Locations
In this experiment, we counter, lash, and burn our opponent before a searing rebirth.
However, it produces its own awkward internal tension: We want to return to our hand a card with converted mana cost as high as possible in order to deal as much damage as possible with the spell’s damage component. However, we return the card to our hand, and if its converted mana cost is too high, we may find ourselves unable to cast it. In addition, there’s the tension that if the converted mana cost is so high, how were we able to cast it to begin with for it to end up in our graveyard? Of course, it’s easy enough to have discarded the card or milled it or the like, but it’s still a question we have to answer.
When looking for cards to pair with Vengeful Rebirth, I looked for a card with converted mana cost 10 or higher with a cheap cycling (or channel, etc.) cost. My search failed. From there, I either had to find another way to put my big spell into my graveyard or find a way to settle for Rebirthing a smaller spell. I could have gone with Eternal Dragon, but instead, I went with a card that could help make up for the damage difference with its own effect.
19 Damage
That said, the 10 damage Searing Wind can deal is still potent. Sorin's Vengeance might be more effective (it’s cheaper and gains us life), but it’s actually slightly less good with Vengeful Rebirth because the cheaper cost means it deals less damage. Still, you may prefer to go with the heavy-black spell in your deck.
So the core plan for today’s deck is to cast Vengeful Rebirth to return Searing Wind to our hand while dealing 10 damage to our opponent. Then, we cast the Searing Wind to bring the damage-dealt total up to 19. A Piranha Marsh would be great here for that last point of life-loss, though it works better with Sorin's Vengeance because of the black mana it produces . . . but with Sorin's Vengeance, we’ll need to do 3 damage instead of just 1, so Piranha Marsh wouldn’t work there anyway. I don’t know why I’m still talking about Piranha Marsh.
The 1 Damage
That said, we might rather have Stuffy Doll. It can help hold the ground and can do the 1 (or more) damage to our opponent that we need done. An interesting synergy with Stuffy Doll is with Shivan Meteor, so why not play that here as well? When we Shivan Meteor our Stuffy Doll, we can point that 13 damage straight at our opponent (through voodoo-style interactions), and a Vengeful Rebirth later can deal another 5 (when we return the Meteor). That’s 18 damage, so we’ll only have had to activate the Doll’s activated ability twice for victory.
Casting the Big Red Wind
Anyway, I don’t want to count on reaching 9 mana, and I’m not planning to play Seething Songs and Rite of Flames. To that end, we have Izzet Charms lying around. They’re good counters early, they can clear out opposing little creatures that are causing us trouble, and we can use them as instant-speed Careful Studys to pitch the Winds for Rebirth preparation. The card disadvantage of that mode of the Charms isn’t great, but the other two modes are, and versatility is powerful.
But the big play here is to resolve a Counterlash on the opponent’s sorcery. Not everyone plays sorceries, and that was part of the impetus to play Stuffy Doll—just so we’d have a few creatures around to sneak into play when countering an opposing creature. But if we can Counterlash a sorcery and cast a free Searing Wind, we’ll be in perfect shape to finish out our combo with a Vengeful Rebirth.
With the game plan of Counterlash-casting a big burn spell, it appeared the deck perfectly fit the description of “Counter-Burn.” Counter-Burn has historically been a popular casual archetype, though it’s rarely if ever made it into competitive play. But with a big counterspell effect and a big burn effect, Counter-Burn seemed to be the perfect direction to take this casual list.
More Countering and Burning
I already discussed Izzet Charm, which is both a burn spell and a counterspell.
Suffocating Blast just so happens to be both. Essence Backlash is also an option, but it only counters creature spells. Suffocating Blast does have its downsides, however, as it doesn’t actually burn the opponent, and it requires a creature target for us to even cast it. If no one controls a creature and our opponent casts a spell we want to counter, we’re just out of luck as far as the Blast is concerned. But it does synergize with Stuffy Doll as well: We can always target the Doll and end up sending the damage where we want it.
Finally, Scattering Stroke acts as a kind of Counterlash for us, which in turn is acting as a kind of Mana Drain. As with Counterspell—but to a bit more of an extreme—if you have Mana Drains lying around, those would be great here. Plasm Capture would just be better than Scattering Stroke, but the green mana in this deck will only be for Vengeful Rebirth, and there won’t be much of it. Having to win a clash to gain the mana, after casting a counterspell for 
, isn’t an exciting prospect, but when it does fire off and we can cast a Searing Wind with mana stolen from our opponent . . . well, that is an exciting prospect.
Finally, I included a couple draw spells: two copies of Tidings and two copies of Opportunity. They both draw us four cards, but one’s a sorcery and the other’s an instant and costs 1 more mana. The instant is more useful for when we’ve kept mana up on our opponent’s turn for a counterspell but didn’t cast one, and the sorcery is better for when we have nothing else to do and just have 5 mana. Really, though, the instant is probably better, especially for the additional damage with Vengeful Rebirth. The reason for the split is to cast one or the other with Counterlash: Having both means our opponent won’t know which spell to cast in case we counter it. Still, you may find it’s better for you to just run four of one or the other.
Vengeful Wind ? Casual | Andrew Wilson
- Creatures (4)
- 4 Stuffy Doll
- Spells (32)
- 1 Zap
- 2 Opportunity
- 3 Searing Wind
- 4 Counterlash
- 4 Izzet Charm
- 4 Scattering Stroke
- 4 Suffocating Blast
- 2 Tidings
- 4 Shivan Meteor
- 4 Vengeful Rebirth
- Lands (24)
- 2 Forest
- 2 Mountain
- 4 Island
- 4 Frontier Bivouac
- 4 Hinterland Harbor
- 4 Izzet Boilerworks
- 4 Sulfur Falls
And that’s it! If you like big booms, if you want to live the dream of Counterlash, or if you just need another list to play your Meteor-Doll combo in, give this deck a try.
Andrew Wilson
fissionessence at hotmail dot com
