Beware of the Rogue: 3-Color Fire

Written by Raybelfast on February 14, 2007

by Raybelfast

With Planar Chaos out it is now time to churn out your card collection and a copy of the spoiler and start building some rogue madness that will dominate your metagame for months to come. But even though there are new cards and tricks to play with, sadly this hasn't recently been the case.

The concept of the rogue deck has been flying about since the beginning of M:tG, right? But everywhere I go, even in casual games, I see a tier one deck. Has all the innovation of deck-building lost its charm, or has it just sat and faded on the back shelf? When it comes down to it, some rogue decks are bad and some are good but when you look at it they are the innovation of the designer and should be treated as so. Most people seem to forget that the reason decks are tier one is because someone built them as rogue and made it to the top of the pile one day. So the next time someone whoops your butt with a Rogue build you’ve never seen before give them credit for it rather than saying ”That's a pile,” or, “Your deck sucks,” because if you're running a tier one deck and they whooped you, then the deck cant be all that bad or maybe your just a sore loser.

That is the dream of deck builders everywhere: to build a rogue deck that will break onto the tier one scene. I know I have always wanted to have one of my insane rogue decks being played by pros and amateurs everywhere. To show up at a tournament and having someone across the table from you saying, “Dude, I’m playing your deck” would be the greatest thing ever.

Over the years as a magic player I have built some insane rogue builds that worked and some builds that just didn’t cut it at the top. I am a relatively new player in regards to most and started playing when Legions was just released. Of course, being that I had no idea about the tournament scene at the time, my deck was as rogue as anything could ever get. Soon after I discovered the local card shop "Magicmon," I started playing in tournaments and my deck-building ideas changed from insane original madness to copy, paste and play. Is there really someone out there can put up their hand and say, “I don’t and never will net-deck” Reasonably I would say no but if there is congrats.

The first Rogue deck I ever really played at tournaments was a W/G glare variation. It wasn't exactly Ghazi Glare, but it had the bits in it and was rogue at the time. This deck cleaned FNM on its first two outings and I have played it in casual format ever since. And If I need to have a deck handy, I just grab the dusty box on the shelf that should still have all the cards in it unless I traded the dual lands.

This deck was post Ravnica but before Kamigawa cycled and I had a lot of fun with it even though I can never play it again due to the extended format being ungodly awesome.

Rhythm Stick
Main Deck		Sideboard
4 Temple Garden 4 Brushland 4 Forest 3 Vitu Ghazi, the City Tree 2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All 4 Birds Of Paradise 4 Wood Elves 3 Selesyna Guildmage 3 Hour of Reckoning	3 Biorhythm 2 Nature’s Will 3 Glare of Subdual 4 Supply//Demand 4 Scatter The Seeds 2 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Kodama’s Reach 2 Chord of Calling	3 Kodama of the North Tree 4 Faith's Fetters 2 Privileged Position 2 Ivory Mask

The build at the time was consistent, and I enjoyed top decking Biorythm for th

e win on more than one occasion. Back when Kamigawa hadn’t cycled out of Standard, Cranial Extraction ran rampant through a lot of decks. This was fixed by siding in Kodama game two and taking Rhythm out. The deck only had little playtime due to the cycle and isn’t as strong anymore due to losing Nature’s Will and Boseiju. The look on a control player's face when you use it to drop a biorhythm is priceless. The deck resolved on dropping tokens and ramping to eight mana. Then a mini combo of Reckoning, Attack with Nature’s will in play and rhythm second main phase won a fair few games and managed to qualify a friend of mine Eugene for nationals when he went 4-1-0 with it in the swiss and managed to pull it off in the Top 8 to qualify in first. I had already qualified by playing Vore in a previous tourney and he needed a deck to play with.

I enjoyed playing the deck, and now it isn’t as viable to play as it once was. I suppose if I where to update it to include Planar Chaos I would add Hunting Wilds for mana acceleration and harmonize for card draw along with some more hierarchs. The reason there are only two in the deck is that I only owned two at the time. You know it makes sense!

