I've been pretty happy with Mauler. (I like the 24 creature build w/ 2 jittes.) Mauler really hasn't won me any games directly, but it sure does draw a ton of counter and removal away from my other costier creatures, something no othercreature will do. I think that is worth it in itself. I'd much rather have a slogger stick because they thought they needed to counter the mauler than getting the slogger countered and have a sulfur on the board. There are other pluses too, but I've found that to be it's biggest. There just isn't another creature scarier/better at
Even those born to battle could only lay their blades at Akroma's feet.
"No rest. No mercy. No matter what."
Mauler shines in certain matchups and Sulfur shines in others. I play 4 Mauler myself and they are great, they have won a lot of games for me, especially against Thresh and Goblins.
One of the downsides that's really annoying in Mauler is the choice you have to make turn 1; most of the times you'll want to play the Mauler, but when you also have Chalice in your hand it really gets you thinking. Playing the Mauler turn 1 and the Chalice turn 2 means you get a bigger Mauler but gives the opponent a chance to remove it with StP, doing it the other way around means the Mauler probably stays smaller.
This message has been deleted by Nightmare. Reason: Boo fucking hoo
Leading with the Chalice also makes the opponent unable to make a 1st turn play: PImp, Lackey, Ponder etc.. and is so more likely to screw with their gameplan.
Sometimes I just go Chalice, Moon, Pit-Dragon or something stupid like that and the mauler is worse than a monkey.
Just saying that chalice-1 on the go has a much bigger impact on the game than a Mauler. I'd lead with that any day.
Originally Posted by Race War
Yeah, I would lead with the Chalice 9 times out of 10. It's not really a tough choice.
I do think that more often than not, Taurean Mauler is the superior card to Sulfur Elemental. Flashing in a Sulfur as a surprise blocker is pretty worthless against most of the threats in the current format. Goyf, Tombstalker, Dreadnought et al don't give a crap about a 3/2 blocker. It's really only useful against Nimble Mongoose which wasn't a creature that ever really concerned me.
Sure Sulfur has uses beyond the combat phase, but nothing too impressive there either.
Taurean is just more threatening to a lot more decks. An early Mauler stands toe to toe with Goyf. Now that's impressive. It just never seems that way because he draws all the counters/removal. But that's a sign of just how good he really is.
If you manage to lock down your opponent from playing spells by resolving Chalice and Blood Moon. Not being able to pump up Taurean should hardly be a concern.
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A fair warning. YOU'RE GOING TO HATE THIS SUGGESTION. If you're not a fan of novel ideas, avert your eyes.
But has anyone recently (within the past year) tested Stone Rain in this deck?
It can take out your opponents one remaining basic after a Blood Moon resolves. Or it can just act like a Sinkhole to set your opponent behind you by one turn. It also fits the mana curve ridiculously well.
I thought about stone rain, then looked back in the tread to see if it had been tested before. The general consensus seemed to be that if your opponent only runs 1-3 basics (to fight through B2B and wastelock) they typically won't be able to play through an early moon, because they won't be able to fetch it (basically they will need to fetch it before the moon hits or be very lucky). So basically this is still a good match up. Plus most of the time when they get their basic you won't draw the rain and when they don't it will be a dead draw. As for decks that run lots of basics, blowing up one land won't really hurt as a moon doesn't lock their other land. So in the end your slightly improving an already good match up to weaken the deck as a whole. Against basics it's just a just a speed bump and is worthless after turns 1-3 (basically this is why 3sphere isn't run MD anymore). Although I do love the art on the Kamigawa stone rain.
Even those born to battle could only lay their blades at Akroma's feet.
"No rest. No mercy. No matter what."
Really, you need to play in a combo heavy environment or one where Brainstorm, Ponder, StP, Daze, FoW, and Snuff Out run rampant.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
kind of strange suggestion but has anyone tried firespout, thecard from shadowmoore. ive been testing it in the pyrokinesis/pyroclasm slot in the sb and it has been working pretty well for me. rarely does the fact that it doesnt hit fliers work against it, and it fits the curve much better, and sometimes that extra point of damage can be useful. also on the stone rain suggestion, i dont buy it personally. how often do you really need to stop one land anyways, ive always found that a moon affect is crippling enough to warrant a victory, if you say to yourself, 'man if only i had a stone rain' then you are probably going to lose anyways. just my opinion, but i havent tested stone rain.
