Welcome back! Last week I chiseled away at Mirromancy and came up with a Blue/Red tempo deck featuring Neurok Commando and Kiln Fiend. It was performing well enough in the kiddy pool of the Casual room, but I wanted to take the swimmies off and jump in with the sharks.

I cobbled together a sideboard for the occasion.

"Commando and Conquero v2.5"

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Kiln Fiend
• 4 Plated Geopede
• 4 Neurok Commando
• 4 Surrakar Spellblade

• Spells (20)
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Preordain
• 2 Distortion Strike
• 4 Into the Roil
• 3 Arc Trail
• 3 Sleep

• Lands (24)
• 9 Island
• 7 Mountain
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Terramorphic Expanse

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Arc Trail
• 3 Forked Bolt
• 4 Goblin Ruinblaster
• 3 Hero of Oxid Ridge
• 4 Spell Pierce

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The sideboard is a little haphazard and was meant to simply be a starting point. Arc Trail and Forked Bolt are for decks with cheap creatures like Elves, Boros, and Vampires. Goblin Ruinblaster is for any control deck with ten-plus nonbasic lands—destroying their third land can be like a Time Walk if they are trying to get to Planeswalker or Day of Judgment mana. Hero of Oxid Ridge is against decks featuring Squadron Hawk and/or decks that play Jace. Spell Pierce comes in against removal spells, the creatureless versions of Valakut (counter the ramp to buy time), and decks like Pyromancer Ascension that play no creatures.

The Tournament Practice room on MTGO can be hit-or-miss when you're looking for quality Standard testing. There are plenty of people trying out the latest tournament-winning monster, but there are also a lot of people like me, looking to crash their silly homebrews into Boros and Tezzeret to see if they have what it takes. If you're a brewer and you play against another brewer, you have a fun match but little in the way of valuable experience. If you play against CawGo, you tend to get angry concessions when you play your first Neurok Commando.

Still, I managed to finish a few matches against Tier 2+ decks with Commando and Conquero v2.0. Unfortunately, it wasn't pretty.

Match 1 – Mono-Black Control

I kept four lands, Geopede, Into the Roil, and Lightning Bolt on the play. My creature got hit with Inquisition of Kozilek turn one. I drew and played a Kiln Fiend, but my opponent had a Go for the Throat. I drew a bunch of noncreature spells and, soon enough, my opponent played a Grave Titan to finish me.

Spell Pierce seemed like an obvious addition to protect my fragile creatures. Hero of Oxid Ridge also came in to give me some more threats. I had a hard time figuring out what to take out, but I went with two Distortion Strike, three Arc Trail, and two Surrakar Spellblade because he's so brittle.

I mulliganed a one-lander into a solid hand of two lands, Geopede, Neurok Commando, Sleep, and Into the Roil. My Geopede got destroyed by Contagion Clasp on turn two, and the Commando was answered with Vampire Nighthawk. I cast Into the Roil kicked and got in with the Commando, while my opponent played a Lux Cannon.

I drew another Sleep, and after attacking with Neurok Commando, drew my first Spell Pierce. With other threats to play, I simply passed with 5 mana up. My opponent replayed Vampire Nighthawk and cast Sign in Blood to go up to maximum hand size. I used a Lightning Bolt on the 'hawk, attacked, and drew another Spell Pierce.

My opponent cast Grave Titan, so I put the zombies to Sleep and attacked for 2. I still couldn't draw any creatures, but at this point Lux Cannon could kill any permanent that didn't have Shroud anyway. The next turn was a repeat of the previous, with another Titan coming down and taking another nap while I got in for 2. Unfortunately, this only brought him to 8, and he had 20 points of zombie damage on the board. I used Into the Roil and Lightning Bolt to buy me a turn, but it wasn't enough.

0-2.

I was disappointed with Spell Pierce in this game. It isn't feasible for me to keep a mana open to protect my creatures until at least turn four, and by then they can easily pay the 2 mana. I ended up drawing three of them and I just wanted them to be creatures.

Match 2 – Mono-Black Control

My opponent's deck was an absolute nightmare for me. Doom Blade, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Vampire Nighthawk, Skinrender, and Consuming Vapors made sure I never kept a creature on the board. Ratchet Bomb made an appearance to clean up what all those other cards missed, and Mind Sludge punished me for trying to play around Gatekeeper. These ones weren't close, so I won't bore you with the details.

