Post Rotation Decks #3: Naya Ascension v1.0
Posted by gatch | Labels: Magic: the Gathering | Posted On Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1:46 PM
After the Philly 5k decklists were published everyone craved for dragonskull summits and verdant catacombs. Unfortunately unlike the current reality of things, real estate is hard to come by in the Magic world. I had searched through every binder I could get my hands on, posted on every local website..but I could not find the lands. I was one click away from paying nearly double the regular price online and wait two weeks for cards that may never reach my mailbox. It was then that I realized...everyone will be playing Jund. I started digging for cards in my collection. The objective - build a deck that crushes Jund. The idea was to build a deck that Jund had a bad matchup against. I had been running Jund before the rotation so I'm pretty familiar with what makes it tick. Jund works because it puts a lot of pressure on the board without over commiting and gains card advantage through cascade. I wanted to beat it at it's own game, so i drafted up this list.
For your consideration...Naya Ascension v1.0:
I've seen a number of Pyromancer Ascension decks online, but I haven't found one that runs only Naya colors and Naya Charm. Most use blue for Time Warp but I find them a bit slow. Dare I say that this is the first? Well, I'm sure some Pro somewhere in the world has thought about it, but at least in my local shop it's the first one of it's kind... and I cooked it up myself. Naya charm combos with itself in this deck to activate Pyromancer ascension at instant speed. Once you've ascended, naya charm now can effectively let you return two cards from your graveyard to your hand. The trick is, to always return the second naya charm. What you'll have is an infinite source of card advantage. With the ascension online you can bolt your opponent to the head and grab the bolt back with naya charm- Repeat until opponent's head is crispy on the outside, but moist and tender on the inside. Good thing we're running 8 cascade spells that help you play copies of spells already in your graveyard. Another trick is when you cascade into a 2nd naya charm, return the 1st one to your hand and you have the combo ready. The deck is white red heavy, which means you have the tools to deal with jund's permanents, but blightning hurts it bad just like any other control deck. Captured sunlight is also intended to regain that lost card and life from Blightning. Ajani vengeant does a pretty good job of stalling, and left unchecked can win you the game...playing him main deck is bad news for opposing control builds. I've yet to test baneslayers in this deck, but so far the pair of Enlisted Wurms have been doing well and have even helped get the ascension in play and online. The deck has enough removal to handle an initial Boros rush, and then recover to take the game later. It feels lacking in bomb spells though so Baneslayer might still be decent here. Right now the sideboard is loaded with Jund hate, Devout lightcaster is a house vs Jund, either exiling the thrinax or blocking it all day without triggering it's effect. At one point an opponent had to Bituminous blast his own thrinax to get his tokens, only to meet a Day of Judgement from my side the next turn. Blightning still hurts like hell, but without it the Jund player will be in trouble. Maelstrom pulse kills pyromancer ascension, but you have 4 copies plus recursion from naya charm to help it get back in play. I need to playtest the jund matchup some more to see how well it does, but on paper it seems legit. Vampires and soldiers have a hard time keeping pyromancer ascension in check, so those are generally good matchups. I'll playtest it a bit more, but for now this is what I'm piloting to local events.
For your consideration...Naya Ascension v1.0:
I've seen a number of Pyromancer Ascension decks online, but I haven't found one that runs only Naya colors and Naya Charm. Most use blue for Time Warp but I find them a bit slow. Dare I say that this is the first? Well, I'm sure some Pro somewhere in the world has thought about it, but at least in my local shop it's the first one of it's kind... and I cooked it up myself. Naya charm combos with itself in this deck to activate Pyromancer ascension at instant speed. Once you've ascended, naya charm now can effectively let you return two cards from your graveyard to your hand. The trick is, to always return the second naya charm. What you'll have is an infinite source of card advantage. With the ascension online you can bolt your opponent to the head and grab the bolt back with naya charm- Repeat until opponent's head is crispy on the outside, but moist and tender on the inside. Good thing we're running 8 cascade spells that help you play copies of spells already in your graveyard. Another trick is when you cascade into a 2nd naya charm, return the 1st one to your hand and you have the combo ready. The deck is white red heavy, which means you have the tools to deal with jund's permanents, but blightning hurts it bad just like any other control deck. Captured sunlight is also intended to regain that lost card and life from Blightning. Ajani vengeant does a pretty good job of stalling, and left unchecked can win you the game...playing him main deck is bad news for opposing control builds. I've yet to test baneslayers in this deck, but so far the pair of Enlisted Wurms have been doing well and have even helped get the ascension in play and online. The deck has enough removal to handle an initial Boros rush, and then recover to take the game later. It feels lacking in bomb spells though so Baneslayer might still be decent here. Right now the sideboard is loaded with Jund hate, Devout lightcaster is a house vs Jund, either exiling the thrinax or blocking it all day without triggering it's effect. At one point an opponent had to Bituminous blast his own thrinax to get his tokens, only to meet a Day of Judgement from my side the next turn. Blightning still hurts like hell, but without it the Jund player will be in trouble. Maelstrom pulse kills pyromancer ascension, but you have 4 copies plus recursion from naya charm to help it get back in play. I need to playtest the jund matchup some more to see how well it does, but on paper it seems legit. Vampires and soldiers have a hard time keeping pyromancer ascension in check, so those are generally good matchups. I'll playtest it a bit more, but for now this is what I'm piloting to local events.
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