Well, that's a cool deck and I get the idea. Never seen a spell slinger kind of playstyle on Purphoros, that's unique.

First things first, I think, you're lacking three major components: ramp, mass removal and utility lands. Three rocks just aren't enough and I wouldn't call cards like Ashnod's Altar, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Grinning Ignus ramp. They all generate mana but not reliably and/or consistently enough. I suggest you add at least: Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, Wayfarer's Bauble, Ruby Medallion and maybe even Thran Dynamo. Oh, and Caged Sun is far better than Gauntlet of Power, imo. For removal I'd definetly add Blasphemous Act as it is THE red staple mass removal and it's definetly better than Mizzium Mortars. Nevinyrral's Disk can be good as well, since it's very hard to deal with enchantments in mono-red and rattlesnake effects are never bad. As far as lands are concerned I would definetly add Myriad Landscape. Other land considerations are: Strip Mine (or on a budget Ghost Quarter), Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Mirrorpool.

Depending on your meta and budget you should consider follwing cards:

• Pyroblast
• Gamble
• Feldon of the Third Path
• Dualcaster Mage
• Mimic Vat
• Myr Battlesphere
• Tempt with Vengeance (great win con in Purphoros)

Cards I'd cut:

• Mizzium Mortars: seems bad
• Swiftfoot Boots: in a token strategy and with an indestructible commander Lightning Greaves should be enough
• Shared Animosity and Legion Loyalist: can be good but this deck doesn't seem to rely on attacks at all, rather Kiki combo or just burn
• Thornbite Staff: too slow, imo
• Sword of Feast and Famine: well it's value, but I don't know if it does enough in this deck
• Grinning Ignus: I see why he is in here but I can't imagine hm being super usefull

Hope this is a help.

Hi soldier95,

Any feedback helps; even when I don't agree with all of it :) This deck could use some more ramp and I'll have a look at which of the suggestions you've given me will be implemented. I'd never noticed before that Caged Sun actually doubles the mana of all lands, instead of just basic; I'll make the change. Blasphemous Act and Nevinyrral's Disk will be added too, I'll swap Mortars for it and another card I have yet to decide on.

As for your card suggestions; I'm reluctant to add a lot more copy effects, especially at the expense of stuff that allows me to attack more effectively. There have been plenty occasions in which I couldn't cast (m)any new spells because of a lockdown, but I could still attack with my gobbo's and win that way. That being said, I might add some new ones anyway and scrap some stuff that hasn't been all that effective (or just redundant) thus far.

I'll post the improvements soon, thanks for your help.

Sweet Purphoros deck man. With all the goblins you're churning out, would a Mana Echoes work?

Also, depending on your playgroup, Tempt with Vengeance could be great as well.

Hi ToeJam,

Thanks for the feedback! Mana Echoes would definitely work and if I could ever get my hands on one, it would fly in here faster than you could say 'BANG!'. I actually have a Tempt with Vengeance. Thing is, there is no way people are going to 'fall for the temptation' as it were, because they'd basically commit suicide if Purph is on the field. Thanks for thinking about it though! Happy holidays!

Overall the deck looks like it has a really nice balance between strength and fun. Nice job! Some things I would change around a bit have to do with getting a little closer to the constant burn theme of Purphoros, as well as some options for utility:

Enchantmets

Rather than Splinter Twin, Id say either a Sulfuric Vortex or a Leyline of Punishment would likely help to give a little more problem-solving capability to the deck. Sure burn damage is awesome on its own, but I cant tell you how many times Ive played against a dang Oloro that got to near 90 health within 10 turns without anyone able to answer their shenanigans. Even a single Sphinx of the Steel Wind can make another player really hard to pin down if left to their own devices for long enough. These enchantments ideally answer the overarching threat of overhealing - especially Leyline of Punishment, since it makes your damage (and other players damage) unpreventable.

Creatures

I would think that maybe you could swap your Zealous Conscripts for a Thopter Assembly. I know that Zealous Conscripts is pretty good threat mitigation, but I would say that a Thopter Assembly would be a card that really provides a vast array of utility to your currrent kit. It acts like a token-generating Norin the Wary, and it makes five tokens all at once. Counting the creature itself, that amounts to 12 damage to everyone if the tokens are allowed to land...and the awesome thing is you can keep repeating this process over and over again! Even once the tokens are there, you now have five 1/1s to work with - perfect sac material for Goblin Bombardment or Ashnod's Altar...10 colorless mana or five pings can get you a surprisingly long way.

Land

I dont know if this is just my personal preference talking or if for this build it really is viable, but as a rule of thumb for myself, I usually like running 36 - 38 lands. I would think taking out the Fire Diamond and Brightstone Ritual in favor of two more Mountains would be good, although probably not at all necessary.

All in all its a cool looking deck. I love red to bits so I couldnt help but comment - Purphoros, God of the Forge is like, one of my favorite cards ever. Good luck with tuning and playing the deck!

Many thanks for your insights Fluffpocalypse. Here's what I am going to do with them:

• I agree with you Leyline of Punishment would be better for this deck compared to Splinter Twin. Mostly because it doesn't need any other cards to be effective like Twin does. Also, like you've said, it goes a long way towards countering life-gain decks. I think I will try and make this replacement.