0-4.

MBC is officially a bad matchup.

Game 5 – White Weenie

I jumped into a single-game match by mistake, so no sideboard this time. I played two Geopedes on turn two and three while my opponent tutored up a Sword of Body and Mind with Stoneforge Mystic. I planned on responding to the equip with Lightning Bolt, but Brave the Elements spoiled that plan. Still, 2/2 Wolves are no match for 3/3 Plated Geopedes, so I got to attack him down to 8. Then I played Neurok Commando, representing lethal if unblocked.

My opponent attacked to get a Wolf, and played Emeria Angel followed by a fetch land to generate plenty of blockers. Unfortunately, they were just too tired to block (go Sleep!).

1-4.

Match 3 – Boros

I led with a Terramorphic, looking to cast Kiln Fiend on turn two. My opponent played a Steppe Lynx, and then on turn two had another Steppe Lynx and a Lightning Bolt for the Fiend. I got to Arc Trail both of his creatures and cast Preordain to find another Kiln Fiend.

He played Kor Skyfisher and Adventuring Gear, while I played Plated Geopede and Kiln Fiend. He laid a Geopede of his own and attacked for 2 in the air. I played a land and attacked for 4, then cast Surrakar Spellblade. He counterattacked with a 3/3 Geopede and a 4/5 Skyfisher, then played Steppe Lynx post-combat.

I ripped my favorite card, Sleep, and got in for 8 damage (plus drew a card). His draw step didn't offer any help, and I won the following turn.

I boarded in Arc Trail and the three Forked Bolts for both Distortion Strikes and a couple of Into the Roil. Unfortunately, my opponent had many, many more sideboard cards. In the second game, he played two Pyroclasms, two Arc Trails, a Burst Lightning, a Lightning Bolt, and a Journey to Nowhere, effectively killing or exiling every single creature I cast before I could attack with them. His Skyfisher was attacking all the while, and eventually I died to that and some Squadron Hawks.

The third game was more of the same, made worse by a mulligan to five.

2-6.

Changes to the Deck

The deck has serious, serious problems with creature removal. The nature of the deck is that it relies on its second- or third-turn threat surviving long enough for your spells to matter; if your first two creatures die, your whole deck is full of blanks.

There are a few ways to fix this. Counterspells seemed like a possibility, but leaving mana up is difficult, and they just become more dead cards without a creature on the board. As I see it, that leaves us with three options:

Go Big

With this sideboard strategy, we're looking to play large, efficient creatures that an opponent with a hand full of Pyroclasms and Burst Lightnings can't deal with—4/4's like Cyclops Gladiator and Conundrum Sphinx can't be Bolted or Slagstormed and block cheaper creatures with ease. Sphinx of Lost Truths is huge and keeps our hand full of gas. Six-drops would require a few more mana sources to support, but Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil Engine are game-changers that may be worth it.

The nice thing about going big is that it doesn't require too many sideboard slots. A couple Inferno Titans, some Cyclops Gladiators, and a Mountain or two leaves plenty of room for cards that are better in noncreature matchups.

Here's an example:

4 Goblin Ruinblaster

1 Arc Trail

3 Spell Pierce

2 Inferno Titan

3 Cyclops Gladiator

2 Mountain

The Untouchables

Our plan here is to play threats that are resilient, so creature removal isn't as relevant. Magma Phoenix doesn't care how many Lightning Bolts you have, he's still going to wipe your opponent's board and come back for more. Shroud creatures like Calcite Snapper and Sphinx of Jwar Isle complement Neurok Commando and can't have their Throats Gone For. Koth is the best (and most expensive) of the bunch, of course, providing a steady stream of huge attackers.

Combining this strategy with the previous option would probably be optimal. Koth helps power out Inferno Titans, while Calcite Snapper buys you time to play your six-drops. If you have the Planeswalker, you can try this out:

4 Calcite Snapper

3 Koth of the Hammer

2 Magma Phoenix

3 Inferno Titan

1 Arc Trail

2 Everflowing Chalice

Or you could try this cheaper, Bluer version:

4 Calcite Snapper

3 Conundrum Sphinx

3 Sphinx of Lost Truths

2 Wurmcoil Engine

2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

1 Island

Transformers

The final possibility is to turn into a whole new deck post-board. Really, the previous two sideboards I listed were transformational as well, but at least they still revolve around the idea of playing creatures, burning away the opposition, and attacking. This next sideboard plan will very rarely win through combat damage.

