaally old one on the PC, where it plays out a bit like an rpg. Defeat monsters (sort of what they have in this one), get gold and buy cards and level up! I'd love to see a re-imagining of that game.
To "curve out" does not necessarily mean laying a 1 drop, then a 2 drop, then a 3 drop, etc. It's a gameplay rule of thumb that flows from the following two observations: 1. The total amount of mana spent by a player (given roughly equal efficiency) at the end of the game is overwhelmingly correlated with who won 2. You start the game with 7 cards in hand and can only play 1 land a turn In terms of how much total mana you need to spend to win a game, 10 mana is around the minimum in standard. You can achieve this on turn 4 with land drops, but only if you use all your mana. A pyre charger, with a goblin guide or other such turn 1 drop, can achieve 18 damage on turn 4 with no other plays. Combined with a lightning bolt, fireblast or similar excellent DD, this is a turn 4 win, but in general red is happy to turn 1 mana to 1 damage repeatably. Where there's a big difference here is that in games that go past turn 4, the best predictor of total mana spend is number of cards drawn. This is because land stops being the bottleneck preventing you from spending mana and drawing 1 card per turn limits you instead. (The companion concept "card advantage" is largely drawn from this observation, although it also includes tactical plays that give you many-for-one advantages in playable cards). This is where pyre charger hedges. If Mr. shuffle gives you a turn 2 pyre charger you can use it as part of an aggro rush, but in longer game where both players have neutralized each others' threats so far, it can be played to the scale of the game at that time, providing greater total mana spend than say, goblin piker. In other words, if you have an unopposed early pyre charger on the board, it's (usually) a much better idea to take advantage of that opening with your pyre charger while you have it rather than casting other spells, since this will give you a later advantage in total mana spent on turns 5+. Of course there are more concepts besides these, including mana efficiency, tempo, and control, but the "mana curve" has an awful lot to it and it flows from basic rules of the game.
I like this explanation a lot. People forget (or these days simply never knew, as it happened 16 years ago!) that the original Sligh deck, and thus mana curve theory, involved cards like Dragon Whelp, Storm Shaman and Brothers of Fire. Yes, I'm old enough to have played Orcish Librarian in a tournament.
Etherlords (I and II) are the most recent games I can remember in that genre. You might want to check them out if you haven't already. They're available on Impulse for $10.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/ash24 No Shivan dragon or Orgg in sight. (Or storm shaman) RDW is pretty much modern sligh. (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/examining-red-deck-wins-in-standard/ article by the famous Darwin Kastle) The Chandra deck is more comparable to 'Big Red' or red control decklists. You don't have a low enough curve to utilise a modern RDW strategy so you need to rely on spells like Chandra's Fury to gain advantage before ending the game with Hostility or Inferno Titan. I unlocked my goblin deck playing against the Howling Mine encounter. T4/5 kills were 90% of the time This is the main statement I disagree with. It is much better to expand your board presence, rather than sink mana into the Pyre Charger. It is fine in that if you are slightly off curve, you can sink spare 1-2 mana into it. Reasons why you shouldnt': -Instant Speed removal completely destroys your tempo. Heck sorcery speed removal too. -Magic 2013 is closer to a limited environment without mass removal spells so you can afford to overextend. -Because of this, creatures are alot better than spells in this environment -You will be doing more damage in the long run the earlier you have your creature out. I will 100% cast T3 chandra's phoenix instead of pumping my Pyre Charger because in the long term, the phoenix does more damage. Let's do some maths, based on t2 pyre charger and pumping vs t3 chandra's phoenix. Assuming land drops are made. T3 is where the scenarios differ. No Phoenix T3: 3 damage T4: 4 damage T5: 5 damage With Phoenix T3: 3 Damage T4: 3 damage +4 mana available T5: 3 damage +5 mana available. Not only does it deal more damage, but you have diversified your threats with 2 creatures (so Fog Banks and Kraken Hatchlings don't get in your way) This is more noticeable with Dragon Hatchling, which requires continual investment to even do damage. EDIT: In addition something like brothers of Fire (modern day: Spikeshot Elder) has an ability that can be used at instant speed. Somewhat similar to Pyre Charger's ability as a safeguard to flooding, but Pyre Charger ability is much more situational than the ability of Brothers of Fire/Spikeshot Elder
Hate the idea. Play regular mtg if you want full deck editing. The premade decks go a long way to level the play field. Of course, perfect balance is impossible. However, knowing that my opponent's deck is limited in certain ways and there are only so many decks available allows for deeper strategic play imo. I'd take this over the tactics involved in deck editing any day. When there are too many deck possibilities, such as with full editing and 1000s of cards, it becomes almost impossible to anticipate and strategically respond to your opponent. It is like high stakes gambling with the outcome predetermined by the cards in the other opponents deck. An experienced player can usually predict who will win after the first 2-3 turns. Yes, there exceptions but few. It is often overlooked by mtg geeks that games like chess are not terribly complicated yet have almost endless strategic depth.
HarlequinRogue, can you explain more clearly where you disagree? You reached a different conclusion, but I didn't see any disagreement in your analysis. Your observation is that there are tempo and mana efficiency advantages to playing a turn 3 Phoenix, and my observation is that you convert more total mana to damage in a longer game by delaying spend on the Phoenix. If you believe you can win on turn 4 or 5, it's better to play the Phoenix as early as possible because you will score 1-3 more points of damage that way. If you believe the game will go past turn 5, as it seems you think Chandra's deck is likely to do, you may find that blasting your cards out of your hand rather than exploiting the opening with the pyre charger during the limited time of its availability puts you at a later mana traction disadvantage when cards on both sides run low. If you take enemy responses into account like fog bank on the table then we are talking about different things. I'm not talking about a general rule but a specific situation by way of demonstrating how the mana curve works in situations with pumpable permanents, kickers, etc. to achieve greater total mana spent over the game length than the opponent. This goes beyond the normal thinking of 1-drop, 2-drop, 3-drop, etc.
Having that many possibilities its obviously the point of having deck editing, just like playing the card game in real life, you may not expect what each opponents strategy is and makes online VS more challenging, rather than just using the best deck in the stack, and knowing all the cards the opponent has in his deck
This is the biggest problem I have with your analysis. You aren't even 'exploiting' the opening of the pyre charger. You are just being inefficient in spending more mana to do less damage. You don't lose a cards by casting other creature. I'm seriously at a loss of words for how to describe what I think you;re saying. I guess, simply, bar your opponent wrecking you with an X for 1, it is ALWAYS better to expand your board position. Spending mana for the sake of spending mana is a bad excuse and is inefficient. Especially in this format where decks aren't well tuned, you can't equate 1 mana spend to another mana spend, as the product varies differently.
Wizard posted information about the upcoming expansion. It should come out "later this summer". Those guilds are the guilds in Return to Ravnica card set that comes to stores later this year.
