Pyromancer Ascension

This deck, piloted and created by me, went 3-1 in two daily events recently.

Look for Mnashasp here and here.

The decklist:

4 Halimar Depths
7 Island
3 Khalni Garden
6 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn

4 Burst Lightning
4 Divination
3 Dragon Fodder
3 Into the Roil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Time Warp
4 Treasure Hunt

Sideboard
1 Dragon Fodder
4 Negate
4 Polymorph
2 Progenitus
4 Stone Idol Trap

I've been asked by several people what the good matchups are for the deck. This is a tough question to answer, as me and my opponent are playing two seperate games. The toughest matchup is the one in which they answer my pyromancer ascension and i can't refill it in time, and the matchup in which i miff on finding an ascension. The best matchup is a great curve with multiple ponders and lightning bolts for their creatures to activate an ascension quickly.

I must say that Jund is tougher than Naya, and RDW is tougher than Boros. It all comes down to your draws though, and if you can play tight.

Your general strategy should be to try to survive long enough to get an active ascension and then time warp. From there you can throw down a Jace, or divinate, ponder, and time warp again, not missing land drops, and potentially get a second pyromancer online, though it's not always necessary. Sometimes, it's dragon fodder beatdown with your extra turns, and other times you just bolt/burst lightning your opponent out.

The real trick comes when you sideboard. Jund takes out their terminates, Naya their path to exiles, etc etc. All of these decks will still have lightning bolt in their deck. Stone idol trap is your safest polymorph target in these matchups, and he's usually a blowout, taking your opponent down to lethal from a progenitus. of course if they are tapped out on turn 4 and you can polymorph, the game is 95% of the time yours.

Don't SB polymorph against vampires, as gatekeeper will dominate you. Also against RDW you likely don't want the polymorph combo. They just have too much burn, and their creatures are impermanent making a cheap stone idol trap almost impossible. In these matchups you just want to bring in some negates.

Against UW, i sometimes bring in stone idol traps over dragon fodder, as they may have kor firewalker beatdown. I haven't played this matchup more than 4 or 5 times, so i'm not 100% on what to do. But it's not a difficult matchup (though i've always prided myself on beating control decks) and you definitely bring in 4 negates.

Otherwise, i take out 4 Time Warp, 4 Pyromancer Ascension, 4 Treasure hunt. Against jund i take out 3 Burst lightnings as well and bring in the whole board.

If you go to game 3, the elemenent of surprise is mostly gone, and you should be on the draw, so i swap the divinations for treasure hunts to speed up your library searching.

That's it for my primer of the deck. Any further questions i'd be happy to answer if i can. It's a tough deck to play, and is pretty good. I'd recommend it for the skilled lucksacks of the world.