Pyromancer Ascension decks a few months ago were known to sideboard in Kiln Fiends in order to surprise opponents that sided out their removal. I'm looking to do the opposite. Something like:

+4 Pyromancer Ascension

+2 Call to Mind

+4 Burst Lightning

+4 See Beyond

+1 Sleep

−4 Plated Geopede

−4 Surrakar Spellblade

−4 Neurok Commando

−2 Distortion Strike

−1 Terramorphic Expanse

We don't have the Mana Leaks or the Halimar Depths that the real deck plays, but I hope the element of surprise will make up for it. Kiln Fiend stays in as an alternate win condition, and to keep the opponent guessing when going to sideboard for Game 3.

I gave the Commando/Ascension plan a try in a few matches.

Match 1 – Black/Red Vampires

On the draw, I keep four land, Geopede, Preordain, and Lightning Bolt. My opponent leads off with Lavaclaw Reaches, followed by Kalastria Highborn, while I play Terramorphic Expanse to find a Mountain and my Geopede. He follows up with another rare bloodsucker, Captivating Vampire, and I play a fetch land and bolt the Highborn. He ends up taking 5 from Geopede and I play a post-combat Kiln Fiend.

Another Captivating Vamp and a Pulse Tracker get added to his board and an attack brings me to 13. I spend my turn casting two Preordains, one finding nothing but land, the other hitting a Bolt, which I use on the Tracker. All those spells plus the fetch land I play make my Kiln Fiend and Geopede lethal, so he has to block with the Captivator. It trades with Kiln Fiend.

My opponent plays Viscera Seer and Bloodghast, while I have another Kiln Fiend. His attack brings me to 6, and I draw Into the Roil. Since I have nothing else to do with my mana, I kick it targeting the Seer, expecting him to sacrifice it to deny me a card. He doesn't, and I draw my MVP: Sleep. I have lethal damage, but he has a Lavaclaw Reaches to block, so I simply pass the turn.

His turn is spent playing the Seer and attacking with Bloodghast, bringing me to 3. I rip Lightning Bolt, which allows me to Sleep his team, kill the Reaches, and get in for the win. Sleep!

I board into the Pyromancer package as detailed above. Unfortunately, my replay was lost, but I remember generally what happened: I kept a hand with Preordain and See Beyond, plus burn and lands, and my opponent had a rather slow start with Viscera Seer and Lacerator as his only plays for the first three turns. The See Beyond finds me the Ascension (shuffling in Kiln Fiend), while Bolt takes care of the 2/2.

From there, I do what Ascension decks do, drawing cards, burning out every threat. Sleep was nice against Bloodghast, and Arc Trail was critical. I soon had two active Ascensions, and even though I didn't draw Call to Mind, three Arc Trails and three kicked Burst Lightnings were enough to win it. He showed me a hand with two Doom Blades and a Gatekeeper of Malakir. "You got me," he said.

2-0.

Match 2 – Mono-Blue Architect

Once again, I have a turn-one Terramorphic for Mountain. My opponent plays an Enclave Cryptologist, who my Lightning Bolt is excited to see. The burn spell has to wait, however, as I choose to play Kiln Fiend to get extra value out of it. Sure enough, my opponent spends his turn two leveling, I bolt the Merfolk and bash for 4. I match his Sea Gate Oracle with Surrakar Spellblade, and then he Treasure Mages up a Contagion Engine. I cast another bolt on the Mage and an unkicked Into the Roil on the Sea Gate Oracle (so much card disadvantage . . .), then attack with Kiln Fiend for 7 and Spellblade for two cards (. . . and back up to parity).

My opponent's Grand Architect + Tumble Magnet threaten to spoil the fun, but I cast Distortion Strike on the Kiln Fiend to ensure he has to tap it down. This nets me three cards from Spellblade, one of which is another Kiln Fiend that I play. He has enough mana to play Sea Gate Oracle and Contagion Engine, but not enough to Proliferate, so my Fiends stay alive at 0/1. Distortion Strike rebounds, and he taps the Fiend I target, but an Into the Roil makes the second one lethal.

In comes the Ascension plan. It's possible Sleep should come out because my opponent isn't very aggressive, but I don't have anything else to put in, and I need the spell count really high to trigger Ascension.

