Tokens and disruption -- can it work in modern? Talk to me, and let's make Pyromentor a real, competitive deck!
BASIC STRATEGY
This deck is trying to win by overwhelming our opponent by producing tokens. We play hand hate to pave the way for our token generators, and removal to clean up the creatures that resolve. By turn 4, we're trying to resolve multiple spells per turn to create lots of elementals or monks. We have tons of chump blockers for fatties, and so many draw/loot spells that we can maintain our mid game momentum.
I prefer 4 color for this deck because it increases consistency over the mardu build. In its current iteration, this deck has 18 loot or cantrip spells, most of them costing only 1 mana! This means that we can keep a lot more hands, and we mulligan much better. We also keep doing better in the mid game; whereas in Mardu you might cast a Lightning Bolt or a removal spell and net one Elemental token, once your hand runs dry you're going to stall. With blue, you can cantrip into other cantrips, Thought Scour to hit Lingering Souls, and you've got both Faithless Looting and Chart a Course to pitch Souls to, or just to filter out the extra lands you don't need in the mid/late game. You'll usually have a Faithless Looting in your yard to flashback in the mid game for extra gas, too. Overall, the ability to function more reliably and also to keep casting multiple spells per turn is more important to me than the abundance of removal offered by the mardu build.
MAIN DECK CARD CHOICE
We have three main types of nonland cards in this deck: Token generators, dig cards, and disruption.
TOKEN GENERATORS
Young Pyromancer is the star of this deck. Don't get me wrong, when you can get a Monastery Mentor up and running, it's more oppressive; the trouble is getting it out and keeping it alive. Dropping a Pyro on turn 2 and making three elementals on turn 3 is almost always better than playing a Mentor and waiting until turn 4. Mentor gives you a lot more gas mid/late game when you have more mana available, but in general, our focus is going to be on getting Pyro online. This is also the reason you'll see Mentor sided out against some of the faster decks in our sideboard notes.
In the same category but functioning very differently is Lingering Souls. In general, we're almost always trying to cast it from our graveyard; it's a perfect pitch card to our loot spells, and costing 2 mana is significantly easier on this deck than costing 3. Not only that, but in the first three turns, we're generally not wanting to have to fetch up a white source (pre-sideboard), so the flashback cost helps fix our mana.
DIG CARDS
Thought Scour is fantastic for putting Lingering Souls in our yard. Mid/late game, it's also nice to have it mill Faithless Looting or just get rid of extra lands that we no longer need.
Faithless Looting is probably our best dig spell. We can pitch extra lands, Souls, Mentor if we don't have a hand/mana to support it, and we can even flash it back for extra gas later on.
Opt is run more heavily than Serum Visions in this deck because we generally want to function immediately, and having the Scry before drying can make a big difference. Furthermore, we fetch a LOT in this deck, so often we'll lose the cards we wanted to keep on top. Instants are also slightly preferably to sorceries for our Monks and Mentors.
Serum Visions is a two-of, and it does have its place; if we keep a one-lander opening hand, the Scry 2 can make a big difference in setting up our game moving forward. Visions also has a micro-synergy with Thought Scour; if we keep a Lingering Souls on top we can mill it with Scour.
Chart a Course is an all-star in this build, as well; depending on our hands, we can use it to pitch Lingering Souls, or we can simply draw 2 for 2, which is great in this deck. Netting an extra card while producing tokens is never a bad thing in Pyromentor.
DISRUPTION
Inquisiton of Kozilek is our ideal turn 1 play. This deck isn't built in such a way that it can easily run counterspells, so we want to strip away anything annoying ASAP; cards to watch out for are Ratchet Bomb, Kozilek's Return, Flaying Tendrils or even just their removal or cheap threats. We run Inquisition over Thoughtseize because this build requires so much fetching and shocking that the life loss is too risky.
Fatal Push hits every aggro threat in modern except for the delve fatties and titans.
Murderous Cut hits the Delve fatties and the big boys from Tron. We can almost always fuel it by turn 3 with things like Faithless Looting and Thought Scour
Lightning Bolt is usually going to end up being a burn spell, but will kill a lot of relevant things like Snapcaster Mage, Creeping Tar Pit, and most humans. I want to test this more, because I feel there could be a build with less or no Bolts in order to swap in Path to Exile or Murderous Cut; more finagling is needed.
SB CARD CHOICE
Apostle's Blessing to push back against Echoing Truth or Maelstrom Pulse type cards
Rest in Peace for any Snapcaster Mage decks (Shadow, Jeskai), and Storm
Leyline of Sanctity for Storm, burn, 8 rack
Duress for disruption; essentially I think this is better than counterspells in this deck because you're generating your Pyro/Mentor tokens immediately on your turn. Also isn't as conditional as Spell Pierce or Dispel
Disenchant mainly for Chalice of the Void; Chalice on 1 hurts us a ton. Also good for affinity, tron, Blood Moon and Azcanta
Singleton plains for fueling Disenchant against Blood Moon
Boros Charm for Kozilek's Return/etc
SB notes
Tron
In: 2x Duress, 2x Disenchant, 2x Path to Exile
Out: 3x Fatal Push, 3x Lightning Bolt
Grixis Shadow
In: 2x Path to Exile, 3x Rest in Peace
Out: 4x Lightning Bolt, 1x Serum Visions
Storm
In: 3x Rest in Peace, 2x Leyline of Sanctity, 2x Duress
Out: 3x Fatal Push, 2x Opt, 2x Serum Visions
Affinity
In: 2x Disenchant
Out: 1x Serum Visions, 1x Monastery Mentor
Jeskai
In: 2x Rest in Peace, 2x Duress
Out: 1x Monastery Mentor, 1x Serum Visions, 2x Lightning Bolt
Humans
In: 2x Path to Exile
Out: 2x Serum Visions
Burn
In: 2x Leyline of Sanctity
Out: 2x Serum Visions