In this experiment, we probe, torment, and seethe to achieve mastery and ascension and bring about many miracles.

There are a lot of variants of storm decks, from those featuring Ad Nauseam to the Dragonstorm variety to Waste Not variants to those powered by Past in Flames and Grapeshot. This week’s deck doesn’t have any actual storm cards in it, but it does include many of the standbys, including powerhouse Pyromancer Ascension. But how did I end up with yet another storm-style deck?

Mizzix's Mastery

Faithless Looting — I’m not a big fan of Faithless Looting, and it was the last card I was trying to decide whether to keep when finishing up the list. Its competitor was Magmatic Insight, but I ultimately decided it was too valuable to be able to discard cards of our choice rather than the land cards that will be crucial in the early turns. The big downside of Faithless Looting, though, is that it ultimately puts us down a card, and even when it’s copied with Pyromancer Ascension, we don’t gain any card advantage.

Tormenting Voice — This lets us discard a card of our choice, but we have to do so before drawing. But then it draws us two cards, putting us even (minus two from the Tormenting Voice and the discarded card and up two for the cards drawn). And when copied, it will net us card advantage. The downsides are that it costs 2, that it still has the additional cost when cast as a copy from the graveyard with Mizzix's Mastery, and, of course, that we have to discard before we see what we draw.

So those cards will let us discard extra cards for later copying, but how will we actually reach the mana required to overload Mizzix's Mastery?

Manamorphose — This card is amazing because it doesn’t leave us down mana or a card. It’s easy to cast, and it replaces itself in every way. That sounds pretty . . . neutral. Of course, being able to change 2 mana into 2 mana in colors of our choice is great, and drawing means we find our way deeper into our deck, effectively reducing the number of cards in our deck. But when this card really gets out of hand is when we have Pyromancer Ascension online and start generating a ton of mana and drawing extra cards.

Other storm decks run more mana-accelerating spells, such as Rite of Flame and Pyretic Ritual. But once I realized I was wanting to fill my graveyard with bigger spells, I realized the deck would end up pretty clunky if consisted of all mana sources, big spells, and copies of Mizzix's Mastery. Before we get into some “big” spells, though, we have a bit more card-draw to cover.

Gitaxian Probe — This can be cast for 2 life and 0 mana, making it quite mana-efficient. We have a few sources of blue mana in the deck, so we can pay mana for it when needed. This is essentially just a way for us to speed through the deck and trigger Pyromancer Ascension.

Overmaster — Like Gitaxian Probe, this is here to speed us through the deck and cast in multiples for the Ascension. It can’t be cast for 0 mana, but it can make our Mizzix's Mastery or other spells uncounterable.

Fire // Ice — Here’s another spell that costs 2. It can help stave off attackers as Fire, but that won’t draw us a card. Ice can slow the bleed as well while accelerating us toward our combo—but we’ll need to find a source of blue mana for that.

Finally, let’s cover the big spells.

Fated Conflagration — This is kind of cheating as a “big” spell, as it only costs 4. But I basically figured it would be nice to deal damage in multiples of 5, and if we can do that four times, it should be sufficient. Fated Conflagration lets us do 5 damage for only 4 mana. We’ll also get to scry 2, which isn’t card advantage directly, but it will help us find exactly what we need.

Searing Wind — Okay, so I couldn’t go without sneaking one copy of something actually big into the deck. It will be hard to cast, but if we do so with an active Pyromancer Ascension (which is likely considering we’ll need doubled Seething Songs and Manamorphoses to reach the necessary), that’ll be lethal. It’s also a great option to cast free as a copy from the graveyard with the Mastery.

Miracle Overload ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Spells (43)
• 1 Searing Wind
• 2 Fated Conflagration
• 4 Fire // Ice
• 4 Manamorphose
• 4 Seething Song
• 4 Thunderous Wrath
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Mizzix's Mastery
• 4 Overmaster
• 4 Tormenting Voice
• 4 Pyromancer Ascension

• Lands (17)
• 7 Mountain
• 2 Forgotten Cave
• 4 Shivan Reef
• 4 Steam Vents

Buy This Deck

With all that out of the way, let’s look at what a nice sequence of turns might look like.

Turn two: Mountain, Pyromancer Ascension, two Gitaxian Probes (both for life), bringing Ascension online

Turn three: Manamorphose doubled (), Faithless Looting doubled (discarding Thunderous Wrath, Thunderous Wrath, and two others) (), Mountain (), Mizzix's Mastery doubled, targeting Thunderous Wrath and Thunderous Wrath, Thunderous Wrath doubled twice

As you can see, Pyromancer Ascension works quite well with Mizzix's Mastery because both the Mastery and the spell it’s copying are doubled. (An overloaded Mizzix's Mastery is less elegant when doubled, but it can still work if resolving the graveyard spells will result in more spells in the graveyard for the second Mastery’s resolution.) In the example above, we had to have two Thunderous Wraths in our graveyard, but once we did, a single Mastery (with just 4 mana) let us deal 20 damage.

That almost makes me wonder if it would just be worth it to play the full four Searing Winds, but I’d be worried they’d clog up the deck too much—at least Thunderous Wrath has the potential to be cast for 1 and the Fated Conflagrations are pretty castable as well.

So if you want to achieve mastery, reach ascension, or just exert your miraculous wrath, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com