Welcome back to The Brewery on Quiet Speculation!

Just about anybody who has played the Pyromancer Ascension deck in Standard will confirm: Postboard games can be quite frustrating! First, a decklist:

I settled on this particular maindeck after quite the well-documented love affair with Pyromancer Ascension. Every card pulls its weight just about perfectly, although I could see the numbers of Into the Roils and Burst Lightnings being swapped without too much complaint.

The sideboard, however, is a piece of crap.*

Pyromancer Ascension needs an alternate win condition in the sideboard

There was a time when this deck was flying under the radar (well, as much as arguably the strongest deck from last season can really do) and the best reason to bring in a card like Kiln Fiend or Frost Titan was that your opponent simply sideboarded out their removal for game 2! This would also put your hapless opponent in a difficult decision for game 3: Assuming you practice crafty sideboarding procedures (You do shuffle all 75 cards together after every game, right?), what the hell are they supposed to do for game 3?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's look at a different list.

Yikes. Okay. That's a bit of a mess, but it includes every card in Standard that can destroy a Pyromancer Ascension (as well as a couple, like Vampire Hexmage, the Leylines, or ultimate buzzkill Memoricide, that make duplicating Lightning Bolts just a little more difficult). Of those 26 cards, I've played against all but 4 of them in postboard matches on MTGO this season. You have to expect them. Let's face it, Enchantments have never been that difficult to destroy, and the Pyromancer Ascension decklist above only has so many Counterspell effects to protect its relatively fragile win condition.

A creature-based "semi-transformative" sideboard strategy is ideal

Take the following scenario: Your opponent has a maindeck with useless creature removal game 1 and a sideboard with a playset or so of enchantment removal. You, devil that you are, are playing Pyromancer Ascension with an unknown (to your opponent) sideboard. What should he do?

1. Swap out creature removal for enchantment removal

2. Leave in some creature removal, leave out enchantment removal

3. Leave in some creature removal, bring in some enchantment removal

Do you notice how none of these options are really all that kind to him? He risks dead cards in options #2 and #3. He risks getting eaten by a very angry Kiln Fiend in option #1.

Other benefits of boarding in creatures

Look at the last two cards on that list, Leyline of Sanctity and Leyline of the Void. Evil, evil, evil. I once mistakenly boarded out all of my Into the Roils against a UW Control deck on MTGO. I was being really greedy with countermagic and had no creatures as backup. Game 3 ended on turn 0 to Leyline of Sanctity. Oops.

Kiln Fiend doesn't target your opponent to smash face. Calcite Snapper doesn't care what's in your graveyard. You get the picture.

A look at your options

Here is a list of all of the creatures I would consider. They are mostly going to be extremely aggressive, but there are a few interesting alternatives as well. Note that this the first stage, our list is going to start much broader than is probably necessary.

Blue has some interesting choices! Calcite Snapper in particular is exciting. Now, if your opponent chooses to leave in some creature removal to anticipate your sideboard move, they're still dead cards. It can play defense as a 1UU 1/4, although it can be a little anemic on offense. Conundrum Sphinx (4/4 Flyer for 2UU), Sphinx of Jwar Isle (5/5 Flyer for 4UU), and Goliath Sphinx (8/7 Flyer for 5UU) are all similar creatures at scaling mana costs, though Frost Titan becomes the Fatty of choice when getting up to 6- and 7-drops.

On Coralhelm Commander: He can be played as early as turn 2, and consider his stats for various mana investments. 2UU gets you a 3/3 Flyer. 4UU gets you a 4/4 Flyer. This isn't all that worse than Conundrum Sphinx or Sphinx of Jwar Isle (raw P/T only, of course), but the cost can be split among many different turns and the Merfolk "lord" can start attacking on turn 3.

On Echo Mage: The only card of the group that won't ever do much attacking, Echo Mage serves to nullify your opponent's enchantment removal by serving as a mini-Ascension on legs.

Of the Blue creatures, I would consider Calcite Snapper, Frost Titan, Coralhelm Commander, and Echo Mage.

Kargan Dragonlord can be excluded because of his Red-intensive mana costs, and high costs in general. Likewise, Plated Geopede needs more fetchlands than the four Scalding Tarns in the deck to truly be a threat. Hellkite Charger is an interesting alternative to Inferno Titan (and with a 7th land drop is able to swing for a not insignificant 5 followed by 10), but the Titan is a much more versatile card and can probably out-race a Hellkite Charger in many, if not most, circumstances.

Kiln Fiend or Chandra's Spitfire? Well, in this deck, the choice is obvious. Kiln Fiend triggers off of Preordains and See Beyonds, Chandra's Spitefire does not. Kiln Fiend hits the board on turn 2 and can start attacking for 4 or 7 quite regularly on turn 3 (and 4+ damage every turn after is often quite sustainable).

The last card on this list is a bit janky, though it is intriguing to me on some level: Scute Mob's awkward cousin, Dragonmaster Outcast. It's pretty clear here though that Kiln Fiend and Inferno Titan are the only Red creatures worth seriously considering.

The Artifacts present an inherent problem: look back at most of those enchantment removal spells. A large portion of them also target Artifacts. However, it's impossible to ignore Precursor Golem as a virtual 9/9 for 5 or Wurmcoil Engine as a removal-resistant choice. Platinum Angel is mostly included here to be complete, though I suppose it's possible to create a situation against some archetypes where your opponent is drawing dead. Even with their potential benefits, I think Blue or Red creatures are most likely going to be the answer.