Once again, the replay is lost (why does that happen?), but I remember the game well. I have Bolt for the Architect, which is critical, while he has a Ratchet Bomb keeping me gun-shy about playing my Ascension. Kiln Fiend comes down to bait out an explosion, and after getting Unsummoned for a turn, gets blown up by the Ratchet Bomb. I use the opportunity to play Ascension and power it up with a Lightning Bolt to the dome and my second Preordain.

He has another Ratchet Bomb, but by now I have another Kiln Fiend in play and two Into the Roils in hand. A copied Lightning Bolt and a 10/2 Kiln Fiend (from an Into the Roil and a Preordain), and I win the match.

4-0.

Match 3 – Kuldotha Red

Game 1 he leads with Goblin Guide, followed by Signal Pest, which plays right into my Arc Trail. Kiln Fiend comes down to start doing some damage, and my opponent has another Goblin Guide, another Signal Pest, and a Kuldotha Rebirth to sacrifice the Pest. Preordain finds me another Arc Trail to clear out two of his four creatures, and his double-block on my Kiln Fiend backfires when I Bolt one of the tokens.

He still has plenty of gas, as he plays a Goblin Wardriver and a Goblin Bushwhacker and knocks me down to 10. I play a Spellblade and an Into the Roil on his Wardriver, attacking with the Fiend. He replays the Wardriver, Bolts the Kiln Fiend, and attacks me for 1.

The following turn I go off, casting Preordain into Lightning Bolt, plus Distortion Strike on the Spellblade, drawing four cards. He plays a couple more guys the following turn, but the rebounding Distortion Strike and all the spells in my hand means I draw seven cards. There are enough Bolts and Arc Trails to kill his next several plays, and some Geopedes to win it.

I wasn't sure if the Ascension package would be better or worse than the main deck in this match, but in the interest of testing, I went ahead and boarded in all fifteen.

He gets the typical Kuldotha start of Signal Pest, Memnite turn one, while I use Preordain to dig for an Arc Trail. He casts another Pest and attacks, and I have to use See Beyond to dig some more. His Contested War Zone means I take a ton of damage, but eventually I find removal and get rid of the troublesome Pests. Sleep buys me some breathing room to get Ascension going with Preordain plus Call to Mind for See Beyond. Still, his haste creatures aren't very tired and bring me down to Bolt range.

From here it's a mad scramble to find enough removal to wipe his board and kill him before he draws a burn spell, but I'm able to keep a Mountain open for Lightning Bolt to ensure a Hasty creature won't kill me. It only takes two turns to find Call to Mind and get Lightning Bolt recursion going, and another turn to finish the job. Luckily, the one burn spell he saw in that time was Arc Trail, which could only bring me to 1.

6-0.

In all of those matches, the deck did exactly what I wanted it to do. Plan A worked flawlessly in Game 1, then my opponents boarded in a zillion removal spells, and Plan B caught them off-guard.

If you're looking for something that's incredibly fun and can keep your opponents guessing about how you intend to kill them, try throwing this deck together for FNM. If you're not so into the Pyromancer Ascension part, experiment with the other sideboard strategies I laid out and see if big creatures are the answer. Either way, the main deck is perfectly suitable for casual play.

Roads Not Taken

If you voted for Mirromancy but were disappointed that I went in the tempo direction, check out these decks inspired by the Precon. These vary in power, but generally aren't intended for competitive tournament play.

"Budget Counter-Burn"

• Creatures (3)
• 3 Magma Phoenix

• Spells (32)
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Preordain
• 4 Pyroclasm
• 3 Into the Roil
• 4 Mana Leak
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Deprive
• 2 Stoic Rebuttal
• 3 Jace Beleren
• 2 Red Sun's Zenith
• 2 Blue Sun's Zenith

• Lands (25)
• 4 Terramorphic Expanse
• 12 Island
• 8 Mountain
• 1 Mystifying Maze

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Pretty self-explanatory, as this is a classic deck archetype. Kill creatures and counter spells while your Phoenix slowly kills your opponent. You'll usually have all your lands untapped during your opponent's turn so you can counter, and if you don't have to, you burn creatures, return Phoenix, or cast Blue Sun's Zenith. If you have the cards, JTMS is better than Beleren; Koth deserves a spot somewhere; and Inferno Titan should sit at the end of the curve. Oh, and Scalding Tarn.

