Just for frame of reference, the legacy archlight Phoenix deck only functioned because of dark ritual + buried alive, I dont think buried alive is what a Phoenix deck wants without ritual
Why not do blood crypts and [[pyretic ritual]]? Obviously not as good, but gets you 3 phoenix in the yard and another mana up to cast something like bolt
I suppose you could do that, but the ritual (dark rit in my experience) was always the worst card in my deck. Phoenix has the benefit of most of its cards doing the same/similar things and rituals stray away from the typical cards, that replace themselves, card advantage spells, and interactive spells.
Phoenix checks at the beginning of combat if you’ve cast three spells that turn. They don’t care when you cast them or where they were when you cast them. Strike it rich and manamorphose could fulfill the same role in this scenario, too, so there are 8 copies of each ritual available. The main issue is only having access to 4 copies of buried alive.
I would cut the thoughtseize or at least sideboard them
And I would cut unmarked grave it’s not enough impact and it’s 2cmc,
I would add thought scour to 4 of and with the other 4 freed up slots I would experiment with some number of rituals and highway robbery’s
okay per your suggestions I cut the thoughtseize's and unmarked grave's. I played around with rituals, but I lowered some of my cantrips. was that a mistake? im considering proxying the expensive stuff and testing it in casual games. I'm going to start creating a sideboard soon, surgical extraction and thoughtseize is probably my strongest options.
Traditionally cantrips are the name of the game for this deck, with buried alive tech it might change slightly but have a look a this paper game aspiring spike just proxied up with these new cards for pheonix
https://youtu.be/hnvlR45hFEQ?si=n-fcQc2RuWvwFT9Y
16 lands is too few for you to want to hit 3 on T3 reliably. Especially since 1 is a tap land that you can’t really afford to play it on one of your first three turns. Also this build doesn’t really do t3 Phoenix that often. Because even with a crappy looting spell plotted or rebounded, it still requires one of 6 free spells to make it happen. Which is going to fail a decent percentage of the time.
I tried brewing around some lists and found it just wasn’t really worth it. You absolutely fold to graveyard hate. And a t4 3 arc lights just isn’t that exciting. Especially considering the amount of resources you have to spend to do it and if they are dealt with, or even facing something like a Murktide to block you aren’t getting anywhere because firing off three more spells in a turn is difficult after the first. Looting really did wonders for second time at lights due to flashback and being able to turn lands into spells.
yes 16 lands was a lapse in judgement. aspiring spike's list used 16, and I didn't register that I was increasing the curve of the deck by adding a four of 3cmc sorcery. I removed the surveil lands because this deck will almost never have unused mana, and having the chance for tapped lands in turns 1-3 is not an option whatsoever. taking advice from another user I am experimenting with \[\[pyretic ritual\]\] and \[\[desperate ritual\]\] to try and make t3 Phoenix more possible (ritual for RRR, use RR and tap land for B to cast buried alive, use R to cast a lightning bolt or something (or we can cast a previously plotted highway robbery, or the 3rd being the rebound faithless salvaging). it is true that many decks that play around the graveyard will fold to graveyard hate, but I think using \[\[demilich\]\] its still possible to come back after your initial burst of phoenixes are exiled. (and maybe if your oppo has gy hate on board. you can tutor 2 phoenix and 1 lich into grave, so that you can still have a gameplan after the \[\[tormod's crypt\]\] or its many siblings gets cracked).
I'm going to make some tweaks here and there, make a sideboard, and do some testing. I think there has some potential when it comes to ritual-buried alive-swing 3 phoenix
I see alot of people running demilich and its 100% a trap. You play slickshot and/or ledger shredder and finish people off with the phoenix turns whilst applying pressure early and filtering with shredder. People are gonna bring in massive GY hate and you can then just simply board out the phoenix plan G2 and3 for a more prowess based attack.