Now with my recent join at Magic League, I have decided to get back into the swing of things and build a deck for the post Planar Chaos T2 format. The deck idea is something I’ve always wanted to try out but never really got it off the ground which is a 3-color wildfire using Wrath of God maindeck.

3-Color Fire
Main Deck		Sideboard
3 Temple Garden 4 Stomping Ground 4 Flagstones of Trokair 3 Karplusan Forest 4 Forest 2 Sacred Foundry 4 Magnivore 4 Rumbling Slum 3 Wreak Havoc	4 Stone Rain 3 Wrath of God 4 Life from the Loam 4 Wildfire 3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 3 Boom // Bust 4 Harmonize 4 Utopia Sprawl	3 Story Circle 3 Carven Caryatid 3 Pyroclasm 3 Faith's Fetters 3 Defense Grid

This deck is a post Planar Chaos deck that I updated from a rogue R/G wildfire deck I took to nationals that contained white in it for faith's fetters. Now that I own wrath it seemed appropriate to add so I can get rid of stuff that is pro red. I have won two Mini T2 w/pc tournaments with the build above and am quite thrilled at doing so. The deck is still being tweaked and changed as with many decks in the format. Most people have said too me after the game has finished and I have won that the deck is a pile. Now I’m pretty shocked at people who just can’t take losing very well, but to diminish the quality of deck after you just got beaten by it is funny in my view. Even if many people think it is a pile doesn’t really bother me because at least it shows that with the new block coming in there are new innovations to be made as regard to deck-building.
So without further adieu, here is a short bit on the types of matches I expected to dominate the format and so based my play testing on them:

Orzhov Control piloted by Jacois
Game one: stuck on low mana for a while before getting anything going he makes a muse vessel and I make a mistake by not playing havoc on it before wildfire and my hand gets torn to pieces. Not drawing enough mana, I concede.
Game two Side – Nothing of interest

Nothing really to side in against it as the only card I saw was vessel, got mana screwed again in game two and tortured by vessel I think krosan grip to be added into the sideboard is essential for taking care of vessel and any other nasty little artifacts and enchants in the format.
Lost 2-0

Revisions: +1 Havoc + 3 grip in side and -1 Life from the Loam

Revised 3-Color Fire
Main Deck		Sideboard
3 Temple Garden 4 Stomping Ground 4 Flagstones of Trokair 3 Karplusan Forest 4 Forest 2 Sacred Foundry 4 Magnivore 4 Birds Of Paradise 4 Wreak Havoc	4 Stone Rain 3 Wrath of God 3 Life from the Loam 4 Wildfire 3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 3 Boom // Bust 4 Harmonize 4 Utopia Sprawl	3 Story Circle 3 Carven Caryatid 3 Pyroclasm 3 Defense Grid 3 Krosan Grip

I'm not happy about taking the slum out, but we will see how it goes; I will probably add shivan wumpus later on.

Zoo piloted by Daveslusher
Game one, dave starts slow and drops an elephant turn three. I drop a slum and he makes a 3/3 mauler slum gets toasted and he chars me drops a magus of the scroll with no answers I concede.

-Sideboard.Story Circle + Faiths Fetters + Carytid all in
I start early with a boom bust flagstones combo and precede to out race him finally a wildfire with life from the loam in grave seals it up as I drop story circle red, and dave scoops shortly after.

Game three dave mulls to four and I start of with temple garden sprawl with all sorts of LD in my hand and turn two stone rain followed by lots of LD and dave scoops shortly after a wrath clears his board
Win 2-1

Next up is Beach House piloted by BoTS
Game one he accelerates away with farseeks, and I catch him with birds and land D

estruction, and eventually after many rounds of munching his mana base he scoops.

Game two is similar, with me beating him on accel with utopia sprawl boom and flagstones, almost at wildfire Mana and his comp bugs out and the game is awarded to me due to it being a tourney game. He had some nice comments which are below.

