Historic Mardu Pyromancer Deck Tech (Part 1)

Mardu Pyromancer Beats Opponents With Synergy

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a deck tech for a non-Phoenix build, but this was too sweet not to share. I made the deck on a whim, tried it out in Historic Bof1, and then busted heads. And now you can, too.

The basic idea of Mardu Pyromancer is simple, but its pieces hum together in an engine of compounding advantage. The two basic plans of the deck are:

• Dump a lot of cards into the graveyard to feed Kroxa.
• Recur spells and gain incidental value.

Let’s talk about some of the more complicated individual card choices.

Young Pyromancer:

This deck loses a lot of life fast. Between Thoughtseize and Shock Lands, it’s not uncommon to go down to around twelve by your own cards. So, games can feel perilous. Young Pyromancer helps gum up the board and hold back enemy attacks. It can also help with the end game plan and give you easy sacrifice fodder.

Deadly Dispute and Village Rites:

Mardu Pyromancer burns through its hands, and you need to refill them. And you can use these cards to pull various tricks while doing so.

The obvious ones are to sacrifice anything that’s going to die anyway. You can also play Kroxa, hold priority, and sacrifice it before it sends itself to the graveyard for extra value.

The two sacrifice cards can do a lot more than that, though. You want Stitcher’s Supplier to die quickly to fill up your graveyard. Playing that creature, then immediately sacrificing it, is a typical pattern. So is playing a spell, making an Elemental token off Pyromancer, then sacrificing the token—which will replace it. Finally, if you really need to turn on Dragon’s Rage Channeler’s delirium, you can sometimes sacrifice another creature at the right time.

Claim//Fame and Can’t Stay Away:

These specific reanimation cards are in Mardu Pyromancer for a few reasons. The first is that Stitcher’s Supplier’s milling hits random cards, and both reanimation spells are still helpful in the graveyard. They can also activate Pyromancer and Channeler multiple times if you need those triggers.

They’re not interchangeable, though. Can’t Stay Away is mainly in the deck for redundancy—as its exile effect is often inconvenient—but it can reanimate Lurrus. It also doesn’t need red mana, which matters more often than you’d think.

Claim//Fame is, conversely, the strongest non-creature card in the deck. Both halves are excellent. Claim lets you recover from removal and get multiple Kroxa hits in one turn. Fame is the only way in the deck to pump power, and, with Dreadhorde Arcanist, doing so unlocks spells above one mana. Every Lightning Helix you can recur is precious.

Come back next week for the Mardu Pyromancer deck list, general advice on how to pilot it, and some tips for specific matchups.

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