Whispers of the Muse: Christopher G’s “Blood and Fire”

When it comes to red, there’s one spell I like sticking 2 of in any deck. Reverberate. Especially with the new flavor text “For every action, there is a swifter and more violent reaction.” Just perfect. There’s always something I’d love to copy and share. Just like how my love of blue grants me Redirect in my decks. Just a fun pair of cards.

Now onto M12 in general:
The obvious thing would be to grab more bloodthirst cards. The hellkite is nice, but I think you could be a bit more aggressive with burning and all and win before you’d be able to get it out.

I don’t know. I’m not really a fan of the bloodthirst creatures that lack any other ability. It’s cool to get a boost but what else does it do? The Hellkite at least has flying. You know? Haven’t looked much into the red part of M12, so I can’t say much more there.

Colossus, the giant, and such: I’d take it out your deck and replace it with either more burn or something else red. Maybe another Stormblood. a 3/3 only blockable by 2 or more creatures for 2 is nice.

With your Chieftains, your starting down the goblin deck road. Still could use bloodthirst with Blood Orge, but the more goblins you have the more your using Chieftain to you advantage.

Warstorm is nice, but I feel it comes out too late without any way to ramp into it early.

I don’t play limited, so I’m just going by my gut which is set for casual play. If you go standard, you get more burn options as well as I bet superior dragons.

A fireball never hurts. Late game could seal the deal.

4 Incinerate
4 Grim Lavamancer might be a good start

Incinerate feeds the Lavamancer, enables Bloodthirst and gives you more “reach”

Lavamancer enables Bloodthirst and gives you reach as well

Fireball does all the above and could be huge late game

Maybe 4 Vandals if your friends play Tempered Steel or Birthing Pod

RE: Icehawk:

Bloodthirst is a great budget aggro mechanic. There’s nothing more frustrating than to slower more control oriented players than being forced to do anything. That’s why they play control–they can’t stand to be put into a bind. If they don’t start blocking your chumps early and often you will suddenly have a huge tempo advantage. Now, the real question is how to trigger bloodlust and also how do we curve into our 2, 3 and 4 drop bloodlust creatures *while* pinging our opponent.

My favorites for landing early damage on opponents to trigger bloodlust are, in order of best to worst:
1. Gut Shot
2. Tormented Soul
3. Goblin Fireslinger

Gut Shot is the obvious winner because it’s free and can be splashed into any deck. Tormented Soul is a close second. It curves perfectly with Stormblood Berserker or Duskhunter Bat and is usually left alone once your bloodlust creatures hit the table. This fact couple with being unblockable makes it the perfect target for powerful equipment like the Piston Sledge. Goblin Fireslinger is also a great enabler, but much more narrow than the Soul. I might even consider Scepter of Empires in this kind of strategy. It comes down on turn 3 (right before Gorehorn Minotaurs) and isn’t has easily removed as a creature.

My suggestions to Mr. G woud be to up the Stormblood Berserkers to a playset (4 of) and add one more Gorehorn Minotaur. You don’t want one in your opening hand, but you definitely want on on turn 4. Also, get yourself a playset of Gut Shot! You’ll be surprised at how often you can drop a bloodthirsty Stormblood Berserker on turn two. When looking for what to drop, go for cards that are analogous, but that don’t propel your theme (bloodlust) forward–vanilla creatures, spells that screw up your mana curve or spells that are gimicky or play to some other combo.

Good luck and good gaming.

-H