• One of the reasons Splinter Twin is in, is because of Zealous Conscripts. Together they can generate an infinite amount of (tapped) Conscripts. If I'm going to take out Twin, Conscripts will probably go too. Thopter Assembly would indeed be a great replacement. Though its CMC is 1 higher than Twin's is, the amount of value it generates together with Purph more than makes up for that.

• I know 36-38 lands are pretty standard for commander, but in a single color deck I think 35 still works pretty well. Let's just say that so far, I've not had any issues with mana shortages while playing it. So I think I will keep to 35 lands for now.

I'm going to have a look around and ask my friends if anyone has a Leyline of Punishment and/or Thopter Assembly to trade (I no longer buy cards). Once I have them, I will add them to the deck's description. Thanks again for your help. I hope the deck is worth an upvote :)

Oh yeah! I used to run a Purphoros deck - eventually switched it to a Grenzo, Havoc Raiser deck after a while, but I still remember Purph fondly.

The biggest thing I think you're missing is Grinning Ignus: It costs a quarter, and essentially reads : Trigger Purphoros. I think Mardu Scout may be a close enough swap, although obviously you lose out on Mana Echoes shenanigans.

Personally, I like Sulfuric Vortex over Leyline of Punishment, but I guess that's subjective. Also, kudos for Price of Progress, Price of Glory, and Ruination - mono-red needs all the help it can get, great choices!

A couple other suggestions:

• Pia and Kiran Nalaar: I ran this card in my Purph deck to great success, and had at least three games that I just barely won by sacking an extra artifact at the last minute.

• Chaos Warp: I think this one's mandatory, honestly. As mono-red, you need all the interaction you can get! I'd find room for it if you can.

• 1 to 2 more mana rocks to power out a T3 (or sooner) Purph. Mind Stone is fine. Wayfarer's Bauble is kinda lame, but it works. Mana Vault is ideal, but depends on your budget.

How's the spell subtheme (Pyromancer's Goggles, Mizzix's Mastery, Young Pyromancer, etc) working out for you?

Hi 'A wall of text',

You're raising some excellent points. Grinning Ignus actually used to be in here but like you said, Mardu Scout gives me some more synergy options with the other Gobbo-related stuff that's in here. I've not included Pia and Kiran Nalaar for similar reasons.

I do not particularly like damaging myself if it's not really necessary, hence Leyline of Punishment was chosen instead of Sulfuric Vortex.

I will find some room for Chaos Warp and Mana Vault though; both would definitely come in handy. The spell subtheme has been working really well for me. I really like that this deck has multiple angles that can take you to a win, and both the Goggles and Mastery have been instrumental in this multiple times.

Hi,

I was looking round for ideas for my purphoros deck and came across yours and it looks great some aspects i'm going to try to bring in to mine (thankyou sooooo much for Mogg Infestation i had not seen that). Whilst I was here I thought I would share a couple of things I have found to be useful.

1st is something someone pointed out to be about all 4 cost commanders, 2 cost mana acceleration is amazing. Being able to drop purphoros on turn 3 is a huge advantage. Including the 3 that you run i run another 7 ways of getting the big guy out a turn earlier. Two of the ways i run are Brood Birthing and Skirk Prospector which i find are not nothing cards in this deck (skirk prospector is obviously hugely better!)

2nd is removal. unfortunately red decks suffer massively from the lack of this and if someone plays: darksteel mutation, gideon's intervention, song of the dryads, imprisoned in the moon ect (staple cards to remove commanders from the rest of the game). your game goes down hill. that is why i run Chaos Warp in ALL mono red decks and then i also run Meteor Golem (m19 uncommon so probably two recent to have been considered) and Spine of Ish Sah but these later two are far worse than the amazing chaos warp.

Hi,

Thanks for your comments! We agree with your first point; a turn two-three Purphy is rather terrifying. We've already tried to put some effort into the deck's construction to make sure we can cast him early, and more of the same would be nice. However, Brood Birthing would not really suit this deck. It would need more, early-casting opportunities (as in turn 1-2) of Eldrazi related stuff in order for us to really benefit from this sorcery. Skirk Prospector makes more sense to us; maybe in exchange for Dragonmaster Outcast . We will give it some thought.

Red is great at damaging stuff, so in that sense it's great at creature removal. The removal you're talking about however; yeah, it's an issue. We've had Chaos Warp in here before. Fact is that the chances of drawing it when we need it are slim. We also have no means to tutor for it. So rather than relying on a lot of luck or relying on more (expensive-to-cast) removal, we figured we were better off ignoring removal entirely and focus on red's strengths instead.

And besides, even if Purphy is removed, we can still create a rather large goblin army and let's not forget Impact Tremors , Burn at the Stake , Marton Stromgald and Descent of the Dragons for some great damage dealing.

Regards,

Mrs. and Mr. NV_1980

great i suppose your third point is where my deck lacks i do not really have a win con without Purphy apart from swing with tokens so I might be able to ignore the 7 cost removal pieces if i could win without him. Thanks even your response gave me some help and clarity :)