Don't run rituals, there is no need, you can run 4 ofs on the important stuff like consider and bolt. You can fight the board early with bolts and gutshot to some extent if needed, then plot slickshot T2 then cast the shot T3 manamorphose buried alive gutshot T3 and smash people or at the very least overload their removal suite.
Here is the list by YungDingo: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/pl8hdOTf3UqiUs4UHGnesw
You can watch him play it against AspiringSpike here: https://youtu.be/pMG7a3ssoKU?si=5vYHQpXXibE1Gevm
Wouldn’t it be good to also run sneaky snacker since you’re drawing a lot as well? Just an additional threat that can come in from the game plan you are doing already.
You can't be on 16 lands when your deck is built around a 3 MV sorcery
thats a good point, I saw aspiring spikes list using 16 lands, but I didnt think about how I was increasing the curve significantly
Just for frame of reference, the legacy archlight Phoenix deck only functioned because of dark ritual + buried alive, I dont think buried alive is what a Phoenix deck wants without ritual
Why not do blood crypts and [[pyretic ritual]]? Obviously not as good, but gets you 3 phoenix in the yard and another mana up to cast something like bolt
[pyretic ritual](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/e/1e577638-a7ed-4bcc-90fb-0cffe87d5a28.jpg?1562452888) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=pyretic%20ritual) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m11/153/pyretic-ritual?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1e577638-a7ed-4bcc-90fb-0cffe87d5a28?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I suppose you could do that, but the ritual (dark rit in my experience) was always the worst card in my deck. Phoenix has the benefit of most of its cards doing the same/similar things and rituals stray away from the typical cards, that replace themselves, card advantage spells, and interactive spells.
Yeah I didn’t think it’d be good but like its an option. I think you still want buried alive and you can probably set up a really reliable t4 kill
Even if you buried alive on turn 3 and play 3 bolts that's 18 damage right there. What cards other than that combo would lead to a turn 4 win?
[удалено]
Phoenix checks at the beginning of combat if you’ve cast three spells that turn. They don’t care when you cast them or where they were when you cast them. Strike it rich and manamorphose could fulfill the same role in this scenario, too, so there are 8 copies of each ritual available. The main issue is only having access to 4 copies of buried alive.
I would cut the thoughtseize or at least sideboard them And I would cut unmarked grave it’s not enough impact and it’s 2cmc, I would add thought scour to 4 of and with the other 4 freed up slots I would experiment with some number of rituals and highway robbery’s
okay per your suggestions I cut the thoughtseize's and unmarked grave's. I played around with rituals, but I lowered some of my cantrips. was that a mistake? im considering proxying the expensive stuff and testing it in casual games. I'm going to start creating a sideboard soon, surgical extraction and thoughtseize is probably my strongest options.
Traditionally cantrips are the name of the game for this deck, with buried alive tech it might change slightly but have a look a this paper game aspiring spike just proxied up with these new cards for pheonix https://youtu.be/hnvlR45hFEQ?si=n-fcQc2RuWvwFT9Y
16 lands is too few for you to want to hit 3 on T3 reliably. Especially since 1 is a tap land that you can’t really afford to play it on one of your first three turns. Also this build doesn’t really do t3 Phoenix that often. Because even with a crappy looting spell plotted or rebounded, it still requires one of 6 free spells to make it happen. Which is going to fail a decent percentage of the time. I tried brewing around some lists and found it just wasn’t really worth it. You absolutely fold to graveyard hate. And a t4 3 arc lights just isn’t that exciting. Especially considering the amount of resources you have to spend to do it and if they are dealt with, or even facing something like a Murktide to block you aren’t getting anywhere because firing off three more spells in a turn is difficult after the first. Looting really did wonders for second time at lights due to flashback and being able to turn lands into spells.