“<BoTS> that could actually be a really solid standard deck”
“<BoTS> im prob gonna steal it”
Win 2-0

Ug Locket Walk piloted by iplusua
A deck with island and desert with lockets….magnivore busts through exhaustion and gigadrowse to win game one. I don’t sideboard, preferring to wait to see what he is playing as I had never encountered the deck before
Game two he combos with five minutes left on the round I side in Grip to deal with the lockets.

Game three I noticed the deck had four remand in ways of counterspells, so I ended up getting through with a non lethal vore before time is finally called.
Pushing out a vore and going route one would probably have gotten me game three if time hadn’t been called.
Win 2-1

Another win con in the shape of Shivan Wumpus has been put back into the deck in favor of one bird and one Temple Garden, putting the land count at twenty but also allowing for a semi soft land lock if played right

Dragonstorm piloted by mtgams
I think this deck is a hard matchup for me but here goes.

Game one drags out to turn fourteen then he combo’s off with me not doing anything of value.

Game two I start off with land destruction and blow his board to zero permanents preventing him from going off and win with Vore in a few turns keeping his land count at zero.

Game three I side in story circle. But have to mulligan to six with no red in hand, but with two mana I have to keep it. I don’t expect to win this game. He drops a hellkite, and I search out white mana for story circle with harmonize but find a wrath he has one card in hand and I have a wildfire; I.need to be smart for this one. I get the circle in and he drops hunted dragon. He storms four to get hellkite and hunted, and I prevent them and wrath the board. He has two kites left maindeck, which he goes and gets with dtorm. Circle holds him off then gigadrowse taps my lands in respone I float it and lftl for a flagstones and cast a bird. He makes the mistake of attacking, and a 15/15 vore kills him the turn after. Very confused as I should have lost with the mulligan just shows you anything can happen. My opponent comments on my “good” deck before I close MWSplay.
Win 2-1

MGA piloted by my friend Cameron
After building the deck offline, it took a visit to cam’s house for MGA testing as I couldn’t find anyone online to play-test against.

Game one he drops a quick board, and I hold a wrath for the right time. Spectral force hits play and wrath clears six creatures with me on four life. I wildfire and lftl and take game one with a big vore.

Game two I side in pyroclasm and krosan grip. He takes to the sky early and pyro stops birds and llanowar elf helping his mana base. He cloaks a ledgewalker, and I can't deal with it, and game two promptly goes to him.

Game three I side in story circle and take out pyro certain he didn’t board any hate.
I start off well with a stone rain wreak havoc followed by wrath he drops spectral force and ranger the turn before I was going to wildfire. I take nine damage and end up on six before I drop story circle with white mana open. A few turns late he reaches across and clips me upside the head and concedes as I laugh at him for a while as story circle keeps him out of the game and a lonely Vore steadily approaches double the spectral forces power and toughness.
Win 2-1

The deck had under-went various changes before final play testing. And thanks to all the guys who decided to help me on this one in the forums before I started play testing and making changes.

http://www.magic-league.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5716
The final build I am currently playing with ended up something like this.

3-Color Fire
Main Deck		Sideboard
3 Temple Garden 3 Stomping Ground 4 Flagstones of Trokair 3 Karplusan Forest 3 Forest 4 Sacred Foundry 4 Magnivore 4 Birds Of Paradise 3 Wreak Havoc	4 Stone Rain 2 Shivan Wumpus 4 Harmonize 3 Mwonvuli Acid Moss 3 Life From The Loam 3 Wrath of God 3 Utopia Sprawl 3 Boom/Bust 4 Wildfire	3 Story Circle 3 Carven Caryatid 3 Pyroclasm 3 Defense Grid 3 Krosan Grip

Siding wrath out against control and wumpus out against aggro for carytid or defense grid is easy enough. Story circle I only usually side in game two if I won game one or in game three if I lost game one. This play makes sure they have no hate maindeck for it and gives slight advantage. Pyroclasm deals with birds/elves and nasty little 2/2’s and can make the difference between being dead and alive before getting up to enough mana to win. I suppose I may go and find another rogue pile of mine to run the gauntlet now that I know I can safely take this one to tournaments knowing I have a fair chance of getting past round one. Oh and if you steal my deck, at least tell me so I can sideboard sacred ground.

