Elemental combo deck using
Kiln Fiend
and Nivmagus Elemental to deal extreme bursts of damage and win by t3 with a similar combat step to Infect decks.
How the deck works
Step 1: Mulligan until you have a good hand. A good hand contains at least 1 Nivmagus Elemental or 1
Kiln Fiend
, (or a Flamekin Harbinger which can fetch one or the other) a land or 2, and several instants.
Step 2: Play your creature
Step 3: Play 4-5 instants/sorceries in a single turn, eating as many as you can with Nivmagus Elemental, and triggering
Kiln Fiend
as many times as possible. The only spells you should really never be eating are Apostle's Blessing and Ground Rift (and Slaughter Pact situationally) as they are how you get your damage through blockers, (Although you can and should eat all of the storm copies of Ground Rift) and
Tainted Strike
, as that halves the amount of damage we need to be able to do.
Step 4: Swing for lethal.
Why the deck works
This deck is alot like Burn. It works because it has a simple game plan: Count to 10, or Count to 20, depending on the draw and which creature/creatures you'll be attacking with. It also has an entire deck filled with mostly inter-changable cards, whose effects don't matter quite as much as the triggers that you get when you cast them with a creature out. The deck can be split into 3 non-land/mana categories:
Creatures:
Kiln Fiend
, Nivmagus Elemental, or Elemental Harbinger which basically acts as
Kiln Fiend
/Nivmagus Elemental 5-6, and lets you tutor for either, depending on the hand you draw.
Doublers:
Assault Strobe &
Tainted Strike
: Either one halves the job at hand, letting you only have to effectively count to 10.
Spells:
This is the broadest category and contains 32 spells. The majority are free (cost life), the rest cost 1 mana and life. Some have interesting interactions, which is covered later.
A note on mulligans
This deck is reliable in two things: 1, a decent hand kills in 2-4 turns. 2, In about 50 playtests, in order to get a "keepable hand" (1 creature, 1 land, and the rest can be whatever), I had to mulligan to 5 or 6 probably 20-25 times, and mulligan down to 4 about 3-5 times. So basically, over half the time you'll have to mulligan for a "good" hand.
That said, with a deck this explosive, you can mulligan to 3 for a keepable hand and still get a turn 3 win.
Example shitty 3 card mulligan turn 3 win:
Cards in hand:
Kiln Fiend
, Bloodstained Mire, Steam Vents.
The draws are all interchangable, and order drawn doesn't matter.
Turn 1: Mire for Blood Crypt, draw 1 of 15 "free" spells remaining in deck
Turn 2: Steam vents for
Kiln Fiend
, draw 1 of 8 "doublers" (Assault Strobe or
Tainted Strike
Turn 3: Draw any non-creature non-land, of which there are 32. Cast Assault Strobe or any other sorcery-speed cards in hand, swing with
Kiln Fiend
, then cast any instant-speed cards in hand. You should have at this point cast 2 non-doublers and 1 doubler, which regardless of their individual effects, will either make
Kiln Fiend
swing for 20+ regular damage or 10+ infect damage.
Pumped up tricks
Pact of Negation can't be cast without a target spell to counter, so don't be afraid to target your own spells. Even if a spell is countered, it still triggers
Kiln Fiend
, and you can always just eat the pact before it resolves with Nivmagus Elemental if you want the first spell (the one being countered) to resolve.
Slaughter Pact works the same way, but if you don't have an opposing creature to target, you can always target your own and then counter with Pact of Negation, or eat it with Nivmagus, either way you still get the trigger for casting the spell.
Apostle's Blessing has to be cast during your declare attackers step if you want to make the creature you're targeting unblockable and make sure the damage goes through.
Ground Rift should obviously be cast last in order to generate a high storm count. The only downside to this is that it means you might end up casting several instant-speed spells during your pre-combat main phase.
Stealth Kills and Dirty Tricks
I'm only even including this section because I just did this to a friend and his reaction was hilarious.
This is a "flip the table" deck. If it works right, your opponent might get a little salty. So lets make them saltier:
There will probably come a few occasions where you're setting up for a t3 kill and realize you are doing most (or all) of the extra pumping with 0-cost "free" spells. In those situations, it's fun to "bluff" your opponent into believing you can't cast anything by tapping out before combat. Either tap out for a summoning sick creature, or tap your lands and then pretend it was a "misplay" when you move to combat and lose the mana. (as far as I know there is nothing in the rules about purposefully tapping yourself out to mislead your opponent).
So the "dirty" play, can look like this:
Step 1: Tap your lands during your pre-combat main phase
Step 2: move to combat, pretend to be salty and realize you accidentally tapped too soon.
Step 3: swing with your 1/2 Kiln Fiend, laugh when your opponent doesn't declare a chump blocker because you're tapped out and it's just a 1/2.
Step 4: Play your 4+ "free" spells before the damage step.
Step 5: Avoid getting hurt as your opponent flips the table.
Mulligans and statistics
This deck runs a low land and creature count, so you'll end up mulliganing fairly often. Luckily, it actually mulligans very well. This is because all you need for a "keepable" hand, is 1 creature, and 1 land, the rest are all more or less redundant, although obviously there are better and worse cards to draw depending on your "voltron" creature you'll be pumping up.
Statistically this means that you have a 95% chance of drawing at least 1 land in your opening 7, a 74.2% chance of drawing at least 1 creature in your opening 7, and a 99.6% chance of drawing at least 1 instant/sorcery spell in your opening 7. You also have a 66% chance of having 2 lands in your opening 7
The odds of not having a "keepable" hand by the time you've mulliganed down to 5 are very low. It may happen every now and then when you get say, a 1 land hand with a
Kiln Fiend
, and in those situations you need to decide whether to chance another mulligan or go for it. Thanks to the "shotgun" nature of this deck, you could potentially keep a 1-lander with a
Kiln Fiend
, and then not draw another land until turn 3, and still be able to get the win on turn 4 (assuming you're still alive)
Sample Lines of Play:
Turn 2
Kiln Fiend
:
Turn 1: Land + Simian Spirit Guide +
Kiln Fiend
Turn 2: Land + Any Doubler (1 of 8)+ 2 free spells (2 of 15) = Swing for lethal.
Turn 2 Nivmagus Elemental
Turn 1: Land + Nivmagus Elemental
Turn 2: Land + 2 free spells + Ground Rift = 5 total spells/copies that can be eaten. + Ground Rift = 9 total spells/copies that can be eaten = 18 +1/+1 counters, swing with a 19/20 Nivmagus Elemental, 19 isn't lethal, but assuming you're playing modern, your opponent will almost always have done at least 1 damage to themselves from a fetch-land.
Turn 2 Elemental Harbinger into
Kiln Fiend
In hand: Elemental Harbinger, 2 Simian Spirit Guide, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 land, 2 spells:
Turn 1: Land + Elemental Harbinger, putting
Kiln Fiend
on top.Gitaxian Probe for
Kiln Fiend
2x Simian Spirit Guide for
Kiln Fiend
Turn 2: Land + Any Doubler (1 of 8)+ 2 free spells (2 of 15) = Swing for lethal.
The combinations are all endless and all play pretty much the same, playtest it to see for yourself!