Before compiling the next list, a deckbuilding note: You'll notice that I that I usually use the same techniques to whittle a large cardpool into decklists (whether that be a 60 card Constructed deck, its 15 card sideboard, or a Limited deck). In Standard there are 89 Blue creatures, 90 Red creatures, and 55 Artifact creatures. For our sideboard plan we might get, at best, 6 total slots. That means we have to cut those 234 cards down to 6 (and if you really think about it, you're cutting 4*234=936 possible choices down to 6). Here is a sorted list of the creatures to consider.

Small attackers
Coralhelm Commander
Calcite Snapper
Kiln Fiend

Titans
Inferno Titan
Frost Titan

Other creatures
Echo Mage

Before this stage can go any further, it's important to determine just how many slots are available. With my maindeck, I know I want a few spells for sure.

Jace Beleren
2 Pyroclasm
Burst Lightning

Pardon the skipping of a few steps (namely, dozens of matches on MTGO), but these are my desired minimums. Pyroclasm is a beating against most of the "Vomit Out a Board Full of Creatures" Aggro decks, Jace Beleren is the deck's most important card in the Control matchups outside of Pyromancer Ascension itself, and the third copy of Burst Lightning helps shore up the Aggro matchups just a little bit more. From 15 cards we're left with 11 to choose...

Countermagic Suite

My maindeck plays 4 Mana Leak and 2 Deprive ala Patrick Chapin's take on the deck post States. [Note: I included a link here that is refusing to cooperate. But you've all seen his deck, right? Right?] As far as I'm concerned, most of his deck is perfect. I was skeptical about Deprive at first, but not only have I found an extreme like for the card, it has cemented Halimar Depths's place in the deck for me as well even as Tectonic Edge appears to be everywhere. However, anyone who has played this deck will tell you that you need some number of additional Counterspell effects in the sideboard. But which should you choose? And how many? For that, we start with another list:

Today's Standard environment is a far cry from the ones that made Complicate or Calculated Dismissal Constructed-playable cards, and there certainly aren't any Cryptic Command-level cards in this group, so the 3- and 4-mana counters above can be Calculated Dismissaled (hehe) offhand. And even if you're going to go with the Kiln Fiend beatdown plan, I don't think you want to run any parlays there with Unified Will. Cancel is strictly worse than Stoic Rebuttal. That leaves us with a relatively short list.

Dispel
Spell Pierce
Negate
Flashfreeze
Deprive
Stoic Rebuttal

Of these, the first cut is easy. Two Deprive is awesome, but a third becomes too much to handle. In fact, I'd rather play a single Deprive (and a Spell Pierce or Negate) before I upped the count to three. And when considering the 1-mana options, Spell Pierce just outclasses Dispel in most scenarios. On the draw and your opponent casts Pyromancer Ascension? Spell Pierce. Need to go over-the-top in a counter war? Spell Pierce usually wins just as often as Dispel. Dispel is a solid card, but Spell Pierce is so much more versatile. And Stoic Rebuttal can be the third cut: That third mana becomes extremely significant in the matchups where you're going to board it in, and Negate ends up acting as a cheaper hard counter most times that Stoic Rebuttal would be needed (yeah, shut up, Frost Titan). So from the original 6, only 3 are really worth considering. If we're going to stick with the original “I want 6 Counterspell effects,” here is how I would arrange them:

1 Spell Pierce
3 Negate
2 Flashfreeze

As much as I would love to play 4 Flashfreeze especially, something has to give in order to fit the creature plan in. However, this is with the caveat that on MTGO (and its overabundance of Valakut Ramp) I would either swap the numbers on Negate and Flashfreeze to 2/3 and/or cut Spell Pierce for Flashfreeze. And for easier reference, these six cards mean we've got 5 creatures to select.

Back to the Creatures

I'm going to ignore Echo Mage for now. Sorry dude, you're part of a different article for now, although it's noteworthy that he starts out as a fairly efficient 2/3 for 1UU.

So without any more rambling, here are a few different configurations that I'd recommend testing. In all honesty, the choice will probably come down to personal preference more than anything, as these creatures should all perform fairly similarly to each other. More important to note is which category of creature is chosen (Titan versus “small”)

Hyper Aggressive

Offense or Defense

Fish

MTGO

Heavy Aggro Field

Mythics Are Expensive

And so on. I tried to pair the right Titans with the right creatures. It's kind of hard to go wrong though if you're resolving either of them.

That wraps things up for today! Please browse around Quiet Speculation, our recent downtime has overshadowed some exceptional articles that I swear will be worth your time to read. If you plan on gaming with Pyromancer Ascension at any upcoming event, I hope this is all of some use! And do remember, the best way you can give back, either to Quiet Speculation or to the authors themselves, is by commenting and sharing these articles on your favorite social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). It is so very much appreciated <3 Dylan Lerch @dtlerch on Twitter
dtlerch at gmail dot com
The Brewery

*I feel a slight bit of satisfaction knowing that anyone who just grabs this decklist without reading the article (or at the very least, this footnote) will play a subpar sideboard. Does that make me evil? 🙂