choke a red player long enough he goes blue

Before I start today's blog, could I get a set of hands, who here wants to play a new deck not containing Jace, Blood Braid Elf, or vengevine?? Oh wow that’s all six of you out there. Well anyway today I am going to write about a new deck that I been thinking about, I would play it tomorrow unfortunately, I got *sigh* Stef meeting my parents and thus her becoming an even bigger part of my life. I tried to remain alone and miserable with my thousands of stacks of cards, but then she came along. (For those not picking up on the sarcasm please do so now). Anyway, this post is for those of you who want to go a little rogue, but still want to compete. All cards are below $20, so it’s not too hard to build.

Take a look at Polymorpher's Ascension combo:

3 Call to Mind
4 Preordain
8 Island
7 Mountain
4 Ponder
4 See Beyond
4 Mana Leak
4 Time Warp
4 Dragon Fodder
3 Halimar Depths
2 Treasure Hunt
4 Polymorph
4 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Emracruel
4 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
2 Flashfreeze
1 Iona
4 Negate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 dispel

This takes the new Pyromancer Ascension deck into a different direction. The old win condition was lightning bolt copied many times and killing your opponent. Lightning Bolt is a great card and all, but besides some defense, it does not help you win the game, unless you have already “gone off”. With Polymorph you can have a turn four 15/15, which is pretty good.

The deck's strategy is two fold. Your first is to resolve a Pyromancer's ascension, do the time warp more than a drag queen on Broadway and then polymorph into the win. (in some cases you may be able to tap for 15!). The second is to draw into the polymoph and then swing with Emracruel. There are plenty ways to draw into the combos with ponder, treasure hunt, halimar depth’s, and preordain. For those waiting for a combo deck, here it is!

The deck seems quite hard to play at points but it has a lot of intricacies. For instance, what to discard to blightning is a tough decision.

Cool plays include a Pyromancer’s Ascension at two counters and two goblins out, you can polymorph targeting both, to make really hard disrupt Polymorph, they have to have two removal spells or two counters, or one of each. Out of the board you can “tooth and nail” into Iona and Emracruel.

Either way if anyone builds this by tomorrow let me know how it fares. Next week I will interview a few players at third about draft strategies, favorite cards, and my thoughts on Magic 2011 limited.

Until next time...