A ruler wears a crown while the rest of us wear hats, but which would you rather have when it’s raining?”—Barrin, Principia
It costs one more mana than Pyroclasm and that extra point of damage is more bad than good. Pyroclasm only kills Magus of the Moon, Simian Spirit Guide, Morphs, Sulfur Elemental, and a Taurean Mauler with no counters on it.
Firespout kills every creature in your deck except a hellbent Gathan Raiders and Arc-Slogger. Oh, and it can't hit opposing fliers. But hey, it "fits the curve better" so it's probably worth running anyway.
Neither Firespout or Pyroclasm is a replacement for Pyrokinesis. Being able to split the damage and play the spell for free is much, much better.
"Casual sex, NO Touching/Licking/Sucking/Groping/Fondling/Riding/Tickling/Binding/Quitters/Italians. Play Fast, Be Polite, Have Fun."
Sure as hell sounds like fun.
Not entirely true, the reason why Pyroclasm is still played in combo heavy meta's is because It's way better against (turn 0; 1 or 2) ETW and Zombie tokens than Pyrokinesis.
However I DO agree on the fact that Firesprout isn't worth running in the deck because of the reasons you mentioned.
I seriously considered Firespout, but at best, it saves you 1 life from mana burn over Pyroclasm; at worst, it Time Walks you, kills Rakdos Pit-Dragon, and leaves your opponent with Birds of Paradise and/or Hypnotic Specters. Killing Mongeese is unfortunately irrelevant since you definitely don't bring it in against Threshold.
I guess it's a nice trick against those darned Elf decks, though. Slivers, too.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Unless your metagame contains lots of combo and no aggro, you shouldn't run Pyroclasm over Pyrokinesis. Even then, Pyrokinesis still isn't a bad card. Being an instant is huge.
It's perfectly legitimate to run both Pyrokinesis and Pyroclasm, but unless you play in an imaginary metagame where everyone plays Ichorid, TES, Belcher, and SI and no one plays any deck that relies on having specific creatures, Goblins, Tarmogoyf, or any kind of random aggro deck, I don't think you're running Pyroclasm over Pyrokinesis.
"Casual sex, NO Touching/Licking/Sucking/Groping/Fondling/Riding/Tickling/Binding/Quitters/Italians. Play Fast, Be Polite, Have Fun."
Sure as hell sounds like fun.
no need to be a dick, im just trying to get worthwhile discussion. has anyone even tried firespout or are you just shooting it down because it sounds worse on paper? another point is that alot of the time chalice for 2 is the right play and where does that leave you with pyroclasm? im not saying replace pyrokinesis but firespout is worth taking a look at imo.
A ruler wears a crown while the rest of us wear hats, but which would you rather have when it’s raining?”—Barrin, Principia
Does Goblins run Pyroclasm? TES run Teeg? Stax run deed? No. That is because they go against the primary goal while hurting you severely. Pyroclasm used to be main deck material, aside from more Goblins, because it didn't kill any Dragon Stompy creatures.
Mans got a point, Firespout will kill your team as well as you opponents.
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
The reason I brought up Stone Rain wasn't just because of the synergy with Blood Moon.
The fact is, most every good Sui Black variant runs 4 Sinkhole. This is because a turn two land destruction can really set your opponent back and at the very worst functions as a time walk.
No one can argue that Sinkhole isn't a uberpowerful card.
Well, this deck can play Stone Rain on turn ONE, and at the very worst, will always be able to play it turn two.
Given the decks curve, Stone Rain is very much the identical of Sinkhole.
Add on to that Blood Moon.
Face it, people know this deck now. When my opponents see me imprint a red card, or discard a SSG etc, they know they are facing off against 8 Blood Moons. If they don't they will know what my deck does by game two atleast.