Thank you for taking the time to have a glance at this article and just remember that the next time you come across a rogue build, don’t laugh at it; it may just end up Top 8 of worlds one day. Happy deck-building!
-Raybelfast

Back to Magic: the Gathering Articles

by Haro on 2007-02-14 11:16 MST

1st

by Revik on 2007-02-14 11:16 MST

2nd

hi ray!

no article about how i stomp'd it with my rogue gr mill? aww.....

by Kikin on 2007-02-14 11:19 MST

3'rd
good article

by Spyx on 2007-02-14 11:41 MST

by SOAD on 2007-02-14 12:12 MST

Curious Article, i love the rational Part at the begining.

Rogue decks FTW!!!!

by IanLim on 2007-02-14 12:50 MST

6th =)

by Jacois on 2007-02-14 13:03 MST

Just remember, next time you play Raybelfast, use MuseVessel.dec

;)

by BoTS on 2007-02-14 13:36 MST

Piloted this at the 2/12 Trial, going 3-1. The deck is quite solid as I expected, even with sub-par hands I was able to smash through MGA and UWr control with little problem. I even faced the mirror match first round, rumbling slum wrecked me first game but I pulled the next two out. My fourth round loss was to GW aggro, partly due to keeping suboptimal hands, not seeing wraths, and the savage anti-birds tech of Sunlance. I also got absolutely trounced by Griffin Guide, that card is a house against this deck. It seems the only problem is quick creatures that dont get hurt by Clasm such as Watchwolf or Griffin Guided creatures. Any thoughts on this? perhaps condemns or Faith's Fetters post board?

by Bozo on 2007-02-14 14:17 MST

I think the final decklist is only 53 cards...missing 3 wildfire and 3 something else I think.

by Revik on 2007-02-14 15:16 MST

faith's fetters or pacifism or condemn looks good, BoTS

by poopascoopa on 2007-02-14 17:51 MST

You need to run 4 Shivan Wumpus and Simian Spirit Guide. I have a version of Planar Chaos LD that's 10 times better than this.

Nice try though.

by Bozo on 2007-02-14 19:58 MST

Poopascoopa, why don't you write an article about your awesome deck then?

by Shyft- on 2007-02-14 22:18 MST

Okay, I have two words for you.

SPECTRAL FORCE

Clearly, that's the missing card.

by MistyFatDog on 2007-02-15 00:08 MST

Speaking of rogue builds, I started playing aso so version of ebony owl deck back in the day. it was a build i thought of and wasnt that great, but i went to play fnm and won, and won the next week and was like omg, after a month alot ofpeople played it so i scrapped it. then it took 2 of the t8 spots at pt honolulu after i scrapped my foiled out deck. :-(

by Raybelfast on 2007-02-15 00:45 MST

Hi there guys.

Thanks

I think Wumpus isn't as effective if your opp's have threats on the board as they will just keep it at bay and biff you about. I noticed this a lot and might replace it with Rumbling Slum.

And the MGA game was a bit random seeing cameron can't actually play it properly but it matters not im sure some idiot will do the same thing one day.

Thanks Again Guys

by Bozo on 2007-02-15 05:15 MST

Ok then, it's good to know that this deck can beat idiots.

by Equinox_br on 2007-02-15 05:34 MST

Can Rite of flame be playable in this deck?

by Spartan-420 on 2007-02-16 02:44 MST

You guyz should check out my twist on Raybel's deck, the deck name is RGb Fires... very nice and solid deck, both Raybel's and mine (i think so)

by dsad on 2007-02-16 12:20 MST

Why do people play simian spirit guide over rite of flame? ;\

by PsyK on 2007-02-16 21:45 MST

because spirit guide comes in the night and burninates!

rite of flame is just some lousy fireworks.

by kendiggy on 2007-03-04 10:29 MST

because spirit guide comes in the night and burninates!

rite of flame is just some lousy fireworks.

That has to be the coolest thing I've ever read!