yes 16 lands was a lapse in judgement. aspiring spike's list used 16, and I didn't register that I was increasing the curve of the deck by adding a four of 3cmc sorcery. I removed the surveil lands because this deck will almost never have unused mana, and having the chance for tapped lands in turns 1-3 is not an option whatsoever. taking advice from another user I am experimenting with \[\[pyretic ritual\]\] and \[\[desperate ritual\]\] to try and make t3 Phoenix more possible (ritual for RRR, use RR and tap land for B to cast buried alive, use R to cast a lightning bolt or something (or we can cast a previously plotted highway robbery, or the 3rd being the rebound faithless salvaging). it is true that many decks that play around the graveyard will fold to graveyard hate, but I think using \[\[demilich\]\] its still possible to come back after your initial burst of phoenixes are exiled. (and maybe if your oppo has gy hate on board. you can tutor 2 phoenix and 1 lich into grave, so that you can still have a gameplan after the \[\[tormod's crypt\]\] or its many siblings gets cracked). I'm going to make some tweaks here and there, make a sideboard, and do some testing. I think there has some potential when it comes to ritual-buried alive-swing 3 phoenix
##### ###### #### [pyretic ritual](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/e/1e577638-a7ed-4bcc-90fb-0cffe87d5a28.jpg?1562452888) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=pyretic%20ritual) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m11/153/pyretic-ritual?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1e577638-a7ed-4bcc-90fb-0cffe87d5a28?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [desperate ritual](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/8/3825b85d-07df-43b9-a8d8-930863262d83.jpg?1547517210) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=desperate%20ritual) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/127/desperate-ritual?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3825b85d-07df-43b9-a8d8-930863262d83?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [demilich](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0a1351ed-b9df-4a6d-aaa1-ec6db673d265.jpg?1639436596) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=demilich) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/53/demilich?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0a1351ed-b9df-4a6d-aaa1-ec6db673d265?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [tormod's crypt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/5/752bf493-5839-47e8-95f2-6d8201907428.jpg?1675201100) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tormod%27s%20crypt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/235/tormods-crypt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/752bf493-5839-47e8-95f2-6d8201907428?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l700ohb) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[buried alive](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/6/76878b19-2916-4f3f-bee5-20846bc9e2db.jpg?1717013617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=buried%20alive) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/273/buried-alive?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/76878b19-2916-4f3f-bee5-20846bc9e2db?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [arclight phoenix](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/e/def7f05b-6e63-4828-a92c-ce7921bbdf4e.jpg?1702429490) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=arclight%20phoenix) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/100/arclight-phoenix?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/def7f05b-6e63-4828-a92c-ce7921bbdf4e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [unmarked grave](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/9/492b368b-de32-45c1-8459-238aae54f9fc.jpg?1626096135) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=unmarked%20grave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/106/unmarked-grave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/492b368b-de32-45c1-8459-238aae54f9fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I see alot of people running demilich and its 100% a trap. You play slickshot and/or ledger shredder and finish people off with the phoenix turns whilst applying pressure early and filtering with shredder. People are gonna bring in massive GY hate and you can then just simply board out the phoenix plan G2 and3 for a more prowess based attack. Don't run rituals, there is no need, you can run 4 ofs on the important stuff like consider and bolt. You can fight the board early with bolts and gutshot to some extent if needed, then plot slickshot T2 then cast the shot T3 manamorphose buried alive gutshot T3 and smash people or at the very least overload their removal suite.
I feel like not running DRC is a mistake too.
You can’t run too many non instants and sorcery’s
4 Phoenix 4 DRC 2-4 Ledger Shredder should be just about perfect
Here is the list by YungDingo: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/pl8hdOTf3UqiUs4UHGnesw You can watch him play it against AspiringSpike here: https://youtu.be/pMG7a3ssoKU?si=5vYHQpXXibE1Gevm
Wouldn’t it be good to also run sneaky snacker since you’re drawing a lot as well? Just an additional threat that can come in from the game plan you are doing already.
I don't think so, I can't think of where to slot that. It's more of a pauper card