* * *

For my second (third?) deck, I wanted to build around Galvanoth. It's such a cool card, and seems like it should do some powerful stuff. If I can find a way to put a crazy, expensive spell on top of my deck, Galvanoth will cast it for free. Awesome!

In Standard, though, he's a tough nut to crack. You're paying 5 mana for Galvanoth, so a spell has to be worth at least 6 to get any sort of discount, and considering the amount of work you're putting into the whole process, it should be considerably more expensive. Now that the Ultimatums are out of the format, Standard just doesn't offer anything worth comboing with Galvanoth. Lavaball Trap and Destructive Force are the best I can come up with, and those both kill our own Beast!

But maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Maybe Galvanoth is more of a value card than a combo card. If he sticks around, you can get a free card plus some saved mana turn after turn. Maybe he isn't so much a bad Explosive Revelation as he is a really good Jayemdae Tome.

"Adonis DNA"

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Hedron Crab
• 4 Wall of Frost
• 4 Galvanoth

• Spells (24)
• 4 Crystal Ball
• 4 Cerebral Eruption
• 4 Foresee
• 4 Quicksilver Geyser
• 4 Archive Trap
• 4 Traumatize

• Lands (24)
• 4 Terramorphic Expanse
• 4 Evolving Wilds
• 6 Mountain
• 10 Island

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This deck will probably not win your FNM. It's slow, vulnerable to removal, and doesn't present enough of a clock to beat serious aggro decks. So why play it at all? Because it fires in a way that's just not from this particular, you know, terrestrial realm. Also, because using Crystal Ball to set up a free Cerebral Eruption for Galvanoth, and then using it again to Wrath your opponent's board, is so much fun.

I went with the mill plan because I wanted the deck to be packed with spells, not creatures—but I still had to finish the game. You can still snag a few games with Galvanoth attacks and Eruptions. Some might say that makes the deck a little bipolar, but they're wrong. That's bi-winning.

* * *

Ritch posted in the comments section last week that he was disappointed that I didn't stick to Mirromancy's main theme of reusing creatures with enters-the-battlefield (ETB) abilities and rebuying spells with Call to Mind. He had a point—in fact, I had no idea that was the main theme of the deck (but now the name makes much more sense). What would the deck have looked like if I pursued that idea instead of running with Neurok Commando? Maybe something like:

"Five Times Frosty"

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Sea Gate Oracle
• 4 Mnemonic Wall
• 4 Frost Titan

• Spells (24)
• 4 Quicksilver Geyser
• 4 Flame Slash
• 4 Pyroclasm
• 4 Rite of Replication
• 4 Preordain
• 4 Everflowing Chalice

• Lands (24)
• 4 Terramorphic Expanse
• 6 Mountain
• 14 Island

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The aim of this deck is to successfully execute one of my favorite plays in Standard: a kicked Rite of Replication on a Frost Titan. To that end, we have some card selection to find our pieces, some removal spells to keep us alive, and Mnemonic Wall to combo with Quicksilver Geyser and Rite of Replication.

I like that deck just fine, but while I was looking for creatures with good ETB abilities, I got the urge to make an Ally version. This is so far from the precon that I don't feel right saying it was inspired by it, so this one is just a bonus.

"Makin' Copies"

• Creatures (26)
• 2 Birds of Paradise
• 4 Harabaz Druid
• 4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
• 4 Akoum Battlesinger
• 4 Jwari Shapeshifter
• 4 Turntimber Ranger
• 4 Murasa Pyromancer

• Spells (10)
• 3 Mimic Vat
• 3 Splinter Twin
• 4 Rite of Replication

• Lands (24)
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Island
• 6 Forest
• 4 Mountain

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Harabaz Druid is the key to the deck. Cast a Rite or Jwari Shapeshifter on him and watch your mana explode. Then, kick Rite of Replication or put Pyromancer under a Mimic Vat and watch hilarity ensue. I have a blast with all Ally decks, and this one is a personal favorite.

* * *

All right, that's all I've got for today. Next week I'll be on vacation in Florida, but I'll be back in two weeks rejuvenated and ready to tackle another Besieged precon. Or maybe something else—I won't say that can't happen. Can't is the cancer of happen. Can't is the cancer of happen.

Thanks for reading,

Brad Wojceshonek

BradWoj at gmail dot com

BJWOJ on Twitter