And the very first land they fetch is a basic land precisely for that reason. They know that next turn, I will be dropping either a Blood Moon or a Magus of the Moon and without that basic land, as soon as Blood Moon hits, their whole deck becomes unplayable.
But in the turn after I drop the Moon, a Stone Rain blows up that one basic they were counting on and singlehandedly seals the game for you.
And as I mentioned before, even without that scenario, Stone Rain is still a Sinkhole/Time Walk. Not bad at all.
So what would you replace in the MB for 4x Stone Rain?
Team Fat Man & Little Boy
Currently, I'm doing a trail ballon with 2 Stone Rain in the slots that people are running Akroma in. I find Stone Rain more useful far more often. :)
He could in theory also sub in the Trinisphere slots, or the additional equipment slots.
You came in here with bad capitalization and grammer suggesting a card that has already been tried and dismissed, and expected to start a worthwhile discussion? Did you read the thread before posting? Did you even do a search to see if the card had been mentioned? When the only positive thing you have to say about Firespout is that "sometimes the one more damage can be useful" without even telling us when that is, what matchups the card would improve, or the results of some testing, what kind of response did you expect to get?
You say you've tested Firespout, but you seem to have missed the very obvious fact that Firespout kills your whole team, which makes us think you haven't really tested the card.
So maybe you really think you're on to something, and maybe your thoughts could lead to something positive in this or other threads, but right now you're just some guy cluttering up a popular thread with 30 second, zero thought posts.
Since you're probably going to come back here posting something like "lolwhut, u didn't address wut I said in the post", here's why you're wrong. Whether or not I've actually played with a card has no bearing on whether or not I can legitimately dismiss it. This is known as an appeal to authority. By your reasoning I could suggest Mudhole in Dragon Stompy, and you couldn't dismiss it until you played games with Mudhole. Not very productive.
I have never been unable to play Pyroclasm because of a Chalice at two. The fact that this situation may come up once in a while does not change the fact that Firespout will kill almost every creature in your deck while Pyroclasm does not. This is a situation that comes up frequently.
In conclusion, if you think Firespout is worth a look, give it a look, and post some well thought out arguments for it backed up by results. Then maybe some people on here will think it worth their time to test it.
"Casual sex, NO Touching/Licking/Sucking/Groping/Fondling/Riding/Tickling/Binding/Quitters/Italians. Play Fast, Be Polite, Have Fun."
Sure as hell sounds like fun.
The fact of the matter is that I have been following this thread, and there is hardly anything said about firespout. And when I said I have been testing it, I mean't exactly that. Not I have tested it thoroughly, not I've come up with some secret tech, not even this card is better than both pyroclasm and pyrokinesis combined. I was just saying it might be worth taking a closer look at. That being said firespout probably isn't all that great, but for me it has been working equally as well as pyroclasm, but not as good as pyrokinesis. On to stone rain, Clark Kant; is a 'timewalk' as good as a threat? I guess what I am asking is what is a stronger play the turn after a blood moon comes down, a pit dragon that can end the game in two turns, or a stone rain? You may be right, but for me when I am playing the deck I want to win as soon as possible while my disruption is still around, and that means dropping threats and swinging as soon as possible.
A ruler wears a crown while the rest of us wear hats, but which would you rather have when it’s raining?”—Barrin, Principia
You guys should really ease up on pingveno. He suggested a decent card that fits the curve. You can point out the very valid reasons why the card isn't worthwhile without flaming him.
Pingveno,
Stone Rain shouldn't be compared to Pit Dragon. It should be compared to the cards that it's actually replacing. Namely, Akroma or Sulfur Elemental, or the sixth and seventh equipment card. Frankly, I'm not impressed with any of them. None of them make for a very strong turn two-three play after a Blood Moon.
So the idea of playing potent disruption, that post Blood Moon can singlehandedly seal up your win against a number of matchups and otherwise still sets your opponent behind, screws up their curve, and could possibly mana screw them, is appealing.
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