To Trap or Not to Trap, That is the Question

DISCLAIMER: I will not put in my experiences when I piloted this deck on a tourney coz it had an abysmal day (lacked too many cards at that time and was an off-day for me)

…Because sometimes you have to do it, other times, you feel the need to wait a turn or so…

Back to business, was thinking of a cheap-ish combo deck (since I love combo) that doesn’t die on one card. Thinking of the Crypt of Agadeem combo, it was cheap but dies to Goblin Ruinblaster or Jund Charm.

I went with the cruel combo list, but the cards aren’t that cheap (m10 lands and such) and will have a conflict of cards with the pool since Ryan Agoncillo (a.k.a. Franz) plays Cruel Control and utilizes most of the cards. So next on the list was the Runeflare Mine combo.

What about this one? Hmmm, kills people when hot, kills you when not. Bahh whatever, I’ll make it since we already have 80% of the cards anyways and most of them are unused by our pool (which includes the BEST player in Iloilo, Marco “Next!” Gonzalez; and uhhh, ermmm, ummm, Franz the young-looking old guy). So we did just that and…

Here’s Version One:

 

This version of UR runeflare relies on the Pyromancer Ascension having 2 charge counters on it
and putting 2 Howling Mines, or a Font of Mythos (for the minimum requirement of making your opponent draw 3 cards) into play so you could trap his behind to kingdom come (reference to what SOMEONE did). Will discuss pros and cons of this deck later since I will compare this one with v 2.0 anyways. Next is the version two.

 

Ok, so this version DOESN’T run Pyromancer Ascension. Why you might ask? It’s because it DOESN’T need any. Instead, it uses Twincast instead so when you trap, you Twincast your trap (unless you have 1 or 2 more traps in hand) to deal twice that many damage to your opponent.

God draw version 1:
1st turn play Tarn, sac for Island, Ponder.
2nd turn play Mountain, drop Howling Mine.
3rd turn play any mountain or island and drop another Howliing Mine.
4th turn drop Mountain or Island (your board should be 2 islands 2 mts). and pass turn
Opponent’s draw step: Cast runeflare x2 + twincast.your opponent should be dead by now (unless otherwise) so do the winning dance.

Key Differences between the Two Decks

1.) V1 runs Pyromancer Ascension over Twincast to hit the opponent more damage.
Pros and cons:
Ascension takes time to put charge counters (hence, kinda slower compared to Twincast) but when it
DOES have 2 counters on it, sky is the limit on what you can do. (2x or even 3x bolt, 2x Time Warp, etc.)

2.) V2 has built in Negates while V1 has no counterspells.
Pros and cons:
Negate is a good addition to this deck since it can counter spells that can hinder this deck’s combo.
(Sadistic Sacrament, Maelstrom Pulse, etc. too lazy to add more). But, when crits are killing
you slowly, do you really wanna see negate at your hand? Open ended question right there.

3.) V1 has one less Font of Mythos than V2. (why in your right mind do that?)
Pros and cons:
Well, V1 has a lot of card drawers and sifters thru the deck so I’m betting that one less Font would be okay right? It can go both ways. Since too many instant card drawers mean that less cards would be redundant in the long run so one less Font will have no bearing. The other scenario will be that, he just pulsed your mines, and you have trap + Twincast in hand and you need your ghey opponent to draw at least 3 cards during his/her(Guess who) turn. What do you need? Definitely a Font.

4.) V2 has 1 friggin joker (Trapmaker’s Snare)
Pros and cons:
Snare is odd one out in V2 since it needs firepower (compared to v1 which runs more burn and drawers-not the Oro can type). On a turn, you could snare and look for Runeflare Trap if you have the need to. Otherwise it’s just another dead card. What’s good about this card is that it acts as your 5th Runeflare Trap. What’s bad is you have to commit mana and true enough, sometimes a turn to pull off the combo.

Main Matchup Differences

V1-does good on control decks since an unanswered pyro ascension almost always mean death since all your spells are 2 for 1 now. On the short end, it dies badly (in my experience) to very fast decks (RDW, Boros, Allies) on today’s meta.
V2- does good on aggro decks because it could kill on turn 4 or 5 (on god draws and no disruption or counters) but is kinda just ok with control matchups because if the runeflare traps get countered, you better pray you have plan B.

Sideboarding Strategies

V1.Goblin Ruinblaster - Kill nonbasic land and lol at your opponent since there will be one less land to play spells with (works well with Jund,UW control).
V1.Swerve - To make him taste his own medicine (Sadistic Sacrament,Maelstrom Pulse, whatever targets you or your artifact card drawers).
V1.Pyroclasm - Pyro can also add counters to pyro ascension hence 2 to cast sweeper is very welcome here (insert only on crit-based decks)
V1.Dragon’s Claw - RDW (What else could it be?)

V2.Magma Spray - To spray toxic fumes on a card named Bloodghast or any other recurring crits.
V2.Volcanic Fallout - For wipeout purposes (Mono Green, Boros Bushwhacker, RDW)
V2.Swerve - Same purpose as on V1.
V2.Sphinx of Jwar Isle - Ultra powerful in the Jund matchup or control matchups since control will most likely board out their sweeping and creature removal spells (DOJ, Rei Coup)
V1&2. Prayer – and lots of it so that ur SB strategy will work and WILL see action.

So ok, now Mark owes me TWO, I repeat, TWO buckets of beer. If you don’t understand any or all of the above stuff, feel free to change your hobby anytime. For reference ask Eric (not papa’s boy, the other one) since he won an FNM with a Runeflare trap deck (with unsummon built-in though) but pretty much the same core. What else? Oh yeah, if you’re a chick and want to learn from me, we could arrange a private lesson with just you and me >:), otherwise don’t bother me (unless you want private lessons from GUESS WHO). It’s a rap then. That’s all for now since I’m not feeling industrious at the moment. Ciao-fan!